Purification of complex biopharmaceuticals with new processes, advanced analytics and computer-aided process design tools

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Biotecnologia

O Design, a Gestão e a Comunicação da Marca: Caso de estudo spryou

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Design Gráfico pela Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco em associação com a Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa.

The evolution of design with concerns on sustainability

This paper aims to analyse the birth and evolution of design with concerns over sustainability, in the context of social and civilizational changes experienced since the industrial revolution, with particular focus since the post-war period and in the context of sustainable development. It will examine several factors that influenced this design approach and that drove its evolution through different stages of maturity and complexity. It will analyse the various forms of design with environmental concerns, as well as the inclusion of other criteria in the context of sustainability, namely social ones. The aim is to settle knowledge that can allow us to draw some lessons to meet the challenges we face today.

Lighting design: uma abordagem sobre a visão e a perceção do design dos ambientes pelos idosos através da iluminação

Ao longo do séc. XX, a história da demografia europeia ficou associada à afirmação do processo de envelhecimento, sendo que no séc. XXI ocorreu uma generalização, em larga escala, desse processo à totalidade do território europeu e mundial, atendendo ao significado, perfil, protagonismo e necessidades de uma população idosa em profundas transformações. Com as alterações biológicas sofridas no processo de envelhecimento, há um crescimento na utilização do ambiente doméstico e na necessidade de interação social, sendo, por isso, importante a manutenção desses indivíduos na sua própria casa. O reconhecimento do significado da luz deve ser uma constante no desenvolvimento dos projetos de design de interiores, em geral, e nos projectos de design de iluminação, em particular. A relação entre a iluminação e o envelhecimento, deve ter o foco centrado em quem vivência o espaço, privilegiando o conforto e a segurança, que são requisitos básicos para a promoção de uma melhor qualidade de vida, e na permanência desses indivíduos nos seus ambientes sociais.

Design para a diversidade cultural

O Design de Comunicação tem vindo a alargar o seu campo de intervenção, sendo na actualidade reconhecida a mais valia que a prática projectual do design tem no âmbito da mediação cultural. O Património Intangível configura um espaço aberto à intervenção do design. Este conceito alicerça-se na constactação de que uma comunicação adequada é determinante para a preservação deste património, por forma a que se mantenha vivo e em diálogo com os cidadãos e comunidades às quais pertence. O presente artigo, decorre de uma investigação que está a ser realizada no âmbito de um doutoramento em Design e na qual se defende a importância do Design na inteligibilidade e fruição do Património Intangível.

Design, cultura, ensino - numa "Sociedade dos Saberes"

Sustenta-se nesta comunicação que o Design participa no complexo cultural da nossa época através da “cultura do Saber”, da “cultura do Fazer” e da “cultura do Sentir”, o que implica também que o ensino (tomado como uma acção educativa e formativa no seu sentido mais rico) deva ser adequado ao “modo” cultural que procura atingir. Estas três “culturas” indicadas, são três abordagens à realidade e às dinâmicas sociais e históricas e às solicitações do exercício complexo e heurístico do Design – e que não podem, nem devem, ser reduzidos a uma qualquer forma ou atitude única da disciplina e do exercício do Design.

O contributo do design centrado no usuário para a eficácia da publicidade em design editorial : estudo de caso da revista Donna

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco em associação com a Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa.

Perspectivar o pensamento do design

presente estudo visa contribuir para uma perspectivação do design thinking, que assume cada vez mais importância no mundo do design e em áreas externas ao design. Pretendemos acentuar a relevância da adopção do design thinking como forma de beneficiar e melhorar os processos criativos no seio das organizações. O artigo divide-se em quatro partes: a complexidade da experiência humana, o peso do valor acrescentado no pensamento do design, os cinco modos propostos pela Universidade de Stanford para o pensamento do design e, finalmente, a apologia do movimento colaborativo. Neste contexto, terá especial destaque, em vários níveis, a relevância da interdisciplinaridade na resolução de problemas.

Polaroid : um caso singular no design

O presente texto assinala os 75 anos da formação da Polaroid e celebra a memória da popularização da fotografia instantânea e do inventor Edwin Herbert Land, fundador da Polaroid Corporation, sendo um exemplo do espírito empreendedor norte-americano que conseguia tornar as invenções em produtos de acesso fácil, chegando aos utilizadores através da sua produção massificada. A constituição da empresa é também contemporânea do nascimento do design industrial nos EUA. Os primeiros exemplares foram concebidos pelos mais notáveis pioneiros do design industrial norte-americano, nomeadamente Walter Dorwin Teague, Henry Dreyfuss e Albrecht Goertz, bem como os últimos modelos são também representativos do design de produto contemporâneo deste país, com projectos liderados pelo inovador gabinete IDEO.

Charles e Ray Eames, o casamento entre razão e emoção no design

O racionalismo surge como uma corrente filosófica, cuja operação mental e lógica é evidenciada. Sendo a principal característica do pensamento moderno o método, a bauhaus representa para o design a forma como a indústria se despiu dos ornamentos, buscando o ideal de forma e função. Numa corrente contemporânea, o design emocional retoma, além das funções que um objeto pode ter, estéticas, práticas e simbólicas, também as emocionais de identificação, fazendo rever os métodos. Este artigo faz uma relação deste contexto com a forma brilhante com que o casal Charles e Ray Eames, criou um método absolutamente emocional para a criação do design, iniciando, com a invenção do contraplacado, e depois com acesso a diversas tecnologias advindas do pós-guerra, um processo muito interessante de construção de design, aliando arte e técnica, produzindo assentos atemporais, encontrados facilmente no mundo contemporâneo.

Parameter estimation in the presence of auxiliary information

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutora em Estatística e Gestão de Risco, Especialidade em Estatística

Design of a tool to study the fate of Chlamydia trachomatis infected cells

Chlamydia trachomatis has a unique obligate intracellular developmental cycle that ends by the lysis of the cell and/or the extrusion of the bacteria in order to allow for re-infections. While Chlamydia trachomatis infections are often asymptomatic the diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis is usually late, occurring after manifestation of persistency. Investigations on the consequences of long-term infections and the molecular mechanisms behind it will reveal light to what extent bacteria can modulate host cell function and what the ultimate fate of host cells after clearance of an infection is. Such studies on the host cell fate could be greatly facilitated if the infected cells become permanently marked during and after the infection. Therefore, this project intends to develop a new genetic tool that would allow permanently labeling of Chlamydia trachomatis host cells. The plan was to generate a Chlamydia trachomatis strain that encodes a recombinant CRE recombinase, fused to a secretory effector function of the Chlamydia type 3 secretion system (T3SS). Upon translocation into the host cell, this recombinant CRE enzyme could then, owing to its site-specific recombination function, switch a reporter gene contained in the host cell genome. To this end, the reporter line carried a membrane-tagged tdTomato (mT) gene flanked by two LoxP sequences followed by a GFP gene. The translocation of the recombinant CRE recombinase into this cell line was designed to trigger the recombination of the LoxP sites whereby the cells would turn from red fluorescence to green as an irreversible label of the infected cells. Successful execution of this mechanism would allow to draw a direct link between Chlamydia trachomatis infection and the subsequent fate of the infected cell.

Design and characterization of Chitin- Glucan polymeric structures for wound dressing materials

The main objective of this work was the development of polymeric structures, gel and films, generated from the dissolution of the Chitin-Glucan Complex (CGC) in biocompatible ionic liquids for biomedical applications. Similar as chitin, CGC is only soluble in some special solvents which are toxic and corrosive. Due to this fact and the urgent development of biomedical applications, the need to use biocompatible ionic liquids to dissolve the CGC is indispensable. For the dissolution of CGC, the biocompatible ionic liquid used was Choline acetate. Two different CGC’s, KiOnutrime from KitoZyme and biologically produced CGC from Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia (FCT) - Universidade Nova de Lisboa, were characterized in order to develop biocompatible wound dressing materials. The similar result is shown in term of the ratio of chitin:glucan, which is 1:1.72 for CGC-FCT and 1:1.69 for CGC-Commercial. For the analysis of metal element content, water and inorganic salts content and protein content, both polymers showed some discrepancies, where the content in CGC-FCT is always higher compared to the commercial one. The different characterization results between CGC-FCT and CGC-Commercial could be addressed to differences in the purification method, and the difference of its original strain yeast, whereas CGC-FCT is derived from P.pastoris and the commercial CGC is from A.niger. This work also investigated the effect of biopolymers, temperature dissolution, non-solvent composition on the characteristics of generated polymeric structure with biocompatible ionic liquid. The films were prepared by casting a polymer mixture, immersion in a non-solvent, followed by drying at ambient temperature. Three different non-solvents were tested in phase inversion method, i.e. water, methanol, and glycerol. The results indicate that the composition of non-solvent in the coagulation bath has great influence in generated polymeric structure. Water was found to be the best coagulant for producing a CGC polymeric film structure. The characterizations that have been done include the analysis of viscosity and viscoelasticity measurement, as well as sugar composition in the membrane and total sugar that was released during the phase inversion method. The rheology test showed that both polymer mixtures exhibit a non- Newtonian shear thinning behaviour. Where the viscosity and viscoelasticity test reveal that CGCFCT mixture has a typical behaviour of a viscous solution with entangled polymer chains and CGCCommercial mixture has true gel behaviour. The experimental results show us that the generated CGC solution from choline acetate could be used to develop both polymeric film structure and gel. The generated structures are thermally stable at 100° C, and are hydrophilic. The produced films have dense structure and mechanical stabilities against puncture up to 60 kPa.

Design and development of a microfluidic platform for use with colorimetric gold nanoprobe assays

Due to the importance and wide applications of the DNA analysis, there is a need to make genetic analysis more available and more affordable. As such, the aim of this PhD thesis is to optimize a colorimetric DNA biosensor based on gold nanoprobes developed in CEMOP by reducing its price and the needed volume of solution without compromising the device sensitivity and reliability, towards the point of care use. Firstly, the price of the biosensor was decreased by replacing the silicon photodetector by a low cost, solution processed TiO2 photodetector. To further reduce the photodetector price, a novel fabrication method was developed: a cost-effective inkjet printing technology that enabled to increase TiO2 surface area. Secondly, the DNA biosensor was optimized by means of microfluidics that offer advantages of miniaturization, much lower sample/reagents consumption, enhanced system performance and functionality by integrating different components. In the developed microfluidic platform, the optical path length was extended by detecting along the channel and the light was transmitted by optical fibres enabling to guide the light very close to the analysed solution. Microfluidic chip of high aspect ratio (~13), smooth and nearly vertical sidewalls was fabricated in PDMS using a SU-8 mould for patterning. The platform coupled to the gold nanoprobe assay enabled detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis using 3 8l on DNA solution, i.e. 20 times less than in the previous state-of-the-art. Subsequently, the bio-microfluidic platform was optimized in terms of cost, electrical signal processing and sensitivity to colour variation, yielding 160% improvement of colorimetric AuNPs analysis. Planar microlenses were incorporated to converge light into the sample and then to the output fibre core increasing 6 times the signal-to-losses ratio. The optimized platform enabled detection of single nucleotide polymorphism related with obesity risk (FTO) using target DNA concentration below the limit of detection of the conventionally used microplate reader (i.e. 15 ng/μl) with 10 times lower solution volume (3 μl). The combination of the unique optical properties of gold nanoprobes with microfluidic platform resulted in sensitive and accurate sensor for single nucleotide polymorphism detection operating using small volumes of solutions and without the need for substrate functionalization or sophisticated instrumentation. Simultaneously, to enable on chip reagents mixing, a PDMS micromixer was developed and optimized for the highest efficiency, low pressure drop and short mixing length. The optimized device shows 80% of mixing efficiency at Re = 0.1 in 2.5 mm long mixer with the pressure drop of 6 Pa, satisfying requirements for the application in the microfluidic platform for DNA analysis.

Design of a CMOS amplifier for breast cancer detection

A transimpedance amplifier (TIA) is used, in radiation detectors like the positron emission tomography(PET), to transform the current pulse produced by a photo-sensitive device into an output voltage pulse with a desired amplitude and shape. The TIA must have the lowest noise possible to maximize the output. To achieve a low noise, a circuit topology is proposed where an auxiliary path is added to the feedback TIA input, In this auxiliary path a differential transconductance block is used to transform the node voltage in to a current, this current is then converted to a voltage pulse by a second feedback TIA complementary to the first one, with the same amplitude but 180º out of phase with the first feedback TIA. With this circuit the input signal of the TIA appears differential at the output, this is used to try an reduced the circuit noise. The circuit is tested with two different devices, the Avalanche photodiodes (APD) and the Silicon photomultiplier (SIPMs). From the simulations we find that when using s SIPM with Rx=20kΩ and Cx=50fF the signal to noise ratio is increased from 59 when using only one feedback TIA to 68.3 when we use an auxiliary path in conjunction with the feedback TIA. This values where achieved with a total power consumption of 4.82mv. While the signal to noise ratio in the case of the SIPM is increased with some penalty in power consumption.