Disposable solid state probe for optical screening of chlorpromazine

We are presenting a simple, low-cost and rapid solid-state optical probe for screening chlorpromazine (CPZ) in aquacultures. The method exploits the colourimetric reaction between CPZ and Fe(III) ion that occurs at a solid/liquid interface, the solid layer consisting of ferric iron entrapped in a layer of plasticized PVC. If solutions containing CPZ are dropped onto such a layer, a colour change occurs from light yellow to dark pink or even light blue, depending on the concentration of CPZ. Visual inspection enables the concentration of CPZ to be estimated. The resulting colouration was also monitored by digital image collection for a more accurate quantification. The three coordinates of the hue, saturation and lightness system were obtained by standard image processing along with mathematical data treatment. The parameters affecting colour were assessed and optimized. Studies were conducted by visible spectrophotometry and digital image acquisition, respectively. The response of the optimized probe towards the concentration of CPZ was tested for several mathematical transformations of the colour coordinates, and a linear relation was found for the sum of hue and luminosity. The limit of detection is 50 μM (corresponding to about 16 μg per mL). The probe enables quick screening for CPZ in real water samples with prior sample treatment.

Untitled: Figurations of memory

The next pages will describe my experience and results of making connections between cognitive sciences and art; the transformations of my memories being the object of study and motivation for this process of self-discovery. The human body reacts according to innumerable neural functions and external stimuli. Neurons respond to the evocation of experienced events, building virtual images, map-like constellations sometimes fulfilled by imagination, desires or knowledge promoting in this way their constant reshaping. This document offers an insight into my recollections as matter. As matter these recollections take on different states and I hope to give you a better sense of my personal voice using my experience with glass to explore this transformation and accompanying my journey with lectures and scientific readings about the mind functions.

Evolution of Teeth and Quadrate in Non-avian Theropoda (Dinosauria: Saurischia), with the Description of Torvosaurus Remains from Portugal

Theropods form a highly successful and morphologically diversified group of dinosaurs that gave rise to birds. They include most, if not all, carnivorous dinosaurs, yet many theropod clades were secondarily adapted to piscivory, omnivory and herbivory, and theropods show a large array of skull and dentition morphologies. This work aims to investigate aspects of the evolution of theropod dinosaurs by analyzing in detail both the anatomy and ontogeny of teeth and quadrates in non-avian theropods, and by studying embryonic and adult material of a new species of theropod. A standardized list of terms and notations for each anatomical entity of the tooth, quadrate, and maxilla is here proposed with the goal of facilitating descriptions of these important cranial and dental elements. The distribution of thirty dental characters among 113 theropod taxa is investigated, and a list of diagnostic dental characters is proposed. As an example, four isolated theropod teeth from the Lourinhã Formation (Kimmeridgian‒Tithonian) of Portugal are described and identified based on a cladistic analysis performed on a data matrix of 141 dentition-based characters coded in 60 taxa. Two shed teeth are referred to an abelisaurid, providing the first record of Abelisauridae in the Jurassic of Laurasia and the one of the oldest records of this clade in the world, suggesting a possible radiation of Abelisauridae in Europe well before the Upper Cretaceous. The consensus tree resulting from this phylogenetic analysis, the most extensive on theropod teeth, indicates that theropod teeth provide reliable data for identification at approximately family level, and this method will help identifying theropod teeth with more confidence. A detailed description of the dentition of Megalosauridae is also provided, and a discriminant analysis performed on a dataset of numerical data collected on the teeth of 62 theropod taxa reveals that megalosaurid teeth are hardly distinguishable from other theropod clades with ziphodont dentition. This study highlights the importance of detailing anatomical descriptions and providing additional morphometric data on teeth with the purpose of helping to identify isolated theropod teeth. In order to evaluate the phylogenetic potential and investigate the evolutionary transformations of the quadrate, a phylogenetic morphometric analysis as well as a cladistic analysis using 98 discrete quadrate related characters were conducted. The quadrate morphology by its own provides a wealth of data with strong phylogenetic signal, and the phylogenetic morphometric analysis reveals two main morphotypes of the mandibular articulation of the quadrate linked to function. As an example, six isolated quadrates from the Kem Kem beds (Cenomanian) of Morocco are determined to be from juvenile and adult individuals of Spinosaurinae based on phylogenetic, morphometric, and phylogenetic morphometric analyses. Morphofunctional analysis of the spinosaurid mandibular articulation has shown that the posterior parts of the two mandibular rami displaced laterally when the jaw was depressed due to a mediolaterally oriented intercondylar sulcus of the quadrate. Such lateral movement of the mandibular ramus was possible due to a movable mandibular symphysis in spinosaurids, allowing the pharynx to be widened. A new species of theropod from the Lourinhã Formation of Portugal, Torvosaurus gurneyi, is erected based on a right maxilla and an incomplete caudal centrum. This taxon supports the mechanism of vicariance that occurred in the Iberian Meseta during the Late Jurassic when the proto-Atlantic was already well formed. A theropod clutch containing several crushed eggs and embryonic material is also assigned to this new species of Torvosaurus. Investigation on the maxilla ontogeny in basal tetanurans reveals that crown denticles, elongation of the anterior ramus, and fusion of interdental plates appear at a posthatchling stage. On the other hand, maxillary pneumaticity is already present at an embryonic stage in non-avian theropods.

Refinement and variability techniques in model transformation of software requirements

Tese de Doutoramento em Tecnologias e Sistemas de Informação

Work and health : remodelling perspectives of working life research, as proposed by Järvholm et al. (2009)

Järvholm and Co-workers (2009) proposed a conceptual model for research on working life. Models are powerful communication and decision tools. This model is strongly unidirectional and does not cover the mentioned interactions in the arguments.With help of a genealogy of work and of health it is shown that work and health are interactive and have to be analysed on the background of society.Key words: research model, work, health, occupational health, society, interaction, discussion paperRemodellierung der von Järvholm et al. (2009) vorgeschlagenen Forschungsperspektiven in Arbeit und GesundheitJärvholm und Kollegen stellten 2009 ein konzeptionelles Modell für die Forschung im Bereich Arbeit und Gesundheit vor. Modelle stellen kraftvolle Kommunikations- und Entscheidungsinstrumente dar. Die Einflussfaktoren im Modell verlaufen jedoch nur in einer Richtung und bilden die interaktiven Argumente im Text nicht ab. Mit Hilfe einer Genealogie der Begriffe Arbeit und Gesundheit wird aufgezeigt, dass Arbeit und Gesundheit sich gegenseitig beeinflussen und nur vor dem Hintergrund der jeweiligen gesellschaftlichen Kontextfaktoren zu analysieren sind.Introduction : After an interesting introduction about the objectives of research on working life, Järvholm and Co-workers (2009) manage to define a conceptual model for working life research out of a small survey of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) definitions. The strong point of their model is the entity 'working life' including personal development, as well as career paths and aging. Yet, the model Järvholm et al. (2009) propose is strangely unidirectional; the arrows point from the population to working life, from there to health and to disease, as well as to productivity and economic resources. The diagram only shows one feed-back loop: between economic resources and health. We all know that having a chronic disease condition influences work and working capacity. Economic resources have a strong influence on work, too. Having personal economic resources will influence the kind of work someone accepts and facilitate access to continuous professional education. A third observation is that society is not present in the model, although this is less the case in the arguments. In fact, there is an incomprehensible gap between the arguments brought forth by Järvholm and co-workers and their reductionist model.Switzerland has a very low coverage of occupational health specialists. Switzerland is a long way from fulfilling the WHO's recommendations on workers' access to OSH services as described in its Global plan of action. The Institute for Work and Health (IST) in Lausanne is the only organisation which covers the major domains of OSH research that are occupational medicine, occupational hygiene, ergonomic and psychosocial research. As the country's sole occupational health institution we are forced to reflect the objectives of working life research so as not to waste the scare resources available.I will set out below a much shortened genealogy of work and of health, with the aim of extending Järvholm et al's (2009) analyses on the perspectives of working life research in two directions. Firstly towards the interactive nature of work and health and the integration of society, and secondly towards the question of what working life means or where working life could be situated.Work, as we know it today - paid work regulated by a contract as the basis for sustaining life and as a base for social rights - was born in modern era. Therefore I will start my genealogy in the pre-modern era, focus on the important changes that occurred during industrial revolution and the modern era and end in 2010 taking into account the enormous transformations of the past 20-30 years. I will put aside some 810 years of advances in science and technology that have expanded the world's limits and human understanding, and restrict my genealogy to work and to health/body implicating also the societal realm. [Author]

Networks of PhD Students and Academic Performance: A Comparison across Countries

In this article we compare regression models obtained to predict PhD students’ academic performance in the universities of Girona (Spain) and Slovenia. Explanatory variables are characteristics of PhD student’s research group understood as an egocentered social network, background and attitudinal characteristics of the PhD students and some characteristics of the supervisors. Academic performance was measured by the weighted number of publications. Two web questionnaires were designed, one for PhD students and one for their supervisors and other research group members. Most of the variables were easily comparable across universities due to the careful translation procedure and pre-tests. When direct comparison was notpossible we created comparable indicators. We used a regression model in which the country was introduced as a dummy coded variable including all possible interaction effects. The optimal transformations of the main and interaction variables are discussed. Some differences between Slovenian and Girona universities emerge. Some variables like supervisor’s performance and motivation for autonomy prior to starting the PhD have the same positive effect on the PhD student’s performance in both countries. On the other hand, variables like too close supervision by the supervisor and having children have a negative influence in both countries. However, we find differences between countries when we observe the motivation for research prior to starting the PhD which increases performance in Slovenia but not in Girona. As regards network variables, frequency of supervisor advice increases performance in Slovenia and decreases it in Girona. The negative effect in Girona could be explained by the fact that additional contacts of the PhD student with his/her supervisor might indicate a higher workload in addition to or instead of a better advice about the dissertation. The number of external student’s advice relationships and social support mean contact intensity are not significant in Girona, but they have a negative effect in Slovenia. We might explain the negative effect of external advice relationships in Slovenia by saying that a lot of external advice may actually result from a lack of the more relevant internal advice

The corrosion of career? Occupational trajectories of engineers and business economists in Switzerland

This doctoral thesis deals with the rise and potential fall of achievement career as an institutional biographical pattern. I start with the assumption that the achievement career, as a result of the spread of large-scale bureaucratic companies, the male-breadwinner family model, and meritocratic ideals, came to life in the first half of the twentieth century. During the so-called 30 glorieuses, it became even a normatively dominant and also politically significant male biographical pattern. But the structural changes that announced the end of the post-war golden age seemed also to threaten and-according to certain scholars-erode this type of occupational trajectory. In order to understand this dynamic I will try to reconstruct the achievement career in Switzerland empirically. I examine (1) the structural changes of the economic field from 1970 to 2000, (2) the transformations of the trajectories during this period, and (3) ways in which the concerned individuals interpret and react to these changes.

Power transformations in correspondence analysis

Power transformations of positive data tables, prior to applying the correspondence analysis algorithm, are shown to open up a family of methods with direct connections to the analysis of log-ratios. Two variations of this idea are illustrated. The first approach is simply to power the original data and perform a correspondence analysis this method is shown to converge to unweighted log-ratio analysis as the power parameter tends to zero. The second approach is to apply the power transformation to thecontingency ratios, that is the values in the table relative to expected values based on the marginals this method converges to weighted log-ratio analysis, or the spectral map. Two applications are described: first, a matrix of population genetic data which is inherently two-dimensional, and second, a larger cross-tabulation with higher dimensionality, from a linguistic analysis of several books.

Time constant of the cerebral arterial bed in normal subjects.

The time constant of cerebral arterial bed (in brief time constant) is a product of brain arterial compliance (C(a)) and resistance (CVR). We tested the hypothesis that in normal subjects, changes in end-tidal CO(2) (EtCO(2)) affect the value of the time constant. C(a) and CVR were estimated using mathematical transformations of arterial pressure (ABP) and transcranial Doppler (TCD) cerebral blood flow velocity waveforms. Responses of the time constant to controlled changes in EtCO(2) were compared in 34 young volunteers. Hypercapnia shortened the time constant (0.22 s [0.17, 0.26] vs. 0.16 s [0.13, 0.20]; p = 0.000001), while hypocapnia lengthened the time constant (0.22 s [0.17, 0.26] vs. 0.23 s [0.19, 0.32]; p < 0.0032). The time constant was negatively correlated with changes in EtCO(2) (R(partial) = -0.68, p < 0.000001). This was associated with a decrease in CVR when EtCO(2) increased (R(partial) = -0.80, p < 0.000001) and C(a) remained independent of changes in EtCO(2). C(a) was negatively correlated with mean ABP (R(partial) = -0.68, p < 0.000001). In summary, the time constant shortens with increasing EtCO(2). Its potential role in cerebrovascular investigations needs further studies.

Lee HWA Chung theorem for presympectic manifolds. Canonical transformations for constrained systems

We generalize the analogous of Lee Hwa Chungs theorem to the case of presymplectic manifolds. As an application, we study the canonical transformations of a canonical system (M, S, O). The role of Dirac brackets as a test of canonicity is clarified.

Lee HWA Chung theorem for presympectic manifolds. Canonical transformations for constrained systems

We generalize the analogous of Lee Hwa Chungs theorem to the case of presymplectic manifolds. As an application, we study the canonical transformations of a canonical system (M, S, O). The role of Dirac brackets as a test of canonicity is clarified.

Early Modern Persian, Urdu, and English Historiography and the Imagination of Islamic India under British Rule

This paper analyses the early modern transformations of South Asian literary cultures through the production of historiography in Persian, English, and Urdu. In the 18th-19th centuries, South Asian communities experienced and participated in a major restructuring of the languages of the subcontinent. Urdu and English were institutionalized as governmental languages and utilized in new literary productions as Persian was gradually marginalized from the centre of literary and governmental polities. Three interrelated colonial policies reshaped the historical consciousness of South Asia and Britain: the production of new Persian histories commissioned under British patronage, the initiation of Urdu historiography through the translation of Persian and English histories, and the construction of the British history of India written in English. This article explores the historical and social dynamics of these events and situates the origins and evolution of the colonial historiographical project. Major works discussed are the Tārīkh-i Bangālah of Salīm Allāh Munshī (fl. 1763), James Mill's (1773-1836) The History of British India first published in 1817, Mīr Sher ʿAlī Afsos' the Ārāʾish-i mahfil, as well as the production of original Urdu histories such as Muḥammad Zakāʾ-Allāh's (1832-1910) the Tārīkh-i Hindustān.

The Transformation of Practical Teaching Focusing on Dialogic Learning

This study investigates the transformation of practical teaching in a Catalan school, connected to the design, implementation and development of project-based learning, and focusing on dialogic learning to investigate its limits and possibilities. Qualitative and design-based research (DBR) methods are applied. These methods are based on empirical educational research with the theory-driven of learning environments. DBR is proposed and applied using practical guidance for the teachers of the school. It can be associated with the current proposals for Embedding Social Sciences and Humanities in the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges. This position statement defends the social sciences and the humanities as the most fundamental and important ideas to face all societal challenges. The results of this study show that before the training process, teachers apply dialogic learning in specific moments (for example, when they speak about the weekend); however, during the process and after the process, they work systematically with dialogic learning through the PEPT: they start and finish every activity with a individual and group reflection about their own processes, favouring motivation, reasoning and the implication of all the participants. These results prove that progressive transformations of teaching practice benefit cooperative work in class

Synthesis of geranylhydroquinone derivatives with potencial cytotoxic activity

Natural geranylhydroquinone 1 and geranyl-p-methoxyphenol 2 were prepared by Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution (EAS) reactions between geraniol and 1,4-hydroquinone or p-methoxyphenol respectively, using BF3∙Et2O as a catalyst. Furthermore, natural geranylquinone 3, geranyl-1,4-dimethoxyquinone 4 and the new geranyl-4-methoxyphenyl acetate 5 were obtained by chemical transformations of 1 and 2. The compounds were evaluated for their in vitro cytotoxicity activities against cultured human cancer cells of PC-3 human prostate cancer, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast carcinoma, and Dermal Human Fibroblasts DHF. IC50 values were in the µM range.