Development of a poly(L-Lactic acid) based drug release system

Dissertação de mestrado em Biofísica e Bionanossistemas

Numerical methods in multibody system dynamics

"Series: Solid mechanics and its applications, vol. 226"

Glazing daylighting performance and Trombe wall thermal performance of a modular façade system in four different Portuguese cities

This paper reports on a new façade system that uses passive solutions in the search for energy efficiency. The differentials are the versatility and flexibility of the modules, which are important advantages of the system. The thermal performance of Trombe walls and glazings and the daylighting performance of glazing were the key aspects analyzed in the results. Computational simulations were accomplished for the thermal performance of different arrangements of the modules with DesignBuilder software. The glazing daylighting performance was studied by means of Ecotect and Desktop Radiance programs and compared with the transmittance curves of glazings. Occupancy profile and internal gains were fixed according to the Portuguese reality for both studies. The main characteristics considered in this research were the use of two double glazings, four different climates in Portugal and one and two Trombe walls in the façade. The results show an important reduction in the energy consumption with the use of Trombe walls and double self-cleaning glazing in the façade, which also presented better daylighting performance.

On the frictional contacts in multibody system dynamics

"Series title: Computational methods in applied sciences, ISSN1871-3033, vol. 42"

Palatability of the Asian clam Corbicula fluminea (Müller 1774) in an invaded system

Dissertação de mestrado em Ecology

Olive pomace pretreatments to enhance its valorisation by solid-state fermentation

Dissertação de mestrado em Bioengenharia

Acute Effects of Maternal Smoking on Fetal-Placental-Maternal System Hemodynamics

OBJECTIVE: To study acute hemodynamic alterations in the fetal-placental maternal system immediately after maternal exposure to nicotine. METHODS: This is a noncontrolled experimental study involving 21 pregnant smoking women, randomly selected, with uncomplicated pregnancies and without risk factors for fetal heart disease. Patients underwent ultrasound and fetal echocardiography before and after smoking a cigarette. They were asked to abstain from smoking for 12 hours before the study. The mean nicotine content of the cigarettes used in the study was 0.5mg of nicotine and 6mg of carbon monoxide. RESULTS: The average number of cigarettes smoked per a day prior to the study was 9.67. Gestational age ranged between 18 and 36 weeks. The mean maternal heart rate was elevated (P<0.001) as was the mean fetal heart rate (P=0.044). Maternal systolic blood pressure (P=0.004) and diastolic blood pressure (P=0.033) were also elevated after smoking. A decrease occurred in the systolic/diastolic ratio in the right uterine artery (P=0.014) and in the left uterine artery (P=0.039). The other hemodynamic variables remained unchanged. CONCLUSION: Cigarette smoking can cause changes in physiologic variables of fetal-placental circulation, but it does not change fetal cardiac function, in the dose of nicotine and its components used in this study. The decrease in systolic/diastolic ratio in the uterine arteries is probably related to a dose-dependent nicotine pattern.

A clinical recommendation system to maternity care

Nowadays in healthcare, the Clinical Decision Support Systems are used in order to help health professionals to take an evidence-based decision. An example is the Clinical Recommendation Systems. In this sense, it was developed and implemented in Centro Hospitalar do Porto a pre-triage system in order to group the patients on two levels (urgent or outpatient). However, although this system is calibrated and specific to the urgency of obstetrics and gynaecology, it does not meet all clinical requirements by the general department of the Portuguese HealthCare (Direção Geral de Saúde). The main requirement is the need of having priority triage system characterized by five levels. Thus some studies have been conducted with the aim of presenting a methodology able to evolve the pre-triage system on a Clinical Recommendation System with five levels. After some tests (using data mining and simulation techniques), it has been validated the possibility of transformation the pre-triage system in a Clinical Recommendation System in the obstetric context. This paper presents an overview of the Clinical Recommendation System for obstetric triage, the model developed and the main results achieved.

A Real-Time intelligent system for tracking patient condition

Hospitals have multiple data sources, such as embedded systems, monitors and sensors. The number of data available is increasing and the information are used not only to care the patient but also to assist the decision processes. The introduction of intelligent environments in health care institutions has been adopted due their ability to provide useful information for health professionals, either in helping to identify prognosis or also to understand patient condition. Behind of this concept arises this Intelligent System to track patient condition (e.g. critic events) in health care. This system has the great advantage of being adaptable to the environment and user needs. The system is focused in identifying critic events from data streaming (e.g. vital signs and ventilation) which is particularly valuable for understanding the patient’s condition. This work aims to demonstrate the process of creating an intelligent system capable of operating in a real environment using streaming data provided by ventilators and vital signs monitors. Its development is important to the physician because becomes possible crossing multiple variables in real-time by analyzing if a value is critic or not and if their variation has or not clinical importance.

Development of a water-in-oil-in-water multiple emulsion system integrating biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanodroplets for protein entity stabilization. Part I: experimental factorial design

Lipid nanoballoons integrating multiple emulsions of the type water-in-oil-in-water enclose, at least in theory, a biomimetic aqueous-core suitable for housing hydrophilic biomolecules such as proteins, peptides and bacteriophage particles. The research effort entertained in this paper reports a full statistical 23x31 factorial design study (three variables at two levels and one variable at three levels) to optimize biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanoballoons for housing hydrophilic protein entities. The concentrations of protein, lipophilic and hydrophilic emulsifiers, and homogenization speed were set as the four independent variables, whereas the mean particle hydrodynamic size (HS), zeta potential (ZP) and polydispersity index (PI) were set as the dependent variables. The V23x31 factorial design constructed led to optimization of the higher (+1) and lower (-1) levels, with triplicate testing for the central (0) level, thus producing thirty three experiments and leading to selection of the optimized processing parameters as 0.015% (w/w) protein entity, 0.75% (w/w) lipophilic emulsifier (soybean lecithin) and 0.50% (w/w) hydrophilic emulsifier (poloxamer 188). In the present research effort, statistical optimization and production of protein derivatives encompassing full stabilization of their three-dimensional structure, has been attempted via housing said molecular entities within biomimetic aqueous-core lipid nanoballoons integrating a multiple (W/O/W) emulsion.

Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis :containing abridged descriptions of the plants found in the peninsula of British India, arranged according to the natural system : Vol. 1 /by Robert Wight and G.A. Walker-Arnott.

1834

Evaluation system in the European Commission : DEVCO’S evaluation methodology

Mestrado em Economia e Políticas Públicas

A general history of the dichlamydeous plants :comprising complete descriptions of the different orders...the whole arranged according to the natural system /by George Don.

1831 v.1