Towards chemical and nutritional inventory of Portuguese wild edible mushrooms in different habitats

Mushrooms have been valued as highly tasty/nutritional foods and as a source of compounds with medicinal properties. The huge mushrooms reservoir of Northeast Portugal must be chemically and nutritionally characterized for the benefit of the local populations and for the genetic conservation of wild macrofungi. Herein, a chemical, nutritional and bioactive inventory of potentially interesting species (and not yet characterized in the literature) from different habitats (Castanea sativa, Pinus sp., Quercus sp., fields and mixed stands) was performed. Besides macronutrients with a well-balanced proportion, the studied wild mushrooms also have important micronutrients (vitamins) and non-nutrients (phenolics) with bioactive properties such as antioxidant potential. Furthermore, being a source of important antioxidants the wild species, mainly Suillus variegatus (Pinus sp. habitat), Boletus armeniacus (C. sativa habitat), Clavariadelphus pistillaris (Quercus sp. habitat), Agaricus lutosus (fields) and Bovista aestivalis (mixed stands), can be used in human diet as nutraceuticals and/or functional foods maintaining and promoting health, longevity and life quality.     

Tocopherols composition of Portuguese wild mushrooms with antioxidant capacity

The antioxidant composition and properties of 18 Portuguese wild mushrooms (Clitocybe alexandri, Cortinarius glaucopus, Fistulina hepatica, Hydnum repandum, Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca, Hypholoma capnoides, Laccaria amethystina, Laccaria laccata, Lactarius aurantiacus, Lactarius salmonicolor, Lepista inversa, Lepista sordida, Mycena rosea, Russula delica, Russula vesca, Suillus collinitus, Suillus mediterraneensis, Tricholoma sulphureum) were evaluated, in order to contribute to the overall characterisation of these products. Their radical-scavenging capacity, reducing power and inhibition of lipid peroxidation measured in liposome solutions was fully studied. Furthermore, the tocopherols composition was determined by HPLC-fluorescence. The analysed mushrooms contain powerful antioxidants such as phenols (0.51–7.90 mg/g) and tocopherols (0.02–8.04 μg/g). β-Tocopherol was the vitamer detected in higher amounts, while δ-tocopherol was not detected in the majority of the samples. All the species proved to have antioxidant activity being more significant for H. aurantiaca (EC₅₀ values lower than 1.35 mg/ml) due to the contribution of antioxidants such as phenols (7.90 mg/g) and tocopherols (0.02–1.94 μg/g). The ongoing research states the nutraceutical potential of all these unique species, making the information available for a better management and conservation of mushrooms and related habitats.     

Corn's cob as a potential ecological thermal insulation material

Tabique construction is one of the main Portuguese traditional building techniques that use earth based building materials. It is peculiar building technique which uses corn's cob as a filling material for the external tabique walls. The existing tabique construction in Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro region of northeast Portugal was studied to learn from it for modern day construction. The research showed that corn's cob, an agricultural waste, has the potential to be used as a sustainable building material for thermal insulation. An experimental work concluded that there are significant similarities between the corn's cob and the extruded polystyrene (XPS) material in terms of microstructure and chemical composition. Furthermore, the results obtained from an expeditious experimental thermal procedure indicate that the corn's cob may have adequate thermal properties for building purpose.     

A proposal for evaluating cognition in assertiveness.

This article presents the development process and initial psychometric features of an instrument for evaluating cognition in assertiveness. This is an essential social skill for adolescent development and seems to encompass emotional, behavioral, and cognitive aspects. The instrument was created by combining both empirical and theoretical methods for item construction, aiming to evaluate the cognitive realm of assertiveness. A sample of 996 adolescent students was used to test for reliability and validity. Results indicate good psychometric properties. The instrument is composed of 4 subscales: Outer Emotional Support, Functional Personal Ability, Interpersonal Management, and Affective Personal Ability. The Assertive Interpersonal Schema Questionnaire may potentially be a useful tool in the diagnosis of, understanding of, and development of a treatment plan for individuals with persistent difficulties in social events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The integrated management for renal replacement therapy in Portugal

Portugal was the first European country to introduce an integrated management of end‐stage renal disease (IM ESRD). This new program integrates various dialysis services and products, which are reimbursed at a fixed rate/patient/week called “comprehensive price payment.” This initiative restructured the delivery of dialysis services, the monitoring of outcomes, and the funding of renal replacement therapy. This article described the implementation of a new model of comprehensive provision of hemodialysis (HD) services and aimed to assess its impact on dialysis care. Quality assessments and reports of patient satisfaction, produced by the Ministry of Health since 2008, as well as national registries and reports, provided the data for this review. Indicators of HD services in all continental facilities show positive results that have successively improved along the period of 2009–2011, in spite of an average annual growth of 3% of the population under HD treatment. Mortality rates for HD patients were 12.7%, 12%, and 11%, respectively in 2009, 2010, and 2011; annual hospitalization rates were 4.9%, 3.8%, and 4.4% for the same years; key performance indicators showed averages above the reference values such as hemoglobin, serum phosphorus, eKt/V, water quality, number of days of hospitalization per patient per year, and number of weekly dialysis sessions. The financing analysis of IM ESRD demonstrates a sustained control of global costs, without compromising quality. The IM ERSD program is an innovative and quality‐driven approach that benefits both dialysis patients and providers, contributing toward the rationalization of service provision and the efficient use of resources.     

Comparison of the auxiliary function method and the discrete-ordinate method for solving the radiative transfer equation for light scattering

Two methods for solving the radiative transfer equation are compared with the aim of computing the angular distribution of the light scattered by a heterogeneous scattering medium composed of a single flat layer or a multilayer. The first method [auxiliary function method (AFM)], recently developed, uses an auxiliary function and leads to an exact solution; the second [discrete-ordinate method (DOM)] is based on the channel concept and needs an angular discretization. The comparison is applied to two different media presenting two typical and extreme scattering behaviors: Rayleigh and Mie scattering with smooth or very anisotropic phase functions, respectively. A very good agreement between the predictions of the two methods is observed in both cases. The larger the number of channels used in the DOM, the better the agreement. The principal advantages and limitations of each method are also listed.     

Lanthanopolyoxotungstoborates: synthesis, characterization, and layer-by-layer assembly of europium photoluminescent nanostructured films

New lanthanopolyoxotungstoborates, K6-xHx[Ln(BW11O39)(H2O)3].nH2O, Ln(III) = Sm, Eu, Tb, Er, were prepared and characterized by spectroscopic methods (Fourier transform infrared, Fourier transform-Raman, 11B solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, and photoluminescence) and elemental analysis. A layer-by-layer assembly method was employed to fabricate multilayered films containing the europium heteropolyanion and the polyelectrolytes poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) and poly(diallydimethylammonium chloride). The photoluminescence behavior of these final nanostructures was investigated and compared with that of the starting Eu(III) polyoxometalate used as the building unit.     

OpenLogos machine translation: philosophy,model, resources and customization

This paper reviews the OpenLogos rule-based machine translation system, and describes its model architecture as an incremental pipeline process. The paper also describes OpenLogos resources and their customization to specific application domains. One of the key aspects of rule-based machine translation systems intelligence is the symbology employed by these systems in representing natural language internally. The paper offers details about the OpenLogos semantico-syntactic abstract representation language known as SAL. The paper also shows how OpenLogos has addressed classic problems of rule-based machine translation, such as the cognitive complexity and ambiguity encountered in natural language processing, illustrating how SAL helps overcome them in ways distinct from other existing rule-based machine translation systems. The paper illustrates how the intelligence inherent in SAL contributes to translation quality, presenting examples of OpenLogos output of a kind that non-linguistic systems would likely have difficulty emulating. The paper shows the unique manner in which OpenLogos applies the rulebase to the input stream and the kind of results produced that are characteristic of the OpenLogos output. Finally, the paper deals with an important advantage of rule-based machine translation systems, namely, the customization and adaption to application-specific needs with respect to their special terminology and transfer requirements. OpenLogos offers users a set of comfortable customization tools that do not require special knowledge of the system internals. An overview of the possibilities that these tools provide will be presented.     

Immobilization of drugs for glaucoma treatment

Recently there have been some developments in the preparation of controlled drug delivery systems for glaucoma. Many materials are being used in this area, namely gelatine and chitosan. Both of them present high levels of biocompatibility and biodegradability. In this paper, we wish to report the work we have been doing on the preparation and characterization of hydrogels based on gelatine and chitosan. The crosslinking agents used were 1-(3-(Dimethylamino)propyl)-3-Ethylcarbodiimide hydrocholide (CDI), 1,4-Butanodiol diglycidyl ether (epoxyde 1), Ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (epoxyde 2) and genipin. The results obtained showed that all of the films were hydrogels. The surface and transversal cut showed a porous surface in all the films. The thermal analysis proved the modifications in the polymeric chains, with the stabilization of all of them by the crosslinking agents. The release pattern indicates that the gelatine films were the best since they release the adequate proportion of drug. Finally, the cytotoxicity showed that the gelatine films were all biocompatible, specially the ones crosslinked with one of the Epoxydes.