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The CO2 Capture Project (CCP) is a unique collaborative technology development program initiated in 2000 with participants from corporations, academia, governments, research institutions, policy makers and individual contractors who came together to advance development of new approaches to capture and store CO2 and improve efficiencies of existing technologies. The overall objectives have been to deliver major cost reductions for carbon capture and demonstrate that geological storage is safe, measurable, and verifiable. Since 2000, the CCP partners and cost-sharing governments have invested over $90 million to support a wide-ranging portfolio of projects to advance the understanding and development of capture and storage technologies, the economic analysis of the cost base of CCS together with analysis of regulatory and policy frameworks and a dedicated communications programme with key stakeholders. In this paper, we reflect upon the highlights and lessons learnt from twenty years of investment in technology development and the implications for the future deployment of CCS.

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T08:37:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2022-03-01 Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) Combinations of essential oils (EOs) are promising alternatives for pest management in storage grains. A high diversity of compounds in EOs and EO mixtures can increase their toxicity. Additionally, EOs can be useful in insecticide resistance programs. For this reason, we evaluated the fumigant toxicity and repellent effects of six essential oils (Dysphania ambrosioides, DA; Pelargonium graveolens, PE; Piper arboreum, PA; Piper diospyrifolium, PD; Piper gaudichaudianum, PG; and Piper tuberculatum, PT) separately and in binary combinations against adults of Sitophilus zeamais (the maize weevil). First, the insecticidal activity of all possible combinations of the six EOs were assessed. Next, the concentrations needed to cause 50% and 90% mortality (LC50 and LC90, respectively) in the S. zeamais population were determined for the most toxic EOs and mixtures. After that, the synergistic effect of the mixtures was also verified. Finally, the most toxic treatments were assessed to determine the time required to cause mortality of 50% of the population and check the repellent effects on S. zeamais. The binary mixtures of DA and PE, PT, PG, PD, and PA were the most toxic against S. zeamais. The LC50 and LC90 values for these treatments ranged between 1.77 and 2.25 μL L−1 and from 2.42 to 7.64 μL L−1, respectively. The mixtures were more toxic than the EOs tested separately, which indicates the occurrence of synergistic effects. All treatments caused mortality of 50% of the population of S. zeamais in less than 42 h of exposure. In addition, the combinations DA + PE, DA + PT, DA + PG, and DA + PA were repellent to S. zeamais. Based on these results, we conclude that the mixtures of EOs evaluated in this study are highly promising for the control of S. zeamais populations and can also be used for resistance management of this species. Departmento de Proteção de Plantas Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas Universidade Estadual Paulista Departmento de Química Faculdade de Filosofia Ciência e Cartas de Ribeirão Preto Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto Departmento de Proteção de Plantas Faculdade de Ciências Agronômicas Universidade Estadual Paulista CNPq: 303892/2016-1

While the government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have varied across the globe, there has been a unifying cry from academia and public health professionals warning of the detrimental effects of attaching our understanding of this new threat to our already ageist attitudes. What is inescapable is that COVID-19 has an age-related risk component and the latest data shows that risks start to rise for people from midlife onwards. As governance agencies, professional practice, and academia work towards assessing, communicating, and addressing this risk, we ask: are existing gerontological conceptualisations of ageism appropriate for this exceptional situation and what is being (re)produced in terms of an aged subjectivity? Following van Dyk's (2016) critique of gerontology's 'othering' through both 'glorification' (third age) and 'abjection' (fourth age), a content analysis of statements and policy documents issued in response to COVID-19 provides evidence of well-meaning and inadvertent ageism through homogenizing language, the abjection/glorification binary within 'old age', and the power binary constructed between age and an age-neutral midlife. The paper concludes with reflections on future directions for ageism research beyond COVID-19.

Sitophilus zeamais is a pest of global significance and it is difficult to control due to the high indices of resistance to insecticides showed by the populations. As an alternative to the management of S. zeamais populations, in the present study, we evaluated the toxicity of essential oil (EO) of Lippia sidoides , its major compound (thymol − 68.5%) and prototypes of nanoformulations (NF) (18%) based on these compounds on S. zeamais populations (N = 5) from different regions of Brazil. Toxicity bioassays were performed to determine lethal and chronic toxicity doses and times to test the efficiency of prototypes in the treatment of stored grains. Additionally, we study the efficiency and stability of stored NFs. The lethal doses of EO of L. sidoides and thymol required to kill 50% of S. zeamais populations ranged from 7.1 to 19.9 μg/ mg −1 and 17.1 to 25.7 μg/ mg −1 , respectively. The populations of Jacarezinho-PR and Maracaju-MS were, respectively, the most tolerant and susceptible to the EO of L. sidoides . EO of L. sidoides , thymol and its NFs acted fast on the populations of S. zeamais . Increasing of NF concentrations led to reduced grain consumption and total population mortality. NFs stored for up to seven months maintained high mortalities on S. zeamais . This work indicates that the prototypes of NFs based on the EO of L. sidoides and its major compound are promising for the management of S. zeamais populations.

The drywood termite Cryptotermes brevis (Walker, 1853) (Kalotermitidae) is one of the most important wood structural pest in the world. Substances from the secondary metabolism of plants (e.g., essential oils) have been considered an environmentally safer form of control for urban pests, such as termites. In the present study, we analyzed the lethal and sub-lethal effects of essential oil of Lippia sidoides and its major components on C. brevis pseudergates in two routes of exposure (contact and fumigation). The essential oil of L. sidoides and thymol were more toxic to C. brevis pseudergates when applied by contact (LD50 = 9.33 and 8.20 µg mg−1, respectively) and by fumigation (LC50 = 9.10 and 23.6 µL L−1, respectively). In general, treatments changed the individual and collective behaviors of C. brevis pseudergates, as well as the displacement and walking speed. The essential oil of L. sidoides and its major components showed a high potential to control C. brevis pseudergates, due to the bioactivity in the two routes of exposure and the sub-lethal effects on the behavior and walking, important activities for the cohesion of C. brevis colonies.

Offshore oil production in ultra-deepwater, with associated natural gas showing high carbon dioxide content and high gas to oil ratio, poses stringent constraints to upstream gas processing technologies. Under such circumstances, oil and gas are processed in Floating Production Storage and Offloading rigs, whose topside facilities are limited in terms of weight and footprint of equipment. Energy demands, supplied by on-site generation, also reduce the availability of space and weight to oil and gas processing. This work evaluates carbon dioxide separation alternatives applicable to this challenging scenario in terms of technical, economic and environmental aspects, considering early enhanced oil recovery as the destination of carbon dioxide. The Brazilian Pre-Salt fields are used as case study due to their unusual high capacity gas processing on the production topside, a consequence of the high gas to oil ratio and carbon dioxide content. The set of studied carbon dioxide separation technologies encompasses membrane permeation, chemical absorption by aqueous methyl diethanolamine with piperazine, physical absorption with propylene carbonate and hybrid variants physical absorption and membranes, membranes and chemical absorption, and two stages membrane, technically assessed by process simulation. Due to the continuous injection of carbon dioxide to enhanced oil recovery, the reservoir content of carbon dioxide increases along production life-cycle, which means that the performances of technologies have to be compared under short-term, mid-term and long-term carbon dioxide content in the associated gas, respectively, of 10%, 30% and 50% (mol), for gas production of 6 million sm3/d. Chemical absorption exhibits the lowest hydrocarbon losses and the lowest specific electric power consumption at the expense of the highest footprint, for all investigated scenarios. The lowest life-cycle costs are for chemical absorption and two stages membrane, respectively $0.57 and $0.46 million/GJ of exported gas, while the largest cost belongs to the hybrid membrane and chemical absorption ($1.78 million/GJ of exported gas). Chemical absorption holds the lowest carbon dioxide emission per ton of injected carbon dioxide (0.15 t/t), seconded by membrane permeation (0.19 t/t). Hybrid membrane and chemical absorption inherits the small footprint of membrane permeation and, despite its highest life-cycle cost, is recommended for flexibility reasons due to increasing carbon dioxide content in the reservoir life-time in cases of ultra-deepwater fields with high gas to oil ratio, high carbon dioxide content and early carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery. Contrarily to the widely acceptance of membrane permeation as a leading small footprint solution, the overall performance analysis, under the adopted premises, remarkably favors chemical absorption.

After the Ressacada Project experience acquired from 2011 to 2015 when PUCRS, UNESP and other institutions conducted three controlled CO 2 release experiments, PETROBRAS, the national oil company that is sponsoring the project, has launched a new challenge to its partners. The company stimulated the implementation of a new Brazilian experimental site where there will be a deepening of studies in geologically more complex conditions and more challenging from a technological point of view. The choice of an area inside PUCRS campus, in Viamao - Rio Grande do Sul state, was motivated by a predominantly clay subsoil and the privileged location of the site in terms of ease logistics and security, which is required for a project of this size that houses high-tech equipment with significant cost. The CO 2 MOVE project started at 2015 with the subsurface characterization of the site and the assembly and manufacture of an automated system for CO 2 and gas tracers with injection capacity for 5 to 50 kg/day. Based on physical characterization studies and on numerical modeling that is being developed, the site infrastructure will be completed in the next months with the positioning of vertical injection wells, monitoring wells, and other equipment and monitoring mesh. Monitoring tools should be arranged in an area of approximately 100m 2 , occupying the entire region surrounding the injection wells. Fieldwork involving CO 2 injection and monitoring should have a 60 days duration of which 15 days are for preliminary surveys (pre-injection), 30 days for injection and CO 2 monitoring and the last 15 days for post-injection measurements. Following this work, the collected data will be analyzed in the university labs. Similarly to Ressacada Project, this experiment will run measurements of soil CO 2 flux with accumulation chambers, CO 2 turbulent fluxes with Eddy Covariance, subsurface gases and groundwater monitoring, and resistivity measurements. Other monitoring methods still not tested by the research team will be held as gas tracers monitoring and laser measurements.

The increasing worldwide demand for energy bound to a strong dependence of fossil fuels has considerably intensified the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, reaching alarming levels. Among those gases, carbon dioxide is considered the main responsible for global warming due to its higher concentration. In order to mitigate the negative effects of global warming and to reduce emissions, many technologies have been developed in the last decades to separate and recover carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) at different capture scenarios. Adsorption processes rely on the use of highly porous solids such as activated carbons, which are either commercially. Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) is a cyclic adsorption process, which allows continuous separation of gas streams. PSA is performed by periodic changes of pressure aiming the optimization of contaminants removal and is considered viable for separation of CO 2 from flue gases containing about 5-15% v/v. To achieve a certain performance, a PSA process may consist of several steps, columns and cycle time. One of the most basic configurations comprises four steps: pressurization, feed, blowdown and purge. The performance of a PSA process is usually evaluated by the purity, recovery and productivity reached. This study presents experimental and simulated data obtained from a bench-scale PSA, with a maximum pressure of 6 bar for pressurization and feed steps and minimum of 1 bar for blowdown and purge steps. The unit was tested with a mixture containing 85% of N 2 and 15% of CO 2 (on a molar basis). Carbon dioxide and nitrogen breakthrough curves were obtained under typical conditions of post combustion capture. A mathematical-phenomenological model combining momentum, mass and heat balances and using the Linear Driving Force approach (LDF) for mass transport and Langmuir model for equilibrium was applied in this study to simulate the dynamic behavior of the process. The performance tests presented productivity of 15 mol h -1 kg-ads -1 and, according to the changes of step time, N 2 purity of 97.7%. The model predicted reasonably the breakthrough curves and temperature profiles, with more precision for the latter. The combination of the simulation tool with and experimental PSA unit is very valuable for a deeper understanding of the involved phenomena and helpful with the design of optimized and efficient CO 2 adsorption-based capture processes.

The first CO2 monitoring field lab at the Ressacada Farm, in the Southern region of Brazil, started in 2011 and until 2015 offered an excellent opportunity to run controlled CO2 releases experiment ...

CO2 injection into geological reservoirs has been conducted for many years in Brazil as a method of Enhanced Oil Recovery, without the intention of geological storage. Recently, with pre-salt discoveries in ultra-deep waters and driven by the need to contain climate change, CO2 storage has become more relevant in the national energy production scenario. Therefore, one of the priorities in geological storage projects has been to demonstrate that CO2 is safely stored. This contributes to a better public perception of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a technological solution to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a short-term scenario. In Brazil, CO2 monitoring techniques and methodologies for onshore CCS purposes have been tested for 6 years supported by PETROBRAS in near-surface experiments with controlled CO2 releases. The first initiative in this sense started in 2012 with the Ressacada Project, in Florianopolis city (Santa Catarina state), and its activities are already closed. Since 2015 the CO2MOVE Project is under development in an area inside PUCRS campus, in Viamao city (Rio Grande do Sul state). This project involves more complex geological conditions and faces more challenges from the technological point of view. While in the Ressacada site prevailed quite sandy coastal marine sediments, the CO2MOVE site has a predominantly argillaceous soil, as a result of weathered granites. Local hydrogeology is characterized by a perched aquifer at about 1.5 meters depth, in which recharge depends on the local precipitation. CO2MOVE project is based on an automated injection system, capable of adding up to 50Kg of CO2 per day and a gaseous tracer injection module that allows incorporating tracers compounds to be tested as trackers of the injected CO2. Monitoring tools were arranged in an area of approximately 3000m2, occupying the entire region surrounding two vertical injection wells of 3 meters depth. Fieldwork involving injection and CO2 monitoring has been developed on two occasions. The first field season was conducted in 2016 for 60 days. The second campaign was conducted in 2017 for 15 days, aiming to obtain tracers response. This paper will present an overview of the CO2MOVE Project and the large experience acquired in these three years of research, approaching the behaviour of CO2 and tracers observed through the multiple research methods covered.

Different authors have identified geographic variations in the rates of suicide. This study aims to discuss the limitations of the officially recorded suicide data and to evaluate the statistical relationship between a biometeorological index, Apparent Temperature (AT), and suicide in Madrid and Lisbon. We performed a time-series study. The association was analyzed using a quasi-Poisson regression model. To assess potential delayed and non-linear effects of AT on suicides, a lag non-linear model was fitted in a generalized additive model. There was an average rate of 3.30 suicides/100,000 inhabitants in Madrid and of 7.92 suicides/100,000 inhabitants in Lisbon, and a downward trend was found throughout the period. In Madrid, there is no statistically significant association between AT and suicide. However, in Lisbon, under higher AT, there was a higher risk of suicide. The highest accumulated statistically significant Relative Risk (RR) of suicide was detected at 7 days after the exposure, when at 38 °C, the risk of suicide is 2.7 times that existing at the median AT, 20.62°. The average mortality rate recorded in Lisbon was 41.6% higher than that registered in Madrid. However, the limitations of suicide record databases in Spain and Portugal have to be taken into account when analyzing incidence and especially when comparing data from different countries. It is necessary to improve the filing systems of violent deaths in order to perform reliable epidemiological studies.

Previous studies have consistently analyzed the impact that extreme temperatures will have on human health. However, there are very few data on temperature-related mortality burden considering future demographic changes in a context of climate change in Portugal. This study aims to quantify the impact of climate change on heat-, cold-, and net change mortality burdens, taking into account the future demographic changes in Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal. We applied a time-series generalized linear model with a quasi-Poisson model via a distributed lag nonlinear model to project temperature-related mortality burden for two climatological scenarios: a present (or reference, 1986-2005) scenario and a future scenario (2046-2065), in this case the Representative Concentration Pathway RCP8.5, which reflects the worst set of expectations (with the most onerous impacts). The results show that the total attributable fraction due to temperature, extreme and moderate cold, is statistically significant in the historical period and the future projected scenarios, while extreme and moderate heat were only significant in the projected future summer period. Net differences were attributed to moderate cold in the future winter months. Projections show a consistent and significant increase in future heat-related mortality burden. The attributable fraction due to heat in the future period, compared to the historical period, ranges from 0 to 1.5% for moderate heat and from 0 to 0.5% for extreme heat. Adaptation should be implemented at the local level, so as to prevent and diminish the effects on citizens and healthcare services, in a context of climate change.

Introduction Type 2 diabetes is one of the non-communicable diseases with higher increasing incidence across the world. Portugal is one of the most affected countries with this increase. Most risk factors for diabetes are modifiable and can be changed by a supportive built environment. The walkability index has been wildly used as concept to describe a healthy built environment. However, the ecological view of health and diabetes identifies the necessity of a multilevel intervention to the creation of a supportive built environment.The goal of this paper is to evaluate the association between walkability indicators and hospital admissions due to diabetes, in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, by different methods through a proposed ecological model. Methods The built environment characteristics were evaluated using walkability measures including density, diversity and design, but also air quality and green areas availability. The socio-economic characteristic was controlled by the most common indicators, but it also included house size and house cost. The diabetes incidence was measured by hospital admissions due to diabetes. The statistical analysis was performed by a path analysis model that allows to consider the complexity of several effects on diabetes. Results The results show that built environment influences diabetes through air pollution and active travel. The proposed conceptual model explains 27% of the variance of hospital admissions due to diabetes. Additionally, the mediating variables active travel and air pollution had the variance explained in 73% and 70% respectively. Conclusions The results stress the non-direct influence of the built environment in health, showing that health can be improved through the promotion of active travel and the improvement of air quality. The improvement of these aspects is relevant at different levels of intervention, revealing the importance of the civil parishes level. The results reinforce the importance of policies at different levels to effectively change behaviour.

The natural environment has been considered an important determinant of cardiovascular morbidity. This work seeks to assess the impact of the winter thermal environment on hospital admissions from diseases of the circulatory system by using three biometeorological indices in five regions of the Iberian Peninsula. A theoretical index based on a thermophysiological model (Universal Thermal Climate Index [UTCI]) and two experimental biometeorological ones (Net Effective Temperature [NET] and Apparent Temperature [AT]) were estimated in two metropolitan areas of Portugal (Porto and Lisbon) and in three provinces of Spain (Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia). Subsequently, their relationship with hospital admissions, adjusted by NO2 concentration, time, and day of the week, was analyzed using a Generalized Additive Model. As the estimation method, a semi-parametric quasi-Poisson regression was used. Around 53% of the hospitalizations occurred during the cold periods. The admissions rate followed an upward trend over the 9-year period in both capitals (Madrid and Lisbon) as well as in Barcelona. An inverse and statistically significant relationship was found between thermal comfort and hospital admissions in the five regions (p < 0.001). The highest relative risk (RR) was found after a cumulative 7-day exposure in Lisbon, where there was a 1.4% increase in hospital admissions for each NET and AT degree Celsius, and 1.0% for each UTCI degree Celsius. In conclusion, low air temperatures are a significant risk factor for hospital admissions from diseases of the circulatory system in the Iberian Peninsula, regardless of the index calculated.

This study compares the existing statistical association between suicide mortality and the characteristics of places of residence (municipalities), before and during the current economic crisis, in Portugal. We found that (1) the traditional culture-based North/South pattern of suicidal behaviour has faded away, while the socioeconomic urban/rural divide has become more pronounced; (2) suicide is associated with higher levels of rurality and material deprivation; and (3) recent shifts in suicidal trends may result from the current period of crisis. Strategies targeting rural areas combined with public policies that address area deprivation may have important implications for tackling suicide.

Catch and effort data form an important, and often the only, source of data for stock assessment and management of marine resources in developing countries. Population parameters and management quantities important for stock assessment are often estimated by fitting production models to standardized series of catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE). Such basic information is notoriously hard to obtain for small-scale fisheries because of the large spatial and temporal variability in effort, numerous landing sites, and limited access for biological data collections. In this paper, we present a probability-based survey sampling method for the monitoring of the small-scale fisheries in Mozambique. The survey is an on-site intercept design, which supports the estimation of annual catch and effort and other key statistics for the coastal fisheries in a sampled geographic area. Estimates of catch and effort, with associated relative standard errors, for beach seine fisheries in the district of Angoche and for Inhambane Bay are used to illustrate the applicability of the methodology. The flexible survey design is nowadays used to monitor small-scale fisheries in all provinces of Mozambique. We also present a method for obtaining approximate estimates of total catches for a study area when the coverage of fishing centers is incomplete. Survey estimates of the average proportion of beach seines that are actively used in fishing by month are used to adjust fishing effort derived from census data on the total number of beach seines for fishing centers not covered in the survey. The adjusted effort is then combined with estimates of CPUE to estimate the total catches for fishing centers that are not covered in the survey. Results suggest that the common method (often referred to as a frame survey) for studying artisanal fisheries that relies on effort estimates from a census of landing sites at some intervals in time, combined with CPUE from regular sampling from a small subset of fishing centers selected ad-hoc would introduce substantial bias of variable magnitude. The reason is that effort in small-scale fisheries strongly depends on weather conditions and socio-economic factors.

In a joint R&D project under the full sponsorship of PETROBRAS, the Brazilian National Oil Company, the first CO2 monitoring field lab was started-up in Brazil in 2011.The site chosen, the Ressacada Farm, in the Southern region of the country, offered an excellent opportunity to run controlled CO2 release experiments in soil and shallow subsurface (< 3 m depth). This paper focuses on the presentation and comparison of the results obtained using electrical imaging, CO2 flux measurements and geochemical analysis of the groundwater to monitor CO2 migration in both saturated and unsaturated sand-rich sediments and soil. In 2013 a controlled release campaign was run, covering an area of approximately 6,300 m2. Commercial food-grade gaseous carbon dioxide was continuously injected at 3 m depth for 12 days. The average injection rate was 90g/day, totaling ca. 32kg of gas being released. The low injection rate avoided fracturing of the unconsolidated sediments composing the bulk of the local soil matrix. Monitoring techniques deployed during 30 consecutive days, including background characterization, injection

Currently one of the main challenges in CO 2 storage research is the development, testing and validation of accurate and efficient Measuring, Monitoring and Verification (MMV) techniques to be deployed at geological sequestration sites that are cost effective yet help minimize risk. This perspective motivated PETROBRAS, the National Oil Major in Brazil, through its R&D investments portfolio to prioritize research projects that would contribute to decreasing the technological gap in the area. The Company's periodic surveys indicated the lack of infrastructure, as well as expertise in CO 2 MMV, as two of the most critical issues at the national level. In order to bridge that gap, initial steps were taken in 2010 for the start-up and development of the first CO 2 MMV Field Lab in Brazil, fully sponsored by PETROBRAS, with a long term goal of enabling the ranking of the best, most cost- effective MMV technology alternatives to be deployed at commercial large scale CCGS sites scheduled to be installed in the country. In addition to providing basic infrastructure to carry out the CO 2 injection and controlled release experiments, the facility was designed for the simultaneous testing of multiple measuring methodologies. Additional benefits of the initiative are the creation of expertise and the acceleration of the know-how in MMV in Brazil, as well as the development of a deeper and more practical knowledge of CO 2 dynamics and impacts in a real world, open air scenario. Under the full support of the PETROBRAS R&D Center (CENPES), through its Climate Change Mitigation Technological Program (PROCLIMA), the Brazilian Pilot CO 2 MMV Lab was made possible through a joint 4-year research Project, conceived and carried out by PETROBRAS and local academia in Brazil, in close cooperation with international experts. An overview of the Project and the multiple research areas encompassed will be presented, together with the preliminary results of the first CO 2 injection campaign, which took place in 2013.

The first CO 2 Field Lab built in Brazil was developed at the Ressacada Farm, in Florianopolis, SC with the goal of diminishing technical gaps in CO 2 storage covering research in Measuring, Monitoring and Verification (MMV) techniques, a need identified in the PETROBRAS Strategic Plan. Through the Company R&D Center (CENPES), and the Climate Change Mitigation Technological Program (PROCLIMA), PETROBRAS is sponsoring a joint 4-year research Project, in which both company and local academia personnel are collaborating to deploy, test and assess multiple near-surface CO 2 detection technologies. Longer term objectives include the validation of accurate and efficient detection, measurement and quantification tools to be deployed in large scale commercial CGS (Carbon Geological Storage) sites scheduled to be installed in the country to assist in validating storage efficiency and minimizing risk. In September 2013, the first CO 2 injection campaign was carried out, in which small volumes of gaseous food-grade industrial CO 2 (with a delta 13 C signature of ca.-32 ppmil) were injected into the ground at shallow levels through a vertical 3 m depth well and then migrated into the atmosphere. The campaign was run over 12 days, for 24 hours a day, at injection rates low enough not to offer any risks to the formation integrity and enabled the simultaneous assessment of CO 2 behavior in the soil, in the groundwater, at the surface and in the air. This paper presents an overview of the atmospheric measurements carried out at Ressacada, covering the background, injection and post-injection scenarios.

In this work we present a structural characterization of sol–gel titania membranes obtained in both supported and unsupported forms. We used two commercial grade alumina supports obtained from Whatman and Rojan Advanced Ceramics. The unsupported membranes were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), nitrogen sorption, and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). Morphological studies were performed in both supported and unsupported membranes using a field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). In order to evaluate the performance of the supported membranes, single-gas permeation experiments were carried out at room temperature with nitrogen, helium, and carbon dioxide. We concluded from nitrogen sorption experiments that increasing the membrane heat treatment temperature leads to samples with lower specific surface areas and greater pore sizes. Close packed titania particles of uniform size were observed in SEM micrographs of unsupported membranes. The SEM analyses also revealed the presence of titania coatings on supported membranes. Some of the obtained membranes showed a separation capacity for He/CO2 and He/N2 larger than that expected for the Knudsen mechanism in the investigated pressure range. However, a good part of the analyzed samples showed an improvement of their separation capacity with increasing the feed pressure.

Although there are various commercially available methods for the separation and capture of gas species such as CO2 and H2, they are energy expensive and in some cases environmentally unfriendly. The membrane separation process presents advantages such as its relative simplicity, ease of use, low energy consumption, and application in the separation of both liquid and gas mixtures. For these reasons, the membrane technology has achieved in the last years a great commercial and strategic importance. In this work we present a structural characterization of an alumina support, before and after the deposition of a titania film on its surface. The obtained asymmetric membranes are intended to be used in gas separation processes. The alumina supports and titania coatings were prepared by dry-pressing and sol–gel process, respectively. The processed samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen sorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray microtomography (μ-CT). In order to evaluate the membranes performance, single-gas permeation experiments were performed at room temperature with nitrogen, helium, and carbon dioxide. We observed that although the alumina supports obtained in this work have not been submitted to any surface finishing procedure, the obtained membranes have potential application in gas separation processes. We observed that increasing the pressure feed leads to improving their separation capacity.

The development and application of CO 2 separation technologies and geological storage is a strategic opportunity in terms of GHG mitigation especially for the energy industry. PETROBRAS has recently established strategies to face this technological challenge. In 2007 a corporate program was started off–PROCLIMA–under the coordination of PETROBRAS R&D Center (CENPES), aiming to provide technical management and support for the full development of the PETROBRAS’ CCS portfolio. Under the leadership of PETROBRAS, PROCLIMA articulates with the Climate Change and Carbon Sequestration Network, integrating Brazilian Universities and R&D institutions, also including international cooperation.

On summer and winter months, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality rates vary throughout Europe. For example, areas with mild winters seem to be the ones with higher number of seasonal mortality. In fact, Portugal is one of the southern countries together with Ireland that have higher mortality in winter. However, the number of studies relating cold weather with morbidity/mortality is still very rare. These occurrences are suspected to be associated with housing quality especially thermal insulation. In order to assess the relation between the incidence of coronary events and housing conditions in Portugal, a survey on inpatients with any form of acute coronary syndromes was undertaken during winter months, in order to get some data about houseability and residents behavior attitudes against cold exposure. It remained clear that poor housing conditions and/or lack of protective measures against cold exposure are common in Portugal. A better knowledge about the impact of weather and climate on health may be applied to built up a set of regulations for housing design (for new but also for old dwellings restoration); but also it is essential for the establishment of adaptation and mitigation policies and strategies, as well as on health planning and on the development of early warning systems. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

This paper presents the contextualized overview of the CO 2 capture technology, with critical evaluation of state-of-art and technological development through patents applications and scientific articles. The scientific research and technological development and innovation of CO 2 capture is mapped, providing not only an overview, but also concrete basis to define and optimize research and development (R&D) perspectives. It relates the stage of scientific, technologic and innovation development relate to the actions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to ensure the reduction of the global warming due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere. The yearly monitoring of actions is presented, focusing on scientific, technologic and innovation from governments and companies acting within various countries in an attempt to mitigate the effects of global climate change. The mapping of the capture technologies was focused on absorption, adsorption, membranes, cryogenic, enzymatic and hybrid. The capture technologies are also mapped according to the CO 2 capture process (post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxy-combustion). The results are analyzed in terms of priority date, annual evolution of the patents portifolia, technology owners (country, continent, sector of society, companies, (R&D institutions), inventors and their countries, authors of scientific articles, article copyright owners, institutions and countries where the scientific research reported in the articles was performed, patent type (process, method, prototype, product, etc.), patents classification codes showing technologic trends and fields, type of gas source where CO 2 is captured, type of processes and type of gas outputs after CO 2 capture, details of the components and of the processes for each method capture, among other trends. The results are contextualized in terms of methods of CO 2 capture processes, focusing on technology for IPCC, roadmaps, and government programs and strategies for reducing CO 2 emissions into the atmosphere. All the capture technologies are growing yearly, both in patent applications and in articles. Absorption and adsorption are the most used capture technologies, post-combustion is the most used capture process, and most of the patents refer to CO 2 separation and removal. Most of the copyrights belong to Elsevier and American Physical Society, USA detains 52% of the patent applications and 31% of the articles published. The other patent applications belong mainly to Germany, France, Japan and United Kingdom. The countries with more aggressive appropriation policies are France, Norway, Germany, USA and Netherland. There is a strong correlation between countries of the technology owners and clear CCS government policies. The patent applications refer to over thirty entry gas currents, being focused on combustion and post combustion processes, followed by natural gas specification. New trends like Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC), Chemical Looping Reforming (CLR) are also focused.

Texto completo: acesso restrito. p. 293–300 Submitted by Edileide Reis (leyde-landy@hotmail.com) on 2013-12-03T11:32:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Cristina M. Quintella.pdf: 263933 bytes, checksum: 641798a44a72a4095dc78fc3fdc95998 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2013-12-03T11:32:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cristina M. Quintella.pdf: 263933 bytes, checksum: 641798a44a72a4095dc78fc3fdc95998 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004 A fully mechanized set-up was built for the experimental determination of bi-dimensional dispersion with high spatial resolution (2400 μm2). Gravitational and wall effects in a single stream were evaluated by using time-based sampling and a micro-flow cell. Vertical upward and downward flows as well as horizontal flows were investigated. Ethylene glycol (MEG) and Rhodamine B in MEG were used as carrier and sample solutions, respectively. Longitudinal profiles were obtained by laser induced total fluorescence (LIF) at up to 19 transversal sites and combined to generate high-resolution bi-dimensional profiles. A two frontal maxima pattern was observed for all flows. The volumetric fraction of RB shape was highly stretched for downward flow and there was high asymmetry for horizontal flow. The sensitivity of three dispersion parameters was evaluated: maximum peak value, peak half-width at half-height, and peak area. Data modeling showed that the tanks-in-series was more sensitive to wall effects, had good adjustment with only one tank for upward and horizontal flow and needed two tanks for downward flow which was attributed to the latter having higher dispersion. A black box empirical modeling described better the gravitational effect and allowed to identify a parameter sensitive to upward and downward flow as well as hinting to two inner streams within the horizontal flow. It also pointed to a wall dispersion contribution of twice that of the liquid–liquid dispersion.

Different effects upon the nociceptive response have been observed with exposure to acute and chronic stress in rats. In the present study we repeatedly submitted rats to restraint for 40 days, inducing hyperalgesia using the tail-flick test. A new session of acute stress was applied at the end of 40 days period, and the chronically-stressed animals demonstrated analgesia after forced swimming, but not after restraint. The effect of stress interruption for 14 or 28 days on the nociceptive threshold was then investigated. The basal tail-flick latency remained decreased for at least 28 days (hyperalgesic effect). Following the periods of suspension, the animals were submitted to new session of acute restraint, and stress-induced analgesia was observed only after 28 days of stress interruption. Thus, the mechanisms involved in the long-lasting hyperalgesia presented in this study are not exactly the same as those responsible for the analgesia induced by acute stressors. After 40 days of chronic stress treatment, morphine was injected i.p. (1.0, 5.0 mg/kg or saline). The repeatedly stressed rats displayed decreased morphine effects on nociception compared to unstressed controls. The tolerance of the response to morphine agrees with previous studies suggesting that chronic restraint stress could modify the activity of opioid systems.

People in Portugal have never been so healthy. Nevertheless, there are great differences in health status between social groups and regions. In 1994, Portugal was the country with the second worst level of inequality in terms of income distribution and with the highest level of poverty in the European Union (EU). Poverty in Portugal affects mainly the elderly and women (especially in single parent families). Beyond these groups, there are the children, the ethnic minorities and the homeless. Substance abusers, the unemployed, and ex-prisoners are also strongly affected by situations of social exclusion and poverty. Although poverty has been an important issue on the political agenda in Portugal, it shows a worrying tendency to resist traditional Social Security interventions. In the late 1990s, however, welfare coverage rates appear to have risen. To what extent can poverty cause a worsening of health status? Is there any sustainable positive association between welfare and improved health status? How, to whom and when should actions to improve the health status of the disadvantaged be addressed, without subverting the health status of the rest of the population. It is also necessary to reveal the consequences of poor health to individuals, families and communities in terms of income, social empowerment and the ability to fulfil other needs. Finally, reflection on the role and effectiveness of traditional social security models is necessary, in order to improve the impact and adequacy of its interventions. The goal of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge about disadvantage, the current health situation of the most vulnerable groups in Portuguese society-those affected by poverty, deprivation and social exclusion-and to detect the constraints on access to health and health care.