Experiência imersiva de investigação em STEAM

Título

Evolutionary Generative Design

Orientador/a

Penousal Machado

Área Científica

Computer Science; Arts

Unidade I&D

CISUC - Centro de Informática e Sistemas

Descrição

The present proposal is aligned with the research efforts of the CDV Lab. on Generative Design and Evolutionary Computation. It aims at performing incremental research that expands the state-of-the-art in the fields of Generative Design and Evolutionary Art.

Graphic Design has a rich history, and though the tools of the trade have evolved, two key principles endure: the freedom to make choices within a defined solution space, and the thrill of exploring new, uncharted territory. Now, with high-level programming languages, designers have the power to create generative models that adhere to these principles, free from the constraints of standard tools. But with so many parameters, designers often only explore a fraction of possible solutions. That's where our innovative framework comes in. By combining a generative design model with an evolutionary algorithm, we're ushering in a new era of automated generative design, with better choices and more rewarding exploration for designers.

The key goals of the present proposal are: (a) Design and implement mechanisms to allow the exploration of the implicit/explicit parametric space associated with current programmatic generative design models; (b) Make steps towards the development of approaches able to create generative models from a set of examples.

Addressing each of these goals involves attaining several sub-goals: developing generative artifacts, studying design processes, defining a markup language for tagging parameters, developing an evolutionary framework, and studying fitness assignment schemes.

Título

Atividade laboratorial em hidrogeoquímica

Orientador/a

Ana Maria de Aguiar Castilho Ramos Lopes

Área Científica

Geologia, Engenharia Geológica e e Minas, Engenharia Química, Química, Engenharia do Ambiente, entre outras

Unidade I&D

CGEO - Centro de Geociências

Descrição

Atividade laboratorial em hidrogeoquímica, no âmbito de atividades de investigação em curso (CGEO)

Objetivo: Analisar a composição química de massas de águas superficiais e subterrâneas da Região Hidrográfica RH4a (Rios Mondego, Vouga e Lis)

Tarefas:
1. Recolher, preparar e armazenar convenientemente amostras de águas naturais, superficiais e subterrâneas
2. Preparar amostras padrão para calibração e efetuar a validação de métodos analíticos
3. Realizar análises químicas de constituintes inorgânicos em águas naturais
4. Analisar os resultados de análises químicas, determinar erros de análise, efetuar o controlo de qualidade e a validação dos resultados
5. Interpretar os resultados, efetuando análise estatística, representação gráfica e modelação hidrogeoquímica simples
6. Elaborar relatórios para a comunicação dos resultados

Título

Decomposição de compostos orgânicos fluorinados na troposfera: uma abordagem computacional

Orientador/a

Luís Pedro Viegas

Área Científica

Química Teórica e Computacional

Unidade I&D

CQ - Centro de Química - Coimbra

Descrição

A Emenda de Kigali ao Protocolo de Montreal colocou uma pressão adicional nos países subscritores desta emenda para substituirem os hidrofluorocarbonetos (HFCs) por compostos com menor impacto ambiental, nomeadamente que tenham um menor contributo para o aquecimento global. Torna-se então necessário estudar e desenvolver compostos que possam substituir os HFCs nas suas diversas funções, sendo que uma abordagem teórica/computacional de elevada qualidade poderá dar um contributo essencial na descoberta de novos compostos e compreensão da reatividade química de uma série de compostos fluorinados, tais como álcoois, aldeídos, ésteres, éteres e cetonas. O plano de estágio irá incidir no estudo e aplicação de um protocolo computacional criado pelo responsável do estágio que determina com boa exatidão os tempos de vida atmosféricos de todas estas classes de compostos e permite uma compreensão mais detalhada sobre a sua reactividade, permitindo prever quais os compostos que terão um menor contributo para o aquecimento global.

Título

Study the expression levels of microRNA 186-5p in the brain of animals under chronic stress

Orientador/a

Ricardo A Leitão

Área Científica

Neurosciences

Unidade I&D

CNC - Centro de Neurociências e Biologia Celular

Descrição

Neuropsychiatric disorders (including depression) are a huge health problem, affecting more than 11% of world’s population. However, several patients seem to be irresponsive to antidepressant drugs. Moreover, it has been shown an increase of miR-186-5p (microRNAs are small RNA that regulates the expression of mRNAs) in blood exosomes of Major Depressive Disorder patients. Importantly, our preliminary data also show that the overexpression of miR186 in the prefrontal cortex is sufficient to induce depressive-like behavior in mice. However, the levels of this microRNA in the brain of mice chronically exposed to unpredictable stress paradigm is unknown. Therefore, the aim of this project is to evaluate the expression levels of both miR-186-5p and its target, the GluA2 (Glutamate ionotropic receptor AMPA type subunit 2), in the pre-frontal cortex of mice under the chronic stress protocol, using techniques of RNAscope and RT-qPCR.

Título

Neutrophils infiltration through blood-brain barrier in traumatic brain injury: Role of CXCL8

Orientador/a

Ricardo A Leitão

Área Científica

Neurosciences

Unidade I&D

CNC - Centro de Neurociências e Biologia Celular

Descrição

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a devastating neurologic condition that affects millions of patients annually. Despite TBI prevalence and severe consequences, currently available therapies only aim to treat acute effects with no precise approach against the lifelong negative outcomes of TBI besides physical and occupational therapies. Thus, there is an urgent need to identify an effective strategy to counteract both short- and long-term detrimental outcomes of TBI. Intriguingly, high serum levels of CXCL8 in TBI patients is correlated with worst prognosis and higher probability of death. Moreover, neutrophils are the first peripheral cells infiltrating in the trauma site. Notably, CXCL8 is the most potent chemoattractant for neutrophils, and in the CNS, brain endothelial cells are the main producer of this chemokine. Transmigration of immune cells through blood-brain barrier can occur by two different routes, paracellular and transcellular. Paracellular route occurs between two adjacent endothelial cells and involves the interaction of adhesion molecules from endothelial cells and immune cells. Transcellular pathway is mediated by vesicles (clathrin- or caveolin-1-coated) that transport cells from luminal side (blood vessel) to abluminal side (brain tissue).
Therefore, the main hypothesis of this project is that neutrophils can migrate through the blood-brain barrier, exploiting paracellular or transcellular transport routes within BBB. We also postulated that this transmigration of neutrophils is mediated by CXCL8, through activation of its receptor CXCR2.

Título

Development of Machine Learning Algorithms for Air Pollution Modelling

Orientador/a

Pedro Jorge Caridade

Área Científica

Química

Unidade I&D

CQ - Centro de Química - Coimbra

Descrição

Air pollution is a serious environmental issue impacting negatively human productivity and health and even causing premature death. Being able to forecast accurately the concentrations of pollutants such as particulate matter is of great importance to enable citizens to act preventively. Starting from a time series data for the major pollutants, it is proposed to create algorithms to forecast in space and time by machine learning and artificial intelligence methods. The training of the networks will be carried out using earth observation remote sensing data, while the programming language will be python.