Portugal is ranked within the ten countries with more dinosaur taxa and the Lourinhã Formation is known
by the Late Jurassic findings of dinosaurs and other fossils. Often, studies of the external morphological
characteristics of the fossils are not sufficient and, observations of internal structures, using non-
destructive techniques, are required. The fossils here presented belong to the Museum da Lourinhã
(Portugal) and comprise a lower jaw of a basal crocodilian (possibly a Tomistomidae), eggshells and
several vertebrae from the exceptionally well preserved in ovo remains of Late Jurassic theropod dinosaur
Lourinhanosaurus. Neutron Tomography (NT) experiments with this material has been carried out at the
Geesthacht Neutron Facility in Germany. Additionally, eggshell fragments and several vertebrae have
been studied by Synchrotron-Radiation based Micro-Computed Tomography (SRμCT) at the HARWI II and
BW2 beamlines, respectively. These beamlines are operated by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht at the
storage ring DORIS III at the Deutsches Elektronen–Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg, Germany. In both cases
(NT and SRμCT) complete 3D recordings have been obtained using a non-destructive procedure. The high-
quality tomographic datasets can be effectively studied through interactive digital visualization. Hence,
these visualization methods provide precious information about the 3D internal micro morphology of
fossils, like the network of the eggshell pores, often invisible in more traditional techniques, and provide a
direct window into the evolutionary history of organisms.

Spreadsheets are notoriously error-prone. To help avoid the introduction of errors when changing spreadsheets, models that capture the structure and interdependencies of spreadsheets at a conceptual level have been proposed. Thus, spreadsheet evolution can be made safe within the confines of a model. As in any other model/instance setting, evolution may not only require changes at the instance level but also at the model level. When model changes are required, the safety of instance evolution can not be guarded by the model alone. We have designed an appropriate representation of spreadsheet models, including the fundamental notions of formulæand references. For these models and their instances, we have designed coupled transformation rules that cover specific spreadsheet evolution steps, such as the insertion of columns in all occurrences of a repeated block of cells. Each model-level transformation rule is coupled with instance level migration rules from the source to the target model and vice versa. These coupled rules can be composed to create compound transformations at the model level inducing compound transformations at the instance level. This approach guarantees safe evolution of spreadsheets even when models change.

Transactional Memory [3] (TM) is a new paradigm for concurrency control that brings the concept of transactions, widely known from the Databases community, into the management of data located in main memory. TM delivers a powerful semantics for constraining concurrency and provides the means for the extensive use of the available parallel hardware. TM uses abstractions that promise to ease the development of scalable parallel applications by achieving performances close to fine-grained locking while maintaining the simplicity of coarse-grained locking.

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This work describes the development of a system designed for renewable power generation integration. It continuously acquires wind, solar and temperature data, which is automatically correlated with energy parameters, obtained from renewable energy systems. The developed system was installed in an urban building equipped with photovoltaic cells and wind renewable generation. To validate the developed application, it was analyzed data of a wind generator and a set of photovoltaic panels, installed near to the weather station. The developed application allows, in addition to the acquisition of weather and energy data, their continuous monitoring and correlation through a graphical user interface, providing a friendly interactivity with the user.

The evolution of wine after bottling may be affected by the continuous supply of oxygen through the closures. I n the case of cork, oxygen may come from two different sources: permeation from outside through the cork and the release of gas from inside cork cells. I n this work we studied this later issue. The typical compression rate (volume change / uncompressed volume) of a cork stopper is about 40%. Taking in account that cork has a void volume ranging 70 to 80°/o cork cells pressure after bottling may reach 2 atm. This pressurized gas will 'escape' to both sides of the closure along many weeks. I n this work we measured the gas flow coming from cork stoppers in 3 typical starting headspace pressures: 60 mbar, 1000 mbar and 3000 mbar (absolute pressures). These conditions correspond roughly to vacuum bottling, balanced pressures bottling and bottling without any prior pumping. These experiments were performed by continuous monitoring the pressure, with a high accuracy gauge, in the headspace along several weeks keeping the bottleneck volume at constant temperature. In the case of vacuum bottling the headspace pressure continuously rises for many weeks. With balanced pressures, the pressure rises for a few days and then starts decreasing. I n the case of bottling without pumping the headspace pressure is typically higher than the cork cells pressure leading to a continuous pressure loss. These results together with those from permeation of cork provide a useful picture to those who need to know quantitavely the amount of oxygen in contact with wine in the post bottling period. (Bulletin de I'OIV, 2011, vol. 84, n0965-966-967, p. 261-269)

Superoxide reductases are enzymes involved in bacterial resistance to reactive oxygen species, catalyzing the reduction of superoxide anions to hydrogen peroxide. So far three structural classes have been identified. Class I enzymes have two iron-center containing domains. Most studies have been focused on the catalytic iron site (center II), but the role of center I is yet poorly understood. The possible roles of this iron site were approached by an integrated study using both classical and fast kinetics measurements as well as direct electrochemistry. A new heterometallic form of the protein with a zinc-substituted center I, maintaining the iron active site center II was obtained, resulting in a stable derivative useful for comparison with the native all-iron from. Second order rate constants for the electron transfer between reduced rubredoxin and the different SOR forms were determined to be 2.8x107 (M-1s-1) and 1.3x106 (M-1s-1) for SORFe(IIII)-Fe(II) and for SORFe(IIII)-Fe(III) forms respectively, and 3.2x106 (M-1s-1) for the SORZn(II)-Fe(III) form. The results obtained seem to indicate that center I transfers electrons from the putative physiologic donor, rubredoxin, to the catalytic active iron site (intramolecular process). In addition, electrochemical results show that conformational changes are associated to the redox state of center I, which may enable a faster catalytic response towards superoxide anion. The apparent rate constants calculated for the SOR-mediated electron transfer also support this observation.

The permeability of gases through uncompressed cork was investigated. More than 100 samples were assessed from different plank qualities to provide a picture of the permeability distribution. A novel technique based on a mass spectrometer leak detector was used to directly measure the helium flow through the central area of small disks 10 mm in diameter and 2 mm thick. The permeability for nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases was measured by the pressure rise technique. Boiled and nonboiled cork samples from different sections were evaluated. An asymmetric frequency distribution ranging 3 orders of magnitude (roughly from 1 to 1000 $μ$mol/(cm·atm·day)) for selected samples without macroscopic defects was found, having a peak below 100 $μ$mol/(cm·atm·day). Correlation was found between density and permeability: higher density samples tend to show lower permeability. However, boiled cork showed a mean lower permeability despite having a lower density. The transport mechanism of gases through cork was also examined. Calculations suggest that gases permeate uncompressed cork mainly through small channels between cells under a molecular flow regime. The diameter of such channels was estimated to be in the range of 100 nm, in agreement with the plasmodesmata size in the cork cell walls.

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