The construction industry is currently undergoing a transition phase through which it is trying to
correct the excess of resource consumption occurred during the last two centuries. This industry is
responsible for the consumption of most non-renewable resources, a high consumption of energy and
for and excessive production of waste in all phases of its production process. Thus, the existence of a
building process based on the principle of Sustainable Development capable of reducing the negative
impacts resulting from the current activity is of enormous importance to the society.
One of the present solutions, which is wide spread nearly all over the world, is the process of
rehabilitation of existing buildings with change in use. This process alone can reduce the creation of
demolition waste and resource consumption associated with new construction. When complemented
with a set of sustainable actions, it ensures the reduction of energy consumption and resources
throughout the utilization phase and improves the health of the built environment.
Thus, in order to contribute to the improvement of building´s characteristics and consequently to
society´s quality of life, a building construction process of change in use, based on the principle of
sustainable construction, is presented. This process consists of a set of actions that encompass all
phases of the building’s lifecycle.

Sleep staging is a crucial step before the scoring the sleep apnoea, in subjects that are tested for this condition. These patients undergo a whole night polysomnography recording that includes EEG, EOG, ECG, EMG and respiratory signals. Sleep staging refers to the quantification of its depth. Despite the commercial sleep software being able to stage the sleep, there is a general lack of confidence amongst health practitioners of these machine results. Generally the sleep scoring is done over the visual inspection of the overnight patient EEG recording, which takes the attention of an expert medical practitioner over a couple of hours. This contributes to a waiting list of two years for patients of the Portuguese Health Service. In this work we have used a spectral comparison method called Itakura distance to be able to make a distinction between sleepy and awake epochs in a night EEG recording, therefore automatically doing the staging. We have used the data from 20 patients of Hospital Pulido Valente, which had been previously visually expert scored. Our technique results were promising, in a way that Itakura distance can, by itself, distinguish with a good degree of certainty the N2, N3 and awake states. Pre-processing stages for artefact reduction and baseline removal using Wavelets were applied.

By means of molecular dynamics simulations, dynamical properties of racemic ibuprofen glass-forming liquid are investigated at different temperatures from 360 to 500 K. The origin of the peculiar low amplitude Debye-type relaxation observed experimentally by dielectric relaxation spectroscopy is addressed (Bras, A. R.; Noronha, J. P.; Antunes, A. M. M.; Cardoso, M. M.; Schönhals, A.; Affouard, F.; Dionisio, M.; Correia, N. T. J. Phys. Chem. B 2008, 112, 11087). Single and total dipolar autocorrelation functions are calculated. It is found that the behavior of the total dipole correlation is dominated at short and long times by the single function. It mainly originates from the antiparallel dipoles correlations in agreement with a value of the Kirkwood correlation factor slightly smaller than unity. The simulation suggests that the long time Debye-type decay of the dipole−dipole correlation is dominated by the internal cis−trans conversion of the O═C—O—H group coupled to the change of the intermolecular linear/cyclic HB structures. The overall rotation of the molecules is about 1−2 decades faster than the cis to trans transformation, so all the O═C—O—H group environments are equal on average. The effective rotational potential energy barriers of the O═C—O—H groups due to the surroundings are thus averaged and dipolar relaxation follows a simple Debye law. It is found that cyclic dimers inhibit the cis to trans conversion unlike the linear dimers and trimers which favor this conversion and stabilize the trans isomer. It is well in line with the very low amplitude of the dielectric strength associated with the Debye relaxation observed experimentally and its increase when the liquid is maintained isothermally above the melting temperature since this amplitude mainly relates to the low fraction of ibuprofen molecules in the trans conformation. A comparison is made with the Debye-type relaxation found in microstructured monohydroxy alcohols.

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The design and optimization of fractional filters is considered in this paper. Some of the classic filter architectures are presented and their performances relatively to an ideal amplitude spectrum evaluated. The fractional filters are designed using the differential evolution optimization algorithm for computing their parameters. To evaluate the performances of all the filters the quadratic error between the computed amplitude is calculated against an ideal (goal) response. The fractional filters have a better behavior, both in the pass and reject-band.

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BACKGROUND:
Vgamma9Vdelta2 T lymphocytes are regarded as promising mediators of cancer immunotherapy due to their capacity to eliminate multiple experimental tumors, particularly within those of hematopoietic origin. However, Vgamma9Vdelta2 T-cell based lymphoma clinical trials have suffered from the lack of biomarkers that can be used as prognostic of therapeutic success.
DESIGN AND METHODS:
We have conducted a comprehensive study of gene expression in acute lymphoblastic leukemias and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, aimed at identifying markers of susceptibility versus resistance to Vgamma9Vdelta2 T cell-mediated cytotoxicity. We employed cDNA microarrays and quantitative real-time PCR to screen 20 leukemia and lymphoma cell lines, and 23 primary hematopoietic tumor samples. These data were analyzed using state-of-the-art bioinformatics, and gene expression patterns were correlated with susceptibility to Vgamma9Vdelta2 T cell mediated cytolysis in vitro.
RESULTS:
We identified a panel of 10 genes encoding cell surface proteins that were statistically differentially expressed between "gammadelta-susceptible" and "gammadelta-resistant" hematopoietic tumors. Within this panel, 3 genes (ULBP1, TFR2 and IFITM1) were associated with increased susceptibility to Vgamma9Vdelta2 T-cell cytotoxicity, whereas the other 7 (CLEC2D, NRP2, SELL, PKD2, KCNK12, ITGA6 and SLAMF1) were enriched in resistant tumors. Furthermore, some of these candidates displayed a striking variance of expression among primary follicular lymphomas and T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our results suggest that hematopoietic tumors display a highly variable repertoire of surface proteins that can impact on Vgamma9Vdelta2 cell-mediated immunotargeting. The prognostic value of the proposed markers can now be evaluated in upcoming Vgamma9Vdelta2 T cell-based lymphoma/leukemia clinical trials.

This paper has its starting point in the background analysis of the Lithuanian energy sector after closing down the only Lithuanian nuclear power plant in 2010. Based on the hypothesis that one of the main governance failures in this sector leading to weak industry level strategies is the lack of participatory debate and sufficient linkages between the different actors involved in the dynamic of the energy sector in Lithuania, this paper proposes industry level foresight as an instrument of long term planning. Foresight exercises could become an important instrument for reorienting energy sector policy, building new networks and linkages among the different actors, bringing new stakeholders into the strategic debate, exploring future opportunities State investment (including R&D), etc. The primary objective of this paper is therefore the design of a foresight exercise on energy sector with the aim of producing a long term strategy for this sector. The secondary objective is to address a topic on how to select foresight methods at industry level. The argument is that a better understanding of the fundamental attributes of foresight methods and their linkages to the core phases of a foresight process can provide useful insights as to how the selection of methods is carried out. The method applied in this paper is dual: firstly, the synthesis of the academic literature on the selection of foresight methods is carried out; secondly, the comparative case study analysis of three foresight cases in the Baltic Sea Region (Poland, Finland and Russia) is applied. Case study analysis allows to explore the usage of foresight methods at industry level in the Baltic Sea Region and to understand if there are any similarities in the approach, also to explore success factors and weaknesses. The analysis in this paper is comprised of four main parts. The first part provides a background analysis on the energy sector in Lithuania and justification for the foresight exercise. Second part describes the underlying frameworks and definitions in the field of foresight research. The third part develops a comparative analysis of case studies of industry level foresight. The third part provides recommendations for energy sector foresight methodology in Lithuania. The paper combines concepts and frameworks from literature (such as the Foresight Process and the Foresight Diamond) with comparative practical case study analysis. The results can be utilised by lecturers and students to describe and understand better the use of foresight methods at industry level, and by practitioners of foresight to better inform decisions during the design of more coherent methodological frameworks; as well as by the energy sector stakeholders in Lithuania and other countries.

A software tool for the analysis of the High-Resolution Electrocardiogram (HR-ECG) for Arrhythmia detection is introduced. New algorithms based on Wavelet analysis are presented and compared with the classic Simson protocol over the P and QRS segments of the Electrocardiogram (EEG). A novel procedure based on a two step wavelet analysis and synthesis is performed in order to obtain a frequency description of the P, T or QRS segments. This frequency ?signature? is useful for the detection of otherwise asymptomatic Arrhythmia patients. The tool has been developed in Matlab, and deployed for a standalone C application.