Browsing by Author "Lopes, M."
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- A cost-efficiency and health benefit approach to improve urban air qualityPublication . Miranda, A.I.; Ferreira, J.; Silveira, C.; Relvas, H.; Duque, L.; Roebeling, P.; Lopes, M.; Costa, S.; Monteiro, A.; Gama, C.; Sá, E.; Borrego, C.; Teixeira, J.P.When ambient air quality standards established in the EU Directive 2008/50/EC are exceeded, Member States are obliged to develop and implement Air Quality Plans (AQP) to improve air quality and health. Notwithstanding the achievements in emission reductions and air quality improvement, additional efforts need to be undertaken to improve air quality in a sustainable way - i.e. through a cost-efficiency approach. This work was developed in the scope of the recently concluded MAPLIA project "Moving from Air Pollution to Local Integrated Assessment", and focuses on the definition and assessment of emission abatement measures and their associated costs, air quality and health impacts and benefits by means of air quality modelling tools, health impact functions and cost-efficiency analysis. The MAPLIA system was applied to the Grande Porto urban area (Portugal), addressing PM10 and NOx as the most important pollutants in the region. Four different measures to reduce PM10 and NOx emissions were defined and characterized in terms of emissions and implementation costs, and combined into 15 emission scenarios, simulated by the TAPM air quality modelling tool. Air pollutant concentration fields were then used to estimate health benefits in terms of avoided costs (external costs), using dose-response health impact functions. Results revealed that, among the 15 scenarios analysed, the scenario including all 4 measures lead to a total net benefit of 0.3M€·y(-1). The largest net benefit is obtained for the scenario considering the conversion of 50% of open fire places into heat recovery wood stoves. Although the implementation costs of this measure are high, the benefits outweigh the costs. Research outcomes confirm that the MAPLIA system is useful for policy decision support on air quality improvement strategies, and could be applied to other urban areas where AQP need to be implemented and monitored.
- Levels of manganese, iron, zinc and mercury in vegetarian foodsPublication . Nascimento, A.; Santiago, S.; Lopes, M.; Santos, M.The increasing popularity of vegetarian diet has induced science to better study this foods. As long as it includes the necessary intake of nutrients, such as minerals, can be beneficial to health. In addition, concern about food safety has increased in recent years, leading to studies to evaluate food contamination by toxic metals, regarding food poisoning prevention and public health improvement. The purpose of this work was to quantify manganese, iron, zinc and mercury contents in different foods for a plant-based diet. Mineral levels were determined by Inductive Plasma Coupled Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). Total mercury content was determined by a thermal decomposition and amalgamation atomic absorption spectrophotometry (TDA/AAS). Manganese level ranged from 0.10 mg/100g (
- Rare double sex and mab-3-related transcription factor 1 regulatory variants in severe spermatogenic failurePublication . Lima, A.C.; Carvalho, F.; Gonçalves, J.; Fernandes, S.; Marques, P.I.; Sousa, M.; Barros, A.; Seixas, A.; Amorim, A.; Conrad, D.F.; Lopes, M.The double sex and mab-3-related transcription factor 1 (DMRT1) gene has long been linked to sex-determining pathways across vertebrates and is known to play an essential role in gonadal development and maintenance of spermatogenesis in mice. In humans, the genomic region harboring the DMRT gene cluster has been implicated in disorders of sex development and recently DMRT1 deletions were shown to be associated with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA). In this work, we have employed different methods to screen a cohort of Portuguese NOA patients for DMRT1 exonic insertions and deletions [by multiplex ligation probe assay (MLPA); n = 68] and point mutations (by Sanger sequencing; n = 155). We have found three novel patient-specific non-coding variants in heterozygosity that were absent from 357 geographically matched controls. One of these is a complex variant with a putative regulatory role (c.-223_-219CGAAA>T), located in the promoter region within a conserved sequence involved in Dmrt1 repression. Moreover, while DMRT1 domains are highly conserved across vertebrates and show reduced levels of diversity in human populations, two rare synonymous substitutions (rs376518776 and rs34946058) and two rare non-coding variants that potentially affect DMRT1 expression and splicing (rs144122237 and rs200423545) were overrepresented in patients when compared with 376 Portuguese controls (301 fertile and 75 normozoospermic). Overall our previous and present results suggest a role of changes in DMRT1 dosage in NOA potentially also through a process of gene misregulation, even though DMRT1 deleterious variants seem to be rare.