This work reports the implementation and test of a pressure optical sensor suitable to measure, in situ, the sea bed level changes in the nearshore regions. The sensor is based on a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) embedded in a polymeric resin block. The increase of the pressure on the top face of the sensor, due to the change of sediments layer height, results in a change of the FBG Bragg wavelength. The sensor response reveals the capacity to discriminate sea bed level changes down to 2.5 cm, under field survey conditions. Finally, the sensor was successfully tested in a field trial survey at Costa da Caparica, Portugal.

A detailed archaeometric study of Phoenician ceramics found in an excavation inside the medieval walls of São Jorge's Castle in Lisbon is described here. Thirty ceramic sherds were studied, grouped into six categories, namely amphorae, containers for domestic use, red slip wares, grey wares, cooking wares and also some indigenous tradition handmade wares. Micro-Raman, X-Ray Fluorescence Emission, X-Ray Diffraction and ground state diffuse reflectance absorption measurements were correlated and used as our main analytical techniques to perform this study. At least three totally different local clay sources were used to produce the here studied pottery, one of alluvial origin using clays collected along the river banks, and another one using clays probably extracted in the oriental part of the Castle's hill. Cooking-ware was made with the use of raw materials with sandy detrital origin. Evidence was also found showing that part of the amphorae, common containers, and grey wares were made with the same raw materials as used in the Phoenician kilns of Almaraz, located in the left margin of the Tagus River, roughly facing Lisbon's Castle hill. The temperatures of the kilns used to fire the amphorae and common containers was in most cases higher than the one used for firing red slip and grey tableware. A detailed laboratorial study of the alluvial clays fired at different temperatures and collected in the Tagus River banks, allowed us, in most cases, to establish the origin of the sources used to produce the Phoenician pottery found in Lisbon.

The response of a YAP, NaI(Tl) and BaF2 scintillators to X-rays with energies around the Y, I, and Ba K-absorption edges, respectively, was investigated. For all the scintillators, the amplitude response follows different linear trends for X-ray energies below and above the respective K-edges, presenting a discontinuity at these energies. An abrupt decrease of about 3%, 5% and 2% were observed in the detector amplitude at the K-edges, for the YAP, the NaI(Tl) and the BaF2 scintillator, respectively, corresponding to a decrease of 0.5±0.1, 1.7±0.3 and 0.8±0.2 keV in the energy calibration line. These discontinuities result in a region within 0.5±0.1, 1.6±0.3 and 0.9±0.2 keV where the X-ray energy cannot be obtained unambiguously. The scintillation yields for X-rays present abrupt decreases of about 3%, 4% and 2%, respectively, at the K-edges. The measured non-linearity effects are significantly larger than those obtained for gaseous and semiconductor detectors. The higher amplitude non-linearity observed in NaI(Tl) is attributed to the larger light yield non-linearity in the electron response of this crystal.

A simple circuit based on a fast operational amplifier, a comparator and a few additional components is used as the basic building block for a high speed analog-to-digital converter of the cascade-encoder type. The properties of this circuit and the performance of an implementation using standard components are discussed. Its potential for LSI is considered

Toxicity tests with aquatic organisms constitute an effective tool in the evaluation, prediction and detection of the potential effect of pollutants from environmental samples in living organisms. Vinasse, a highly colored effluent, is a sub-product rich in nutrients, mainly organic matter, with high pollutant potential when disposed in the environment. Assays for vinasse decolorization were performed using the fungus Pleurotus sajor-caju CCB020 in vinasse biodegradation study, were occurred reductions of 82.8% in COD, 75.3% in BOD, 99.2% in the coloration and 99.7% in turbidity. The vinasse toxicity reduction was determined by the exposition to the following organisms: Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata, Daphnia magna, Daphnia similis and Hydra attenuata. This work concluded that the systematic combination of P. sajor-caju and vinasse can be applied in the bioprocess of color reduction and degradation of complex vinasse compounds, with reduction in the toxicity and improving its physical–chemical properties.

Salt was extracted from saltpans, in the South shore of Tagus River by evaporation of the salted sea water which penetrates into the estuary. The walls and the bottom of those saltpans were made of local clays to retain the sea water, and ceramic sherds have been used to endure those walls and also to allow people to walk on the saltpans’ walls. Those sherds constitute an example of the ceramics production in Lisbon workshops, starting in the mid-16th century and reaching high levels of quality in the 17th and 18th century. A detailed archaeometric study of 14 selected sherds dated from the 16th to the early 18th century has been made and the conjugation of the information provided by the micro-Raman, XRD and XRF experiments for those sherds and clays collected locally, allowed us the characterisation of the Lisbon ceramics in that period. Three main groups could be identified in the ceramic bodies; all made with locally collected clays of Miocene origin. In the first group, the potters used raw materials from the clay sources located at Santa Catarina area in Lisbon, most probably mixed with Lapa clays, which were fired at a high temperatures, ranging from 850ºC to 950ºC. Gehlenite and quartz are the dominant minerals of these ceramic bodies. In the second and third groups of Lisbon ceramic bodies, made with Prazeres clays, diopside was also detected but with variable amounts of gehlenite. Clay formations mineralogy mainly include kaolinite, muscovite/illite, quartz, calcite, and feldspars (albite and microcline).

Salt marshes are ecosystems subjected to a variety of environmental stresses like high salinity, water deficit, intense radiation or high temperatures. Field measurements were conduced in two halophyte species, Atriplex portulacoides L. and Limoniastrum monopetalum L., in the Reserva Natural do Sapal de Castro Marim, to compare their physiological response, i.e., water potential (w), net photosynthetic rate (A), stomatal conductance (gs) under natural conditions. Both species demonstrated marked variations in w throughout the year, with very low values in the summer, the period of higher salinity, drought and temperature. Deficit water potential (Dw = wmidday wpredawn) was lower in the summer than in other seasons in A. portulacoides but not in L. monopetalum. The highest values for A and gs in L. monopetalum were observed in autumn and for A. portulacoides in winter, presenting both lowest values in spring and summer. Amax was particularly high for L. monopetalum than for A. portulacoides in summer and autumn, despite gsmax was similar in both species. Diurnal pattern ofAand gs were similar in both species, with higher values in the morning, decreasing throughout the day.

Single-pixel imaging is an imaging technique that has recently attracted a lot of attention from several areas. This paper presents a study on the influence of the Hadamard basis ordering on the image reconstruction quality, using simulation and experimental methods. During this work, five different orderings, Natural, Walsh, Cake-cutting, High Frequency and Random orders, along with two different reconstruction algorithms, TVAL3 and NESTA, were tested. Also, three different noise levels and compression ratios from 0.1 to 1 were evaluated. A single-pixel camera was developed using a digital micromirror device for the experimental phase. For a compression ratio of 0.1, the Cake-cutting order achieved the best reconstruction quality, while the best contrast was achieved by Walsh order. For compression ratios of 0.5, the Walsh and Cake-cutting orders achieved similar results. Both Walsh and Cake-cutting orders reconstructed the images with good quality using compression ratios from 0.3. Finally, the TVAL3 algorithm showed better image reconstruction quality, in comparison with NESTA, when considering compression ratios from 0.1 to 0.5.