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This report presents the conceptual design of a new European research infrastructure EuPRAXIA. The concept has been established over the last four years in a unique collaboration of 41 laboratories within a Horizon 2020 design study funded by the European Union. EuPRAXIA is the first European project that develops a dedicated particle accelerator research infrastructure based on novel plasma acceleration concepts and laser technology. It focuses on the development of electron accelerators and underlying technologies, their user communities, and the exploitation of existing accelerator infrastructures in Europe. EuPRAXIA has involved, amongst others, the international laser community and industry to build links and bridges with accelerator science — through realising synergies, identifying disruptive ideas, innovating, and fostering knowledge exchange. The Eu-PRAXIA project aims at the construction of an innovative electron accelerator using laser- and electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration that offers a significant reduction in size and possible savings in cost over current state-of-the-art radiofrequency-based accelerators. The foreseen electron energy range of one to five gigaelectronvolts (GeV) and its performance goals will enable versatile applications in various domains, e.g. as a compact free-electron laser (FEL), compact sources for medical imaging and positron generation, table-top test beams for particle detectors, as well as deeply penetrating X-ray and gamma-ray sources for material testing. EuPRAXIA is designed to be the required stepping stone to possible future plasma-based facilities, such as linear colliders at the high-energy physics (HEP) energy frontier. Consistent with a high-confidence approach, the project includes measures to retire risk by establishing scaled technology demonstrators. This report includes preliminary models for project implementation, cost and schedule that would allow operation of the full Eu-PRAXIA facility within 8—10 years.

We identify a novel mechanism for magnetic field generation in the interaction of intense electromagnetic waves and underdense plasmas. We show that Raman scattered plasma waves trap and heat the electrons preferentially in their propagation direction, resulting in a temperature anisotropy. In the trail of laser pulse, we observe magnetic field growth which matches the Weibel mechanism due to the temperature anisotropy. We discuss the role of the initial electron temperature in our results. The predictions are confirmed with multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We show how this configuration is an experimental platform to study the long-time evolution of the Weibel instability.

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The study of dust intrusions in Portugal is still a subject on which little investigation has been made, especially in terms of their effects. Thus, this work aims to achieve two goals: firstly, to characterize the dust intrusions in the study area; and secondly, to evaluate the possible statistical association between the dust intrusion days and hospital admissions due to respiratory diseases. Dust intrusions in Portugal are prevalent during the summer season. During this season, the dust plumes tend to cover broader areas than in the other seasons and they have origin in the North African countries. In the study area for the period between 2005 and 2015, the relative risk of urgent hospitalizations due to respiratory diseases was 12.6% higher during dust intrusion days. In order to obtain this statistical association, a Distributed Lag Nonlinear Model was developed. With this work, we expect to help the development of further studies regarding North African dust intrusions in Portugal, more precisely their effects on human health.

Due to the lack of a general drought definition, water users and managers have developed and used different indices. Many studies using drought indices have been made so as to detect drought events or just to compare their results and assess their advantages and disadvantages. In Portugal, these studies have been done for common drought indices; however, an integrated evaluation and comparison using recent data is needed. Therefore, this study is intended to give an updated overview of the behaviour of the proposed indices. This study proposes the usage of PDSI, scPDSI, SPI and SPEI. With the exception of the PDSI, all indices have been calculated through R packages. The results for the studied regions in mainland Portugal suggest that the drought situations are, in general, most significant and frequent than the wet periods. From our results, we can conclude that the SPI model is more sensitive to extreme drought events and can detect them earlier. The PDSI, scPDSI and SPEI are more reliable for drought monitorization at medium and long spells, which might represent the environmental interactions more closely to the reality. Also, the scPDSI tends to reduce the importance of short period recovering. It is then advisable that impact and scientifical studies consider all of these indices or at least some of them to have a broader and complete understanding of the drought situations to be studied.

As malformações congênitas, deformidades e anomalias cromossômicas são qualquer tipo alteração da estrutura anatômica normal, presente ao nascimento. Resultam em defeitos na estrutura, forma e/ou função de órgãos, células ou componentes celulares presentes antes do nascimento e surgidas em qualquer fase do desenvolvimento fetal, e estima-se que cerca de 3% dos recém-nascidos tenham uma grande anomalia. Diante da relevância que as patologias associadas às malformações congênitas apresentam, é importante realizar estudo epidemiológico sobre malformações congênitas, deformidades e anomalias cromossômicas, no Nordeste do Brasil, de 2014-2018, para que se conheça a realidade da nossa região frente ao problema de saúde pública que tais patologias configuram. Assim, o objetivo deste estudo foi estudar as malformações congênitas no Nordeste do Brasil de 2014-2018.Foi realizado estudo epidemiológico, com dados secundários oriundos do Sistema de Informação do SUS-DATASUS. Os dados foram tabulados em planilhas Excel® e submetidos à análise estatística através do Programa Bioestat 5.3, no qual foram realizadas a estatística descritiva e análise de variância, considerando-se o nível de significância de 95%(p<0.05). Ocorreram no período em estudo n=98310 internações por malformações congênitas. Dentre os Estados, destacou-se a Bahia (n=26550). Quanto à faixa etária os menores de 1 ano foram mais atingidos (n=26258). Quanto ao sexo, houve predomínio no sexo masculino (n=55700). A raça parda foi mais afetada (n=41927) e as malformações do aparelho circulatório foram mais frequentes (21,4%). A mortalidade por malformações congênitas foi de n=2822, mais frequentes em < 1 ano (n=2149) e dentre os Estados, houve mais óbitos na Bahia (n=603 óbitos). Considera-se que ocorreu um grande número de internações por malformações congênitas no Nordeste brasileiro, bem como ocorreram óbitos por tais patologias, mais frequentes em menores de 1 ano. A realização de estudos epidemiológicos, podem subsidiar melhorias na fundamentação de políticas públicas visando melhorias no que se refere à prevenção, diagnóstico e tratamento de tais patologias.

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