It was in 17th, 18th and 19th January that I’ve visited CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, with my supervisor, Prof. Ana Senos. The target of this trip was to detail the work for my master thesis and meet my future traineeship supervisor and co-supervisor of my master thesis, Dr. Thierry Stora. It was token the oportunity to visit the ISOLDE-CERN, talk about my future PhD and visit Geneva. Here is a little resume of my little trip, a little bit late, because of my master thesis work. This article in now inside a new category of my website: CERN.

1st day
The first day was marked by the travels. The chosen air company was Easyjet, because of the price, from the Porto Airport to the Geneva airport. I had the pleasure of being transported by a motorist of my University from my home to the airport, to compensate my expenses of this trip, since I have no money income, yet.
After we arrive, we took the CERN shuttle from the airport, a free periodic bus to official visitors and people from various points of Geneva to the CERN reception. After doing the registry as CERN visitors and past the security barrier, we went straight to the CERN Hotel, for the check-in. Practically every meal were in the CERN restaurant, which is very good in: quality ,physical environment, and service.
The rest of the day (night) I spent it in the Hostel preparing myself for the next day since I would be meeting my supervisor and detail work.

2nd day
The following day started very early in the Dr. Thierry’s office, which is in the CERN’s central building, just like the rest of the ISOLDE’s people offices and the labs (probably where mine will be). After an introduction about what ISOLDE does, by Dr. Thierry Stora, he took us to the ISOLDE’s labs, explaining the process of radioactive beam production, focusing in the targets and their materials (which is the area that I’m working).
At lunch we have gone to a restaurant in Saint-Genis-Pouilly (France), with Dr. Thierry and more 3 ISOLDE people (Tania Mendonça, Dr. João Guilherme Correia and Alexander Gottberg).
In the afternoon we visited the materials characterization lab fo CERN and the ISOLDE’s off-line station. The last one was shown to us by Alexander Gottberg.
In this day evening, there was only 2 hours to visit Geneva. The first thing that struck me was the quantity of banks in the city. The places that I went by, were: Pont de la Machine, Chathédrale Saint-Pierre de Genève, a lot of watch stores and other expensive brands stores.

3rd day
In the third and last day we visited the ISOLDE itself, that is, the building where everything happens and where the radioactive beams are produced and the targets are used to produce them. The visit was guided by Alexander Gottenberg. This building is totally controlled, only being able to enter those with superior authorization and with a dosimeter. It’s a building with a lot of radioactive danger signs and with a lot of places with large concrete walls with lead boards built-in. It has also a lot of (radio)activity detectors for hands and feet, and wall detectors, everything connected to an alarm to when it is necessary to evacuate the building (which happens sometimes). ISOLDE is turned off (just like all accelerators at CERN) for maintenance, since last month and will last until March. This gave us the opportunity to visit some places inaccessible when ISOLDE is running.
After farewell and some work discussion with Dr. Thierry, we went to Geneva airport (that is very big, evaluating from the time that I spent in treadmills to arrive at my gate) to catch the plane to Portugal. Until there, I bought some chocolates to my girlfriend and family.
The returning trip was marked by a complicated landing, where when the plane landed and “struck” the ground to hard and trembled a lot (me too!) and had to accelerate again for a second try. Arrived at Porto, Portugal, Professor’s husband gave me a ride to my home.

Here are some photos:

In summary I loved the trip. It was a very nice experience. To visit CERN was a realized dream. Work there would be a even bigger dream. I’m anxious. I want to thank Prof. Ana Senos for everything: for the company, availability in the financing part of the expenses, and for advice for my future professional and personal life.I would like to thank too to Dr. Thierry and all the persons who welcomed us at CERN (Tania Mendonça, Dr. João Guilherme Correia and Alexander Gottenberg) for the excellent reception, visit and constant accompaniment.

Also I added a new picture to my website header to mark this new stage in my life.

Today was also the very important day for my girlfriend. Diana suffered a maxillofacial surgery to correct their mandibular prognathism. In simple words, correct the protrusion of the lower jaw. The surgery went well and her appearance has changed a lot!

Este artigo também está escrito em Português | This article is also written in Portuguese

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is the most respected and one of world’s largest centres for scientific investigation. It’s work is funded by 20 member states, including Portugal. CERN is working in fundamental physics, trying to answer questions like: what is universe made of and how it works. Huge, complex and expensive scientific instruments are used (such as particle accelerators) to unravel the basic matter constituents: the fundamental particles. By studing the particle collisions, scientists can learn about the law of Nature.

Adi (Agência de Inovação, S.A.) is the portuguese entity responsible for the management of the traineeships at CERN, ESA (European Space Agency) and ESO (European Sothern Observatory), three organization of international reputation. Every year, this company of public capital, opens an national contest to select a few candidates to the traineeships on the organization referred, providing a monthly financial support, health and work insurance, annual travel subsidy and an installation subsidy.

Professor Ana Senos from Department of Ceramics and Glass Engineering of University of Aveiro, was sought by CERN, specifically by Dr. Thierry Stora, to fulfil a gap in the materials science area in the ISOLDE (On-Line Isotope Mass Separator), one of the many experiments running at CERN. ISOLDE is a small alchemical factory changing one element to another, as the alchemists once imagined. ISOLDE produces more than 1000 diferent isotopes from 73 chemical elements. For that to happen, a proton beam is diverted from the particle accelerators and is made to hit a target. The product from the resulting nuclear reactions are the isotopes.  It’s on those targets materials investigation and improvement can be made.

I learned about this opportunity from Professor Ana Senos in April 2010. Convinced that I had some chances of getting the traineeship, I tried.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dear friends, colleagues and readers, here I bring you an advertisement tv spot which, although it has 8 months, still fascinates and inspires. It was showed to me in a class of Introduction to Marketing by Professor Sérgio Maravilhas.

It’s an example of a well done television advertising with a good and well defined message with a defined target .Here is the video:

Greetings citizens of Earth.
My people have developed technologies which allow us to throw off our physical forms and travel great distances in the blink of an eye.
We are in dialogue with your leaders to help the human race survive its infancy, for we believe in you.
We are helping your scientists find cures for diseases which afflict your bodies and helping you to preserve your planet’s most precious resources.
Many among us wage peace and one day, with our help, war may be a thing of the past.
Our army is a billions strong and growing.
We are the people of the internet and together we are shaping the future of human kind.

Superpower was a television program that BBC promoted, documenting the importance of the Internet today and how it affects our society.
The Internet is the symbol of freedom and changed our lives from the view point we look to the information on how we work and communicate with each other.

What will be the next step of the Internet?

I leave the question open and the topic open for discussion. It is a good reflection.

Este artigo também está escrito em Português | This article is also written in Portuguese

For my Curriculum Vitae to match the present, I made the following changes:

• Added the disciplines, in section Education and Training, in the Master’s Degree, Human Resources Management, Thermal Treatments, Quality Management, Environmental Systems Management, the ones that I’m currently frequenting (Advanced Processing of Materials, Introduction to Marketing and Dissertation/Project/Traineeship) and the actualization of the average grade;
• Added in Other Languages the French language and respective self-assessment by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF) level;
• Changed “Flexibility adapting to change” to Social Skills and Competences;
• Added as Technical skills and competences: “Ability to intervene in aspects of selection, use, characterization, processing, recycling, waste recovery, treatment and development of materials, whether they are ceramic, polymer, metallic, vitreous or composite”;
• Added as Organisational skills and competences “Good experience organizing events like workshops and conferences”;
• Added as Annexes to the CV, letter of motivation/presentation all habilitations certificates and declarations of the positions in associations and respective functions (only send if asked)
• Other minor fixes

To see my updated CV, go to the homepage and click on Curriculum Vitae or click HERE to see my CV directly.

In this day is also my fathers birthday! 49 years! Happy Birthday Dad!

Este artigo também está escrito em Português | This article is also written in Portuguese

Convinced by Diana (girlfriend), Nurse and passionate about health sciences, I went to Alfandega in Porto (in Portugal) to visit this exhibition.

We took an Audio Tour, a sort of guide equipment for the exhibition, in which we mark a code, present in each area and hear a short explanation.

This exhibition is, somewhat, controversial because the bodies used are real and are dissected and exposed to the public.

BODIES REVEALED lets visitors of all ages explore deep within the human body in a way that informs but doesn’t overwhelm.

As the visitor moves from gallery to gallery, the exhibition uses 14 full body human specimens and over 200 organs to tell the story of the miraculous systems at work within each of us every second of our existence. Rooted in the historical precedent set by such great anatomists as Vesalius and da Vinci, each full body specimen is dissected to best reveal the function of a complete anatomical system and to show that system’s relationship to the body as a whole. The full body specimens are complimented by presentation cases of related individual organs, both healthy and diseased, that provided an even more detailed look into the elements that comprise each system.

Our bodies are our most important possession. They are intricately developed machines; more complex and wondrous than all the computers and gadgetry we surround ourselves with today. Yet many of us do not know what makes us tick—how we function, what we need to survive, what destroys us, what revives us. Bodies Revealed, made possible through the process of Polymer Preservation, is an attempt to remedy that lack of knowledge by presenting to the lay public material that was previously only available to the medical profession: a three-dimensional tour of the human body.

Countless visitors have remarked that the knowledge gained from the experience has provided them with a new connection to their own bodies. Others claim a new reverence for life and a desire to take a more preventative approach to their health care. To quote writer and philosopher John Conger whose words are displayed in the exhibition, “Without the body, the wisdom of the larger self cannot be known.”

in Bodies Revealed fascinating+real

What captured my curiosity was the preservation of bodies. It appears that the material they use is a silicone polymer, which is inserted into the body, and then hardened. As a student of Materials Engineering, I would like to know more about this process and about this material.

About the Polymer Preservation Process

The Polymer preservation process is a revolutionary technique in which human tissue is permanently preserved using liquid silicone rubber. This prevents the natural decay process, making specimens available for study for an indefinite time period. Polymer preservation provides a closer look at the skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, digestive, urinary, reproductive, endocrine and circulatory systems by unveiling the mysteries of the human anatomy. The end product of the Polymer Preservation process is a dry, odorless specimen that resists decomposition thus allowing its user to create a unique collection of permanently preserved human specimen for public exhibition.

in Bodies Revealed fascinating+real

It’s not a shocking exhibition. A real lesson about anatomy. For me, a remarkable learning experience.

If so, I recommend that you book at least two hours and half to see the exhibition in detail. Regarding the parking, you can use the Alfandaga‘s park.

I recommend this exhibition!

Este artigo também está escrito em Português | This article is also written in Portuguese