Physical activity levels in physiotherapy bachelor students

Background: Physical activity is one of the best ways to promote health. University students are exposed to a series of obstacles to the practice of physical activity. Health professionals, more than prescribing physical exercise, and in particular physiotherapists, should be examples of healthy lifestyles and exercise practice, it is therefore important to have an estimate of the level of activity physical activity in students, in order to identify means of promoting it in Physiotherapy students. Objective: Describe the level of physical activity of students enrolled in the Physiotherapy Bachelor degree at the Escola Superior de Saúde do Alcoitão (ESSA) in the 4 years of the course. Methods: During 2018 the level of physical activity of 99 students was evaluated, using the short version of the International Questionnaire of Physical Activity (IPAQ), distributed to the students of the 4 years of the Physiotherapy Bachelor degree using an online survey. Results: In relation to the number of days of physical activity (59.8%) of the students answered that they practice physical activity every day of the week and only (4.1%) of the individuals answered that they do not practice any day, being that in men the level of moderate activity predominates, whereas in women there is a dispersion through the three levels of activity. The first year is what reveals a higher percentage in the activity level low (46.2%) and lower in the high activity level (38.5%) compared with other school years. Discussion: Based on the results obtained in this study, health professionals should note that the transition to higher education is a critical time to promote physical activity and implement new programs of physical activity mainly among women and in the first year of the course where to be observed a lower level of physical activity. Conclusion: In addition to having skills, for the prescription and monitoring of physical exercise, physiotherapists should be an example of a healthy lifestyle and regular practice of physical activity.N/

Cubus: autonomous embodied characters to stimulate creative idea generation in groups of children

Creativity is an ability that is crucial in nowadays societies. It is, therefore, important to develop activities that stimulate creativity at a very young age. It seems, however, that there is a lack of tools to support these activities. In this paper, we introduce Cubus, a tool that uses autonomous synthetic characters to stimulate idea generation in groups of children during a storytelling activity. With Cubus, children can invent a story and use the stop-motion technique to record a movie depicting it. In this paper, we explain Cubus’ system design and architecture and present the evaluation of Cubus’ impact in a creative task. This evaluation investigated idea generation in groups of children during their creative process of storytelling. Results showed that the autonomous behaviors of Cubus’ virtual agents contributed to the generation of more ideas in children, a key dimension of creativity.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Olive Mill wastewater bioremediation by Bjerkandera paranensis: a sustainability and technological evaluation

Remediation of olive mill wastewater (OMW) is an important issue associated with olive-oil manufacturing, a widespread activity in the Mediterranean area. This high organic loading effluent contains water, organic acids, high-molecular-weight polyphenols such as tannins, antocyanins and catechins, which are considered to be responsible for its brownish black colour and toxic properties. The composition of OMWs is highly variable with respect to each individual component, depending on the process conditions and on the agricultural specificities. In this work, the ability of a “white-rot” fungus, Bjerkandera paranensis, to use undiluted OMW from a two phase process mill (COD = 11.1 gl-1; Phenol Content = 3.9 gl-1; ColourAbs395nm = 7.8) as a substrate was studied. The biodegradation potential of B. paranensis was assessed monitoring several physico-chemical parameters. A chronic ecotoxicity test (Vibrio fisheri growth inhibition test) was carried out to follow the detoxification ability of this fungus. In work, the results demonstrate that OMW was a suitable medium for cultivation of B. paranensis, with corresponding changes in the physico-chemical properties of the OMW. The results showed that B. paranensis removed 93% phenols and 54% COD from the culture medium within 21 days of treatment. In addition, the IC50s values obtained for the different treated samples showed a significant decrease in the effluent chronic toxicity to V. fischeri when the OMW pH was adjusted to 6.0 prior to the treatment (71.8 %), highlighting the OMW detoxification capacity of B. paranensi

Extraction and analysis of long chain fatty acids adsorbed onto active and inactivated anaerobic sludge

Extraction and GC analysis of the adsorbed long chain fatty acids onto active and inactivated sludge taken from two EGSB reactors fed with oleic acid as the sole carbon source at 6 kgCOD/m3.day was determined. No gradual acclimation of sludge to this LCFA was performed. Active sludge had been overloaded with oleic acid in a previous experiment and a possible retrieval of its activity was investigated. However the results revealed that the average removal efficiency was as low as 35% and only 19% of the biogas was methane. In the inactive reactor COD removal efficiency was 14%, corresponding only to physical adsorption, because no methane was produced. Extraction and analysis of the adsorbed fatty acids revealed that in the active sludge palmitic acid was the dominant fatty acid, in average, 3 to 52 times higher than oleic acid. In the inactivated sludge the main fatty acid detected was oleic acid, 8 times higher than palmitic acid

New approaches to olive mill wastes bioremediation

Remediation of olive mill wastewater (OMW) is an important issue associated with olive-oil manufacturing, a widespread activity in the Mediterranean area. This high organic loading effluent contains water, organic acids, high-molecular-weight polyphenols such as tannins, antocyanins and catechins, which are considered to be responsible for its brownish black colour and ecotoxic properties. The composition of OMWs is highly variable with respect to each individual component, depending on the process conditions and on the agricultural specificities. Thus, different approaches are applicable concerning to OMW treatment and valorisation , considering the specificities of its production and in particular the oil extraction process. Besides there are several physical, physico-chemical, biological and combined processes to OMW detoxification, each may represent an opportunity for a specific condition. It is important to explore new possibilities that are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable. Under the biological processes the use of fungi and in particular white-rot fungi present a potential interesting alternative for depollution and biological chemicals production or for protein production for feeding. In this aspect we have been testing the ability of a “white-rot” fungus, Bjerkandera paranensis, to use undiluted OMW from a two phase process mill. A chronic ecotoxicity test (Vibrio fisheri growth inhibition test) demonstrated that the growth of this fungus contributed for a significant decrease of the OMW ecotoxicity and demonstrating the potential for further studies with this strain for an alternative biological route to OMW treatment and valorization

Sequencing adsorption and degradation cycles towards the methanization of long chain fatty acids : comparison between granular and suspended sludge

The aim of the present work was to study the maximum potential methane production in batch assays of sludge samples taken along the operation of two EGSB reactors (RI inoculated with granular sludge and RII inoculated with suspended sludge) fed with increasing oleic acid concentrations between 2 and 8 gCOD/l (HRT=1 day). After removing the residual substrate, the sludge was incubated in batch vials without any added carbon source. A maximum methane production rate of 152±21 mlCH4(STP)/gVS.d was obtained for the RII-suspended sludge taken on day 70, when oleate at a concentration of 2 g COD/l was fed with a cosubstrate (50% COD). The maximum plateau achieved in the methane production curve was 1145±307 mlCH4(STP)/gVS, obtained for the RII-suspended sludge taken on day 162, when oleate was fed as the sole carbon source at 6 g COD/l. Methanization rate of the adsorbed substrate was enhanced under stirring conditions and was inhibited by adding oleic acid. Extraction and GC analysis confirmed that the main adsorbed substrate was palmitate, and not oleate, as previously suspected. These results evidence the advantage of sequencing adsorption and degradation cycles for the treatment of effluents with high lipid content

Anaerobic degradation of oleic acid by suspended and granular sludge : identification of palmitic acid as a key intermediate

The aim of the present work was to study the maximum potential methane production in batch assays of sludge samples taken along the operation of two EGSB reactors (RI inoculated with granular sludge and RII inoculated with suspended sludge) fed with increasing oleic acid concentrations between 2 and 8 gCOD/l (HRT = 1 day). After removing the residual substrate, the sludge was incubated in batch vials without any added carbon source. A maximum methane production rate of 152 ± 21 mlCH4(STP)/gVS.day was obtained for the suspended sludge taken on day 70, when oleate at a concentration of 2 g COD/l was fed with a co-substrate (50% COD). The maximum plateau achieved in the methane production curve was 1145 ± 307 mlCH4(STP)/gVS, obtained for the suspended sludge taken on day 162, when oleate was fed as the sole carbon source at 6 g COD/l. The methanization rate of the adsorbed substrate was enhanced under stirring conditions and was inhibited by adding oleic acid. Extraction and GC analysis confirmed that the main adsorbed substrate was palmitate, and not oleate. Accumulated palmitate adsorbed onto the sludge and further β-oxidation was inhibited when in the presence of oleic acid. If oleic acid was removed from the medium β-oxidation proceeded with methane production. Suspended sludge was more efficient than granular sludge

Knowledge-based fuzzy system for diagnosis and control of an integrated biological wastewater treatment process

A supervisory expert system based on fuzzy logic rules was developed for diagnosis and control of a lab- scale plant comprising anaerobic/anoxic/aerobic modules for combined high rate biological N and C removal. The design and implementation of a computational environment in LabVIEW for data acquisition, plant operation and distributed equipment control is described. A step increase in ammonia concentration from 20 to 60 mg N/L was applied during a trial period of 73 hours. Recycle flow rate from the aerobic to the anoxic module and by-pass flow rate from the influent directly to the anoxic reactor were the output of the fuzzy system that were automatically changed (from 34 to 111 L/day and from 8 to 13 L/day, respectively), when new plant conditions were recognized by the expert system. Denitrification efficiency higher than 85% was achieved 30 hours after the disturbance and 15 hours after the system response at an HRT as low as 1.5 hours. Nitrification efficiency gradually increased from 12 to 50% at an HRT of 3 hours. The system proved to properly react in order to set adequate operating conditions that timely led to recover efficient N and C removal rates.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia , Fundo Social Europeu - BD/1299/2000 , BD/13317/2003

Influence of up-flow velocity on the performance of an anaerobic filter under oleic acid overloads

An upflow velocity of 0.21 m h−1 was optimal to minimize the effect of organic shocks (from 6 to 30 kg COD m−3 d−1) when operating an upflow anaerobic filter for the treatment of an oleic acid-based effluent (50% w/v COD). This value represented the transition between a mass transfer controlled regime and a kinetic regime. Under hydraulic shock loads, an increase in upflow velocity from 0.3 to 0.4 m h−1 decreased the removal efficiency from 68 to 51%