Ethical-moral courses of action and active citizenship in health students

Abstract Introduction: The practice of active citizenship, ethical-moral courses of action and civic, moral and ethics education are essentials for ethical decision making in health. Objetive: To determine if gender influences students’ ethical- moral course of action. Methods: Descriptive study with a non-probabilistic sample of 85 students enrolled in the 1st cycle of the health degree. Results: Of the participants surveyed 61.2% were found to say that action should take into account their moral principles, with ethical/ moral subjectivism prevailing; 44.7% consider that one should “Do what will have the best consequences for the greatest number of people”, with the principle of utilitarianism being significant; 55.3% think that “An action is ethically good” if “It is in accordance with morality”, thereby highlighting subjectivism/relativism; 45.9% believe that “ethical-moral values” “are relative and vary from society to society” agreeing with relativism as an explanatory principle for action. Males showed a greater tendency to support their decision-making with the principle of objectivism, (Fischer=.010). Conclusion: The results suggest that students’ ethical-moral education is required to promote an ethical-moral course of action in their professional practice. Thus, universities with their health courses should be at the forefront of this education, making their graduates ambassadors/interveners of a way of knowing and of being as well as promoters of the dignity of the citizen of the modern world.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Production of insect protein hydrolysates: a multifactorial study

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Black soldier fly: a new perspective as a functional and sustainable ingredient

The world population has been expected by the Food and Agriculture Organization ( of the United Nations to rise to over 9 billion by 2050 requiring an intensification in food production While the increase in human population efforts the demand for food, there is a concomitant decrease in accessible land resources needed to produce this food, which is likely to be exacerbated by global warming (Lange and Nakamura, 2021 The production and use of edible insects has arisen as one of the most fascinating alternative sources of proteins Insect rearing has several advantages related to environmental sustainability comparing to cattle raising, namely insects emit less greenhouse gases, require less land and water and present high feed conversion efficiency Insects are a highly nutritious source of food, with high protein, fat, vitamin, mineral and fiber content The nutritional profile of edible insects depends on the species and can be highly variable (Borges et al 2023 Lange and Nakamura, 2021 Hermetia illucens designated as black soldier fly ( is attractive as a food/feed because is a non infesting species contrary to Musca domestica (i e common fly) BSF larvae ( are avid consumers of decomposing organic matter and able to convert efficiently huge amounts of waste or spoiled food into biomass As for its chemical components, BSF prepupa is composed to 37 g/ 100 g lipids, 32 g/ 100 g proteins, 19 g/ 100 g mineral salts (including micronutrients, such as iron and zinc), and 9 g/ 100 g chitin (Montevecchi et al 2021 BSFL are a well recognized nutritious source with a high protein content In this context, enzymatic hydrolysis can be a promising process for the development of new insect based ingredients with improved bioactive properties This approach is widely used as a way to obtain bioactive peptides from various food matrices such soy protein milk protein, fish protein, egg white protein, among others Therefore, this work aimed to evaluate the potential of BSFL to generate bioactive peptides via enzymatic hydrolysis, with antioxidant and anti hypertensive potentialinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Potentiality of protein hydrolysates from Tenebrio molitor for health and nutrition

The world's population counts more than 7.8 billion people, and it is predicted that by the year 2050, this number will be close to 10 billion. Increasing agricultural and animal production will obviously have an influence on population growth and food demand, which will increase deforestation, water usage, and greenhouse gas emissions. This scenario emphasizes the importance of adopting a more sustainable andbalanced food source that prioritizes food safety, biodiversity and an efficient distribution of high-quality proteins for the entire world's population. Emergent and sustainable food sources comprise vegetables, microorganisms and insects (Barbosa et al. 2023). In recent years, edible insects have gain popularity due to their nutritional value, as they are a great source of dietary protein (approximately 60%), essential amino acids, fat and minerals. In countries where malnutrition is common, insects may offer a potential solution for mineral deficiencies (such as zinc and iron). Several peptides and amino acid sequences have been identified within a wide range of dietary proteins, which have been associated with bioactive properties. These have been identified, for example, for their antihypertensive, antioxidant, antidiabetic, immunomodulatory and mineral-binding properties (Nongonierma and FitzGerald 2017, Sousa et al. 2020). In addition, insects are environmentally sustainable due to the lower greenhouse gas emissions, less soil and water consumption, and have higher feed conversion efficiency than traditional livestock (Borges et al. 2023). In this study, Tenebrio molitor protein were broken down enzymatically into bioactive peptides and individual amino acids, in order to provide a promising source of nutritional and health compounds.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fish by-products as a source of proteolytic enzymes and bioactive peptides

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Influence of CO2 laser beam modelling on electronic and electrochemical properties of paper-based laser-induced graphene for disposable pH electrochemical sensors

Funding Information: This work is funded by National Funds through FCT I.P. , under the scope of projects UIDB/50025/2020–2023. Authors also acknowledge funding from project BEST , grant Nos. ALT20–03–0247-FEDER-113469 and LISBOA-01–0247-FEDER-113469 . J. C. acknowledges the Santander/NOVA2021 Collaborative Research Award—Graphene Smart Bandages for Diabetic Foot Ulcer Monitoring, Reference GSBDFULM. T. Pinheiro acknowledges funding from FCT I.P. through the PhD Grant DFA /BD/8606/2020 Publisher Copyright: © 2023Laser-induced graphene (LIG) allows for the fabrication of cost-effective, flexible electrodes on a multitude of recyclable and sustainable substrates, for implementation within electrochemical biosensors. This work expands on current LIG research, by experimentally modeling the effects of several CO2 laser irradiation variables towards resulting conductive and electrochemical properties of paper-derived LIG. Instead of relying on the established paradigm of manipulating power and scan speed of the laser irradiation process for optimized outcomes, modeling of underlying laser operation principles for pulse modulation, regarding pulse repetition frequencies, pulse duration and defocus are presented as the key aspects dominating graphitization processes of materials. This approach shows that graphitization is dominated by appropriate pulse durations, dictating the time the substrate is exposed to each laser pulse, with laser fluence and irradiation defocus influencing the resulting conductive properties, with sheet resistances as low as 14 Ω sq−1. Similarly, fabrication settings controlled by these parameters have a direct influence on the properties of LIG-based electrochemical three-electrode cells, with optimized fabrication settings reaching electrochemically active surface area as high as 35 mm2 and heterogeneous electron transfer rates of 3.4 × 10−3 cm.s−1. As a proof-of-concept, the production of environmentally friendly, accessible, and biocompatible pH sensors is demonstrated, using two modification approaches, employing riboflavin and polyaniline as pH-sensitive elements.publishersversionpublishe

Valorization of porcine by-products: a combined process for protein hydrolysates and hydroxyapatite production

The meat industry generates large amounts of by-products that are costly to be treated and discarded ecologically; moreover, they could be used to extract high added-value compounds. In this work, we present an innovative combined process which allowed the parallel extraction of both organic and mineral compounds; more specifically protein hydrolysates and single-phase hydroxyapatite were obtained. The protein hydrolysates, extracted through an enzymatic hydrolysis with alcalase, showed a degree of hydrolysis of 53.3 ± 5.1%; moreover, they had a high protein content with peptides with molecular weight lower than 1.2 kDa. Their antioxidant activities, measured with ABTS and ORAC tests, were 21.1 ± 0.5 mg ascorbic acid equivalent/g of dry extract and 87.7 ± 6.3 mg Trolox equivalent/g of dry extract, respectively. Single-phase hydroxyapatite, obtained with a simple calcination at 700 °C on the residues of the hydrolysis process, showed a Ca/P ratio close to the stoichiometric one (1.65 vs. 1.67) and presented a nanometric structure. This study reports a simple and feasible process for the valorization of porcine by-products in a large-scale up generating products with potential applications for environment remediation, biomedicine, nutrition and catalysis/bioenergy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Fish by-products: a source of enzymes to generate circular bioactive hydrolysates

Fish viscera are usually discarded as waste, causing environmental problems, or as low-value by-products. This study describes a self-sufficient and zero waste approach to obtain enzymes and protein hydrolysates from fish by-products. Firstly, recovery steps of viscera enzymatic extract were applied, and the resulting raw extract was stable at a pH range of 8–9 and at temperatures between 40 and 50 °C. The application of the extracted enzymes and alcalase on fish by-products hydrolysis was also determined. The selected conditions for the enzymatic hydrolysis were 10% (E/S) for 6 h using viscera enzymatic extract and 3% (E/S) for 2 h using alcalase. Fish protein hydrolysates (FPH) proved to have a notable antioxidant capacity with similar activity, ~11 mg ascorbic acid/g dry extract (ABTS assay) and ~150 mg Trolox/g dry extract (ORAC assay). FPH were also able to inhibit the angiotensin-converting enzyme, however, alcalase hydrolysates revealed a higher antihypertensive potential, IC50 of 101 µg of protein/mL. In general, FPH obtained by both enzymes systems maintained these bioactivities after the passage throughout a simulated gastrointestinal tract. The hydrolysates also displayed important technological properties, namely oil absorption capacity (~1 g oil/g sample) and emulsifying property (~40%). Therefore, it will be conceivable to use fish by-products based on a circular economy approach to generate added value compounds for animal and human nutritioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

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Evaluation of nickel and copper catalysts in biogas reforming for hydrogen production in SOFC

The solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) enable the efficient generation of clean energy, fitting the current requirementsof the growing demand for electricity and for the environment preservation. When powered with biogas(from digesters of municipal wastes), the SOFCs also contribute to reduce the environmental impact ofthese wastes. The most suitable route to produce hydrogen inside SOFC from biogas is through dry reformingbut the catalyst is easily deactivated by coke, because of the high amounts of carbon in the stream. Apromising way to overcome this drawback is by adding a second metal to nickel-based catalysts. Aiming toobtain active, selective and stable catalysts for biogas dry reforming, solids based on nickel (15%) and copper(5%) supported on aluminum and magnesium oxide were studied in this work. Samples were prepared byimpregnating the support with nickel and copper nitrate, followed by calcination at 500, 600 and 800 oC. Itwas noted that all solids were made of nickel oxide, nickel aluminate and magnesium aluminate but no coppercompound was found. The specific surface areas did not changed with calcination temperature but thenickel oxide average particles size increased. The solids reducibility decreased with increasing temperature.All catalysts were active in methane dry reforming, leading to similar conversions but different selectivitiesto hydrogen and different activities in water gas shift reaction (WGSR). This behavior was assigned to differentinteractions between nickel and copper, at different calcination temperatures. All catalysts were active inWGSR, decreasing the hydrogen to carbon monoxide molar ratio and producing water. The catalyst calcinedat 500 oC was the most promising one, leading to the highest hydrogen yield, besides the advantage of beingproduced at the lowest calcination temperature, requiring less energy in its preparation