615 research outputs found
The usefulness of accounting information and management accounting practices under environmental uncertainty
The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we aim to investigate the relationships among environmental uncertainty, broad-scope and timely management accounting information usefulness, and (traditional and contemporary) management accounting practices (MAPs) usage. Secondly, we intend to explore how these relationships influence decision-makers’ satisfaction with management accounting information. Survey data were obtained through an online questionnaire from 114 large manufacturing companies operating in Portugal. The findings indicate a positive relationship between environmental uncertainty and timely management accounting information usefulness and between (broad-scope and timely) management accounting information usefulness and (traditional and contemporary) MAPs usage. The findings also show that decision-makers’
satisfaction with management accounting information improves when there is a good fit between environmental uncertainty, broad-scope and timely management accounting information usefulness, and MAPs usage. In this way, organisations need to adjust the implementation and usage of MAPs to contextual factors, using both contemporary and traditional MAPs, to achieve greater decision-makers’ satisfaction with management accounting information. Thus, the results achieved in this study are useful for both theory and practice and have several implications for professionals engaged in MAPs implementation and decision-making activities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Heterogeneous catalysis for the synthesis of carbon dots (CDs) from biomass source
It has been evaluated the capacity of several phosphate-based acid catalysts of transition metals such as vanadium and niobium in the synthesis of carbon dots (CDs) via a hydrothermal process. For this purpose, two sources of carbohydrates have been used: commercial xylose and liqueur of xylose obtained from the treatment of olive pits. Catalysts were characterized by means of NH3-TPD, DTA/TG, XRD and XPS. The reaction was carried out at 180 °C and reaction time was varied between 2 and 4h. The properties and characteristics of CDs nanoparticles were analysed confirming the existence of such nanoparticles irrespective the carbohydrate source. In terms of CDs quality, both syntheses produced comparable results. At the same time, N doped CDs with enhanced fluorescence were also synthesized following a kindred hydrothermal process and the photocatalytic activity was studied. With the aim of evaluating the environmental impact of the synthesis from commercial xylose versus the synthesis from biomass, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis was carried out for both syntheses. It showed that the most sustainable synthesis route is the one that uses commercial xylose as carbonaceous feedstock. Furthermore, while electricity is the main contributor to all impact categories in both synthesis routes, the main differences that determine their relative sustainability are associated with the identity of the carbon precursor.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech
A natural food ingredient based on ergosterol: Optimization of the extraction from: Agaricus blazei, evaluation of bioactive properties and incorporation in yogurts
In recent years, mycosterols have emerged as potential functional ingredients for the development of
sterol-enriched food products and dietary supplements. Agaricus blazei is a mushroom rich in bioactive
compounds. For commercial purposes, their fruiting bodies must obey rigid morphological criteria. Those
not conforming to these criteria are usually discarded, although this does not mean impairment of their
content in bioactives. The aim of the present work was to propose the use of commercially discarded
A. blazei fruiting bodies for obtaining an extract rich in ergosterol as a fortifier ingredient for yogurts. For
extraction, the Soxhlet technology was used and the highest ergosterol yield (around 12%) was achieved
in the 5th cycle, yielding 58.53 ± 1.72 μg of ergosterol per 100 g of mushroom (dry weight). The ergosterol
rich extract presented notable antioxidant and antimicrobial properties, besides showing no hepatotoxicity.
When added to the yogurts it significantly enhanced their antioxidant properties. Furthermore, it
did not significantly alter the nutritional or the individual fatty acid profiles of the final dairy products.
Thus, A. blazei fruiting bodies that do not conform to the commercial requirements of the market and are
normally discarded could be exploited for obtaining a natural high added-value food additive, following
the circular bioeconomy concept.R. C. G. Correa thanks the CAPES Foundation, Ministry of
Education, Brazil (CAPES fellow, process number
88881.120010/2016-01), for the financial support provided for
her postdoctoral research in the Polytechnic Institute of
Bragança. The authors are grateful to the Foundation for
Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) and the FEDER under
Programme PT2020 for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/
00690/2013), L. Barros contract and A. Fernandes grant (SFRH/
BPD/114753/2016). This work was also funded by the
European Structural and Investment Funds (FEEI) through the
Regional Operational Program North 2020, within the scope of
Project Mobilizador ValorNatural®. Rosane Marina Peralta and
Adelar Bracht are recipients of scientific productivity research
grants from CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil), grants numbers 307944/2015-
8 and 304090/2016-6, respectively. M. Sokovic is grateful for
financial support to the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technological Development of Republic of Serbia, Grant No.
173032.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Clinical outcomes of patients with acute myeloid leukemia: evaluation of genetic and molecular findings in a real-life setting
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A Experiência do Êxtase: Categorizando os Processos Envolvidos na Ampliação da Consciência
Structural assessment, toxicity, and increased antimicrobial activity
Scorpion venom is a rich source of biologically active components and various peptides with high-potential therapeutic use that have been characterized for their antimicrobial and antiproliferative activities. Stigmurin is a peptide identified from the Tityus stigmurus venom gland with high antibacterial and antiproliferative activities and low toxicity. Amino acid substitutions in peptides without a disulfide bridge sequence have been made with the aim of reducing their toxicity and increasing their biological activities. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the structural conformation and structural stability, as well as antimicrobial, antiproliferative, and hemolytic activities of two peptide analogs to Stigmurin, denominated StigA6 and StigA16. In silico analysis revealed the α-helix structure for both analog peptides, which was confirmed by circular dichroism. Data showed that the net charge and hydrophobic moment of the analog peptides were higher than those for Stigmurin, which can explain the increase in antimicrobial activity presented by them. Both analog peptides exhibited activity on cancerous cells similar to the native peptide; however, they were less toxic when tested on the normal cell line. These results reveal a potential biotechnological application of the analog peptides StigA6 and StigA16 as prototypes to new therapeutic agents.publishersversionpublishe
EUPRON: nurses’ practice in interprofessional pharmaceutical care in Europe. A cross-sectional survey in 17 countries
Abstract Objectives Safe pharmaceutical care (PC) requires an interprofessional team approach, involving physicians, nurses and pharmacists. Nurses’ roles however, are not always explicit and clear, complicating interprofessional collaboration. The aim of this study is to describe nurses’ practice and interprofessional collaboration in PC, from the viewpoint of nurses, physicians and pharmacists. Design A cross-sectional survey. Setting The study was conducted in 17 European countries, each with their own health systems. Participants Pharmacists, physicians and nurses with an active role in PC were surveyed. Main outcome measures Nurses’ involvement in PC, experiences of interprofessional collaboration and communication and views on nurses’ competences. Results A total of 4888 nurses, 974 physicians and 857 pharmacists from 17 European countries responded. Providing patient education and information (PEI), monitoring medicines adherence (MMA), monitoring adverse/therapeutic effects (ME) and prescribing medicines were considered integral to nursing practice by 78%, 73%, 69% and 15% of nurses, respectively. Most respondents were convinced that quality of PC would be improved by increasing nurses’ involvement in ME (95%), MMA (95%), PEI (91%) and prescribing (53%). Mean scores for the reported quality of collaboration between nurses and physicians, collaboration between nurses and pharmacists and interprofessional communication were respectively <7/10, ≤4/10, <6/10 for all four aspects of PC. Conclusions ME, MMA, PEI and prescribing are part of nurses’ activities, and most healthcare professionals felt their involvement should be extended. Collaboration between nurses and physicians on PC is limited and between nurses and pharmacists even more
Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies
Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost
universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade.
Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this
time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of
available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the
modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of
multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed
galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major
ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay
between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models,
and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic
measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting
can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies,
such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and
metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet
there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in
a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the
influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The
challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the
observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will
be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where
the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the
text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics &
Space Scienc
Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The elliptic, , triangular, , and quadrangular, , azimuthal
anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles,
pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the
event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the
pseudo-rapidity range at different collision centralities and as a
function of transverse momentum, , out to GeV/.
The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on
transverse momentum for GeV/. The small dependence
of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane
and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow
fluctuations up to GeV/. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton
elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least
GeV/ indicating that the particle type dependence persists out
to high .Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published
version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186
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