Multidimensional Health Impact of Multicomponent Exercise and Sustainable Healthy Diet Interventions in the Elderly (MED-E): Study Protocol

Data concerning the combined effect of diet and exercise interventions on overall health in the elderly are scarce. The MED-E project's primary aim is to assess the effect of the different 3-month sustainable healthy diet (SHD) and multicomponent training (MT) interventions on several health outcomes in the elderly. A quasi-experimental study assigned older adults into four groups: (1) SHD, (2) MT, (3) SHD + MT, or (4) control group (CG). The SHD intervention included a weekly offer of a mixed food supply and individual and group nutritional sessions on the principles of an SHD. The MT groups were submitted to 50-min exercise sessions three times a week. The primary outcomes were blood biomarkers and metabolic profile alterations that were assessed pre- and post-intervention. Additionally, data on dietary intake and nutritional adequacy, physical fitness, body composition and anthropometry, cognitive function, quality of life, and geographical data were assessed at the same time points. The MED-E project's study protocol and future results will add to knowledge about the importance and beneficial contribution of combined SHD and MT interventions on healthy ageing policies

Carrier dynamics investigated by time resolved optical spectroscopy

We have investigated the transport of carriers in GaAs using time resolved optical spectroscopy with picosecond resolution. Carriers are optically created to the sample surface by an ultra-fast laser pulse. They diffuse and drift throught a thick GaAs layer, until they are captured by an InGaAs quantum well, where they recombine with holes from a p-type doped layer at an inner InGaP barrier. Our study was performed with a set of samples with different GaAs layer thickness. As the GaAs thickness increases, the emission from the quantum well is delayed and its decay slows down significantly. We have investigated the effect of an applied DC field between the surface and the InGaAs quantum well. The transient of the quantum well emission is mostly independent of the applied DC voltage up to field of the order of 20 KV/cm, including both polarities. This is a clear indication that the carrier transport is dominated by ambipolar diffusion due to the Coulomb interaction that strongly couples photoinjected electrons and holes. On the other hand, the decay of the GaAs emission varies signi-cantly when a DC gate voltage is applied such as a current appears at the structure.35335

The influence of the textural properties of activated carbons on acetaminophen adsorption at different temperatures

The influence of temperature (20–40 °C) on the acetaminophen adsorption onto activated carbons with different textures was studied. Different temperature dependences, not explained by kinetic effects, were observed for carbons with different micropore size distribution patterns: adsorption capacity increased for pine gasification residues (Pi-fa) derived carbons and decreased for sisal based materials. No significant variation was seen for carbon CP. The species identified by 1H NMR spectroscopy on the back-extraction solution proved that during the adsorption process exist the conditions required to promote the formation of acetaminophen oligomers which have constrained access to the narrow microporosity. The rotation energy of the dihedral angle between monomers (estimated by electronic DFT methods) showed that conformations in the planar form are less stable than the non-planar conformation (energy barrier of 70 and 23 kJ mol-1), but have critical dimensions similar to the monomer and can access most of the micropore volume. The enthalpy change of the overall process showed that the energy gain of the system (endothermic) for Pi-fa samples (˜40 kJ mol-1) was enough to allow a change in the dimer, or even a larger oligomer, conformation to the planar form. This will permit adsorption in the narrow micropores, thus explaining the uptake increase with temperature. Non-continuous micropore size distributions centered at pore widths close to the critical dimensions of the planar form seem to be crucial for a positive evolution of the adsorption capacity with temperature

Towards an approach to assess Supply Chain Quality Management maturity

Maturity models have been developed in order to help companies to improve organizational performance. Furthermore, due to the globalization and the growing competition, companies need to increase the competitiveness through operational efficiency, internally and in the entire supply chain.In this paper, an approach for the design and implementation of a Supply Chain Quality Management maturity model is presented.The concept of Supply Chain Quality Management has been developed in order to achieve a good integration between the two approaches: Quality Management and Supply Chain Management, and how such integration can help and support the companies to become more effective and efficient.The proposed approach to assess Supply Chain Quality Management maturity incorporates both quantitative and qualitative information to define several levels corresponding to different integration maturity levels. A case study in a world class company of the automotive industry is being used to validate the approach.- This work is sponsored by the Portugal Incentive System for Research and Technological Development. Project in copromotion no 002814/2015 (iFACTORY 2015-2018)