(h)istórias da História Local: à descoberta do Património Local com crianças em idade Pré-escolar

Relatório Final de Prática de Ensino Supervisionada do Mestrado em Educação Pré-escolar e Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico apresentado na Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico de Viana do CasteloO presente relatório final foi elaborado no âmbito da unidade curricular Prática de Ensino Supervisionada (PES), inserida no currículo do Mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico, da Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo e está dividido em 3 partes, começando pela caracterização dos contextos de PES, seguindo-se o trabalho de investigação e, por fim, uma reflexão final sobre todo o processo. (h)istórias da História local: à Descoberta do Património Local com Crianças em Idade Pré-Escolar, pretende ser um contributo para responder à questão “Como promover o Património Local com Crianças em Idade Pré-escolar?”. Assim, este estudo foi concebido através da participação de um grupo de doze crianças, com idades compreendidas entre os quatro e os cinco anos, pertencente a uma turma de Jardim de Infância composta por um total de vinte e duas crianças, numa freguesia do Concelho de Viana do Castelo. Conferindo uma abordagem descritiva e interpretativa com metodologia qualitativa, utilizaram-se como métodos e técnicas de recolha de dados a observação, os trabalhos realizados pelas crianças, os meios audiovisuais e as entrevistas, que permitiram analisar as quatro atividades implementadas, visando alcançar uma ativa construção de conhecimento relativo ao património local. Sustentada pelos resultados obtidos, a conclusão deste estudo assenta no facto de as crianças participantes denotarem genuíno interesse perante o ato de compreender o seu passado quando encorajadas não apenas a experienciar, mas também a tomar parte nos muitos recursos que envolvem o seu património local. Além disso, verificamos o contributo das atividades implementadas para o desenvolvimento do seu sentido de identidade. Assim, verificou-se um consenso entre o que nos apresenta a literatura e o que medra de cada vez que as crianças aprendem conceitos e apreendem teorias embrionárias que contribuem para o desenvolvimento de um processo de pensamento histórico-cultural.This thesis was developed within the course unit Supervised Teaching Practice (STP), a constituent of the curriculum for the Master’s Degree in Preschool and Primary School Education, at the School of Education of Viana do Castelo, and it’s divided into three parts, launching into a depiction of STP’s contexts, followed by the investigation and its end product and, at last, a final deliberation concerning the whole process. Setting forth to Discovering Local Heritage with Preschool Children: Stories from Local History, an answer to how we may enhance local heritage amongst children within their foundation stage was made possible due to the involvement of a group of twelve kids, from four to five years of age, that belonged to a kindergarten classroom which consisted of a total of twenty-two children, in a research based at a parish appertaining to Viana do Castelo’s borough. Assigning a more descriptive and hermeneutic approach to this qualitative research, the process started off with an observation method that relied upon both a non-participant and a participant type of observation. Thus, four distinct activities – such as projects to be developed by the children themselves, stimuli through audiovisual devices, colloquial dialogue, and interviews – were implemented, aiming towards an active assembly of knowledge regarding local heritage. Substantiated by the obtained results, the conclusion to this dissertation focuses on the fact that children this age do seem to find the act of getting to know their past appealing when encouraged to not only experience but also take part in the many resources that enclose their local heritage. Furthermore, we’re able to verify that the appointed activities have contributed towards the development of their sense of identity. Whence might we acknowledge that there’s an agreement between what the literature propounds and that which grows whenever children learn concepts and integrate embryonic theories that contribute towards developing a historic-cultural thought process

Development of a grooming process for an agile software team in the automotive domain

At the current unpredictable technical evolution, the market is demanding an increasingly flexibility from companies to adapt to the pace of change in what customers want. The present research was developed in an automotive company, where software teams are pursuing Agile methodologies to coupe with these challenges. Teams use the Scrum framework, however, lack of efficient communication among team members results in poor performance of the product owner and the development team. In an attempt to solve this issue and according to the needs shared by the teams, this paper proposes a grooming process for a Scrum team. It provides a step-wise approach to work breakdown, from customer requirements elicitation to the development of ready work entities using the user story format. This paper describes how agile methods can support requirements engineering in a software project.This work is supported by: European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project nº 002797; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-002797

Evaluation of different acid hydrolysis in sugarcane bagasse for cellulose-rich extract production

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Cellulose from sugarcane bagasse as a potential prebiotic agent

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Cellulose from sugarcane bagasse as a potential prebiotic agent

Organic farming practices have been slowly replacing intensive agriculture with the use of plant growth promoting bacteria as key factor, as these bacteria interact effectively with plants and increase crop yields. However, despite the potential of bioinoculants, its usage in agriculture is still limited as their efficacy also depends upon other abiotic factors such as the soil type and its nutrients. A novel approach to bypass this limitation is the introduction of prebiotic agents to increase the richness of the soil and thus promote bacterial growth (Arif et., al 2020). Among the possible alternatives for soil supplementation, cellulose constitutes one of the best choices, as it is a renewable carbon source, widely abundant in nature and for which a great number of microorganisms produce enzymes. The aim of this work is to evaluate the prebiotic potential of cellulose, extracted from sugarcane bagasse, as prebiotic agent. To that end, cellulose was firstly extracted from sugarcane bagasse through an optimized procedure comprising an alkaline extraction with sodium hydroxide followed by a bleaching process with hydrogen peroxide. The capacity to promote the growth (prebiotic effect) of three soil representative microorganisms and nitrogen fixators i.e., Rhodococcus sp. EC35, Pseudomonas azotoformans and Chryseobacterium humi was evaluated for two cellulose extracts (i.e., raw cellulose and cellulose pulp) obtained from sugarcane bagasse. The results showed that the extraction process yielded ca. 63% and 42% for raw cellulose and cellulose pulp, respectively, being both extracts effective as prebiotic agents for the target microorganisms. Growth rates of 38 and 68% for Rhodococcus sp., and of 67 and 84% for C. humi was found for cellulose pulp and raw cellulose, respectively. On the other hand, for P. azotoformans, raw cellulose had no impact upon the growth rate, while cellulose pulp lead to a small decrease (ca. 7%). When comparing this data with the obtained for a standard cellulose from Sigma, it was possible to observe that the commercial cellulose was, in general, less effective as an environmental prebiotic as it only exhibited significant effects in the growth of C. humi. These results showed the potential of sugarcane bagasse as source of a natural bioinocula with prebiotic effect, thus potentiating the valorization of an industrial byproduct with low commercial value into a product with biological effect on soils supplementation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Microplastics effects in Scrobicularia plana

One of the most common plastics in the marine environment is polystyrene (PS) that can be broken down to micro sized particles. Marine organisms are vulnerable to the exposure to microplastics. This study assesses the effects of PS microplastics in tissues of the clam Scrobicularia plana. Clams were exposed to 1mgL-1(20μm) for 14days, followed by 7days of depuration. A qualitative analysis by infrared spectroscopy in diffuse reflectance mode period detected the presence of microplastics in clam tissues upon exposure, which were not eliminated after depuration. The effects of microplastics were assessed by a battery of biomarkers and results revealed that microplastics induce effects on antioxidant capacity, DNA damage, neurotoxicity and oxidative damage. S. plana is a significant target to assess the environmental risk of PS microplastics.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparative study of green and traditional routes for cellulose extraction from a sugarcane by-product

Sugarcane bagasse (SCB) is the main residue of the sugarcane industry and a promising renewable and sustainable lignocellulosic material. The cellulose component of SCB, present at 40–50%, can be used to produce value-added products for various applications. Herein, we present a comprehensive and comparative study of green and traditional approaches for cellulose extraction from the by-product SCB. Green methods of extraction (deep eutectic solvents, organosolv, and hydrothermal processing) were compared to traditional methods (acid and alkaline hydrolyses). The impact of the treatments was evaluated by considering the extract yield, chemical profile, and structural properties. In addition, an evaluation of the sustainability aspects of the most promising cellulose extraction methods was performed. Among the proposed methods, autohydrolysis was the most promising approach in cellulose extraction, yielding 63.5% of a solid fraction with ca. 70% cellulose. The solid fraction showed a crystallinity index of 60.4% and typical cellulose functional groups. This approach was demonstrated to be environmentally friendly, as indicated by the green metrics assessed (E(nvironmental)-factor = 0.30 and Process Mass Intensity (PMI) = 20.5). Autohydrolysis was shown to be the most cost-effective and sustainable approach for the extraction of a cellulose-rich extract from SCB, which is extremely relevant for aiming the valorization of the most abundant by-product of the sugarcane industry.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Carboxymethyl cellulose as a food emulsifier: are its days numbered?

Carboxymethyl cellulose use in industry is ubiquitous. Though it is recognized as safe by the EFSA and FDA, newer works have raised concerns related to its safety, as in vivo studies showed evidence of gut dysbiosis associated with CMC’s presence. Herein lies the question, is CMC a gut pro-inflammatory compound? As no work addressed this question, we sought to understand whether CMC was pro-inflammatory through the immunomodulation of GI tract epithelial cells. The results showed that while CMC was not cytotoxic up to 25 mg/mL towards Caco-2, HT29-MTX and Hep G2 cells, it had an overall pro-inflammatory behavior. In a Caco-2 monolayer, CMC by itself increased IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α secretion, with the latter increasing by 1924%, and with these increases being 9.7 times superior to the one obtained for the IL-1β pro-inflammation control. In co-culture models, an increase in secretion in the apical side, particularly for IL-6 (692% increase), was observed, and when RAW 264.7 was added, data showed a more complex scenario as stimulation of pro-inflammatory (IL-6, MCP-1 and TNF-α) and anti-inflammatory (IL-10 and IFN-β) cytokines in the basal side was observed. Considering these results, CMC may exert a pro-inflammatory effect in the intestinal lumen, and despite more studies being required, the incorporation of CMC in foodstuffs must be carefully considered in the future to minimize potential GI tract dysbiosis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio