Chlorophylls extraction from spinach leaves using aqueous solutions of surface-active ionic liquids

Chlorophylls and their derivatives have been extensively studied due to their unique and valuable properties, including their anti-mutagenic and anti-carcinogenic features. Nevertheless, high-purity-level chlorophylls extracted from natural sources are quite expensive because the methods used for their extraction have low selectivity and result in low yields. This study aimed to develop a “greener” and cost-effective technology for the extraction of chlorophylls from biomass using aqueous solutions of ionic liquids (ILs). Several aqueous solutions of ILs, with hydrotropic and surface-active effects were evaluated, demonstrating that aqueous solutions of surface-active ILs are enhanced solvents for the extraction of chlorophylls from spinach leaves. Operating conditions, such as the IL concentration and solid–liquid ratio, were optimized by a response surface methodology. Outstanding extraction yields (0.104 and 0.022 wt.% for chlorophyll a and b, respectively, obtained simultaneously) and selectivity (chlorophyll a/b ratio of 4.79) were obtained with aqueous solutions of hexadecylpyridinium chloride ([C16py]Cl) at moderate conditions of temperature and time. These extraction yields are similar to those obtained with pure ethanol. However, the chlorophyll a/b ratio achieved with the IL aqueous solution is higher than with pure ethanol (3.92), reinforcing the higher selectivity afforded by IL aqueous solutions as viable replacements to volatile organic compounds and allowing the obtainment of more pure compounds. Finally, the recovery and reuse of the solvent were evaluated by using a back-extraction step of chlorophylls using ethyl acetate. The results disclosed here bring new perspectives into the design of new approaches for the selective extraction of chlorophylls from biomass using aqueous solutions of surface-active ILspublishe

Robustness Diagram: a bridge between business modelling and system design

Use case driven development has proven being a good approach for capturing problem semantics in an orderly, structured description. However, it specifies an abstraction beyond practicity to guide system design process. Robustness diagrams are a simple solution for drafting a more formal description for business modelling. This very simplicity may, however, detract its value, falling short of capturing the rich business semantics. Stereotyping is the essence behind its robustness diagram mechanics. Symbols convey the abstraction necessary to catch the model semantics. Increasing the number of stereotypes we can achieve a closer match from model to design. Rules carefully stated for robustness diagram can help to translate highleveI information into well-behaved and predictable symbolic descriptions. This enhancement to robustness diagram helps to patch the gap between abstract model and project into a paved continuum. It has been used to train programmers to extract working and consistent systems out of use case specifications

Colecistite aguda alitiásica

The authors report the case of a 14-year old male seen at the adult emergency room at Hospital da Restauração, presenting acute inflammation in the abdomen, secondary to acute appendicitis with local peritonitis. On the 8th postoperative day, he returned to the hospital with abdominal pain associated with fever and intense leukocytosis. Abdominal ultrasonography showed distended gallbladder with thickened walls, which suggests acute acalculous cholecystitis. The patient was submitted to surgery, which revealed an enlarged vesicle, thickened walls, and no calculi inside it. After theperformance of cholecystomy, the patient was dismissed on the 4th postoperative day. Os autores relatam o caso de um paciente de 14 anos, masculino, atendido na emergência de Adultos do Hospital da Restauração, com quadro de abdômen agudo inflamatório, secundário a apendicite aguda com peritonite localizada. No oitavo dia de pós-operatório, retornou ao hospital com dor abdominal associada à febre e intensa leucocitose. A ultra-sonografia abdominal revelou vesícula biliar distendida com paredes espessadas, sugestivo de colecistite aguda alitiásica. O paciente foi submetido à cirurgia, com achado de vesícula aumentada de volume, paredes espessadas, sem cálculos em seu interior. Realizada colecistectomia, tendo alta hospitalar no quarto diade pós-operatório

Impact of COVID-19 lockdown measures on a cohort of eating disorders patients

BackgroundLockdown implemented to prevent the COVID-19 spread resulted in marked changes in the lifestyle. The objective of the current study was to assess the impact of lockdown measures on a cohort of eating disorder (ED) patients being followed as part of an ongoing naturalistic treatment study.MethodsNinety-nine patients aged 18 or older, currently or previously, in treatment at a Portuguese specialized hospital unit were contacted by phone and invited to participate in the current survey. Fifty-nine agreed to be interviewed by phone, and 43 agreed to respond to a set of self-report measures of ED symptoms, emotion regulation difficulties, clinical impairment, negative urgency, and COVID-19 impact, during the week after the end of the lockdown period.ResultsData showed that of the 26 patients currently in treatment: 8 remained unchanged (31%), 7 deteriorated (27%), and 11 reliably improved (42%). Of the 17 participants not currently in treatment: 3 deteriorated (18%), 9 remained unchanged (53%), and 5 (29%) improved after the lockdown period. The Coronavirus Impact Scale showed that most patients considered their routines moderately or extremely impacted, experienced stress related to coronavirus, and showed difficulty in maintaining physical exercise and feeding routines. Results suggest that higher impact of COVID-19 lockdown was significantly correlated with eating disorder symptoms and associated psychopathology, impulsivity, difficulties in emotion regulation and clinical impairment measured at post-lockdown. In addition, the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown measures on clinical impairment was mediated by difficulties in emotion regulation.ConclusionsFindings suggest that some ED patients may experience worsening of their condition, especially if associated with difficulties in emotion regulation, and these difficulties might be exacerbated in the context of a stressful crisis and lockdown measures, highlighting the need for intervention strategies to mitigate its negative impact.This work was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), School of Psychology, University of Minho, and partially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (UID/PSI/01662/2019), through the national funds (PIDDAC); and a grant by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and cofinanced by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028145) to P. Machado PI)

Can warning labels communicating the environmental impact of meat reduce meat consumption? Evidence from two multiple treatment reversal experiments in college dining halls

Meat consumption has an adverse impact on both human and planetary health. To date, very few studies have examined the effectiveness of interventions tackling the overconsumption of meat in field settings. The present research addresses this gap by examining the impact of gain-framed labelling interventions communicating the adverse environmental consequences of meat consumption, using a multiple treatment reversal design across two university college dining halls over a period of five weeks. In College A the intervention weeks consisted of text-only or text-and-image labels communicating the adverse environmental consequences of meat consumption, and in College B patrons were exposed to either environmental or health labels (gain-framed; combining images and text). In total 13,869 (6,577 in College A and 7,292 in College B) meals (dishes) were analysed over the period of interest. Beta-binomial regressions found no statistically significant impact of the intervention periods compared to baseline on meat consumption in both College A and College B. The number of meal type options emerged as the only consistent predictor of meat consumption across models and across both colleges: meat consumption decreased with an increase in non-meat meal options. A post-study survey (College A: n = 88; College B: n = 53) revealed that patrons in both dining halls perceived environmental labels bearing both text and images as more informative and influential at changing behaviour compared to the other labelling interventions, although this did not translate into a change in behaviour. We discuss the implications of these findings for research, policy, and practice

A psicologia como neurociência cognitiva : implicações para a compreensão dos processos básicos e suas aplicações

O presente artigo procura ilustrar o modo como os desenvolvimentos das neurociências cognitivas poderão ajudar a compreender alguns dos processos psicológicos básicos e, simultaneamente, ser traduzidos para importantes domínios da psicologia aplicada, particularmente no domínio clínico. Exemplificaremos a partir de algumas linhas de investigação programática em curso nas diferentes subsecções do Laboratório de Neuropsicofisiologia da Escola de Psicologia da Universidade do Minho. As potencialidades metodológicas proporcionadas pela neurofisiologia, neuroimagiologia, neuromodelação, psicofisiologia, neurobioquímica e neurogenética serão exemplificadas nas suas aplicações à linguagem (e suas implicações para a compreensão da esquizofrenia), funcionamento sócio-cognitivo (e implicações para a compreensão das perturbações do neurodesenvolvimento), funcionamento executivo (com implicações para a compreensão das perturbações do espectro obsessivo), empatia (e implicações para a compreensão da psicoterapia), mecanismos de stress (com implicações para a compreensão das perturbações de ansiedade), e, finalmente, comportamento animal (com implicações para o conhecimento dos sistemas sensoriais e perceptuais).(undefined

Neuroinflammation and Neurotransmission Mechanisms Involved in Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Some classical psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, autism, major depression, bipolar and obsessive‐compulsive disorders, have been related to neuroinflammatory process, immunological abnormalities, and neurotransmission impairment beyond genetic mutations. Neuroinflammation is mostly regulated by glial cells, which respond to physiological and pathological stimuli by anti‐ and pro‐inflammatory cytokine and chemokine signaling; moreover, recent studies have indicated that glial cells also respond to the neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters regulate many biological processes, such as cell proliferation and synaptogenesis, which contribute to the formation of functional circuits. Alterations in the neurotransmission can lead to many pathological changes that occur in brain disorders. For example, studies have shown that neuroinflammation can alter the metabolism of glutamate as well as the function of its transporters, resulting in cognitive, behavioral, and psychiatric impairments. Cytokines as IL‐1β and IL‐6 appear to have an important influence in the dopaminergic and serotoninergic neurons. These data together suggest that glial cells via cytokines and abnormal regulation of neurotransmitters can influence psychiatric disorders. The present knowledge about this issue does not allow answering whether neuroinflammation is the cause or the consequence of neurotransmission imbalance and emphasizes the importance to improve in vivo imaging methods and models to elucidate this enigma

Questions in Science textbooks: development and validation of a checklist

Questões são enunciadas que requerem uma resposta refletida e que desempenham diversas funções educativas, incluindo o despoletar novas aprendizagens. Neste caso, o seu uso enquadra-se na Aprendizagem Baseada na Resolução de Problemas (ABRP, do inglês, Problem-Based Learning, PBL), que coloca o aluno no centro dos processos de ensino e aprendizagem, atribuindo-lhe um papel ativo na aprendizagem de novo conhecimento. Atendendo à influência que os manuais exercem nas práticas de ensino, a questão que se coloca é a de saber em que medida as questões incluídas nos manuais escolares de Ciências podem fomentar um ensino orientado para a ABRP. Neste texto, descrever-se-á o processo de construção e validação de uma grelha de análise de questões incluídas em manuais escolares de Ciências com essa finalidade, apresentando-se não só essa grelha, mas também, a título ilustrativo, uma aplicação da mesma a um tópico de Ciências, 8º ano, abordado nas duas disciplinas desta área.Questions require a thoughtful answer and can play diverse educational roles, such as stimulating the learning of new knowledge, as is the case in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) contexts. In this context, the student is placed at the center of the teaching and learning processes and plays an active role in the learning of new knowledge. Bearing in mind the influence that textbooks exert on teaching practices, it is worthwhile questioning to which extent questions included in school science textbooks promote a PBL oriented teaching approach. This paper describes the development and validation of a checklist for analyzing the questions included in science textbooks. After introducing the checklist, an example of its application to a science unit assigned to two junior high school science courses (8th grade) is given, approaching the two disciplines in the area

Swine meat production integrated with energy cogeneration: challenges and opportunities in using anaerobic biodigestion

As environmental concerns and regulatory requirements increase over time, new alternatives for swine manure disposal emerge. Among them, anaerobic biodigestion is a relevant technology because it reduces the organic load of wastewater before its final disposal and provides economic benefits to farmers with biogas and biofertilizer production. Efficiently managing the anaerobic biodigestion process remains a challenge in developing countries, mainly due to the lack of information from swine meat producers to deal with the complexity of this system. A risk analysis can represent a promising tool for farm assistance because it provides a process overview. Hence, this study reports the results of a process mapping in a swine meat production farm in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This mapping was performed while monitoring biodigestion operational parameters and allowed the identification of the primary causes of process failures and potential environmental impacts. The results showed that anaerobic digestion promotes a relevant environmental gain. However, the need for improved process monitoring, investments in environmental assessment equipment, and technical training for producers also stood out as an improvement opportunity