Body image association and habitual physical activity in institutionalized elderly

Research clearly shows that physical activity (PA) is one important factor in developing and maintaining good health and function in older people. Knowledge of the underlying processes that influence the elderly to initiate and maintain lifestyle changes is an important requirement for the development of a PA intervention. The aim of this study is to analyse the variation of the body image at its component parts of perception and satisfaction and the ha- bitual PA in institutionalized old people of both genders who are physically active or not. Methods: The sample (n=33; 77,6 ± 5,75, years) was divided into two different groups, the Physical Active Group (PAG, n =18) and the Physical Inactive Group (PIG, n = 15). The PAG comprises 10 fe- males and 8 males and PIG comprises 6 females and 9 males. The perception of the body image was assessed by the Body Size Estimation Method; the satisfaction with the body image was assessed by the Body Image Satisfaction Questionnaire. The questionnaire Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE) was used to evaluate the habitual PA. We adopted the following statistical procedures: Descrip- tive Statistics (mean, standard deviation and frequency dis- tribution) and Inferential Statistic (nonparametric tests for independent samples, Mann Whitney U and Chi- Square test). Results: The following results have shown that in average, no statistics significance was found between the mean of satisfaction with the body image, when comparing genders and the physically active elderly and the physically inactive elderly. Conclusion: The main conclusions are:(i) the perceptions of the body image do not differ between old people, neither in gender nor in PA; (ii) the satisfaction with the body image does not differ in gender neither in PA; (iii) the habitual PA does not differ in gender.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Produção de biodiesel através de esterificação catalisada por líquidos iónicos

A contribuição dos combustíveis fósseis para o aumento da poluição ambiental, nomeadamente no que diz respeito à emissão de gases com efeito de estufa, o constante aumento dos preços do petróleo e a limitação das reservas destes combustíveis, têm incentivado a investigação de fontes alternativas de energia. No setor dos transportes, os biocombustíveis são uma das respostas ao problema energético e ambiental. O biodiesel, constituído por uma mistura de ésteres metílicos de ácidos gordos (FAME), é utilizado como substituto do diesel convencional, constituindo uma forma de independência para os países que não possuem reservas de petróleo, podendo ser produzido a partir de matérias-primas variadas, como óleos vegetais, gorduras animais, óleos alimentares usados e algas. Neste trabalho estuda-se a utilização de novos catalisadores, nomeadamente os Líquidos Iónicos (LI), como alternativa aos catalisadores tradicionais no processo de esterificação de ácidos gordos livres. A influência da utilização dos LI no processo de esterificação é estudada através da monitorização das propriedades do biodiesel produzido, pela determinação do índice de acidez por titulação ácido-base, e do teor de FAME através de cromatografia gasosa (GC-FID). Apresentam-se resultados experimentais obtidos com Metanossulfonato de 1-butil-3-metilimidazólio ([BMIM][CH3SO3]) e Cloreto de 1-butil-3-metilimidazólio ([BMIM][Cl]), modificados por incorporação de cloreto férrico, e utilizando diferentes proporções ácido oleico(AO)/metanol(M), 1/5, 1/10 e 1/15. Para ambos os LI estudados, verifica-se um aumento do rendimento da reação com o aumento da razão AO/M. Os valores dos rendimentos obtidos, variam entre 86.6% e 94.4% para o [BMIM][Cl] e entre 87.2% e 98.8% para o [BMIM][CH3SO3].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Infection By The Human Papillomavirus In Teenagers Sexually Active: Clinic And Subclinic Manifestations.

This research studies the association of the cervical condyloma with the intraepithelial neoplasia, during sex activity, pregnancy, diagnose methods, cytology and colposcopy in teenagers. The objective of this research is to study the propaedeutics for the uterine coli condyloma diagnose in a group of teenagers. For this purpose, we have studied 131 teenagers sexually active with ages between 14 and 19 years and presenting histologically confirmed uterine coli condyloma. Association with intraepithelial neoplasia, sexual activity duration, method of diagnose, pregnancy analysis, cytology and colposcopy results and association with vulva and vagina injuries were evaluated. The high association rate with condyloma and intraepithelial neoplasia after a short time of sexual activity and the none presence of macroscopic warts in the genital organs in 80% of cases presenting cervical condyloma, demonstrate that: a more careful investigation with colposcopy and biopsy of the inferior genitals of the women-teenagers sexually active is needed, when presenting modified cervical cytology.113494895

SpectraNet–53: A deep residual learning architecture for predicting soluble solids content with VIS–NIR spectroscopy

This work presents a new deep learning architecture, SpectraNet-53, for quantitative analysis of fruit spectra, optimized for predicting Soluble Solids Content (SSC, in Brix). The novelty of this approach resides in being an architecture trainable on a very small dataset, while keeping a performance level on-par or above Partial Least Squares (PLS), a time-proven machine learning method in the field of spectroscopy. SpectraNet-53 performance is assessed by determining the SSC of 616 Citrus sinensi L. Osbeck 'Newhall' oranges, from two Algarve (Portugal) orchards, spanning two consecutive years, and under different edaphoclimatic conditions. This dataset consists of short-wave near-infrared spectroscopic (SW-NIRS) data, and was acquired with a portable spectrometer, in the visible to near infrared region, on-tree and without temperature equalization. SpectraNet-53 results are compared to a similar state-of-the-art architecture, DeepSpectra, as well as PLS, and thoroughly assessed on 15 internal validation sets (where the training and test data were sampled from the same orchard or year) and on 28 external validation sets (training/test data sampled from different orchards/years). SpectraNet-53 was able to achieve better performance than DeepSpectra and PLS in several metrics, and is especially robust to training overfit. For external validation results, on average, SpectraNet-53 was 3.1% better than PLS on RMSEP (1.16 vs. 1.20 Brix), 11.6% better in SDR (1.22 vs. 1.10), and 28.0% better in R2 (0.40 vs. 0.31).project NIBAP ALG-01-0247-FEDER-037303, project OtiCalFrut ALG-010247-FEDER-033652info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Force Spectroscopy And Two Photon Excited Luminescence In An Optical Tweezers System

Up to now optical spectroscopies have analyzed the scattered light or the heat generated by absorption as a function of the wavelength to get information about the samples. Among the light matter interaction phenomena one that has almost never been used for spectroscopy is the direct photon momenta transfer. Probably because the forces involved are very small, varying from hundreds of femto to tens of pico Newtons. However, the nowadays very popular Optical Tweezers can easily accomplish the task to measure the photon momenta transfer and may be the basis for the Optical Force Spectroscopy. We demonstrate its potential as such a tool by observing more than eight Mie resonance peaks of a single polystyrene microsphere, and showed the capability to selective couple the light to either the TE, TM or both microsphere modes depending of the beam size, the light polarization and the beam positioning. The Mie resonances can change the optical force values by 30-50%. Our results also clearly show how the beam polarization breaks the usually assumed azimuthal symmetry by Optical Tweezers theories. We also obtained the spectrum from the two photon excited luminescence using the Optical Tweezers to hold a single bead suspended and a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser for the non-linear excitation. This spectrum shows the pair of peaks due to both TE and TM spherical cavity modes. We have been able to observe more than 14 Mie resonance peaks in the TPE luminescence. Our results are in good agreement with optical force calculations using Maxwell stress tensor and partial wave decomposition of the incident beam approximated to a 3th order gaussian beam.593017Ashkin, Dziedzic, J.M., Bjorkholm, J.E., Chu, S., Observation of a single-beam gradient force trap for dielectric particles (1986) Opt. 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Autonomic modulation of heart rate of young and postmenopausal women undergoing estrogen therapy

The aim of the present study was to determine whether estrogen therapy (ET) reduces alterations of the autonomic control of heart rate (HR) due to hypoestrogenism and aging. Thirteen young (24 ± 2.6 years), 10 postmenopausal (53 ± 4.6 years) undergoing ET (PM-ET), and 14 postmenopausal (56 ± 2.6 years) women not undergoing ET (PM) were studied. ET consisted of 0.625 mg/day conjugated equine estrogen. HR was recorded continuously for 8 min at rest in the supine and sitting positions. HR variability (HRV) was analyzed by time (SDNN and rMSSD indices) and frequency domain methods. Power spectral components are reported as normalized units (nu) at low (LF) and high (HF) frequencies, and as LF/HF ratio. Intergroup comparisons: SDNN index was higher in young (median: supine, 47 ms; sitting, 42 ms) than in PM-ET (33; 29 ms) and PM (31; 29 ms) women (P < 0.05). PM showed lower HFnu, higher LFnu and higher LF/HF ratio (supine: 44, 56, 1.29; sitting: 38, 62, 1.60) than the young group in the supine position (61, 39, 0.63) and the PM-ET group in the sitting position (57, 43, 0.75; P < 0.05). Intragroup comparisons: HR was lower in the supine than in the sitting position for all groups (P < 0.05). The HRV decrease from the supine to the sitting position was significant only in the young group. These results suggest that HRV decreases during aging. ET seems to attenuate this process, promoting a reduction in sympathetic activity on the heart and contributing to the cardioprotective effect of estrogen hormones.49149

Preparation and characterization of films based on a natural P(3HB)/mcl-PHA blend obtained through the co-culture of Cupriavidus necator and Pseudomonas citronellolis in apple pulp waste

The co-culture of Cupriavidus necator DSM 428 and Pseudomonas citronellolis NRRL B-2504 was performed using apple pulp waste from the fruit processing industry as the sole carbon source to produce poly(3-hydroxybutyrate), P(3HB) and medium-chain length PHA, mcl-PHA, respectively. The polymers accumulated by both strains were extracted from the co-culture’s biomass, resulting in a natural blend that was composed of around 48 wt% P(3HB) and 52 wt% mcl-PHA, with an average molecular weight of 4.3 105 Da and a polydispersity index of 2.2. Two melting temperatures (Tm) were observed for the blend, 52 and 174 C, which correspond to the Tm of the mcl-PHA and P(3HB), respectively. P(3HB)/mcl-PHA blend films prepared by the solvent evaporation method had permeabilities to oxygen and carbon dioxide of 2.6 and 32 Barrer, respectively. The films were flexible and easily deformed, as demonstrated by their tensile strength at break of 1.47 0.07 MPa, with a deformation of 338 19% until breaking, associated with a Young modulus of 5.42 1.02 MPa. This study demonstrates for the first time the feasibility of using the co-culture of C. necator and P. citronellolis strains to obtain a natural blend of P(3HB)/mcl-PHA that can be processed into films suitable for applications ranging from commodity packaging products to high-value biomaterialsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Production of Medium-Chain Length Polyhydroxyalkanoates by Pseudomonas citronellolis Grown in Apple Pulp Waste

Background and objective: Apple pulp waste generated by the fruit processing industry is a sugar-rich material with great potential to be used as a feedstock for production of value added microbial products. The aim of this work was to use this feedstock for the cultivation of Pseudomonas citronellolis and production of medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoates, a natural elastomer.Material and methods: The solid fraction of the apple pulp waste was discarded and the soluble fraction, rich in fructose (17.7 g l-1), glucose (7.5 g l-1) and sucrose (1.2 g l-1), was used for the batch bioreactor cultivation of Pseudomonas citronellolis NRRL B-2504.Results and conclusion: Pseudomonas citronellolis reached a polymer content in the biomass of 30% wt and a volumetric productivity of 0.025 g l-1 h-1. The polymer was mainly composed of 3-hydroxydecanoate (68% mol) and 3-hydroxyoctanoate (22% mol), with minor contents of 3-hydroxydodecanoate (5% mol), 3-hydroxytetradecanoate (4% mol) and 3-hydroxyhexanoate (1% mol), and had a molecular weight of 3.7×105 Da. It presented glass transition and melting temperatures of -12 and 53°C, respectively, and a thermal degradation temperature of 296°C. The polymer’s films were dense, ductile and permeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide. These results demonstrated that apple pulp waste is a suitable feedstock for the production of a biopolymer with properties that render it a promising alternative to some synthetic petrochemical-derived polyesters.Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest

Reproduction of the blue jack mackerel, Trachurus picturatus, in western Portugal: microscopic gonad analysis reveals indeterminate fecundity and skipped spawning patterns

Blue jack mackerel, Trachurus picturatus, is the fifth most landed fish species in mainland Portugal, but information on its reproductive biology is scarce. From September 2018 to August 2019, 626 specimens were collected from commercial vessels to clarify the reproductive strategy of the T. picturatus population off the west coast of Portugal. The proportion and length range of males and females were similar. Only three of the specimens collected were categorized as immature, indicating that the fish caught in the fishery are primarily mature. The spawning season lasted from late January until the end of March, with gonadosomatic indices being similar for males and females. Fecundity was indeterminate, and estimated batch fecundity ranged between 6,798 (at 25.4 cm TL) and 302,358 oocytes (at 33.8 cm TL). The low number of females showing direct evidence of imminent or recent spawning suggests a low number of spawning events. In addition, 12.7% of females were considered non-reproductive due to ovary abnormalities including parasitic infection by Kudoa species, atretic structures and skipped spawning events. This study highlights the importance of accounting for skipped spawning events and ovary abnormalities in the management of species fisheries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio