Ácidos orgânicos como promotores de crescimento na produção animal

Com a proibição do uso de antibióticos para fins não terapêuticos surgiu a necessidade de procurar novos métodos potenciadores da produção de proteína animal. Os ácidos orgânicos surgem como alternativas aos promotores de crescimento convencionais, uma vez que exercem uma ação antimicrobiana, através da diminuição do pH, promovendo uma melhoria na digestibilidade da proteína, aumento das secreções pancreáticas e efeitos tróficos na mucosa intestinal. Assim, a presente revisão sistemática foi realizada com o objetivo de avaliar o efeito dos ácidos orgânicos no desempenho de crescimento de aves e mamíferos de produção. A pesquisa foi realizada nas bases de dados Pubmed, Web of Science e Scielo entre os meses de outubro de 2020 e abril de 2021. No total 47 estudos cumpriram os critérios de elegibilidade definidos de acordo com a temática em análise Os parâmetros utilizados para comparar os diversos estudos foram o consumo de ração, ganho de peso corporal e taxa de conversão alimentar. No geral, os ácidos orgânicos provaram ser uma estratégia alimentar promissora na indústria pecuária. As associações de ácidos orgânicos mostraram ser mais vantajosas do que o uso do ácido orgânico isoladamente. Na maioria dos estudos, os efeitos dos ácidos orgânicos ficaram aquém dos efeitos dos antibióticos. A falta de consistência na demonstração de evidência do benefício dos ácidos orgânicos pode estar relacionada com variáveis não controladas, como o baixo desafio sanitário nas experiências, a capacidade tampão de ingredientes presentes na dieta, a heterogeneidade da microbiota intestinal e a utilização de outro tipo de agentes antimicrobianos que não os antibióticos nos estudos, podendo conduzir a conclusões não sustentadas sobre os aditivos em estudo. Em conclusão, com base na qualidade dos estudos é possível aferir com evidência científica moderada, um impacto positivo dos ácidos orgânicos no desempenho de crescimento de animais de produção.With the ban on the use of antibiotics for non therapeutic purposes, there was a need to look for new methods to enhance the production of animal protein. Organic acids appear as alternatives to conventional growth promoters, since they exert an antimicrobial action, by decreasing the pH, promoting an improvement in protein digestibility, increased pancreatic secretions and trophic effects on the intestinal mucosa. Thus, the present systematic review was carried out with the aim of evaluating the effect of organic acids on the growth performance of production birds and mammals. The research was carried out in Pubmed, Web of Science and Scielo databases, between the months of October 2020 and April 2021. A total of 47 studies were completely able to align themselves with the proposed theme. The parameters used to compare the different studies were feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio. Overall, organic acids have proven to be a promising food strategy in the livestock industry. Organic acid associations proved to be more advantageous than the use of organic acid alone. In most studies, the effects of organic acids fell short of the effects of antibiotics. The lack of consistency in demonstrating evidence of the benefit of organic acids may be related to uncontrolled variables, such as the low sanitary challenge in the experiments, the buffering capacity of ingredients present in the diet, the heterogeneity of the intestinal microbiota and the use of other types of antimicrobial agents other than antibiotics in the studies, which may lead to unsupported conclusions about the additives under study. In conclusion, based on the quality of the studies, it is possible to assess, with moderate scientific evidence, a positive impact of organic acids on the growth performance of farm animals

Roles of the interaction with children and families in mediating the association between digital health literacy and well-being of early childhood teachers in Portugal: A cross-sectional study

Data Availability Statement: All DHL descriptive files are available from the https://doi.org/10.34622/datarepositorium/LF7URM.AIM: To analyze the associations between early childhood education (ECE) teachers´ digital health literacy (DHL) and well-being, and to determine whether the ECE teachers´ interaction with children and family mediated these associations. METHODS: A total of 853 early childhood teachers, predominantly women (99.4%) participated in this cross-sectional study. The participants had a mean age of 39.9 years (standard deviation SD = 8.2). Data was collected through an online survey. DHL was assessed using five subscales adapted to the new coronavirus context, and the professionals´ well-being was measured using the WHO-5 well-being scale. Binary logistic regression and mediation analysis were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: ECE teachers' DHL in dimensions of "information searching" and "determining relevance" had both direct and indirect effect on their well-being. Specifically, higher DHL in these dimensions was associated with better well-being. The dimension "evaluating reliability" had an indirect positive effect on well-being by promoting interaction with children. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that improving ECE teachers´ DHL could have a positive effect on their well-being and their interactions with children. Therefore, it is recommended to develop health promotion practices aimed at enhancing DHL among ECE teachers. Additionally, integrating DHL contents and competencies more prominently into the qualification, further education and training of ECE teachers may help equip them with the necessary skills to access and apply health information effectively. This, in turn, can enhance interactions with children and contribute to their overall well-being.This study was supported by Fundación la Caixa-Social Research Call Covid-19 LL20-3. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Rotas turísticas e sistemas de recomendação no norte de Portugal uma análise do perfil do visitante

Versão final (Esta versão contém as críticas e sugestões dos elementos do júri.)Atualmente, o turismo de massas está a ser desafiado por tipologias mais individualizadas. Num contexto de elevada concorrência entre destinos, a aposta na individualização constitui uma forma adequada de reagir às mudanças nas preferências do consumidor. A segmentação surgiu como uma ferramenta poderosa para comercializar bens e serviços para mercados e grupos segmentados. Uma forma emergente de serviço turístico pode ser fornecida através de sistemas de recomendação móveis que, considerando as preferências dos viajantes, pretendem guiá-los, recomendar lugares para visitar e apresentar rotas turísticas. As aplicações móveis podem fornecer um apoio no processo de planeamento de rotas, combinando, numa rota, os produtos turísticos mais adequados. O estudo propõe-se demonstrar que as características específicas dos turistas exercem influência na estruturação de rotas. Pretende-se caracterizar o perfil do visitante do Norte de Portugal, no que se relaciona com a realização de rotas e utilização de sistemas de recomendação. O trabalho inicia com um referencial teórico-concetual, elaborado com base na revisão de literatura, que serviu de suporte à construção do modelo analítico, a partir do qual se formularam as hipóteses de investigação. Estas foram testadas a partir de uma metodologia quantitativa, que implicou o recurso à construção de um questionário, aplicado sob a forma de inquérito online, aos visitantes da região. Os dados primários recolhidos foram sujeitos a tratamentos de análise estatística descritiva e inferencial. Os resultados deste estudo permitiram traçar um perfil dos visitantes e demonstrar que as características distintas influenciam no tipo de rotas e ferramentas utilizadas. O conhecimento das características específicas dos turistas que visitam a região permite que os gestores turísticos concebam produtos e serviços turísticos e desenvolvam estratégias em conformidade, destinadas a alvos específicos. Também fornece uma base para que os destinos desenvolvam produtos e serviços turísticos inovadores capazes de proporcionar experiências memoráveis e que marcam pela autenticidade.Today, mass tourism is being challenged by more individualized typologies. In a context of high competition between destinations, individualization is an appropriate way of responding to changes in consumer preferences. Segmentation has emerged as a powerful tool for marketing goods and services to segmented markets and groups. An emerging form of tourist service can be provided through mobile recommendation systems that, considering travelers' preferences, aim to guide them, recommend places to visit and present tourism routes. Mobile apps can provide support in the route planning process by combining the most appropriate tourism products on a route. The study proposes to demonstrate that the specific characteristics of tourists influence the structuring of routes. It is intended to characterize the profile of the visitor of the North of Portugal, in what is related to the realization of routes and use of recommendation systems. The work begins with a theoretical and conceptual reference, based on the literature review, which served as support for the construction of the analytical model, from which the research hypotheses were formulated. These were tested using a quantitative methodology, which involved the construction of a questionnaire, applied in the form of an online survey for the region's visitors. The primary data collected was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. The results of this study allowed to draw a profile of the visitors and to demonstrate that the distinct characteristics influence the type of routes and tools used. Knowledge of the specific characteristics of tourists visiting the region enables tour managers to design tourism products and services and develop strategies accordingly, aimed at specific targets. It also provides a basis for destinations to develop innovative tourism products and services capable of delivering memorable and authentic experiences.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterising the agriculture 4.0 landscape - Emerging trends, challenges and opportunities

ReviewInvestment in technological research is imperative to stimulate the development of sustainable solutions for the agricultural sector. Advances in Internet of Things, sensors and sensor networks, robotics, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, etc. foster the transition towards the Agriculture 4.0 era. This fourth revolution is currently seen as a possible solution for improving agricultural growth, ensuring the future needs of the global population in a fair, resilient and sustainable way. In this context, this article aims at characterising the current Agriculture 4.0 landscape. Emerging trends were compiled using a semi-automated process by analysing relevant scientific publications published in the past ten years. Subsequently, a literature review focusing these trends was conducted, with a particular emphasis on their applications in real environments. From the results of the study, some challenges are discussed, as well as opportunities for future research. Finally, a high-level cloud-based IoT architecture is presented, serving as foundation for designing future smart agricultural systems. It is expected that this work will positively impact the research around Agriculture 4.0 systems, providing a clear characterisation of the concept along with guidelines to assist the actors in a successful transition towards the digitalisation of the sectorinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Risk Management Process In Innovation Projects / Processo De Gestão De Risco Em Projectos De Inovação

According technological development advances in many industrial sectors and organizations looking for innovative products to be diferent themselves, due market challenge and competition through technological innovation projects.It´s necessary mapping and planning the risk response to arising the uncertaities of innovation enables more management control, avoinding the resources waste to meet the requirements of stakeholders in the Project. In this paper, the authors developed a risk management process integrated with TRL (Technology Readiness Level) metric, to analyze internal and external threats in the assessment of thechnological maturity. Finally, the process was applied to three innovation projects at an Institute of Science and Technology (IST) that develops innovation projects. 45 risks were identified, classified and monitored between TRL 1 and TRL3 in the categories: management risks, technical risks, safety and environmental risks. It was found that of the 45 risks found, 22% were security risks that affected TRL3. Technical risks were identified regarding the adaptation of technology to the development life cycle from TRL 1 to TRL 3. This process was accepted and implemented by the Project Management Office as a standard to be used in IST innovation projects

Generative adversarial networks for data augmentation in structural adhesive inspection

UIDB/- 00066/2020 POCI-01-0247-FEDER-034072The technological advances brought forth by the Industry 4.0 paradigm have renewed the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence in the manufacturing sector, building the data-driven era on top of concepts such as Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things. However, data availability remains a major challenge for the success of these solutions, particularly concerning those based on deep learning approaches. Specifically in the quality inspection of structural adhesive applications, found commonly in the automotive domain, defect data with sufficient variety, volume and quality is generally costly, time-consuming and inefficient to obtain, jeopardizing the viability of such approaches due to data scarcity. To mitigate this, we propose a novel approach to generate synthetic training data for this application, leveraging recent breakthroughs in training generative adversarial networks with limited data to improve the performance of automated inspection methods based on deep learning, especially for imbalanced datasets. Preliminary results in a real automotive pilot cell show promise in this direction, with the approach being able to generate realistic adhesive bead images and consequently object detection models showing improved mean average precision at different thresholds when trained on the augmented dataset. For reproducibility purposes, the model weights, configurations and data encompassed in this study are made publicly available.publishersversionpublishe

Unbalanced sex-ratio in the Neolithic individuals from the Escoural Cave (Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal) revealed by peptide analysis

The sex profile estimation of pre-historic communities is often complicated by the commingled and scattered nature of skeletal assemblages. Demographic profiles are usually lacking and provide very truncated representations of these populations but proteomic analysis of sex-specific amelogenin peptides in tooth enamel brings new promise to these studies. The main objective was to obtain the sex profile of the human assemblage recovered from the Neolithic cave-necropolis of Escoural (Montemor-o-Novo, southern Portugal) through liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The secondary objective was to analyse sex-specific linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH), and to test the reliability of canine odontometric sex estimation. Sex estimation through peptide analysis was carried out in 36 left permanent canines which were macroscopically examined for the presence of LEH. The canine buccolingual diameter was used for odontometric sex estimation. The obtained sex ratio (0.5:1, M:F) is biased to female individuals, probably due to cultural factors since the natural sex ratio of the human population falls between 0.95:1 and 1.02:1 (M:F). A high frequency of LEH was observed, but with no significant sexual differences (p = 0.554). The mean LEH age of onset occurred at 3 years of age, with no significant differences between the sexes (p = 0.116), and was possibly related to the weaning process. Odontometric sex estimation revealed a correct classification of 80%, with a high number of males mistakenly attributed to females. This study is one of the largest samples subjected to peptide analysis, and thus demonstrates its usefulness on the research of commingled and scattered skeletal assemblages

Brazilian woods in Portuguese xylarium / Madeiras brasileiras em xilotecas portuguesas

The geographical origin of the wood samples in xylotheques (xylaria, wood collections) are part of the history of knowledge on the biodiversity of a given region. Portugal was the colonizer of Brazil and the transport of wood from the 16th century onwards played a significant part in the relationship of the two countries. This prompted the present study which has the following aims; to survey existing Portuguese xylotheques, identify their samples of Brazilian woods and thus contribute to future studies concerning the origin and distribution of species of Brazil's tropical forests, analyse and characterise the different kinds of wood collection surveyed, as well as identify some woods described by means of data obtained from interviews. Sixteen xylotheques were identified and investigated in Portugal and a survey of the Brazilian species contained in them was carried out. These xylotheques were of qualitatively different types: scientific, technological, expository or historical. It was also observed that the concept of a xylarium in Portugal varies from a simple collection of wood samples in cabinet or a box, to a physical space of larger dimensions reserved specifically for the storage of samples or collections. A total of 3,126 Brazilian wood samples were found. Despite the many expeditions carried out from the 16th century and the numerous shipments of woods sent from Brazil to Portugal, especially from the 18th century onwards, no samples derived from them were identified except in historical xylarium. Instead it was found that most Brazilian samples had been obtained through donations and exchange with Brazilian institutions. In contrast, the African wood samples had been obtained by expeditions undertaken by Portuguese institutions from the 20th century onwards. This can be explained by the emergence only in that century of specialized laboratories. By then it had been recognized in Portugal that due to the increase in global consumption of wood, there was a need to develop technological and scientific expertise on such a valuable resource, and consequently in 1948 the Board of Overseas Scientific Investigations decided to set up the Laboratory of Wood Histology and Technology, with well-defined objectives.

Antiproliferative, Ultrastructural, and Physiological Effects of Amiodarone on Promastigote and Amastigote Forms of Leishmania amazonensis

Amiodarone (AMIO), the most frequently antiarrhythmic drug used for the symptomatic treatment of chronic Chagas' disease patients with cardiac compromise, has recently been shown to have also specific activity against fungi, Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania. In this work, we characterized the effects of AMIO on proliferation, mitochondrial physiology, and ultrastructure of Leishmania amazonensis promastigotes and intracellular amastigotes. The IC50 values were 4.21 and 0.46 μM against promastigotes and intracellular amastigotes, respectively, indicating high selectivity for the clinically relevant stage. We also found that treatment with AMIO leads to a collapse of the mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) and to an increase in the production of reactive oxygen species, in a dose-dependent manner. Fluorescence microscopy of cells labeled with JC-1, a marker for mitochondrial energization, and transmission electron microscopy confirmed severe alterations of the mitochondrion, including intense swelling and modification of its membranes. Other ultrastructural alterations included (1) presence of numerous lipid-storage bodies, (2) presence of large autophagosomes containing part of the cytoplasm and membrane profiles, sometimes in close association with the mitochondrion and endoplasmic reticulum, and (3) alterations in the chromatin condensation and plasma membrane integrity. Taken together, our results indicate that AMIO is a potent inhibitor of L. amazonensis growth, acting through irreversible alterations in the mitochondrial structure and function, which lead to cell death by necrosis, apoptosis and/or autophagy