Suchergebnisse

Business, politics, social and economic policies on the last decades brought us to inevitability of change. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays a key role on this change as it is a tool for International Business Management on a global world. The relation between FDI and sustainability on the Sub-Saharan countries with lower income has not yet been sufficiently studied so our proposal is to bring a few more conclusions to the overall discussion as we intend to understand if FDI effectively affects the so-called Triple Bottom Line (TBL) pillars of sustainability. Also, we intend to analyse the relation between these pillars themselves as well with another variable, Population Growth. With data obtained from the World Bank (WB), regarding 20 countries, gathered between 2010 to 2018, we analysed 34 indicators composing 11 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG´s). After, we group them by the TBL pillars and evaluate the influence of FDI inflows on their scores using panel data models. Also, the influence between the pillars themselves and variable Population Growth was studied. Our results show a strong, positive correlation between the TBL pillars. FDI has no significant influence on the TBL pillars, and population growth positively affects the Social pillar, affecting negatively the Environmental pillar.

The purpose of the present work is to discuss the council aristocracy mechanisms' used to viabilize the consolidation of a certain socio-politic environment during the 13th century. On the basis of the so-called foros extensos from Castelo Rodrigo —understood, theirselves, as an understanding proposal, as well as a form of interference with the mentioned environment— and paying particular attention to the identity construction, both inclusive and exclusive, we try to decodify the socio-politic language of the foros. ; [fr] Ce travail a pour objet l'analyse des mécanismes utilisés par l'aristocratie municipale pour assurer, dans le contexte du XIIIème siècle, la reproduction et le raffermissement d'un certain encadrement social et politique. Ayant pour base les nommés foros extensos de Castelo Rodrigo —pris, eux-mêmes, en tant qu'effort d'inteligibilité et d'intervention sur le sus-dit encadrement— et en accordant une attention particulière à la façon dont s'élaborent les identités d'inclusion et celles d'exclusion, on essaye le décodage du langage sociopolitique des foros.

Parabens are widely used in different industries as preservatives and antimicrobial compounds. The evolution of analytical techniques allowed the detection of these compounds in different sources at g/L and ng/L. Until today, parabens were already found in water sources, air, soil and even in human tissues. The impact of parabens in humans, animals and in ecosystems are a matter of discussion within the scientific community, but it is proven that parabens can act as endocrine disruptors, and some reports suggest that they are carcinogenic compounds. The presence of parabens in ecosystems is mainly related to wastewater discharges. This work gives an overview about the paraben problem, starting with their characteristics and applications. Moreover, the dangers related to their usage were addressed through the evaluation of toxicological studies over different species as well as of humans. Considering this, paraben detection in different water sources, wastewater treatment plants, humans and animals was analyzed based on literature results. A review of European legislation regarding parabens was also performed, presenting some considerations for the use of parabens.

Os midia, as novas tecnologias e as redes sociais, encontram-se no epicentro da comunicação que tanto pode promover valores religiosos de partilha, cooperação e afetividade civilizacional, como podem ser instrumentalizados por leituras mais radicalizadas que apelam a atitudes identitárias extremistas. Este é o domínio dos grupos terroristas que assentam a sua ideologia em leituras enviesadas dos textos sagrados e promovem mensagens de violência e ódio. A resposta a esta radicalização deve passar também pela comunicação e por uma diplomacia cultural que promova a paz.

Observations in studies of estimation compared to actual performance in motor skills revealed that children are not always accurate and have a tendency to overestimate the maximum distance at which an action can be performed. The relationship between estimated and real motor competences was analyzed for several tasks: standing long jump (SLJ), throwing and kicking, and walking backwards (WB) on a balance beam. Children were asked to predict their maximum distance prior to performing those tasks. Participants were 303 children (160 boys), which were between 6 and 10 years of age (M=8.63, SD=1.16). Children's estimations were compared with their real performance to determine their accuracy. Absolute error (|real performance − estimation|) and error tendency, that is, the direction of the error (overestimation, accuracy, and underestimation bias), were calculated. Children had a tendency to overestimate their performance and were more conservative in the WB task, a noncommon action. In general, it is possible to conclude that children, in the studied age span, tend to overestimate their performance, particularly in familiar skills. This fact may be determinant to the development of their motor competences, since they are more likely to engage and persist in motor tasks, but it might also be a problem in terms of child safety because it could increase the occurrence of unintended injuries.

Physical fitness and motor skills are considered important attributes for the military, affecting their professional performance. The high physical and psychological demand that the special forces are subjected to requires the acquisition of a set of volitional skills such as resilience, effort, perseverance, or resistance to frustration, which are worthy of further research. This study aimed to analyse the perception of the special troops (commandos) in physical fitness, motor control and psychological skills. A total of 35 male soldiers that ended the commando recruit training program (21.69 ± 2.36 years old) were investigated. A questionnaire was applied to verify differences in perception of physical fitness, motor capacity, physical effort and military training during recruit training according to age, education, work experience and sports background. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the participants. All data collected were analysed using IBM-SPSS Statistics, version 24. Our results revealed differences in the importance given to the training of motor skills within military training (χ2 = 19.284; p = 0.023), conditional motor skills – speed (χ2 = 17.378; p = 0.043), coordinative motor skills—motor control (χ2 = 20.616; p = 0.014), psychological skills in a military context (χ2 = 13.730; p = 0.008), volitional skills—resistance to frustration (χ2 = 21.568; p = 0.043) and volitional skills—psychological resistance (χ2 = 29.144; p = 0.004). The participants highlighted the importance of instructors having scientific knowledge in physical education to provide military physical training to be better prepared for this purpose. We concluded that motor skills and psychological abilities tend to be equally important in the context of military training. Physical fitness and motor skill development can be considered essential in military training for most of the inquired participants.

O Marketing Social tem como finalidade a mudança de comportamentos, o estimular da consciência social em cada indivíduo, obrigando à adoção de novos hábitos, importantes para a pessoa e para a sociedade. O seu crescimento torna-se maior e tão mais importante, quanto maior é a preocupação com os problemas sociais, como é o caso da infeção por VIH/SIDA. Este é um dos temas que mais preocupa a sociedade atual, não só pelas proporções que tem tomado ao longo do tempo, com o aumento da morbilidade, mas também por todos os custos económicos e socias gerados por ela. Estudos recentes revelam um aumento exponencial desta síndrome na população com mais de 50 anos, podendo, o marketing social, ser utilizado como estratégia para dirimir este facto. A investigação em curso teve como objetivo principal discutir e obter informação sobre a relação das duas componentes abordadas, o Marketing Social e a infeção por VIH/SIDA, nos cidadãos comuns com mais de 50 anos, tendo chegado à conclusão que os comportamentos de risco são superiores ao expectável, sendo a educação para a saúde, a consciencialização da doença e a mudança de comportamentos e atitudes as ferramentas mais eficazes para o seu controlo, conseguindo-as facilmente através do marketing social.

This work performed under MeDDII project has received funding from the EMPIR programme co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. ; The precise measurement of micro and nanoflow of incompressible liquids (below 1 μL/h) is a complex task due to several factors involved in, namely, evaporation, adsorption and the existence of air bubbles within the system. Nevertheless, the importance of its measurement is undeniable in equipment such as insulin pumps, or medical drug delivery devices for new-born, microchip flow pumps, to mention few. The work herein presented was developed in a partnership between the Volume and Flow Laboratory (LVC) of the Portuguese Institute of Quality (IPQ) and the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (DEMI) of The New University of Lisbon under the project MeDD II – Metrology for Drug Delivery. It had the main objective of conceiving a new Portuguese standard for the measurement of ultra-low flow using interferometry, with a target uncertainty of 1% (k = 2). Therefore, the new setup relies on an interferometer made up of a laser unit, two retroreflector cubes, one beam splitter, as well as a flow generator (a Nexus syringe pump) and a computer for data acquisition. Experimental tests on a Flow generator and a Coriolis flow meter were carried out at different flow rates. With the innovative methodology developed during the present research, it was possible to measure flow rates of an incompressible fluid (water) down to 1 μL/h with an uncertainty of 3% (k = 2). ; publishersversion ; published

AbstractUntreated swine wastewater (SW) discharge leads to serious consequences such as water quality decreasing related to eutrophication and proliferation of harmful algae containing cyanotoxins, which can cause acute intoxication in humans. The use of untreated pig farming effluent as fertilizer can lead to the accumulation of polluting compounds. Biological treatments can degrade organic matter but have the disadvantage of requiring large areas and high retention times and demonstrating low efficiencies in the degradation of refractory compounds such as pharmaceutical compounds. In this ambit, the performance of four low-cost materials was evaluated for treatment of a swine wastewater using physical–chemical processes such as adsorption and Fenton's process. The tested materials are two natural resources, red volcanic rock from Canary (RVR) Islands and black volcanic rock (BVR) from Azores, and two industry residues, red mud (RM) and iron filings (IF). Among the tested materials, only IFs are catalytically active for Fenton's peroxidation. Still, RVR, BVR, and RM were efficient adsorbents removing up to 67% of COD. The combination between adsorption followed by Fenton's process using IF as catalyst showed interesting results. When RM is applied as adsorbent in the diluted effluent, it was able to remove 67% and 90% of COD for adsorption and adsorption followed by IF Fenton, respectively. At those conditions, the resultant treated effluent accomplishes the requirements for direct discharge in the natural water courses as well as the parameters for water reusing.

AbstractParabens (esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid) are xenobiosis belonging to endocrine disruptors and commonly used as a preservative in cosmetics, food, pharmaceutical, and personal care products. Their wide use is leading to their appearance in water and wastewater in the range from ng/L to mg/L. In fact, the toxicity of benzylparaben is comparable to bisphenol A. Therefore, it is important to find not only effective but also ecofriendly methods for their removal from aqueous environment since the traditional wastewater treatment approaches are ineffective. Herein, for the first time, such extended comparison of several radical-driven technologies for paraben mixture degradation is presented. The detailed evaluation included (1) comparison of ozone and hydroxyl peroxide processes; (2) comparison of catalytic and photocatalytic processes (including photocatalytic ozonation); (3) characterisation of catalysts using SEM, XRD, DRS, XPS techniques and BET isotherm; (4) mineralisation, biodegradability and toxicity assessment; and (5) cost assessment. O3, H2O2/Fe2+, H2O2/UVC, O3/H2O2, O3/UVA, O3/H2O2/UVA, UVA/catalyst, O3/catalyst and O3/UVA/catalyst were selected from advanced oxidation processes to degrade parabens as well as to decrease its toxicity towards Aliivibrio fischeri, Corbicula fluminea and Lepidium sativum. Research was focused on the photocatalytic process involving visible light (UVA and natural sunlight) and TiO2 catalysts modified by different metals (Ag, Pt, Pd, Au). Photocatalytic oxidation showed the lowest efficiency, while in combining ozone with catalysis and photocatalysis process, degradation efficiency and toxicity removal were improved. Photocatalytic ozonation slightly improved degradation efficiency but appreciably decreased transferred ozone dose (TOD). Results indicate that the degradation pathway is different, or different transformation products (TPs) could be formed, despite that the hydroxyl radicals are the main oxidant.