Production and extraction of polysaccharides and oligosaccharides and their use as new food additives

Polysaccharides and oligosaccharides can improve quality and enhance nutritional value of final food products due to their technological and nutritional features ranging from their capacity to improve texture to their effect as dietary fibers. For this reason, they are among the most studied ingredients in the food industry. The use of natural polysaccharides and oligosaccharides as food additives has been a reality since the food industry understood their potential technological and nutritional applications. Currently, the replacement of traditional ingredients and/or the synergy between traditional ingredients and polysaccharides and oligosaccharides are perceived as promising approaches by the food industry. Traditionally, polysaccharides have been used as thickening, emulsifying, and stabilizing agents, however, at this moment polysaccharides and oligosaccharides claim health and nutritional advantages, thus opening a new market of nutritional and functional foods. Indeed, their use as nutritional food ingredients enabled the food industry to develop a countless number of applications, e.g., fat replacers, prebiotics, dietary fiber, and antiulcer agents. Based on this, among the scientific community and food industry, in the last years many research studies and commercial products showed the possibility of using either new or already used sources (though with changed properties) of polysaccharides for the production of food additives with new and enhanced properties. The increasing interest in such products is clearly illustrated by the market figures and consumption trends. As an example, the sole market of hydrocolloids is estimated to reach $7 billion in 2018. Moreover, oligosaccharides can be found in more than 500 food products resulting in a significant daily consumption. A recent study from the Transparency Market Research on Prebiotic Ingredients Market reported that prebiotics' demand was worth $2.3 billion in 2012 and it is estimated to reach $4.5 billion in 2018, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 11.4% between 2012 and 2018. The entrance of this new generation of food additives in the market, often claiming health and nutritional benefits, imposes an impartial analysis by the legal authorities regarding the accomplishment of requirements that have been established for introducing novel ingredients/food, including new poly- and oligosaccharides. This chapter deals with the potential use of polysaccharides and oligosaccharides as food additives, as well as alternative sources of these compounds and their possible applications in food products. Moreover, the regulation process to introduce novel polysaccharides and oligosaccharides in the market as food additives and to assign them health claims is discussed.

Contribution of the evaluation strategy and the use of hearing protection for the uncertainty associated with occupational exposure to noise

Doctoral Thesis for PhD degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering

Plastic waste use as aggregate and binder modifier in open-graded asphalts

Road pavements are very important infrastructures for the Society, but they can cause serious environmental impacts during construction, operation and rehabilitation phases. Thus, it is essential to develop surface paving solutions that promote not only the durability but also a comfortable and safe use. In fact, this work aims to study the properties of new opengraded mixtures for surface layers produced with plastic wastes. First, HDPE and EVA wastes were used as bitumen modifiers, and then another plastic waste (PEX) replaced part of the aggregates. After studying the modified binders, the open-graded mixtures were designed, and then they were tested concerning their particle loss, rutting resistance, surface texture and damping effect. It was concluded that both ways of using the plastic wastes can improve the mechanical and functional properties of the open-graded mixtures related to the pavement performance.

Towards high performance and multi-functional structural membranes using advanced fibrous and textile materials

Scientific and technological advancements in the area of fibrous and textile materials have greatly enhanced their application potential in several high-end technical and industrial sectors including construction, transportation, medical, sports, aerospace engineering, electronics and so on. Excellent performance accompanied by light-weight, mechanical flexibility, tailor-ability, design flexibility, easy fabrication and relatively lower cost are the driving forces towards wide applications of these materials. Cost-effective fabrication of various advanced and functional materials for structural parts, medical devices, sensors, energy harvesting devices, capacitors, batteries, and many others has been possible using fibrous and textile materials. Structural membranes are one of the innovative applications of textile structures and these novel building skins are becoming very popular due to flexible design aesthetics, durability, lightweight and cost benefits. Current demand on high performance and multi-functional materials in structural applications has motivated to go beyond the basic textile structures used for structural membranes and to use innovative textile materials. Structural membranes with self-cleaning, thermoregulation and energy harvesting capability (using solar cells) are examples of such recently developed multi-functional membranes. Besides these, there exist enormous opportunities to develop wide varieties of multi-functional membranes using functional textile materials. Additionally, it is also possible to further enhance the performance and functionalities of structural membranes using advanced fibrous architectures such as 2D, 3D, hybrid, multi-layer and so on. In this context, the present paper gives an overview of various advanced and functional fibrous and textile materials which have enormous application potential in structural membranes.

Assessment of the effects of the expansion of the city of Estarreja on the rational land use

The management of urban environment, together with the preservation of the natural environment and the creation of a sustainable built environment, is a complex challenge for contemporary societies. In the name of progress, cities are contributing for the degradation of all surrounding ecosystems. Therefore there is an arising demand for developing new strategies and a new urban development paradigm settled in the search for the equilibrium between natural and built environments and efficient use of resources. The objective of this paper is to analyse how the urban expansion of the city of Estarreja took place in relation to the land use, based on the land capability classification maps of the area. Based in the results some sustainable development strategies that might be applied to the city are discussed. The obtained results demonstrate that the city has been growing faster then its population, consuming vast portions of land, since its growth as been occurring in a linear form. Despite this fact, results show that most of this expansion took place towards a territory of lower agricultural potential, when comparing to the location of its original settlement.

Pharmacological evaluation of plant extracts from Chapada Diamantina (Bahia, Brazil): Focus on antioxidant and cytotoxic properties

Tese de Doutoramento em Biologia de Plantas MAP - Bioplant

A tradução em turismo: criação de um glossário multilingue na área museológica

Dissertação de mestrado em Tradução e Comunicação Multilingue