Adult literacy, numeracy and language : policy, practice and research.

Es un recurso para los profesionales, investigadores y estudiantes de los cursos de adultos y educación continua, para estudiantes de postgrado e investigadores en el campo de la educación post-obligatoria. Estudia la práctica social de la alfabetización, la aritmética y el lenguaje y las implicaciones de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de las competencias básicas de los adultos. Los principales expertos internacionales propugnan un cambio en el enfoque de su definición por otra más abierta que sostiene que la alfabetización, la aritmética y el lenguaje son más que un conjunto de habilidades o técnicas, pues están determinadas por el contexto social y cultural en el que están teniendo lugar, el sentido que tienen para los usuarios, y los fines que persiguen.

OCR (B) Salters AS - A2 Units F333 and F336 Chemistry : chemistry in practice and individual investigation.

Guía de revisión y apoyo para alumnos de educación secundaria de segundo ciclo que estén realizando el curso del OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations) en los niveles AS y A2 del área de química. Está estructurada en cuatro secciones que presentan una serie de consejos generales sobre cuestiones relacionadas con el trabajo práctico (obtención, registro y proceso de resultados en experimentos prácticos), un apartado de orientación para la realización de investigaciones individualizadas, un apéndice con algunos temas de teoría útiles en la investigación, y una sección final con las soluciones a las preguntas y ejercicios que aparecen a lo largo del libro.

Avaliação de fatores de prognóstico associados a excisão cirúrgica de sarcomas nos locais de inoculação em felinos

Introdução: Os sarcomas associados aos locais de inoculação têm vindo a ganhar destaque na clinica veterinária devido à sua frequência e dificuldade de tratamento. A obtenção de fatores de prognóstico é uma ferramenta essencial para determinar a terapêutica mais apropriada e auxiliar na determinação da sobrevida nos diferentes casos. Objetivo: Estudar uma população de 26 gatos diagnosticados com sarcomas associados aos locais de inoculação, que foram submetidos a tratamento cirúrgico. Material e Métodos: É um estudo retrospetivo de casos que ocorreram entre o ano 2005 e 2011, onde treze casos procedem do Hospital Veterinário do Porto, e treze casos correspondem a clínicas localizadas na zona de Lisboa, Amadora e Margem Sul. Foram avaliados fatores como idade, sexo, raça, localização, índice mitótico, presença de tecido necrosado, margens cirúrgicas, estadiamento pré-cirúrgico com tomografia computadorizada, tempo de recidiva local e sobrevida global. Resultados: Tendo em conta a nossa baixa amostra nenhum dos resultados foi totalmente conclusivo, foi obtida uma sobrevida global dos animais operados de 1120 dias. Discussão/Conclusão: Apesar dos resultados não serem conclusivos, o estudo reforça a importância da avaliação pré-cirúrgica para poder implementar uma terapêutica que garanta a maior sobrevida possível. É necessário um estudo mais controlado dos diferentes fatores e com uma amostra mais significativa para a obtenção de resultados mais conclusivos.

Phosphorus sorption and availability in soils amended with animal manures and sewage sludge

Soils that receive large applications of animal wastes and sewage sludge are vulnerable to releasing environmentally significant concentrations of dissolved P available to subsurface flow owing to the gradual saturation of the soil's P sorption capacity. This study evaluated P sorption (calculated from Langmuir isotherms) and availability of P (as CaCl2-P and resin P) in soils incubated for 20 d with poultry litter, poultry manure, cattle slurry, municipal sewage sludge, or KH2PO4, added on a P-equivalent basis (100 mg P kg(-1)). All the P sources had a marked negative effect on P sorption and a positive effect on P availability in all soils. In the cattle slurry- and KH2PO4- treated soils, the decreases in P sorption maximum (19-66%) and binding energy (25-89%) were consistently larger than the corresponding decreases (7-41% and 11-30%) in poultry litter-, poultry manure-, and sewage sludge-treated soils. The effects of cattle slurry and KH2PO4 on P availability were, in most cases, larger than those of the other P sources. In the poultry litter, poultry manure, and sewage sludge treatments, the increase in soil solution P was inversely related (R-2 = 0.75) to the input of Ca from these relatively high Ca (13.5-42 g kg(-1)) sources. Correlation analyses implied that the magnitude of the changes in P sorption and availability was not related to the water-extractable P content of the P sources. Future research on the sustainable application of organic wastes to agricultural soils needs to consider the non-P- as well as P-containing components of the waste.

Vesicular systems for delivering conventional small organic molecules and larger macromolecules to and through human skin

The history of using vesicular systems for drug delivery to and through skin started nearly three decades ago with a study utilizing phospholipid liposomes to improve skin deposition and reduce systemic effects of triamcinolone acetonide. Subsequently, many researchers evaluated liposomes with respect to skin delivery, with the majority of them recording localized effects and relatively few studies showing transdermal delivery effects. Shortly after this, Transfersomes were developed with claims about their ability to deliver their payload into and through the skin with efficiencies similar to subcutaneous administration. Since these vesicles are ultradeformable, they were thought to penetrate intact skin deep enough to reach the systemic circulation. Their mechanisms of action remain controversial with diverse processes being reported. Parallel to this development, other classes of vesicles were produced with ethanol being included into the vesicles to provide flexibility (as in ethosomes) and vesicles were constructed from surfactants and cholesterol (as in niosomes). Thee ultradeformable vesicles showed variable efficiency in delivering low molecular weight and macromolecular drugs. This article will critically evaluate vesicular systems for dermal and transdermal delivery of drugs considering both their efficacy and potential mechanisms of action.

Predicting the profile of nutrients available for absorption: from nutrient requirement to animal response and environmental impact

Current feed evaluation systems for dairy cattle aim to match nutrient requirements with nutrient intake at pre-defined production levels. These systems were not developed to address, and are not suitable to predict, the responses to dietary changes in terms of production level and product composition, excretion of nutrients to the environment, and nutrition related disorders. The change from a requirement to a response system to meet the needs of various stakeholders requires prediction of the profile of absorbed nutrients and its subsequent utilisation for various purposes. This contribution examines the challenges to predicting the profile of nutrients available for absorption in dairy cattle and provides guidelines for further improved prediction with regard to animal production responses and environmental pollution. The profile of nutrients available for absorption comprises volatile fatty acids, long-chain fatty acids, amino acids and glucose. Thus the importance of processes in the reticulo-rumen is obvious. Much research into rumen fermentation is aimed at determination of substrate degradation rates. Quantitative knowledge on rates of passage of nutrients out of the rumen is rather limited compared with that on degradation rates, and thus should be an important theme in future research. Current systems largely ignore microbial metabolic variation, and extant mechanistic models of rumen fermentation give only limited attention to explicit representation of microbial metabolic activity. Recent molecular techniques indicate that knowledge on the presence and activity of various microbial species is far from complete. Such techniques may give a wealth of information, but to include such findings in systems predicting the nutrient profile requires close collaboration between molecular scientists and mathematical modellers on interpreting and evaluating quantitative data. Protozoal metabolism is of particular interest here given the paucity of quantitative data. Empirical models lack the biological basis necessary to evaluate mitigation strategies to reduce excretion of waste, including nitrogen, phosphorus and methane. Such models may have little predictive value when comparing various feeding strategies. Examples include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier II models to quantify methane emissions and current protein evaluation systems to evaluate low protein diets to reduce nitrogen losses to the environment. Nutrient based mechanistic models can address such issues. Since environmental issues generally attract more funding from governmental offices, further development of nutrient based models may well take place within an environmental framework.

Animal nutrition and lipids in animal products and their contribution to human intake and health

Few EU countries meet targets for saturated fatty acid (SFA) intake. Dairy products usually represent the single largest source of SFA, yet evidence indicates that milk has cardioprotective properties. Options for replacing some of the SFA in milk fat with cis-monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) through alteration of the cow’s diet are examined. Also, few people achieve minimum recommended intakes (~450–500 mg/d) of the long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Enrichment of EPA+DHA in poultry meat via bird nutrition is described and how this would impact on habitual intake is discussed.