Caracterização físico-química do amido e da farinha da fruta-pão (Artocarpus altilis) e aplicação em pães de forma

A fruta-pão é um fruto rico em vitaminas e minerais do qual pode ser extraído o amido ou processado à forma de farinha aumentando sua vida de prateleira. Essa farinha pode substituir parcialmente a farinha de trigo em produtos panificáveis. O objetivo do presente estudo foi extrair e analisar algumas características físicas, químicas e tecnológicas do amido nativo de fruta-pão, além de realizar a caracterização físico-química da farinha obtida desse fruto, de suas misturas com a farinha de trigo e verificar a viabilidade destas na elaboração de pão de forma. O amido de fruta-pão foi submetido às análises de umidade, capacidade de ligação de água a frio (CLAF), poder de inchamento (PI), índice de solubilidade (IS), sinérese, microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV) e difração de raio X. O amido de milho foi analisado para efeito de comparação. O amido de fruta-pão apresentou maior umidade (18,32%), CLAF (80,33%), PI (198,71 g/g a 90 0C), IS (7,22% a 90 0C) e sinérese (2,69 mL) quando comparado com o amido de milho. Pela análise de MEV, verificou-se que o amido de fruta-pão apresentou grânulos menores que os do amido de milho, mas ambos com formato poliédrico. A difração de raio X permitiu classificar o amido de milho como tipo A e o de fruta-pão como tipo B. As amostras de farinha analisadas continham um percentual de farinha de fruta-pão de 0% (controle), 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% e 100% e foram submetidas às análises de umidade, cinzas, extrato etéreo, carboidratos, proteína, energia, fibra total, solúvel e insolúvel, pH, cor e granulometria. Os mesmos percentuais de substituição foram utilizados para a elaboração dos pães, analisados em relação a umidade, peso, volume, volume específico, altura, perfil de textura, aceitação sensorial e intenção de compra. A substituição da farinha de trigo pela farinha de fruta-pão influenciou na granulometria das misturas, reduziu o teor de proteína de 10,8% para 3,99%, elevou o percentual de carboidratos, cinzas e pH de 73,84%, 0,52% e 5,94 para 83,10%, 2,19% e 6,34 , respectivamente. No entanto, para a umidade, teor de lipídeos e diferença global de cor das amostras não foi verificada influência significativa do percentual de substituição. A farinha de fruta-pão apresentou um maior percentual de fibras totais (21,17%), solúveis (10,39%) e insolúveis (10,77%). Para os pães de forma, o aumento da substituição não influenciou na umidade e no peso dos pães, exceto para a amostra com 100% de farinha de fruta-pão, que apresentou 41,28% de umidade e peso de 588,65 g. Para as demais análises, os maiores percentuais de substituição influenciaram negativamente as características do produto. Em relação a caracterização físico-química das amostras de farinha, o aumento do percentual de substituição influenciou na maioria dos parâmetros avaliados. Para os pães, as formulações com maiores notas hedônicas e com melhor intenção de compra foram as com substituição de 5% e de 10%.

Representing organizational structures in enterprise architecture : an ontology-based approach

Arquitetura Corporativa promove o estabelecimento de uma visão holística da estrutura e forma de trabalho de uma organização. Um dos aspectos abordados em Arquitetura Corporativa está associada a "estrutura ativa" da organização, que diz respeito a “quem" realiza as atividades organizacionais. Várias abordagens têm sido propostas a fim de proporcionar um meio para a representação de Arquitetura Corporativa, entre as quais ARIS, RM-ODP, UPDM e ArchiMate. Apesar da aceitação por parte da comunidade, as abordagens existentes se concentram em propósitos diferentes, têm limitações de escopo e algumas não têm semântica de mundo real bem definida. Além das abordagens de modelagem, muitas abordagens de ontologias têm sido propostas, a fim de descrever o domínio de estrutura ativa, incluindo as ontologias de SUPER Project, TOVE, Enterprise Ontology e W3C Org Ontology. Embora especificadas para fundamentação semântica e negociação de significado, algumas das abordagens propostas têm fins específicos e cobertura limitada. Além disso, algumas das abordagens não são definidas usando linguagens formais e outras são especificadas usando linguagens sem semântica bem definida. Este trabalho apresenta uma ontologia de referência bem fundamentada para o domínio organizacional. A ontologia organizacional de referência apresentada abrange os aspectos básicos discutidos na literatura organizacional, tais como divisão do trabalho, relações sociais e classificação das unidades estruturais. Além disso, também abrange os aspectos organizacionais definidos em abordagens existentes, levando em consideração tanto abordagens de modelagem quanto abordagens ontológicas. A ontologia resultante é especificada em OntoUML e estende os conceitos sociais de UFO-C.

Análise do padrão de ativação muscular de indivíduos hemiparéticos pós-AVC em marcha assistida por andador robótico

O Acidente Vascular Cerebral (AVC) é uma das principais causas de prejuízos ao sistema neuromuscular. Dispositivos Robóticos vêm sendo amplamente desenvolvidos e estudados com a finalidade de serem utilizados na assistência à marcha e para o treinamento da marcha durante a reabilitação. O objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar a marcha assistida pelo AROW (Assistive Robotic Walker) em indivíduos hemiparéticos pós-AVC, através da análise de sinais de acelerometria e sinais mioelétricos de superfície (sEMG) provenientes dos músculos vasto medial (VM), bíceps femoral (BF), tibial anterior (TA) e gastrocnêmio medial (GM), e também utilizando os métodos de avaliação GAS (Goal Attainment Scaling) e SUS (System Usability Scale). Nove indivíduos hemiparéticos participaram dos testes. A velocidade da marcha foi reduzida com o uso do AROW e, consequentemente, houve algumas alterações na duração das fases da marcha, por exemplo, uma maior duração da fase de apoio (p = 0,0174). O padrão de ativação muscular para o grupo analisado não apresentou diferença estatisticamente significativa (início da ativação VM: p= 0,4999; término da ativação VM: p= 0,5647; início BF: p= 0,1186; término BF: p= 0,7823; início TA: p= 0,5833; término TA: p= 0,8393; início GM: p= 0,6077; término GM: p= 0,1429). Entretanto, avaliando o padrão de ativação muscular individualmente, podem-se notar algumas alterações benéficas, por exemplo, redução da coativação dos músculos tibial anterior e gastrocnêmio medial. Os resultados das avaliações através do GAS (54,8) e SUS (81,4) sobre o uso do AROW mostraram boa aceitação pelos usuários, e os objetivos esperados durante o uso do andador foram atingidos. A adaptação rápida, facilidade de utilização e sentimento de segurança ao usar o dispositivo são pontos positivos obtidos com o uso do AROW.

An ecosystem of products and systems for ambient intelligence – the AAL4ALL users perspective

Developed societies are currently facing severe demographic changes: the world is getting older at an unprecedented rate. In 2000, about 420 million people, or approximately 7 percent of the world population, were aged 65 or older. By 2050, that number will be nearly 1.5 billion people, about 16 percent of the world population. This demographic trend will be also followed by an increase of people with physical limitations. New challenges will be raised to the traditional health care systems, not only in Portugal, but also in all other European states. There is an urgent need to find solutions that allow extending the time people can live in their preferred environment by increasing their autonomy, self-confidence and mobility. AAL4ALL presents an idea for an answer through the development of an ecosystem of products and services for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) associated to a business model and validated through large scale trial. This paper presents the results of the first survey developed within the AAL4ALL project: the users’ survey targeted at the Portuguese seniors and pre-seniors. This paper is, thus, about the lives of the Portuguese population aged 50 and over.

Evidencia empírica de los factores que afectan a la independencia del auditor

The European Union considers it appropriate to further discuss how to strengthen the independence of the auditors to address conflicts of interest inherent in the current scenario, characterized by factors such as the appointment of auditors for the audited company, low turnover or different service delivery to the audit. This paper aims to realize the expectations of the factors that affect, both positively and negatively, the auditor maintains its independence from the client.

Offshore outsourcing in large companies: motivations and risks perceived

When companies opt for information systems (IS) outsourcing, within the set of contracted services, they can contract their entire service needs to onshore suppliers or to offshore companies, or part of these services can be contracted to onshore suppliers and the other part to offshore suppliers. The offshore outsourcing reveals itself nowadays as an important strategic option to IS management optimization. This paper presents and discusses the main results of a survey that was carried out in Portugal to determine several aspects of offshore practice in large companies. It allowed the identification of the services more frequently contracted, the most common motivations for choosing offshore suppliers and the main risks perceived by companies. This research contributes to a better understanding of the IS offshore market, enabling client companies and vendors to improve their strategic business action.

Rootstocks resistant to Meloidogyne incognita and compatibility of grafting in net melon

Due to the few studies about grafting in net melon, in order to obtain better control of soil pathogens, the aim of the present study was to evaluate 16 genotypes of Cucurbitaceae: Benincasa hispida, Luffa cylindrica, pumpkin 'Jacarezinho', pumpkin 'Menina Brasileira', squash 'Exposição', squash 'Coroa', pumpkin 'Canhão Seca', pumpkin 'Squash', pumpkin 'Enrrugado Verde', pumpkin 'Mini Paulista', pumpkin 'Goianinha', watermelon 'Charleston Gray', melon 'Rendondo Gaucho', melon 'Redondo Amarelo', cucumber 'Caipira HS' and cucumber 'Caipira Rubi', regarding to compatibility of grafting in net melon and resistance to Meloidogyne incognita, based on the reproduction factor (RF), according to Oostenbrink (1966). To assess resistance, the seedlings were transplanted to ceramic pots and inoculated with 300/mL eggs and/or second stage juveniles of M. incognita. At 50 days after transplanting, the plants were removed from the pots and the resistance was evaluated. The compatibility between resistant rootstock and grafts of net melon was determined by performing simple cleft grafting, in a commercial net melon hybrid of great market acceptance and susceptible to M. incognita (Bonus no. 2). The genotypes Luffa cylindrica, pumpkin 'Goianinha', pumpkin 'Mini-Paulista', melon 'Redondo Amarelo', watermelon 'Charleston Gray' are resistant to the nematode M. incognita. The better compatibilities occurred with the rootstocks melon 'Amarelo', which presented 100% of success, followed by pumpkin 'Mini-Paulista' with 94%. On the other hand, Sponge gourd, watermelon 'Charleston Gray' and pumpkin 'Goianinha' showed low graft take percentages of 66%, 62% and 50%, respectively.

Papa Bento XVI e Papa Francisco na grande final!

A chamada Lei do Branqueamento de Capitais - Lei 25/2008, de 5/6 e alterações -, considera que estão sujeitas a especiais obrigações os “Notários, conservadores de registos, advogados, solicitadores e outros profissionais independentes, constituídos em sociedade ou em prática individual, que intervenham ou assistam, por conta de um cliente ou noutras circunstâncias, em operações: § vi) De alienação e aquisição de direitos sobre praticantes de actividades desportivas profissionais;”. Estamos a pensar, como é óbvio, nas transferências de jogadores de futebol, nomeadamente na Europa, as quais atingem somas astronómicas e muitas vezes ocultas. São por demais evidentes as notícias da comunicação social que dão conta que, em muitos dos casos, os verdadeiros valores envolvidos não são os declarados. Quer para fugir aos impostos, quer para esconder o pagamento de avultadas comissões extraordinárias; Abstract: The Call of the Money Laundering Law - Law 25/2008, of 5/6 and change - considers that are subject to the special obligations "notaries, registrars, lawyers, solicitors and other independent professionals, made in society or in practice individual, that participating or assisting, on behalf of a client or other circumstances in operations: § vi) sale and acquisition of rights to practitioners of professional sports activities; ". We are thinking, of course, transfers of football players, particularly in Europe, which reach astronomical sums and often hidden. Are all too apparent the news media that realize that in many cases the true values involved are not declared. Want to evade taxes or to hide the payment of large exceptional fees.

A HIPÓTESE INTEGRADORA DA GOVERNANÇA CORPORATIVA E DA RESPONSABILIDADE SOCIAL CORPORATIVA SOB O ENFOQUE DOS DIREITOS HUMANOS

A governança corporativa e a responsabilidade social corporativa são dois instrumentos que têm o caráter de atingir a excelência da organização empresarial. Por sua vez, os mesmos foram instrumentalizados como meio de proteção dos interesses dos agentes privados com vista à potencialização da sociedade empresarial, motivados pela desconfiança dos processos decisórios dos administradores societários. Posteriormente, evoluiram sob a forma de códigos de condutas, ditados pelos organismos de controle empresarial, sempre conservando o caráter voluntário de sua aceitação. Alguns objetivos sequer foram incluídos nos seus processos internos de excelência, como por exemplo os direitos humanos de determinados stakeholders. Esse ponto é o objeto principal desta investigação, que busca evidenciar a hipótese de integração da governança corporativa e da responsabilidade social corporativa sob o enfoque dos direitos humanos. § The Corporate governance and corporate social responsibility are two instruments that have the character to achieve excellence in business organization. On the other hand, they have been exploited as a way of protecting the interests of private agents for enhancement of corporate society, motivated by the distrust of the decision-making process of corporate managers. Later, it evolved in the form of codes of conduct, dictated by the bodies of corporate control, always preserving the voluntary nature of their acceptance. Some objectives were not even included in its internal process of excellence, such as the human rights of certain stakeholders. This point is the main object of this research, which seeks to demonstrate the possibility of integration of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility in the human rights perspective.

Dense motion field estimation from myocardial boundary displacements

Minimally invasive cardiovascular interventions guided by multiple imaging modalities are rapidly gaining clinical acceptance for the treatment of several cardiovascular diseases. These images are typically fused with richly detailed pre-operative scans through registration techniques, enhancing the intra-operative clinical data and easing the image-guided procedures. Nonetheless, rigid models have been used to align the different modalities, not taking into account the anatomical variations of the cardiac muscle throughout the cardiac cycle. In the current study, we present a novel strategy to compensate the beat-to-beat physiological adaptation of the myocardium. Hereto, we intend to prove that a complete myocardial motion field can be quickly recovered from the displacement field at the myocardial boundaries, therefore being an efficient strategy to locally deform the cardiac muscle. We address this hypothesis by comparing three different strategies to recover a dense myocardial motion field from a sparse one, namely, a diffusion-based approach, thin-plate splines, and multiquadric radial basis functions. Two experimental setups were used to validate the proposed strategy. First, an in silico validation was carried out on synthetic motion fields obtained from two realistic simulated ultrasound sequences. Then, 45 mid-ventricular 2D sequences of cine magnetic resonance imaging were processed to further evaluate the different approaches. The results showed that accurate boundary tracking combined with dense myocardial recovery via interpolation/ diffusion is a potentially viable solution to speed up dense myocardial motion field estimation and, consequently, to deform/compensate the myocardial wall throughout the cardiac cycle. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improving The Robustness Of Interventional 4D Ultrasound Segmentation Through The Use Of Personalized Shape Priors

While fluoroscopy is still the most widely used imaging modality to guide cardiac interventions, the fusion of pre-operative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with real-time intra-operative ultrasound (US) is rapidly gaining clinical acceptance as a viable, radiation-free alternative. In order to improve the detection of the left ventricular (LV) surface in 4D ultrasound, we propose to take advantage of the pre-operative MRI scans to extract a realistic geometrical model representing the patients cardiac anatomy. This could serve as prior information in the interventional setting, allowing to increase the accuracy of the anatomy extraction step in US data. We have made use of a real-time 3D segmentation framework used in the recent past to solve the LV segmentation problem in MR and US data independently and we take advantage of this common link to introduce the prior information as a soft penalty term in the ultrasound segmentation algorithm. We tested the proposed algorithm in a clinical dataset of 38 patients undergoing both MR and US scans. The introduction of the personalized shape prior improves the accuracy and robustness of the LV segmentation, as supported by the error reduction when compared to core lab manual segmentation of the same US sequences.

Applications of artificial intelligence to condition-based maintenance

In this paper we discuss interesting developments of expert systems for machine diagnosis and condition-based maintenance. We review some elements of condition-based maintenance and its applications, expert systems for machine diagnosis, and an example of machine diagnosis. In the last section we note some problems to be resolved so that expert systems for machine diagnosis may gain wider acceptance in the future.

Shopping for apparel: how can kiosk systems help?

When shopping for apparel, many consumers seek advice from friends and family or store personnel. In-store kiosk systems might serve as an alternative decision support system. In the present study we address the key question of how such kiosk systems are evaluated by consumers. We conducted three focus group discussions with regular apparel shoppers aged between 23 and 39 years. In sum, qualitative information from 15 participants was subject to a qualitative content analysis with the aim of gaining a more comprehensive understanding of how apparel shoppers experience the shopping process. Getting a more in-depth understanding of the needs and wishes associated with the apparel shopping process gives a basis for evaluating the potential acceptance of electronic decision support systems in apparel shopping. Although our study is exploratory in nature, we are able to draw an initial picture of how kiosk systems could be used in apparel shopping.

Scenario Planning and Evaluation of Pricing Strategies in the Portuguese Bulk LPG Market

Portugal has the largest LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) share of primary energy demand in the EU (about 5%). Due to the increasing international cost of LPG in the last years and the high price sensitivity of the consumers the preference for substitute energy sources in new and existing consumers has been increasing. To select the kind of energy, some consumer estimate and compare the total costs while others follow agents (equipment sellers) recommendations. It takes time to build agents perception about the most advantageous source of energy, which is seen as an important resource that drives client resource accumulation and retention. Marketing strategies have to take into consideration some market dynamic effects derived from the accumulation and depletion of these resources. A simple system dynamics model was built, combined with Economic Value Added framework, to evaluate some pricing strategies under different scenarios of LPG international cost.

Scenario Planning and Evaluation of Pricing Strategies in the Portuguese Bulk LPG Market

Portugal has the largest LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) share of primary energy demand in the EU (about 5%). Due to the increasing international cost of LPG in the last years and the high price sensitivity of the consumers the preference for substitute energy sources in new and existing consumers has been increasing. To select the kind of energy, some consumer estimate and compare the total costs while others follow agents (equipment sellers) recommendations. It takes time to build agents perception about the most advantageous source of energy, which is seen as an important resource that drives client resource accumulation and retention. Marketing strategies have to take into consideration some market dynamic effects derived from the accumulation and depletion of these resources. A simple system dynamics model was built, combined with Economic Value Added framework, to evaluate some pricing strategies under different scenarios of LPG international cost.