Publications by authors named "Carla Lourenco"

Food waste is a significant concern when it comes to food safety. It is a well-known fact that fruit and vegetable wastage is high worldwide; however, quantitative data, especially on such waste in the retail sector, are limited. Wasted vegetables are sources of essential dietary compounds, benefiting from their revalorization.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Dietary Guidelines vary by country regarding the safety of commercial baby food, prompting a study to compare commercially processed and homemade baby foods.
  • The analysis included checks for nutritional content, microbiological safety, and contamination levels, revealing that commercial products generally have better macronutrient ratios and no significant microbial contamination, while homemade options showed some risks.
  • Both types of baby food exhibited pesticide residues, but commercial samples were deemed safer overall, indicating the need for improved quality and further research on both commercial and homemade baby food processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Paper is one of the packaging materials that presents a biodegradable character, being used in several areas; however, its barrier properties (gases and fat) and mechanics are reduced, which limits its application. Coating papers with synthetic polymers improve these properties, reducing their biodegradability and recyclability. The objective of this work was to develop and characterize coated paperboard, using the tape casting technique, with different ratios of film form agar-agar/chitosan (AA:CHI, 100:0, 50:50, and 0:100) and different numbers of coating layers (operating times for application of 14.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Given the current bans on the use of some growth promoting antibiotics in poultry nutrition, the need to use alternative additives which could replace traditional promoters in diets has arisen. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of alternative additives, associated or not, in replacing the antibiotic growth promoter in the diets of laying hens on performance, egg quality, biometry, bone characteristics, and economic viability. A total of 378 birds at 97 weeks of age, weighing 1691 ± 80g with an average production of 79.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) have numerous comorbidities due to trisomy 21. However, virtual reality-based therapy (VRT) has been used nowadays as a learning and visual motor tool in order to facilitate the development and learning process of this group. The aim of this article was to carry out an integrative review of the literature on the use of virtual and computational technologies in the stimulation of children with DS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Excessive use of plastics in daily life and the inappropriate disposal of plastic products are severely affecting wildlife species in both coastal and aquatic environments. Birds are top-predators, exposed to all threats affecting their environments, making them ideal sentinel organisms for monitoring ecosystems change. We set a baseline assessment of the prevalence of marine plastic litter affecting multi-species populations of aquatic birds in southern Portugal.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A severe leaf spot, turning to foliage blight, was observed on leaves of growing in a garden in Brazil (state of Rio de Janeiro) in 2015. A dematiaceous hyphomycete bearing a morphology typical of a helminthosporoid fungi was regularly found in association with diseased tissues. The fungus was isolated and pathogenicity was demonstrated through the completion of Koch's postulates.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Oceanographic features shape the distributional and genetic patterns of marine species by interrupting or promoting connections among populations. Although general patterns commonly arise, distributional ranges and genetic structure are species-specific and do not always comply with the expected trends. By applying a multimarker genetic approach combined with Lagrangian particle simulations (LPS) we tested the hypothesis that oceanographic features along northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean shores influence dispersal potential and genetic structure of the intertidal mussel Perna perna.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) is the most widely used delirium screening instrument. The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the European Portuguese version of CAM.

Methods: The sample included elderly patients (≥65 years), admitted for at least 48 h, into two intermediate care units (ICMU) of Intensive Medicine and Surgical Services in a university hospital.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF