There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

The State of Food and Agriculture

The UK has passed legislation that introduces the world’s first long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change (The Climate Change Act 20084). The act requires Government to set carbon budgets, which are limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the UK for consecutive five year periods. 
Models analysed in IPCC AR4 have a range of 0-60% for an AMOC decrease over the next 100 years. The RAPID-WATCH 26˚N observations provide the only continuous measurements of the AMOC strength and vertical structure, and are thus a vital monitoring tool for this key climate variable'.
Analysis of the PSMSL data set, reviewed by scientific panels such as the IPCC, inform studies of impacts of climate change on both national and international levels (e.g. UK Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP), UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP), UK Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Review, Charting Progress and Charting Progress 2, IPCC Working Group II).

Climate change impacts

The development of sustainable renewable polymers from natural resources has increasingly gained attention from scientists, engineers as well as the general public and government agencies. This review covers recent progress in the field of renewable bio-based monomers and polymers from natural resources: terpenes, terpenoids, and rosin, which are a class of hydrocarbon-rich biomass with abundance and low cost, holding much potential for utilization as organic feedstocks for green plastics and composites. This review details polymerization and copolymerization of terpenes such as pinene, limonene, and myrcene and their derivatives, terpenoids including carvone and menthol, and rosin-derived monomers. The future direction on the utilization of these natural resources is discussed.

Progress in Renewable Polymers from Natural Terpenes, Terpenoids, and Rosin

Background: School dropout is a problem education systems struggle with, which disputes the quality of the educational institution and the education system itself. Objectives: To adapt and validate the psychometric qualities of the Reasons for Higher Education Dropout Scale for Portuguese higher education students. Methodology: Quantitative, transversal, descriptive, and correlational study. A sociodemographic characterization questionnaire and the Reasons for Higher Education Dropout Scale were applied to a sample of 891 students, mostly female (68.2%), with a mean age of 19.68 years. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was used. Results: The scale, consisted of 30 items, is organized into 4 dimensions: Organizational; Life management; Professional; and Relational. It presents an explained variance of 46.5% and a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.959. Conclusion: The results support the psychometric adequacy of the scale for the Portuguese population and indicate that it can be used in future studies in this area and allow the implementation of measures to prevent dropout

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Adaptação e validação para português da Escala de Motivos de Intenção de Abandono do Ensino Superior

The quality of dehydrated products is a concern because, due to their very low moisture content, they tend to rehydrate quite easily, thus compromising the chemical, enzymatic or microbial stabilities, as well as the nutritional and sensorial properties. Having this in mind, this study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of storage in walnuts, under certain conditions of temperature, relative humidity and different types of packaging. The fruit samples used were from Chile, Portugal, Romania and United States. The storage of the walnuts lasted for 90 days, and the conditions tested were: room temperature; a stove at 30 and 50 °C without control over relative humidity of the air; refrigeration and freezing. The two types of plastic package tested were low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE). The water activity was measured by a hygrometer; moisture content by oven drying until constant weight and colour with a colorimeter. From the results obtained it was concluded that the samples from the different origins are different with respect to moisture content, water activity and colour, regardless of the storage conditions and type of package. Furthermore, it was verified that to assure the good preservation of the walnuts the storage at 50 oC should be avoided, since it caused an extensive dehydration of the product and a high change in colour in comparison to the unstored samples. Finally, regarding the type of package, it

Influência das condições de armazenamento e tipo de embalagem em algumas propriedades de nozes influence of storage conditions and type of package on some properties of walnuts

Understanding consumers’ behavior and their handling of high-risk foods at home is essential for reducing the number of foodborne illnesses. This study shows the results of a cross-national analysis of consumers’ perception from nine countries, and the identification of customers’ clusters and its characteristics in order to understand customers’ behavior, and to build safe chilled ready-to-eat (RTE) foods prevention strategies. The cluster analysis resulted in two clusters: (1) “Precautious consumers” characterized by the orientation towards pre-packed RTE foods, with consumers mainly coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. Their attitudes and self-reported practices may be categorized as less risky in terms of food-borne illnesses connected with the consumption of RTE foods; (2) “Unconcerned consumers” preferred cutting and slicing RTE foods freshly at the point of purchase, usually sold at the delicatessen department in a supermarket or at open markets. Those consumers mostly came from Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia and their attitudes and self-reported practices were riskier. These results allow a better understating of what characterizes consumers of RTE foods in different countries. 

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Consumer attitudes and perceptions towards chilled ready-to-eat foods: a multi-national study

O presente trabalho visa apresentar, de forma simples, um estudo de natureza academica efetuado com vista a tentativa de implementacao de uma unidade industrial de producao de chamucas doces. O trabalho foi realizado no âmbito da unidade curricular de Equipamentos e Instalacoes e Industriais do curso de Engenharia Alimentar da Escola Superior Agraria de Viseu. Os objetivos do trabalho incluem a descricao do processo produtivo e calculos de projeto, nomeadamente no que respeita a balancos massicos; a caracterizacao da empresa e recursos humanos; breves consideracoes sobre o mercado alvo e uma resumida analise SWOT; projeto da linha de producao, que inclui layout e equipamentos; consideracoes relativas aos  efluentes gerados no processo; e, por fim, uma analise ligeira de viabilidade economica.

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Raquel Guiné

Papers

Adaptação e validação para português da Escala de Motivos de Intenção de Abandono do Ensino Superior

Influência das condições de armazenamento e tipo de embalagem em algumas propriedades de nozes influence of storage conditions and type of package on some properties of walnuts

Consumer attitudes and perceptions towards chilled ready-to-eat foods: a multi-national study

Projeto de uma unidade de produção de chamuças doces com recheio de maçã e mel