Websites placing cookies on your computer to track your browsing behavior. TikTok stores your personal data in China. Are you aware of what products, services, and organisations do with your personal data? It is often not obvious. Our digital lives are becoming more and more prominent. We are now meeting each other virtually for work and leisure, and are spotted and traced without our knowledge, both in physical places (public areas and streets) and in virtual spaces. Technology is developing rapidly and policy makers are not able to keep up, resulting in unknown threats for citizens in modern society. Moreover, technology can lead to inequality and exclusion, as demonstrated in the Dutch childcare benefits scandal. The aim of the Inholland Digital Rights Research Team, co-founded by Professors Wina Smeenk, Ander de Keijzer and Ben Wagner, is to focus their work on the social, economic, cultural, communication, design and technological elements that can lead to a digitally responsible society. This means that we want to be part of the debate and research on how technology in our digital age can contribute to the quality of peoples’ lives: how can people benefit from the digital society and how are they hindered, or even worse, excluded from partaking in our digital society. We do this in our research lines, as well as in the sustainable media lab courses and the data-driven minor.
Websites placing cookies on your computer to track your browsing behavior. TikTok stores your personal data in China. Are you aware of what products, services, and organisations do with your personal data? It is often not obvious. Our digital lives are becoming more and more prominent. We are now meeting each other virtually for work and leisure, and are spotted and traced without our knowledge, both in physical places (public areas and streets) and in virtual spaces. Technology is developing rapidly and policy makers are not able to keep up, resulting in unknown threats for citizens in modern society. Moreover, technology can lead to inequality and exclusion, as demonstrated in the Dutch childcare benefits scandal. The aim of the Inholland Digital Rights Research Team, co-founded by Professors Wina Smeenk, Ander de Keijzer and Ben Wagner, is to focus their work on the social, economic, cultural, communication, design and technological elements that can lead to a digitally responsible society. This means that we want to be part of the debate and research on how technology in our digital age can contribute to the quality of peoples’ lives: how can people benefit from the digital society and how are they hindered, or even worse, excluded from partaking in our digital society. We do this in our research lines, as well as in the sustainable media lab courses and the data-driven minor.
Inulin is a soluble dietary fibre, also classified as a prebiotic, extracted from chicory roots. The present study aimed to determine the effect of consumption of native chicory inulin on the stool frequency of middle-aged to older adults (40–75 years old) with uncomfortably but not clinically relevant low stool frequency, specified as two to four days without bowel movements per week. Two randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled crossover trials were conducted using similar protocols in differing populations. Trial A was conducted in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and subsequently Trial B was conducted in Newcastle, United Kingdom. Both trials involved supplementation for 5 weeks with 10 g per day of inulin or placebo, a washout period of 2 weeks, and then crossed over to receive the other treatment. In Trial B, faecal gut microbiota composition was assessed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. In Trial A, which 10 volunteers completed, the stool frequency was significantly increased to an average 4.9 ± 0.23 (SEM) times per week during inulin periods versus 3.6 ± 0.25 in the periods with placebo (p = 0.01). In contrast, in Trial B which 20 volunteers completed, there was no significant effect of the inulin on stool frequency (7.5 ± 2.1 times per week with inulin, 8.1 ± 3.0 with placebo, p = 0.35). However, many subjects in Trial B had a stool frequency >5 per week also for the placebo period, in breach of the inclusion criteria. Combining the data of 16 low stool frequency subjects from Trials A and B showed a significant effect of inulin to increase stool frequency from 4.1 to 5.0 per week (p = 0.032). Regarding secondary outcomes, stool consistency was significantly softer with inulin treatment compared to placebo periods, it increased 0.29 on the Bristol stool scale (p = 0.008) when data from all subjects of Trials A and B were combined. No other differences in bowel habit parameters due to inulin consumption were significant. None of the differences in specific bacterial abundance, alpha or beta diversity were significant, however the trends were in directions consistent with published studies on other types of inulin. We conclude that 10 g per day of native chicory inulin can increase stool frequency in subjects with low stool frequency.
MULTIFILE
Every year, more than 400 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide. To overcome the problems for the environment development of degradable polymers and shift from fossil-based polymers to renewable plastics is needed. At the same time Europe wastes over five billion kilos of citrus peel every year. Most of this waste goes to incineration, where the valuable chemical components that the peel contains are lost forever. One of these components is limonene, a doubly unsaturated terpene which is the major component of orange oil (49%) and is therefore an abundantly available side product of the orange industry. PeelPioneers has developed a bio-refinery concept that turns citrus peel waste into valuable chemical compounds and products, one of these chemicals being limonene. PeelPioneers aims to use the extracted material as fully as possible to benefit circular economy and therefore wish to study the potential of limonene for developing a polymeric material, which can be used for packaging e.g. bottle or pack for freshly pressed orange juice. The Centre of Expertise of Biobased Economy of Avans University of Applied Sciences has carried out studies on polymerisation of limonene and limonene-like monomers. Therefore PeelPioneers and Avans Centre of Expertise of Biobased Economy decided to join their forces in this “From Peel To Bottle” project to study the potential and pathways to meet this goal.
