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Although women are obtaining and maintaining leadership positions in health, education, and social care services, women from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds remain a minority and on the margins. In particular, services working therapeutically with marginalised and oppressed communities often fail to represent the population they serve. In this chapter, the authors will outline the development of an innovative therapeutic service for disenfranchised young people with Black women as leaders. The authors will outline and reflect on how they developed a leadership style drawing on Afrocentric practice, social justice, emancipatory practice and community psychology as they attempted to bring about systems change. The authors will draw on ideas of ‘marginality’ (Collins, 1986) to make visible their experience of ‘be-coming’ leaders, and the challenges that they experienced on several different levels: personal, professional, institutional, political and cultural. It will also examine how race, gender and class intersect in Black women’s leadership experiences, and how they tackle stereotyping in the making of Black female leaders. The chapter will examine how Black female leaders make creative use of their marginal positions to influence and reflect a radical standpoint on self, children, young people, families and community.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections between human resource (HR), situation strength and improvisation behavior. A high degree of “fit” among HR practices and between such practices and organizational strategy, is said to have an impact on organizational outcomes. How these fits are achieved is not fully understood in the literature. It has been proposed that horizontal fit is achieved when messages regarding HR matters are communicated to employees in a distinct, consensual, and consistent way. This will create a strong situation, which in turn will affect outcomes such as improvisation behavior. Situation strength is captured by the concepts of climate strength, and culture strength.

The research was conducted at a call center of a company belonging to a Portuguese Telecommunications Group. In total, 91 questionnaires were collected. Scales in the questionnaire are based on existing indicators, but a new measure of HR strength (HRS) was also used. The data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

Results show that HRS has a direct effect on improvisation behavior. Furthermore, culture is a mediator between HRS and climate. There was also a strong indication that culture may be a mediator between HRS and improvisation behavior.

Limitations concern the sample size and the fact that research was conducted in a call center. Implications for research include the need to introduce leadership into this type of studies, as well as model and scales validation.

The current research advances knowledge in the area in three ways. First, it presents a new instrument to measure HRS. Second, it introduces improvisation as an outcome of HR. And third, it tests a full model that links HR to social common structures (climate and culture) and performance outcomes (improvisation behavior in this work).

This study aims to explain the health impact of work demands and organization, job content, leadership and values in the workplace. It also explores the extent to which health conditions influence the meaning in life in late career.

The sample consisted of 1,330 Portuguese-based individuals aged 55–75 years. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was used for the data analysis and to test the research questions.

The results showed that stress and burnout are influenced by work demands and organization, job content, leadership and values in the workplace. Employment status had no influence. Health status affects the meaning in life.

Although participants were asked to answer the questionnaire bearing in mind their last work experience, retirees could have had difficulty reporting on their last work; therefore, in future research, the use of a qualitative methodology could also be equated as to complement richer information regarding past experiences in the work context.

Considering the main goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, this study contributes, namely, to the third one – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. In fact, directing a look at the condition in which older people work and at their health contributes not only to more productive organizations, to less spending of public money on health, but also to a more inclusive society. Bearing in mind workers are progressively retiring later and that the exposure to certain work conditions during the late career is problematic for organizations and for society in general, this study has practical and social implication.

Considering demographic changes and the aging of the active population in Portugal and the scarce studies carried out in the country concerning this relevant theme, the authors believe that the conclusions may constitute an important input for workplace policies regarding older workers. In addition, little research has focused on the effect of health in meaning in life.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the chemical composition of unripe banana flour from Southeast Brazil and verify its nutritional, physiological and biochemical properties in adult Wistar rats.

Analysis of soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH, moisture, ash, lipids, proteins, carbohydrate, resistant and total starch and energy was obtained. In all, 18 male Wistar rats were given different concentrations of unripe banana flour (0, 10 and 20 per cent) and these assessments were performed: feed, caloric and water intake; weight gain; coefficient of food efficiency; weight of organs; body, tibia and femur length; total mineral of bones; and biochemistry of blood, hepatic fluids and feces.

Unripe banana flour showed a potential for weight control as well as increased fecal cholesterol excretion. These results showed the potential of unripe banana flour for obesity treatment and lipid excretion. Nevertheless, plasma triacylglycerol levels increased in the animals that received the largest amount of banana flour (20 per cent w/w), possibly because of the large amount of resistant starch in the flour, indicating the need for additional studies to confirm the mechanisms responsible for this increase.

Unripe banana flour may promote beneficial health effects (such as weight control and increased elimination of cholesterol in feces); however, the large amount of resistant starch present may be responsible for an increase in blood triacyglycerol.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the increase in sensitivity of a single risperidone administration in relation to energy intake of Wistar rats treated with cafeteria diet from birth to adulthood (119 days).

During the lactation period, six litters of Wistar rats (dam + 8 pups each litter) were fed one of the following two diets: Control (n = 3) or Cafeteria (n = 3) diets and water ad libitum. After weaning, the males were placed in individual cages, receiving the same diet offered to their respective dams (Control = 18; or Cafeteria = 18) until adulthood (119 postnatal days). The following parameters were evaluated: food and energy intake; macronutrient intake; weight gain; adipose tissue relative weight; sucrose preference; food intake after an administration of risperidone (0.1 mg/kg body weight).

The Cafeteria group showed a higher energy intake in relation to the Control group (p < 0.001). The consumption of energy beyond the individual needs can be understood as a hyperphagic condition. Also, the Cafeteria group reported greater weight gain (p = 0.048) and accumulation of adipose tissue (p < 0.001) with respect to the Control group. These results indicate that the cafeteria diet generated obesity in animals. The Cafeteria group showed reduced sucrose preference (p = 0.031), which is associated with the development of anhedonia-like behavior. In the food intake test, risperidone showed a greater sensitivity in Cafeteria animals, promoting a decrease in their energy intake in relation to the Control group that received risperidone (p = 0.040).

The cafeteria diet promoted hyperphagia, anhedonia-like behavior and obesity in animals. Acute risperidone administration showed greater sensitivity in the Cafeteria group, with a decrease in energy intake. The reported effects may be related to a downregulation of the dopaminergic system in the NAc region.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the nutritional effects in Wistar rats of supplementation with stand-alone saturated fatty acid (SFA) or monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA), the replacement of SFA by MUFA and the combination of both (SFA + MUFA) over a long period of time (13 weeks).

In total, 30 Wistar rats were used and randomly assigned to receive (n = 6): control – lab chow; lard (L20%) – lab chow with added lard (20%); olive oil (O20%) – lab chow with added olive oil (20%); lard replacement with olive oil (L20% –O20%) – during six weeks lab chow with added lard (20%) replaced by lab chow with added olive oil (20%) given during the past seven weeks of the trial; lard combination with olive oil (L10% + O10%) – lab chow with added lard (10%) and olive oil (10%). Food and caloric intake, weight gain, food and energy efficiency, body mass index, bone mineral composition and blood biochemistry were evaluated.

All diets with added fatty acids showed higher energy intake (p < 0.001), weight gain (p = 0.01), accumulation of adipose tissue (p = 0.02) and food and energy efficiency (p = 0.01) compared to the control group. All groups exhibited higher levels of blood triglycerides compared to the control group (p = 0.02). In addition, the L10% + O10% group developed hyperglycemia (p < 0.001); the L group showed higher amounts of non- high density lipoprotein (HDL-c) (p = 0.04); and the L20%−O20% group exhibited high levels of the triglyceride/HDL-c ratio (p = 0.04) in relation to the control.

These results indicate that regardless of the fatty acid type, consumption in large quantities of fatty acids for long periods of time can cause obesity and dyslipidemia.