Avaliação dos níveis de concentração de poeiras suspensas em atmosferas interiores

A qualidade de vida do ser humano é grandemente influenciada pelo ar que respiram. Grande parte da população passa a maior parte do seu tempo em ambientes interiores, pelo que a qualidade do ar presente nesses ambientes é de extrema importância para a saúde da população. Os elevados níveis de concentração das partículas suspensas em atmosferas interiores constituem um risco na saúde da população exposta. O presente trabalho consistiu em avaliar os níveis de concentração de partículas suspensas em atmosferas interiores, numa escola do ensino básico e num laboratório de ortoprotesia, utilizando o método automático que consiste em medir amostras de ar através do equipamento Handheld 3016 IAQ, obtendo-se directamente os valores de concentração e o número de partículas suspensas no ar interior, e concluir, de acordo com as normas ISO 7730:2005, NP 1796:2007 e com Decreto –Lei nº 79/2006 de 4 de Abril sobre a qualidade do ar presente no interior dos locais analisados. Os resultados obtidos permitiram concluir que os níveis de concentração de partículas suspensas nas atmosferas interiores da escola se encontram dentro dos valores limite estabelecidos pelas normas, e que para o laboratório de ortoprotesia, os níveis de concentração de partículas não se encontram dentro dos valores estabelecidos pelo SCE, embora cumpram os requisitos da norma NP 1796:2007.

Discursos e práticas de mediadoras socioculturais sobre a mediação num território educativo de intervenção prioritária

Este trabalho de investigação tem como principal objetivo caracterizar os discursos e as práticas de duas mediadoras socioculturais sobre o processo de Mediação num Território Educativo de Intervenção Prioritária, na área metropolitana de Lisboa. Do ponto de vista teórico, o estudo ancora-se numa perspetiva interdisciplinar que cruza diferentes perspetivas e campos do saber sobre a mediação sociocultural, a Sociologia e as Ciências da Educação. Do ponto de vista metodológico privilegiou-se a abordagem qualitativa e interpretativa, com recurso aos procedimentos que caracterizam um estudo de caso. Relativamente às técnicas utilizou-se a entrevista como meio de obter os discursos das mediadoras socioculturais sobre o processo de mediação. Este trabalho de investigação ergue-se, assim, numa base teórica e numa perspetiva analítica interpretativa sobre discursos e práticas, procurando relacionar os discursos das mediadoras, no âmbito da análise de uma das dimensões da sua cultura profissional: dimensão da profissão que permite aos mediadores evidenciar práticas de mediação sociocultural e o seu impacto na sua relação com as crianças e jovens e, ainda, na construção de uma escola/agrupamento que afirma que se orienta por princípios cívicos, de trabalho colaborativo e de parceria. Com o recurso das diferentes perspetivas teóricas sobre mediação e do cruzamento dos discursos das mediadoras participantes na investigação, foi possível fazer uma cartografia, ainda que exploratória, das práticas das mediadoras e caracterizar a importância da mediação sociocultural como um “novo” espaço de intervenção nas escolas e, à luz desses referenciais, caracterizar as práticas desenvolvidas no agrupamento em estudo. Assim, foi analisado o contexto de duas escolas dos arredores de Lisboa, pertencentes ao mesmo Agrupamento, onde realizámos as entrevistas a duas mediadoras socioculturais que desempenham funções de mediação socioeducativa. Em síntese, o caminho percorrido permitiu cimentar perspetivas teóricas sobre os novos “habitantes” das escolas, sobre a missão destes novos profissionais, na (re)construção de uma escola para todos e que fundamentam a importância da mediação e do mediador sociocultural como figura importante no espaço educativo.

PHYLOViZ: phylogenetic inference and data visualization for sequence based typing methods

Background: With the decrease of DNA sequencing costs, sequence-based typing methods are rapidly becoming the gold standard for epidemiological surveillance. These methods provide reproducible and comparable results needed for a global scale bacterial population analysis, while retaining their usefulness for local epidemiological surveys. Online databases that collect the generated allelic profiles and associated epidemiological data are available but this wealth of data remains underused and are frequently poorly annotated since no user-friendly tool exists to analyze and explore it. Results: PHYLOViZ is platform independent Java software that allows the integrated analysis of sequence-based typing methods, including SNP data generated from whole genome sequence approaches, and associated epidemiological data. goeBURST and its Minimum Spanning Tree expansion are used for visualizing the possible evolutionary relationships between isolates. The results can be displayed as an annotated graph overlaying the query results of any other epidemiological data available. Conclusions: PHYLOViZ is a user-friendly software that allows the combined analysis of multiple data sources for microbial epidemiological and population studies. It is freely available at http://www.phyloviz.net.

Direct Color Sensor, Optical Amplifier and Demux Device Integrated on a Single Monolithic SiC Photodetector

A pi'n/pin a-SiC:H voltage and optical bias controlled device is presented and its behavior as image and color sensor, optical amplifier and demux device is discussed. The design and the light source properties are correlated with the sensor output characteristics. Different readout techniques are used. When a low power monochromatic scanner readout the generated carriers the transducer recognizes a color pattern projected on it acting as a direct color and image sensor. Scan speeds up to 10(4) lines per second are achieved without degradation in the resolution. If the photocurrent generated by different monochromatic pulsed channels is readout directly, the information is demultiplexed. Results show that it is possible to decode the information from three simultaneous color channels without bit errors at bit rates per channel higher than 4000 bps. Finally, when triggered by light of appropriated wavelength, it can amplify or suppress the generated photocurrent working as an optical amplifier (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Avaliação, tratamento e consolidação de madeira em edifícios antigos

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil

Diagnóstico de estruturas de madeira em serviço num palacete do século XIX

Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil na Área de Especialização em Edificações

Travelling to India: Eliza Fay’s narrative account of her voyages

Eliza Fay’s Original Letters from India (1817), initially sold to the Calcutta Gazette to pay off her debts, aroused the curiosity and interest of Edward M. Forster, while he was doing research for his best-selling novel, A Passage to India. In his own words, “Eliza Fay is a work of art.” (apud Fay 7) The value of E. Fay’s travelogue, comprising not one, but three voyages to India (in 1779, 1784, 1796) can be easily explained if we take into account the scope of its geographical coverage, the hardships of its historical context (the political chaos brought about by the fall of the Mughal empire and the consolidation of the British rule in the Indian subcontinent) and the heroism of the first person-narrator that emerges behind the descriptive sketches and the scenes of adversity and imminent danger. Thus the current analysis will focus on the E. Fay’s adventurous mode of narrating, e.g., the discursive situatedness of the traveller visà- vis the Other(s) (European and non-European peoples and loci) and the constraints imposed by the patriarchal idealization of the domestic Woman and their alleged feebleness.

Accessibility and Local Development: Interaction between Cross-border Accessibility and Local Development in Portugal and Spain

One of de EU major concerns is cohesion and cross-border regional development. Usually cross-border regions are less dynamic, acting as bottlenecks mainly in peripheral territories. This paper is focused on the Portuguese-Spanish border using socio-economic and accessibility data. It considers Spatial Econometrics to produce statistical evidence on the relationship between accessibility and development at a local scale. A pilot study is conducted on North and Center region using variables such as population age, graduation characteristics, migrations, unemployment and daily accessibility to main towns in future this evaluation will be applied to the entire cross-border area between Portugal and Spain.

Measuring and evaluating the impacts of TOD measures: searching for evidence of TOD characteristics in Azambuja train line

TOD (Transit Oriented Development) is typically defined as a high density mixed area (residential and commercial) within easy walking distance of a high capacity public transport station (typically within an 800m buffer area). TOO is viewed as a set of strategies to increase the use of public transport, increasing walking activity, containing urban sprawl, and creating more liveable places. It is believed that this type of combined strategies will improve sustainable growth. This work is an exploratory work for evidence of TOD characteristics in train station areas in Azambuja train line, setting further methodologies to evaluate the success of TOD areas.

Enabling Global Experiments With Interactive Reconfiguration And Steering By Multiple Users

In global scientific experiments with collaborative scenarios involving multinational teams there are big challenges related to data access, namely data movements are precluded to other regions or Clouds due to the constraints on latency costs, data privacy and data ownership. Furthermore, each site is processing local data sets using specialized algorithms and producing intermediate results that are helpful as inputs to applications running on remote sites. This paper shows how to model such collaborative scenarios as a scientific workflow implemented with AWARD (Autonomic Workflow Activities Reconfigurable and Dynamic), a decentralized framework offering a feasible solution to run the workflow activities on distributed data centers in different regions without the need of large data movements. The AWARD workflow activities are independently monitored and dynamically reconfigured and steering by different users, namely by hot-swapping the algorithms to enhance the computation results or by changing the workflow structure to support feedback dependencies where an activity receives feedback output from a successor activity. A real implementation of one practical scenario and its execution on multiple data centers of the Amazon Cloud is presented including experimental results with steering by multiple users.

Processing and characterization of 3D dense chitosan pieces, for orthopedic applications, by adding plasticizers

In this work, plasticizer agents were incorporated in a chitosan based formulation, as a strategy to improve the fragile structure of chitosan based-materials. Three different plasticizers: ethylene glycol, glycerol and sorbitol, were blended with chitosan to prepare 3D dense chitosan specimens. The properties of the obtained structures were assessed for mechanical, microstructural, physical and biocompatibility behavior. The results obtained revealed that from the different specimens prepared, the blend of chitosan with glycerol has superior mechanical properties and good biological behavior, making this chitosan based formulation a good candidate to improve robust chitosan structures for the construction of bioabsorbable orthopedic implants.