Ergonomics and Usability – key factors in Knowledge Society

During the recent years human society evolved from the “industrial society age” and transitioned into the “knowledge society age”. This means that knowledge media support migrated from “pen and paper” to computer-based Information Systems. Due to this fact Ergonomics has assumed an increasing importance, as a science/technology that deals with the problem of adapting the work to the man, namely in terms of Usability. This paper presents some relevant Ergonomics, Usability and User-centred design concepts regarding Information Systems.

Age constraints on the late cretaceous alkaline magmatism on the West Iberian margin

Cretaceous Research 30 (2009) 575–586

Probing key DNA contacts in AraR-mediated transcriptional repression of the Bacillus subtilis arabinose regulon.

Nucleic Acid Research (2007) Vol.37 N. 14 4755-4766

The Cenomanian-Turonian transition in West Central Portugal: ammonites and biostratigraphy

The Upper Cenomanian and Lower Turonian ammonite assemblages from the onshore sectors of the West Portuguese Margin are reviewed after new studies on the type section of Figueira da Foz, and correlative sections of Baixo Mondego. The faunal succession shows a strong contribution of vascoceratids and other ammonites with North African and Tethyan affinities. Euomphaloceras septemseriatum (Cragin, 1893), Kamerunoceras douvillei (Pervinquere, 1907), Fagesia catinus (Mantell, 1822), Neoptychites cephalotus (Courtiller, 1860), and Thomasites rollandi (Thomas & Peron, 1889) are for the first time mentioned to Portugal. The Upper Cenomanian is recognised after a set of 3 assemblage zones: Neolobites vibrayeanus z., Euomphaloceras septemseriatum z ., and Pseudaspidoceras pseudonodosoides z. The carbonate succession shows an important unconformity across the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary, associated to subaerial exposure, and to the development of a palaeokarst over Upper Cenomanian units. The first Lower Turonian carbonates are yielded a single but diverse ammonite assemblage of middle Lower Turonian age (Thomasites rollandi z.). This biozone was previously recognised in Central Tunisia by G. Chancellor et al. (1994).

Notes on the Cretaceous invertebrate faunas of Portugal I: a new species of Anadromus (Mollusca, Gastropoda) from the Campanian-Maastrichtian of Taveiro (Coimbra, West central Portugal)

A new species of terrestrial gastropod - Anadromus penai sp. nov. (Fam. Anadromidae) - is described from a set of composite moulds collected in reddish silts and clays of Campanian-Maastrichtian age, found in the lower pan of the Taveiro Formation (Taveiro, Coimbra, West Central Portugal). The known occurrences of this new species are restricted to the type locality. The main differences from other contemporaneous Anadromidae are the profuse spiral sculpture of the body-whorl, with 20-22 sub-equal, close, and regular ribs.

Upper Paleocene-Early Eocene mollusks of Silveirinha (Figueira da Foz, West Central Portugal)

A collection of fossil gastropods and bivalves assembled at the Thanetian/Ypresian vertebrate site of Silveirinha (Figueira da Foz, West Central Portugal) is analysed from the point of view of systematics and palaeoecology. The diversity is scarce but the age and exceptional characteristics of the site are factors that substantiate a detailed study. The taxa identified are: Bithynia soaresi sp. nov., Gyraulus antunesi sp. nov., Chlamys sp. and Cardiiacea gen. sp. indet. The prevailing of freshwater gastropods and the occurrence of 2 fragments of marine bivalves suggest a palaeoenvironmental setting that is in conformity with interpretations already established, which are based both in sedimentologic and vertebrate data. These interpretations point out the existence of a freshwater environment opened from time to time to marine influences, resulting from a palaeoatlantic coast placed some kilometres westwards.

The Farol Deposit (Depósito do Farol) – a Pleistocene beach deposit from Cape Mondego (Figueira da Foz, West Central Portugal)*

Among the Pleistocene and Holocene units recorded near the marine cliffs of Cape Mondego (Figueira da Foz, West Central Portugal) stands out the Farol Deposit (Depósito do Farol), at an altitude of ±95 m above present sea level. It is a marine terrace with three exposures of interstratified conglomerates and sands, overlapped by calclititic-fanglomerates. This sedimentary setting indicates that deposition took place in a seashore environment influenced by the proximity of a marine palaeocliff. The deposit has an interesting subfossil fauna with abraded and fragmented shells of Nucella lapillus (LINNÉ, 1758), Patella vulgata (LINNÉ, 1758) and Littorina littorea (LINNÉ, 1758), suggesting the existence of an environment with colder surface seawater, when compared with the present day Portuguese seashore. These specimens belonged to marine communities adapted to live in intertidal rocky platforms, which have been exposed to the cyclic action of waves and tidal flows, on the swash and surf zones. The Farol Deposit can be related to an Early/Middle Pleistocene “cold-water” episode, earlier to the Isotopic Stages 7 and 11. This episode occurred before the deposition of the units Quiaios Sands (Areias de Quiaios) and Cantanhede Sands (Areias de Cantanhede) (Sicilian?), but later than the Arazede Sands (Areias de Arazede) and Marinha das Ondas Sands (Areias de Marinha das Ondas) (Early Pleistocene).

Carbon key-properties for microcystin adsorption in drinking water treatment: structure or surface chemistry?

Dissertação para Obtenção de Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Química e Bioquímica

Key-CRDT stores

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Structural and functional studies of PpcA: a key protein in the electron transfer pathways of Geobacter sulfurreducens

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Bioquímica, ramo de Biotecnologia

Auditoria a Key Plastics Portugal

Dissertação para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

Key success factors of replicated social businesses

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Orientalism and Imperialism in French West Africa. Considerations on travel literature, colonial tourism, and the desert as a “commodity” in Mauritania

In this article we intend to make a summary overview of the influence that literary production, originated under colonial mapping missions or later in travel writing, had in the construction and establishment of a discourse to advertise and promote tourism in Mauritania. To this end we will draw on travel narratives that are illustrative of different periods and that correspond in some way to discourses of otherness. In this specific case, such discourses relate to the “Moors” of the West African coast and were produced in various historical contexts. We will also consider the discourse present in the tourism promotion materials of the colonial period and we will demonstrate to what extent it can be engaged in a dialogue with 19th and 20th centuries’ Western colonial literature.

Phylogeography, conservation genetics and parasitology of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes versus) in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa

Tese de doutoramento em Antropologia, especialidade em Antropologia Biológica e Etnoecologia