O claustro do Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Nova de Coimbra. Estudo arquitectónico do sistema hidráulico implementado com a reforma barroca

Este artigo pretende incidir sobre a história da construção do claustro do Mosteiro de Santa Clara- -a-Nova de Coimbra, em particular na reforma que ocorre a partir de 1737. É sobre a tutela de protagonistas do Ciclo do Aqueduto que esta se opera, reflectindo preocupações não só estilísticas como políticas, inerentes à saúde dos povos. Propomo-nos analisar a história da construção, a tratadística e o estudo da arquitectura da água no claustro, através do desenho e da análise documental. A traça do Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Nova (1648) é da autoria do engenheiro-mor do reino Frei João Turriano. A documentação relativa à obra sugere que é sua a planta universal, que estabelece as principais linhas orientadoras do cenóbio. Será ainda segundo a sua traça que, em 1722, se inicia a construção do claustro. Na sequência da ruína de uma ala, em 1737 é pedida a demolição da abóbada do lado do olival. É sobre a direcção de Custódio Vieira que se inicia a reforma estrutural do piso térreo, alterando definitivamente a sua tipologia original. Custódio Viera e o seu sucessor, Carlos Mardel, para além de alterarem a estrutura, introduzem a arquitectura da água, característica da cultura tratadística com base na política de felicidade dos povos, ligada às correntes do iluminismo (Carreira,2012; pp.3,4). A obra encetada no claustro a partir de Vieira é caracterizada por um conjunto de fontes que compõem o espaço, as quais fazem parte de um complexo sistema hidráulico, o qual deveria concluir-se com a construção do novo Aqueduto de Santa Clara (1789) de Manuel Alves Macomboa. A partir do estudo documental e da elaboração de desenhos do claustro, propõe-se relacionar a tratadística com o sistema construtivo empregue, que resulta num modelo híbrido, onde se conjugam diferentes culturas arquitectónicas.

An Integrated Soft Computing Approach to Hughes Syndrome Risk Assessment

The AntiPhospholipid Syndrome (APS) is an acquired autoimmune disorder induced by high levels of antiphospholipid antibodies that cause arterial and veins thrombosis, as well as pregnancy-related complications and morbidity, as clinical manifestations. This autoimmune hypercoagulable state, usually known as Hughes syndrome, has severe consequences for the patients, being one of the main causes of thrombotic disorders and death. Therefore, it is required to be preventive; being aware of how probable is to have that kind of syndrome. Despite the updated of antiphospholipid syndrome classification, the diagnosis remains difficult to establish. Additional research on clinically relevant antibodies and standardization of their quantification are required in order to improve the antiphospholipid syndrome risk assessment. Thus, this work will focus on the development of a diagnosis decision support system in terms of a formal agenda built on a Logic Programming approach to knowledge representation and reasoning, complemented with a computational framework based on Artificial Neural Networks. The proposed model allows for improving the diagnosis, classifying properly the patients that really presented this pathology (sensitivity higher than 85%), as well as classifying the absence of APS (specificity close to 95%).

Evaluation of floral characteristics of melon hybrids (Cucumis melo l.) in pollinator attractiveness.

Floral morphology and biology are important characteristics for plant-pollinator interactions and may influence the behavior of these agents. This study aimed to determine which floral attributes of different melon hybrids influence this interaction and, consequently, their attractiveness in simultaneous crops. The study was conducted in the region of Petrolina, State of Pernambuco (PE)/Juazeiro, State of Bahia (BA) and Mossoró, State of Rio Grande do Norte (RN), in areas with the following melon hybrids: Yellow type, Piel de Sapo, Cantaloupe and Galia. For studies on floral morphology and biology, hermaphrodites and male flowers of each hybrid were analyzed for their size and nectar chamber size, pollen and nectar production, anthesis time and flower lifespan. Floral visitors were observed simultaneously in hybrids of three types of melon, from 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., in the two study sites. Evaluations of the corolla diameter and flower height indicated that the hermaphrodite flowers were larger in size than male flowers in all types of melon investigated, in both study sites. As for nectar chamber, male flowers are larger in width, but smaller in height, compared to hermaphrodite flowers. Regarding the volume of nectar, differences were found between floral types for the hybrids evaluated, in the two study sites; the hermaphrodite flowers produced 2-7 times more nectar than male flowers in all studied hybrids. Observations of visits of Apis mellifera to areas with simultaneous flowering of the three types of melon demonstrated differences in the frequency of visits between hybrids, floral type and foraged resource. Flowers of the hybrids Piel de Sapo and Cantaloupe exhibited larger corolla diameter, larger dimensions of the nectar chamber and greater supply of resources for foraging, which could explain the higher number of visits of bees to their flowers in the sites studied.