Projecto de fundações e estrutura de um edifício de escritórios utilizando os eurocódigos estruturais

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil na Área de Especialização de Estruturas

Dimensionamento sísmico de um edifício de betão armado segundo os eurocódigos: verificação segundo o eurocódigo 8 parte 3

Trabalho de Dissertação de Natureza Científica para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil

Aplicação de redes neuronais artificiais à deteção e isolamento de falhas em processos industriais

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

Vulnerability of mediterranean watersheds to climate change

Desertification is a critical issue for Mediterranean drylands. Climate change is expected to aggravate its extension and severity by reinforcing the biophysical driving forces behind desertification processes: hydrology, vegetation cover and soil erosion. The main objective of this thesis is to assess the vulnerability of Mediterranean watersheds to climate change, by estimating impacts on desertification drivers and the watersheds’ resilience to them. To achieve this objective, a modeling framework capable of analyzing the processes linking climate and the main drivers is developed. The framework couples different models adapted to different spatial and temporal scales. A new model for the event scale is developed, the MEFIDIS model, with a focus on the particular processes governing Mediterranean watersheds. Model results are compared with desertification thresholds to estimate resilience. This methodology is applied to two contrasting study areas: the Guadiana and the Tejo, which currently present a semi-arid and humid climate. The main conclusions taken from this work can be summarized as follows: • hydrological processes show a high sensitivity to climate change, leading to a significant decrease in runoff and an increase in temporal variability; • vegetation processes appear to be less sensitive, with negative impacts for agricultural species and forests, and positive impacts for Mediterranean species; • changes to soil erosion processes appear to depend on the balance between changes to surface runoff and vegetation cover, itself governed by relationship between changes to temperature and rainfall; • as the magnitude of changes to climate increases, desertification thresholds are surpassed in a sequential way, starting with the watersheds’ ability to sustain current water demands and followed by the vegetation support capacity; • the most important thresholds appear to be a temperature increase of +3.5 to +4.5 ºC and a rainfall decrease of -10 to -20 %; • rainfall changes beyond this threshold could lead to severe water stress occurring even if current water uses are moderated, with droughts occurring in 1 out of 4 years; • temperature changes beyond this threshold could lead to a decrease in agricultural yield accompanied by an increase in soil erosion for croplands; • combined changes of temperature and rainfall beyond the thresholds could shift both systems towards a more arid state, leading to severe water stresses and significant changes to the support capacity for current agriculture and natural vegetation in both study areas.

Extending fixed task-priority schedulability by interference limitation

While the earliest deadline first algorithm is known to be optimal as a uniprocessor scheduling policy, the implementation comes at a cost in terms of complexity. Fixed taskpriority algorithms on the other hand have lower complexity but higher likelihood of task sets being declared unschedulable, when compared to earliest deadline first (EDF). Various attempts have been undertaken to increase the chances of proving a task set schedulable with similar low complexity. In some cases, this was achieved by modifying applications to limit preemptions, at the cost of flexibility. In this work, we explore several variants of a concept to limit interference by locking down the ready queue at certain instances. The aim is to increase the prospects of schedulability of a given task system, without compromising on complexity or flexibility, when compared to the regular fixed task-priority algorithm. As a final contribution, a new preemption threshold assignment algorithm is provided which is less complex and more straightforward than the previous method available in the literature.

Formaldehyde: exposure and genotoxicity assessments and potential health effects

Worldwide formaldehyde is manipulated with diverse usage properties, since industrial purposes to health laboratory objectives, representing the economic importance of this chemical agent. Therefore, many people are exposed to formaldehyde environmentally and/or occupationally. Considering the latter, there was recommended occupational exposure limits based on threshold mechanisms, limit values and indoor guidelines. Formaldehyde is classified by the International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) as carcinogenic to humans (group 1), since a wide range of epidemiological studies in occupational exposure settings have suggested possible links between the concentration and duration of exposure and elevated risks of nasopharyngeal cancer, and others cancers, and more recently, with leukemia. Although there are different classifications, such as U.S. EPA that classified formaldehyde as a B1 compound, probable human carcinogen under the conditions of unusually high or prolonged exposure, on basis of limited evidence in humans but with sufficient evidence in animals. Formaldehyde genotoxicity is well-known, being a direct-acting genotoxic compound positively associated for almost all genetic endpoints evaluated in bacteria, yeast, fungi, plants, insects, nematodes, and cultured mammalian cells. There are many human biomonitoring studies that associate formaldehyde occupational exposure to genomic instability, and consequently possible health effects. Besides the link with cancer, also other pathologies and symptoms are associated with formaldehyde exposure, namely respiratory disorders such as asthma, and allergic contact dermatitis. Nowadays, there are efforts to reduce formaldehyde exposure, namely indoor. Europe and United States developed more strict regulation regarding formaldehyde emissions from materials containing this agent. Despite the regulations and restrictions, formaldehyde still continues to be difficult to eliminate or substitute, being biomonitoring an important tool to control possible future health effects.

Aferições e exames clínicos realizados nos participantes do ELSA-Brasil

Este artigo descreve os exames clínicos realizados no Estudo Longitudinal de Saúde do Adulto (ELSA-Brasil). Alguns deles (antropometria, pressão arterial e índice tornozelo-braquial) já têm uso clínico consolidado. Outros, como a velocidade de onda de pulso, variabilidade da frequência cardíaca e medida da espessura médio-intimal de carótidas, carecem de valor de referência na população brasileira não doente e podem constituir preditores importantes de desfechos cardiovasculares. A medida da pressão arterial após manobra postural foi incluída no ELSA-Brasil porque foi pouco testada em estudos epidemiológicos. O ELSA-Brasil inovou na realização do índice tornozelo-braquial, ao usar um aparelho automático em substituição à coluna de mercúrio na medida da pressão arterial, e também na medida do diâmetro ântero-posterior do lobo direito do fígado pela ultrassonografia, proposta para avaliação quantitativa da doença hepática gordurosa não-alcoólica. Os participantes são indivíduos mais jovens (a partir dos 35 anos) do que em outras coortes focadas no estudo da aterosclerose subclínica. A inclusão de indivíduos mais jovens e a diversidade dos exames realizados tornam o ELSA-Brasil um estudo relevante no contexto da epidemiologia brasileira e internacional.

Verificação da segurança à ação sísmica da estrutura de um colégio em Ponta Delgada utilizando o Eurocódigo 8 - parte 3

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

Projeto de estrutura variante de um edifício de habitação na zona de Lisboa

Trabalho de Projeto para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil na Área de Especialização de Estruturas

Unstabilized rammed Earth: characterization of material collected from old constructions in South Portugal and comparison to normative requirements

Unstabilized rammed earth is a recyclable, economical, and eco-friendly building material, used in the past and still applied today. Traditionally, its use was based on a long empirical knowledge of the local materials. Because this knowledge was mostly lost or is no longer sufficient, in many countries normative documents have been produced to allow the assessment of rammed earth soils. With the aim of contributing for a refining of these normative requirements, this article presents a research work that included: (i) collection of Unstabilized rammed earth samples from six constructions in Portugal; (ii) a literature survey of normative and complementary documents to identify the most mentioned key-properties, the test procedures and the corresponding threshold limits; and (iii) a discussion of the test procedures and of the thresholds limits in the light of the experimental results. The analyzed properties are the particle size distribution, maximum particle size, plasticity, compaction, linear shrinkage, organic content, and salt content. The work highlights the advantages of taking into account the characteristics of existing constructions as a basis for the establishment and further refining of consistent threshold values. In particular, it shows that it is essential to adjust the requirements to the specificities of local materials.