Repositório RCAAP

Microbiological contamination is one of the main problems of plaster sculpture. It affects not only the conservation and preservation of cultural heritage, but also affects the environment of the museum or collection. This contamination, known as black spots or mold, results from the hygroscopic ability of the plaster. Such phenomenon consists of the absorption of water, existing in the atmosphere, that this material makes in its gas exchanges, through its pores. Thus, if the plaster is not in the necessary conditions to carry out its gas exchanges, in which it expels the water it has absorbed, the appearance of these beings (fungi) is enhanced. These beings develop in different types of habitats as long as they are abundant in humidity, an element mentioned above, and in organic matter. Gypsum serves as food, as they produce an enzyme, which helps them to digest this matter, deteriorating it. In this way, these parasites cause major structural physical-mechanical changes in the sculptures in addition to the aesthetic damage. This study aims to cross-check results obtained in case studies, such as, for example, in the Ruins of Santo Domingo, and what is the reality of a conservation and restoration intervention nowadays, in which biocides were used to eliminate microorganisms under chromatic films / varnishes, and interventions without the use of chemicals for this purpose, carried out for 10 years by the Professional School for the Recovery of the Heritage of Sintra, in the palace of Monserrate. Therefore, with this practical work it is intended to prove that it is possible to use low toxicity solutions and, even so, return the plasters to their normal state, stabilizing the infestation. This state can still be maintained if we apply the Preventive Conservation guidelines directed to the place of exhibition or storage of the works, which, in this study, was designed and studied taking into account the environment of the Monserrate Palace, in Sintra.

A educação de adultos, em Portugal, tem vindo a ser um domínio educativo sem intervenções significativas (e de sucesso) de organismos governamentais, evidenciado pelas elevadas taxas de analfabetismo e número de cidadãos activos que não concluíram o 12º ano de escolaridade. Iniciativas como o ensino recorrente mostraram uma fraca adesão, por parte dos adultos, bem como taxas de conclusão muito aquém das expectativas. Em 1999, surge o sistema nacional de reconhecimento, validação e certificação de competências (SNRVCC), como resposta social às baixas qualificações escolares e profissionais dos cidadãos activos. Actualmente, assistimos a uma adesão ímpar à iniciativa novas oportunidades, sendo os centros novas oportunidades (CNO) o dispositivo com maior relevo social, actuando como uma porta de entrada para a (re)definição de trajectórias de qualificação escolar e/ou profissional de jovens e adultos. Nos CNO desenvolvem-se processos de RVCC onde adultos pouco escolarizados evidenciam, através de uma abordagem (auto)biográfica, aprendizagens, capacidades e competências desenvolvidas ao longo da vida, em diferentes cenários/contextos. Esta investigação assume uma abordagem interpretativa. Realizámos estudos de casos múltiplos, intrínsecos, num CNO da grande Lisboa. Seleccionámos um grupo de 10 candidatos a uma certificação de 9º ano de escolaridade. Focámo-nos na voz de duas adultas certificadas. Recolhemos dados através de conversas informais e observações, registadas em diário de bordo do investigador, do portefólio que construíram e de recolha documental. Realizámos uma análise de conteúdo, sucessiva e aprofundada, tendo emergido categorias indutivas. Os resultados iluminam que estas candidatas desenvolveram uma representação social positiva sobre o processo RVCC, apesar de evidenciarem, ao longo deste processo, dificuldades em construir sentidos sobre o processo de RVCC, bem como em distinguir os papéis dos agentes da equipa do CNO e das práticas. Os resultados iluminam também as potencialidades deste processo de certificação para capacitar estes adultos a retomarem percursos de qualificação pessoal, escolar e/ou profissional, ao longo da vida.

Through a detailed geomorphological study, including thourough mapping of the geomorphic features as well as 10Be Cosmic-Ray Exposure (CRE) dating, the geomorphological evolution of the Mulhacén cirque since the maximum ice extent of the last glacial cycle until nowadays was determined. This glacial cirque is shaped on the northern face of the Mulhacén peak (3479 m a.s.l. 37°03′12″N/3°18′41″W), Sierra Nevada, southern Spain. It includes several depositional and erosional glacial landforms that allowed reconstructing its environmental evolution since the last glacial cycle. Furthermore, the sequence of glacial oscillations from this site was compared to that of other cirques of the massif, evidencing that: (i) new glaciers formed in these cirques during the Younger Dryas (YD), and (ii) disappeared at 11.7 ± 1.0 ka. Depending on the altitude, orientation and height of the cirque walls, the final deglaciation of the cirques generated a diversity of landscapes, including a wide range of glacial and periglacial landforms, such as polished surfaces, sequences of moraines, proto-rock glaciers or large rock glacier systems. No glaciers existed in the Sierra Nevada during the Middle Holocene. Only the cirques whose summits exceed 3300 m, are north-exposed and whose walls exceed 300 m high (i.e. Mulhacén and Veleta) hosted glaciers during Neoglacial phases, including the Little Ice Age (LIA) (approx. 1300–1850 CE). During these periods, climate oscillations favoured the formation of small glaciers in these cirques, which generated large moraine systems with either one polygenic ridge or a sequence of spaced frontal arcs. The existence of glaciers impeded the formation of permafrost-related landforms, such as rock glaciers and protalus lobes until the end of the LIA, when they started to form. These results are compared with the deglacial evolution in 55 cirques from Iberian mountains as well as from glacial cirques from other mid-latitude mountains and subpolar regions. The chronology of their deglaciation as well as the landforms generated during glacial retreat followed similar patterns, with no significant differences at regional scale. For each mountain range, the geomorphological diversity existing in each cirque depends on the local topographic characteristics although they formed during the same climatic phases.

The aim of this paper is to examine land use and land cover changes and to relate it to the potential driving forces observed in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, during the period from 2000 to 2010. The methodology consists of identifying trends in land use and land cover changes; indicating possible explanatory factors by means of Principal Component Factor Analysis and elaborating a final typology, based on Cluster Analysis. Results point to the considerable expansion and increased intensity of agricultural activity as well as silviculture throughout the state and the loss of native vegetation, suggesting the need for protective actions and land use and cover regulations, particularly from an environmental perspective, to frame the development of intensive and mechanized agricultural activity.

Agranulocytosis and liver injury is described in a patient with Reiter's syndrome of 3 years duration who received pyrazinobutazone for 6 weeks before the development of the clinical picture reported. Other causes of agranulocytosis and hepatic damage were excluded and a lymphocyte transformation test to the drug revealed significant lymphocyte proliferation in response to the drug. This suggests a hypersensitivity reaction as the mechanism for this previously unrecognized association of adverse effects to pyrazinobutazone.

SISCOPE is an integrated data management system for use in gastrointestinal endoscopy units which operates in the multiuser mode on UNIX minicomputers or MS-DOS personal computers and can be used for patient bookings, endoscopic data entry and retrieval, and automatic report generation in upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, proctologic examinations, colonoscopy and peritoneoscopy. The description of endoscopic findings is remarkably detailed and data entry very rapid due to an advanced design of input screens that incorporates several recent concepts, including windows, menu bars and pull-down menus; typing is eliminated as data is entered with a mouse by pointing at options within menus. Endoscopic findings can be described under eight headings: morphology, topography, qualifiers, modifiers, signs of bleeding, endoscopic diagnosis, pathological diagnosis and etiology. Terminology is based strictly 3on the OMED system. SISCOPE also allows recording of details on endoscopic procedures, indications for the examination, preparation, premedication, complications and late entry of pathology reports. After entering all data, a report in natural language is produced automatically, the entire process taking one minute on average. Data retrieval programs give on-line access to previous examinations of a given patient and automatically generate activity reports. A formal language allows direct queries to the database and transfer of data for statistical analysis or other data processing. The system is simple to learn and use because operation is intuitive and all endoscopic techniques share the same basic menu structure and screen design.

The impact of the clinical database system SISCOPE on medical services was evaluated and objective data compiled on the quality of information recording and reporting using a fully structured data entry system compared to traditional free text reporting. 1565 upper endoscopy reports produced with SISCOPE over a period of 12 months were assessed for completeness and compared to 152 and 208 free text reports done 4 months before and 1 month after the study period, respectively. Data on four common gastrointestinal findings (esophageal varices, ulcers, polyps and tumors) were evaluated. Physicians' compliance with the new system was good, as reflected by a constant level of quality of reporting over time, although a very slight decline in the ratio of computer generated reports to the total number of examinations was noted. Structured reports had an 18% missing data rate and contained 60% more relevant information than free text reports, which had a 48% missing data rate. No educational effect of the system was seen as missing data rates returned to pre-computerization levels just one month after the end of the study. It is concluded that menu-driven structured data entry systems result in production of far superior reports as compared to free text systems, probably due to their reminder effect.

Over the last decades, interim reuse has emerged as a possible solution for vacant land and abandoned spaces in cities. It is presented as an alternative to conventional regeneration projects, opening up new possibilities for the occupation of formerly derelict spaces. However, in addition to such opportunities, it also poses a number of risks which need to be mitigated, calling for new mechanisms that foster the consultation and participation of communities within the scope of urban planning. The present research seeks to fill this gap by introducing scenario-elicitation, an innovative participation methodology, which relies on new visualisation and communication techniques in planning. Application of the methodology to an abandoned industrial lot in Barreiro – a shrinking city in the suburban belt of Lisbon, Portugal – yielded the following conclusions: (i) scenario-elicitation constitutes a potential tool for the consultation of communities, as a complement to other visualisation and communication techniques in planning; (ii) interim reuse is embraced by communities as a useful device to respond to vacancy and urban abandonment situations; (iii) citizens' adherence to types of interim reuse is geared, primarily, towards collective space options linked to healthy living practices and the combination of different functional and spatial assets.

The excessively warm weather, especially in cities, can lead to several adverse impacts, including heat-related mortality, becoming an increasingly important public health issue. Previous studies on heat-related mortality have assessed risk factors at the municipal scale, missing the intra-urban variability in heat risk and vulnerability. The knowledge of the spatial intra-variability can help to design spatially targeted measures to better protect citizens' health. Through hot spot analysis, we identified the neighbourhood-scale spatial pattern of heat-related cardiorespiratory mortality in the elderly, during the yearly warmest five months of a three years period. Potential associations between spatial variability in heat-related mortality and several independent factors in each neighbourhood were investigated and their predictions. Two approaches were adopted: one is eminently statistical, using Generalized Linear Models (GLM) and another using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). This new recent regression technique is increasing in international attention on spatial modelling. The spatial model explains about 60% of the spatial variations in elderly's heat-related cardiorespiratory mortality. The two-analyses produced an overlapping set of predictor variables, with emphasis on the elderly, vegetation cover and employment. The results also show that the areas where heat-related mortality is high, are also the areas where the number of deaths is higher than expected. These neighbourhoods should be considered as the most vulnerable to heat-related mortality. We concluded that studying human health outcomes at neighbourhood-scale is relevant for public health heat-related plans. Essential suggestions are provided to decision-making support and city planners designing strategies to reduce heat-related mortality.

Lymphocyte reactivity to drugs is present in a minority [corrected] of cases of drug-induced liver injury when in vitro proliferation assays to the suspected drugs are used. One possible explanation to this could be that adherent suppressor cells mediating their action through the production of prostaglandin E2 would suppress the lymphocyte proliferation to drugs in vitro. We studied 42 patients with a clinical diagnosis of drug-induced liver injury by comparing lymphocyte proliferation observed in cultures with five different concentrations of the suspected drug with the lymphocyte proliferation observed in cultures with drug and a prostaglandin inhibitor (indomethacin). Forty-four healthy subjects and 15 individuals with a recent exposure to the suspected drug without development of adverse drug reactions were also studied as controls. In nine (21%) out of 42 patients with drug-induced liver injury a significant lymphocyte reactivity to drugs was detected. When a prostaglandin inhibitor was added to the cultures, the detection of lymphocyte reactivity increased from 21% to 57%. No cases of lymphocyte reactivity to drugs or drugs with prostaglandin inhibitor were found in the control groups. The phenomenon of increase of lymphocyte proliferation with the addition of a prostaglandin inhibitor was more frequent in patients whose hepatitis was cured in less than 2 months, was more frequently found in certain pharmacological groups and was significantly associated to a latency period to development of hepatitis of less than 8 days. In conclusion, the in vitro phenomenon described here may be used to improve the ability to demonstrate lymphocyte sensitization in drug-induced liver injury and the clinical correlations found are consistent with the possibility of its relevance in vivo.

The OMED nomenclature represented a turning point in endoscopic computer systems by supplying software developers with an internationally recognized scientific document on which prototypes could be based. The main pitfalls of the OMED system are related to its hierarchical structure, probably not the most effective design to represent endoscopic findings. Based on our experience during the development of SISCOPE, an integrated data management system for endoscopy, an alternative scheme is proposed: Endoscopic descriptions are modeled as a set of objects represented by a data structure whose elements are location, morphology, associated lesions and hemorrhage. 72 objects appear to be sufficient for an accurate representation of all endoscopic scenes and a consistent data model could be created with this approach. Efforts should be made to decrease redundancy in the OMED nomenclature, but extension to other endoscopic data types, such as clinical and pathological diagnosis, is more urgently required. Furthermore, if data exchange between systems is desired, the definition of an Endoscopy Metafile is an absolute requirement.

Modern urbanism is called to face current challenges ranging from intensive demographic growth, economic and social stagnation to resources salvation and climate changes. Under the broader scope of sustainability, we argue that the transition to a holistic perspective of smart and regenerative planning and design is the way to face and yet to prevent these urban challenges. In doing so, we adopt systematic thinking to study the complexity of urban metabolisms at an urban place scale, emphasizing the ongoing coevolution of social-cultural-technological and ecological processes. Focusing on urban places, we give a city or region the sense of a place of stability, security, cultural and social interactions, and a sense of uniqueness. We plan and design innovative urban places that improve the environment and the quality of urban life, able to adapt and mitigate climate changes and natural hazards, leverage community spirit, and power a green-based economy. Designing the conceptual framework of smart and regenerative urban places we contribute to the field of modern urban studies helping practitioners, policymakers, and decision-makers to vision and adopt more environmental-friendly policies and actions using a user-centered approach.

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The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries – Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia – between 2008 and 2015. These years were marked by the ‘Great Recession’, and by the rise of the social-investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article distinguishes between different social-investment variants, which emerge from a focus on its interaction with alternative social-policy perspectives, namely social protection and austerity. We identify different variants along the degree of social-investment: from comprehensive, over crowding out, towards lean forms. While the empirical analysis highlights variation, it also shows how there is a specific crisis context, which may lead to ‘crowding out’ of other policy approaches and ‘leaner’ forms of social investment. This has led to strong cutbacks in family cash benefits, while public childcare and parental leaves have proved more resilient in the investigated countries. Those findings are revelatory in the current Covid-19 pandemic, where countries are entering a next, possibly larger economic crisis.

The effects of the EU Cohesion Policy are debated, and while some studies find positive effects, others point to negative effects. Many of the methodological approaches that have so far been used to measure the EU Cohesion Policy are simple benchmarking exercises, focusing on a few indicators covering a short time period. Other evaluations are fragmented, qualitative in nature, and narrow in scope. This paper aims at analysing the EU Cohesion Policy and its impact for the period 2006–2016. We construct a Territorial Cohesion Development Index with target posts in order to analyse the impact at a NUTS2 level. The findings indicate that bigger cities and highly urbanised regions in Central Europe benefited the most from the policy, while non-core and peripheral regions fell further behind.

This article discusses the self-perceived integration of Swedes permanently residing in Portugal. The knowledge of how EU citizens, particularly Swedes, live and integrate into Portuguese society is limited. The conceptual framework on self-perceived integration takes its points of departure from the concepts of a sense of belonging to society and place, feelings of discomfort and coping tactics. Using a semi-structured interview guide, 36 in-depth interviews with Swedes permanently residing in Portugal were conducted. Whereas some of the permanently residing Swedes have no ambition of integrating into Portuguese society, others display a strong selfperceived feeling of being integrated within the community where they live. The added value of this paper is that it shows the complexity behind the construction of the feeling of self-perceived integration of Swedes in Portugal. Building a feeling of self-perceived integration depends on many factors and is not a linear process.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction provides several guidelines that countries should follow. Still, some scientific papers discussed the limitations, difficulties, and strategies in the implementation of these guidelines. Therefore, the objective of this review is to understand what Setubal has done to cope with disasters, and the practical strategies to mitigate them. To achieve this, several methodological guidelines and Portuguese legal documents were analyzed. The results focus on the top four natural disasters that impacted the study area (landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods), and the current pandemic of COVID-19. The practical strategies implemented on the territory involve the installation of equipment such as emergency signs and electronic panels that allow the dissemination of information to the communities in real-time. Also, the collaboration with national and international scientists provided new insight to cope with disasters, by bridging the gap between law enforcement agencies, science, first responders, and the practical needs that local stakeholders must solve on the territory. Moreover, Setubal has implemented a variety of practical and innovative measures, and therefore, could be used as a model not only to other Portuguese municipalities but also to other countries

The neuropeptide substance P (SP) is known to increase cell-mediated immune responses in animal models and healthy subjects. Several studies have suggested an involvement of neuropeptides in the immunopathogenesis of some diseases. The study of the immunomodulatory effects of neuropeptides, namely SP, may represent a model for the analysis of immunoregulatory defects in HIV infection at the level of the interaction between the immune and nervous systems, both of which are known to be affected by the virus. In the present study, we investigate the possibility of a disturbance in the immunomodulatory properties of SP in HIV infection by analysing the effects of SP (10(-10)-10(-6) M) on the lymphocyte proliferative responses to concanavalin A (Con A) and phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) assessed by 3H-thymidine incorporation in peripheral blood lymphocytes from 34 HIV-infected patients (16 asymptomatic (ASY)/persistent generalized lymphadenopathy (PGL); 18 ARC/AIDS) and in 37 healthy subjects. In ASY/PGL HIV-infected patients, SP 10(-7) M was identified as the concentration inducing the maximal increase in the lymphocyte responses to Con A and PHA, similarly to what was observed in healthy subjects. In ARC/AIDS patients, SP appeared to inhibit the mitogenic responses, particularly those induced by Con A, in contrast to the effects found either in healthy subjects or in ASY/PGL patients. These results suggest the existence of an alteration in the in vitro immunomodulatory properties of SP in ARC/AIDS patients compared with healthy subjects and ASY/PGL patients. In conclusion, the unexpected finding of an inhibitory effect of SP on lymphocyte proliferation from ARC/AIDS patients justifies further investigation of the neuropeptide-dependent immunoregulatory systems in HIV infection.

Introduction: Metabolic control plays an important role on major cardiovascular events (MACE) prevention. The 2019 ESC guidelines on dyslipidaemia management recommend tighter LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) control in order to prevent cardiovascular events. However, it is not yet proven that thigh control of dyslipidaemia, glycaemic levels and body mass index (BMI) in Heart Failure (HF) patients (pts) have an impact on prognosis. Objective: To evaluate the impact of LDL-C, HbA1c and BMI values on HF pts mortality and MACE rates.

Objectives: We sought to describe the frequency and location of headache in intracerebral hematoma (ICH) and to analyze its clinical and CT predictors by means of multivariate analysis. Background: Headache is more common in intracerebral hemorrhage than in ischemic stroke, and its frequency varies with hematoma location, but the pathophysiologic mechanisms of headache associated with ICH are not fully known. Methods: We examined a cohort of 289 patients with ICH during a 14-month period in a university hospital. Clinical, including the presence and location of headache, and CT features were collected by two neurologists. Results: One hundred and sixty-five (57%) patients with ICH had a headache at the onset of their stroke. Headache was more common in cerebellar and lobar hemorrhages than in deep ones (thalamic, caudate, capsuloputaminal, brainstem). Headache was also more common in women, patients younger than 70 years, those who vomited, and those with meningeal signs, a Glasgow Coma Scale score < 10, a hematoma volume > 10 ml or CT evidence of intraventricular or subarachnoid bleeding, moderate to severe hydrocephalus, or transtentorial herniation or midline shift. In multiple logistic regression analysis, only meningeal signs (odds ratio [OR] = 2.3), cerebellar or lobar location (OR = 2.1), transtentorial herniation (OR = 1.8), and female gender (OR = 1.6) were significant predictors of headache at the onset of ICH. Conclusions: Hematoma location, meningeal signs, and gender are more predictive of headache than hematoma volume, suggesting that headache is more often related to the activation of an anatomically distributed system in susceptible individuals and to subarachnoid bleeding than to intracranial hypertension.