Self-reported dermal effects of hand sanitisers in industrial workers

Artigo publicado em: Proceedings Book of the SHO2023. https://books.fe.up.pt/index.php/feup/catalog/view/978-989-54863-4-2/332/426Background: During COVID-19 pandemic, preventing the virus spread was extremely important to reduce the overall burden of the disease, to maintain the companies running and to remain safe. WHO recommended physical distances, appropriate use of personal protective equipment and hand hygiene practices to reduce the spread. Hand hygiene practice by using alcohol-based hand sanitisers was generalized in all sectors of activity, including those with no previous need to implement preventive measures against biological risks. Objective: The aim of this study was to obtain self-reported data on hand hygiene habits and perceived symptomatology regarding skin health effects associated with skin exposure to alcohol-based hand sanitisers of industrial workers during COVID-19 pandemic. Method: Between November 2021 and April 2022, a questionnaire-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using 97 study participants. Results: The reported information on hands sanitisers used show that most of the participants at work, use the hand sanitizer provided by the company a alcoholic solution of 2-propanol 70%. Nearly half of the workers disinfected their hands more than 3 times per day, but at work, there was a concern to also disinfect wrists and forearms. Self-reported dermal effects show that half of the participants noticed skin dryness with the increased use of hand sanitisers. Application: The novelty of this work is posed by the type of sample under study (industrial rather than hospital context) which allow gathering data to build knowledge in this field and to develop guidelines of good practices on how to make adequate disinfection and to promote skin health in industrial settings.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The importance of vegetation in understanding terrestrial water storage variations

Funding Information: The article processing charges for this openaccess publication were covered by the Max Planck Society. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Tina Trautmann et al.So far, various studies have aimed at decomposing the integrated terrestrial water storage variations observed by satellite gravimetry (GRACE, GRACE-FO) with the help of large-scale hydrological models. While the results of the storage decomposition depend on model structure, little attention has been given to the impact of the way that vegetation is represented in these models. Although vegetation structure and activity represent the crucial link between water, carbon, and energy cycles, their representation in large-scale hydrological models remains a major source of uncertainty. At the same time, the increasing availability and quality of Earth-observation-based vegetation data provide valuable information with good prospects for improving model simulations and gaining better insights into the role of vegetation within the global water cycle. In this study, we use observation-based vegetation information such as vegetation indices and rooting depths for spatializing the parameters of a simple global hydrological model to define infiltration, root water uptake, and transpiration processes. The parameters are further constrained by considering observations of terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWS), soil moisture, evapotranspiration (ET) and gridded runoff (Q) estimates in a multi-criteria calibration approach. We assess the implications of including varying vegetation characteristics on the simulation results, with a particular focus on the partitioning between water storage components. To isolate the effect of vegetation, we compare a model experiment in which vegetation parameters vary in space and time to a baseline experiment in which all parameters are calibrated as static, globally uniform values. Both experiments show good overall performance, but explicitly including varying vegetation data leads to even better performance and more physically plausible parameter values. The largest improvements regarding TWS and ET are seen in supply-limited (semi-arid) regions and in the tropics, whereas Q simulations improve mainly in northern latitudes. While the total fluxes and storages are similar, accounting for vegetation substantially changes the contributions of different soil water storage components to the TWS variations. This suggests an important role of the representation of vegetation in hydrological models for interpreting TWS variations. Our simulations further indicate a major effect of deeper moisture storages and groundwater-soil moisture-vegetation interactions as a key to understanding TWS variations. We highlight the need for further observations to identify the adequate model structure rather than only model parameters for a reasonable representation and interpretation of vegetation-water interactions.publishersversionpublishe

Carbon–water flux coupling under progressive drought

Water-use efficiency, defined as the ratio of carbon assimilation over evapotranspiration (ET), is a key metric to assess ecosystem functioning in response to environmental conditions. It remains unclear which factors control this ratio during periods of extended water-limitation, and current semi-empirical water-use efficiency models fail to reproduce observed ET dynamics for these periods. Here, we use dry-down events occurring at eddy-covariance flux tower sites in the FLUXNET database as natural experiments to assess if and how decreasing soil-water availability modifies water-use efficiency on ecosystem scale. We demonstrate that an attenuating soil-water availability factor in junction with a previously discovered additive radiation term is necessary to accurately predict ET flux magnitudes and dry-down lengths of these water-limited periods. In an analysis of the attenuation, 20–33% of the observed decline in ET was due to the previously unconsidered soil-water availability effect. We conclude by noting the rates of ET decline differ significantly between FLUXNET sites with tall and short vegetation types and discuss the dependency of this rate on the variability of seasonal dryness

Indicators from diurnal FLUXNET patterns

Funding Information: Acknowledgements. This work used eddy covariance data acquired by the FLUXNET community and in particular by the following networks: AmeriFlux (US Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research, Terrestrial Carbon Program (DE-FG02-04ER63917 and DE-FG02-04ER63911)), AfriFlux, AsiaFlux, CarboAfrica, CarboEuropeIP, CarboItaly, CarboMont, ChinaFlux, FluxnetCanada (supported by CFCAS, NSERC, BIOCAP, Environment Canada, and NRCan), GreenGrass, KoFlux, LBA, NECC, OzFlux, TCOS-Siberia, and USCCC. We acknowledge the financial support to the eddy covariance data harmonization provided by CarboEuropeIP, FAO-GTOS-TCO, iLEAPS, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, the National Science Foundation, the University of Tuscia, Université Laval and Environment Canada, and the US Department of Energy and the database development and technical support from Berkeley Water Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Microsoft Research eScience, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Virginia. Publisher Copyright: © Author(s) 2018.Understanding of terrestrial carbon and water cycles is currently hampered by an uncertainty in how to capture the large variety of plant responses to drought. In FLUXNET, the global network of CO2 and H2O flux observations, many sites do not uniformly report the ancillary variables needed to study drought response physiology. To this end, we outline two data-driven indicators based on diurnal energy, water, and carbon flux patterns derived directly from the eddy covariance data and based on theorized physiological responses to hydraulic and non-stomatal limitations. Hydraulic limitations (i.e. intra-plant limitations on water movement) are proxied using the relative diurnal centroid (CET∗), which measures the degree to which the flux of evapotranspiration (ET) is shifted toward the morning. Non-stomatal limitations (e.g. inhibitions of biochemical reactions, RuBisCO activity, and/or mesophyll conductance) are characterized by the Diurnal Water-Carbon Index (DWCI), which measures the degree of coupling between ET and gross primary productivity (GPP) within each day. As a proof of concept we show the response of the metrics at six European sites during the 2003 heat wave event, showing a varied response of morning shifts and decoupling. Globally, we found indications of hydraulic limitations in the form of significantly high frequencies of morning-shifted days in dry/Mediterranean climates and savanna/evergreen plant functional types (PFTs), whereas high frequencies of decoupling were dominated by dry climates and grassland/savanna PFTs indicating a prevalence of non-stomatal limitations in these ecosystems. Overall, both the diurnal centroid and DWCI were associated with high net radiation and low latent energy typical of drought. Using three water use efficiency (WUE) models, we found the mean differences between expected and observed WUE to be -0.09 to 0.44 μmol mmol-1 and -0.29 to -0.40 μmol mmol-1 for decoupled and morning-shifted days, respectively, compared to mean differences -1.41 to -1.42 μmol mmol-1 in dry conditions, suggesting that morning shifts/hydraulic responses are associated with an increase in WUE, whereas decoupling/non-stomatal limitations are not.publishersversionpublishe

Fisioterapia baseada em evidência e guidelines clínicas: atitudes, conhecimentos e implementação em educadores clínicos

ABSTRACT - Introduction – Evidence-based physiotherapy (EBP) is now well established in the teaching curricula, leading to expectations that students will have opportunities to implement EBP steps during internships. However, the position of clinical educators towards EBP can act against this educational process. Aims – Our aims were to describe for the first time EBP domains in clinical Portuguese educators and to quantify associations between individual exposures with EBP-related outcomes. Methods – A cross-sectional mail survey to clinical educators from the physiotherapy course of CESPU was conducted. Two mailings were sent to 289 contacts (separately and three weeks apart). Sociodemographic and postgraduate information was collected as exposure variables and a questionnaire on EBP domains was created. Results – There was a positive attitude towards EBP (all five questions ≥87%). Although 25% of the sample received no training in EBP, almost all of the participants reported knowing how to ‘ask’, ‘search’, and ‘critically appraise’. Only 60% of educators used clinical guidelines and less than half could integrate their recommendations into practice. Complementary training between 16h-30h/per year was positively associated with different aspects of EBP (all documented at p≤0.009), with decreasing trends in the strength of the associations after those intermediate values. Discussion – Although the picture of EBP domains among clinical educators seemed quite regular in comparison with other samples, only 60% of them declared using clinical guidelines in their practice (vs. 86%). Conclusions – Clinical educators in physiotherapy seem to have a positive attitude towards EBP with high levels of previous training in the area. However, the use of Clinical Guidelines and how to integrate their recommendation into practice both need to be promoted. The target range for complementary training seems to be between 16-30h/per year. Out of this scenario, there appears to exist an excessive focus on the component of ‘clinical expertise’ of EBP.RESUMO - Introdução – A prática baseada em evidência (PBE) encontra-se bem estabelecida na formação dos estudantes de fisioterapia e, por isso, é esperado que eles venham a ter oportunidade de a aplicar durante os estágios clínicos. No entanto, o posicionamento dos educadores clínicos relativamente à PBE pode impedir este processo educacional. Objetivos – Descrever pela primeira vez domínios da PBE em educadores clínicos Portugueses e quantificar as associações entre as suas características individuais e a PBE. Métodos – Um levantamento de dados transversal através de email foi realizado em educadores clínicos do curso de fisioterapia da CESPU. Dois emails foram enviados a 289 contactos (separados temporalmente em três semanas). Informação socio-demográfica e pós-graduada foi recolhida como variáveis de exposição. Foi criado um questionário relativo aos diferentes domínios da PBE. Resultados – Observou-se uma atitude positiva quanto à PBE (cinco questões avaliadas ≥87%). Apesar de 25% dos clínicos não terem recebido formação em PBE, quase todos reportaram saber “questionar”, “procurar” e “avaliar criticamente”. Apenas 60% reportaram usar guidelines clínicas. Treino complementar entre 16h-30h/ano esteve associado de forma positiva com diferentes aspetos da PBE (p≤0,009), com tendências decrescentes na força da associação após esses valores intermédios. Discussão – As estimativas de PBE encontradas em educadores clínicos parecem similares às previamente reportadas, mas apenas 60% dos educadores declarou usar guidelines clínicas na sua prática (comparativamente a 86%). Conclusões – Educadores clínicos em fisioterapia parecem possuir uma atitude positiva relativamente à PBE e demonstram níveis elevados de treino nesta área. No entanto, o uso de guidelines clínicas no contexto clínico da fisioterapia necessita ser promovido. O nível ideal de treino complementar parece encontrar-se entre as 16-30h/ano, pois à medida que essas horas aumentam uma maior atenção à componente de expertise clínica da PBE parece ocorrer.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Combined impact of diurnal type and time of day on children’s results in a battery of measurements probing reading abilities: Preliminary Results

The present work is part of a larger ongoing research project and it specifically aims to scrutinize whether diurnal-type (morningness- eveningness) and time-of-day have an impact (synchrony effect) on the results obtained by primary school children in standardized measures assessing reading skills and difficulties. Morning- and evening-type children attending the 2nd, 3rd or 4th grades were selected in a Portuguese “School Cluster” Using the Portuguese version of the Werner et al. (2009) Children Chronotype Questionnaire. The selected participants were randomly assigned to assessment sessions in the morning (9:00-10:30) or in the afternoon (16:00-17:30). There were 78 children (40 boys, 38 girls), 39 (50.0%) morning-type and 38 (50.0%) evening-type, 40 assessed in morning sessions and 38 in afternoon sessions. Reading abilities/difficulties were assessed using the Sucena & Castro (2011) battery ALEPE ‐ Avaliação da Leitura em Português Europeu [European Portuguese Reading Assessment battery], by a single evaluator who was blind to each child diurnaltype. Comparing morning and afternoon sessions, morning-types mainly showed similar scores, both in terms of answer correctness and reaction times, excepting for significantly higher scores in three tests in the morning sessions. Evening-types showed similar scores in most tests for answer correctness, but in two tests they achieved significantly higher scores in the morning, and mean reaction times were consistently shorter in the morning in comparison to the afternoon sessions. In 5 out of the 7 ALEPE tests that yield reaction time scores, differences reached, or were close to, statistical significance (p < 0.05, or p < 0.15, respectively). In conclusion, in spite of evening types’ performance seeming in most cases to be unaffected by time-of-day in a standardized battery of tests assessing reading abilities and difficulties, their shorter reaction times when tested in their nonoptimal time-of-day (i.e., in the morning) indicates an asynchrony effect. Contrarily to our initial expectations, results obtained so far in evening-type children suggest that specific tasks may benefit from non-optimal moments, as indicated by recent evidence. Support: FCT/COMPETE/QREN – research project PTDC/PSIEDD/120003/2010

Designing research tools : empirical knowledge as a base for future beekeeping.

The world-wide phenomenon of the disappearance of bees with the consequential imbalance of ecosystems is a problem that needs to be addressed in order to guarantee a sustainable future. Beekeeping is an activity, generally associated to agriculture, that allows small farmers to generate more food and income, this reality has had a shift in recent years with the number of small beekeepers decreasing, and big corporations gaining control over the industry. Regulations and the Colony Collapse Disorder, among other factors, may have a major role in these phenomena. With the intent to contribute to a more sustainable beekeeping practice, this research is being conducted to better understand this reality, looking for design driven opportunities. The challenge is to gain a deeper understanding of the beekeepers, a practice that is understudied by designers, particularly considering in-depth research methods. This paper discusses an experimental design study in the Turkish Aegean region that was conducted with local beekeepers to better understand the existing specifications: by discussing their business models, in order to understand and analyze socio-cultural factors that contributed to the existing system, and propose changes for a more sustainable practice. As a starting point for a first phase survey, the intent is to generate original data which will serve as the foundation for future works. Beekeepers in this scenario are mainly senior male farmers that belong to a low literacy audience, who learned the practice from their predecessors. In order to identify the problems of beekeepers, we needed to design and adjust our research methods according to the specifications of the audience. For this reason, a three stage inquiry was designed to better communication in order to extract measurable data from their empirical knowledge through a series of workshops. The case study reports the workshop sessions for identifying the design strategies with a focus on voicing the beekeepers problems. The first level draws upon explicit knowledge to identify the audience. For the second level an illustrated questionnaire was designed to visually represent the quantitative data about the business. The process is exercised with a new design because the content of knowledge is tacit and personal. Finally, the third level is an interview session to validate the data gathered from the previous stages. This paper will present the findings of the workshops with the aim to formulate an appropriate way to employ new approaches to exploring and defining design problems with visual representations. We also seek to extend our research in other contexts that will help discuss the role of design as a tool for developing new methodologies of design research. As a consequence we will propose prototypes of artifacts that will consider the implementation into beekeeping of new biomaterials, technology, branding and commercialization planning, etc., that may help create a more sustainable beekeeping practice. Beekeepers will be invited to analyze proposals and give their contributions. This process will render into redesigned optimized artifacts that will merge empirical knowledge with the needs of sustainable beekeeping. Keywords design research tools, beekeeping, sustainability, eco-innovation, cooperatio

A Sociedade da informa????o e do conhecimento e os estados brasileiros

A express??o Sociedade da Informa????o e do Conhecimento ?? utilizada para caracterizar o novo padr??o de acumula????o capitalista que assume maior relev??ncia a partir dos anos 90. Nesse novo padr??o tecnol??gico e produtivo, a informa????o, conhecimento e as inova????es tecnol??gicas passam a ser fatores determinantes do desenvolvimento socioecon??mico de uma na????o. O Brasil possui grande desigualdade interna o que tende a influenciar as condi????es de inser????o dos estados brasileiros nesta Sociedade. O objetivo deste artigo ?? analisar as condi????es de inser????o dos estados brasileiros no padr??o tecno-produtivo que ora se configura no Brasil e no mundo. Foi feita uma revis??o de Literatura e An??lise Documental. Os resultados corroboram a ideia geral acerca da heterogeneidade das condi????es de inser????o dos estados no novo padr??o tecnol??gico e econ??mico. A grande maioria dos estados apresentou condi????es de inser????o desfavor??veis, e as dimens??es que explicam esta posi????o desconfort??vel s??o: Infraestrutura, Acesso e Uso das Tecnologias da Informa????o e das Comunica????es, e Habilidades e Disponibilidade de Recursos Humanos. O estudo sugere que avan??os na constru????o de condi????es favor??veis de inser????o dos estados dependem fundamentalmente, da ado????o de medidas capazes de aprofundar a sinergia entre a pol??tica de ci??ncia e tecnologia, a pol??tica educacional e industrial