Users' Perceptions of Signage Systems at Three Portuguese Hospitals

This article is a report on the quantitative data collected from patients, family members, and visitors using the outpatient areas of three hospitals in Portugal. It details the users' views regarding the existing signage and presents suggestions to improve the design and implementation of the signage systems. A questionnaire was used with 1,287 respondents. The results showed that almost all users had a positive opinion regarding the current signage. However, some of the users' answers and observed behaviors indicated that the majority tended to ignore the signs and preferred to ask staff for help. Additionally, when asked for suggestions, many of the respondents were able to point out existing problems that affected their wayfinding. Although the signage was generally evaluated as good, many of the users perceived a variety of problems and, as already mentioned, asked the staff for directions, which results in lost time and hidden costs for the institutions

Healthcare Signage Design: A review on recommendations for effective signing systems

This article provides a set of recommendations, selected from the systematic literature review carried out, regarding signage systems for healthcare institutions that can be used for designing or redesigning more competent signage systems. The signage systems in healthcare settings are usually poorly designed due to the expansion of the original facilities, a lack of awareness of existing guidelines by the developers, and a lack of agreement between the existing recommendations. There are several guidelines and recommendations available in the literature; however, each work was developed for specific cultural contexts, so there is a lack of uniformity among them. Hence, there is a need to uniformize the guidelines for signage design in healthcare, in order to provide supportive information for developers to build and implement effective and efficient signage systems. This study examined the available literature on the subject and established a set of guidelines organized in categories to help the design process. A literature review was conducted, and 34 selected publications were analyzed from which recommendations were created. A best practices manual was also studied and used as the analytical framework to establish the design categories of the developed recommendations. This review resulted in guidelines divided into nine design categories that should be considered in the design and implementation process of signage systems in healthcare facilities

Assessment of Wild Rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC.) Germplasm accessions by NGS identified SSR and SNP markers

Rocket is the common designation for two baby-leaf salad crops of the Brassicaceae family: Eruca sativa (L.) Cav., usually referred to as annual garden rocket, and Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC. commonly named to as perennial wild rocket. E. sativa is used for human consumption since antiquity. However, the growing consumer preference for D. tenuifolia is being accompanied by the fast increase in its production area and commercialization of new cultivars. Nevertheless, the worldwide number of wild rocket accessions maintained in germplasm collections is very reduced, the solution for which situation the project “REMIRucula” intends to contribute, establishing a germplasm collection at the INIAV, Oeiras, Portugal. Herein, we report on the establishment via next generation sequencing (NGS) of the first genome assembly of D. tenuifolia and the identification of specific single sequence repeat (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) loci for the establishment of specific DNA-markers for this species. A representative set of 87 D. tenuifolia and 3 E. sativa accessions were assessed by 5 SSR and 9 SNP-CAPS markers, allowing a drastic discrimination between both species and the establishment of unequivocal molecular fingerprints for the analyzed accessions. The non-discrimination within six pairs and one trio of D. tenuifolia accessions is discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Hábitos de aconselhamento de medicamentos por fisioterapeutas

O fisioterapeuta, enquanto profissional de saúde envolvido na promoção e educação para a saúde, e apresentando funções de aconselhamento, poderá, no exercício da sua prática clínica, aconselhar medicamentos aos seus utentes, para além da eventual administração dos mesmos. No entanto, e apesar dessas práticas, o fisioterapeuta tem na maior parte dos casos pouca formação na área da farmacologia. O aconselhamento de medicamentos deverá ter em consideração de que modo os efeitos da sua utilização irão influenciar o tratamento de fisioterapia e vice-versa. É, por isso, fundamental que estes profissionais sejam detentores de formação na área da farmacologia de modo a potenciar os benefícios e minimizar os riscos destas interacções. Objectivos do estudo - Geral: caracterizar os hábitos de aconselhamento de medicamentos por fisioterapeutas em Portugal. Específicos: identificar os grupos farmacoterapêuticos mais aconselhados; determinar as situações e razões referidas para o aconselhamento de medicamentos; determinar a informação prestada pelos fisioterapeutas sobre os medicamentos aconselhados

Automation and control of the SORTEGEL wastewater plant

Food Processing Industries produce large amounts of wastewater with high environmental impact. Due to the high content of suspended matter and inadequate pH value of the wastewater, national laws prohibit direct discharges of the influent to the environment. This work describes the design and operation of a wastewater treatment plant installed in the Sortegel food-processing company located in Sortes, Portugal. This industry uses the water collected from groundwater wells to process raw materials and to wash the equipments, being the volume of wastewater produced season dependent (80 to 300m3/day). Results show that the implemented wastewater treatment plant and the automation solutions generate treated effluents that comply with the Portuguese legislation

Técnicas Base para Aquisição de Informação Tridimensional sem Contacto

Resumo - As técnicas de aquisição de informação tridimensional (3D) sem contacto são hoje uma ferramenta muito usada para a obtenção da forma 3D de objectos ou cenas. Este artigo descreve, resumidamente, algumas dessas técnicas que têm sido utilizadas na aquisição de informação 3D no domínio de Visão Tridimensional, bem como as vantagens e dificuldades que lhes são apontadas

Downy mildew resistance and genetic variability in a wild rocket germplasm collection

One hundred accessions of a "core collection" of Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC. and Eruca spp. were screened at seedling stage for resistance to downy mildew. Accessions tested at the seedling stage were assigned to 0-6 interaction phenotypes. All cultivated rocket (Eruca spp.) accessions exhibited a resistant (R) response both in cotyledons and in young leaves. The wild rocket (D. tenuifolia) accessions exhibited higher susceptibility in cotyledons than in the 1st and 2nd leaves, with 16 and 47 accessions classified as resistant or partially resistant (PR) in the cotyledon and in leaves stages, respectively. Only three wild rocket accessions displayed an R phenotype in cotyledons and leaves. The most frequent response in cotyledons vs. leaves was the highly susceptible/susceptible (HS/S) combination (33 accessions), followed by the S/PR combination (18 accessions). A significant correlation (r = 0.917, P < .000) was observed between the disease index in cotyledons and leaves. The molecular markers analyses revealed a wide genetic distance between Diplotaxis and Eruca, which gather in two clearly separated species clusters. The molecular variability is accompanied by a wide diversity of interactions with the pathogen isolate. The closest similarities among D. tenuifolia accessions were found in accessions provided by the same breeding company. Future studies will be focused on two main objectives: (a) the assessment of the accessions behavior that have evidenced an R/R, S/PR, and HS/PR cotyledon and leaf response under greenhouse or field production and (b) the genome mapping of genetic features that provide downy mildew resistance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Técnicas Base para Aquisição de Informação Tridimensional sem Contacto: uma descrição

As técnicas de aquisição de informação tridimensional (3D) sem contacto são hoje uma ferramenta muito usada para a obtenção da forma 3D de objectos ou cenas. Este artigo descreve, resumidamente, algumas dessas técnicas que têm sido utilizadas na aquisição de informação 3D no domínio de Visão Tridimensional, bem como as vantagens e dificuldades que lhes são apontadas.The tree-dimensional (3D) information acquisition techniques without contact are nowadays a very used tool for objects or scenes 3D shape capture. This article briefly describes some of the techniques that have been used, in the Three-dimensional Vision domain, for the 3D information acquisition as well as the advantages and difficulties which are attributed to them

Compressed earth blocks stabilized with glass waste and fly ash activated with a recycled alkaline cleaning solution

Sustainable alternatives are increasingly demanded as a sound response, from the construction industry, to the worldwide growing concerns with the environment. Such effort is justifiable by the degree of the contribution of this human activity to the problem, and it has thus propelled the development of a major trend in terms of funded research. The study reported in this paper focused on the physical-mechanical properties of compacted earth blocks formed by a common Portuguese silty clay (as the mineral skeleton), stabilized with a sustainable alkali activated cement exclusively produced from wastes and residues, including coal fly ash and glass waste, in a 50/50 wt ratio combination, and activated with an alkaline solution from the aluminium industry, using activator/precursor weight ratios of 0.50, 0.57 and 0.75. After optimising the alkaline activated cement (AAC), the AAC/Soil blocks were fabricated, using the response surface method to define their composition based on curing periods of 28 and 180 days at controlled ambient temperature. Uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) and several durability tests were performed, and the material was characterised using FTIR and SEM. The results evidenced the effectiveness of the alkaline cementing agent in forming a binding matrix for the soil particles. An average compressive strength of 17.23 MPa, in unsaturated conditions, was obtained for the blocks. The newly formed soil-binder structure was very capable to withstand wetting and drying cycles, ice-thaw cycles and erosion. The microstructure of the material was further analysed, using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The results demonstrated the real possibility of using this type of cement as a viable alternative to traditional soil stabilisation binders used in earth construction.This work was funded by the R&D Project JUSTREST-Development of Alkali Binders for Geotechnical Applications Made Exclusively from Industrial Waste, with reference PTDC/ECM-GEO/0637/2014, financed by the Foundation for Science and Technology - FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC).The research was supported by the GEO-DESIGN project, no17501, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through NORTE 2020 (North Regional Operational Program, 2014/2020)