MINDED-FBA: An Automatic Remote Sensing Tool for the Estimation of Flooded and Burned Areas

This paper presents the MINDED-FBA, a remote-sensing-based tool for the determination of both flooded and burned areas. The tool, freely distributed as a QGIS plugin, consists of an adaptation and development of the previously published Multi Index Image Differencing methods (MINDED and MINDED-BA). The MINDED-FBA allows the integration and combination of a wider diversity of satellite sensor datasets, now including the synthetic aperture radar (SAR), in addition to optical multispectral data. The performance of the tool is evaluated for six case studies located in Portugal, Australia, Pakistan, Italy, and the USA. The case studies were chosen for representing a wide range of conditions, such as type of hazardous event (i.e., flooding or fire), scale of application (i.e., local or regional), site specificities (e.g., climatic conditions, morphology), and available satellite data (optical multispectral and SAR). The results are compared in respect to reference delineation datasets (mostly from the Copernicus EMS). The application of the MINDED-FBA tool with SAR data is particularly effective to delineate flooding, while optical multispectral data resulted in the best performances for burned areas. Nonetheless, the combination of both types of remote sensing data (data fusion approach) also provides high correlations with the available reference datasets. The MINDED-FBA tool could represent a new near-real-time solution, capable of supporting emergency response measures

Ecosystem Service Mapping: A Management-Oriented Approach to Support Environmental Planning Process

Effective integration of ecosystem services (ESs) into spatial planning and decision-making processes has been advocated as an opportunity to improve current practices and to promote sustainable development. However, the actual uptake of ecosystem services is still challenging, in part due to the complexity of ES studies, data scarcity, and ES compartmentalization, and so on. This chapter presents a case of mapping and characterizing coastal ecosystem services in a way that deals with these issues in order to facilitate its integration in the decision-making and planning process. It gives an insight into which ESs are currently provided in Ria de Aveiro coastal region (Portugal), how are they distributed in space, and identifies multifunctional areas. We argue that the use of existing and available data, as well as tools and approaches that are similar to those used in spatial planning, notwithstanding its limitations, has the potential for bridging science and decision-making spheres. ES-related information could be thus gradually incorporated in the design of local strategies towards sustainable and transparent planning and management processes

Schiff bases: A short review of their antimicrobial activities

AbstractSchiff bases are aldehyde- or ketone-like compounds in which the carbonyl group is replaced by an imine or azomethine group. They are widely used for industrial purposes and also exhibit a broad range of biological activities. This short review compiles examples of the most promising antimalarial, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral Schiff bases. An overview of synthetic methodologies used for the preparation of Schiff bases is also described

Sociodemographic determinants of prevalence and incidence of Helicobacter pylori infection in Portuguese adults

Background: Understanding the determinants of Helicobacter pylori infection in adults is essential to predict the burden of H. pylori‐related diseases. We aimed to estimate the prevalence and incidence of H. pylori infection and to identify its major sociodemographic correlates in an urban population from the North of Portugal. Material and Methods: A representative sample of noninstitutionalized adult inhabitants of Porto (n = 2067) was evaluated by ELISA (IgG) and a subsample (n = 412) was tested by Western Blot to assess infection with CagA‐positive strains. Modified Poisson and Poisson regression models were used to estimate crude and sex‐, age‐, and education‐adjusted prevalence ratios (PR) and incidence rate ratios (RR), respectively. Results: The prevalence of H. pylori infection was 84.2% [95% confidence interval (95%CI): 82.4–86.1]. It increased across age‐groups in the more educated subjects, (18–30 years: 72.6%; ≥71 years: 88.1%; p for trend <0.001) and decreased with education in the younger (≤4 schooling years: 100.0%; ≥10 schooling years: 72.6%; p for trend <0.001). Living in a more deprived neighborhood was associated with a higher prevalence of infection, only in the younger (PR = 1.20, 95%CI: 1.03–1.38) and more educated participants (PR = 1.15, 95%CI: 1.03–1.29). Among the infected, the proportion with CagA‐positive strains was 61.7% (95%CI: 56.6–66.9). The incidence rate was 3.6/100 person‐years (median follow‐up: 3 years; 95%CI: 2.1–6.2), lower among the more educated (≥10 vs ≤9: RR = 0.25, 95%CI: 0.06–0.96). The seroreversion rate was 1.0/100 person‐years (95%CI: 0.6–1.7). Conclusions: The prevalence of infection among adults is still very high in Portugal, suggesting that stomach cancer rates will remain high over the next few decades

Crowding: risk factor or protective factor for lower respiratory disease in young children?

BACKGROUND: To study the effects of household crowding upon the respiratory health of young children living in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. METHODS: Case-control study with children aged from 2 to 59 months living within the boundaries of the city of São Paulo. Cases were children recruited from 5 public hospitals in central São Paulo with an acute episode of lower respiratory disease. Children were classified into the following diagnostic categories: acute bronchitis, acute bronchiolitis, pneumonia, asthma, post-bronchiolitis wheezing and wheezing of uncertain aetiology. One control, crudely matched to each case with regard to age (<2, 2 years old or more), was selected among healthy children living in the neighborhood of the case. All buildings were surveyed for the presence of environmental contaminants, type of construction and building material. Plans of all homes, including measurements of floor area, height of walls, windows and solar orientation, was performed. Data were analysed using conditional logistic regression. RESULTS: A total of 313 pairs of children were studied. Over 70% of the cases had a primary or an associated diagnosis of a wheezing illness. Compared with controls, cases tended to live in smaller houses with less adequate sewage disposal. Cases and controls were similar with respect to the number of people and the number of children under five living in the household, as well the number of people sharing the child's bedroom. After controlling for potential confounders, no evidence of an association between number of persons sharing the child's bedroom and lower respiratory disease was identified when all cases were compared with their controls. However, when two categories of cases were distinguished (infections, asthma) and each category compared separately with their controls, crowding appeared to be associated with a 60% reduction in the incidence of asthma but with 2 1/2-fold increase in the incidence of lower respiratory tract infections (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that household crowding places young children at risk of acute lower respiratory infection but may protect against asthma. This result is consistent with the hygiene hypothesis

Glycerol/PEDOT:PSS coated woven fabric as flexible heating element on textiles

A polyamide 6,6 (PA66) fabric pre-treated with a double barrier dielectric (DBD) atmospheric plasma in air was coated with 1 and 5 layers of an intrinsically conducting glycerol-doped PEDOT:PSS polymer (PEDOT:PSS + GLY) with the final objective of developing a cost-competitive and temperature controllable flexible-heating element to be used in clothing encapsulated between an outer and an inner separator layer in order to provide heat-reflecting properties and uniform temperature distribution, respectively. FTIR, DSC, TGA, SEM, EDS, XRD and DMA analyses show significant changes in morphology, chemistry, enthalpy, crystallinity and glass transition temperature confirming that PEDOT:PSS and glycerol are not only spread over the PA66 yarn surfaces but are dispersed in the bulk facilitating relaxation and increasing structure and chain flexibility. Electrochemical and electrical resistivity (r) measurements confirm that the plasma treated PA66 coated with 5 layers of PEDOT:PSS + GLY presents the highest stability, resistance and capacitive behaviour, and the best capability of storing electrical energy. This configuration needs only 7.5 V to induce a temperature change up to 38 1C at a current density of 0.3 A g1 . The desired temperature is easily adjustable as a function of the applied voltage and by the number of coated layers of PEDOT:PSS + GLY. Despite the need to improve the uniformity of the coating thickness on the fabric for uniform heat generation, the observed results are quite impressive since they can be compared to the temperature obtained in carbon nanotube composites using similar voltages. This cost-competitive, safe, highly flexible and stable thermoelectric fabric has potential for use in large area textiles as a heating element in a wide range of applications such as garments, carpets, blankets and automotive seats.The authors acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) funding from the projects UID/EEA/04436/2013 and UID/CTM/00264/2013 and FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 - Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI) with the reference projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006941. EMFV is grateful for financial support through the FCT grant SFRH/BPD/95905/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Access to infertility consultations: what women tell us about it?

The main objective of the present paper is to evaluate the perception of women concerning the barriers and access to infertility consultations. Socio cultural and economic access to infertility consultations is detached and three municipalities of the northwest of Portugal were chosen as an example of a peripheral country. A quantitative/qualitative study was done with 60 women. Three dimensions were evaluated: geographic and structural and functional access; economic access; and sociocultural access. The main barriers were mainly identified in the last two dimensions. The economic access was the less well evaluated by women being the cost of treatment (medication, and concentration of costs in a short period) difficult to bear. This can justify a greater involvement of the Portuguese Government, by developing policies for the reimbursement of part of the costs. Also, some changes in structural and functional access must be done with special regard to the separation of the infertility consultations from the reproductive medicine section. The setting of the teams, with a follow-up by the same team of health professionals is also needed