Avaliação do jogo de computador “Boccia” para adequação a uma equipa de jogadores com paralisia cerebral

Um jogo de computador 3D, que tem como finalidade permitir que jogadores portadores de paralisia cerebral possam jogar o jogo de Boccia, foi desenvolvido ao abrigo de uma tese de mestrado no Instituto Superior Técnico. Na sequência deste trabalho, foi efectuado um estudo de avaliação e adequação do referido jogo aos jogadores da equipa de Boccia do Centro de Paralisia Cerebral de Beja. Para tal, foram utilizados vários métodos, em diferentes fases, e que passaram por uma avaliação efectuada por peritos em interfaces e de jogo real, por testes de utilização dos utentes, com base em registos de observações em papel e em vídeo e, finalmente, pela aplicação de um inquérito sob a forma de entrevista aos jogadores. A experiência obtida poderá, depois, ser aplicada na adequação e avaliação de outros sistemas de software (tecnologias de apoio) a este tipo de utilizadores que apresentam necessidades especiais e que devem também ter respostas adequadas por parte destes sistemas

Studying street geometry influence in PM10 concentration

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Studying strategies for air distribution inside a refrigeration chamber.

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A Block-based Programming Approach

Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.Simple computer activities have been used for a long time for cognitive and physical training in the context of rehabilitation or mental stimulation. An example is training the skills needed by users with special needs to access the computer through scanning access, which is an access method used by persons with major motor difficulties. The increased availability of less expensive mobile devices with large displays provides an ideal platform for these applications. This work-in-progress paper presents an ongoing work to empower rehabilitation therapists and special education teachers with no previous computer programming experience with a set of highly configurable apps supporting several types of activities for scanning access training. The apps are made available as open projects written in a block-based programming language. This way, they may be configurable by non-programmers while also allowing further changes depending on the programming skills of each rehabilitation therapist or special education teacher. This study intends to validate this approach among this group of users and formulate a set of guidelines concerning software architecture and organization and user interaction, to be used in the development of this kind of application.publishersversionpublishe

Estratégias de Reabilitação do Sistema de Saneamento Básico do Concelho de Estremoz

O objetivo do trabalho consiste na realização de uma proposta de “Estratégias de Reabilitação do Sistema de Saneamento Básico do Concelho de Estremoz”. O estudo pretende contribuir, entre outros aspetos, para: a) Um melhor conhecimento do sistema de drenagem de águas residuais existente no concelho de Estremoz, através de uma análise crítica do seu funcionamento hidráulico e sanitário; b) Identificar pontos críticos de funcionamento do sistema, quer do ponto de vista ambiental quer do ponto de vista estrutural e hidráulico, com base em trabalho de campo e resultados de simulação com modelo adequado, para diversos cenários; c) Propor e validar intervenções de beneficiação do sistema, a nível técnico-económico e ambiental, definindo o faseamento das mesmas. Inclui-se a análise da adaptação da rede existente para rede separativa, com coletores a servir de modo autónomo os efluentes industriais e domésticos; prevê-se também a avaliação de soluções alternativas, como construir um sistema novo em materiais apropriados, conjuntamente para efluentes domésticos e industriais; d) Analisar as soluções de reabilitação do sistema mais adequadas tendo em vista o objetivo do presente estudo.The aim work is the achievement of proposed "Rehabilitation Strategies System Basic sanitation County Estremoz". The study will pretend to help, among other things, to: a) A better understanding of the system of sewerage in the county Estremoz, through a critical analysis of their hydraulic operation and health. b) identify critical points of the system, both from an environmental standpoint and from the point of view of structural and hydraulics, based on fieldwork and simulation results with appropriate model for various scenarios. c) Propose and validate interventions for improvement of the system, the level techno-economic and environmental setting the timing of same. Includes the analysis of the adaptation of the existing network to network separative with collectors to serve autonomously industrial effluents and domestic; provision is also evaluating alternative solutions, such as building a new system in appropriate materials together for effluents and industrial. d) Analyze the solutions most appropriate rehabilitation system having in mind the objective of the present study

Historical floods of the Douro River in Porto, Portugal (1727–1799)

Extreme meteorological events have had devastating consequences all over the world throughout the ages. In this study, we look into the floods at the mouth of the Douro River (Porto, Portugal) in the eighteenth century to expand the data series of floods in Northern Portugal. Information was gathered mostly from documentary narrative sources, either individual or institutional (administrative and ecclesiastic), some of which include reports of Pro Serenitate ceremonies. A study by the priest Rebelo Costa (1789) and the memories of the merchant Ignacio Henckell from 1717 to 1800 stand out among the individual sources. We concluded that there was great interannual variability in the occurrence of the 54 recorded floods, the highest number of which occurred in the 1780s. The “catastrophic” floods were recorded in 1727, 1739, 1769, 1774, 1777, 1788 and 1798, four of which are studied in detail in this paper. The greatest number of flood events took place in winter and autumn, and most of them lasted between 1 and 3 days. An analysis of the description of the floods, their impacts and the associated meteorological causes was carried out. In most cases, the frontal activity associated with Atlantic cyclonic systems was the cause of positive precipitation anomalies in NW Iberia. The great variability in heavy precipitation was confirmed by the new data. However, hardly any temporal simultaneity was found with other case studies in Southern Europe, except for Spain, especially several localities of Galicia and the mid Douro Valley (Zamora).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Que estratégia de amostragem para os estados larvares de Mythimna unipuncta (Haworth) (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae)?

IX Expedição Científica do Departamento de Biologia - Terceira 1994A amostragem dos estados larvares de Mythimna unipuncta (Haworth) (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae), praga das pastagens dos Açores, é importante para o estudo da dinâmica populacional, bem como para a definição das regras de decisão quanto à aplicação de medidas fitossanitárias. Durante a "Expedição Científica Terceira 94", foram realizadas amostragens directas dos estados larvares de M. unipuncta em duas parcelas de pastagem, uma em São Bartolomeu e outra na Granja, através da contagem do número de larvas em 100 amostras de 0,25 m2 cada. 0 número médio de larvas observado por unidade de amostragem foi de 2,9±0,53 e de 0,98±0,21, respectivamente, em São Bartolomeu e na Granja. Usando a Lei de Taylor, o número de amostras requerido para um grau de precisão de 0.2 foi de 76 em São Bartolomeu e de 73 na Granja. O número de 20 amostras, realizadas habitualmente no estudo da abundância de larvas, proporcionou apenas uma precisão de 0,4. Porém, a distribuição das larvas ajustou-se a uma binomial negativa em ambas as localidades. A estratégia de amostragem sequencial de Wald permite a diminuição do esforço de amostragem, mas sem reduzir contudo o grau de precisão requerido pelo processo de tomada de decisão.ABSTRACT: Mythimna unipuncta (Haworth) (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) is an important pest in Azorean pastures, so accurate estimates of larval densities are essential for population dynamic studies and for the decision making process concerning potential pesticide applications. During the "Terceira 94 Scientific Expedition" we determined the efficiency of our standard estimates of larval densities, derived from 20 0,25 m2 samples, with those obtained using 100 samples. This was replicated at two different sites, São Bartolomeu (where larval densities were 2,9±0,53 per sample unit) and Granja (with larval densities of 0,98±0,21). Using Taylor's power law the number of samples required for a 0,2 level of precision was 76 in São Bartolomeu and 73 in Granja, and the usual number of samples (20) only provided a precision of 0,4. However, as larval distribution fitted a negative binomial distribution at both sites, a sequential sampling might lower sampling effort without reducing the level of precision required for the decision making process

Sudden singularities in generalized hybrid metric-Palatini cosmologies

In this work, we explore cosmological sudden singularities arising in the dynamically equivalent scalar-tensor representation of generalized hybrid metric-Palatini gravity. Using a FLRW background, we show that the structure of the field equations prevents sudden singularities from arising at time derivatives of the scale factor of orders lower than four, but that they are allowed to appear for time derivatives of higher orders. Imposing an ansatz for the scale factor, we provide an explicit solution where these sudden singularities appear in the fourth-order time derivative of the scale factor. A comparison of the Hubble and deceleration parameters arising from this model with the experimental measurements from the Planck Satellite allow us to impose constraints on the time span for which the occurrence of sudden singularities becomes likely in our universe, as measured from the Big Bang.Comment: v2: 20 pages, 3 figures; matches published version in JCAP forma