Development of an Aerosol Testing Chamber for Mining Environments and Evaluation of New Silica Dust Mass Concentration Methods Using the NIOSH FTIR Standard Technique

Respirable crystalline silica (RCS) and respirable coal dust are a health hazard for industrial workers, mainly in the mining industry, which has to be monitored and have their concentration controlled under permissible limits. Innumerous techniques for silica and coal monitoring have been applied in mining environments, but most of them with the shortcomings of time taken to collect the sample, process the data, and calculate the concentrations. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has developed a monitoring technique, based on filter sampling and FTIR transmission spectroscopy, for respirable crystalline silica that can provide mass concentrations by the end of the working shift, applying a software that is capable of calculating the silica mass on the filter and the silica mass concentration.This manuscript aims to discuss the new dust generation and aerosol testing chamber developed at the University of Nevada, Reno, for dust monitoring and the evaluation of new silica dust mass concentration methods using the NIOSH FTIR standard technique. The contributions of this work include: 1) A review of RCS and coal health hazards, time integrated methods for characterization and quantification, and current silica monitoring methods. 2) The development of the aerosol testing chamber for mining environments and the application of the NIOSH FTIR standard technique. 3) Evaluation of new monitoring methods using the NIOSH FTIR standard technique. The new method is based on dust absorption spectra measurements obtained with a photoacoustic spectrometer equipped with a tunable quantum cascade laser

Physiomechanical responses of gait with poles in people with Parkinson's Disease

Introdução: A doença de Parkinson (DP) impacta na locomoção diminuindo a velocidade da marcha, o comprimento e frequência de passo, ativação muscular, e aumenta a variabilidade e o gasto energético da marcha. Estes fatores estão associados a um aumento do risco de quedas e a redução das atividades de vida diária e da qualidade de vida. As intervenções de caminhada Nórdica (CN) são conhecidas por melhorar os parâmetros da marcha e reduzir os sintomas motores a longo prazo. No entanto, ainda é desconhecido o efeito agudo dos bastões sobre as flutuações das energias mecânicas, parâmetros cinéticos e espaço-temporais da marcha de pessoas com DP. Objetivo: O nosso objetivo foi comparar os parâmetros mecânicos, mecanismo pendular, cinéticos e espaço-temporais da marcha em diferentes velocidades com e sem bastões de CN em pessoas com DP e controles saudáveis. Métodos: Os estudos que compuseram a dissertação incluíram 11 pessoas (idade 65,6 ± 7,0 anos) com DP idiopática, estagiamento entre 1 e 1,5 na escala de Hoehn e Yahr, e nove controles saudáveis (idade 70,0 ± 5,6 anos). Todas as pessoas eram praticantes experientes de CN. Os dados foram coletados em três velocidades de caminhada, 1,8 km.h-1 , 4,7 km.h-1 , velocidade máxima de caminhada, e uma velocidade de corrida autosselecionada através de oito plataformas de força 3D implementadas a uma passarela. O Generalized Linear Model foi utilizado para identificar efeitos principais de grupo (grupo Parkinson × controle), modalidade (CL × CN) e interações (grupo × modalidade). O post hoc de Bonferroni foi utilizado para encontrar diferenças estatísticas em caso de interações significativas. Resultados: Encontramos um maior recovery pendular (p0,05). As pessoas com DP mostraram um significativo aumento na flutuação das energias verticais e forward utilizando bastões em comparação a controles saudáveis. Além disso, pessoas com DP demostraram um aumento da frequência de passo e uma redução do comprimento de passo em comparação com os controles durante CN e CL. O trabalho mecânico total foi aumentado devido ao trabalho mecânico interno durante a CN de forma semelhante no grupo Parkinson e o controles saudáveis. Nossos resultados justificam parcialmente a menor economia durante a CL na DP devido ao maior trabalho total e a redução do recovery em velocidade habitualmente utilizada. Durante a máxima velocidade caminhada, nós encontramos aumento dos componentes verticais (apoio terminal) e anteroposteriores (braking e propulsive) das forças de reação do solo (FRS) (p0,005) em comparação com os controles saudáveis. A frequência de passo foi reduzida (p>0,005) em DP de forma semelhante aos controles durante CN e corrida Nórdica. Conclusão: concluímos que caminhar e correr com bastões são atividades funcionais e seguras. Portanto, pode ser uma estratégia útil de reabilitação devido ao seu potencial para aumentar a mobilidade funcional e recuperação de energia mecânica, bem como alterar o trabalho mecânico externo e os componentes cinéticos, resultando em determinantes mecânicos importantes do custo energético da locomoção em pessoas com DP.Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects the locomotion decreasing gait speed, step length and frequency, and muscle activation, and increasing the gait variability and energy expenditure. These factors are associated with an increased risk of falls and reduced activities of daily living and quality of life. The Nordic walking (NW) interventions are known to improve gait parameters and reduce motor symptoms in the long term. However, the acute effect of poles on the mechanical energies’ fluctuations, kinetic and spatiotemporal parameters in people with PD is still unknown. Objective: We aimed to compare mechanical parameters, pendulum-like mechanism, kinetic, and spatiotemporal variables of gait at different speeds gait with and without NW poles in people with PD and healthy controls. Methods: The dissertation studies included 11 people (aged 65.6±7.0 years) with idiopathic PD, scoring between 1 and 1.5 on the Hoehn and Yahr scale (H&Y), and nine healthy controls (aged 70.0±5.6 years). All the people were experienced Nordic walkers. Data was collected with people at three walking speed, 1.8 km.h-1 , 4.7 km.h-1 , fast-walking speed and a selfselect running speed on eight 3D force platforms on a walkway. Generalized Linear Model was used to identify the main effects group (control × Parkinson’s group), modality (FW × NW), and group × modality interactions, and Bonferroni post hoc was used to find statistical differences. Results: We found greater pendulum-like energy recovery (p0.05). People with PD showed a major increase in vertical and forward energy fluctuations using poles than in healthy controls. In addition, the PD showed increased step frequency and reduced step length compared to controls in NW and FW conditions. Our findings partly justify the lower walking economy in PD during FW due to higher total work and reduced pendulumlike mechanism at commonly used speeds. NW increases the total work due to internal work similarly in Parkinson’s group and healthy control. During fast-walking speed we found greater vertical (terminal stance) and anteroposterior (braking and propulsive) components of the ground reaction force (GRF) (p0.005) compared to the healthy controls. The NW and NR reduced step frequency (p>0.005) similarly in both groups. These finds suggest NW and NR modify gait patterns and lead to compensatory adjustments to reduce motor symptoms of PD. Conclusion: we concluded walking and running with poles are functional and safe activities. Therefore, it can be a compelling strategy for rehabilitation because of its potential to improve functional mobility, increase pendulum-like energy recovery, external mechanical work, kinetic components and impacts the energy cost of PD locomotion

Essays on local currencies, development, and sustainable tourism

The past years brought challenges to humankind. This was not different to the tourism sector which needed to face travel restrictions and the perspective of changes in behaviour when travelling. As a consequence, this thesis aims to deal with new perspectives on tourism, addressing local development and well-being. This work is divided into three papers and brings three different propositions to improve local conditions and deal with visitors by using local currencies. The goal of local currencies is to allow money coming from out of the community to circulate in the local economy, possibly creating a virtuous circle. The first chapter treats the Maricá's case, a small city in Brazil that is implanting basic income for its inhabitants using oil royalties and a local currency called Mumbuca. It proposes a change in the engine of the city's economy, coming from oil to sustainable tourism, including tourism in the local financial framework. The second chapter proposes a balance in the negative externalities coming from visitors in favour of locals. To do so, it suggests a basic income coming from tourism, being paid through local currency. On the contrary, the last chapter proposes a kind of local cryptocurrency, based on cases in the literature and in specialized markets, in order to foment tourism and improve locals' well-being

Visual-Quality-Driven Learning for Underwater Vision Enhancement

The image processing community has witnessed remarkable advances in enhancing and restoring images. Nevertheless, restoring the visual quality of underwater images remains a great challenge. End-to-end frameworks might fail to enhance the visual quality of underwater images since in several scenarios it is not feasible to provide the ground truth of the scene radiance. In this work, we propose a CNN-based approach that does not require ground truth data since it uses a set of image quality metrics to guide the restoration learning process. The experiments showed that our method improved the visual quality of underwater images preserving their edges and also performed well considering the UCIQE metric.Comment: Accepted for publication and presented in 2018 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP

UNIVERSIDADE E COMPROMISSO SOCIAL: FACULDADE MUNICIPAL DE PALHOÇA (FMP) UM MARCO NA EDUCAÇAO SUPERIOR MUNICIPAL, PÚBLICA E GRATUITA.

Entendendo a relevância do compromisso social de uma instituição de ensino superior municipal este artigo objetiva relatar a importância de uma faculdade municipal para o desenvolvimento de um município. O artigo foi elaborado partindo-se de dados coletados, utilizando-se de pesquisa documental, observação participante e a utilização de questionário para coletar as informações necessárias, o questionário foi aplicado com os estudantes ingressantes nos anos de 2009, 2010 e 2011. No entanto, identificou-se o perfil dos acadêmicos que estudam na FMP são oriundos em sua maioria das escolas públicas que escolheram a Faculdade Municipal de Palhoça para fazer seu curso superior por ser uma instituição de referencia em ensino superior municipal. Concluiu-se que a importância da FMP para o município de Palhoça é imprescindível, pois a faculdade mobilizou a vida econômica, social e cultural do município e atualmente é indiscutível o seu papel no desenvolvimento local

Risk Assessment Proposal In HydrauliC Presses With Fuzzy Logic

The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety level of industrial machines, in particular hydraulic press. The dissertation used hydraulic presses as the object of study. The research instruments used were machine safety analyzes based on normative items pre-established in ABNT NBR: 12100, possible accidents that these machineries can cause. The results show that hydraulic presses cause many accidents, in some situations dying. Through Annex B of ABNT NBR 14153: 2013, there are 4 risk categories for machinery, the greater the degree of risk, the more unsafe the machine is. The appraiser\u27s experience is very important to analyze the machine and reach the level of risk level before and after the adjustment. Finally, it appears that the machine analyzed in this study was at risk level 3, after analysis and adaptations the same machine was at risk level 1, totally acceptable to maintain the operator\u27s safety level

Preventive Effect of Ophthalmic Lenses on Cataract, is it Real?

Knowing that the prevalence of crystalline cataracts  after 40 years is relatively high and that exposure to UV rays is a factor for its appearance, since the lens is an absorber of these rays, it was intended with this pilot study to verify the relationship between the appearance of crystalline nuclear sclerosis and the time that patients take from the use of ophthalmic lenses, since they absorb most of these rays under normal conditions of use