Monitoring of historical masonry structures with operational modal analysis: Two case studies

Two monuments in Portugal are being monitoring by the University of Minho: the Clock Tower of Mogadouro and the Church of Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon. Vibration sensors and temperature and relative air humidity sensors are installed in the two monuments. Operational modal analysis is being used to estimate the modal parameters, followed by statistical analysis to evaluate the environmental effects on the dynamic response. The aim is to explore damage assessment in masonry structures at an early stage by vibration signatures as a part of a heath monitoring process to preserve the historical constructions. The paper presents all the preceding dynamic analysis steps before the monitoring task, which includes the installation of the monitoring system, the system identification and subsequent FE model updating analysis, the automatic modal identification and the investigation of the influence of the environment on the identified modal parameters.(undefined

La inclusió a les aules d'educació infantil

Treball Final de Grau en Mestre o Mestra d'Educació Infantil. Codi: MI1040. Curs acadèmic: 2016/2017El tema de la inclusió és un tema molt important en la societat a la qual vivim. Després d'estar a una escola educativa i analitzar les característiques i proposta pedagògica utilitzada, vaig veure important tractar aquest tema amb els més menuts, ja que, hi ha una gran quantitat d'alumnat immigrant i amb necessitats educatives especials que són acceptats per tothom però sols l'alumnat amb NEE disposa d'un pla d'actuació, la qual cosa veig necessari tractar el tema de la inclusió més enllà de les NEE. En aquest sentit, la inclusió no sols és donar resposta aquelles persones amb necessitats educatives especials, sinó a totes aquelles que necessiten una ajuda pels motius que sigui (persones d’altres cultures, diferents formes de vida, incorporació tarda al sistema educatiu, historia personal, diversitat sexual, etc.) Aquest tema està sustentat per autors com Gerard Ferrer i Sergi Martínez, Pere Pujolàs, Marta Mata o l'autor de la teoria del reconeixement com és Axel Honneth. Per a la realització de la pràctica educativa, s'han plantejat activitats lúdiques i motivadores. Una volta finalitzades les activitats i per a l'obtenció dels resultats, s'ha realitzat un qüestionari prèviament plantejat a les activitats, per veure si aquestes han aconseguit els objectius proposats i a més, per veure la satisfacció dels nens i nenes. Cada una de les activitats disposa d'una taula d'avaluació diferent perquè totes elles no persegueixen els mateixos objectius. Així, aquest projecte d'investigació té com a objectiu donar a conèixer el tema de la inclusió als més menuts, a més, fomentar el principi d'igualtat i les relacions personals, crear un treball cooperatiu i reforçar el reconeixement com a eina per a la inclusió, tot això seguint una metodologia on l'alumne és el centre del seu aprenentatge relacionant conceptes nous amb conceptes que ja havia adquirit

Desenvolvimento de questionário para indicar posicionamentos em relação às Sociedades Sustentáveis partindo de conceitos correlatos

Resumo Apresenta-se o processo de elaboração do Índice Composto de Concepções Socioambientais (ICCSA): um questionário modelo multi-resposta que aborda os temas da Educação Ambiental, Sustentabilidade e Meio Ambiente sob a ótica da transição para Sociedades Sustentáveis. Durante o processo de elaboração foram realizadas duas fases de análises de consistência interna e validade, com a participação de especialistas. A versão final do ICCSA apresenta 43 afirmações, dispostas em seis dimensões, sugerindo suficiência quanto à confiabilidade interna e validades de conteúdo e discriminante. Os resultados mostram que o instrumento pode ser utilizado para indicar os posicionamentos em relação à transição para Sociedades Sustentáveis. Recomenda-se a realização de estudos futuros, com populações maiores, para complementar as análises de confiabilidade e validade com participantes não especialistas. O ICCSA encontra-se disponível para pesquisadoras que quiserem utilizá-lo

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors

A list of land plants of Parque Nacional do Caparaó, Brazil, highlights the presence of sampling gaps within this protected area

Brazilian protected areas are essential for plant conservation in the Atlantic Forest domain, one of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots. A major challenge for improving conservation actions is to know the plant richness, protected by these areas. Online databases offer an accessible way to build plant species lists and to provide relevant information about biodiversity. A list of land plants of “Parque Nacional do Caparaó” (PNC) was previously built using online databases and published on the website "Catálogo de Plantas das Unidades de Conservação do Brasil." Here, we provide and discuss additional information about plant species richness, endemism and conservation in the PNC that could not be included in the List. We documented 1,791 species of land plants as occurring in PNC, of which 63 are cited as threatened (CR, EN or VU) by the Brazilian National Red List, seven as data deficient (DD) and five as priorities for conservation. Fifity-one species were possible new ocurrences for ES and MG states

Vulnerabilidade estrutural dos hospitais e cemitérios e crematórios da cidade de São Paulo à COVID-19

This is the first report by the COVID19 Observatory - Group: Contagion Networks analyzing mortality data from the city of São Paulo. In this report, we integrated mortality data for the city of São Paulo between 04/02/2020 and 04/28/2020, with information on the flow of victims between hospitals and cemeteries/crematoriums. We included in our analyzes both confirmed and suspected deaths from COVID-19. The main objectives of this report were: (1) to describe the structure of the flow of victims between locations and (2) to suggest changes in the current flow based on geographical distances in order to avoid a potential overload of the mortuary system. We suggest that the city of São Paulo should plan for a potential overload of the mortuary system (that is, the number of burials), based on the presented results. Thus, our results reinforce the need to adopt specific planning for the management of the extraordinary number of victims of this pandemic. Our predictions are based on the structural analysis of the COVID-19 victim flow network, which shows several hotspots with high vulnerability to system overload. These hotspots concentrate with either the greatest number of deaths (hospital) or of burials (cemetery or crematorium), and therefore have high potential to become overwhelmed by receiving many bodies due to the increase in victims of the pandemic. We recommend special attention to be given to localities on the east side of São Paulo, which has both the most vulnerable hospitals in the city, and also houses cemeteries and crematoriums that have a central role in the network and / or are vulnerable. Based on our optimization analysis, we suggest logistical changes in the current flow of bodies from hospitals to cemeteries/crematoriums so as not to overload the funeral system and minimize transportation costs. In this sense, our results are potentially useful for improving the operational planning of the Municipality of São Paulo, ratifying or rectifying actions underway at the municipal level.Este é o primeiro relatório do Observatório COVID19 - Grupo: Redes de Contágio analisando os dados de óbitos da cidade de São Paulo. Neste relatório, integramos os dados de óbitos da cidade de São Paulo entre os dias 02/04/2020 e 28/04/2020 com informações sobre o fluxo de vítimas entre os hospitais e os cemitérios e crematórios da cidade de São Paulo. Incluímos em nossas análises óbitos confirmados e óbitos suspeitos de COVID-19. Os principais objetivos deste relatório são: (1) descrever a estrutura do fluxo de vítimas entre localidades e (2) sugerir mudanças no fluxo com base em distâncias geográficas de maneira a evitar uma potencial sobrecarga do sistema funerário. Sugere-se à prefeitura da cidade de São Paulo que seja realizado um planejamento para uma potencial sobrecarga do sistema funerário (isto é, número de sepultamentos) da cidade de São Paulo com base nos resultados apresentados. Desta forma, nossos resultados reforçam a necessidade de ser adotado planejamento específico para a gestão dos casos extraordinários visualizados no contexto da pandemia. Esta previsão está baseada na análise estrutural da rede de fluxos de vítimas da COVID-19, que indica a concentração de vários locais com alta vulnerabilidade à sobrecarga do sistema. Tais locais concentram a maior quantidade de óbitos (hospitais) ou a maior concentração de sepultamentos (cemitérios ou crematórios) e tem portanto alto potencial de tornarem-se sobrecarregados por receberem muitos corpos devido ao aumento de vítimas da pandemia. Recomenda-se especial atenção à localidades da zona leste de São Paulo, que apresenta os hospitais mais vulneráveis da cidade e abriga cemitérios e crematórios que possuem papel central na rede e/ou encontram-se vulneráveis. Com base em nossa análise de otimização, sugerimos mudanças logísticas no atual fluxo de corpos de hospitais para cemitérios/crematórios de modo a não sobrecarregar o sistema funerário e minimizar os custos de transporte. Neste sentido, nossos resultados são potencialmente úteis ao aperfeiçoamento do planejamento operacional da Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo, ratificando ou retificando ações em curso no âmbito municipal

Global maps of soil temperature

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km2 resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (−0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications