ZONAS INUNDÁVEIS E QUANTIFICAÇÃO DO RISCO DE INUNDAÇÃO EM MEIOS URBANOS: ESTUDO EM COIMBRA

As inundações urbanas são, hoje em dia, um tema bastante atual em praticamente todos os países e, em particular, em zonas muito urbanizadas. Os danos por elas causados são, frequentemente, bastante graves, o que se afigura serem necessárias medidas preventivas para evitar, quando possível, ou mitigar esses eventos. A crescente urbanização e, eventualmente, as alterações climáticas recentes apresentam um forte contributo para os eventos de inundações em zonas urbanas. Associados às preocupações inerentes às inundações, surgem os mapas de risco, os quais classificam determinada zona, quando atingida por uma inundação, consoante as consequências sofridas. Em 2007, a União Europeia publicou a Diretiva 2007/60/CE que prevê, para todos os Estados-Membros, o dever de elaborarem mapas de risco de inundação. Assim, este artigo tem como objetivo a elaboração de mapas de zonas inundáveis e mapas de risco de inundação para a Zona Central de Coimbra, Portugal. Com esse propósito, simularam-se eventos pluviométricos com diferentes períodos de retorno e, com base nos resultados, elaboraram-se os referidos mapas. Através da sua elaboração, verificou-se que estes proporcionavam uma indicação clara de quais as zonas e os edifícios mais sujeitos a sofrerem maiores prejuízos em caso de inundação

Viral genetic clustering and transmission dynamics of the 2022 mpox outbreak in Portugal

Pathogen genome sequencing during epidemics enhances our ability to identify and understand suspected clusters and investigate their relationships. Here, we combine genomic and epidemiological data of the 2022 mpox outbreak to better understand early viral spread, diversification and transmission dynamics. By sequencing 52% of the confirmed cases in Portugal, we identified the mpox virus sublineages with the highest impact on case numbers and fitted them into a global context, finding evidence that several international sublineages probably emerged or spread early in Portugal. We estimated a 62% infection reporting rate and that 1.3% of the population of men who have sex with men in Portugal were infected. We infer the critical role played by sexual networks and superspreader gatherings, such as sauna attendance, in the dissemination of mpox virus. Overall, our findings highlight genomic epidemiology as a tool for the real-time monitoring and control of mpox epidemics, and can guide future vaccine policy in a highly susceptible population.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

COVID-19 symptoms at hospital admission vary with age and sex: results from the ISARIC prospective multinational observational study

Background: The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms. Methods: International, prospective observational study of 60 109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruited from 43 countries between 30 January and 3 August 2020. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate relationships of age and sex to published COVID-19 case definitions and the most commonly reported symptoms. Results: ‘Typical’ symptoms of fever (69%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%) were the most commonly reported. 92% of patients experienced at least one of these. Prevalence of typical symptoms was greatest in 30- to 60-year-olds (respectively 80, 79, 69%; at least one 95%). They were reported less frequently in children (≤ 18 years: 69, 48, 23; 85%), older adults (≥ 70 years: 61, 62, 65; 90%), and women (66, 66, 64; 90%; vs. men 71, 70, 67; 93%, each P < 0.001). The most common atypical presentations under 60 years of age were nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and over 60 years was confusion. Regression models showed significant differences in symptoms with sex, age and country. Interpretation: This international collaboration has allowed us to report reliable symptom data from the largest cohort of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Adults over 60 and children admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are less likely to present with typical symptoms. Nausea and vomiting are common atypical presentations under 30 years. Confusion is a frequent atypical presentation of COVID-19 in adults over 60 years. Women are less likely to experience typical symptoms than men

Modelação hidráulica de sistemas urbanos de drenagem sustentável

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Civil apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de CoimbraA nível mundial tem-se verificado um crescimento exponencial de áreas urbanizadas, principalmente durante o último século. Um dos principais fatores está relacionado com a mudança no estilo de vida de grande parte da população. Como se sabe existiu, e ainda existe, um grande fluxo de pessoas a mudar-se de zonas rurais para as cidades, esta mudança levou a um aumento e crescimento das áreas urbanas. Esse aumento está diretamente relacionado com o aumento da área de solo impermeável, porque a construção de edifícios, infraestruturas e vias de comunicação numa cidade leva à impermeabilização do solo, que aliado às constantes alterações climatéricas poderá levar a um aumento da ocorrência de inundações nas cidades. No sentido de contrariar a ocorrência de inundações têm surgido novos conceitos que visam fugir aos métodos adotados até ao passado recente, que contemplavam essencialmente o aumento dos elementos das redes de drenagem. Deste modo surgem os Sistemas Urbanos de Drenagem Sustentável (SUDS), medidas que têm como objetivo tornar o escoamento de águas pluviais nas cidades o mais parecido possível com o escoamento em meio natural. Este trabalho teve como objetivo modelar um sistema de drenagem dual 1D/1D da bacia da zona central da cidade de Coimbra, recorrendo ao software SWMM. O modelo serviu para que fosse possível serem efetuados estudos onde fossem implementados SUDS, mais precisamente bacias de retenção, com o objetivo de avaliar os vários cenários propostos para resolução do problema existente. O problema prende-se com a ocorrência de inundações na Praça 8 de Maio, sem que a rede de coletores entre em carga, havendo por isso, grandes quantidades de água à superfície. Apresenta-se neste trabalho uma metodologia que permite modelar sistemas de drenagem dual no SWMM, controlando, o caudal entre caminhos superficiais e a rede de coletores. Foram também avaliados diversos cenários, variando a localização, número e volume das bacias de retenção, onde se mostra que a implementação de bacias de retenção pode minimizar o problema das inundações, mas a escolha da sua localização e volume de armazenamento têm um papel fundamentalAll over the world there has been an enormous growth of urban areas. One of the main factors is related to changes in the lifestyle of the population. A large flux of people moving from rural areas to cities, led to a growth of urban areas. This change make the soil more impervious soil, because the construction of building, infrastructures and roads. The growth of impervious areas together with climate changes could lead to an increased occurrence of floods in cities. In order to decrease the occurrence of floods new concepts have emerged. Traditional methods mainly focused in construction of greater elements of drainage networks. New strategies are emerging: The Urban Systems Sustainable Drainage (SUDS) aim to make the runoff in cities as close as possible to the flow in the natural environment. The goal of this work is to model a urban catchment with a 1D1D dual drainage system dual 1D/1D; model the flow between the sewer system and the overland system; implement retention basins and analyze its locations, volume and costs, all this using SWMM software. This work presents a methodology to model a urban catchment with a 1D1D dual drainage system, controlling the interaction between the sewer system and the overland system. Retention basin where implemented and several scenarios were also evaluated. It was shown that the retention basins may solve the existing flood problem, but its location and volume have an important rol

ZONAS INUNDÁVEIS E QUANTIFICAÇÃO DO RISCO DE INUNDAÇÃO EM MEIOS URBANOS: ESTUDO EM COIMBRA

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 As inundações urbanas são, hoje em dia, um tema bastante atual em praticamente todos os países e, em particular, em zonas muito urbanizadas. Os danos por elas causados são, frequentemente, bastante graves, o que se afigura serem necessárias medidas preventivas para evitar, quando possível, ou mitigar esses eventos. A crescente urbanização e, eventualmente, as alterações climáticas recentes apresentam um forte contributo para os eventos de inundações em zonas urbanas. Associados às preocupações inerentes às inundações, surgem os mapas de risco, os quais classificam determinada zona, quando atingida por uma inundação, consoante as consequências sofridas. Em 2007, a União Europeia publicou a Diretiva 2007/60/CE que prevê, para todos os Estados-Membros, o dever de elaborarem mapas de risco de inundação. Assim, este artigo tem como objetivo a elaboração de mapas de zonas inundáveis e mapas de risco de inundação para a Zona Central de Coimbra, Portugal. Com esse propósito, simularam-se eventos pluviométricos com diferentes períodos de retorno e, com base nos resultados, elaboraram-se os referidos mapas. Através da sua elaboração, verificou-se que estes proporcionavam uma indicação clara de quais as zonas e os edifícios mais sujeitos a sofrerem maiores prejuízos em caso de inundação. <!--[endif] --

Viral genetic clustering and transmission dynamics of the 2022 mpox outbreak in Portugal.

Acknowledgements: We gratefully acknowledge the engagement and willingness of all participants to share information critical to the investigation. We are grateful to the authors and laboratories that originated and submitted the genetic sequences released in GenBank. The acquisition of equipment associated with whole-genome sequencing used in this study (including the Illumina NextSeq 2000) was funded by the HERA (Human and Environmental Risk Assessment) project (Grant/2021/PHF/23776), supported by the European Commission through the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and partially funded by the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 (Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI)), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020) under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT). This study was also supported by the ERINHA-Advance project (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation program, grant agreement no. 824061) and benefited from co-funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement no. 773830 (One Health European Joint Programme), in particular by the co-funding of the post-doctoral fellowships of J.S.D. and V.M. and the development of INSaFLU. We also thank M. Pinheiro (iBiMED at the Universidade de Aveiro) for his continuous support in updating the INSaFLU platform and the Infraestrutura Nacional de Computação Distribuída (INCD) for providing computational resources for testing it. INCD was funded by the FCT and FEDER under the project 22153-01/SAICT/2016. M.P.D. is funded by the Gates Cambridge Scholarship (no. OPP1144). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. The GAT-Intendente team also thanks A. Vasques, L. Fortuna, J. Moreira, I. Correia and Á. Baginha.Pathogen genome sequencing during epidemics enhances our ability to identify and understand suspected clusters and investigate their relationships. Here, we combine genomic and epidemiological data of the 2022 mpox outbreak to better understand early viral spread, diversification and transmission dynamics. By sequencing 52% of the confirmed cases in Portugal, we identified the mpox virus sublineages with the highest impact on case numbers and fitted them into a global context, finding evidence that several international sublineages probably emerged or spread early in Portugal. We estimated a 62% infection reporting rate and that 1.3% of the population of men who have sex with men in Portugal were infected. We infer the critical role played by sexual networks and superspreader gatherings, such as sauna attendance, in the dissemination of mpox virus. Overall, our findings highlight genomic epidemiology as a tool for the real-time monitoring and control of mpox epidemics, and can guide future vaccine policy in a highly susceptible population

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved