The road plan model: Information model for planning road building activities

The general building contractor is presented with an information model as an approach for deriving a high-level work plan of construction activities applied to road building. Road construction activities are represented in a Road Plan Model (RPM), which is modeled in the ISO standard STEP/EXPRESS and adopts various concepts from the GARM notation. The integration with the preceding road design stage and the succeeding phase of resource scheduling is discussed within the framework of a Road Construction Model. Construction knowledge is applied to the road design and the terrain model of the surrounding road infrastructure for the instantiation of the RPM. Issues regarding the implementation of a road planner application supporting the RPM are discussed

Assessment of interventions in fuel management zones using remote sensing

Every year, wildfires strike the Portuguese territory and are a concern for public entities and the population. To prevent a wildfire progression and minimize its impact, Fuel Management Zones (FMZs) have been stipulated, by law, around buildings, settlements, along national roads, and other infrastructures. FMZs require monitoring of the vegetation condition to promptly proceed with the maintenance and cleaning of these zones. To improve FMZ monitoring, this paper proposes the use of satellite images, such as the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, along with vegetation indices and extracted temporal characteristics (max, min, mean and standard deviation) associated with the vegetation within and outside the FMZs and to determine if they were treated. These characteristics feed machine-learning algorithms, such as XGBoost, Support Vector Machines, K-nearest neighbors and Random Forest. The results show that it is possible to detect an intervention in an FMZ with high accuracy, namely with an F1-score ranging from 90% up to 94% and a Kappa ranging from 0.80 up to 0.89.This work is supported by NOVA LINCS (UIDB/04516/2020) and ALGORITMI (UIDB/00319/2020) with the financial support of FCT- Fundação para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, through national funds; This work is also supported by the project Floresta Limpa (PCIF/MOG/0161/2019

Análise Espacial do Desenvolvimento e das Desigualdades no Território Sudoeste Baiano

This study aims to analyze the development of the Southwest Territory of Bahia (TSB) from a multidimensional perspective, identifying the disparities and similarities between the municipalities that compose it. It starts from a literature review based on theories of regional economics, more specifically on the uneven development between regions. The use of the Factor Analysis technique allowed to reduce the set of variables facilitating the analysis of the social, economic, demographic, political-institutional, environmental and cultural indicators observed in this study. From the factorial scores, the cluster analysis was performed considering the similarities between the municipalities with the dimensions analyzed. There was a great concentration of economic growth and development in the city of Vitória da Conquista, the main urban-center of the Territory. In all the analyzed dimensions, the municipalities presented a little expressive economic dynamics associated to the low performance in social indicators, resulting in an uneven and heterogeneous development. Factor analysis revealed economic growth and infrastructure as the determinants of development and inequality in TSB, and also made it possible to rank municipalities in order of better for the worse condition. The clustering analysis pointed out three distinct development groups, confirming the scenario of heterogeneity existing in the TSB, in which Vitória da Conquista performs quite differently from the other municipalities. It was observed polarization and concentration of the economic growth resulting from the little economic attractiveness of the majority of the municipalities that compose the Territory. These analyzes can support territorial management and planning policies to reduce disparities in this Territory

Surface roughness of heat treated Eucalyptus grandis wood

This study aimed to evaluate surface roughness of heat treated Eucalyptus grandis wood after peripheral planning and sanding performed in directions to the grain and against the grain. For machining tests, workpieces were collected from two different regions in the radial direction, as follows: internal, nearby the pit; external, nearby the bark. Heat treatment was carried out by heating samples at a maximum temperature of 190ºC, with total treatment duration of 390 minutes. Heat treated and control samples underwent peripheral planning and sanding tests. The quality of machined surfaces was assessed by means of roughness average (Ra) measurements across and along the grain orientation. Results indicated significant differences in surface roughness as a function of machining feed direction, sandpaper grit size, and heat treatment. Surface roughness has not shown any difference in the radial direction

Leishmaniose Visceral: há possibilidade de transmissão sexual e vertical entre cães?

A leishmaniose visceral (LV) é uma enfermidade cosmopolita, grave e de alta letalidade em seres humanos, sendo considerada uma zoonose negligenciada. Nas Américas, a sua ocorrência está diretamente ligada com a presença do inseto vetor, principalmente relacionada à fêmea da espécie de flebotomíneo Lutzomyia longipalpis. Entretanto, em alguns estudos foram observados casos da doença em humanos e cães, com ocorrências em locais livres do vetor, indicando para a possibilidade de outras formas de transmissão, como a sexual e a vertical. O objetivo desse trabalho foi realizar uma revisão de literatura com o intuito de descrever sobre os principais aspectos relacionados com a transmissão sexual e vertical entre cães, proporcionando, assim, uma melhor compreensão da epidemiologia da doença, principalmente em áreas endêmicas. Atualmente, a possibilidade de transmissão sexual e vertical nessa espécie animal vem sendo bastante explorada, em que as pesquisas visam buscar a presença do protozoário Leishmania (L.) infantum nos órgãos do sistema reprodutivo, tanto de fêmeas quanto de machos caninos, bem como a presença do DNA do parasito no esmegma e sêmen. Dessa forma, a literatura aponta que essas formas de transmissão na LV provavelmente ocorrem em cães