A Multimedia Application to Support Professionals in an EnvironmentallyResponsible Building Design Process

One of the problems faced by the design professionals in trying to incorporate thermal and acoustic concerns when designing a building is the quantity and diversity of building materials that can be applied to improve a poor indoor environment and, in many cases, to later reduce energy consumption. The large amount of information on building materials usually provided as documents makes it almost impossible to the designer to compare products. In the light of the stated facts, the objective of this work was the development of a multimedia application, which was thought as a module of a more comprehensive system able to support professionals in an environmentally responsible building design process. The application takes advantage of the ability of computers to handle texts, images, sounds and movies to introduce several building materials and their characteristics to the designers, in an interactive way. The conclusion of this stage shows that rather than being a module of a larger system, the developed application can work as a powerful standalone multimedia catalogue of building materials that have special interest on thermal, acoustic, and thermal-acoustic applications. It is an application that are notonly fundamental in a support system for effective building design, but also a powerful tool for training architecture students as part of an environmentally responsible building design process

Avaliação da qualidade microbiológica do queijo-de-minas artesanal do Serro-MG Microbiological quality of artisanal minas cheese, manufactured in the region of Serro-MG

Avaliaram-se a qualidade microbiológica do queijo-de-minas artesanal do Serro e a variação da microbiota do queijo recém-fabricado e no último dia de validade, após estocagem sob as condições recomendadas no rótulo. Foram analisadas 40 amostras de queijo, sendo 20 analisadas frescas, imediatamente após a coleta, e 20 no último dia de validade, após estocagem em câmara fria a 10ºC. As amostras foram analisadas para coliformes a 35ºC e 45ºC, Staphylococcus coagulase positiva, Salmonella spp. e Listeria monocytogenes. Trinta e sete amostras (92,5%) encontraram-se impróprias para o consumo humano, de acordo com os parâmetros estabelecidos pela resolução: RDC ANVISA nº12/01, sendo a principal causa de condenação a contagem de Staphylococcus coagulase positiva. Nenhuma das amostras analisadas apresentou contaminação por Salmonella sp. ou Listeria monocytogenes. As contagens de Staphylococcus coagulase positiva dos queijos frescos foram mais altas (P<0,01) que as dos queijos analisados no último dia da validade.<br>The microbiological quality of artisanal minas cheese produced in the region of Serro-MG was evaluated. Cheeses were analyzed fresh and at the end of the shelf life, under specific storage conditions (30 days, 10ºC). Forty samples of minas cheese were analyzed, twenty still fresh, and 20 after storage at 10ºC. The microbiological analyses were counts of fecal and total coliforms, and Staphylococcus coagulase positive; and search of Salmonella sp. and Listeria monocytogenes. Twenty-seven samples (92.5%) were in disagreement with the Brazilian Standard, Resolution nº 12 of January 12, 2001, from ANVISA (National Health Surveillance Agency), and Staphylococcus coagulase positive was the major contaminant. No sample was contaminated by Salmonella sp. or Listeria monocytogenes. During the storage, there was a decrease of countings in the population of Staphylococcus coagulase positive (P<0.01)

Elaboração e validação de escala diagramática para a cercosporiose do pimentão Development and validation of a diagrammatic key for Cercospora leaf spot of sweet pepper

A cercosporiose do pimentão, causada pelo fungo Cercospora capsici, é uma importante doença que ocorre em condições tropicais. Devido à inexistência de métodos padronizados para quantificação desta doença em campo, uma escala diagramática com os níveis de 1,5; 3,5; 8,0; 16,5; 31,0 e 50% de área foliar lesionada foi elaborada e testada para a acurácia, a precisão e a reprodutibilidade das estimativas de severidade da cercosporiose do pimentão, sem e com a sua utilização. Na validação da escala diagramática, 50 folhas com diferentes níveis de severidade da doença, mensurados previamente com o programa AutoCAD®, foram avaliadas por 13 avaliadores, sem e com a utilização da escala diagramática. Foram realizadas duas avaliações com utilização da escala, com intervalo de sete dias, onde seqüências diferentes das mesmas folhas foram estimadas visualmente pelos mesmos avaliadores. A acurácia e a precisão de cada avaliador foi determinada por regressão linear simples, entre a severidade real e a estimada. Sem a escala, oito avaliadores superestimaram significativamente a severidade da doença. Com a escala, os avaliadores obtiveram melhores níveis de acurácia e precisão, embora quatro tendessem a superestimar a severidade, com os erros absolutos concentrando-se abaixo de 10%. Os avaliadores apresentaram boa repetibilidade e elevada reprodutibilidade das estimativas com a utilização da escala, o mesmo não sendo verificado sem a utilização desta. A escala diagramática proposta mostrou-se adequada para avaliação da severidade da cercosporiose do pimentão.<br>Cercospora leaf spot of sweet pepper caused by the fungus Cercospora capsici is an important disease occurring in tropical conditions. Due to the inexistence of standard methods to quantify this disease in field conditions, a diagrammatic key including the levels 1.5, 3.5, 8.0,16.5, 31.0 and 50.0% of diseased leaf area was elaborated and tested for accuracy, precision and reproducibility to estimate Cercospora leaf spot severity without and with using the key. The diagrammatic key was validated by 13 raters with and without using the key, using 50 leaves with different levels of severity previously measured by the software AutoCAD®. Two evaluations were performed with the key at 7-day intervals when the same raters visually estimated different sequences of the same leaves. The accuracy and precision of each rater were determined by simple linear regression between actual and estimated severity. Without the key, eight raters overestimated disease severity. With the key raters obtained better levels of accuracy and precision, however four of them tended to overestimate the severity with absolute errors concentrated below 10%. Raters had good repeatability and high reproducibility in estimating disease severity by using the key when it was not used. The proposed diagrammatic key is suitable for evaluation of sweet pepper Cercospora leaf spot severity