Sobre quatro taxa pouco frequentes da flora portuguesa

Assinalam-se 4 taxa relevantes (com estatuto de protecção), que ocorrem na Serra do Caramulo, situada nas províncias de Beira Alta e Beira Litoral, em Portugal. Destaca-se o endemismo ibérico Narcissus confusus Pugsley.Se señalan 4 taxones relevantes (con estatuto de protección) para la Serra do Caramulo, situada en las provincias de Beira Alta y Beira Litoral, en Portugal. Destacamos el endemismo ibérico Narcissus confusus Pugsley

Pollution of alpine ponds and groundwater by de-icing chemicals (Serra da Estrela, Central Portugal)

The ecological and socioeconomic importance of mountains is being increasingly recognised. Such regions provide key ecosystem services, namely, water supply which benefits local as well as lowland human populations. Besides mountain aqui fers and rivers, alpine lakes and ponds are crucial for water resources management but are also important in hydroecological and wildli fe conservation terms. This study aims at comparing the pollution of surface and underground water bodies by de -icing chemicals in a mountain environment. The influence of geological, geomorphological, pedological, climatic and anthropic conditions is taken into account. The study region is the highest part of the Serra da Estrela, a Mediterranean mountain located in Central Portugal. In this area there is a hydrological system which encompasses water-table aquifers and number of alpine ponds of glacial origin situated between 1500 m a.s.l. and the summit (1993 m a.s.l.). In the study area, the alpine ponds and springs were inventoried. Water sampling campaigns were carried out for hydrogeochemical characterisation of alpine ponds. These results were compared with hydrogeochemical data from water springs obtained in previous studies. Concentration of the following analytes were determined- total organic carbon (TOC), metals (Pb, Zn, Fe, Cu, Ni, Cd, Cr, As, Mn), cations (Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+), anions (F-, CI-, NO3-, SO42-), silica (SiO2) and nutrients (N, P). Additionally, parameters such as pH, conductivity, turbidity and alkalinity were also measured. The hydrogeochemistry of ponds and water table aqui fers affected by de-icing chemicals is clearly different from the one showed by non-polluted water bodies, due to the influence of different physical settings as well as to the spatial distribution of the anthropic influence. The pond and aqui fer contamination affects water quality but may also disturb the local highly sensitive aquatic ecosystems.N/

Maintaining Requirements Using Web Usage Data

AbstractThe use of the World Wide Web has had a huge growth and there is a greater variety of web applications with an increasing importance in society and in supporting the development to all kinds of business. Often, most of websites are providing support services that must be maintained and improved over time. This maintenance and upgrade can be difficult because frequently the requirements are no longer actual and/or often not even exist documented. Websites are increasingly monitoring usage data, and this type of information is increasingly abundant. Analyzing the usage of the websites can help identify improvements and help to maintain the website and its software requirements. This paper presents REQAnalytics, a recommender system that collects the information about the usage of a website, processes it and generates recommendations to the requirements specification of the website. This research work also presents an experimental evaluation of a case study based on an online newspaper website. The results showed that REQAnalytics can produce reports in a language closer to the business, identify most and less used functionalities, requirements that can be split in two or more requirements and give support to the maintenance of requirements of the website being analyzed

Design and power consumption analysis of a NB-IoT End device for monitoring applications

As the number of connected things increases at a very fast pace, the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem expands and nowadays covers a vast number of application domains, providing a large portfolio of solutions that are based on an evolving system, from the physical sensors (end devices) to the Cloud. When designing battery-powered end devices, previous research has identified several challenges such as wireless connectivity, battery lifetime, embedded intelligence, security and privacy concerns, and costs (modem unit, communication link and maintenance, among others). This paper focuses on the design and development of battery-powered IoT devices in which NarrowBand Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is used to provide seamless wireless connection, reduce power consumption, enhance communication coverage and minimize maintenance costs. The paper describes a typical use case where an Arm Cortex -M0+ and its low-power modes are exploited in order to design a low-power end device. Two different approaches, bare-metal and freeRTOS, for implementing the end device firmware are compared. Additionally, performance tests prove that increasing the clock frequency of the processor does not bring any advantage to this kind of applications. ® ®This work has been supported by NORTE-06-3559-FSE 000018, integrated in the invitation NORTE-59-2018-41, aiming the Hiring of Highly Qualified Human Resources, co financed by the Regional Operational Programme of the North 2020, thematic area of Competitiveness and Employment, through the European Social Fund (ESF). This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. The authors would like to thank the support team of NOS Comunicações for providing the NB-IoT connection and server service, and for technical support throughout the installation

Contribuçao para o conhecimiento das orquideas da Serra de Sicó (Portugal)

MARcos SAMANIEGO, N & PAIX'A, J. 1990. Contribution to tbe knowlcdge of the Orchidaceae of Sena de Sicó (Portugal). Bot. comnplutensis, [6: 115-120, Eigbtccn species of Orchidaccae from Sicó Mt. (Portugal), witb chorological and ecological interest, are mentioned.MARCOS SAMANIEGO, N & PAiVA, J. 1990. Contribución al conocimiento de las orquidcas de la Sierra de Sicó (Portugal). Bot. complutensis 16: 115-120. Se señalan 18 especies de Orchidaceae, recolectadas en la Serra de Sicó (Portugal) de interés corológico y ecológico

Sexual transmission of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1

Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is endemic in many parts of the world and is primarily transmitted through sexual intercourse or from mother to child. Sexual transmission occurs more efficiently from men to women than women to men and might be enhanced by sexually transmitted diseases that cause ulcers and result in mucosal ruptures, such as syphilis, herpes simplex type 2 (HSV-2), and chancroid. Other sexually transmitted diseases might result in the recruitment of inflammatory cells and could increase the risk of HTLV-1 acquisition and transmission. Additionally, factors that are associated with higher transmission risks include the presence of antibodies against the viral oncoprotein Tax (anti-Tax), a higher proviral load in peripheral blood lymphocytes, and increased cervicovaginal or seminal secretions. Seminal fluid has been reported to increase HTLV replication and transmission, whereas male circumcision and neutralizing antibodies might have a protective effect. Recently, free virions were discovered in plasma, which reveals a possible new mode of HTLV replication. It is unclear how this discovery might affect the routes of HTLV transmission, particularly sexual transmission, because HTLV transmission rates are significantly higher from men to women than women to men.FINANCIAL SUPPORT Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Fundação Faculdade de Medicina (FFM)

Earth-based construction material field tests characterization in the Alto Douro Wine Region

The Alto Douro Wine Region, located in the northeast of Portugal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, presents an abundant vernacular building heritage. This building technology is based on a timber framed structure filled with a composite earth-based material. A lack of scientific studies related to this technology is evident, furthermore, principally in rural areas, this traditional building stock is highly deteriorated and damaged because of the rareness of conservation and strengthening works, which is partly related to the non-engineered character of this technology and to the knowledge loosed on that technique. Those aspects motivated the writing of this paper, whose main purpose is the physical and chemical characterization of the earth-based material applied in the tabique buildings of that region through field tests. Consequently, experimental work was conducted and the results obtained allowed, among others, the proposal of a series of adequate field tests. At our knowledge, this is the first time field tests are undertaken for tabique technology. This information will provide the means to assess the suitability of a given earth-based material with regards to this technology. The knowledge from this study could also be very useful for the development of future normative documents and as a reference for architects and engineers that work with this technology to guide and regulate future conservation, rehabilitation or construction processes helping to preserve this important legacy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Monitoring the hydraulic stability of Antifer blocks : an IoT-based approach

Breakwaters are resilient marine infrastructures, or barriers, built out into the sea to protect a coast or a harbour from the force of waves. The environmental conditions that these structures continuously face are challenging and the continuous monitorization of its hydraulic stability is a key success factor for preventive maintenance of these critical infrastructures. This paper introduces the architecture of an IoT solution designed to monitor the hydraulic stability of Antifer blocks, a common building block used for breakwater infrastructures construction, by measuring, recording, processing, and communicating the data related to the displacement of an Antifer block, in a laboratory context. The IoT device has been designed to meet the following requirements: 3D displacement measurement (up to 25 mm); corrosion-proof and waterproof; wireless charging and wireless communication; and autonomy above one month. Preliminary results have shown that the SmartAntifer prototype fulfills the core application requirements and presents an average consumption of 90 mA, which results in 11 hours of autonomy when equipped with a battery with a capacity of 1000 mAh.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

Contribuçao para o conhecimiento da flora vascular da serra do Açor (Portugal)

SILVEIRA, P. C., PAIvA, 1. A. R. & MARcos SAMANIEGO, N. 1998. Contribution to the knowledge of the vascular flora of Serrado A~or (Portugal). flor Complutensis 22: 145-151. Fifteen taxa with chorological interest are reponed from Sena do A 9or, situated between ihe provinces Beira Alta, Bejín Litoral anó Bejín Baixa in Portugal. The most interesting records include Ervsimum lagascae Rivas Goday & Bellot, Festuca summilusitana Franco & Rocha Afonso, Saxífraga fragosol Sennen and Fryngium duriar Gay ex Boiss.SILVEtRA, P. C., PAIVA, J. A. R. & MARCOS SAMANIEGO, N. 1998. Contribución al conocimiento de la flora vascular de la Sena do A~or (Portugal). flor Complutensis 22: 145-15 1. Se comentan 15 táxones deinterés corológico para la Sena do A~or, situada entre las provincias Beira Alta, Beira Litoral y Beira Baixa en Portugal. Destacamos Erysimum lagascae Rivas Goday & Bellot, Festuca summilusitana Franco & Rocha Afonso, Saxífraga fragosoi Sennen y Eryngium duriae Gay ex Boiss