Online Scientific Volunteering: the technological immersion for the co-construction of knowledge, employability, entrepreneurship and innovation in a logic of inclusion

“We all have something to learn and something to share” is the motto of this project, through which we aim to assess the impact of a multilingual platform which combines and makes the most of the potentials of digital environments and favours inclusion, in the co-construction of knowledge in learning/practice, in employability, entrepreneurism and innovation. In this article we will introduce an ongoing project which is founded on the principle of openness to the research community. Its philosophy is Online Scientific Volunteering for the co-construction of knowledge about learning best practices. The platform that will emerge from the project will be open access. The academic community, whether national or international, can contribute with content and knowledge to the platform, through interaction and discussions around relevant and emerging topics. The community may also exploit, without encumbrance, the contents of the platform for their own benefit. This way students and scientific expertise can share in a common knowledge space, and together build a comprehensive knowledge base.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Segurança Alimentar: Controlo de Agentes Patogénicos no Presunto

Cerca de 75% das doenças que nos últimos anos tem afectado a espécie humana tem origem nos animais e seus produtos, tendo muitas delas origem alimentar. A sua etiologia é frequentemente associada ao consumo de carne e, entre os potenciais perigos transmitidos por este alimento destacam-se bactérias, vírus e parasitas. Para além destes perigos biológicos, a presença de diversos contaminantes químicos nos alimentos, entre os quais se incluem contaminantes ambientais, micotoxinas e resíduos de medicamentos, comprometem também a sua inocuidade. Os vários perigos mencionados podem atingir os alimentos em qualquer ponto da sua cadeia de produção pelo que os actuais conceitos de segurança alimentar preconizam que a implementação de medidas de prevenção e controlo da sua presença se realize de uma forma integrada, desde a produção até ao consumo, envolvendo todos os intervenientes. No caso presente, a aplicação das diversas medidas que permitam prevenir e controlar a presença de agentes patogénicos no presunto deve iniciar-se na produção animal (incluindo a produção de alimentos para animais), seguindo na obtenção da matéria-prima (carne), sua transformação e distribuição e, finalmente no consumo. #### About 75% of the diseases that in recent years has affected the human species are originated in animals and their products and many of them are food-borne diseases. Its aetiology is often associated with the consumption of meat and among the potential hazards transmitted by this food stand out bacteria, viruses and parasites. In addition to these biological hazards, the presence of various chemical contaminants in foods, such as environmental contaminants, mycotoxins and residues of veterinary medicinal products, can compromise its safety. The several hazards mentioned can reach the food at any point in the production chain. Current concepts of food safety require that the implementation of measures to prevent and control their presence takes place in an integrated way, from production to consumption, involving all stakeholders. In the present case, the application of several measures to prevent and control the presence of pathogens in dry-cured ham should be initiated in animal production (including the production of animal feed), following the acquisition of raw materials (meat), its processing and distribution and finally its consumption

Visualyzart Project – The role in education

The VisualYzARt project intends to develop research on mobile platforms, web and social scenarios in order to bring augmented reality and natural interaction for the general public, aiming to study and validate the adequacy of YVision platform in various fields of activity such as digital arts, design, education, culture and leisure. The VisualYzARt project members analysed the components available in YVision platform and are defining new ones that allow the creation of applications to a chosen activity, effectively adding a new language to the domain YVision. In this paper we will present the role of the InstitutoPolitécnico de Santarém which falls into the field of education.VisualYzART is funded by QREN – Sistema de Incentivos à Investigação e Desenvolvimento Tecnológico (SI I&DT), Project n. º 23201 - VisualYzARt (from January 2013 to December 2014). Partners: YDreams Portugal; Instituto Politécnico de Santarém - Gabinete de e-Learning; Universidade de Coimbra - Centro de Informática e Sistemas; Instituto Politécnico de Leiria - Centro de Investigação em Informática e Comunicações; Universidade Católica do Porto - Centro de Investigação em Ciência e Tecnologia das Artes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

NEETin with ICT

Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC) outlines that 49% of EU citizens identified “job creation” and 33% identified “education and skills” as the top priorities for science and technology innovation over the next fifteen years. Both documents justify the needs in Europe for the ICT field especially for the NEET (not in education, employment or training) citizens. On the other hand, Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs (GC4DJ) in Europe identifies: the training and matching digital jobs; certification; innovative learning and teaching; mobility; awareness raising; increasing effectiveness of education; increasing equity and producing positive impact in the economy, as a priority for European countries. NEETin is a project directed to NEET citizens, to be developed by Higher Education Institutions, VET providers and Enterprises in order to help to overcome a social European dimension through lifelong learning. By creating a Joint Vocational Education Training in Digital Competences in a collaboration between VET providers and the Enterprises, widening the access to higher education, in an innovative student-centred learning model to apply in a European level, we aim to contribute to improve the quality of Education. Through this certified JVET, NEET citizens will develop their digital skills and the success of employability of these learners will be enhanced.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Microbiology of the artisanal cheese produced in the region of Évora

Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Évora para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Higiene e Sanidade Animal

ECoG high gamma activity reveals distinct cortical representations of lyrics passages, harmonic and timbre-related changes in a rock song

Listening to music moves our minds and moods, stirring interest in its neural underpinnings. A multitude of compositional features drives the appeal of natural music. How such original music, where a composer's opus is not manipulated for experimental purposes, engages a listener's brain has not been studied until recently. Here, we report an in-depth analysis of two electrocorticographic (ECoG) data sets obtained over the left hemisphere in ten patients during presentation of either a rock song or a read-out narrative. First, the time courses of five acoustic features (intensity, presence/absence of vocals with lyrics, spectral centroid, harmonic change, and pulse clarity) were extracted from the audio tracks and found to be correlated with each other to varying degrees. In a second step, we uncovered the specific impact of each musical feature on ECoG high-gamma power (70–170 Hz) by calculating partial correlations to remove the influence of the other four features. In the music condition, the onset and offset of vocal lyrics in ongoing instrumental music was consistently identified within the group as the dominant driver for ECoG high-gamma power changes over temporal auditory areas, while concurrently subject-individual activation spots were identified for sound intensity, timbral, and harmonic features. The distinct cortical activations to vocal speech-related content embedded in instrumental music directly demonstrate that song integrated in instrumental music represents a distinct dimension in complex music. In contrast, in the speech condition, the full sound envelope was reflected in the high gamma response rather than the onset or offset of the vocal lyrics. This demonstrates how the contributions of stimulus features that modulate the brain response differ across the two examples of a full-length natural stimulus, which suggests a context-dependent feature selection in the processing of complex auditory stimuli

General conceptual design problems of a parabolic solar sail structure

Solar sails represent a promising and practicable solution for future long-duration space missions involving deep space travel. Since their source of propulsive thrust derives from the energy exerted by solar radiation pressure, they do not depend on any on-board propellant, which thus minimizes energy consumption during a mission and consequently its final costs. However, because in Earth´s vicinity solar pressure presents a very low intensity, and in order to provide the necessary amount of thrust this type of solar-powered spacecraft typically requires an enormous surface area whilst at the same time maintaining the lowest possible mass. Such requirements oblige the adoption of very large structures usually consisting of ultra-thin membranes supported by long slender booms, in the order of tens of meters. This causes some difficulties on the structural design process since the deployment and maneuvering capabilities have to be optimized without compromising the mechanical performance of the whole solar vehicle. Among the various types of solar sail structural configurations, there is a very ambitious concept considered to be highly efficient, which consists on the parabolic solar sail. In this type of solar-propelled spacecraft, a small mirror designated as the director reflects the sunlight collected from a larger parabolic structure which in turn remains constantly oriented towards the incoming direction of the sunbeams so as to always guarantee the maximum available thrust. Since in this case maneuverability is achieved exclusively by tilting the director component, this allows the entire structure to operate without having to change its inclination in relation to the Sun. The scope of this work is to explore different possibilities for the conceptual design of a parabolic space structure intended to act as a solar sail collector, with special emphasis on the parabolic shape maintenance issue, since this is crucial for the maximization of the sunlight concentration into its focal point, as well as on its overall structural behavior. On a first approach, a structure which consists solely of an initially flat circular membrane simply supported around its perimeter and without any type of load supporting elements along its radials is considered. In this case, the possibility for the structure to make use of the solar pressure itself as a form of obtaining the desired parabolic curvature is investigated. Assuming the membrane as a perfectly reflecting surface, a parametric study is conducted in order to determine several parameters of interest, as a function of its radius size and thickness. Although the resulting deformed shapes prove to be very similar to parabolic ones, since the obtained focal distances are considerably high, this structural concept does not become feasible for solar sail applications. Consequently, a parabolic boom-based type of structural configuration resembling an open umbrella is considered afterwards. Here, the booms are responsible for guaranteeing the membrane´s parabolic curvature therefore enabling the focal distance to be initially established during the design phase of the structure. In order to assess its behavior due to solar pressure action, a parametric study is performed to investigate the effects of several design features such as the collector radius, membrane thickness, number of booms, number of supporting points of the membrane along the booms, as well as the effect of a possible angular velocity around the structure´s symmetry axis, with regard to the impact that these have on the resulting loadings and maximum deformations of the entire structure. In the end, the structure´s natural frequencies and mode shapes are also determined. The obtained results are of upmost importance to the design of an optimized structure which provides greater efficiency in terms of control thrust of the vehicle, thus forming the basis for further more detailed structural and orbital control analysis of this solar propelled parabolic sail spacecraft.As velas solares representam uma solução promissora e viável para as futuras missões espaciais de longa duração envolvendo viagens no espaço profundo. Uma vez que a sua fonte de impulsão propulsiva advém da energia exercida pela pressão da radiação solar, estas não dependem de nenhum propelente a bordo, o que minimiza assim o consumo energético durante uma missão e consequentemente os seus custos finais. No entanto, devido à pressão solar apresentar uma intensidade muito baixa na vizinhança da Terra, e de modo a fornecer a quantidade necessária de impulso, este tipo de veículo espacial tipicamente requer uma enorme área de superficie, mantendo ao mesmo tempo a massa no valor mais baixo possível. Tais requisitos obrigam à adoção de estruturas de enormes dimensões normalmente constituidas por membranas ultra-finas suportadas por longos booms, na ordem das dezenas de metros. Isto causa algumas dificuldades no processo do design estrutural, uma vez que a implantação e capacidades de manobra têm de ser otimizadas sem comprometer o desempenho mecânico de todo o veículo solar. Entre os vários tipos de configurações estruturais de velas solares, existe um conceito muito ambicioso considerado altamente eficiente, que consiste na vela solar parabólica. Neste tipo de veiculo espacial propulsionado pelo sol, um pequeno espelho designado como diretor reflete a luz solar coletada a partir de uma estrutura parabólica maior que por sua vez, permance constantemente orientanda na direção dos raios solares incidentes de modo a garantir sempre o máximo impulso disponível. Uma vez que neste caso a capacidade de manobra é obtida exclusivamente pela inclinação do componente do diretor, tal permite que toda a estrutura opere sem ter de alterar a sua inclinação em relação ao Sol. O âmbito deste trabalho consiste em explorar diferentes possibilidades para o projeto conceitual de uma estrutura espacial parabólica destinada a atuar como um coletor de uma vela solar, com especial ênfase na questão da manutenção de uma forma parabólica, uma vez que esta é crucial para a maximização da concentração da luz solar no seu ponto focal, bem como o seu comportamento estrutural global. Numa primeira abordagem, uma estrutura que consiste unicamente numa membrana circular inicialmente plana, simplesmente suportada em torno do seu perimetro, e sem qualquer tipo de elementos de suporte de carga ao longo das suas radiais, é considerada. Neste caso, a possibilidade da estrutura fazer uso próprio da pressão solar como forma de obter a curvatura parabólica desejada é investigada. Assumindo a membrana como uma superficie perfeitamente refletora, procede-se à realização de um estudo paramétrico de modo a determinar diversos parâmetros de interesse, em função do seu tamanho do raio e espessura. Apesar das deformações resultantes provarem ser muito similares a formas parabólicas, uma vez que as distâncias focais obtidas são consideravelmente elevadas, este conceito estrutural não se torna viável para aplicações em velas solares. Consequentemente, um tipo de configuração estrutural parabólica baseada em booms semelhante a um guarda-chuva aberto é considerada numa etapa posterior do trabalho. Aqui, os booms são responsáveis por garantir a curvatura parabólica da membrana permitindo assim que a distância focal seja inicialmente estabelecida durante a fase de concepção da estrutura. A fim de avaliar o seu comportamento devido à acção da pressão solar, um estudo paramétrico é efetuado com o intuito de investigar os efeitos de várias caracteristicas de projeto, tais como o raio do colector, espessura das membranas, número de booms, número de apoios entre as membranas e os booms, assim como o efeito de uma possivel velocidade angular em torno do eixo de simetria da estrutura, no que respeita ao impacto que estes têm sobre as cargas resultantes e deformações máximas de toda a estrutura. No final, as frequências naturais e modos de vibração da estrutura são também determinados. Os resultados obtidos são de extrema importância para a concepção de uma estrutura otimizada que proporcione grande eficiência em termos de controlo de impulso do veículo, formando assim a base para análises estruturais e de controlo orbital mais pormenorizadas deste veiculo solar parabólico propulsionado pelo Sol