Protecting earthen heritage using a green strategy: a study about natural water repellents

Using earth as a construction material is an ancient technique that can be found around the world in monumental and vernacular architecture. However, its preservation is a challenging topic that clearly needs deeper research, especially from the conservation science approach. Earthen heritage is also associated with ancient maintenance techniques employing natural and local products still being used in some countries. Having those methods as a background, this paper proposes to adopt a green conservation strategy and a scientific approach, learning from traditional procedures to apply on earthen heritage. In the present research, three natural products – arabic gum, linseed oil and beeswax – were studied in terms of compatibility and efficiency with adobe specimens. The main results are critically discussed, and the main conclusions are exposed and compared against the common professional practice.PD/BD/114411/2016 is acknowledged. This work was partly financed by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme Competitiveness Factors (COMPETE 2020) and by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the scope of project SafEarth PTDC/ECM-EST/2777/2014 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016737

The use of contact sponge method to measure water absorption in earthen heritage treated with water repellents

Earthen heritage represents an important legacy regarding construction history and technological development, with a significant cultural value that must be preserved. According to UNESCO, around 10% of the World Heritage is built using earth, and 57% of these heritage structures are in danger. Although the interest regarding earthen heritage has grown in the last few years, there is still a significant lack of knowledge in terms of material characterization, especially from conservation science point-of-view. In particular, tests regarding water absorption are always difficult to perform with a material that changes completely when in contact with water. Indeed, due to the presence of clay particles, a normal capillarity test is almost impossible to perform. Moreover, water is responsible for a significant number of degradation phenomena often found in earthen heritage. As a result, there is an urgent need to develop suitable water repellent treatments and to evaluate their efficiency. For this reason, this study focuses on the contact sponge method to assess water absorption rates for adobe and for rammed earth specimens treated with three different water repellents - siloxane, linseed oil, and beeswax. Two sets of specimens were prepared and tested, showing that this method can represent an effective way to measure initial water absorption in earthen materials, and promising results from the tested water repellent treatments were found.The support from grant PD/BD/114411/2016 is gratefully acknowledged. This work was partly financed by FEDER funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness Factors (COMPETE 2020) and by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the scope of project SafEarth PTDC/ECM-EST/2777/2014 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016737)

Fraturas do arco zigomático: cerclagem de contenção

This work proposes an alternative technique for zygomatic fractures contention. Steel wire cerclage supportsan 1.5 Kirchner wire shaped in double U by cutaneous anchorage. This technique can be indicated in casesof closed reduction of zigomatic arch fractures without fixation that may loose reduction if not properlyprotected

Orbital floor reconstruction with high density polyethylene

Surgical interventions in blow out fractures are generally indicated in cases of alterations in orbital function (e.g. diplopia)and for aesthetic reasons (e.g. enophthalmos). In assessing the severity of the injury, the clinician often uses parameterssuch as changes in visual acuity, patient-reported diplopia, changes in globe position and evaluation of the extraocularmuscles in association with imaging exams. Computed tomography has been the modality of choice for detailed imagingdiagnosis and surgical planning of orbital trauma. High density polyethylene may be successfully used in orbital floorreconstruction to restore function and esthetics. Taking into account the follow up of six months, the availability and theadvantages of high density polyethylene implants, it can be concluded that their use in reconstruction of orbital floordefects is a good choice

uTango: an open-source TEE for IoT devices

Security is one of the main challenges of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT devices are mainly powered by low-cost microcontrollers (MCUs) that typically lack basic hardware security mechanisms to separate security-critical applications from less critical components. Recently, Arm has started to release Cortex-M MCUs enhanced with TrustZone technology (i.e., TrustZone-M), a system-wide security solution aiming at providing robust protection for IoT devices. Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) relying on TrustZone hardware have been perceived as safe havens for securing mobile devices. However, for the past few years, considerable effort has gone into unveiling hundreds of vulnerabilities and proposing a collection of relevant defense techniques to address several issues. While new TEE solutions built on TrustZone-M start flourishing, the lessons gathered from the research community appear to be falling short, as these new systems are trapping into the same pitfalls of the past. In this paper, we present UTANGO, the first multi-world TEE for modern IoT devices. UTANGO proposes a novel architecture aiming at tackling the major architectural deficiencies currently affecting TrustZone(-M)-assisted TEEs. In particular, we leverage the very same TrustZone hardware primitives used by dual-world implementations to create multiple and equally secure execution environments within the normal world. We demonstrate the benefits of UTANGO by conducting an extensive evaluation on a real TrustZone-M hardware platform, i.e., Arm Musca-B1. UTANGO will be open-sourced and freely available on GitHub in hopes of engaging academia and industry on securing the foreseeable trillion IoT devices.This work was supported in part by the Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) within the Research and Development Units under Grant UIDB/00319/2020, and in part by FCT within the Ph.D. Scholarship under Grant 2020.04585.BD

Polícia Municipal do Porto - Atirador Ativo: conflito Polícia de Segurança Pública / Polícia Administrativa

O aumento do terrorismo, mais concretamente do fenómeno Atirador Ativo (AA), também denominado Active Shooter tem sido um facto incontroverso nos últimos anos. Este tipo de atos tem vindo a aumentar em vários países, principalmente Estados Unidos e Europa, sendo cada vez mais mediáticos. As forças e serviços de segurança têm um papel preponderante na prevenção/combate a este tipo de incidentes. As Polícias Municipais de Lisboa (PMLisboa) e Porto (PMPorto) têm um estatuto próprio, diferente das demais Polícias Municipais (PM’s). Sua principal missão é contribuir para a qualidade de vida dos cidadãos. São serviços municipais especialmente vocacionados para funções de polícia administrativa1 sendo constituídas por pessoal com funções policiais da Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP). Este trabalho aborda um assunto atual e pertinente, visto que incidentes envolvendo AA, associados ou não a ações de terrorismo, estão cada vez mais na ordem do dia, colocando-se várias questões quanto à sua prevenção/resolução, entre as quais, se a PMPorto, ponde ser a primeira Polícia a chegar ao local, deverá intervir de forma a tentar neutralizar a ameaça ou se deverá aguardar pela chegada de elementos da PSP subsistindo uma elevada probabilidade do número de mortos e feridos ir aumentando.The increase of terrorism and more specifically of the Active Shooter (AA) phenomenon has been an uncontroversial fact in recent years. This type of acts has been increasing in several countries, mainly United States and Europe, and are increasingly in the media. Security forces and services play a major role in preventing and fighting this type of incident. The Municipal Police of Lisbon (PMLisboa) and Oporto (PMPorto) have their own status, different from the other Municipal Police (PM's). Their main mission is to contribute to the quality of citizens’ life, they are municipal services especially dedicated to the exercise of administrative police functions1 made up of staff with police functions of the Public Security Police (PSP). This work addresses a current and pertinent issue, since incidents involving AA, whether or not associated with terrorist actions, are increasingly on the agenda, raising several questions regarding their prevention and resolution, one of which will be, if the PMPorto is to be the first Police to arrive at the scene, should intervene in order to try to neutralize the threat or should wait for the arrival of elements of the PSP, with a high probability that the number of deaths and injuries will increase.N/

Can integrated prophages affect virulence and fitnessof the honeybee pathogen Paenibacillus larvae?

Paenibacillus larvae is a highly contagious spore-forming bacteria, responsible for the American Foulbrood (AFB) disease, lethal to honeybee brood. Integrated in bacterial genomes, prophages are often able to provide new genes or to alter phenotypic characteristics of bacteria. The potential role of prophages in the performance of P. larvae has been studied. A total of 55 intact prophage genomes from 11 P. larvae strains were annotated and analysed. The main focus was to infer the influence of their genes with some type of virulence trait (e.g.: toxins), or functions such as antibiotic resistance, metabolic function, germination/sporulation or transporter of nutrients, which could improve bacterial fitness. We also aimed at understanding if specific traits were provided to a given genotype (ERIC I-V). A total of 68 putative genes with different functions were identified. Some were present in all genotypes, as for example, genes encoding phosphomannomutase, HicB and MazE antitoxins, while others were exclusive from a specific genotype. In ERIC I, were found genes encoding a DNA internalization protein or an enhancin-like toxin, in ERIC II, genes responsible for a SocA antitoxin or a DNA mismatch repair protein, in ERIC III, a gene for a lipid phosphatase, in ERIC IV, genes encoding proteins associated to ironsulfur uptake and nitrogen fixation and in ERIC V, genes for an aromatic acid exporter family protein, for a leukocidin subunit LukF-PV precursor or for an epithelial and chitin-binding protein. Although several prophage-derived genes are closely linked to metabolic processes, only ERIC V strains appear to have a competitive advantage since prophages contained multiple genes that could contribute to a more aggressive infection. Despite the low representativeness on P. larvae strains diversity, we definitely contribute to leveraging studies in a subject with recent and short knowledge.This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit. HGR was supported by FCT through the grant SFRH/BD/128859/2017 and the grant COVID/BD/151856/2021.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A GESTÃO DA SALA DE AULA VIRTUAL E OS NOVOS SABERES PARA A DOCÊNCIA NA MODALIDADE DE EDUCAÇÃO A DISTÂNCIA

Este trabalho de natureza qualitativa teve como objetivo investigar dificuldades e desafios encontrados por um grupo de docentes universitários, frente a docência virtual. Os docentes respondentes estavam responsáveis por disciplinas na modalidade à distância de cinco diferentes cursos de graduação de uma Universidade Pública Federal, parceira de um Programa Federal de EaD – UAB (Universidade Aberta do Brasil). A análise apresentada foi baseada em dados coletados por meio de um questionário com questões abertas e fechadas aplicado a 80 professores e respondido por 59 deles (47% mulheres e 53% homens). Apesar das dificuldades apontadas, 100% dos docentes afirmaram que a experiência foi muito positiva. A experiência anterior em educação presencial (69% com mais de 5 anos de experiência) também foi apontada como muito importante para 86% dos docentes. Adequar conteúdos e atividades à EaD, não é tarefa trivial, é necessário tempo e espaço institucional para a discussão de novos caminhos e possibilidades de utilização crítica e consciente das novas mídias, do trabalho coletivo, e do que significa essa mudança de postura na construção do conhecimento