Wise stones: an interactive accessible circuit designed to enhance the experiences of visitors with disabilities

Museums, now more than ever before, are committed to the inclusion of all members of society, aiming to promote similar visitor experiences for their various patrons. With the challenging mission of exhibiting and communicating humanity's common heritage, while also preserving it, the creation of an inclusive museum experience is a complex task with multiple dimensions. This article aims to contribute to the field of accessibility in museums by discussing the three main stages of designing the Wise Stones Accessible Circuit, a five-year project which aimed to enhance access at the MM Gerdau Museum in Brazil by creating an interactive tactile exhibit displaying original artifacts from the museum's collection. A participatory methodology was adopted throughout the project in which 37 professionals from multidisciplinary fields at various institutions, and 151 visitors, who performed a formal evaluation of the digital interactives, were involved. Conclusions and implications of designing accessible digital interactives, with feedback from as wide range a of visitors as possible, are presented. Although the project's main goal was to enhance the museum experience for persons with disabilities, it ended up benefitting all visitors.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Proposal of a tangible user interface to increase accessibility in geological exhibitions and the experience of museums

Currently, the museums use different interactive technologies to communicate their exhibitions; however, it turns out that in most cases, information is not accessible to all members of the public. In this paper, we present the design of a tangible user interface to enhance accessibility in geological exhibitions, specifically for the case of visitors with visual impairments, and we also present the study’s results about how to improve the experience of those who visit museums, using this tangible media technology as an exhibitor for samples. The results showed that the interaction with the interface pleased the visitors and that it has application space ithin geological exhibitions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Designing an interactive exhibitor for assisting blind and visually impaired visitors in tactile exploration of original museum pieces

Blind and visually impaired visitors experience a lot of constraints when visiting museums exhibitions, giving the ocular centricity of these institutions, the lack of cognitive, physical and sensorial access to exhibits or replicas, increased by the inaccessibility to use the digital media technologies designed to provide different experiences, among other constraints. This paper aims to present the design and implementation of an exhibitor to communicate original museum samples to blind and visually impaired patrons, without the need to be replicated, that interactively "tell stories about their lives" whenever picked up. Tests performed with 13 partially sighted and blind participants at the main exhibition museum space, demonstrated very positive evaluations regarding pragmatic and hedonic qualities of the interaction, a positive capacity to mentally conceptualize the exhibits according to the audio descriptions, and how to enhance the experience of using more exhibitors like this one during a future visit to the museum.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The circumovat precipitin test as a control of cure in children with chronic schistosomiasis mansoni

Seventy nine children in the 6-14 age group, with chronic schistosomiasis man- soni were selected for this stud,y. Sixty seven (850/o) with positive circumoval pre- cipitin test (COPT) were divided in two groups: 86 children (Group l) were treat_ ed with oxamniquine (20 mg/kg in a singre orar dose) and 31 children (Group 2) were given placebo under the same conditions. Follow-up was mantained for 1.0 months with monthly quantitative stool examinations and the absence of fecal eggs from the first month onwards was considered as a successful treatment. COPT was repeated on the tenth month. In Group L, 6gVo were cured. Group P showed no cures. rn the 28 Group I patients considered cured, copr was negative in20 (87%). Negative reactions were also found in BZo/o of the Group p children, after 10 months. These false negative reactions occurred in patients with a smaller stool egg count. The Authors conclude that copr shows a high positivity ratio in the diagnosis of chronic schistosomiasis mansoni, with negative reactions post cure in the majority of cases. However, a significant number of false negative results does rlot allow the isolated use of COPT in the control of cure of schistosomiasis mansoni

Interactive accessible circuit wise stones: expanding the museological experience of impaired visitors

O Circuito Acessível Pedras Sabidas, em exposição permanente no Museu das Minas e do Metal – MM Gerdau, é fruto de um convênio internacional de pesquisa entre instituições brasileiras e portuguesas. O projeto foi premiado pelo Programa Ibermuseus e selecionado entre as melhores práticas mundiais para publicação pelo Access Smithsonian. Gerou interfaces interativas, que permitem aos visitantes tocarem amostras minerais da coleção e acionarem conteúdos inclusivos, tais como vídeos com imagens ampliadas, áudios, textos e interpretação em Libras. Neste artigo, são apresentadas as três etapas de desenvolvimento da pesquisa: Protótipo, Piloto e Consolidação. Por fim, temos uma breve avaliação dos impactos da pandemia da COVID-19 na relação entre o público com deficiência e os museus, concluindo com as lições aprendidas ao longo dos cinco anos nos quais este projeto tomou curso.The Interactive Accessible Circuit Wise Stones, in the permanent exhibition of the MM Gerdau – Mines and Metal Museum, resulted from an international research project between Brazilian and Portuguese institutions. The project received an award from the Ibermuseums Program and was selected for publication by the Access Smithsonian among the best global practices in museums. It consists of interactive interfaces, which allow visitors to touch mineral samples from the collection while presenting inclusive contents like videos with amplified images, audios, texts, and gestural language interpretation. This article focuses on the three main research development phases: Prototype, Pilot, and Consolidation. A brief evaluation of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemics regarding the relationship between impaired publics and the museums is presented, concluding with some lessons learned during the five years of the project.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mass balance of pilot-scale pretreatment of sugarcane bagasse by steam explosion followed by alkaline delignification

Five pilot-scale steam explosion pretreatments of sugarcane bagasse followed by alkaline delignification were explored. The solubilised lignin was precipitated with 98% sulphuric acid. Most of the pentosan (82.6%), and the acetyl group fractions were solubilised during pretreatment, while 90.2% of cellulose and 87.0% lignin were recovered in the solid fraction. Approximately 91% of the lignin and 72.5% of the pentosans contained in the steam-exploded solids were solubilised by delignification, resulting in a pulp with almost 90% of cellulose. The acidification of the black liquors allowed recovery of 48.3% of the lignin contained in the raw material. Around 14% of lignin, 22% of cellulose and 26% of pentosans were lost during the process. In order to increase material recovery, major changes, such as introduction of efficient condensers and the reduction in the number of washing steps, should be done in the process setup. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Alexander von Humboldt FoundationConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq), Brazi

Dynamic risk calculation model applied to gas compressor.

The present article proposes to apply a Risk-Based Maintenance methodology in a gas compression system. This risk calculation is based on a semi-quantitative mathematical model that uses the interdependence of process variables and predictive maintenance data applied in a Condition-Based Maintenance methodology, in order to obtain the calculation of the dynamic risk. This promotes a review of maintenance and reliability strategies proactively in real time. The dynamic risk applied to the system involves the interface of predictive maintenance and process variables with the reliability and risk analyses of the system. This value, which is associated with the financial aspects, safety, people and environment, can be compared to the tolerable risk of production plant operation, providing operation or maintenance decisions. An example demonstrates the integration of process and maintenance data using this model methodology for a gas compression system. This framework can be applied to evaluate the integrity of systems, providing critical risk-based information for the maintenance and operation teams, assisting then in the mitigation of failures in the production systems

Stronger diversity effects with increased environmental stress : a study of multitrophic interactions between oak, powdery mildew and ladybirds

Recent research has suggested that increasing neighbourhood tree species diversity may mitigate the impact of pests or pathogens by supporting the activities of their natural enemies and/or reducing the density of available hosts. In this study, we attempted to assess these mechanisms in a multitrophic study system of young oak (Quercus), oak powdery mildew (PM, caused by Erysiphe spp.) and a mycophagous ladybird (Psyllobora vigintiduo-punctata). We assessed ladybird mycophagy on oak PM in function of different neighbourhood tree species compositions. We also evaluated whether these species interactions were modulated by environmental conditions as suggested by the Stress Gradient Hypothesis. We adopted a complementary approach of a field experiment where we monitored oak saplings subjected to a reduced rainfall gradient in a young planted forest consisting of different tree species mixtures, as well as a lab experiment where we independently evaluated the effect of different watering treatments on PM infections and ladybird mycophagy. In the field experiment, we found effects of neighbourhood tree species richness on ladybird mycophagy becoming more positive as the target trees received less water. This effect was only found as weather conditions grew drier. In the lab experiment, we found a preference of ladybirds to graze on infected leaves from trees that received less water. We discuss potential mechanisms that might explain this preference, such as emissions of volatile leaf chemicals. Our results are in line with the expectations of the Natural Enemies Hypothesis and support the hypothesis that biodiversity effects become stronger with increased environmental stress

Antioxidant activities of sulfated polysaccharides from brown and red seaweeds

The in vitro antioxidant activities of the following six sulfated polysaccharides were investigated: iota, kappa and lambda carrageenans, which are widely used in the food industry, fucoidan (homofucan) from the edible seaweed Fucus vesiculosus and fucans (heterofucans) F0.5 and F1.1 from the seaweed Padina gymnospora. With respect to the inhibition of superoxide radical formation, fucoidan had an IC50 (the half maximal inhibitory concentration) of 0.058 mg·mL−1, while the IC50 for the kappa, iota and lambda carrageenans were 0.112, 0.332 and 0.046 mg·mL−1, respectively. All of the samples had an inhibitory effect on the formation of hydroxyl radicals. The results of peroxidation tests showed that fucoidan had an IC50 of 1.250 mg·mL−1 and that the kappa, iota and lambda carrageenans had an IC50 of 2.753 and 2.338 and 0.323 mg·mL−1, respectively. Fucan fractions showed low antioxidant activity relative to fucoidan. These results clearly indicate the beneficial effect of algal polysaccharides as antioxidants