Metamorfose das Termas Stº António, Celorico da Beira

Do lugar ao espaço pretende ser uma reflexão conceptual no processo de desenho para um exercício de projeto nas antigas termas Stº António, situadas em Celorico da Beira. O espaço é hoje a memória e a cultura do lugar envolvido por uma paisagem natural e as ruínas de um passado termal. A proposta pretende colocar em evidência a identidade do lugar, e assim, perceber a importância do espaço no projeto. Neste sentido, procura-se estabelecer com a memória um diálogo equilibrado, quer na forma, quer no tempo, em função de um novo hotel-termal. De facto, é neste equilíbrio entre paisagem e desenho, que a condição do lugar e o programa adquirem a “metamorfose” – conceito que procura encontrar uma unidade como mudança comum entre o equilíbrio do valor cultural da ruína “o lugar” e a evolução do novo conjunto “o espaço”. Desta forma, confrontamo-nos com a definição de conceitos e soluções que se refletem, na nossa opinião, como discurso relevante no momento de intervir nas preexistências.From the place to the space, it is intended to be a conceptual reflection in the design process for a project exercise in the antique St. António thermal baths, which are located in Celorico da Beira village. The space is, today, the memory and the culture of the place, surrounded by a natural landscape and the ruins of a thermal past. The proposal aims to highlight the identity of the place, and thus, realize the importance of the space in the project. In this sense, we seek to establish, with the memory, a balanced dialogue, either in form or in time, in function of a new thermal hotel. In fact, it is in this balance, between landscape and design, that the condition of the place and the program acquire the "metamorphosis" - a concept that seeks to find a unity as a common change between the balance of the ruin cultural value (the place) and the evolution of the new project (the space). In this way, we are confronted with the definition of concepts and solutions that are reflected, in our opinion, as a relevant speech in the moment of intervening in the preexistences

Extensive collection of femtoliter pad secretion droplets in beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata allows nanoliter microrheology

Pads of beetles are covered with long, deformable setae, each ending in a micrometric terminal plate coated with secretory fluid. It was recently shown that the layer of the pad secretion covering the terminal plates is responsible for the generation of strong attractive forces. However, less is known about the fluid itself because it is produced in extremely small quantity. We here present a first experimental investigation of the rheological properties of the pad secretion in the Colorado potato beetle {\it Leptinotarsa decemlineata}. Because the secretion is produced in an extremely small amount at the level of the terminal plate, we first develop a procedure based on capillary effects to collect the secretion. We then manage to incorporate micrometric beads, initially in the form of a dry powder, and record their thermal motion to determine the mechanical properties of the surrounding medium. We achieve such a quantitative measurement within the collected volume, much smaller than the $1 {\rm \mu}$l sample volume usually required for this technique. Surprisingly, the beetle secretion was found to behave as a purely viscous liquid, of high viscosity. This suggests that no specific complex fluid behaviour is needed during beetle locomotion. We build a scenario for the contact formation between the spatula at the setal tip and a substrate, during the insect walk. We show that the attachment dynamics of the insect pad computed from the high measured viscosity is in good agreement with observed insect pace. We finally discuss the consequences of the secretion viscosity on the insect adhesion

Séparation et déconvolution aveugle de signaux bruités : modélisation par mélange de gaussiennes

Cet article propose un algorithme d'identification aveugle de systèmes linéaires bruités. Le principe est celui de l'EM, dont le but est de maximiser la vraisemblance de l'observation en maximisant une fonction auxilliaire, l'étape 'M' de maximisation est simple, la difficulté restant l'étape 'E' de calcul de cette fonction auxilliaire. Nous montrons dans l'article que la modélisation de la distribution des entrées par un mélange de Gaussiennes permet une implantation de l'étape 'E' de manière exacte et (raisonnablement) rapide. Nous fournirons un procédé d'estimation conjointe des paramètres du système et de l'entrée, qui se généralise au problème de déconvolution aveugle, et qui offre une voie à l'estimation semi-paramétrique

Divulgação científica na formação docente: uma experiência com o tema radioatividade e energia nuclear

   Este trabalho trata da implementação de um projeto de ensino, referenciado na teoria da aprendizagem significativa e no sócio-interacionismo, em uma turma de segundo módulo do curso de Licenciatura em Ciências da Natureza. Os estudantes participaram de um programa de produção de inserções radiofônicas e construção de um blog sobre radioatividade e energia nuclear, conteúdo da unidade curricular Princípios da Ciência II. Os estudantes foram subsidiados com conteúdos de divulgação científica, teorias de aprendizagem e epistemologia e história da ciência, resultado da integração de outras duas unidades curriculares: Português II e Epistemologia e História das Ciências. Como subsídio para as atividades a serem realizadas pelos estudantes, os docentes construíram um site com textos, imagens, vídeos e mapas conceituais apresentados em aula como organizadores prévios. O projeto buscou a compreensão dos conteúdos das unidades curriculares envolvidas e da aprendizagem significativa como referencial de ensino passível de aplicação na divulgação científica

Bayesian model comparison in cosmology with Population Monte Carlo

We use Bayesian model selection techniques to test extensions of the standard flat LambdaCDM paradigm. Dark-energy and curvature scenarios, and primordial perturbation models are considered. To that end, we calculate the Bayesian evidence in favour of each model using Population Monte Carlo (PMC), a new adaptive sampling technique which was recently applied in a cosmological context. The Bayesian evidence is immediately available from the PMC sample used for parameter estimation without further computational effort, and it comes with an associated error evaluation. Besides, it provides an unbiased estimator of the evidence after any fixed number of iterations and it is naturally parallelizable, in contrast with MCMC and nested sampling methods. By comparison with analytical predictions for simulated data, we show that our results obtained with PMC are reliable and robust. The variability in the evidence evaluation and the stability for various cases are estimated both from simulations and from data. For the cases we consider, the log-evidence is calculated with a precision of better than 0.08. Using a combined set of recent CMB, SNIa and BAO data, we find inconclusive evidence between flat LambdaCDM and simple dark-energy models. A curved Universe is moderately to strongly disfavoured with respect to a flat cosmology. Using physically well-motivated priors within the slow-roll approximation of inflation, we find a weak preference for a running spectral index. A Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum is weakly disfavoured. With the current data, tensor modes are not detected; the large prior volume on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r results in moderate evidence in favour of r=0. [Abridged]Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Matches version accepted for publication by MNRA

Integrating ecosystem services within spatial biodiversity conservation prioritization in the Alps

As anthropogenic degradation of biodiversity and ecosystems increases, so does the potential threat to the supply of ecosystem services, a key contribution of nature to people. Biodiversity has often been used in spatial conservation planning and has been regarded as one among multiple services delivered by ecosystems. Hence, biodiversity conservation planning should be integrated in a framework of prioritizing services in order to inform decision-making. Here, we propose a prioritization approach based on scenarios maximising both the provision of ecosystem services and the conservation of biodiversity hotspots. Different weighting scenarios for the α-diversity in four taxonomic groups and 10 mapped ecosystem services were used to simulate varying priorities of policymakers in a mountain region. Our results illustrate how increasing priorities to ecosystem services can be disadvantageous to biodiversity. Moreover, the analysis to identify priority areas that best compromise the conservation of α-diversity and ecosystem services are predominantly not located within the current protected area network. Our analyses stress the need for an appropriate weighting of biodiversity within decision making that seek to integrate multiple ecosystem services. Our study paves the way toward further integration of multiple biodiversity groups and components, ecosystem services and various socio-economic scenarios, ultimately fuelling the development of more informed, evidence-based spatial planning decisions for conservation

Infant exposure to Fluvoxamine through placenta and human milk: a case series - A contribution from the ConcePTION project [case report].

INTRODUCTION Fluvoxamine is widely used to treat depression during pregnancy and lactation. However, limited data are available on its transfer to the fetus or in human milk. This case series provides additional information on the infant exposure to fluvoxamine during pregnancy and lactation. CASE PRESENTATION Two women, aged 38 and 34 years, diagnosed with depression were treated with 50 mg fluvoxamine during pregnancy and lactation. At delivery a paired maternal and cord blood sample was collected for each woman. The first mother exclusively breastfed her child for 4 months and gave one foremilk and one hindmilk sample at 2 days and 4 weeks post-partum, whereas the second mother did not breastfeed. RESULTS The cord to plasma concentration ratios were 0.62 and 0.48, respectively. At 2 weeks post-partum, relative infant doses (RID) were 0.47 and 0.57% based on fluvoxamine concentrations in foremilk and hindmilk, respectively. At 4 weeks post-partum, the RIDs were 0.35 and 0.90%, respectively. The child from the first mother was born healthy and showed a normal development at the 6th, 18th and 36th month follow-ups. One of the twins from the second woman was hospitalized for hypoglycemia that was attributed to gestational diabetes and low birth weight. The second one was born healthy. CONCLUSION These results suggest a minimal exposure to fluvoxamine during lactation which is in accordance with previously published data. Larger clinical and pharmacokinetic studies assessing the long-term safety of this drug during lactation and the variability of its exposure through breastmilk are warranted

Estimation of cosmological parameters using adaptive importance sampling

We present a Bayesian sampling algorithm called adaptive importance sampling or Population Monte Carlo (PMC), whose computational workload is easily parallelizable and thus has the potential to considerably reduce the wall-clock time required for sampling, along with providing other benefits. To assess the performance of the approach for cosmological problems, we use simulated and actual data consisting of CMB anisotropies, supernovae of type Ia, and weak cosmological lensing, and provide a comparison of results to those obtained using state-of-the-art Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). For both types of data sets, we find comparable parameter estimates for PMC and MCMC, with the advantage of a significantly lower computational time for PMC. In the case of WMAP5 data, for example, the wall-clock time reduces from several days for MCMC to a few hours using PMC on a cluster of processors. Other benefits of the PMC approach, along with potential difficulties in using the approach, are analysed and discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figure