Proprs (United Kingdom)

Inicialmente este artigo apresenta uma visão idiossincrática sobre os desafios enfrentados por artistas e educadores de artes cênicas em meio à pandemia de COVID-19. Em seguida são exploradas as consequências existenciais e poéticas derivadas das privações trazidas pelo isolamento social em uma forma de arte intrinsecamente gregária como o teatro. Isolando os elementos espacial e temporal, o texto oferece uma visão transcendente para o trabalho de artistas da cena por meio da conversão criativa das restrições impostas pelo trabalho virtual.

This article presents a taxonomical framework that supports the considerations of socio-cultural hazards that may affect crowd management in transport hubs, i.e. airports, ports, underground and train stations, both in normal and emergency situations.Such hazards include communication breakdowns with passengers due, for instance, to language barriers; increased potential for revolts, as in stranded passenger situations; misreporting of security threats; and uncooperative behaviour in case of emergencies.Such socio-cultural hazards are not normally considered from the integrated perspective of transport hub operators, e.g.security staff, first responders and service assistants as well as safety and security managers.The present study provides an integrated perspective of these hazards as a means to increase the performance of transport staff members that interact with the public and with passengers on a daily basis.The methodology used to develop the framework comprises: (i) a focus group with relevant experts, (ii) semi-structured interviews at operational facilities with front-end practitioners, and (iii) a review of academic literature and media reports.The framework has also been qualitatively corroborated with transport operators in dedicated interviews and a focus group session.The study identified 10 socio-cultural hazards that were combined into a single framework comprising three high-level sub-categories: (i) crowd-staff interactions, (ii) crowd-crowd interactions, and (iii) crowd-environment interactions.The framework of socio-cultural factors can increase staff's awareness of relevant socio-cultural hazards, their potential consequences in both normal and emergency situations, and the associated mitigation strategies.In turn, this can increase the quality and continuity of service, safety and security in the management of members of the public and passengers in transport hubs.

Trackside railway workers can benefit of intelligent systems for automatic track warning, that are able to safely (i) detect trains or rolling stock approaching the worksite, and (ii) notify their arrival to the workers. The usage of wearable mobile devices to monitor workers positions and notify trains arrivals requires to face serious challenges mainly in terms of service timeliness, safety, security and ergonomics (this last one to define notification signals to the workers that are always perceivable). This paper presents the design and the prototype of the Mobile Terminal (MT), a wearable, real time, wireless, safety-critical device which exploits information received from track monitoring devices to inform a worker about trains or rolling stock approaching the worksite. The MT design concept is based on a hybrid architecture to favor the apportionment of different requirements, in terms of timing and security, to the different parts of the MT. Additionally, the MT includes novel solutions to interface with the worker, to realize an accurate localization service and to achieve safety-critical real-time communication.

Analysis and categorization of macular pigment (MP) distribution in type 2 idiopathic macular telangiectasia (IMT2) with regard to a possible grading scale for the severity of the disease. Nineteen IMT2 patients were examined including visual acuity (VA), fundus biomicroscopy, fluorescein angiography (FLA), microperimetry and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Distribution of MP was analyzed and categorized in MP density maps calculated from autofluorescence images obtained at 488 and 514 nm excitation wavelengths. Typical features in MP density maps are in class I (n=8), a triangular segment of reduced MP in the temporal fovea and central accumulation of MP, class II (n=12), further expansion of the segment and vanishing of central accumulation, and class III (n=18), oval effacement of MP centrally, surrounding halo of MP at 5-7 degrees eccentricity. These classes were associated with the stages of the disease and increasing restrictions in visual function. Association between changes in MP distribution, stages of IMT2 and restrictions in visual functions suggests that the classification of MP patterns reflects a severity scale for IMT2. Degenerative processes causing impairments in transport and storage of lutein (L) and zeaxanthin (Z) leading to secondary vascular changes may play a causative role in the disease.