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Periodontal disease is the most common infectious disease that occurs in feline patients. Although it occurs in both sexes, different age groups, and any breeds, the prevalence and severity seem much higher in cats living in animal shelters. This paper aimed to describe the clinical, radiological, cytopathological, and virological aspects of periodontal disease and its complications in cats, based on these aspects and, consequently, on the importance it brings to cat feline medicine in shelter cats. For this, nine cats with periodontal disease from a single animal shelter were evaluated. These cats demonstrated a disease characterized by halitosis, excessive salivation, and oral discomfort. Lymphadenomegaly of the mandibular and retropharyngeal lymph nodes was observed in 44.4% of the cases. Oral lesions consisted of varying degrees of gingival hyperemia, complete loss of free gingival margins, and consequently gingival retraction, dental calculus deposition, dental mobility, complete exposure of the furcation of premolars and molars, and dental roots of canines and incisors, loss of bone radiopacity due to alveolar bone resorption and tooth loss. Complications included chronic ulcerative paradental stomatitis (22.2%), faucitis (22.2%), and chronic gingivostomatitis (11.1%). None of the cats affected by periodontal disease was positive for FIV or FeLV. In 33.3% of the cases, cats were carriers of feline calicivirus, but not feline herpesvirus. RESUMO: Doença periodontal é a mais comum doença infecciosa que ocorre em pacientes felinos. Embora ocorra em gatos de ambos os sexos, diferentes faixas etárias e quaisquer raças, a prevalência e a gravidade parece muito maior em gatos que vivem em abrigos para animais. Baseado nesses aspectos e, consequentemente, na importância que ela traz para a medicina felina de gatos de abrigos, o objetivo desse artigo é descrever os aspectos clínicos, radiológicos, citopatológicos e virológicos da doença periodontal e suas complicações em gatos. Para isso, nove gatos com doença periodontal oriundos de um único abrigo de animais foram avaliados. Esses gatos demonstraram uma doença caracterizada por halitose, salivação excessiva e desconforto oral. Linfadenomegalia dos linfonodos mandibulares e retrofaríngeos foi observada em 44,4% dos casos. As lesões orais consistiam de graus variados de hiperemia gengival, perda completa das margens gengivais livres e, consequentemente, retração gengival, deposição de cálculo dental, mobilidade dentária, exposição completa da furca dos pré-molares e molares e das raízes dentárias dos caninos e incisivos, perda de radiopacidade óssea devido à reabsorção de osso alveolar e perda dentária. Complicações incluíram estomatite paradental ulcerativa crônica (22,2%), faucite (22,2%) e gengivoestomatite crônica (11,1%). Nenhum dos gatos afetados pela doença periodontal foi positivo para FIV ou FeLV. Em 33,3% dos casos, os gatos eram portadores do calicivírus felino, mas não do herpesvírus felino.

Some parks suffer from overuse, which raises safety issues. Municipalities introduced access-control policies such as entrance fees and women-only days. We studied the impact of these policies on t...

Maximizing the annual season of street comfort in hot climates requires synergies between all planning and design features. The absence of such combination compromises comfort and planning goals, l...

Weather records show that global warming is now unquestionably happening. A recent 2019 International Panel on Climate Change report on limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 °C claims that adaptation and mitigation actions are already occurring. But, as weather records around the world are being broken, often on an annual basis, there is much reason to question if the steps being taken are actually effective as a recent International Energy Agency report in 2019 on the latest trends in global energy use and CO2 emissions shows that in 2018 CO2 emissions rose 1.7% to a historic high of 33.1 Gt CO2. Many buildings will need to be upgraded in their performance to ensure that populations in them can remain safe in the predicted hotter, colder, wetter, dryer and windier future we all face. This paper outlines the results of recent field work in Antarctica on an extreme structure, a Polar Lodge, designed to withstand the extreme cold, wind and precipitation on King George Island and from which lessons have been learnt on how to design for such extremes. This involves a radical change in the design methodologies adopted in many offices, setting aside the overweening importance given to building simulation for a more holistic process aimed at developing innovative design solutions. The paper concludes that more emphasis should be given to empirical research in the way we preemptively shape our climatic design to increase the resilience of buildings and cities around the world in the face of the unprecedented increases in predicted future extreme weather events and trends.

The paper introduces an open source cloud platform for the efficient, knowledge-based, sustainable and inclusive development of urban parks - Bahrain Parks developed at the University of Bahrain. We describe the local context at the genesis of the initiative, its components, the rationale for the creation of a comprehensive, live, database, and the suite of web applications that deliver information to different audiences from professionals to the general public. We describe the data structure on MySQL hosting and the development of both backend and frontend in R Shiny, and the various web applications and how these leverage the data to useful information for supporting decision-making on park maintenance, planning, and design. We describe the technologies used. We share findings regarding the official acceptance and attempts to integrate the application in workflows at several agencies. We argue that the project belongs to the sphere of e-governance. To our knowledge, the project is unique as it is being developed to incorporate an evidence-based design process, comprehensively. Furthermore, it embeds explicit and implicit public participation in decision-making, through park rating and usage.

This paper discusses the contribution of street orientation towards the development of a comfortable microclimate for pedestrians in Bahrain. Increasing walkability is a global agenda to address issues such as a) transportation, b) energy consumption, c) health, and d) air pollution, all of which are topics of the sustainability agenda. Thermal comfort is one of the pre-requisites for walkability. In warm climates, this is a challenging goal. Street design is paramount for pedestrian comfort in warm climates. The roles of street orientation and aspect ratio are of particular importance as they determine the intake of solar radiation into the urban canyon. We investigate the state of affairs in Bahrain, by measuring the frequency with which the street orientations E-W, N-S, NE-SW, and NW-SE, currently occur. Research suggests that the street orientation E-W presents the lesser performance for mitigating the effects of heat gain. The ideal grid orientation would, therefore, be N-S, and NE-SW - NW-SE, avoiding street segments with E-W orientation. A countrywide analysis shows that E-W orientation accounts for the highest overall street length with 37%. The second most frequent orientation is N-S (29%), the best performer. NW-SE and NE-SW both have frequencies of only 17%. Preference for a street grid with N-S, NW-SE, and NE-SW orientation would improve the thermal performance of streets and provide a continuous network of a comfortable pedestrian environment. We simulate two future scenarios based on avoiding new E-W streets, or not. We measure their potential reduction in thermal gain and conclude that a simple policy could reduce solar exposition in 40%.