Graphical abstract Environmental noise has been growing in recent years, causing numerous health problems. Highly sensitive environments such as hospitals deserve special attention, since noise can aggravate patients’ health issues and impair the performance of healthcare professionals. This work consists of a systematic review of scientific articles describing environmental noise measurements taken in hospitals between the years 2015 and 2020. The researchers started with a consultation of three databases, namely, Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect. The results indicate that for the most part, these studies are published in journals in the fields of medicine, engineering, environmental sciences, acoustics, and nursing and that most of their authors work in the fields of architecture, engineering, medicine, and nursing. These studies, which are concentrated in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, use as reference values sound levels recommended by the World Health Organization. L eq measured in hospital environments showed daytime values ranging from 37 to 88.6 dB (A) and nighttime values of 38.7 to 68.8 dB (A). L eq values for outdoor noise were 74.3 and 56.6 dB (A) for daytime and nighttime, respectively. The measurements were taken mainly inside hospitals, prioritizing more sensitive departments such as intensive care units. There is a potential for growth in work carried out in this area, but research should also include discussions about guidelines for improvement measures aimed at reducing noise in hospitals.
Spatial analysis and fuzzy classification techniques were used to estimate the spatial distributions of heavy metals in soil. The work was applied to soils in a coastal region that is characterized by intense urban occupation and large numbers of different industries. Concentrations of heavy metals were determined using geostatistical techniques and classes of risk were defined using fuzzy classification. The resulting prediction mappings identify the locations of high concentrations of Pb, Zn, Ni, and Cu in topsoils of the study area. The maps show that areas of high pollution of Ni and Cu are located at the northeast, where there is a predominance of industrial and agricultural activities; Pb and Zn also occur in high concentrations in the northeast, but the maps also show significant concentrations of Pb and Zn in other areas, mainly in the central and southeastern parts, where there are urban leisure activities and trade centers. Maps were also prepared showing levels of pollution risk. These maps show that (1) Cu presents a large pollution risk in the north-northwest, midwest, and southeast sectors, (2) Pb represents a moderate risk in most areas, (3) Zn generally exhibits low risk, and (4) Ni represents either low risk or no risk in the studied area. This study shows that combining geostatistics with fuzzy theory can provide results that offer insight into risk assessment for environmental pollution.
The aim of the present paper is to develop a spatial analysis methodology with an inference fuzzy system using the geoprocessing techniques to generate an anthropic pressure indicator (API) based on two other indicators: Circularity Index (CI) and Edge Effects Index (EEI). This new methodology could indicate the remaining forest fragments exposition level after the anthropic action, considering the relationship between the geometry (CI) and the type of land use around the area (EEI) as the main factors. The studied area is located in the southwest part of São Paulo state, Brazil. The obtained results show that rivers are often found as limits between fragments, demonstrating the importance of the preservation and conservation of riparian forest. In total, 846 forest fragments were identified, occupying 6.19 % of the study area, totalizing 2775.7 ha. Out of the total fragments 48.7 % were in medium and advanced successional stage of regeneration presenting elongated shapes and 16 % were in a high fragility interval, consequence of the edge effects. Moreover, the map of API showed that 16.2 % forest fragments were in a moderate high anthropic pressure interval, which deserve special attention for being very elongated, limited and pressured in an intense way by different types of land use which affect its surroundings. Thereby, the study demonstrated that the understanding of pressure types imposed on the remaining forest fragments through an indicator can contribute to management programs and territorial planning, giving conditions to the forest restoration in areas of strong anthropic pressure, and that the employment of fuzzy logics and geoprocessing could contribute significantly to diagnosis and trouble characterizations.
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