Decision methods applied to solve a safety problem on a waste treatment facility

To solve a health and safety problem on a waste treatment facility, different multicriteria decision methods were used, including the PROV Exponential decision method. Four alternatives and ten attributes were considered. We found a congruent solution, validated by the different methods. The AHP and the PROV Exponential decision method led us to the same options ordering, but the last method reinforced one of the options as being the best performing one, and detached the least performing option. Also, the ELECTRE I method results led to the same ordering which allowed to point the best solution with reasonable confidence. This paper demonstrates the potential of using multicriteria decision methods to support decision making on complex problems such as risk control and accidents prevention.

A study on the performance of technology transfer units

Universities are increasingly institutionalizing activities related to technology transfer and one of the main institutional mechanisms that has emerged is the “technology transfer unit” (TTU). Many of them are focusing their activities on the management of the university intellectual property. Studies have investigated factors that seem to affect their performance, but few have looked in detail at internal procedures and techniques that are used in their processes related to technology evaluation and licensing. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of some of the several steps that comprises the processes regarding technology evaluation and licensing, providing an analysis of the critical issues that affect each step of the process. A review of the literature was made, complemented with interviews to seven university TTUs, which was used as a check and a complement to the literature review and as way of perceiving from an insider perspective, the problems and issues that this paper wants to emphasize and to state clearly.

Plataforma para suporte ao ciclo de vida de organizações virtuais e seleção dinâmica de parceiros e fornecedores

Tese de Doutoramento em Engenharia Industrial e de Sistemas

Rádio e internet: o desafio pode ser começar de novo

[Excerto] Num livro recente, sob o título As notícias – um manual do utilizador, o filósofo britânico, Alain de Botton, diz-nos que vivemos, no presente, num estado de permanente aborrecimento e confusão. “Todos nos damos conta, com frequência, de estar perante uma notícia de enorme importância que não nos desperta qualquer interesse”, diz o autor, para acrescentar que essa postura tem origem numa formatação narrativa, cada vez mais disseminada, que nos mergulha por breves instantes numa história complexa e que de seguida nos faz avançar para outra experiência semelhante.

Fendas de secagem em vigas de madeira: causas, efeitos na capacidade resistente e métodos de reparação

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Civil

Why should we expect worlds to collide? - Exploratory reflections departing from a case study analysis of “Jornal de Notícias” (Portugal)

As 2008 came to a close the avalanche of discourse on the demise of newspapers (and traditional media in general) grew to such an extent that consideration of any alternative scenario became almost difficult to utter. Academic articles, conferences, newspaper and magazine features were abundantly produced on thematic variations which went from ‘The End of Newspapers’ to ‘The End of Journalism’ (testing these expressions in a popular search engine we can easily get in excess of 23 thousand references for the first one and over 290 thousand references for the second one and there is even a dedicated ‘Newspaper Death Watch’ site with constant updates). The broad assumption of this production – particularly the one that identifies one possibility with the other – revolves around notions like the collapse of rigid business models, the breakdown of producer/user fidelity/trust, and the failings of a self-centred and entrenched professional (the journalist). The present seems to be enunciated as a ‘the end of days’ period, with images of irrevocable perdition funnelling our reasoning towards one single possible outcome – the imperious necessity of complete reinvention, not necessarily with the same agents.

O telejornalismo: um estudo sobre as diferenças de um canal informativo e um canal generalista da mesma estação

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ciências da Comunicação (área de especialização em Informação e Jornalismo)

Au revoir, Portugal: a influência do ambiente sociocultural nas rotinas produtivas: análise dos noticiários da manhã da Alfa e da Renascença

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ciências de Comunicação (área de especialização em Informação e Jornalismo)

Dificuldades de expansão da infografia interativa: um problema de produção e receção

Dissertação de mestrado em Media Interativos

D. António Barroso e as potencialidades do turismo religioso em Remelhe (Barcelos, norte de Portugal)

Dissertação de mestrado em Património e Turismo Cultural

Sensitive label-free electron chemical capacitive transducer signal for D-dimer electroanalyses

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2015.09.169.

As cores de Braga: levantamento cromático da rua do Souto e da rua D. Diogo de Sousa

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Arquitectura (área de especialização em Cultura Arquitectónica)

Outsourcing de serviços de sistemas de informação na banca em Portugal

Ao longo das últimas d��cadas a função sistemas de informação (SI) evoluiu e tornou-se verdadeiramente fundamental no seio das organizações. Apesar de esta evid��ncia, nem sempre as organizações dispõem dos recursos internos e do know-how necessário para a desenvolver. O outsourcing de serviços de SI tem vindo a apresentar-se como uma alternativa e opção estratégica no contexto da gestão desta função em muitas organizações e em vários setores de atividade. Desenvolver uma melhor compreensão sobre as principais práticas de outsourcing de serviços de SI no setor da banca, dadas as particularidades que apresenta (por exemplo relativamente aos requisitos de confidencialidade e sigilo), constitui o objetivo central deste trabalho. Para tal, foi realizado um inquérito baseado em questionário com o intuito de caraterizar, entre outros aspetos, os serviços sujeitos a outsourcing, as principais motivações, riscos, barreiras e impactos associados ao outsourcing, bem como aspetos de contratação, relação cliente-fornecedor e satisfação. Os principais resultados obtidos são apresentados neste artigo.

A novel approach for honey pollen profile assessment using an electronic tongue and chemometric tools

Nowadays the main honey producing countries require accurate labeling of honey before commercialization, including floral classification. Traditionally, this classification is made by melissopalynology analysis, an accurate but time-consuming task requiring laborious sample pre-treatment and high-skilled technicians. In this work the potential use of a potentiometric electronic tongue for pollinic assessment is evaluated, using monofloral and polyfloral honeys. The results showed that after splitting honeys according to color (white, amber and dark), the novel methodology enabled quantifying the relative percentage of the main pollens (Castanea sp., Echium sp., Erica sp., Eucaliptus sp., Lavandula sp., Prunus sp., Rubus sp. and Trifolium sp.). Multiple linear regression models were established for each type of pollen, based on the best sensors sub-sets selected using the simulated annealing algorithm. To minimize the overfitting risk, a repeated K-fold cross-validation procedure was implemented, ensuring that at least 10-20% of the honeys were used for internal validation. With this approach, a minimum average determination coefficient of 0.91 ± 0.15 was obtained. Also, the proposed technique enabled the correct classification of 92% and 100% of monofloral and polyfloral honeys, respectively. The quite satisfactory performance of the novel procedure for quantifying the relative pollen frequency may envisage its applicability for honey labeling and geographical origin identification. Nevertheless, this approach is not a full alternative to the traditional melissopalynologic analysis; it may be seen as a practical complementary tool for preliminary honey floral classification, leaving only problematic cases for pollinic evaluation.

Towards automated test and validation of SIP solutions

IP networks are currently the major communication infrastructure used by an increasing number of applications and heterogeneous services, including voice services. In this context, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol widely used for controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice or video calls over IP networks, thus performing vital functions in an extensive set of public and enter- prise solutions. However, the SIP protocol dissemination also entails some challenges, such as the complexity associated with the testing/validation processes of IMS/SIP networks. As a consequence, manual IMS/SIP testing solutions are inherently costly and time consuming tasks, being crucial to develop automated approaches in this specific area. In this perspective, this article presents an experimental approach for automated testing/validation of SIP scenarios in IMS networks. For that purpose, an automation framework is proposed allowing to replicate the configuration of SIP equipment from the pro- duction network and submit such equipment to a battery of tests in the testing network. The proposed solution allows to drastically reduce the test and validation times when compared with traditional manual approaches, also allowing to enhance testing reliability and coverage. The automation framework comprises of some freely available tools which are conveniently integrated with other specific modules implemented within the context of this work. In order to illustrate the advantages of the proposed automated framework, a real case study taken from a PT Inovação customer is presented comparing the time required to perform a manual SIP testing approach with the one time required when using the proposed auto- mated framework. The presented results clearly corroborate the advantages of using the presented framework.