A comunicação estratégica aplicada à divulgação da ciência: o caso do Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade

A ciência é uma atividade que torna possível o desenvolvimento tecnológico, social, cultural e económico. É importante avaliar a forma como o mundo científico comunica, nomeadamente a capacidade de adequação da comunicação da ciência às novas ferramentas e às respetivas formas de interação com os públicos. Referimo-nos à comunicação digital que traz potencialidades acrescidas, face à comunicação tradicional. Na verdade, procuraremos demonstrar que o investimento que é feito na comunicação online, inserida numa estratégia de comunicação sólida e coerente, pode trazer benefícios acrescidos à divulgação científica. O Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade tem, como preocupação primária, a divulgação dos resultados da sua investigação. A atual inquietação à volta do desinvestimento na ciência torna a avaliação das políticas de comunicação levadas a cabo no CECS uma necessidade premente, para demonstrar a importância da sua atividade e do financiamento necessário à sua prossecução. Neste contexto, esta investigação procura desvendar a importância da comunicação online, no âmbito da comunicação da ciência e da investigação científica. Para este efeito, faremos uma auditoria de comunicação focando-nos nas ferramentas de comunicação online do CECS, procurando perceber a importância da utilização destas na estratégia de divulgação científica.

As fontes jornalísticas na era digital: relações e encenação

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

SOFHIA: a CAD environment to design digital control systems

"Series Title: IFIP - The International Federation for Information Processing, ISSN 1868-4238"

O contributo da narrativa digital para o desenvolvimento da fala num caso de Rubinstein-Taybi: estudo de caso

Dissertação de mestrado em Ciências da Educação (área de especialização em Tecnologia Educativa)

Skin-derived cell-sheets as powerful tools to engineer skin analogues

Cell/cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) dynamic interactions appear to have a major role in regulating communication through soluble signaling, directing cell binding and activating substrates that participate in the highly organized wound healing process. Moreover, these interactions are also crucial for in vitro mimicking cutaneous physiology. Herein we explore cell sheet (CS) engineering to create cellular constructs formed by keratinocytes (hKC), fibroblasts (hDFB) and dermal microvascular endothelial cells (hDMEC), to target skin wound healing but also the in vitro recreation of relevant models. Taking advantage of temperature-responsive culture surfaces, which allow harvesting cultured cells as intact sheets along with the deposited native ECM, varied combinations of homotypic and heterotypic three-dimensional (3-D) CS-based constructs were developed. Constructs combining one CS of keratinocytes as an epidermis-like layer plus a vascularized dermis composed by hDFB and hDMECs were assembled as skin analogues for advancing in vitro testing. Simultaneously both hKC and hDMEC were shown to significantly contribute to the re-epithelialization of full-thickness mice skin wounds by promoting an early epithelial coverage, while hDMEC significantly lead to increased vessels density, incorporating the neovasculature. Thus, although determined by the cellular nature of the constructs, these outcomes demonstrated that CS engineering appear as an unique technology that open the possibility to create numerous combinations of 3D constructs to target defective wound healing as well as the construction of in vitro models to further mimic cutaneous functions crucial for drug screening and cosmetic testing assays.

"Virar a Sala de Aula”: centrar a aprendizagem no aluno recorrendo a ferramentas cognitivas

Relatório de projeto de mestrado em Ensino de Informática

Comparing standard and low-cost tools for gradient evaluation along potential cycling paths

Promoting the use of non-motorized modes of transport, such as cycling, is an important contribution to the improvement of mobility, accessibility and equity in cities. Cycling offers a fast and cheap transportation option for short distances, helping to lower pollutant emissions and contributing to a healthier way of life. In order to make the cycling mode more competitive in relation to motorized traffic, it is necessary to evaluate the potential of alternatives from the perspective of the physical effort. One way to do so consists of assessing the suitability of locations for implementing cycling infrastructures. In this work, four tools to determine the gradient along potential cycling paths are compared. Furthermore, an evaluation of the reliability of some low-cost tools to measure this parameter was conducted, by comparison with standard measurements using cartographic plans, on a field case study applied to the city of Braga, Portugal. These tools revealed a good level of accuracy for the planning stage, but proved to be less reliable for use in design.

Affordable prefabricated modular houses using cement and polymer based materials and advanced design tools

By taking advantage of the appropriate use of cement and polymer based materials and advanced computational tools, a pre-fabricated affordable house was built in a modular system. Modular system refers to the complete structure that is built-up by assembling pre-fabricated sandwich panels composed of steel fibre reinforced self-compacting concrete (SFRSCC) outer layers that are connected by innovative glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) connectors, resulting in a panel with adequate structural, acoustic, and thermal insulation properties. The modular house was prepared for a typical family of six members, but its living area can be easily increased by assembling other pre-fabricated elements. The speed of construction and the cost of the constructive elements make these houses competitive when compared to traditional solutions. In this paper the relevant research subjacent to this project (LEGOUSE) is briefly described, as well as the construction process of the built real scale prototype.

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.

Process simulation support in BPM tools: The case of BPMN

Due to the increasing acceptance of BPM, nowadays BPM tools are extensively used in organizations. Core to BPM are the process modeling languages, of which BPMN is the one that has been receiving most attention these days. Once a business process is described using BPMN, one can use a process simulation approach in order to find its optimized form. In this context, the simulation of business processes, such as those defined in BPMN, appears as an obvious way of improving processes. This paper analyzes the business process modeling and simulation areas, identifying the elements that must be present in the BPMN language in order to allow processes described in BPMN to be simulated. During this analysis a set of existing BPM tools, which support BPMN, are compared regarding their limitations in terms of simulation support.

Algorithms and tools for in silico design of cell factories

PhD thesis in Bioengineering

Educação para a sustentabilidade: O uso de Sistemas de Informação Geográfica Participativos como instrumento de participação de crianças e adolescentes na construção de sociedades mais sustentáveis

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Educação (Área de Conhecimento: Educação ambiental e para a Sustentabilidade)

Improvign mixing processes with the help of numerical tools

In several industrial applications, highly complex behaviour materials are used together with intricate mixing processes, which difficult the achievement of the desired properties for the produced materials. This is the case of the well-known dispersion of nano-sized fillers in a melt polymer matrix, used to improve the nanocomposite mechanical and/or electrical properties. This mixing is usually performed in twin-screw extruders, that promote complex flow patterns, and, since an in loco analysis of the material evolution and mixing is difficult to perform, numerical tools can be very useful to predict the evolution and behaviour of the material. This work presents a numerical based study to improve the understanding of mixing processes. Initial numerical studies were performed with generalized Newtonian fluids, but, due to the null relaxation time that characterize this type of fluids, the assumption of viscoelastic behavior was required. Therefore, the polymer melt was rheologically characterized, and, a six mode Phan-Thien-Tanner and Giesekus models were used to fit the rheological data. These viscoelastic rheological models were used to model the process. The conclusions obtained in this work provide additional and useful data to correlate the type and intensity of the deformation history promoted to the polymer nanocomposite and the quality of the mixing obtained.

Development of computational tools for the integrated analysis of DNA microarray data with applications in cancer research

The MAP-i Doctoral Program of the Universities of Minho, Aveiro and Porto

Gd2O3: Eu3+/PPO/POPOP/PS composites for digital imaging radiation detectors

Polymer based scintillator composites have been produced by combining polystyrene (PS) and Gd2O3:Eu3+ scintillator nanoparticles. Polystyrene has been used since it is a flexible and stable binder matrix, resistant to thermal and light deterioration and with suitable optical properties. Gd2O3:Eu3+ has been selected as scintillator material due to its wide band gap, high density and visible light yield. The optical, thermal and electrical characteristics of the composites were studied as a function of filler content, together with their performance as scintillator material. Additionally 1wt.% of 2,5 dipheniloxazol (PPO) and 0.01wt.% of (1,4-bis(2-(5-phenioxazolil))-benzol (POPOP) were introduced in the polymer matrix in order to strongly improve light yield, i.e. the measured intensity of the output visible radiation, under X-ray irradiation. Whereas increasing scintillator filler concentration (from 0.25wt.% to 7.5wt.%) increases scintillator light yield, decreases the optical transparency of the composite. The addition of PPO and POPOP, strongly increased the overall 2 transduction performance of the composite due to specific absorption and re-emission processes. It is thus shown that Gd2O3:Eu3+/PPO/POPOP/PS composites in 0.25 wt.% of scintillator content with fluorescence molecules is suitable for the development of innovate large area X-ray radiation detectors with huge demand from the industries.