Quality costs analysis: case study in the automotive industry

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial

Step towards of a homemade business intelligence solution: A case study in textile industry

Nowadays, organizations are increasingly looking to invest in business intelligence solutions, mainly private companies in order to get advantage over its competitors, however they do not know what is necessary. Business intelligence allows an analysis of consolidated information in order to obtain more specific outlets and certain indications in order to support the decision making process. You can take the right decision based on the data collected from different information systems present in the organization and outside of them. The textile sector is a sector where concept of Business Intelligence it is not many explored yet. Actually there are few textile companies that have a BI platform. Thus, the article objective is present an architecture and show all the steps by which companies need to spend to implement a successful free homemade Business Intelligence system. As result the proposed approach it was validated using real data aiming assess the steps defined.

The role of social cognition and motor imagery in gesture processing: a patients' study

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Psicologia

A VEP study in sleeping and awake one-month-old infants and its relation with social behavior

With the present study we aimed to analyze the relationship between infants' behavior and their visual evoked-potential (VEPs) response. Specifically, we want to verify differences regarding the VEP response in sleeping and awake infants and if an association between VEP components, in both groups, with neurobehavioral outcome could be identified. To do so, thirty-two full-term and healthy infants, approximately 1-month of age, were assessed through a VEP unpatterned flashlight stimuli paradigm, offered in two different intensities, and were assessed using a neurobehavioral scale. However, only 18 infants have both assessments, and therefore, these is the total included in both analysis. Infants displayed a mature neurobehavioral outcome, expected for their age. We observed that P2 and N3 components were present in both sleeping and awake infants. Differences between intensities were found regarding the P2 amplitude, but only in awake infants. Regression analysis showed that N3 amplitude predicted an adequate social interactive and internal regulatory behavior in infants who were awake during the stimuli presentation. Taking into account that social orientation and regulatory behaviors are fundamental keys for social-like behavior in 1-month-old infants, this study provides an important approach for assessing physiological biomarkers (VEPs) and its relation with social behavior, very early in postnatal development. Moreover, we evidence the importance of the infant's state when studying differences regarding visual threshold processing and its association with behavioral outcome.

Antibiofilm strategies in the food industry

Biofilms in food processing plants represent not only a problem to human health but also cause economic losses by technical failure in several systems. In fact, many foodborne outbreaks have been found to be associated with biofilms. Biofilms may be prevented by regular cleaning and disinfection, but this does not completely prevent biofilm formation. Besides, due to their diversity and to the development of specialized phenotypes, it is well known that biofilms are more resistant to cleaning and disinfection than planktonic microorganisms. In recent years, a considerable effort has been made in the prevention of microbial adhesion and biofilm formation on food processing surfaces and novel technologies have been introduced. In this context, this chapter discusses the main conventional and emergent strategies that have been employed to prevent bacterial adhesion to food processing surfaces and thus to efficiently maintain good hygiene throughout the food industries.

Thermal technologies in food processing

[Excerpt] Introduction: Thermal processing is probably the most important process in food industry that has been used since prehistoric times, when it was discovered that heat enhanced the palatability and the life of the heat-treated food. Thermal processing comprehends the heating of foods at a defined temperature for a certain length of time. However, in some foods, the high thermotolerance of certain enzymes and microorganisms, their physical properties (e.g.,highviscosity),ortheircomponents(e.g.,solidfractions) require the application of extreme heat treatments that not only are energy intensive, but also will adversely affect the nutritional and organoleptic properties of the food. Technologies such as ohmic heating, dielectric heating (which includes microwave heating and radiofrequency heating), inductive heating, and infrared heating are available to replace, or complement, the traditional heat-dependent technologies (heating through superheated steam, hot air, hot water, or other hot liquid, being the heating achieved either through direct contact with those agents – mostly superheated steam – or through contact with a hot surface which is in turn heated by such agents). Given that the “traditional” heatdependent technologies are thoroughly described in the literature, this text will be mainly devoted to the so-called “novel” thermal technologies. (...)

Defining risk acceptance criteria in occupational settings: A case study in the furniture industrial sector

The use of appropriate acceptance criteria in the risk assessment process for occupational accidents is an important issue but often overlooked in the literature, particularly when new risk assessment methods are proposed and discussed. In most cases, there is no information on how or by whom they were defined, or even how companies can adapt them to their own circumstances. Bearing this in mind, this study analysed the problem of the definition of risk acceptance criteria for occupational settings, defining the quantitative acceptance criteria for the specific case study of the Portuguese furniture industrial sector. The key steps to be considered in formulating acceptance criteria were analysed in the literature review. By applying the identified steps, the acceptance criteria for the furniture industrial sector were then defined. The Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) for the injury statistics of the industrial sector was identified as the maximum tolerable risk level. The acceptable threshold was defined by adjusting the CDF to the Occupational, Safety & Health (OSH) practitioners’ risk acceptance judgement. Adjustments of acceptance criteria to the companies’ safety cultures were exemplified by adjusting the Burr distribution parameters. An example of a risk matrix was also used to demonstrate the integration of the defined acceptance criteria into a risk metric. This work has provided substantial contributions to the issue of acceptance criteria for occupational accidents, which may be useful in overcoming the practical difficulties faced by authorities, companies and experts.

Cost-effective energy and carbon emission optimization in building renovation – A case-study in a low income neighbourhood

Construction sector is one of the major responsible for energy consumption and carbon emissions and renovation of existing buildings plays an important role in the actions to mitigate climate changes. Present work is based on the methodology developed in IEA Annex 56, allowing identifying cost optimal and cost effective renovation scenarios improving the energy performance. The analysed case study is a residential neighbourhood of the municipality of Gaia in Portugal. The analysis compares a reference renovation scenario (without improving the energy performance of the building) with a series of alternative renovation scenarios, including the one that is being implemented.

Abnormalities in the processing of emotional prosody from single words in schizophrenia

Background: Abnormalities in emotional prosody processing have been consistently reported in schizophrenia and are related to poor social outcomes. However, the role of stimulus complexity in abnormal emotional prosody processing is still unclear. Method: We recorded event-related potentials in 16 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 16 healthy controls to investigate: 1) the temporal course of emotional prosody processing; and 2) the relative contribution of prosodic and semantic cues in emotional prosody processing. Stimuli were prosodic single words presented in two conditions: with intelligible (semantic content condition—SCC) and unintelligible semantic content (pure prosody condition—PPC). Results: Relative to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients showed reduced P50 for happy PPC words, and reduced N100 for both neutral and emotional SCC words and for neutral PPC stimuli. Also, increased P200 was observed in schizophrenia for happy prosody in SCC only. Behavioral results revealed higher error rates in schizophrenia for angry prosody in SCC and for happy prosody in PPC. Conclusions: Together, these data further demonstrate the interactions between abnormal sensory processes and higher-order processes in bringing about emotional prosody processing dysfunction in schizophrenia. They further suggest that impaired emotional prosody processing is dependent on stimulus complexity.

Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale: a psychometric study in a Portuguese sample

Background: The Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS, Brazelton & Nugent, 1995) is an instrument conceived to observe the neonatal neurobehavior. Data analysis is usually performed by organizing items into groups. The most widely used data reduction for the NBAS was developed by Lester, Als, and Brazelton (1982). Objective: Examine the psychometric properties of the NBAS items in a sample of 213 Portuguese infants. Method: The NBAS was performed in the first week of infant life (3 days±2) and in the seventh week of life (52 days±5). Results: Principal component analyses yielded a solution of four components explaining 55.13% of total variance. Construct validity was supported by better neurobehavioral performance of 7-week-old infants compared with 1-week-old infants. Conclusion: Changes in the NBAS structure for the Portuguese sample are suggested compared to Lester factors in order to reach better internal consistency of the scale.