A loucura e o cinema: representações cinematográficas de personalidade limite

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Audiovisual e Multimédia.

A Força Aérea Portuguesa e o voo nas redes sociais

Trabalho de projeto apresentado à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Publicidade e Marketing.

Impact of a 1755-like tsunami in Huelva, Spain

Coastal areas are highly exposed to natural hazards associated with the sea. In all cases where there is historical evidence for devastating tsunamis, as is the case of the southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, there is a need for quantitative hazard tsunami assessment to support spatial planning. Also, local authorities must be able to act towards the population protection in a preemptive way, to inform 'what to do' and 'where to go' and in an alarm, to make people aware of the incoming danger. With this in mind, we investigated the inundation extent, run-up and water depths, of a 1755-like event on the region of Huelva, located on the Spanish southwestern coast, one of the regions that was affected in the past by several high energy events, as proved by historical documents and sedimentological data. Modelling was made with a slightly modified version of the COMCOT (Cornell Multi-grid Coupled Tsunami Model) code. Sensitivity tests were performed for a single source in order to understand the relevance and influence of the source parameters in the inundation extent and the fundamental impact parameters. We show that a 1755-like event will have a dramatic impact in a large area close to Huelva inundating an area between 82 and 92 km(2) and reaching maximum run-up around 5 m. In this sense our results show that small variations on the characteristics of the tsunami source are not too significant for the impact assessment. We show that the maximum flow depth and the maximum run-up increase with the average slip on the source, while the strike of the fault is not a critical factor as Huelva is significantly far away from the potential sources identified up to now. We also show that the maximum flow depth within the inundated area is very dependent on the tidal level, while maximum run-up is less affected, as a consequence of the complex morphology of the area.

Individual pension information: Recommendations for the case of Spain based on the experiences of other countries

The aim of this paper is to establish some basic guidelines to help draft the information letter sent to individual contributors should it be decided to use this model in the Spanish public pension system. With this end in mind and basing our work on the experiences of the most advanced countries in the field and the pioneering papers by Jackson (2005), Larsson et al. (2008) and Sunden (2009), we look into the concept of “individual pension information” and identify its most relevant characteristics. We then give a detailed description of two models, those in the United States and Sweden, and in particular look at how they are structured, what aspects could be improved and what their limitations are. Finally we make some recommendations of special interest for designing the model for Spain.

Grid Integration of Offshore Wind Farms Using Modular Marx Multilevel Converters

This paper proposes the use of a Modular Marx Multilevel Converter, as a solution for energy integration between an offshore Wind Farm and the power grid network. The Marx modular multilevel converter is based on the Marx generator, and solves two typical problems in this type of multilevel topologies: modularity and dc capacitor voltage balancing. This paper details the strategy for dc capacitor voltage equalization. The dynamic models of the converter and power grid are presented in order to design the converter ac output voltages and the dc capacitor voltage controller. The average current control is presented and used for power flow control, harmonics and reactive power compensation. Simulation results are presented in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed (MC)-C-3 topology.

Notice on a methodology for characterizing emissions of ultrafine particles/nanoparticles in microenvironments

Bearing in mind the potential adverse health effects of ultrafine particles, it is of paramount importance to perform effective monitoring of nanosized particles in several microenvironments, which may include ambient air, indoor air, and also occupational environments. In fact, effective and accurate monitoring is the first step to obtaining a set of data that could be used further on to perform subsequent evaluations such as risk assessment and epidemiologic studies, thus proposing good working practices such as containment measures in order to reduce occupational exposure. This paper presents a useful methodology for monitoring ultrafine particles/nanoparticles in several microenvironments, using online analyzers and also sampling systems that allow further characterization on collected nanoparticles. This methodology was validated in three case studies presented in the paper, which assess monitoring of nanosized particles in the outdoor atmosphere, during cooking operations, and in a welding workshop.

The wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles: royal mediation and press mediatization

Bearing in mind the relationship between discourse and society at large, this article addresses the way the British monarchy represented Charles’s second marriage and the way the media constructed their accounts in the period from 10 February (announcement) until 9 April 2005 (wedding) in relation to wider issues such as power relations, newspaper economic structures and popular culture. Particular attention is paid to the multifunctional features of discourse (i.e. its ideational, interpersonal and textual functions), which requires a contextualized reading of a dual process of mediation: on the one hand, the staging of the ceremony by St. James’s Palace and its strategy for attaining monologic closure and, on the other hand, discursive representations by the British press open to a polyphony of voices and discursive frames

James W. Carey as critical theorist of the information age

This paper suggests that the thought of the North-American critical theorist James W. Carey provides a relevant perspective on communication and technology. Having as background American social pragmatism and progressive thinkers of the beginning of the 20th century (as Dewey, Mead, Cooley, and Park), Carey built a perspective that brought together the political economy of Harold A. Innis, the social criticism of David Riesman and Charles W. Mills and incorporated Marxist topics such as commodification and sociocultural domination. The main goal of this paper is to explore the connection established by Carey between modern technological communication and what he called the “transmissive model”, a model which not only reduces the symbolic process of communication to instrumentalization and to information delivery, but also politically converges with capitalism as well as power, control and expansionist goals. Conceiving communication as a process that creates symbolic and cultural systems, in which and through which social life takes place, Carey gives equal emphasis to the incorporation processes of communication.If symbolic forms and culture are ways of conditioning action, they are also influenced by technological and economic materializations of symbolic systems, and by other conditioning structures. In Carey’s view, communication is never a disembodied force; rather, it is a set of practices in which co-exist conceptions, techniques and social relations. These practices configure reality or, alternatively, can refute, transform and celebrate it. Exhibiting sensitiveness favourable to the historical understanding of communication, media and information technologies, one of the issues Carey explored most was the history of the telegraph as an harbinger of the Internet, of its problems and contradictions. For Carey, Internet was seen as the contemporary heir of the communications revolution triggered by the prototype of transmission technologies, namely the telegraph in the 19th century. In the telegraph Carey saw the prototype of many subsequent commercial empires based on science and technology, a pioneer model for complex business management; an example of conflict of interest for the control over patents; an inducer of changes both in language and in structures of knowledge; and a promoter of a futurist and utopian thought of information technologies. After a brief approach to Carey’s communication theory, this paper focuses on his seminal essay "Technology and ideology. The case of the telegraph", bearing in mind the prospect of the communication revolution introduced by Internet. We maintain that this essay has seminal relevance for critically studying the information society. Our reading of it highlights the reach, as well as the problems, of an approach which conceives the innovation of the telegraph as a metaphor for all innovations, announcing the modern stage of history and determining to this day the major lines of development in modern communication systems.

The telegraph as an omen of the future in James W. Carey's vision

In the history of modern communication, after the development of the printing press, the telegraph unleashed a revolution in communications. Today, Internet is in many ways its heir. Reflections on the telegraph may open up perspectives concerning tendencies, possibilities and pitfalls of the Internet. The telegraph has been well explored in important literature on communication and media which tends to emphasize the history of this technology, its social context and institutional meaning [e.g. Robert L. Thompson, 1947, Tom Standage, 2007 [1998]. James W. Carey, the North- American critical cultural studies' mentor, in his essay "Technology and Ideology. The Case of the Telegraph" (2009 [1983]), suggests a distinctive approach. In the telegraph, Carey sees the prototype of many subsequent commercial empires based on science and technology, a pioneer model for complex business management; an example of interest struggle for the patents control; an inductor of changes both in language and in structures of knowledge; and a promoter of a futurist and utopian thought of information technologies. Having in mind a revolution in communications promoted by the Internet, this paper revisits this seminal essay to explore its great attainment, as well as the problems of this kind of approach which conceives the innovation of the telegraph as a metaphor for all the innovations announcing the modern stage of history and determining still today the major lines of development in modern communication systems.

Alice's anima or the obligation of a reading transliteracy

This paper suggests an analysis of "Inanimate Alice" by Kate Pullinger, Chris Joseph and Ian Harper as an example of a transmedia narrative that triggers a new reading experience whilst proposing a literary alterity between reading and performance. Narrative experiences that elect the visual plasticity, interchanging games and tactility as drivers of the creative process are not new. Yet, narrative experiences, which have been created in the gap between reality and fiction, have found on the digital realm the perfect environment to multiple hybrid experiences. Bearing in mind Walter Benjamin’s concept of Erlebnis and Erfahrung, a critical analysis of this digital fiction tries to illustrate how literary art finds its space and time in a metamorphosed continuum only activated by the “patient reader”. All the multimedia hybrids, which this digital literary work may have, challenge readers to interpret different signals and poetic structures that most of readers might not be accustomed to; however even among a cognitive dissonance, meaning is found and reading happens only if time, space and attention are available. All possible transmedia literacies can only respond to this experience of online reading, if they are able to focus and draw attention not to a simple new behaviour or a single new practice, but to a demanding state of affairs that assemble different objective and subjective value forms.

On lattices from combinatorial game theory modularity and a representation theorem: finite case

We show that a self-generated set of combinatorial games, S. may not be hereditarily closed but, strong self-generation and hereditary closure are equivalent in the universe of short games. In [13], the question "Is there a set which will give a non-distributive but modular lattice?" appears. A useful necessary condition for the existence of a finite non-distributive modular L(S) is proved. We show the existence of S such that L(S) is modular and not distributive, exhibiting the first known example. More, we prove a Representation Theorem with Games that allows the generation of all finite lattices in game context. Finally, a computational tool for drawing lattices of games is presented. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Low-cost vibration sensors: tendencies and applications in condition monitoring of machines and structures

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica