Teaching accounting and management through business simulation:

Everyday accounting and management teachers face the challenge of creating learning environments that motivate students. This chapter describes the Business Simulation (BS) experience that has taken place at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Institute of Accounting and Administration (IPP/ISCAP). The chapter presents students’ perceptions about the course and the teaching/learning approach. The results show that pedagogical methods used (competency-oriented), generic competencies (cooperation and group work), and interpersonal skills (organisational and communication skills) are relevant for future accounting professionals. In addition, positive remarks and possible constraints based on observation, staff meetings, and past research are reported. The chapter concludes with some recommendations from the project implementation.

Sistemas e tecnologias de informação em hospitais públicos: instrumentos de gestão e de apoio à tomada de decisão: estudo de caso em Portugal – região do Grande Porto

Dissertação para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Contabilidade e Finanças Orientador: Mestre Rui Filipe Pereira Bertuzi da Silva Coorientador: Mestre Paulino Manuel Leite da Silva Coorientador: Doutor António José Balloni – GESITI/CTI

Práticas de segurança da informação: um estudo de caso num centro hospitalar

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção de grau de Mestre em Auditoria, sob a orientação de Luís Silva Rodrigues

Media Brokerage: Agent-Based SLA Negotiation

Media content personalisation is a major challenge involving viewers as well as media content producer and distributor businesses. The goal is to provide viewers with media items aligned with their interests. Producers and distributors engage in item negotiations to establish the corresponding service level agreements (SLA). In order to address automated partner lookup and item SLA negotiation, this paper proposes the MultiMedia Brokerage (MMB) platform, which is a multiagent system that negotiates SLA regarding media items on behalf of media content producer and distributor businesses. The MMB platform is structured in four service layers: interface, agreement management, business modelling and market. In this context, there are: (i) brokerage SLA (bSLA), which are established between individual businesses and the platform regarding the provision of brokerage services; and (ii) item SLA (iSLA), which are established between producer and distributor businesses about the provision of media items. In particular, this paper describes the negotiation, establishment and enforcement of bSLA and iSLA, which occurs at the agreement and negotiation layers, respectively. The platform adopts a pay-per-use business model where the bSLA define the general conditions that apply to the related iSLA. To illustrate this process, we present a case study describing the negotiation of a bSLA instance and several related iSLA instances. The latter correspond to the negotiation of the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for a specific end viewer.

Virtual Power Players Internal Negotiation and Management in MASCEM

Electricity Markets are not only a new reality but an evolving one as the involved players and rules change at a relatively high rate. Multi-agent simulation combined with Artificial Intelligence techniques may result in very helpful sophisticated tools. This paper presents a new methodology for the management of coalitions in electricity markets. This approach is tested using the multi-agent market simulator MASCEM (Multi-Agent Simulator of Competitive Electricity Markets), taking advantage of its ability to provide the means to model and simulate Virtual Power Players (VPP). VPPs are represented as coalitions of agents, with the capability of negotiating both in the market and internally, with their members in order to combine and manage their individual specific characteristics and goals, with the strategy and objectives of the VPP itself. A case study using real data from the Iberian Electricity Market is performed to validate and illustrate the proposed approach.

Domestic Consumption Simulation and Management Using a Continuous Consumption Management and Optimization Algorithm

The recent changes concerning the consumers’ active participation in the efficient management of load devices for one’s own interest and for the interest of the network operator, namely in the context of demand response, leads to the need for improved algorithms and tools. A continuous consumption optimization algorithm has been improved in order to better manage the shifted demand. It has been done in a simulation and user-interaction tool capable of being integrated in a multi-agent smart grid simulator already developed, and also capable of integrating several optimization algorithms to manage real and simulated loads. The case study of this paper enhances the advantages of the proposed algorithm and the benefits of using the developed simulation and user interaction tool.

Simulador de sistema de informação ao público para rede de transportes metro-ferroviária

O aumento da complexidade e das funcionalidades a fornecer pelos equipamentos de apoio à exploração de sistemas de redes de transporte criou um novo paradigma no qual vários intervenientes são chamados a fornecer módulos. Estes devem comunicar entre si de forma transparente, não devendo haver limitações colocadas pela tecnologia utilizada ou pelo facto de serem de fabricantes distintos. Este projeto de dissertação resulta de uma proposta da empresa EFACEC para a construção de um Simulador de um Sistema de Informação ao Público numa rede de transportes metro-ferroviária, que utilize como interface para comunicação com a plataforma de gestão EFARail a tecnologia de Web Services. Nesta dissertação faz-se um levantamento dos principais equipamentos utilizados em Sistemas de Informação ao Público e das funcionalidades disponibilizadas, assim como dastecnologias de Web Services que permitem responder aos requisitos e funcionalidades gerais do sistema. A aplicação desenvolvida permite a simulação duma rede de equipamentos visuais e sonoros de informação ao público que compõem uma linha metro-ferroviária. Desta forma é possível testar novos módulos sem necessidade de uma integração em ambiente real. Com isto pretende-se otimizar o processo de desenvolvimento, diminuindo os custos associados ao teste dos sub-sistemas que compõem a solução.

Cantor exchange systems and renormalization

We prove a one-to-one correspondence between (i) C1+ conjugacy classes of C1+H Cantor exchange systems that are C1+H fixed points of renormalization and (ii) C1+ conjugacy classes of C1+H diffeomorphisms f with a codimension 1 hyperbolic attractor Lambda that admit an invariant measure absolutely continuous with respect to the Hausdorff measure on Lambda. However, we prove that there is no C1+alpha Cantor exchange system, with bounded geometry, that is a C1+alpha fixed point of renormalization with regularity alpha greater than the Hausdorff dimension of its invariant Cantor set.

Arc exchange systems and renormalization

We exhibit the construction of stable arc exchange systems from the stable laminations of hyperbolic diffeomorphisms. We prove a one-to-one correspondence between (i) Lipshitz conjugacy classes of C(1+H) stable arc exchange systems that are C(1+H) fixed points of renormalization and (ii) Lipshitz conjugacy classes of C(1+H) diffeomorphisms f with hyperbolic basic sets Lambda that admit an invariant measure absolutely continuous with respect to the Hausdorff measure on Lambda. Let HD(s)(Lambda) and HD(u)(Lambda) be, respectively, the Hausdorff dimension of the stable and unstable leaves intersected with the hyperbolic basic set L. If HD(u)(Lambda) = 1, then the Lipschitz conjugacy is, in fact, a C(1+H) conjugacy in (i) and (ii). We prove that if the stable arc exchange system is a C(1+HDs+alpha) fixed point of renormalization with bounded geometry, then the stable arc exchange system is smooth conjugate to an affine stable arc exchange system.

Autonomous guided vehicles applied to industrial engineering and management studies

This article presents a framework to an Industrial Engineering and Management Science course from School of Management and Industrial Studies using Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGV) to supply materials to a production line as an experimental setup for the students to acquire knowledge in the production robotics area. The students must be capable to understand and put into good use several concepts that will be of utmost importance in their professional life such as critical decisions regarding the study, development and implementation of a production line. The main focus is a production line using AGVs, where the students are required to address several topics such as: sensors actuators, controllers and an high level management and optimization software. The presented framework brings to the robotics teaching community methodologies that allow students from different backgrounds, that normally don’t experiment with the robotics concepts in practice due to the big gap between theory and practice, to go straight to ”making” robotics. Our aim was to suppress the minimum start point level thus allowing any student to fully experience robotics with little background knowledge.

Teaching accounting and management through business simulation

Everyday accounting and management teachers face the challenge of creating learning environments that motivate students. This chapter describes the Business Simulation (BS) experience that has taken place at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Institute of Accounting and Administration (IPP/ISCAP). The chapter presents students’ perceptions about the course and the teaching/learning approach. The results show that pedagogical methods used (competency-oriented), generic competencies (cooperation and group work), and interpersonal skills (organisational and communication skills) are relevant for future accounting professionals. In addition, positive remarks and possible constraints based on observation, staff meetings, and past research are reported. The chapter concludes with some recommendations from the project implementation

TURTLE: Systems and technologies for deep ocean long term presence

This paper describes the TURTLE project that aim to develop sub-systems with the capability of deep-sea long-term presence. Our motivation is to produce new robotic ascend and descend energy efficient technologies to be incorporated in robotic vehicles used by civil and military stakeholders for underwater operations. TURTLE contribute to the sustainable presence and operations in the sea bottom. Long term presence on sea bottom, increased awareness and operation capabilities in underwater sea and in particular on benthic deeps can only be achieved through the use of advanced technologies, leading to automation of operation, reducing operational costs and increasing efficiency of human activity.

Initial dilemmas in IST research: design science and design research, a clarification of concepts

The inter-disciplinarity of information systems, applied discipline and activity of design, and the study from different paradigms perspectives explains the diversity of problems addressed. The context is broad and includes important issues beyond technology, as the application, use, effectiveness, efficiency and their organizational and social impacts. In design science, the research interest is in contributing to the improvement of the processes of the design activity itself. The relevance of research in design science is associated with the result obtained for the improvement of living conditions in organizational, inter-organizational and Society contexts. In the research whose results are artifacts, the adoption of design research as a process of research is crucial to ensure discipline, rigor and transparency. Based on a literature review, this paper clarifies the terms of design science and design research. This is the main motivation for presenting this paper, determinant for the phase in research in technologies and information systems which are the three research projects presented. As a result the three projects are discussed in relation to the concepts of design science and design research.