População e Enriquecimento de Ontologias através de Web Scraping

O surgir da World Wide Web providenciou aos utilizadores uma série de oportunidades no que diz respeito ao acesso a dados e informação. Este acesso tornou-se um ato banal para qualquer utilizador da Web, tanto pelo utilizador comum como por outros mais experientes, tanto para obter informações básicas, como outras informações mais complexas. Todo este avanço tecnológico permitiu que os utilizadores tivessem acesso a uma vasta quantidade de informação, dispersa pelo globo, não tendo, na maior parte das vezes, a informação qualquer tipo de ligação entre si. A necessidade de se obter informação de interesse relativamente a determinado tema, mas tendo que recorrer a diversas fontes para obter toda a informação que pretende obter e comparar, torna-se um processo moroso para o utilizador. Pretende-se que este processo de recolha de informação de páginas web seja o mais automatizado possível, dando ao utilizador a possibilidade de utilizar algoritmos e ferramentas de análise e processamento automáticas, reduzindo desta forma o tempo e esforço de realização de tarefas sobre páginas web. Este processo é denominado Web Scraping. Neste trabalho é descrita uma arquitetura de sistema de web scraping automático e configurável baseado em tecnologias existentes, nomeadamente no contexto da web semântica. Para tal o trabalho desenvolvido analisa os efeitos da aplicação do Web Scraping percorrendo os seguintes pontos: • Identificação e análise de diversas ferramentas de web scraping; • Identificação do processo desenvolvido pelo ser humano complementar às atuais ferramentas de web scraping; • Design duma arquitetura complementar às ferramentas de web scraping que dê apoio ao processo de web scraping do utilizador; • Desenvolvimento dum protótipo baseado em ferramentas e tecnologias existentes; • Realização de experiências no domínio de aplicação de páginas de super-mercados portugueses; • Analisar resultados obtidos a partir destas.

Caracterização do “warpage” e sua variabilidade no processo produtivo de encapsulamento de circuitos integrados

Nos últimos anos a indústria de semicondutores, nomeadamente a produção de memórias, tem sofrido uma grande evolução. A necessidade de baixar custos de produção, assim como de produzir sistemas mais complexos e com maior capacidade, levou à criação da tecnologia WLP (Wafer Level Packaging). Esta tecnologia permite a produção de sistemas mais pequenos, simplificar o fluxo do processo e providenciar uma redução significativa do custo final do produto. A WLP é uma tecnologia de encapsulamento de circuitos integrados quando ainda fazem parte de wafers (bolachas de silício), em contraste com o método tradicional em que os sistemas são individualizados previamente antes de serem encapsulados. Com o desenvolvimento desta tecnologia, surgiu a necessidade de melhor compreender o comportamento mecânico do mold compound (MC - polímero encapsulante) mais especificamente do warpage (empeno) de wafers moldadas. O warpage é uma característica deste produto e deve-se à diferença do coeficiente de expansão térmica entre o silício e o mold compound. Este problema é observável no produto através do arqueamento das wafers moldadas. O warpage de wafers moldadas tem grande impacto na manufatura. Dependendo da quantidade e orientação do warpage, o transporte, manipulação, bem como, a processamento das wafers podem tornar-se complicados ou mesmo impossíveis, o que se traduz numa redução de volume de produção e diminuição da qualidade do produto. Esta dissertação foi desenvolvida na Nanium S.A., empresa portuguesa líder mundial na tecnologia de WLP em wafers de 300mm e aborda a utilização da metodologia Taguchi, no estudo da variabilidade do processo de debond para o produto X. A escolha do processo e produto baseou-se numa análise estatística da variação e do impacto do warpage ao longo doprocesso produtivo. A metodologia Taguchi é uma metodologia de controlo de qualidade e permite uma aproximação sistemática num dado processo, combinando gráficos de controlo, controlo do processo/produto, e desenho do processo para alcançar um processo robusto. Os resultados deste método e a sua correta implementação permitem obter poupanças significativas nos processos com um impacto financeiro significativo. A realização deste projeto permitiu estudar e quantificar o warpage ao longo da linha de produção e minorar o impacto desta característica no processo de debond. Este projecto permitiu ainda a discussão e o alinhamento entre as diferentes áreas de produção no que toca ao controlo e a melhoria de processos. Conseguiu–se demonstrar que o método Taguchi é um método eficiente no que toca ao estudo da variabilidade de um processo e otimização de parâmetros. A sua aplicação ao processo de debond permitiu melhorar ou a fiabilidade do processo em termos de garantia da qualidade do produto, como ao nível do aumento de produção.

Desenvolvimento do processo de produção de peça plástica revestida a PVC para a indústria automóvel

O desenvolvimento do processo de produção de um produto para a indústria automóvel é sempre um desafio de nível de dificuldade exigente. Este trabalho teve por base o estudo do desenvolvimento do processo de produção de um produto para a área automóvel, constituído por diversos componentes e exigindo diversas etapas de produção. O desafio partiu de um cliente da SIMOLDES - PLÁSTICOS, S.A. que necessitava de uma peça em plástico para um novo modelo de automóvel. Foram estabelecidas as condições iniciais impostas pelo cliente e foram estudados os condicionalismos impostos pelas mesmas. Foram estudadas diferentes alternativas com vista à optimização do processo, garantindo a qualidade e tentando minimizar o custo final do produto. Foi realizada uma optimização dos moldes, por forma a poderem ser utilizadas máquinas com Força de Fecho mais baixa. Foram desenvolvidos alguns equipamentos que permitiram à empresa optar por novas formas de produção, utilizando materiais mais amigos do ambiente. Foram estudadas as condições de distribuição e optimização das tarefas, com vista à garantia do cumprimento dos prazos de entrega exigidos pelo cliente. Foi estudado o ‘layout’ que optimizou as operações de transporte das diferentes peças que constituem o produto final. Este trabalho foi elaborado com base num trabalho desenvolvido e implementado na SIMOLDES – PLÁSTICOS, S.A.

Dissecting the role of CLASP1 in the mammalian development

A mitose é o evento celular, através do qual uma células transmite uma cópias do seu DNA às células filhas. Este processo é mediado pelo fuso mitótico, o qual consiste numa rede bipolar microtubulos. A dinâmica dos microtubulos é regulada por proteínas associadas a estes (MAPs – Microtubule-Associated Proteins), tais como as proteínas associadas às extremidades positivas dos microtubulos (+TIPs – Plus-ends Tracking proteins). As proteínas associadas às CLIPs (CLASPs – CLIP-associated proteins) pertencem a esta família e estão altamente conservadas nos eucariotas. Estas interagem com os microtubulos regulando o fuso mitótico, a segregação dos cromossomas e o comportamento dos microtubulos ao nível do cinetocoro. Assim, as CLASPs têm sido descritas como essenciais à manutenção da integridade genética durante a divisão celular. Um modelo animal knockout para o gene Clasp1 é uma ferramenta indispensável à descoberta do papel da CLASP1 a nível fisiológico. Nos animais knockout foi observado um fenótipo letal, no qual 100% dos recém-nascidos morreram poucos minutos após o nascimento, no decurso de falência respiratória. Após análise histopatológica, observamos que os pulmões dos animais knockout apresentam um atraso no desenvolvimento. Porém, a análise da expressão de marcadores de diferenciação celular, mostrou que os pneumócitos tipo I e II estão presente e diferenciados nos animais knockout aquando do seu nascimento. No entanto, um defeito primário a nível pulmonar ainda não pode ser excluído. Níveis elevados de glicogénio no parênquima alveolar dos animais knockout sugerem imaturidade pulmonar ou deficiente produção do líquido surfactante. Adicionalmente, ainda não está esclarecido de que forma pode este atraso explicar a letalidade observada nos recémnascidos knockout. Verificamos também que expressão de CLASP1 é transiente ao longo do desenvolvimento, sendo particularmente elevada no cérebro, o que pode explicar o seu papel já descrito na biologia dos neurónios. A CLASP1 é ubiquamente expressa em mamíferos adultos, o que sugere que esta proteína é também importante em tecidos diferenciados. Nesta fase, o significado biológico da CLASP1 em mamíferos ainda não foi descortinado. No entanto, nenhum animal knockout para Clasp1 foi capaz de sobreviver ex uterus, o que sugere um papel fundamental desta proteína na fase final do desenvolvimento dos mamíferos.

Development of a platform for lean manufacturing simulation games

More than ever, the economic globalization is creating the need to increase business competitiveness. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy oriented to the elimination of activities that do not create any type of value and are thus considered a waste. One of the main differences from other management philosophies is the shop-floor focus and the operators' involvement. Therefore, the training of all organization levels is crucial for the success of lean manufacturing. Universities should also participate actively in this process by developing students' lean management skills and promoting a better and faster integration of students into their future organizations. This paper proposes a single realistic manufacturing platform, involving production and assembly operations, to learn by playing many of the lean tools such as VSM, 5S, SMED, poke-yoke, line balance, TPM, Mizusumashi, plant layout, and JIT/kanban. This simulation game was built in tight cooperation with experienced lean companies under the international program “Lean Learning Academy,”http://www.leanlearningacademy.eu/ and its main aim is to make bachelor and master courses in applied sciences more attractive by integrating classic lectures with a simulated production environment that could result in more motivated students and higher study yields. The simulation game results show that our approach is efficient in providing a realistic platform for the effective learning of lean principles, tools, and mindset, which can be easily included in course classes of less than two hours.

Design state exploration applied to the development of a remote lab for projectile launch experiments

This paper describes the application of Design State Exploration techniques in the development of a remote lab for projectile motion experiments. The application was enabled by the existence of two independent teams: one composed of a series of internships that started first and another with two grantees that started a few months later. The paper presents evidence on how this approach provided gains in the development process conducted by the second team that benefited from design state exploration studies performed by the first team. This particular aspect is highlighted in relation to the work already presented in the 10th Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation (REV) conference.

TRAILER – e-Portfolio for collecting and recognizing informal learning process and outcomes

Informal learning is becoming more and more important: Nowadays people learn more this way, through the Internet, than in schools or normal trainings. But they don’t get any certificateswhich attest this fact. So they can't show the employer or teacher etc. that they have learned something. TRAILER project aim is to solve this problem by developing a special tool for managing of all competences and skills acquired through informal learning experiences. Both from the perspective of the user and the perspective of an institution or a company. We’ll present the IT tool to show how people can make their informal learning outcomes visible. TRAILER helps users to gather all information about process and outcomes of their informal learning. Users can share this with friends, colleagues or their employees, teachers and so on. They can create an interactive e-portfolio which can be attached to their CV, cover letter or Knowledge Management system etc. After the presentation of the tool we will discuss possible areas and fields to use this tool. Also we would like to discuss all possible use of the tool by the participants and another needs in this area. Moreover we want to discuss other problems in informal learning process, ways to solve the problems and discuss other ideas of different IT tools which could help in informal learning process. During the discussion we’ll use an interactive respond system which can be used on mobile devices: it makes possible for participants to share their opinions individually before knowing another persons' opinion.

Agile modeling data warehouse development

Most of the traditional software and database development approaches tend to be serial, not evolutionary and certainly not agile, especially on data-oriented aspects. Most of the more commonly used methodologies are strict, meaning they’re composed by several stages each with very specific associated tasks. A clear example is the Rational Unified Process (RUP), divided into Business Modeling, Requirements, Analysis & Design, Implementation, Testing and Deployment. But what happens when the needs of a well design and structured plan, meet the reality of a small starting company that aims to build an entire user experience solution. Here resource control and time productivity is vital, requirements are in constant change, and so is the product itself. In order to succeed in this environment a highly collaborative and evolutionary development approach is mandatory. The implications of constant changing requirements imply an iterative development process. Project focus is on Data Warehouse development and business modeling. This area is usually a tricky one. Business knowledge is part of the enterprise, how they work, their goals, what is relevant for analyses are internal business processes. Throughout this document it will be explained why Agile Modeling development was chosen. How an iterative and evolutionary methodology, allowed for reasonable planning and documentation while permitting development flexibility, from idea to product. More importantly how it was applied on the development of a Retail Focused Data Warehouse. A productized Data Warehouse built on the knowledge of not one but several client needs. One that aims not just to store usual business areas but create an innovative sets of business metrics by joining them with store environment analysis, converting Business Intelligence into Actionable Business Intelligence.

Development of fractional order capacitors based on electrolyte processes

In recent years, significant research in the field of electrochemistry was developed. The performance of electrical devices, depending on the processes of the electrolytes, was described and the physical origin of each parameter was established. However, the influence of the irregularity of the electrodes was not a subject of study and only recently this problem became relevant in the viewpoint of fractional calculus. This paper describes an electrolytic process in the perspective of fractional order capacitors. In this line of thought, are developed several experiments for measuring the electrical impedance of the devices. The results are analyzed through the frequency response, revealing capacitances of fractional order that can constitute an alternative to the classical integer order elements. Fractional order electric circuits are used to model and study the performance of the electrolyte processes.

Development of procedures for the simulation of atmospheric flows over complex terrain, using OpenFOAM

The main purpose of this work was the development of procedures for the simulation of atmospheric ows over complex terrain, using OpenFOAM. For this aim, tools and procedures were developed apart from this code for the preprocessing and data extraction, which were thereafter applied in the simulation of a real case. For the generation of the computational domain, a systematic method able to translate the terrain elevation model to a native OpenFOAM format (blockMeshDict) was developed. The outcome was a structured mesh, in which the user has the ability to de ne the number of control volumes and its dimensions. With this procedure, the di culties of case set up and the high computation computational e ort reported in literature associated to the use of snappyHexMesh, the OpenFOAM resource explored until then for the accomplishment of this task, were considered to be overwhelmed. Developed procedures for the generation of boundary conditions allowed for the automatic creation of idealized inlet vertical pro les, de nition of wall functions boundary conditions and the calculation of internal eld rst guesses for the iterative solution process, having as input experimental data supplied by the user. The applicability of the generated boundary conditions was limited to the simulation of turbulent, steady-state, incompressible and neutrally strati ed atmospheric ows, always recurring to RaNS (Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes) models. For the modelling of terrain roughness, the developed procedure allowed to the user the de nition of idealized conditions, like an uniform aerodynamic roughness length or making its value variable as a function of topography characteristic values, or the using of real site data, and it was complemented by the development of techniques for the visual inspection of generated roughness maps. The absence and the non inclusion of a forest canopy model limited the applicability of this procedure to low aerodynamic roughness lengths. The developed tools and procedures were then applied in the simulation of a neutrally strati ed atmospheric ow over the Askervein hill. In the performed simulations was evaluated the solution sensibility to di erent convection schemes, mesh dimensions, ground roughness and formulations of the k - ε and k - ω models. When compared to experimental data, calculated values showed a good agreement of speed-up in hill top and lee side, with a relative error of less than 10% at a height of 10 m above ground level. Turbulent kinetic energy was considered to be well simulated in the hill windward and hill top, and grossly predicted in the lee side, where a zone of ow separation was also identi ed. Despite the need of more work to evaluate the importance of the downstream recirculation zone in the quality of gathered results, the agreement between the calculated and experimental values and the OpenFOAM sensibility to the tested parameters were considered to be generally in line with the simulations presented in the reviewed bibliographic sources.

Optimization of the Pultrusion process

Manufacturing processes need permanently to innovate and optimize because any can be susceptible to continuous improvement. Innovation and commitment to the development of these new solutions resulting from existing expertise and the continuing need to increase productivity, flexibility and ensuring the necessary quality of the manufactured products. To increase flexibility, it is necessary to significantly reduce set-up times and lead time in order to ensure the delivery of products ever faster. This objective can be achieved through a normalization of the pultrusion line elements. Implicitly, there is an increase of productivity by this way. This work is intended to optimize the pultrusion process of structural profiles. We consider all elements of the system from the storehouse of the fibers (rack) to the pultrusion die. Particular attention was devoted to (a) the guidance system of the fibers and webs, (b) the resin container where the fibers are impregnated, (c) standard plates positioning of the fibers towards the entrance to the spinneret and also (d) reviewed the whole process of assembling and fixing the die as well as its the heating system. With the implementation of these new systems was achieved a significant saving of time set-up and were clearly reduced the unit costs of production. Quality assurance was also increased.

The role of molecular imaging in modern drug development

Drug development represents a highly complex, inefficient and costly process. Over the past decade, the widespread use of nuclear imaging, owing to its functional and molecular nature, has proven to be a determinant in improving the efficiency in selecting the candidate drugs that should either be abandoned or moved forward into clinical trials. This helps not only with the development of safer and effective drugs but also with the shortening of time-to-market. The modern concept and future trends concerning molecular imaging will assumedly be hybrid or multimodality imaging, including combinations between high sensitivity and functional (molecular) modalities with high spatial resolution and morphological techniques.

Design and Development of a Solar Dryer for Microalgae Retrieval - An EPS@ISEP 2013 Spring Project

Currently excessive fossil fuel consumption has become a serious problem. People are searching for new solutions of energy production and there are several options to obtain alternative sources of energy without further devastating the already destroyed environment. One of these solutions is growing microalgae, from which biodiesel can be obtained. The microalgae production is a growing business because of its many useful compounds. In order to collect these compounds microalgae must first be harvested and then dried. Nowadays the solutions used for drying use too much energy and therefore are too expensive and not sustainable. The goal of this project, one of the possible choices during the EPS@ISEP 2013 Spring, was to develop a solar microalgae dryer. The multinational team involved in its development was composed of five students, from distinct countries and fields of study, and was the responsible for designing a solar microalgae dryer prototype for the microalgae laboratory of the chemical engineering department at ISEP, suitable for future tests and incorporating control process (in order not to destroy the microalgae during the drying process). The solar microalgae dryer was built to work as a distiller that gets rid of the excess water from the microalgae suspension. This paper presents a possible solution for this problem, the steps to create the device to harvest the microalgae by drying them with the use of solar energy (also used as an energy source for the solar dryer control system), the technologies used to build the solar microalgae dryer, and the benefits it presents compared to current solutions. It also presents the device from the ethical and sustainable viewpoint. Such alternative to already existing methods is competitive as far as energy usage is concerned.

The CONCERTO methodology for model-based development of avionics SW

20th International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe 2015 (Ada-Europe 2015), 22 to 26, Jun, 2015, Madrid, Spain.

The relationship between knowledge acquisition on international assignments and career development: an exploratory study with portuguese repatriates

This paper explores the relationship between the expatriates’ knowledge acquisition (KA) and their career development after an international assignment (IA). The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of expatriates in KA and transfer within International Portuguese multinational corporations. Furthermore, with this empirical study we try to analyse how the knowledge that is acquired and transferred translates into a basis for career development after the IA. This phenomenon has a special relevance in the Portuguese context, because this country is known a growing process of globalization in recent years. Furthermore, (a) there are no empirical studies concerning knowledge transfer and career development of repatriates from Portuguese companies; (b) little is known about the repatriates’ contributions to their home company after IA. This paper is one of the first to focus specifically on the repatriates’ role in KA and transfer from the host company to their Portuguese home company. A qualitative research methodology is used, specifically through an exploratory case study approach, which examines how knowledge management (KM) acquisition or transferring during IA are important for the repatriates’ career development in the Portuguese home company. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews to 42 Portuguese international assignees and 18 organizational representatives from nine Portuguese companies. Preliminary results show that KA and transfer made by Portuguese expatriates contributes directly to their career development. Moreover, evidence reveals that not all repatriates were promoted after their IA; rather some repatriates were even demoted after their IA. Furthermore, the results obtained suggest that the type of knowledge which acquired or transferred plays a central role in the career development after repatriation. According to these results, the paper discusses the major theoretical and practical implications. Suggestions for future research are also presented.