Energy efficiency in energy policy: Empirical evidence of direct rebound effect in Portuguese households' demand for electricity

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

The effects of OF ETF creation on the price efficiency of underlying stocks

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Hospital Efficiency: Directed internship: Deloitte & NOVA SBE

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Comparing the efficiency of advergames vs. social networks when communicating with children

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

The impact of banks dimension on profitability, sustainability and efficiency: An analysis for the Iberian financial system

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Proposta de abordagem para gestão de ocorrências em Serviços de Sangue

RESUMO: A gestão de ocorrências, sendo um requisito, quer legal, ao nível da regulação, quer normativo, tal como surge na ISO 9001, é um componente crítico para garantir a melhoria contínua um Serviço de Sangue, dado ter como objetivo a satisfação contínua dos requisitos dos dadores e recetores. A gestão eficaz, mas com eficiência, depende, também da eficácia da abordagem para gestão de ocorrência, nomeadamente, através da geração de correções, ações corretivas e ações preventiva eficazes. Esta dissertação discute a relevância, propondo um modelo de abordagem de gestão da qualidade conforme com os requisitos da lei fundamental da regulação de Serviços de Sangue, DL 267/2007, e com a norma global para sistemas de gestão da qualidade, ISO 9001. Esta abordagem usada descreve as várias etapas para a gestão eficaz de ocorrências, desde o seu relato, à sua classificação, tratamento com medição e análise risco associado e verificação da eficácia das ações tomadas. A eficácia do modelo teórico proposto foi verificado através da sua passagem para algoritmo informático num software comercial. Foi evidenciado neste software o cumprimento dos requisitos da abordagem teórica, pelo que a aplicação informática está conforme com os requisitos estabelecidos num procedimento documentado. Foi evidenciado, também, a rastreabilidade dos dados ao longo e toda a metodologia. A utilização de uma ferramenta informática também acrescentou valor ao modelo teórico, dado o acesso a toda a informação ser mais célere e de fácil acesso, quando comparado com o uso em suporte de papel.---------ABSTRACT: The issues management is a law requirement intended for regulation of “Blood Banks” and a quality management global requirement from ISO 9001. It is a critical activity, intended to to ensure continuous improvement on “Blood Bank”. Its goal is the continuous satisfaction of blood donors and transfusion recipients. Effective management and efficiency also depend on the effectiveness of the management of occurrence approach, namely in successful corrections, corrective actions and preventive actions. This paper discusses the relevance and it proposes a model approach to quality management according to the requirements of the fundamental law of regulation of “Blood Bank”, DL 267/2007, and according to the global standard for quality management systems, ISO 9001. This approach describes the various steps for effective management of incidents, such as his account, its classification, measurement and treatment using risk analysis and verification of the effectiveness of actions taken. The efficiency of the proposed theoretical model was verified through its transition to a computer algorithm trading software. It was demonstrated in this software that the requirements of the theoretical approach has been fulfilled by the computer application, which complies with the requirements established in a documented procedure. It was also evident that traceability of data across the methodology. The use of a software tool also added value to the theoretical model due to the access to all information to be faster and more easily accessible, when compared to paper.

Maintaining the correctness of transactional memory programs

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Informática

Design of multidimensional compact constellations with high power efficiency

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

Cost efficiency in the Portuguese water sector: The case of multimunicipal systems operating at the bulk level

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

An internal analysis of Amorim Turismo’s operations regarding food and beverage with a focus on operational efficiency and quality of service

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Improving contact center cost efficiency and customer experience in a retail company

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Development and efficiency optimizing of the human body energy converters

Nowadays it is known that the human body is continuous source of many types of energy and the devices used for collecting energy taken from the environment also have the required capabilities for the collection of the energy produced by the Human body (HB), but very limited and with very low efficiency. Low power and high yield converters are particularly needed in these cases of collecting energy from human activity and its movements due to the small amount of energy generated this way. But this situation can be improved. Enhancing or focusing the human movements by using mechanical amplifiers applied to the piezoelectric element. By doing so the input of energy in the element increases. As such increasing its output, therefore producing more energy.

Diffusional kurtosis imaging using a fast heuristic constrained linear least squares algorithm: a plugin for OsiriX

Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) is a fairly new magnetic resonance imag-ing (MRI) technique that tackles the non-gaussian motion of water in biological tissues by taking into account the restrictions imposed by tissue microstructure, which are not considered in Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), where the water diffusion is considered purely gaussian. As a result DKI provides more accurate information on biological structures and is able to detect important abnormalities which are not visible in standard DTI analysis. This work regards the development of a tool for DKI computation to be implemented as an OsiriX plugin. Thus, as OsiriX runs under Mac OS X, the pro-gram is written in Objective-C and also makes use of Apple’s Cocoa framework. The whole program is developed in the Xcode integrated development environ-ment (IDE). The plugin implements a fast heuristic constrained linear least squares al-gorithm (CLLS-H) for estimating the diffusion and kurtosis tensors, and offers the user the possibility to choose which maps are to be generated for not only standard DTI quantities such as Mean Diffusion (MD), Radial Diffusion (RD), Axial Diffusion (AD) and Fractional Anisotropy (FA), but also DKI metrics, Mean Kurtosis (MK), Radial Kurtosis (RK) and Axial Kurtosis (AK).The plugin was subjected to both a qualitative and a semi-quantitative analysis which yielded convincing results. A more accurate validation pro-cess is still being developed, after which, and with some few minor adjust-ments the plugin shall become a valid option for DKI computation

Efficient paraconsistent reasoning with rules and ontologies for the semantic web

Ontologies formalized by means of Description Logics (DLs) and rules in the form of Logic Programs (LPs) are two prominent formalisms in the field of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. While DLs adhere to the OpenWorld Assumption and are suited for taxonomic reasoning, LPs implement reasoning under the Closed World Assumption, so that default knowledge can be expressed. However, for many applications it is useful to have a means that allows reasoning over an open domain and expressing rules with exceptions at the same time. Hybrid MKNF knowledge bases make such a means available by formalizing DLs and LPs in a common logic, the Logic of Minimal Knowledge and Negation as Failure (MKNF). Since rules and ontologies are used in open environments such as the Semantic Web, inconsistencies cannot always be avoided. This poses a problem due to the Principle of Explosion, which holds in classical logics. Paraconsistent Logics offer a solution to this issue by assigning meaningful models even to contradictory sets of formulas. Consequently, paraconsistent semantics for DLs and LPs have been investigated intensively. Our goal is to apply the paraconsistent approach to the combination of DLs and LPs in hybrid MKNF knowledge bases. In this thesis, a new six-valued semantics for hybrid MKNF knowledge bases is introduced, extending the three-valued approach by Knorr et al., which is based on the wellfounded semantics for logic programs. Additionally, a procedural way of computing paraconsistent well-founded models for hybrid MKNF knowledge bases by means of an alternating fixpoint construction is presented and it is proven that the algorithm is sound and complete w.r.t. the model-theoretic characterization of the semantics. Moreover, it is shown that the new semantics is faithful w.r.t. well-studied paraconsistent semantics for DLs and LPs, respectively, and maintains the efficiency of the approach it extends.

Efficiency optimization of the transportation supply chain activity: the maritime option for Volkswagen Autoeuropa

Field Lab of Entrepreneurial Innovative Ventures