Chaînes opératoires and resource-exploitation strategies in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) nut cracking

Journal of Human Evolution, V. 55, pp. 148-163

Rheology of natural hydraulic lime grouts for masonry consolidation

Tese para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Civil, Especialidade Ciências da Construção

Maritime Security in the Gulf of Guinea: Issues and Solutions for the 21st Century

A producer of 5.4 M bbl/d, totalling almost half of the consumption of the entire European Union, the Gulf of Guinea is a fundamental lifeline and maritime link between Europe, the Americas and Africa. Geographically positioned as a staging post for transit originating in Latin America and coupled with its relatively porous borders, the region is also the perfect stepping stone for contraband heading to European shores. While blessed with an enviable wealth of marine and mineral resources, the region is also plagued by an ever-increasing spectre of maritime piracy; accounting for around 30% of incidents in African waters from 2003 to 2011. It is for these reasons that this research centres around the issues of maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea, with a particular focus on the first two decades of the 21st century. This research looks to examine the overall picture of the present state of play in the area, before going on to provide an analysis of potential regional developments in maritime security. This research begins with the analysis of concepts/phenomena that have played a notable role in the shaping of the field of maritime security, namely Globalisation and security issues in the post-Cold War era. The ensuing chapter then focuses in on the Gulf of Guinea and the issues dominating the field of maritime security in the region. The penultimate chapter presents a SWOT analysis, undertaken as part of this research with the aim of correlating opinions from a variety of sectors/professions regarding maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea. The final chapter builds upon the results obtained from the abovementioned SWOT analysis, presenting a series of potential proposals/strategies that can contribute to the field of maritime security in the region over the coming years. This research draws to a close with the presentation of conclusions taken from this particular investigation, as well as a final overview of the earlier presented proposals applicable to the field of maritime security during the second decade of the 21st century.

Fostering e-participation sustainability through a BPM-driven semantic model

According to a recent Eurobarometer survey (2014), 68% of Europeans tend not to trust national governments. As the increasing alienation of citizens from politics endangers democracy and welfare, governments, practitioners and researchers look for innovative means to engage citizens in policy matters. One of the measures intended to overcome the so-called democratic deficit is the promotion of civic participation. Digital media proliferation offers a set of novel characteristics related to interactivity, ubiquitous connectivity, social networking and inclusiveness that enable new forms of societal-wide collaboration with a potential impact on leveraging participative democracy. Following this trend, e-Participation is an emerging research area that consists in the use of Information and Communication Technologies to mediate and transform the relations among citizens and governments towards increasing citizens’ participation in public decision-making. However, despite the widespread efforts to implement e-Participation through research programs, new technologies and projects, exhaustive studies on the achieved outcomes reveal that it has not yet been successfully incorporated in institutional politics. Given the problems underlying e-Participation implementation, the present research suggested that, rather than project-oriented efforts, the cornerstone for successfully implementing e-Participation in public institutions as a sustainable added-value activity is a systematic organisational planning, embodying the principles of open-governance and open-engagement. It further suggested that BPM, as a management discipline, can act as a catalyst to enable the desired transformations towards value creation throughout the policy-making cycle, including political, organisational and, ultimately, citizen value. Following these findings, the primary objective of this research was to provide an instrumental model to foster e-Participation sustainability across Government and Public Administration towards a participatory, inclusive, collaborative and deliberative democracy. The developed artefact, consisting in an e-Participation Organisational Semantic Model (ePOSM) underpinned by a BPM-steered approach, introduces this vision. This approach to e-Participation was modelled through a semi-formal lightweight ontology stack structured in four sub-ontologies, namely e-Participation Strategy, Organisational Units, Functions and Roles. The ePOSM facilitates e-Participation sustainability by: (1) Promoting a common and cross-functional understanding of the concepts underlying e-Participation implementation and of their articulation that bridges the gap between technical and non-technical users; (2) Providing an organisational model which allows a centralised and consistent roll-out of strategy-driven e-Participation initiatives, supported by operational units dedicated to the execution of transformation projects and participatory processes; (3) Providing a standardised organisational structure, goals, functions and roles related to e-Participation processes that enhances process-level interoperability among government agencies; (4) Providing a representation usable in software development for business processes’ automation, which allows advanced querying using a reasoner or inference engine to retrieve concrete and specific information about the e-Participation processes in place. An evaluation of the achieved outcomes, as well a comparative analysis with existent models, suggested that this innovative approach tackling the organisational planning dimension can constitute a stepping stone to harness e-Participation value.

In Search of the Origins of Modernism: Venice and the Crisis of Classical Architecture in the mid-eighteenth century

This paper attempts to prove that in the years 1735 to 1755 Venice was the birthplace and cradle of Modern architectural theory, generating a major crisis in classical architecture traditionally based on the Vitruvian assumption that it imitates early wooden structures in stone or in marble. According to its rationalist critics such as the Venetian Observant Franciscan friar and architectural theorist Carlo Lodoli (1690-1761) and his nineteenth-century followers, classical architecture is singularly deceptive and not true to the nature of materials, in other words, dishonest and fallacious. This questioning did not emanate from practising architects, but from Lodoli himself– a philosopher and educator of the Venetian patriciate – who had not been trained as an architect. The roots of this crisis lay in a new approach to architecture stemming from the new rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment age with its emphasis on reason and universal criticism.

Metodologias de Sistemas de Informação Geográfica em sistemas de produção florestal : uma aplicação geoestatística

As florestas são uma fonte importante de recursos naturais, desempenhando um papel fulcral na sustentabilidade ambiental. A sua gestão quer territorial quer económica, conduz a uma maximização da produção, sem alteração da qualidade da matéria-prima. Portugal apresenta mais de um terço do seu território coberto por floresta, apresentando uma possibilidade de aplicação de sistemas de gestão, territorial e económica que maximizem a sua produção. Os Sistemas de Informação Geográfica (SIG) são modelos da realidade em que é possível integrar toda a informação disponível sobre um assunto tendo por base um campo comum a todos as variáveis, a localização geográfica. Os SIG podem contribuir de diversas formas para um maior desenvolvimento das rotinas e ferramentas de planeamento e gestão florestal. A sua integração com modelos quantitativos para planeamento e gestão de florestas é uma mais-valia nesta área. Nesta dissertação apresentam-se modelos geoestatísticos, com recurso a Sistemas de Informação Geográfica, de apoio e suporte à produção de pinha em Pinheiro-manso (Pinus pinea L.). Procurando estimar as áreas com melhor propensão à produção, a partir de dados amostrais. Estes foram previamente estudados tendo sido selecionadas quatro variáveis: largura da copa, área basal, altura da árvore e produção de pinha. A geoestatística aplicada, inclui modelos de correlação espacial: kriging, onde são atribuídos pesos às amostras a partir de uma análise espacial baseada no variograma experimental. Foi utilizada a extensão Geostatistical Analyst do ArcGis da ESRI, para realizar 96 krigings para as quatro variáveis em estudo, com diferentes parametrizações, destes foram selecionados 8 krigings. Com base nos critérios de adequação dos modelos e da análise de resultados da predição dos erros - cross validation. O resultado deste estudo é apresentado através de mapas de previsão para a produção de pinha em Pinheiro manso, em que foram analisadas áreas com maior e menor probabilidade de produção tendo-se realizado análises de comparação de variáveis. Através da interseção de todas as variáveis com a produção, podemos concluir que os concelhos com maiores áreas de probabilidade de produção de pinha em Pinheiro manso, da área de estudo, são Alcácer do Sal, Montemor-o-Novo, Vendas Novas, Coruche e Chamusca. Com a realização de um cruzamento de dados entre os resultados obtidos dos krigings, e a Carta de Uso e Ocupação do Solo de Portugal Continental para 2007 (COS2007), realizaram-se mapas de previsão para a expansão do Pinheiro manso. Nas áreas de expansão conseguimos atingir aumentos mínimos na ordem dos 11% e máximo na ordem dos 61%. No total consegue-se atingir aproximadamente 128 mil ha para área de expansão do Pinheiro manso. Superando, os valores esperados pelos Planos Regionais de Ordenamento Florestal, abrangidos pela área da amostra em estudo, em que é esperado um incremento de cerca de 130 mil hectares de área de Pinheiro manso para 2030.