How Does Cultural Context Stimulate Creativity: A study of African Musicians in Lisbon, Portugal

The 21st century bodes an interesting time for companies and individuals alike with an increased focus on using creativity as a way to stimulate innovation to create competitive advantage. Several studies have looked at how creativity is stimulated within a corporate environment or how creativity is stimulated by people in a specific place. This study aimed to look at how the contextual environment fosters creativity in individuals and groups. With the increase in popularity of African and world music In Europe over the last ten years it was decided that the context of Lisbon, Portugal be used with a specific focus on African musicians living there and working in the Lisbon music scene. It became apparent themes of Creative crossovers, Geographical Location, a dynamic environment, Entrepreneurial encouragement and the presence of open-minded and flexible individual were involved in Lisbon’s ability to foster and empower creative individuals.

Democratic dialogue and collective learning in the context of self-managed teams

This paper provides a longitudinal, empirical view of the multifaceted and reciprocal processes of organizational learning in a context of self-managed teams. Organizational learning is seen as a social construction between people and actions in a work setting. The notion of learning as situated (Brown & Duguid 1989, Lave& Wenger 1991, Gherardi & al. 1998, Easterby-Smith & Araujo 1999, Abma 2003) opens up the possibility for placing the focus of research on learning in the community rather than in individual learning processes. Further, in studying processes in their social context, we cannot avoid taking power relations into consideration (Contu & Willmott 2003). The study is based on an action research with a methodology close to the ‘democratic dialogue’ presented by Gustavsen (2001). This gives a ground for research into how the learning discourse developed in the case study organization over a period of 5 years, during which time the company abandoned a middle management level of hierarchy and the teams had to figure out how to work as self-managed units. This paper discusses the (re)construction of power relations and its role in organizational learning. Power relations are discussed both in vertical and horizontal work relations. A special emphasis is placed on the dialectic between managerial aims and the space for reflection on the side of employees. I argue that learning is crucial in the search for the limits for empowerment and that these limits are negotiated both in actions and speech. This study unfolds a purpose-oriented learning process, constructing an open dialogue, and describes a favourable context for creative, knowledge building communities.

Context-aware multi-factor authentication

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Including context in a routing algorithm for the internet of things

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Creation and extension of ontologies for describing communications in the context of organizations

Thesis submitted to Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Computer Science

Unsupervised automatic music genre classification

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Vision based context categorization for all-terrain robot

Dissertation presented at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa to obtain the Master degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Artificial Intelligence in geospatial analysis: applications of self-organizing maps in the context of geographic information science.

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems.

Estimation Models for the adoption and use of information technology: internet-related technologies at firm level in the Portuguese and European context

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Gestão de Informação

A framework for robustness assessment in the context of corroded RC structures

Structural robustness is an emergent concept related to the structural response to damage. At the present time, robustness is not well defined and much controversy still remains around this subject. Even if robustness has seen growing interest as a consequence of catastrophic consequences due to extreme events, the fact is that the concept can also be very useful when considered on more probable exposure scenarios such as deterioration, among others. This paper intends to be a contribution to the definition of structural robustness, especially in the analysis of reinforced concrete structures subjected to corrosion. To achieve this, first of all, several proposed robustness definitions and indicators and misunderstood concepts will be analyzed and compared. From this point and regarding a concept that could be applied to most type of structures and dam-age scenarios, a robustness definition is proposed. To illustrate the proposed concept, an example of corroded reinforced concrete structures will be analyzed using nonlinear analysis numerical methods based on a contin-uum strong discontinuities approach and isotropic damage models for concrete. Finally the robustness of the presented example will be assessed.

Question order and context effects on multi-items scales questions

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de Informação

Decision-making process in radiology: the magnetic resonance example in the TA context

Based on the report for “Project IV” unit of the PhD programme on Technology Assessment (Doctoral Conference) at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (December 2011). This thesis research has the supervision of António Moniz (FCT-UNL and ITAS-KIT) and Michael Decker (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology-ITAS). Other members of the thesis committee are Carlos Alberto da Silva (University of Évora), José Maria de Albuquerque (Institute of Welding and Quality), Lotte Steuten (University of Twente), Mário Forjaz Secca (FCT-UNL) and Nelson Chibeles Martins (FCT-UNL).

"I was a maoist intelectual". Uma leitura crítica em torno dos conceitos "industria cultural" e "popular music" segundo adorno

Reflectir sobre noções como liberdade individual, democracia, o papel dos meios de comunicação e dos produtos culturais, é uma das principais tarefas das ciências sociais e humanas, reflexão particularmente pertinente nestes primeiros anos do séc. XXI marcados pela popularização de dispositivos tecnológicos destinados à circulação de informação em rede e pela virtualização de mecanismos de distribuição de bens de consumo cultural. Adomo constitui hoje uma das fontes mais importantes surgidas nos últimos 50 anos para esta reflexão. Marcado pelo advento do Nacional Socialismo e a perseguição de todos os "degenerados da condição ariana" (judeus, comunistas e homossexuais), Adomo produziu ao longo de quatro décadas, uma reflexão que marcou indelevelmente muitos autores que, escrevendo sobre a contemporaneidade, a adoptaram ou a ela se opuseram. A pergunta que coloco, e que serve de ponto de partida para este artigo, é proposta por Jameson: é hoje possível ler Adomo e Horkheimer junto à piscina? (1990: 248), ou posto de outra forma, que lugar ocupa a obra de Adomo como ferramenta para perspectivar o mundo actual.

Context-aware personalization environment for mobile computing

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Organizational culture influence on information quality - use of business intelligence systems relationship: portuguese context

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de Informação