Ubiquitous computing and natural interfaces for environmental information

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente, perfil Gestão e Sistemas Ambientais

Negotiation environment to support enterprise interoperability sustainability

Dissertation to obtain the Master degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Wind Power in the Portuguese Landscape: Global Concerns and Local Costs

Wind turbines and solar panels are becoming second nature in Portugal, as its occurrence in the country becomes ubiquitous. Somehow, one could argue that renewable energy in Portugal is in the process of ‘naturalisation’ as part of a new – mechanised, but environmentally benign – landscape. Portuguese Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity (ICNB) has shown an ambiguous stance on this issue, defending global concerns towards renewable energy, while at the same time attempting to engage locals in the preservation of extensive ‘classified areas’. In the course of this research, we tried to focus on these incongruities and to analyse how they are impacting local communities during the process of wind power installation.

An analog model for global macro investing

This study proposes a systematic model that is able to fit the Global Macro Investing universe. The Analog Model tests the possibility of capturing the likelihood of an optimal investment allocation based on similarity across different periods in history. Instead of observing Macroeconomic data, the model uses financial markets’ variables to classify unknown short-term regimes. This methodology is particularly relevant considering that asset classes and investment strategies react differently to specific macro environment shifts.

How do global born companies ignite their internationalization and survive in international markets?

Over the last decades, the born global firms or the international new ventures (“INVs”) have assumed a growing role in international business, including in Portugal. The rise of this new type of multinational has challenged several theories concerning the development of multinational companies and the origin of companies’ competitive advantage. This qualitative, case-based research explores the most relevant traits shown by some Portuguese born-global firms. More concretely, the aim of this work is to compare some Portuguese international new ventures in order to understand the role of leadership, culture and strategy in their rapid internationalization and the source of their lasting competitive advantage. It was noticed that these firms’ lasting competitive advantage results from a singular combination of resources and dynamic capabilities that evolves over time. Moreover, it was found that these firms’ foreign subsidiaries and local networks may be essential to enhance the firms competitive advantage as it provides each firm a distinctive source of knowledge and capabilities. As a consequence, the effective assimilation of such resources and capabilities in these firms’ may become crucial for their lasting success. In addition, the leadership, strategy and culture in these firms seem to be quite aligned and form a quite virtuous cycle that contributed to the firms rapid internationalization and for the way the firms developed their own resources and dynamic capabilities and adapted to external environment.

Environmental data management in the Sado Estuary

Estuaries are perhaps the most threatened environments in the coastal fringe; the coincidence of high natural value and attractiveness for human use has led to conflicts between conservation and development. These conflicts occur in the Sado Estuary since its location is near the industrialised zone of Peninsula of Setúbal and at the same time, a great part of the Estuary is classified as a Natural Reserve due to its high biodiversity. These facts led us to the need of implementing a model of environmental management and quality assessment, based on methodologies that enable the assessment of the Sado Estuary quality and evaluation of the human pressures in the estuary. These methodologies are based on indicators that can better depict the state of the environment and not necessarily all that could be measured or analysed. Sediments have always been considered as an important temporary source of some compounds or a sink for other type of materials or an interface where a great diversity of biogeochemical transformations occur. For all this they are of great importance in the formulation of coastal management system. Many authors have been using sediments to monitor aquatic contamination, showing great advantages when compared to the sampling of the traditional water column. The main objective of this thesis was to develop an estuary environmental management framework applied to Sado Estuary using the DPSIR Model (EMMSado), including data collection, data processing and data analysis. The support infrastructure of EMMSado were a set of spatially contiguous and homogeneous regions of sediment structure (management units). The environmental quality of the estuary was assessed through the sediment quality assessment and integrated in a preliminary stage with the human pressure for development. Besides the earlier explained advantages, studying the quality of the estuary mainly based on the indicators and indexes of the sediment compartment also turns this methodology easier, faster and human and financial resource saving. These are essential factors to an efficient environmental management of coastal areas. Data management, visualization, processing and analysis was obtained through the combined use of indicators and indices, sampling optimization techniques, Geographical Information Systems, remote sensing, statistics for spatial data, Global Positioning Systems and best expert judgments. As a global conclusion, from the nineteen management units delineated and analyzed three showed no ecological risk (18.5 % of the study area). The areas of more concern (5.6 % of the study area) are located in the North Channel and are under strong human pressure mainly due to industrial activities. These areas have also low hydrodynamics and are, thus associated with high levels of deposition. In particular the areas near Lisnave and Eurominas industries can also accumulate the contamination coming from Águas de Moura Channel, since particles coming from that channel can settle down in that area due to residual flow. In these areas the contaminants of concern, from those analyzed, are the heavy metals and metalloids (Cd, Cu, Zn and As exceeded the PEL guidelines) and the pesticides BHC isomers, heptachlor, isodrin, DDT and metabolits, endosulfan and endrin. In the remain management units (76 % of the study area) there is a moderate impact potential of occurrence of adverse ecological effects and in some of these areas no stress agents could be identified. This emphasizes the need for further research, since unmeasured chemicals may be causing or contributing to these adverse effects. Special attention must be taken to the units with moderate impact potential of occurrence of adverse ecological effects, located inside the natural reserve. Non-point source pollution coming from agriculture and aquaculture activities also seem to contribute with important pollution load into the estuary entering from Águas de Moura Channel. This pressure is expressed in a moderate impact potential for ecological risk existent in the areas near the entrance of this Channel. Pressures may also came from Alcácer Channel although they were not quantified in this study. The management framework presented here, including all the methodological tools may be applied and tested in other estuarine ecosystems, which will also allow a comparison between estuarine ecosystems in other parts of the globe.

The First WORKS Conference on Transformation of Work in a Global Knowledge Economy

The relationship between the changes of the global economy and individual working conditions formed the background of the first WORKS conference “The transformation of work in a global knowledge economy: towards a conceptual framework”, held in Chania, Greece from 21st – 22nd September, 2006 and attended by around 50 European researchers. Experts from academia and trade unions from all over the world were invited to give insights into their field of research, contributing to one of the main topics of the conference: (i) globalisation and organisational restructuring, (ii) workers’ organisation, the quality of working life and the gender dimension and (iii) global experiences and recommendations.

Importance of global co-innovation networks: A TCS case study

Today all kinds of innovations and research work is done by partnerships of competent entities each having some specialized skills. Like the development of the global economy, global innovation partnerships have grown considerably and form the basis of most of the sophisticated innovations today. To further streamline and simplify such cooperation, several innovation networks have been formed, both at local and global levels. This paper discusses the different types of innovations and how cooperation can benefit innovation in terms of pooling of resources and sharing of risks. One example of an open global co-innovation network promoted by Tata Consultancy Services, the TCS COIN is taken as a case. It enables venture capitalists, consultants, research agencies, companies and universities form nodes of the network so that each entity can play a meaningful role in the innovation network. Further, two innovation projects implemented using the COIN are discussed. Innovation Networks like these could form the basis of a unique global innovation network, which is not owned by any company and is used by innovation partners globally to collaborate and conduct research and development.

Synopsis of global scenario and forecasting surveys scenarios in risk habitat megacity (RHM)

The main objective of the paper is to provide a synopsis of global scenario and forecasting surveys. First, the paper will give an overview on existing global scenario and forecasting surveys and their specific scenario philosophies and storylines. Second, the major driving forces that shape and characterise the different scenarios will be identified. The scenario analysis has been provided for the research project Risk Habitat Megacity (HRM) that aims at developing strategies for sustainable development in megacities and urban agglomerations. The analysis of international scenario surveys is an essential component within RHM. The scenario analysis will be the basis and source for the development of own RHM-framework scenarios and for defining specific driving forces of change.

Future gender relations in global restructuring processes case study evidence from knowledge-intensive, manufacturing and service occupations

Global restructuring processes have not only strong implications for European working and living realities, but also have specific outcomes with regard to gender relations. The following contribution analyses in which way global restructuring shapes current gender relations in order to identify important trends and developments for future gender (in)equalities at the workplace. On the basis of a large qualitative study on global restructuring and impacts on different occupational groups it argues that occupational belonging in line with skill and qualification levels are crucial factors to assess the further development of gender relations at work. Whereas global restructuring in knowledge-based occupations may provide new opportunities for female employees, current restructuring is going to deteriorate female labour participation in service occupations. In contrast, manufacturing occupations can be characterised by persistent gender relations, which do not change in spite of major restructuring processes at the work place. Taking the institutional perspective into account, it seems to be crucial to integrate the occupational perspective in order to apply adequate policy regulations to prevent the reinforcement of gender related working patterns in the near future.

Fragmentation? The future of work in Europe in a global economy: the WORKS final International Conference debate

WORKS final conference report

Collaborative environment to support a professional community

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

Risk management of new product development process

Dissertation submitted to Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa for the achievement of Integrated Master´s degree in Industrial Management Engineering

The operation of autonomous mobile robot assistants in the environment of care facilities adopting a user-centered development design

The participation of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA (Stuttgart, Germany) and the companies User Interface Design GmbH (Ludwigsburg, Germany) plus MLR System GmbH (Ludwigsburg, Germany) enabled the research and findings presented in this paper; we would like to namely mention Birgit Graf and Theo Jacobs (Fraunhofer IPA) furthermore Peter Klein and Christiane Hartmann (User Interface Design GmbH).

Learning in higher education: strategies to overcome challenges faced by adult students – lessons drawn from two case studies in Portugal

This paper appears in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education edited by Lawrence A. Tomei (Ed.) Copyright 2007, IGI Global, www.igi-global.com. Posted by permission of the publisher. URL:http://www.idea-group.com/journals/details.asp?id=4287.