Protein folding, metal ions and conformational states: the case of a di-cluster ferredoxin

Dissertation presented to obtain the PhD degree in Biochemistry at the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Fast-to-fed shift in glucose homeostasis: clues to an earlier detection of human prediabetic states

FCM: UC Bioquímica I - PhD Thesis

E.D.I.: electronic data interchange

O presente trabalho tem como tema a Troca Electrónica de Dados (Electronic Data Interchange – EDI) transferência de dados estruturados, respeitando mensagens normalizadas estabelecidas, computador a computador, por meios electrónicos. Trocas entre computadores refere-se a trocas entre aplicações informáticas: por exemplo o sistema de encomendas envia ordens ao sistema central de controlo da produção, o qual então fará o envio da respectiva factura. O EDI aberto faz a troca electrónica de dados entre parceiros autónomos que se associaram para fazerem trocas de dados estruturados que são destinados a serem processados por programas de aplicações.

Electronic books

Este documento de trabalho visa apresentar o conceito de electronic book e discutir questões relacionadas com este novo género de publicação e sua aceitação pelo mercado, as vantagens, alguns desafios e principais dificuldades enfrentadas pelos produtores. Com o desenvolvimento das novas tecnologias, emergem novas expectativas em relação às potencialidades do ambiente digital ao que se verifica no meio impresso: custos reduzidos, facilitando a replicação de cópias e a quase livre e imediata distribuição de cópias no mundo inteiro através da Internet.

Internationalization strategy of ABotoa/Skypro shoes to United States of America

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 online brand community on electronic word-of-mouth communications

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

Taxes and labor supply: Portugal, Europe, and the United States (Conference version)

I relate hours worked with taxes on consumption and labor. I propose a model and compare its predictions for Portugal, France, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. Hours per worker in Portugal decreased from 35.1 in 1986 to 32.6 in 2001. With only the parameters and the taxes for Portugal, the model predicts the hours worked in 2001 with an error of only 12 minutes from the actual hours. Across countries, most predictions differ from the data by one hour or less. The model is able to explain the trend in hours with only the changes in taxes.

Taxes and labor supply: Portugal, Europe, and the United States

I relate hours worked with taxes on consumption and labor for Portugal, France, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. From 1986 to 2001, hours per worker in Portugal decreased from 35.1 to 32.6. With the parameters for Portugal, the model predicts hours worked in 2001 with an error of only 12 minutes from the actual hours. Across countries, most predictions differ from the data by one hour or less. The model is not sensible to special assumptions on the parameters. I calculate the long run effects of taxes on consumption, hours, capital and welfare for Portugal. I extend the model to discuss implications for Social Security. I discuss the steady state and the transition from a pay-as-you-go to a fully funded system.

electronic payments in mozambique: A Baseline on their adoption in Maputo and Matola

This study analyses the access and use of financial services by small business owners in the cities of Mozambique, as an important tool for boosting economic growth and diminishing inequality. It correlates owners’ and business characteristics with the probability of adopting Points-of-Sale (POS), Mobile Banking and Mobile Money in everyday transactions. The main findings highlight that what mostly affects the use of POS is the size of business and the volume of transactions (positively correlated with POS adoption), while using mobile phone technologies for payments predominantly depends on the owner’s age and whether he/she is a frequent cellphone user. Moreover, to increase the use of electronic means of payment it is necessary to increase financial literacy and improve the banking services.

O estatuto laboral do trabalhador estrangeiro em Portugal

After reading about the current legal regime regarding the foreign workers we realize the high relevance this area has, nevertheless the research about these issues has been lying somewhat stagnant in Portugal, particularly as it refers to non-EU citizens. At a time when we witness a progressive increase of the migratory movements we propose ourselves, in this study, to understand more clearly the current legal system in the matter of foreign worker rights, and, from a pragmatic point of view, to question some choices of the legislator in order to understand if these serves to the best protection of the rights and duties of the foreign workers and the new situations arising from this phenomenon, considering any system weaknesses. However, we realize that much remains to be done in this field, both in terms of true equal rights between nationals and foreigners, and either as what regards to an effort to harmonize these issues by the States, which tend to favor national sovereignty and its economic interests rather than protecting the fundamental rights of workers.

Leverage instability and persistence: Evidence from the United States and Europe

We find that leverage behavior both in level and time-series variation is very similar between the United States and Europe throughout the 1990-2013 period. Leverage regimes are simultaneously unstable and persistent for both regions. We define instability as the extent to which firms largely deviate from their long-term leverage mean, while persistence as the extent to which today’s leverage influences its future levels. We then show that this simultaneous evidence imply a mean-reversion behavior of leverage and discuss some of its implications for future research on this field.

The relationship between liquidity and profitability in the food & beverage industry evidence from Europe and United States

This Work Project clarifies the relationship between liquidity and profitability based on a sample in the Food & Beverage (F&B) industry, and comparing the largest European and United States companies. The research concludes that liquidity, proxied by current ratio or quick ratio, correlates with return on assets taken as the measure of profitability, and so does the cash conversion cycle and its components. Moreover, company size correlates with liquidity, and indirectly affects ROA. This research contributes and addresses to managers in the F&B industry and recommends how they should act in order to improve profitability in the industry.