Petri nets based components within globally asynchronous locally synchronous systems

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

Optimização da aprovação de produtos para afinação nas tinting machines

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Química e Bioquímica

Peptidoglycan assembly machines: The Staphylococcus aureus Penicillin-Binding Proteins

Dissertation presented to obtain the Ph.D degree in Biology

Avatars and the «Imitation Game» – can machines smile?

Considering Alan Turing’s challenge in «Computing Machinery and Intelligence» (1950) – can machines play the «imitation game»? – it is proposed that the requirements of the Turing test are already implicitly being used for checking the credibility of virtual characters and avatars. Like characters, Avatars aim to visually express emotions (the exterior signs of the existence of feeling) and its creators have to resort to emotion codes. Traditional arts have profusely contributed for this field and, together with the science of anatomy, shaped the grounds for current Facial Action Coding System (FACS) and their databases. However, FACS researchers have to improve their «instruction tables» so that the machines will be able, in a near future, to be programmed to carry out the operation of recognizing human expressions (face and body) and classify them adequately. For the moment, the reproductions have to resort to the copy of real life expressions, and the presente smile of avatars comes from mirroring their human users.

Petri net based development of globally-asynchronous locally-synchronous distributed embedded systems

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Application of superconducting bulks and stacks of tapes in electrical machines

The present dissertation focuses on the research of the recent approach of innovative high-temperature superconducting stacked tapes in electrical ma-chines applications, taking into account their potential benefits as an alternative for the massive superconducting bulks, mainly related with geometric and me-chanical flexibility. This work was developed in collaboration with Institut de Ciència de Ma-terials de Barcelona (ICMAB), and is related with evaluation of electrical and magnetic properties of the mentioned superconducting materials, namely: analysis of magnetization of a bulk sample through simulations carried out in the finite elements COMSOL software; measurement of superconducting tape resistivity at liquid nitrogen and room temperatures; and, finally, development and testing of a frequency controlled superconducting motor with rotor built by superconducting tapes. In the superconducting state, results showed a critical current density of 140.3 MA/m2 (or current of 51.15 A) on the tape and a 1 N∙m developed motor torque, independent from the rotor position angle, typical in hysteresis motors.

Smart machines in day-to-day financial management:

Starting from Novabase’s challenge to launch in the UK Millennials a personal financial advisor mobile application, this work project aims to build a planning model to frame a business side of a launch strategy for mobile application in similar market and category. This study culminates on the design of SPOSTAC planning model. The created framework is intended to effectively and efficiently plan a launch strategy, being structured based on seven sequential elements: Situation, Product, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action, and Control.

Concurrent tabling

In the past few years Tabling has emerged as a powerful logic programming model. The integration of concurrent features into the implementation of Tabling systems is demanded by need to use recently developed tabling applications within distributed systems, where a process has to respond concurrently to several requests. The support for sharing of tables among the concurrent threads of a Tabling process is a desirable feature, to allow one of Tabling’s virtues, the re-use of computations by other threads and to allow efficient usage of available memory. However, the incremental completion of tables which are evaluated concurrently is not a trivial problem. In this dissertation we describe the integration of concurrency mechanisms, by the way of multi-threading, in a state of the art Tabling and Prolog system, XSB. We begin by reviewing the main concepts for a formal description of tabled computations, called SLG resolution and for the implementation of Tabling under the SLG-WAM, the abstract machine supported by XSB. We describe the different scheduling strategies provided by XSB and introduce some new properties of local scheduling, a scheduling strategy for SLG resolution. We proceed to describe our implementation work by describing the process of integrating multi-threading in a Prolog system supporting Tabling, without addressing the problem of shared tables. We describe the trade-offs and implementation decisions involved. We then describe an optimistic algorithm for the concurrent sharing of completed tables, Shared Completed Tables, which allows the sharing of tables without incurring in deadlocks, under local scheduling. This method relies on the execution properties of local scheduling and includes full support for negation. We provide a theoretical framework and discuss the implementation’s correctness and complexity. After that, we describe amethod for the sharing of tables among threads that allows parallelism in the computation of inter-dependent subgoals, which we name Concurrent Completion. We informally argue for the correctness of Concurrent Completion. We give detailed performance measurements of the multi-threaded XSB systems over a variety of machines and operating systems, for both the Shared Completed Tables and the Concurrent Completion implementations. We focus our measurements inthe overhead over the sequential engine and the scalability of the system. We finish with a comparison of XSB with other multi-threaded Prolog systems and we compare our approach to concurrent tabling with parallel and distributed methods for the evaluation of tabling. Finally, we identify future research directions.

Cheirogaster sp. (O. Testudines, Fam. Testudinidae, Geochelone sl.) du Paléogène de Naia, Tondela et l’âge du gisement

A land tortoise from a new locality at Naia, Tondela, is described. It is to be reported either to an advanced form of the genus Hadrianus or to an archaic representative of Cheirogaster; it may be included in the comprehensive genus Geochelone s.l., excluding however Ergilemys and its descendants. There is a strong possibility in favour of Cheirogaster. Testudo must also be excluded. It is not possible to classify this specimen at species'level. Our specimen does agree best with Upper Eocene Testudinidae and with some Lower Oligocene ones. Its age is certainly not Upper Oligocene or later, nor Lower and Middle Eocene. This datation is not opposed to the age of the fossiliferous clays of Naia as supposed by correlation with another locality - Côja, about 30 km to the South - which yielded an assemblage of mammals whose Ludian (Upper Bartonian s.l.) age seems well established. Naia and Côja's fossil-bearing clays must be nearly synchronous; their origin is well in place among the phenomena related to the surrection of iberian Central Chain during paroxysmal phase of pyrenean orogenesis.

Palinomorfos ante-cenomanianos do «Grés do Buçaco» (Lousã, Portugal)

The palynological study of sediments from lower levels of Lousã basin (Lomba do Alveite Arkoses), is presented. The palynological association includes several species of Appendicisporites and Cicatricosisporites, Costatoperforosporites sp., Ischyosporites teixeirae, Pattelasporites tavaredensis, Echinatisporis sp., Spheripollenites perinatus, Tricolpopollenites sp. and Retitricolpites maximus. The presence of the last two forms; and the absence of Normapolles, suggest an ante-Cenomanian, most probably Albian age for the assemblage. From these results, the begining of the infilling of the Lousã basin, is, at least in part, synchronous with the deposition of the «Grés Grosseiro Inferior» from the Occidental portuguese Basin. The presence of Lower Cretaceous Basin, is shown for the first time.

Design and implementation of a behaviorally typed programming system for web services

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

Efficient middleware for database replication

Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Informática

Compact SMB chromatography for binary separation

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Developing persuasive interfaces

MSCC Dissertation in Computer Engineering

Propriedades físico-químicas de líquidos iónicos e estudos quimio- informáticos de reactividade química

Dissertação apresentada para a obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Química Especialidade de Química Orgânica Pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia