Henri Tintant face au problème "Science et Foi"

From an early age Henri Tintant was conforted with the problematic relationships between Science and Faith. After a traditional religious education, he took responsabilities within groups of teenagers and adults through scouting and the J. E. C. (an organisation of catholic students). In 1940 he was at Montpellier distributing unauthorised leaflets defending religious faith. But more significant is his intellectual contribution. He was an active and inspiring member of several workshops and in one in particumar initiated by the Catholic University of Lyon entitled : "From Naturalist to Theologians" where he would start a very fruitful and compelling intellectual collaboration with Father Gustave Martelet a jesuit theologian and a strong supporter of a permanent dialog with the scientists. Throughout the years they will gradually come to the conclusion of a necessary synergy between the scientific and the theologic approach when dealing with the mystery of religious faith . Even in the last months of his life, Henri Tintant was writing to his friendon the subject, with the same profound religious faith that brought him the serenity and the open mindness he has showed throughout his teaching and scientific career. His legacy will remain in two of his last thoughts: "Almost 50 years of scientific research have brought me a lot of pleausures and satisfactions but no answer to the essential questions. In my personal case, science and researching have not driven me away from my religious faith, on the contrary the helped me in my awareness of its utmost necessity". "Faithful to my religious belief, I am convinced that with the death, the inevitable human destiny, not everything disapears completely but another form of live, unimaginable for our limited minds, emerges, bearing in itself the perfect realization of all our hopes and desires".

Thermal shock – and its perfect imperfections

Dissertação de Mestrado em Arte e Ciência do Vidro

Eye insight

Dissertação para Obtenção do grau de Mestrado em Arte e Ciência do Vidro

Sentiment analysis on twitter for the portuguese language

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Equity in access to MRI equipment: the Portuguese case

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a method of image diagnose proven to be of undeniable importance when it comes to neuro and cardio related diseases. In fact, these diseases (such as: ischemic heart disease, stroke and acute myocardial infection) have high incidence in Portugal. For these reasons, the allocation of this medical technology should not be considered with light thoughts. In fact, making decision of resource allocation in health care can be a very complex and contested matter. The impacts of new technology allocation, such MRI, can be assessed in a variety of ways. However, a fundamental component should always be present: the use of evidence-based decision-making methods. One of these methods is Technology Assessment (TA). This paper aims to characterize the equity on access of the Portuguese population in general, to a specific medical device such as MRI, under the TA point of view. It is hoped to promote a bridge of scientific knowledge between the gap on research and policy-making through TA that can emerge as a tool to aid decision-makers in the organization of health systems. There are gaps in providing healthcare, due to geographical imbalances, with some areas unable to provide certain specialized services, as hospitals in the countryside do not provide all medical specialties. Portugal has also a large independent private sector that provides diagnostic and therapeutic services to NHS users under contracts called conventions. These medical contracts cover ambulatory health facilities for laboratory tests and examinations such as diagnostic tests and Radiology. However, there is no convention from the NHS when concerning the MRI exam. Therefore, this reality can be considered a limitation in the access of the general population to this kind of clinical exam. TA can play an useful and important role in helping the decision-makers to explore potential gains that might be achieved by introducing a more rational decision making into health care management, namely into the Radiology area, regarding the allocation of MRI equipment.

Reconceptualising public spaces of (IN)equality: sensing and creating layers of visibility

Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Geografia e Planeamento Territorial - Especialidade: Geografia Humana

O Mosteiro de Sta. Maria da Vitória e a vocação moralizante das gárgulas do panteão duartino

The Portuguese monument called Batalha’s monastery has occupied an important place in Art History especially the unfinished chapels destined to be the Pantheon of the King D. Duarte. There we observe some interesting gargoyles, moral representations as an approach to the late medieval imaginary in the national context, but also common with the thoughts of King D. Duarte. Gargoyles mirrored the daily life of medieval men and women and displayed the confrontation between the religious and the social spheres by criticizing the behaviour of the sinful body, taking on an important educational role amongst audiences. This article aims to understand the moral sense and sexual behaviour that can observe in these gargoyles and its relation with the book Leal Conselheiro, written by D. Duarte some decades before.

Past/present and future worries: na fMRI study

For the past decade, numerous imaging techniques gave rise to remarka-ble progresses in the understanding of brain’s structure and function. Amongst the wide variety of studies onto the field of neuroscience, neuropsychiatric re-searches with resource to neuroimaging have attracted increasing attention. The present study will focus on the identification of brain areas recruited while normative subjects read sentences related to past/present or future wor-ries. Our main aim was to accurately characterize these brain areas while providing them with a time-stamp that would hopefully help us understand the implications of past/present memories and future envisioning in worrying episodes. With that purpose, functional magnetic resonance imaging data was collected from ten healthy individuals. The obtained data was processed and statistically treated using the General Linear Model and both Fixed and Ran-dom Effects Analysis for group-level results. Thereafter, a Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis with Searchlight Mapping was performed in order to find patterns of activation that allow differentiation between conditions. The obtained results indicate higher brain activation while reading sen-tences related to past/present worries when compared to future worry or neu-tral sentences. The main areas include frontal cortex, posterior parietal, occipital and temporal areas. Worrying, per se, was characterized by activation of the medial posterior parietal cortex, left posterior occipital lobe and left central temporal lobe. With the searchlight mapping approach we were able to further identify patterns of distinction between conditions, which were located in the parietal, limbic and frontal lobes.

Measuring social impact: A guideline to implement a tableau de bord

Many impact-seeking organisations cannot measure and demonstrate their social impact because they either lack technical expertise or requisite financial and human resources. This report clarifies the process of social impact measurement to help these organisations engage in social impact measurement practices. It presents a simple guideline to create a measurement approach based on the Tableau de Board. The guideline has been developed through a theoretical revision of best practices in social impact measurement, academic research and the author's individual thoughts and ideas. While a first testing of the approach revealed positive feedback, only future broad-scale testing will demonstrate the approach’s validity and feasibility.

CTT, the mail going public

The main purpose of this case-study is to analyse CTT’s privatisation process, a previously Government-owned firm, which went public in 2013, under the terms of the adjustment program agreed between Portugal, the European institutions (ECB and European Commission) and the IMF. The emphasis will be placed on the IPO process, but also on the company itself (its history, current situation and prospects for its new phase, as a publicly listed company). This piece of work aims to evaluate the different alternatives for the privatisation of the company along with the respective implications, as well as the outcome of the actual decision taken by the Portuguese Government. One key aspect of the case is also to understand the importance that the privatisation of the Royal Mail, which can be seen as a peer of the Portuguese company, in the unfolding of the process and in the choice of the privatisation model. The case intends to show how the British process influenced the subsequent option of the Portuguese entities to sell CTT through an IPO, instead of a trade sale. All in all, the overall objective of this case-study is to analyse CTT’s successful sale process, which created the first Portuguese company with 100% free-float. 3 On the last days of November 2013, Steven Bernstein was staring at the window of his office overlooking downtown Manhattan, not even noticing the intense rain that was pouring down. As senior manager at ABC Fund, a pension fund responsible for managing more than 800 million dollars, his thoughts were focused on a very important decision that ABC Fund would have to make in just a matter of days. The American pension fund was considering whether or not to invest in the upcoming Initial Public Offering of CTT- Correios de Portugal, the Government-owned Portuguese mail company. Is this investment opportunity in accordance with the risk profile of a pension fund? Is it a wise decision to acquire shares in a Portuguese company when the country is at the centre of the European Sovereign debt crisis, going through a very demanding economic adjustment program imposed by its bail-out creditors? Would the creation of Portugal's Postal Bank make CTT a sure bet today when its price does not fully reflect the future benefits from entering financial services? Those were some of the questions that were constantly in Mr. Bernstein’s mind over the last couple of days and he was struggling to find the answers…