The impact of large-scale mortgage backed security purchases

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Promoting Portuguese exports to Germany: A hand-on approach for the machinery and equipment sector

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

Os diferentes níveis de regulação legal dos conflitos de interesses no âmbito da gestão de fundos de investimento mobiliário

In the context of the activity developed by securities investment funds (hereinafter referred to “SIF”) the holders of investment units have a very tiny power to intervene. Aware of the risks that a decoupling between ownership and control may pose, the legislator has foreseen a number of impositions and limitations to the activity of the managing entities, namely to prevent or prohibit the performance of acts in situations of potential conflicts of interests. Accordingly, the purpose of the dissertation on – “Os diferentes níveis de regulação legal dos conflitos de interesses no âmbito da gestão de FIM” – is exactly to determine the field of application of the several levels of legal regulation of the conflicts of interests that arise within the scope of the management of SIF, both at the level of the new legal requirements governing collective investment undertakings, and at the level of the legal requirements governing the conflicts of interests foreseen in the Portuguese Securities Code, in order to clarify the articulation of these different levels of conflicts of interests regulations.

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.

José Mourinho, The special one: A pedagogical case

The purpose of this work is to create a case to reflect about the leadership role of José Mourinho in Real Madrid CF, considering his successful background experiences in FC Porto, Chelsea FC and FC Inter. The case is based on the failure of the Special One in Real Madrid CF. This paper is mainly focused in the leadership process, charismatic leadership and contingency theory of leadership. Moreover it is intended to introduce concepts about the influence of leaders in the organizational culture, the management of human resources, and the role of a leader adapting to a different context.

A business model for an entertainment solution to the in-vehicle infotainment industry

The evolution of mobile technologies that make its presence something ubiquitous and the idea of internet connectivity in every device, often called as the Internet of Things, are pushing a disruption in other industry: the in-vehicle infotainment (IVI). Many companies are trying to enter this new industry that comprises information (weather, news, location services) and entertainment solutions in just one. For that purpose, company X developed a new entertainment solution and intends to bring it to market. This Work Project focuses on creating a business model and an entry mode for the company.

An equity wealth preservation strategy: Following the macro trend

Financial crisis have happened in the past and will continue to do so in the future. In the most recent 2008 crisis, global equities (as measured by the MSCI ACWI index) lost a staggering 54.2% in USD, on the year. During those periods wealth preservation becomes at the top of most investor’s concerns. The purpose of this paper is to develop a strategy that protects the investment during bear markets and significant market corrections, generates capital appreciation, and that can support Millennium BCP’s Wealth Management Unit on their asset allocation procedures. This strategy extends the Dual Momentum approach introduced by Gary Antonacci (2014) in two ways. First, the investable set of securities in the equities space increases from two to four. Besides the US it will comprise the Japanese, European (excl. UK) and EM equity indices. Secondly, it adds a volatility filter as well as three indicators related to the business cycle and the state of the economy, which are relevant to decide on the strategy’s exposure to equities. Overall the results attest the resiliency of the strategy before, during and after historical financial crashes, as it drastically reduces the downside exposure and consistently outperforms the benchmark index by providing higher mean returns with lower variance.

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.

Autonomous behaviors for an unmanned mini-aerial vehicle

This thesis aims at addressing the development of autonomous behaviors, for search and exploration with a mini-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), or also called MAV (Mini Aerial Vehicle) prototype, in order to gather information in rescue scenarios. The platform used in this work is a four rotor helicopter, known as quad-rotor from the German company Ascending Technologies GmbH, which is later assembled with a on-board processing unit (i.e. a tiny light weight computer) and a on-board sensor suite (i.e. 2D-LIDAR and Ultrasonic Sonar). This work can be divided into two phases. In the first phase an Indoor Position Tracking system was settled in order to obtain the Cartesian coordinates (i.e. X, Y, Z) and orientation (i.e.heading) which provides the relative position and orientation of the platform. The second phase was the design and implementation of medium/high level controllers on each command input in order to autonomously control the aircraft position, which is the first step towards an autonomous hovering flight, and any autonomous behavior (e.g. Landing, Object avoidance, Follow the wall). The main work is carried out in the Laboratory ”Intelligent Systems for Emergencies and Civil Defense”, in collaboration with ”Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica” of Sapienza Univ. of Rome and ”Istituto Superiore Antincendi” of the Italian Firemen Department.

Information technology service management: an experimental approach towards IT service prediction

Dissertation presented to obtain a Masters degree in Computer Science

Learning with tangible interfaces

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

Real time mobile system for support in firefighting environments

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

Preventing human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation: the need for a bottom-up approach : the case-study of Brazilians trafficked to Portugal

Masters Thesis – Academic Year 2007/2008 - European Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratization (E.MA) - European Inter-university Centre for Human Rights and Democratization (EIUC) -Faculdade de Direito, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (UNL)

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF TRACK VIBRATIONS DUE TO VERTICAL STIFFNESS VARIATION IN HIGH-SPEED RAILWAYS

High speed trains, when crossing regions with abrupt changes in vertical stiffness of the track and/or subsoil, may generate excessive ground and track vibrations. There is an urgent need for specific analyses of this problem so as to allow reliable esimates of vibration amplitude. Full understanding of these phenomena will lead to new construction solutions and mitigation of undesirable features. In this paper analytical transient solutions of dynamic response of one-dimensional systems with sudden change of foundation stiffness are derived. Results are expressed in terms of vertical displacement. Sensitivity analysis of the response amplitude is also performed. The analytical expressions presented herein, to the authors’ knowledge, have not been published yet. Although related to one-dimensional cases, they can give useful insight into the problem. Nevertheless, in order to obtain realistic response, vehicle- rail interaction cannot be omitted. Results and conclusions are confirmed using general purpose commercial software ANSYS. In conclusion, this work contributes to a better understanding of the additional vibration phenomenon due to vertical stiffness variation, permitting better control of the train velocity and optimization of the track design.

Evolution of Iberia during the Cenozoic with special emphasis on the formation of the Betic Cordillera and its relation with the western Mediterranean

The extensional process affecting Iberia during the Triassic and Jurassic times change from the end of the Cretaceous and, throughout the Palaeocene, the displacement between the African and European plates was clearly convergent and part of the future Internal Zone of the Betic Cordillera was affected. To the west, the Atlantic continued to open as a passive margin and, to the north, no significant deformation occurred. During the Eocene, the entire Iberian plate was subjected to compression. which caused major deformations in the Pyrenees and also in the Alpujarride and Nevado-Filabride, Internal Betic, complexes. In the Oligocene continued this situation, but in addition, the new extensional process ocurring in the western Mediterranean area, together with the constant eastward drift of Iberia due to Atlantic opening, compressed the eastern sector of Iberia, giving rise to the structuring of the Iberian Cordillera. The Neogene was the time when the Betic Cordillera reached its fundamental features with the westward displacement of the Betic-Rif Internal Zone, expelled by the progressive opening of the Algerian Basin, opening prolonged till the Alboran Sea. From the late Miocene onwards, all Iberia was affected by a N-S to NNW-SSE compression, combined in many points by a near perpendicular extension. Specially in eastern and southern Iberia a radial extension superposed these compression and extension.