A crop-land allocation model: A case study in La Rioja, Spain

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Algorithmic skeleton framework for the orchestration of GPU computations

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Materiais e dispositivos sensores para a Norfloxacina

O trabalho consistiu no desenvolvimento e caracterização de sensores potenciométricos com base em polímeros de impressão molecular para a determinação de um antibiótico, a norfloxacina, em aquacultura. A simplicidade, o baixo custo e a interação rápida e reversível dos sensores potenciométricos com os analitos fizeram com que este fosse o tipo de sensor escolhido. O material sensor foi obtido por tecnologia de impressão molecular, baseada em polimerização em bulk, em que a NOR foi a molécula molde e foram utilizados como monómeros para autoconstrução dos sensores o pirrol, isoladamente, ou em conjunto com partículas de sílica gel funcionalizadas com 3-aminopropil. Também foi obtido material sensor, para controlo, em que a molécula molde NOR não estava presente (NIP). As características dos materiais sensores foram sujeitas a análise de microscopia eletrónica SEM e análise por espectrómetro de infravermelhos com transformada de Fourier. Os materiais sensores foram incluídos em membranas poliméricas, que seriam incorporadas em elétrodos. A avaliação do desempenho dos elétrodos foi feita através de curvas de calibração em diferentes meios (PBS, MES e HEPES). Também foi efetuada com sucesso a análise da sensibilidade dos elétrodos em água dopada. As diversas avaliações e análises efetuadas levaram a concluir que o MIP de pirrol com aditivo aniónico, foi o material sensor testado que permitiu obter melhores propriedades de resposta.

Jogos digitais com contos infantis - Uma proposta de brinquedo-jogo para dispositivos móveis

O desenvolvimento e proliferação de equipamentos e produtos multimédia, permitindo a combinação de som, imagem e texto despoletou a emergência de novos estímulos que se associam a sensações, novas formas de interagir, de comunicar e também de brincar e aprender. Jogar e brincar são excelentes fontes de estímulos, principalmente para as crianças, pois potenciam a evolução da lógica, do raciocínio, das associações e da capacidade de escolha. No contexto dos jogos, decorrente da evolução tecnológica, o mercado dos jogos digitais tem vindo a expandir-se consideravelmente, nomeadamente na área dos jogos educativos. Os jogos educativos baseados em contos infantis permitem um enriquecimento de experiências, de capacidades sequenciais de lógica e promovem a apetência da criança para fantasiar num mundo paralelo. No entanto, do nosso ponto de vista, o mercado dos jogos digitais ainda tem um longo caminho a percorrer para fornecer de forma equilibrada este tipo de jogos educativos. Com este trabalho abordam-se as potencialidades que os jogos educativos baseados em contos infantis podem ter no desenvolvimento de algumas competências das crianças, nomeadamente através da análise das suas vantagens e dos seus aspetos negativos. O mercado dos jogos digitais é também analisado para determinar os seus contributos e as ideias principais presentes. A componente prática deste trabalho de mestrado contempla a criação de um jogo educativo baseado em contos infantis que corresponda aos interesses das crianças entre os 3 e os 5 anos de idade, e que fomente o desenvolvimento de algumas das suas competências a nível da linguagem. Os testes feitos com o protótipo do jogo permitem aferir a recetividade por parte das crianças. A simplicidade no manuseamento da aplicação e o facto de integrar histórias do imaginário infantil consideram-se fatores positivos e motivadores à utilização do jogo “Contos Baralhados: Brinca com as Histórias”.

Multi-GPU support on the marrow algorithmic skeleton framework

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

CleverThings: Comercializing the opportunity of an improved e-learning process

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

Child programming: an adequate domain specific language for programming specific robots

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Design of a low-voltage CMOS RF receiver for energy harvesting sensor node

In this thesis a CMOS low-power and low-voltage RF receiver front-end is presented. The main objective is to design this RF receiver so that it can be powered by a piezoelectric energy harvesting power source, included in a Wireless Sensor Node application. For this type of applications the major requirements are: the low-power and low-voltage operation, the reduced area and cost and the simplicity of the architecture. The system key blocks are the LNA and the mixer, which are studied and optimized with greater detail, achieving a good linearity, a wideband operation and a reduced introduction of noise. A wideband balun LNA with noise and distortion cancelling is designed to work at a 0.6 V supply voltage, in conjunction with a double-balanced passive mixer and subsequent TIA block. The passive mixer operates in current mode, allowing a minimal introduction of voltage noise and a good linearity. The receiver analog front-end has a total voltage conversion gain of 31.5 dB, a 0.1 - 4.3 GHz bandwidth, an IIP3 value of -1.35 dBm, and a noise figure lower than 9 dB. The total power consumption is 1.9 mW and the die area is 305x134.5 m2, using a standard 130 nm CMOS technology.

Validation of a case definition for leptospirosis diagnosis in patients with acute severe febrile disease admitted in reference hospitals at the State of Pernambuco, Brazil

INTRODUCTION: Leptospirosis is often mistaken for other acute febrile illnesses because of its nonspecific presentation. Bacteriologic, serologic, and molecular methods have several limitations for early diagnosis: technical complexity, low availability, low sensitivity in early disease, or high cost. This study aimed to validate a case definition, based on simple clinical and laboratory tests, that is intended for bedside diagnosis of leptospirosis among hospitalized patients. METHODS: Adult patients, admitted to two reference hospitals in Recife, Brazil, with a febrile illness of less than 21 days and with a clinical suspicion of leptospirosis, were included to test a case definition comprising ten clinical and laboratory criteria. Leptospirosis was confirmed or excluded by a composite reference standard (microscopic agglutination test, ELISA, and blood culture). Test properties were determined for each cutoff number of the criteria from the case definition. RESULTS: Ninety seven patients were included; 75 had confirmed leptospirosis and 22 did not. Mean number of criteria from the case definition that were fulfilled was 7.8±1.2 for confirmed leptospirosis and 5.9±1.5 for non-leptospirosis patients (p<0.0001). Best sensitivity (85.3%) and specificity (68.2%) combination was found with a cutoff of 7 or more criteria, reaching positive and negative predictive values of 90.1% and 57.7%, respectively; accuracy was 81.4%. CONCLUSIONS: The case definition, for a cutoff of at least 7 criteria, reached average sensitivity and specificity, but with a high positive predictive value. Its simplicity and low cost make it useful for rapid bedside leptospirosis diagnosis in Brazilian hospitalized patients with acute severe febrile disease.

Ethical consumption (in)decisons

Consumers’ indecisions about the ethical value of their choices are amongst the highest concerns regarding ethical products’ purchasing. This is especially true for Fair Trade certified products where the ethical attribute information provided by the packaging is often unacknowledged by consumers. While well-informed consumers are likely to generate positive consumer reactions to ethical products and increase its ethical consumption, less knowledgeable buyers show different purchasing patterns. In such circumstances, decisions are often driven by socio-cultural beliefs about the low functional performance of ethical or sustainable attributes. For instance, products more congruent with sustainability (e.g., produce) are considered to be simpler but less tasty than less sustainable products. Less sustainable products instead, are considered to be more sophisticated and to provide consumers with more hedonic pleasures (e.g., chocolate mousse). The extent that ethicality is linked with experiences that provide consumers with more pain than pleasure is also manifested in pro-social social behaviors. More specifically through conspicuous self-sacrificial consumption experiences like running for charity in marathons with wide public exposure. The willingness of consumers to engage in such costly initiatives is moderated by gender differences and further, mediated by the chronic productivity orientation of some individuals to use time in a productive manner. Using experimental design studies, I show that consumers (1) use a set of affective and cognitive associations with on-package elements to interpret ethical attributes, (2) implicitly associate ethicality with simplicity, and that (3) men versus women show different preferences in their forms of contribution to pro-social causes.

Spray coating of oxide and chalcogenide semiconductor layers for TFT application

This work documents the deposition and optimization of semiconductor thin films using chemical spray coating technique (CSC) for application on thin-film transistors (TFTs), with a low-cost, simple method. CSC setup was implemented and explored for industrial application, within Holst Centre, an R&D center in the Netherlands. As zinc oxide had already been studied within the organization, it was used as a standard material in the initial experiments, obtaining typical mobility values of 0.14 cm2/(V.s) for unpatterned TFTs. Then, oxide X layer characteristics were compared for films deposited with CSC at 40°C and spin-coating. The mobility of the spin-coated TFTs was 103 cm2/(V.s) higher, presumably due to the lack of uniformity of spray-coated film at such low temperatures. Lastly, tin sulfide, a relatively unexplored material, was deposited by CSC in order to obtain functional TFTs and explore the device’s potential for working as a phototransistor. Despite the low mobilities of the devices, a sensitive photodetector was made, showing drain current variation of nearly one order of magnitude under yellow light. CSC technique’s simplicity and versatility was confirmed, as three different semiconductors were successfully implemented into functional devices.

Lag-user method: Using laggards to leverage user innovation

Laggards are the last users to adopt a product. Prior literature on user-led innovation ignores laggards’ impact on innovation. In this paper, we develop the Lag-User Method, through which laggards can generate new ideas. Through six studies with 62 teams in three countries, we apply the method to different technologies and services and present our findings to executives to get managerial insights. Findings reveal that laggards who generate new ideas (lag-users) have different perceptions of user-friendly products and different unfulfilled needs. They prefer simple products. We propose that by involving lag-users in NPD, firms can improve the effectiveness of NPD.

Determinants for the subcellular localization of the inner and outer spore coat hubs in Bacillus subtilis

Endospores, or spores for simplicity, are a highly resistant cell type produced by some bacterial species under adverse conditions. Two main protective layers contribute to the resilience of spores: the cortex, composed of peptidoglycan, and the outermost proteinaceous coat. In Bacillus subtilis, the coat comprises up to 80 different proteins, organized into four sublayers: the basement layer, the inner coat, the outer coat and the crust. These proteins are synthesized at different times during sporulation and deposited at the spore surface in multiple coordinated waves. Central to coat formation is a group of morphogenetic proteins that guide the assembly of the coat components. Targeting of the coat proteins to the surface of the developing spore is mainly controlled by the SpoIVA morphogenetic ATPase. In a second stage, the coat proteins fully encircle the spore, a process termed encasement that requires the morphogenetic protein SpoVID. Assembly of the inner coat requires SafA, whereas formation of the outer coat and the crust requires CotE. SafA interacts directly with the N terminus of SpoVID. (...)

Automatic generation of ETL physical systems from BPMN conceptual models

ETL conceptual modeling is a very important activity in any data warehousing system project implementation. Owning a high-level system representation allowing for a clear identification of the main parts of a data warehousing system is clearly a great advantage, especially in early stages of design and development. However, the effort to model conceptually an ETL system rarely is properly rewarded. Translating ETL conceptual models directly into something that saves work and time on the concrete implementation of the system process it would be, in fact, a great help. In this paper we present and discuss a hybrid approach to this problem, combining the simplicity of interpretation and power of expression of BPMN on ETL systems conceptualization with the use of ETL patterns to produce automatically an ETL skeleton, a first prototype system, which has the ability to be executed in a commercial ETL tool like Kettle.

Development of magnetoelectric CoFe2O4/poly(vinylidene fluoride) microspheres

Magnetoelectric microspheres based on piezoelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and magnetrostrictive CoFe2O4 (CFO), a novel morphology for polymer-based ME material, have been developed by an electrospray process. The CFO nanoparticles content in the (3-7 μm diameter) microspheres reaches values up to 27 wt.%, despite their concentration in the starting solution reaching values up to 70 wt.%. Additionally, the inclusion of magnetostrictive nanoparticles into the polymer spheres has no relevant effect on the piezoelectric β-phase content (≈60%), crystallinity (40%) and the onset degradation temperature (460º-465ºC) of the polymer matrix. The multiferroic microspeheres show a maximum piezoelectric reponse |d33|≈30 pC.N-1, leading to a magnetoelectric response of Δ|d33|≈5 pC.N-1 obtained when a 220 mT DC magnetic field was applied. It is also shown that the interface between CFO nanoparticles and PVDF (from 0 to 55%) has a strong influence on the ME response of the microspheres. The simplicity and the scalability of the processing method suggest a large application potential of this novel magnetoelectric geometry in areas such as tissue engineering, sensors and actuators.