Evaluation of polymethylmethacrylate as ocular implant in rabbits subjected to evisceration

Spheres of different types of material are used for the replacement of lost volume after removal of the eye bulb or its content to prevent contraction of the orbital cavity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the scope of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) used as intraocular implant in eviscerated rabbit eye. Twelve New Zealand rabbits underwent unilateral evisceration of the left eye, with subsequent implantation of PMMA sphere 12 mm in diameter. Clinical evaluation was performed daily during the first 15 days after surgery and every 15 days until the end of the study period (180 days). For the histopathological analysis, three animals per trial underwent enucleation at 15, 45, 90 and 180 days after evisceration. There was no wound dehiscence, signs of infection or implant extrusion in any animal throughout the study period. Histological examination revealed the formation of fibrovascular tissue around the implants. The PMMA behaved as inert and non-integrable.

Novas perspetivas sobre as identidades de classe

Há mais de uma década começou a formar-se um movimento de reconversão nos estudos sobre as classes sociais, orientado pela ideia de que é preciso dar mais relevo aos processos culturais, à formação de identidades, ao gosto e à expressão de modos de vida e proceder ao exame direto da maneira como as posições de classe são vividas. Nesta perspetiva, as culturas de classe deixam de designar apenas tipos de comportamento próprios de grupos de desigualdade e passam a ser vistas também como modos de diferenciação, em que as categorias de classe operam através de distinções individualizadas e comparações relacionais com membros de outras classes. O que o conceito de identidade de classe quer agora indicar é um sentido das distâncias sociais dentro das hierarquias, que recorre às diferenças culturais para se exprimir. Este texto recenseia os desenvolvimentos teóricos e as bases empíricas desta linha de trabalho, emergente na sociologia britânica a partir do final da década de 90, com as propostas de autores como Savage, Skeggs, Reay, ou Bottero, entre outros.

Internet Geography: New Spaces of Information

The objective of great investments in telecommunication networks is to approach economies and put an end to the asymmetries. The most isolated regions could be the beneficiaries of this new technological investments wave disseminating trough the territories. The new economic scenarios created by globalisation make high capacity backbones and coherent information society polity, two instruments that could change regions fate and launch them in to an economic development context. Technology could bring international projection to services or products and could be the differentiating element between a national and an international economic strategy. So, the networks and its fluxes are becoming two of the most important variables to the economies. Measuring and representing this new informational accessibility, mapping new communities, finding new patterns and localisation models, could be today’s challenge. In the physical and real space, location is defined by two or three geographical co-ordinates. In the network virtual space or in cyberspace, geography seems incapable to define location, because it doesn’t have a good model. Trying to solve the problem and based on geographical theories and concepts, new fields of study came to light. The Internet Geography, Cybergeography or Geography of Cyberspace are only three examples. In this paper and using Internet Geography and informational cartography, it was possible to observe and analyse the spacialisation of the Internet phenomenon trough the distribution of the IP addresses in the Portuguese territory. This work shows the great potential and applicability of this indicator to Internet dissemination and regional development studies. The Portuguese territory is seen in a completely new form: the IP address distribution of Country Code Top Level Domains (.pt) could show new regional hierarchies. The spatial concentration or dispersion of top level domains seems to be a good instrument to reflect the info-structural dynamic and economic development of a territory, especially at regional level.

Internet Geography: Spaces of Innovation

Information Society plays an important role in all kinds of human activity, inducing new forms of economic and social organization and creating knowledge. Over the last twenty years of the 20th century, large investments in telecommunication networks were made to approach economies and put an end to the asymmetries. The most isolated regions were the beneficiaries of this new technological investment’s wave disseminating trough the territories. The new economic scenarios created by globalisation make high capacity backbones and coherent information society polity, two instruments that could change regions fate and launch them in to an economic development context. Technology could bring international projection to services, products and could be the differentiating element between a national and an international economic strategy. So, the networks and its fluxes are becoming two of the most important variables to the economies. Measuring and representing this new informational accessibility, mapping new communities, finding new patterns and localisation models, could be today’s challenge. In the physical/real space, location is defined by two or three geographical co-ordinates. In the network/virtual space or in cyberspace, geography seems incapable to define location, because it doesn’t have a good model. Trying to solve the problem and based on geographical theories and concepts, new fields of study came to light. Internet Geography is one example. In this paper and using Internet Geography and informational cartography, it was possible to observe and analyse the spacialisation of the Internet phenomenon trough the distribution of the IP addresses in the Portuguese territory. This work shows the great potential and applicability of this indicator to regional development studies, and at the same time. The IP address distribution of Country Code Top Level Domains (.pt for Portugal) could show the same economic patterns, reflecting territorial inflexibility or, by opposition, new regional hierarchies. The spatial concentration or dispersion of top level domains seems to be a good instrument to analyse the info-structural dynamic and economic development of a territory, especially at regional level. At the same time it shows that information technologies are essential to innovation and competitive advantage.

The compliance function in banking: Perspective and future in the age of globalization

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

Decisions of technology innovation: the role of indicators

This work presents research conducted to understand the role of indicators in decisions of technology innovation. A gap was detected in the literature of innovation and technology assessment about the use and influence of indicators in this type of decision. It was important to address this gap because indicators are often frequent elements of innovation and technology assessment studies. The research was designed to determine the extent of the use and influence of indicators in decisions of technology innovation, to characterize the role of indicators in these decisions, and to understand how indicators are used in these decisions. The latter involved the test of four possible explanatory factors: the type and phase of decision, and the context and process of construction of evidence. Furthermore, it focused on three Portuguese innovation groups: public researchers, business R&D&I leaders and policymakers. The research used a combination of methods to collect quantitative and qualitative information, such as surveys, case studies and social network analysis. This research concluded that the use of indicators is different from their influence in decisions of technology innovation. In fact, there is a high use of indicators in these decisions, but lower and differentiated differences in their influence in each innovation group. This suggests that political-behavioural methods are also involved in the decisions to different degrees. The main social influences in the decisions came mostly from hierarchies, knowledge-based contacts and users. Furthermore, the research established that indicators played mostly symbolic roles in decisions of policymakers and business R&D&I leaders, although their role with researchers was more differentiated. Indicators were also described as helpful instruments to conduct a reasonable interpretation of data and to balance options in innovation and technology assessments studies, in particular when contextualised, described in detail and with discussion upon the options made. Results suggest that there are four main explanatory factors for the role of indicators in these decisions: First, the type of decision appears to be a factor to consider when explaining the role of indicators. In fact, each type of decision had different influences on the way indicators are used, and each type of decision used different types of indicators. Results for policy-making were particularly different from decisions of acquisition and development of products/technology. Second, the phase of the decision can help to understand the role indicators play in these decisions. Results distinguished between two phases detected in all decisions – before and after the decision – as well as two other phases that can be used to complement the decision process and where indicators can be involved. Third, the context of decision is an important factor to consider when explaining the way indicators are taken into consideration in policy decisions. In fact, the role of indicators can be influenced by the particular context of the decision maker, in which all types of evidence can be selected or downplayed. More importantly, the use of persuasive analytical evidence appears to be related with the dispute existent in the policy context. Fourth and last, the process of construction of evidence is a factor to consider when explaining the way indicators are involved in these decisions. In fact, indicators and other evidence were brought to the decision processes according to their availability and capacity to support the different arguments and interests of the actors and stakeholders. In one case, an indicator lost much persuasion strength with the controversies that it went through during the decision process. Therefore, it can be argued that the use of indicators is high but not very influential; their role is mostly symbolic to policymakers and business decisions, but varies among researchers. The role of indicators in these decisions depends on the type and phase of the decision and the context and process of construction of evidence. The latter two are related to the particular context of each decision maker, the existence of elements of dispute and controversies that influence the way indicators are introduced in the decision-making process.

Performance management practices in Portugal.

Performance management and assessment has returned to the forefront of the public debate in Portugal, at the same time that some international studies point Portugal as a country with bad management practices, highlighting performance management practices. Despite all this attention, there is little information about how those practices are applied in the country. This research’s goal is to assess why performance management systems and practices are so poorly applied in Portugal. To achieve this goal we studied employees’ perception about the topic and diagnose the associated problems. The methodology comprised inductive and qualitative research, in the form of interviews with employees from different professions, industries, hierarchies, and ages. Our findings suggest that performance management failure is related with a procedural problem with three different dimensions: Insufficient Planning, Process & Integrity Issues, and Non-Meritocratic Logic. By exposing the different components of the Portuguese performance management problem, we shed light into the topic and allow organizations to understand and face their performance management systems’ flaws.

Preservation of vernacular schist masonry farm walls

This paper complements the information presented at the CIAV2013 on vernacular build- ings in northern Portugal, and addresses the topic of masonry walls in the rural areas of the northwestern Portuguese coastline. These walls are structural schist masonry constructions, built using ancient tech- niques and locally available resources. The result is a territory built for agricultural exploration, and a landscape imprinted with past social hierarchies and structures. Using the information gathered by the fieldwork study, the paper will present studies on masonry walls with different morphologies, construction materials and building techniques employed. The information presented aims to contribute to enlighten researchers and technicians about these building specificities, to increase the scarce available literature about schist’s potential as construction material, and to enhance the importance of the cultural value of this particular kind of heritage.

Foreign acquisition and internal organization

NIPE WP 05/2016

Análisis no conmutativo y ecuaciones diferenciales

Se continuará desarrollando líneas de trabajo en análisis armónico no conmutativo. El problema a considerar consiste en obtener, sobre el grupo de Heisenberg, la descomposición espectral simultánea en el estudio de las funciones de cuadrado integrable, correspondientes a cierto operador diferencial de segundo orden y cierto operador de orden 1. Asimismo se continuará con el desarrollo en el área de ecuaciones diferenciales parabólicas con coeficientes periódicos en el tiempo (...) consistentes en : a) Problemas de autovalores con función de peso y valores en la frontera: en este caso se pretende mejorar resultados obtenidos sobre condiciones sobre el peso para existencia, unicidad de autofunciones positivas periódicas así como estudiar la dependencia de autovalore en términos del peso. b) Estudir el análogo parabólico periódico del espectro de Fusik elíptico, de interés por sus posibles aplicaciones a resultados de existencia y no existencia de soluciones de problemas no lineales. (...)

Representaciones de grupos y álgebras de Lie

Este proyecto cuenta con 7 subproyectos.Subproyecto: Restricciones de representaciones de cuadrado integrable.Se continuará trabajando en el problema de restringir representaciones de cuadrado integrable en un grupo de Lie a un subgrupo semisimple o la factor unipotente de un subgrupo parabólico. En particular, se continuará analizando el caso de restringir desde el grupo SO(2n,1) al subgrupo SO(2) x SO(2n-2,1) y al factor unipotente del parabólico minimal de un grupo de Lie clásico de rango uno. Subproyecto: Representación metapléctica y grupos de Heisenberg generalizados. Se estudia la restricción de la representación metapléctica a subgrupos del grupo metapléctico. Subproyecto: Álgebras de tipo H. Se estudiarán estructuras de biálgebra en las álgebras de tipo H, álgebras de Lie nilpotentes de dos etapas. Se continuará con el estudio de cuantizaciones de álgebras de tipo H. Se estudiarán propiedades geométricas de las funciones theta generalizadas que surgen de álgebras de tipo H. Subproyecto: Módulos de peso máximo. Se intenta dar una respuesta al problema de clasificación de módulos quasifinitos de peso máximo sobre ciertas álgebras de dimensión infinita. Subproyecto: Cuantización de las álgebras de tipo H. Se tratará de cuantizar las álgebras de tipo H, álgebras de Lie nilpotentes de dos etapas. Se trabajará con una definición más general de las álgebras de Heisenberg, tratando de encontrar teoremas tipo Stone-Von Neumann y generalizaciones de las funciones theta. Subproyecto: Continuación analítica de integrales de coeficientes matriciales. Se analiza la existencia de continuación holomorfa de la integral a lo largo de un grupo semisimple real de las potencias complejas de un coeficiente matricial de una representación irreducible admisible. Subproyecto: Cálculo explícito de soluciones fundamentales de operadores invariantes. Se analizan condiciones en el polinomio que define un operador diferencial k-invariante para que resulte hipoellítico. Se trata en particular el caso del grupo SO(n,1). Subproyecto 7: Generadores de Goldie. Se trata de encontrar algoritmos para el cálculo de generadores de Goldie.

Non-classical error bounds in the central limit theorem

The classical central limit theorem states the uniform convergence of the distribution functions of the standardized sums of independent and identically distributed square integrable real-valued random variables to the standard normal distribution function. While first versions of the central limit theorem are already due to Moivre (1730) and Laplace (1812), a systematic study of this topic started at the beginning of the last century with the fundamental work of Lyapunov (1900, 1901). Meanwhile, extensions of the central limit theorem are available for a multitude of settings. This includes, e.g., Banach space valued random variables as well as substantial relaxations of the assumptions of independence and identical distributions. Furthermore, explicit error bounds are established and asymptotic expansions are employed to obtain better approximations. Classical error estimates like the famous bound of Berry and Esseen are stated in terms of absolute moments of the random summands and therefore do not reflect a potential closeness of the distributions of the single random summands to a normal distribution. Non-classical approaches take this issue into account by providing error estimates based on, e.g., pseudomoments. The latter field of investigation was initiated by work of Zolotarev in the 1960's and is still in its infancy compared to the development of the classical theory. For example, non-classical error bounds for asymptotic expansions seem not to be available up to now ...

The Cost of ownership in the governance of interfirm collaborations

This paper investigates the selection of governance forms in interfirm collaborations taking into account the predictions from transaction costs and property rights theories. Transaction costs arguments are often used to justify the introduction of hierarchical controls in collaborations, but the ownership dimension of going from “contracts” to “hierarchies” has been ignored in the past and with it the so called “costs of ownership”. The theoretical results, tested with a sample of collaborations in which participate Spanish firms, indicate that the cost of ownership may offset the benefits of hierarchical controls and therefore limit their diffusion. Evidence is also reported of possible complementarities between reputation effects and forms of ownership that go together with hierarchical controls (i.e. joint ventures), in contrast with the generally assumed substitutability between the two.

Lp-solutions to BSDEs with super-linear growth coefficient. Application to degenerate semilinear PDEs.

We consider multidimensional backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs). We prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions when the coefficient grow super-linearly, and moreover, can be neither locally Lipschitz in the variable y nor in the variable z. This is done with super-linear growth coefficient and a p-integrable terminal condition (p & 1). As application, we establish the existence and uniqueness of solutions to degenerate semilinear PDEs with superlinear growth generator and an Lp-terminal data, p & 1. Our result cover, for instance, the case of PDEs with logarithmic nonlinearities.

The third order Melnikov function of a quadratic center under quadratic perturbation

We study quadratic perturbations of the integrable system (1+x)dH; where H =(x²+y²)=2: We prove that the first three Melnikov functions associated to the perturbed system give rise at most to three limit cycles.