Support System for Rational Use of Electric Energy

This paper presents the system developed to promote the rational use of electric energy among consumers and, thus, increase the energy efficiency. The goal is to provide energy consumers with an application that displays the energy consumption/production profiles, sets up consuming ceilings, defines automatic alerts and alarms, compares anonymously consumers with identical energy usage profiles by region and predicts, in the case of non-residential installations, the expected consumption/production values. The resulting distributed system is organized in two main blocks: front-end and back-end. The front-end includes user interface applications for Android mobile devices and Web browsers. The back-end provides data storage and processing functionalities and is installed in a cloud computing platform - the Google App Engine - which provides a standard Web service interface. This option ensures interoperability, scalability and robustness to the system.

Downstream processing development of enveloped viruses for clinical applications: innovative tools for rational process optimization

Dissertation presented to obtain a Ph.D. degree in Engineering and Technology Sciences, Biotechnology at the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Product communication strategies: Emotional versus rational communication strategies and attitude change on children consumers

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

Noise traders, rational traders, and the rest: A new approach to efficient financial markets

A PhD Dissertation, presented as part of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the NOVA - School of Business and Economics

Functional characterization and directed engineering of redox proteins for a rational improvement of Bioelectrochemical systems

In recent years, new methods of clean and environmentally friendly energy production have been the focus of intense research efforts. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are devices that utilize naturally occurring microorganisms that feed on organic matter, like waste water, while producing electrical energy. The natural habitats of bacteria thriving in microbial fuel cells are usually marine and freshwater sediments. These microorganisms are called dissimilatory metal reducing bacteria (DMRB), but in addition to metals like iron and manganese, they can use organic compounds like DMSO or TMAO, radionuclides and electrodes as terminal electron acceptors in their metabolic pathways.(...)

Rational approximations of sectional category and Poincaré duality

Félix, Halperin, and Lemaire have shown that the rational module category Mcat and the rational Toomer invariant coincide for simply connected Poincaré duality complexes. We establish an analogue of this result for the sectional category of a fibration.

Rational manipulation of mRNA folding free energy allows rheostat control of pneumolysin production by Streptococcus pneumoniae

Rational manipulation of mRNA folding free energy allows rheostat control of pneumolysin production by Streptococcus pneumoniae

Assessment of the effects of the expansion of the city of Estarreja on the rational land use

The management of urban environment, together with the preservation of the natural environment and the creation of a sustainable built environment, is a complex challenge for contemporary societies. In the name of progress, cities are contributing for the degradation of all surrounding ecosystems. Therefore there is an arising demand for developing new strategies and a new urban development paradigm settled in the search for the equilibrium between natural and built environments and efficient use of resources. The objective of this paper is to analyse how the urban expansion of the city of Estarreja took place in relation to the land use, based on the land capability classification maps of the area. Based in the results some sustainable development strategies that might be applied to the city are discussed. The obtained results demonstrate that the city has been growing faster then its population, consuming vast portions of land, since its growth as been occurring in a linear form. Despite this fact, results show that most of this expansion took place towards a territory of lower agricultural potential, when comparing to the location of its original settlement.

Determinação da medida da pena privativa de liberdade: um olhar crítico a partir do direito anglo-saxónico

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências Jurídicas - Área de Ciências Jurídicas Públicas

Terapéutica racional, mediante indicadores de eficacia antimicrobiana, de la mastitis caprina utilizando marbofloxacina y cefquinoma. Rational therapeutics, indicators of antimicrobial efficiency in the mastitis goats using marbofloxacine and cefquinome

La producción de leche de cabra es considerada en nuestro país, y en la provincia de Córdoba, una alternativa productiva para el desarrollo sustentable y socio – económico de la población. Por otra parte, existe una mayor demanda del mercado nacional e internacional de esta leche, por lo que los productores deben garantizar la seguridad y calidad de la misma de acuerdo a las normas vigentes. Es por ello que el control y tratamiento de las diferentes enfermedades es de vital importancia tanto para maximizar la producción del hato como para cumplir con los cánones de seguridad exigidos. En este contexto la mastitis caprina es una de las enfermedades que afecta la productividad del sector, y para controlarla una de las medidas a emplear es la terapéutica con antimicrobianos. Se trabajará en este proyecto con marbofloxacina y cefquinoma, estableciendo pautas racionales (eficaces y seguras) para su empleo en la afección a nivel regional. Los indicadores de eficacia estarán fijados de acuerdo a los parámetros integrados de farmacocinética (FC) y farmacodinamia (FD). Estos últimos (FD) serán calculados a través de la determinación concentraciones inhibitorias mínimas de cepas bacterianas aisladas de mastitis caprinas en Córdoba. Se establecerán los parámetros farmacocinéticos a dosis únicas y múltiples para la marbofloxacina (5 mg/kg IV, IM) y cefquinoma (2 mg/kg IV, IM e IMM) a partir de muestras de suero y leche de cabras Anglo Nubian (n = 6 por antimicrobiano; diseño cruzado en función de la ruta de administración). Se determinarán sus concentraciones en dichos fluidos, por cromatografía líquida de alta precisión. Los resultados FC/FD para ambos medicamentos se compararán con parámetros recomendados por expertos para cada tipo de antimicrobiano y se utilizarán como medida para recomendar una terapéutica racional, fundamental para optimizar la posología, garantizar la eficacia clínica, y reducir al mínimo la selección y propagación de cepas resistentes de agentes patógenos. The production of milk of goat is considered the province of Cordoba, a productive alternative for the sustainable development and partner - economically of the population. There is a major demand of the domestic and international market of this milk, for what the producers must guarantee the safety and quality of the same one of agreement to the in force procedure. It is for it that the control and treatment of the different diseases performs vital importance so much to maximize the production of the herd as to expire with the safety demanded. In this context the mastitis goat is one of the diseases that affect the productivity of the sector, and to control her one of the measures to using is the therapeutics with antimicrobial. One will be employed at this project with marbofloxacine and cefquinome, establishing rational guidelines (effective and sure) for his employment in the affection to regional level. The indicators of efficiency will be fixed in agreement to the integrated parameters of pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodinamics (PD). The latter (PK) will be calculated across the determination inhibitory minimal concentrations of bacterial strains isolated of mastitis goat in Córdoba. The parameters will be established pharmacokinetics to the only and multiple doses for the marbofloxacine (5 mg/kg the IV, IM) and cefquinome (2 mg/kg the IVth, IM and IMM), From samples of whey and milk of goats Anglo Nubian (n = 6 for antimicrobial; design crossed depending on the route of administration). Its concentrations will decide in the above mentioned fluids, for liquid chromatography of high precision. The results PK/PD for both antimicrobial will be compared with parameters recommended by experts for every type of antimicrobial and will be in use as measure for recommending a rational, fundamental therapeutics for optimizing the dosage, for guaranteeing the clinical efficiency, and to reduce to the minimum the selection and spread of resistant of pathogenic agents.

Ehrhart polynomials, successive minima, and an Ehrhart theory for rational dilates of a rational polytope

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Mathematik, Diss., 2011

The Barcelonnettes: an example of network-entrepreneurs in XIX century Mexico. An explanation based on a theory of bounded rational choice with social embeddedness

A theory of network-entrepreneurs or "spin-off system" is presented in this paper for the creation of firms based on the community’s social governance. It is argued that firm’s capacity for accumulation depends on the presence of employees belonging to the same social/ethnic group with expectations of "inheriting" the firm and becoming entrepreneurs once they have been selected for their merits and loyalty towards their patrons. Such accumulation is possible because of the credibility of the patrons’ promises of supporting newcomers due to high social cohesion and specific social norms prevailing in the community. This theory is exemplified through the case of the Barcelonnettes, a group of immigrants from the Alps in the South of France (Provence) who came to Mexico in the XIX Century.

Rational sabotage in cooperative production

In this paper we consider a model of cooperative production in which rational agents have the possibility to engage in sabotage activities that decrease output. It is shown that sabotage depends on the interplay between the degree of congestion, the technology of sabotage, the number of agents the degree of meritocracy and the form of the sharing rule. In particular it is shown that, ceteries paribus, meritocratic systems give more incentives to sabotage than egalitarian systems. We address two questions: The degree of meritocracy that is compatible with absence of sabotage and the existence of a Nash equilibrium with and without sabotage.

Normal forms for rational difference equations with applications to the global periodicity problem

We propose a classification and derive the associated normal forms for rational difference equations with complex coefficients. As an application, we study the global periodicity problem for second order rational difference equations with complex coefficients. We find new necessary conditions as well as some new examples of globally periodic equations.