Diversity of sand flies in domiciliary environment of Santarém, state of Pará, Brazil: species composition and abundance patterns in rural and urban areas

This paper aimed to evaluate the richness, abundance and frequency of sand fly occurrence in rural and urban areas American visceral Leishmaniasis -AVL is endemic in the study area of Santarém municipality, Pará state. Sand flies were collected during 1995-2000, using CDC light traps placed in neighborhoods and rural areas of the municipality. A total of 53.454 individuals and 26 species of sand flies were collected. The most abundant species in both urban and rural environments was Lutzomyia longipalpis, vector of AVL in the area. The highest species richness by capture was in rural area. In all years sampled, the largest number of species of sand fly collected was always in rural areas. The species of sand flies in urban and rural area were similar in 11 species. In the rural area other 11 species were found, a total of 22 species. Shannon-Wiener index ranged from 0.12 to 0.84 at rural areas and 0.08 to 0.34 at urban ones. In general, rural localities showed higher diversity (H') of phlebotomines than urban ones. Individual-based rarefaction curves for each area demonstrated that urban localities had the lowest expected number of phlebotomine species and the richest rural ones reach higher expected values with lower amount of individuals than urban sites. The most frequent species were Lutzomyia longipalpis, Evandromyia carmelinoi and Bichromomyia flaviscutellata.

Social entrepreneurship: does institutional environment make a difference?

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the link between social entrepreneurs and institutional environment in Portugal. A quantitative approach is used in the study, and primary data were collected through an online survey. A questionnaire was emailed to, both, Portuguese Non-Governmental organizations and projects available on the Portuguese social stock exchange. In the analysis of the data were used descriptive statistics, factorial analysis and t-student tests to validate (or not) the research hypotheses. The results show that a favorable institutional environment has a low importance in the decision to develop social initiatives. This conclusion supports the idea that many social entrepreneurs can emerge even in developing regions where the institutional environment is weak. Therefore, social entrepreneurship could be an instrument of regional development and contribute to attenuate the social and economic differences among Portuguese regions.

Specification and testing of multiplicative time-varying GARCH models with applications

In this article, we develop a specification technique for building multiplicative time-varying GARCH models of Amado and Teräsvirta (2008, 2013). The variance is decomposed into an unconditional and a conditional component such that the unconditional variance component is allowed to evolve smoothly over time. This nonstationary component is defined as a linear combination of logistic transition functions with time as the transition variable. The appropriate number of transition functions is determined by a sequence of specification tests. For that purpose, a coherent modelling strategy based on statistical inference is presented. It is heavily dependent on Lagrange multiplier type misspecification tests. The tests are easily implemented as they are entirely based on auxiliary regressions. Finite-sample properties of the strategy and tests are examined by simulation. The modelling strategy is illustrated in practice with two real examples: an empirical application to daily exchange rate returns and another one to daily coffee futures returns.

Resilience of concrete structures in the marine environment through microstructural innovation

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Civil

Synthesis of new peptide derivatives that self-assemble into nanostructured hydrogels for biomedical applications

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências (área de especialização em Química)

Introduction [to "Citizen voices: performing public participation in science and environment communication"]

"ECREA series, ISSN 1742-9420"

SOFHIA: a CAD environment to design digital control systems

"Series Title: IFIP - The International Federation for Information Processing, ISSN 1868-4238"

Final report detailed description - NET Station: shaping radio for web environment

In more scientific terms, NET Station contributed to: - discuss in theoretical terms the role radio still play in contemporary societies; - examine how audiences are using sound resources on the Web; - draw up a new theoretical framework for the study of the reconfiguration of radio language on the Internet;acknowledge that people are not abandoning radio as a medium; the survey applied by the team demonstrated that there is a complementariness between traditional radio and radio on the Internet; - understand that people expect more interactivity, more opportunities to participate in content production and more diversity of contents. These results were shared with editors responsible for Portuguese radio and might influence the offer made available by these radio corporations from now on; - demonstrate that the Internet is underexplored in terms of sound and acoustic communication; - promote the production of new sound narratives to be available on the Internet;

Communications with QoS in IoT&Cloud environment

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia de Telecomunicações e Informática

An investigation into system security requirements and implementation in an Application Service Provider (ASP) environment

Although the ASP model has been around for over a decade, it has not achieved the expected high level of market uptake. This research project examines the past and present state of ASP adoption and identifies security as a primary factor influencing the uptake of the model. The early chapters of this document examine the ASP model and ASP security in particular. Specifically, the literature and technology review chapter analyses ASP literature, security technologies and best practices with respect to system security in general. Based on this investigation, a prototype to illustrate the range and types of technologies that encompass a security framework was developed and is described in detail. The latter chapters of this document evaluate the practical implementation of system security in an ASP environment. Finally, this document outlines the research outputs, including the conclusions drawn and recommendations with respect to system security in an ASP environment. The primary research output is the recommendation that by following best practices with respect to security, an ASP application can provide the same level of security one would expect from any other n-tier client-server application. In addition, a security evaluation matrix, which could be used to evaluate not only the security of ASP applications but the security of any n-tier application, was developed by the author. This thesis shows that perceptions with regard to fears of inadequate security of ASP solutions and solution data are misguided. Finally, based on the research conducted, the author recommends that ASP solutions should be developed and deployed on tried, tested and trusted infrastructure. Existing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) should be used where possible and security best practices should be adhered to where feasible.

Design, development and testing of a CAD integrated design for environment software tool.

The research described in this thesis was developed as part o f the Information Management for Green Design (IMA GREE) Project. The 1MAGREE Project was founded by Enterprise Ireland under a Strategic Research Grant Scheme as a partnership project between Galway Mayo Institute o f Technology and C1MRU University College Galway. The project aimed to develop a CAD integrated software tool to support environmental information management for design, particularly for the electronics-manufacturing sector in Ireland.

Effects of environment on quality of tomato transplanting plants

In order to study the effects of shading and unshading combined with N fertilizing on tomato transplanting plants, an experiment in greenhouse conditions was carried on. It was concluded that N is important to produce healthy and strong plants. Under shading plus N fertilization, plants are taller and have high nitrate contents, while under unshading plus N fertilization, plants have higher diameter and more developed root system.