Mainroad: Cloud computing

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

Estimating data divergence in cloud computing storage systems

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Introducing Mobile Money in Rural Mozambique: Evidence from a Field Experiment*

The limitations of access to finance in Africa, together with the recent boom in cell phone use in that continent, created high expectations regarding the introduction of mobile money in many African countries. The success story of M-PESA in Kenya raised the bar further. We designed and conducted a field experiment to assess the impact of randomized mobile money dissemination in rural Mozambique. For this purpose we benefit from the fact that mobile money was only recently launched in the country, allowing for the identification of a pure control group. This paper reports on the first results of this ongoing project after the first wave of dissemination efforts in rural locations, which included the recruitment and training of mobile money agents, community meetings and theaters, as well as individual rural campaigning. Administrative and behavioral data both show clear adherence to the services in the treatment group. Financial literacy and trust outcomes are also positively affected by the treatment. We present behavioral evidence that the marginal willingness to remit was increased by the availability of mobile money. Finally, we observe a tendency for mobile money to substitute traditional alternatives for both savings and remittances.

Is Information Power? Using Mobile Phones and Free Newspapers during an Election in Mozambique*

African elections often reveal low levels of political accountability. We assess different forms of voter education during an election in Mozambique. Three interventions providing information to voters and calling for their electoral participation were randomized; an SMS-based information campaign, an SMS hotline for electoral misconduct, and the distribution of a free newspaper. To measure impact, we look at official electoral results, reports by electoral observers, behavioral and survey data. We find positive effects of all treatments on voter turnout. We observe that the distribution of the newspaper led to more accountability-based participation and to a decrease in electoral problems.

Fixed-mobile integration

Often, fixed-line incumbents also own the largest mobile network. We consider the effect of this joint ownership on market outcomes. Our model predicts that while fixed-to-mobile call prices to the integrated mobile network are more efficient than under separation, those to rival mobile networks are distorted upwards, amplifying any incumbency advantage. As concerns potential remedies, a uniform off-net pricing constraint leads to higher welfare than functional separation and even allows to maintain some of the efficiency gains.

Welfare analysis of regulating mobile termination rates in the UK with an application to the Orange/T-Mobile merger

We present a calibrated model of the UK mobile telephony market with four mobile networks; calls to and from the fixed network; network-based price discrimination; and call externalities. Our results show that reducing mobile termination rates broadly in line with the recent European Commission Recommendation to either pure long-run incremental cost ; reciprocal termination charges with fixed networks; or Bill & Keep (i.e. zero termination rates), increases social welfare, consumer surplus and networks profits. Depending on the strength of call externalities, social welfare may increase by as much as £ 990 million to £ 4.5 billion per year, with Bill & Keep leading to the highest increase in welfare. We also apply the model to estimate the welfare effects of the 2010 merger between Orange and T-Mobile under different scenarios concerning MTRs, and predict that consumer surplus decreases strongly.

SIG Municipais aplicados a Levantamento de Vídeo e Respectiva Georreferenciação (Mobile Mapping) e Carregamento em Base de Dados SIG

Relatório de Estágio apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Gestão do Território, especialização em Detecção Remota e Sistemas de Informação Geográfica

Drivers and barriers to value creation in mobile service delivery

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

Market analysis of a new business opportunity in mobile-casual gaming: Partnership between Nmusic and Rovio Entertainment Ltd

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

Narrative Bifurcation, Cloud Computing Interfaces and Hitchcok

From a narratological perspective, this paper aims to address the theoretical issues concerning the functioning of the so called «narrative bifurcation» in data presentation and information retrieval. Its use in cyberspace calls for a reassessment as a storytelling device. Films have shown its fundamental role for the creation of suspense. Interactive fiction and games have unveiled the possibility of plots with multiple choices, giving continuity to cinema split-screen experiences. Using practical examples, this paper will show how this storytelling tool returns to its primitive form and ends up by conditioning cloud computing interface design.

Documenting InStory – Mobile Storytelling in a Cultural Heritage Environment

This paper describes the process and problems that had to be faced during the elaboration of a digital interactive narrative for the Instory project (http://img.di.fct.unl.pt/InStory/) implanted in «Quinta da Regaleira», Sintra, Portugal, and classified as World Heritage by Unesco. It also explores some of the practical and theoretical issues in what regards the literary terminology and strategies involved.

Strategy definition of a new business opportunity in mobile-casual gaming: Partnership between Nmusic and Rovio Entertainment Ltd.

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

Dynamic adaptation of interaction models for stateful web services

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Study on the development of an autonomous mobile robot

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Eletrotécnica e de Computadores

Heterogeneous computing with an algorithmic skeleton framework

The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is present in almost every modern day personal computer. Despite its specific purpose design, they have been increasingly used for general computations with very good results. Hence, there is a growing effort from the community to seamlessly integrate this kind of devices in everyday computing. However, to fully exploit the potential of a system comprising GPUs and CPUs, these devices should be presented to the programmer as a single platform. The efficient combination of the power of CPU and GPU devices is highly dependent on each device’s characteristics, resulting in platform specific applications that cannot be ported to different systems. Also, the most efficient work balance among devices is highly dependable on the computations to be performed and respective data sizes. In this work, we propose a solution for heterogeneous environments based on the abstraction level provided by algorithmic skeletons. Our goal is to take full advantage of the power of all CPU and GPU devices present in a system, without the need for different kernel implementations nor explicit work-distribution.To that end, we extended Marrow, an algorithmic skeleton framework for multi-GPUs, to support CPU computations and efficiently balance the work-load between devices. Our approach is based on an offline training execution that identifies the ideal work balance and platform configurations for a given application and input data size. The evaluation of this work shows that the combination of CPU and GPU devices can significantly boost the performance of our benchmarks in the tested environments, when compared to GPU-only executions.