A tecnologia no ensino da interpretação

Tese de Mestrado em Tradução e Interpretação Especializadas Área Científica de Línguas e Culturas

Oxidative Stress in Diabetic Neuropathy

For treating chronic pain, a multifactorial condition, is needed a suitable diagnosis which allows the differentiation in its many components. Diabetic neuropathy is a worldwide disease with great impact in the modern society. Diabetes may leads to the production of reactive oxygen species that are associated to oxidative stress, which may be a key factor in the development of diabetic neuropathy. The main goal is to inquire a potential association between chronic pain, diabetic neuropathy and oxidative stress. Thus, was performed a meta-analysis that permitted the causal evaluation between oxidative stress and diabetic neuropathy, and, a pain evaluation was accomplished in a convenience sample using validated surveys – Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) and Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4). Through the meta-analysis it was possible evaluate oxidative stress biomarkers, such lipid peroxidation, superoxide dismutase and catalase activities, and reduced glutathione. 9 studies were selected and all were performed in mouse models. The levels of lipid peroxidation were increased in all the studies, however the levels of the other biomarkers were diminished in diabetic models comparatively to healthy controls. In the evaluation of convenience sample, 84 surveys were collected along the four seasons: summer, autumn, winter and spring. The pain complaints were described in terms of local, intensity, impact, relief by medication and its effect on daily activities using BPI questionnaire. The scores obtained in BPI indicate the presence of moderate to severe pain, with increased complaints in autumn and spring, and implications in daily activities, transversal to all groups. To determine the main features associated with neuropathic pain it was used DN4 questionnaire. The DN4 indicated the presence of nearly 50% of patients with neuropathic pain. The results suggest that being female, the increased age and being retired can influence chronic pain and neuropathic pain in patients. As main conclusions, it was possible to verify an association between oxidative stress, and neuropathic pain, and, also, that weather conditions may influence the pain complaints and its prevalence.

Avaliação externa e seus efeitos : a perspetiva dos atores escolares

"No Capítulo 10 − Avaliação externa e seus efeitos: a perspetiva dos atores escolares, os autores Eduarda Rodrigues, Filipa Seabra, Helena Queirós, Joana Sousa, Conceição Lamela, Natália Costa e José Carlos Morgado apresentam dois estudos de caso, um realizado num agrupamento de escolas e outro numa escola secundária, escolhidos por constituírem “casos” de melhoria das classificações e corresponderem a situações críticas do processo de avaliação externa. Com base nas entrevistas ao diretor, ao coordenador da equipa de autoavaliação e aos coordenadores dos órgãos de gestão intermédia e nos dados de um inquérito por questionário aos docentes, é avaliado o impacto da AEE nas mudanças organizacionais, curriculares e pedagógicas e nos resultados académicos e sociais nas instituições escolares envolvidas" (Bidarra, Barreira & Vaz-Rebelo, 2016; Prefácio).

Risco operacional

Neste texto são analisadas técnicas e/ou métodos para calcular o risco operacional, nomeadamente nas instituições de crédito...

Other-Regarding Preferences in General Equilibrium

We study competitive market outcomes in economies where agents have other-regarding preferences. We identify a separability condition on monotone preferences that is necessary and sufficient for one’s own demand to be independent of the allocations and characteristics of other agents in the economy. Given separability, it is impossible to identify other-regarding preferences from market behavior: agents be- have as if they had classical preferences that depend only on own consumption in competitive equilibrium. If preferences, in addition, depend only on the final allocation of consumption in society, the Sec- ond Welfare Theorem holds as long as an increase in resources can be distributed such that all agents are better off. Nevertheless, the First Welfare Theorem generally does not hold. Allowing agents to care about their own consumption and the distribution of consump- tion possibilities in the economy, we provide a condition under which agents have no incentive to make direct transfers, and show that this condition implies that competitive equilibria are efficient given prices.

Fast-Track Authority and International Trade Negotiations

Fast Track Authority (FTA) is the institutional procedure in the Unites States whereby Congress grants to the President the power to negotiate international trade agreements. Under FTA, Congress can only approve or reject negotiated trade deals, with no possibility of amending them. In this paper, we examine the determinants of FTA voting decisions and the implications of this institutional procedure for trade negotiations. We describe a simple two-country trade model, in which industries are unevenly distributed across con- stituencies. In the foreign country, trade negotiating authority is delegated to the executive, while in the home country Congress can retain the power to amend trade agreements. We show that legislators’ FTA voting behavior depends on the trade policy interests of their own constituencies as well as those of the majority of Congress. Empirical analysis of the determinants of all FTA votes between 1974 (when fast track was first introduced) and 2002 (when it was last granted) provides strong support for the predictions of our model.

Democratic Peace and Electoral Accountability

One of the few stylized facts in international relations is that democracies, unlike autoc- racies, very rarely fight each other. We examine the sustainability of international peace between democracies and autocracies, where the crucial difference between these two po- litical regimes is whether or not policymakers are subject to periodic elections. We show that the fear of losing office can deter democratic leaders from engaging in military con- flicts. Crucially, this discipline effect can only be at work if incumbent leaders can be re-elected, implying that democracies in which the executives are subject to term limits should be more conflict prone. To assess the validity of our predictions, we construct a large dataset on countries with executive term limits. Our analysis of inter-state conflicts for the 1816-2001 period suggests that electoral incentives are indeed behind the democratic peace phenomenon: while democratic dyads are in general less likely to be involved in conflicts than any other dyads, this result does not hold for democracies in which the executive faces binding term limits; moreover, the dispute patterns of democracies with term limits depend on whether the executive is in the last or penultimate mandate.

One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation

In elections, majority divisions pave the way to focal manipulations and coordination failures, which can lead to the victory of the wrong candidate. This paper shows how this flaw can be addressed if voter preferences over candidates are sensitive to information. We consider two potential sources of divisions: majority voters may have similar preferences but opposite information about the candidates, or opposite preferences. We show that when information is the source of majority divisions, Approval Voting features a unique equilibrium with full information and coordination equivalence. That is, it produces the same outcome as if both information and coordination problems could be resolved. Other electoral systems, such as Plurality and Two-Round elections, do not satisfy this equivalence. The second source of division is opposite preferences. Whenever the fraction of voters with such preferences is not too large, Approval Voting still satisfies full information and coordination equivalence.

Trade Liberalization and Organizational Change

We embed a simple incomplete-contracts model of organization design in a standard two-country perfectly-competitive trade model to examine how the liberalization of product and factor markets affects the ownership structure of firms.In our model, managers decide whether or not to integrate their firms, trading off the pecuniary benefits of coordinating production decisions with the private benefits of operating in their preferred ways. The price of output is a crucial determinant of this choice, since it affects the size of the pecuniary benefits. In particular, non-integration is chosen at “low” and “high” prices, while integration occurs at moderate prices. Organizational choices also depend on the terms of trade in supplier markets, which affect the division of surplus between managers. We obtain three main results. First, even when firms do not relocate across countries, the price changes triggered by liberalization of product markets can lead to significant organizational restructuring within countries. Second, the removal of barriers to factor mobility can lead to inefficient reorganization and adversely affect consumers. Third, “deep integration” — the liberalization of both product and factor markets — leads to the convergence of organizational design across countries.

Economic well-being and poverty among the elderly: an analysis based on a collective consumption model

We apply the collective consumption model of Browning, Chiappori and Lewbel (2006) to analyse economic well-being and poverty among the elderly. The model focuses on individual preferences, a consumption technology that captures the economies of scale of living in a couple, and a sharing rule that governs the intra-household allocation of resources. The model is applied to a time series of Dutch consumption expenditure surveys. Our empirical results indicate substantial economies of scale and a wifeís share that is increasing in total expenditures. We further calculated poverty rates by means of the collective consumption model. Collective poverty rates of widows and widowers turn out to be slightly lower than traditional ones based on a standard equivalence scale. Poverty among women (men) in elderly couples, however, seems to be heavily underestimated (overestimated) by the traditional approach. Finally, we analysed the impact of becoming a widow(er). Based on cross-sectional evidence, we find that the drop (increase) in material well-being following the husbandís death is substantial for women in high (low) expenditure couples. For men, the picture is reversed.

An Afriat theorem for the collective model of household consumption

We provide a nonparametric 'revealed preference’ characterization of rational household behavior in terms of the collective consumption model, while accounting for general (possibly non-convex) individual preferences. We establish a Collective Axiom of Revealed Preference (CARP), which provides a necessary and sufficient condition for data consistency with collective rationality. Our main result takes the form of a ‘collective’ version of the Afriat Theorem for rational behavior in terms of the unitary model. This theorem has some interesting implications. With only a finite set of observations, the nature of consumption externalities (positive or negative) in the intra-household allocation process is non-testable. The same non-testability conclusion holds for privateness (with or without externalities) or publicness of consumption. By contrast, concavity of individual utility functions (representing convex preferences) turns out to be testable. In addition, monotonicity is testable for the model that assumes all household consumption is public.

Literatura portuguesa moderna e contemporânea : o fradiquismo

Académico - Licenciaturas

Avaliação do desempenho das entidades gestoras dos serviços de resíduos urbanos em Portugal

Dissertação de Mestrado, Gestão Empresarial, Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Algarve, 2016

Diálogos e impasses: as farpas e o Brasil, um riso que peleja

Neste trabalho, investigamos o significado de Eça de Queirós como jornalista - e não como romancista - na história da modernização cultural no Brasil, considerando especialmente os seus textos publicados entre 1871 e 1872, em Lisboa, nas edições mensais d'As Farpas. O nosso ponto de partida é a hipótese de que as críticas ao Brasil impressas n'As Farpas provocaram uma reação polémica no outro lado do Atlântico porque o Brasil estava a atravessar uma situação histórica decisiva: a criação de sua própria identidade cultural. Para nós, a vasta influência que o escritor português passou a exercer sobre o leitor brasileiro excede a controvérsia iniciada n’As Farpas, cuja imagem do Brasil, projetada por ele, é ambígua e fundamentada no seu conhecimento circunstancial. Assinalamos, portanto, que, através do seu humor sarcástico, o jornalismo de Eça de Queirós introduz um sentido da crítica moderna que leva o homem a pensar e a rir de si mesmo. ABSTRACT: ln this study, we have inquired into the meaning of Eça de Queirós as a journalist, and not as a novelist, in the history of cultural modernization in Brazil, considering in particular his texts published between 1871 and 1872, in Lisbon, in the monthly issues As Farpas. Our starting point is the hypothesis that the critics to Brazil printed in As Farpas provoked a controversial reaction in the other side of Atlantic because Brazilian people were living a decisive historical situation: the creation of their own cultural identity. For us, the vast influence that the Portuguese writer has placed on Brazilian reader exceeds the initiated controversy in As Farpas, whose image of Brazil, designed by him, is ambiguous and based on his own circumstantial knowledge. We therefore note that, through his sarcastic humor, the journalism of Eça de Queirós introduces a sense of modem criticism which leads one to think and laugh at himself.

Estágio num laboratório de análises de águas e efluentes

Este relatório de estágio foi elaborado no âmbito da unidade curricular dissertação/projeto/estágio do Mestrado em Processos Químicos e Biológicos no Departamento de Engenharia Química e Biológica (DEQB) no Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra (ISEC). O presente relatório reflete o estágio que decorreu na Associação para a Inovação Tecnológica e Qualidade (AEMITEQ), um laboratório acreditado pelo Instituto Português de Acreditação (IPAC) cuja atividade principal consiste na realização de análises físico-químicas de águas, efluentes e solos, entre outros. O principal objetivo deste estágio consistiu na revalidação e na estimativa da incerteza de acordo com a norma ISO 11352:2012 do procedimento laboratorial: “Método de Análise de Azoto Amoniacal em Águas”. A proposta de revalidação de um método teve origem na alteração no modo de identificação dos documentos normativos nos anexos técnicos de acreditação. Em consequência desta alteração houve a necessidade de evidenciar perante o IPAC que o método em questão permanecia validado. A necessidade de estimar a incerteza de acordo com a norma ISO 11352:2012 teve origem na suspensão do guia do IPAC - OGC007, uma vez que a incerteza estimada pelo laboratório baseava-se neste guia. Estes objetivos foram realizados com sucesso. Outro dos objetivos deste estágio consistiu na integração nas atividades correntes do laboratório e na familiarização e execução das técnicas analíticas adotadas pela AEMITEQ com supervisão, tanto no âmbito da acreditação como fora do âmbito da acreditação. Este objetivo foi concretizado com sucesso, uma vez que obtive qualificação em vários ensaios acreditados. De uma forma generalizada, o estágio permitiu a integração num ambiente empresarial, designadamente num laboratório acreditado como a AEMITEQ. Desta forma, é possível concluir que o estágio foi realizado com sucesso, uma vez que no final fui convidada a realizar estágio profissional na AEMITEQ