Estratégias de oferta em leilões simétricos no âmbito dos mercados liberalizados de electricidade

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica – Sistemas Eléctricos de Energia

Optimization, high availability and redundancy in information communications and technology using networks and systems virtualization architectures

Mestrado em Engenharia Informática

A denoising approach for iterative side information creation in distributed video coding

In distributed video coding, motion estimation is typically performed at the decoder to generate the side information, increasing the decoder complexity while providing low complexity encoding in comparison with predictive video coding. Motion estimation can be performed once to create the side information or several times to refine the side information quality along the decoding process. In this paper, motion estimation is performed at the decoder side to generate multiple side information hypotheses which are adaptively and dynamically combined, whenever additional decoded information is available. The proposed iterative side information creation algorithm is inspired in video denoising filters and requires some statistics of the virtual channel between each side information hypothesis and the original data. With the proposed denoising algorithm for side information creation, a RD performance gain up to 1.2 dB is obtained for the same bitrate.

O Controlo interno nas Juntas de Freguesia

Orientadora: Doutora Alcina Dias Co-Orientadora: Doutora Ana Paula Lopes

Assessment of nursing students and nurses' orientation towards patient-centeredness

Background - Being patient centered is a core value for nursing. Patient centered-care has been related to patient and health provider satisfaction, better health outcomes, higher quality of care and more efficient health care delivery. Objectives - The purpose was to assess the orientation adopted by nurses and students in patient care, using The Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale, as well as to compare the results between resident nurses and students from different academic years. Settings - Public School of Nursing and a Central Hospital, in Lisbon (Portugal). Participants - Students in the first, second and fourth year of nursing school and nurses participated in the study. Methods - For data collection, we used The Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale (European Portuguese version), an instrument designed to measure individual preferences toward the dimension of caring a sharing in health professional-patient relationship. Students and nurses also filled out two additional questions about their perception of competence in technical and communication skills. Additional demographic information was also collected, including gender, age, academic year and length of professional experience. Results - A total of 525 students (84.7% female) and 108 nurses (77.8% female) participated in this study. In general, caring sub-scores, measuring the preference of about attending to patient emotional aspects, were higher than sharing sub-scores, measuring beliefs about giving information and perceiving patient as a member of the health team. Students were significantly more patient-centered throughout their nursing education (p<0.001). Comparing to students in the second and fourth academic years (p<0.001) nurses' scores were significantly lower both in total PPOS and in caring and sharing subscales. Conclusions - These results reinforce the idea that patient centeredness may be developed in academic context. The scores obtained highlight the importance of studies that aim to identify factors that may explain the decrease of patient centeredness in professional practice.

A transição de aluno a professor: dificuldades e desafios

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Ciências da Educação - especialidade Supervisão em Educação

A dimensão política da segurança para o ciberespaço na União Europeia : a agenda digital, a estratégia de cibersegurança e a cooperação UE-OTAN

Mestrado em Relações Internacionais.

Estudo do impacte da aplicação do SNC nos clubes/SAD do futebol português licenciados pela UEFA

Mestrado em Contabilidade

Plataforma remota de gestão de um parque de GateBoxes

A monitorização de redes é um aspeto de elevada importância, principalmente em redes de média ou grande dimensão. A necessidade de utilização de uma ferramenta para realização dessa gestão facilita o trabalho e proporciona de uma forma mais rápida e eficaz a identificação de problemas na rede e nos seus sistemas. Neste sentido, o presente trabalho tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de uma solução para a monitorização de GateBoxes, um dos produtos desenvolvidos e comercializados pela empresa NextToYou. A necessidade de monitorização das GateBoxes, por parte da NextToYou, é essencial para que possa detetar falhas no seu funcionamento ou realizar notificações aquando da deteção de problemas para uma rápida resolução. Neste contexto a empresa decidiu implementar uma ferramenta para a referida monitorização e propôs, no âmbito da tese, o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação que satisfizesse esses propósitos. Disponibilizou então, para o desenvolvimento uma plataforma, a WebForge, e definiu alguns requisitos funcionais dessa ferramenta, tais como, a monitorização remota de informação, gestão de alarmes, geração de avisos e notificações. Para a elaboração deste trabalho foram realizados estudos teóricos sobre o tema da gestão e monitorização remotas, realizando-se posteriormente o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação para a monitorização de GateBoxes. Após a implementação efetuou-se a validação do trabalho realizado através da execução de testes e demonstrações, de forma a poder validar e verificar o desempenho do sistema.

O reconhecimento e a divulgação dos impostos diferidos em Portugal: Análise às entidades cotadas no PSI geral durante os anos de 2009 a 2011

Mestrado em Fiscalidade

Health-related quality of life and working conditions among nursing providers

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate working conditions associated with health-related quality of life (HRQL) among nursing providers. METHODS: Cross-sectional study conducted in a university hospital in the city of São Paulo, Southeastern Brazil, during 2004-2005. The study sample comprised 696 registered nurses, nurse technicians and nurse assistants, predominantly females (87.8%), who worked day and/or night shifts. Data on sociodemographic information, working and living conditions, lifestyles, and health symptoms were collected using self-administered questionnaires. The following questionnaires were also used: Job Stress Scale, Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) and Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). Ordinal logistic regression analysis using proportional odds model was performed to evaluate each dimension of the SF-36. RESULTS: Around 22% of the sample was found to be have high strain and 8% showed an effort-reward imbalance at work. The dimensions with the lowest mean scores in the SF-36 were vitality, bodily pain and mental health. High-strain job, effort-reward imbalance (ERI>1.01), and being a registered nurse were independently associated with low scores on the role emotional dimension. Those dimensions associated to mental health were the ones most affected by psychosocial factors at work. CONCLUSIONS: Effort-reward imbalance was more associated with health than high-strain (high demand and low control). The study results suggest that the joint analysis of psychosocial factors at work such as effort-reward imbalance and demand-control can provide more insight to the discussion of professional roles, working conditions and HRQL of nursing providers.

A divulgação de informação financeira no relato intercalar : uma análise às entidades cotadas no PSI geral

Mestrado em Auditoria

Analysis and visualization of seismic data using mutual information

Seismic data is difficult to analyze and classical mathematical tools reveal strong limitations in exposing hidden relationships between earthquakes. In this paper, we study earthquake phenomena in the perspective of complex systems. Global seismic data, covering the period from 1962 up to 2011 is analyzed. The events, characterized by their magnitude, geographic location and time of occurrence, are divided into groups, either according to the Flinn-Engdahl (F-E) seismic regions of Earth or using a rectangular grid based in latitude and longitude coordinates. Two methods of analysis are considered and compared in this study. In a first method, the distributions of magnitudes are approximated by Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) distributions and the parameters used to reveal the relationships among regions. In the second method, the mutual information is calculated and adopted as a measure of similarity between regions. In both cases, using clustering analysis, visualization maps are generated, providing an intuitive and useful representation of the complex relationships that are present among seismic data. Such relationships might not be perceived on classical geographic maps. Therefore, the generated charts are a valid alternative to other visualization tools, for understanding the global behavior of earthquakes.

Influence of network effects on the diffusion of information systems: the case of open source

Doutoramento em Gestão

Need for, demand for, and use of European Union information

The discussion and analysis of the diverse outreach activities in this article provide guidance and suggestions for academic librarians who are interested in outreach and community engagement of any scale and nature. Cases are draw from a wide spectrum and are particularly strong in the setting of large academic libraries, special collections and programming for multicultural populations. The aim of this study is to present the results of research carried out regarding the needs, demand and consumption of European Union information by users in European Documentation Centres (EDC). A quantitative methodology was chosen based on a questionnaire with 24 items. This questionnaire was distributed within the EDC of Salamanca, Spain, and the EDC of Porto, Portugal, during specific time intervals between 2010 and 2011. We examined the level of EU information that EDC users possess, and identified the factors that facilitate or hinder access to EU information, the topics most demanded, and the types of documents consulted. Analysis was made of the use that the consumer of European information makes of databases and their behaviour during the consultation. Although the sample used was not very significant owing to its small size, it is a faithful reflection of the scarce visits made to EDCs. This study can be of use to managers of EDCs, providing them with better knowledge of the information needs and demands of their users. Ultimately this should lead to improvements in the services offered. The study lies within a frame of research scarcely addressed in specialized scholarly literature: European Union information.