The internationalization process of mychild to São Paulo, Brazil

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

New visualization model for large scale biosignals analysis

Benefits of long-term monitoring have drawn considerable attention in healthcare. Since the acquired data provides an important source of information to clinicians and researchers, the choice for long-term monitoring studies has become frequent. However, long-term monitoring can result in massive datasets, which makes the analysis of the acquired biosignals a challenge. In this case, visualization, which is a key point in signal analysis, presents several limitations and the annotations handling in which some machine learning algorithms depend on, turn out to be a complex task. In order to overcome these problems a novel web-based application for biosignals visualization and annotation in a fast and user friendly way was developed. This was possible through the study and implementation of a visualization model. The main process of this model, the visualization process, comprised the constitution of the domain problem, the abstraction design, the development of a multilevel visualization and the study and choice of the visualization techniques that better communicate the information carried by the data. In a second process, the visual encoding variables were the study target. Finally, the improved interaction exploration techniques were implemented where the annotation handling stands out. Three case studies are presented and discussed and a usability study supports the reliability of the implemented work.

Integrated data model and DSL modifications

Companies are increasingly more and more dependent on distributed web-based software systems to support their businesses. This increases the need to maintain and extend software systems with up-to-date new features. Thus, the development process to introduce new features usually needs to be swift and agile, and the supporting software evolution process needs to be safe, fast, and efficient. However, this is usually a difficult and challenging task for a developer due to the lack of support offered by programming environments, frameworks, and database management systems. Changes needed at the code level, database model, and the actual data contained in the database must be planned and developed together and executed in a synchronized way. Even under a careful development discipline, the impact of changing an application data model is hard to predict. The lifetime of an application comprises changes and updates designed and tested using data, which is usually far from the real, production, data. So, coding DDL and DML SQL scripts to update database schema and data, is the usual (and hard) approach taken by developers. Such manual approach is error prone and disconnected from the real data in production, because developers may not know the exact impact of their changes. This work aims to improve the maintenance process in the context of Agile Platform by Outsystems. Our goal is to design and implement new data-model evolution features that ensure a safe support for change and a sound migration process. Our solution includes impact analysis mechanisms targeting the data model and the data itself. This provides, to developers, a safe, simple, and guided evolution process.

Analyzing Geospatial patterns of syrian refugee flows in southeastern Turkey by use of remote sensing and complementary data

Crisis-affected communities and global organizations for international aid are becoming increasingly digital as consequence geotechnology popularity. Humanitarian sector changed in profound ways by adopting new technical approach to obtain information from area with difficult geographical or political access. Since 2011, turkey is hosting a growing number of Syrian refugees along southeastern region. Turkish policy of hosting them in camps and the difficulty created by governors to international aid group expeditions to get information, made such international organizations to investigate and adopt other approach in order to obtain information needed. They intensified its remote sensing approach. However, the majority of studies used very high-resolution satellite imagery (VHRSI). The study area is extensive and the temporal resolution of VHRSI is low, besides it is infeasible only using these sensors as unique approach for the whole area. The focus of this research, aims to investigate the potentialities of mid-resolution imagery (here only Landsat) to obtain information from region in crisis (here, southeastern Turkey) through a new web-based platform called Google Earth Engine (GEE). Hereby it is also intended to verify GEE currently reliability once the Application Programming Interface (API) is still in beta version. The finds here shows that the basic functions are trustworthy. Results pointed out that Landsat can recognize change in the spectral resolution clearly only for the first settlement. The ongoing modifications vary for each case. Overall, Landsat demonstrated high limitations, but need more investigations and may be used, with restriction, as a support of VHRSI.

Support in decision-making under uncertainty: a project risk assessment tool development and supplementary advances

A foremost dispute that persists on the contemporary world’s agenda is change. The on-going social/technological/economic changes create a competitive and challenging environment for companies to endure. To benefit from these changes, world economies partially depend on emerging Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and their adaptability skills, and subsequently the development of an integrated capability to innovate has become the prime strategy for most of SMEs to subsist and grow. However, innovation and change are always somewhat bonded to an inherent risk development, which subsequently brings on the necessity of a revision of risk management approaches in innovative processes, whose importance SMEs tend to disregard. Additionally, little efforts have been made to improve and create empirical models, metrics and tools to assist SMEs managing latent risks in their innovative projects. This work seeks to present and discuss a solution to support SMEs in engaging on systematic risk management practices, which consists on an integrated risk assessment and response support web-based tool - Spotrisk® - designed for SMEs. On the other hand, an inherent subjectivity is linked with risk management and identification processes, due to uncertainty trait of its nature, for each individual perceives situations according to his own idiosyncrasy, which brings complications in normalizing risk profiles and procedures. This essay aims to bring insights concerning the support in decision-making processes under uncertainty, by addressing issues related with the risk behavior character among individuals. To address such issues, subjects of neuroscience or psychology are explored and models to identify such character are proposed, as well as models to improve presented tool. This work attempts to go beyond the restrictive aim of endeavoring on technical improvement dissertation, and in embraces an exploratory conceptualization concerning micro, small and medium businesses’ traits regarding risk characters and project risk assessment tools.

Environmental sustainability adoption

Double degree

Jogo 3D online para reabilitação de pacientes afásicos

Esta plataforma foi projetada como auxílio complementar ao processo de reabilitação de doentes afásicos lusófonos. Uma gama de exercícios são disponibilizados de forma a induzir diferentes estímulos (compreensão escrita e auditiva e expressão escrita) sendo a grande maioria destes realizados dentro de um ambiente virtual em três dimensões onde o utilizador (dependendo da tarefa) pode interagir com objetos presentes dentro de uma casa. A principal particularidade desta plataforma reside no facto desta estar alojada online, dispensando instalações e permitindo um acompanhamento mais próximo por parte do terapeuta da fala do progresso feito pelo paciente. A ferramenta desenvolvida está disponível para visualização e teste no endereço www.weblisling.net.

A practical approach to execute and test a lean startup

This paper practically applies the “Lean Startup Approach” by identifying, analyzing and executing a newly developed web-based business idea. Hypotheses were designed and tested with the construction of a minimum viable product – i.e. a landing page. In-depth interviews allowed deciding either to pivot or persevere the initial launch strategy. Overall, the aim was to collect as much valuable response as possible from customers and ultimately decide for a superior strategy while devoting the smallest amount of time and money.

Training and development in Irish technology companies

The sustained economic growth that has been experienced in the Irish economy in recent years has relied, to a large extent, on the contribution and performance of those industry sectors that possess the ability to provide high-value-added products and services to domestic and international markets. One such contributor has been the Technology sector. However, the performance of this sector relies upon the availability of the necessary capabilities and competencies for Technology companies to remain competitive. The Expert Group on Future Skills Needs have forecasted future skills shortages in this sector. The purpose of this research has been to examine the extent to which Irish Technology companies are taking measures to meet changing skills requirements, through training and development interventions. Survey research methods (in the form of a mail questionnaire, supported by a Web-based questionnaire) have been used to collect information on the expenditure on, and approach to, training and development in these companies, in addition to the methods, techniques and tools/aids that are used to support the delivery of these activities. The contribution of Government intervention has also been examined. The conclusions have been varied. When the activities of the responding companies are considered in isolation, the picture to emerge is primarily positive. Although the expenditure on training and development is slightly lower than that indicated in previous studies, the results vary by company size. Technical employees are clearly the key focus of training provision, while Senior Managers and Directors, Clerical and Administrative staff and Manual workers are a great deal more neglected in training provision. Expenditure on, and use of, computer-based training methods is high, as is the use of most of the specified techniques for facilitating learning. However, when one considers the extent to which external support (in the form of Government interventions and cooperation with other companies and with education and training providers) is integrated into the overall training practices of these companies, significant gaps in practice are identified. The thesis concludes by providing a framework to guide future training and development practices in the Technology sector.

Short Guide to Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is a rapidly developing area of medicine – diagnostic tools are ever more refined, and entirely new treatments and treatment strategies are arriving, with more on the horizon. And because the virus affects such a large and varying population – up to 170 million at last count – we think it is important to have a pocket reference especially devoted to hepatitis C. We look forward to your comments on the usefulness of our 2014 Short Guide to Hepatitis C, which is an expansion and update of the HCV chapters in Hepatology – A Clinical Textbook (2014), also published by Flying Publisher. As always, we invite qualified people everywhere to translate this book into other languages, and make them available widely. This web-based free-of- harge concept is made possible by unrestricted educational grants from the pharmaceutical industry and has allowed the material to reach countries usually not covered by print media. We are convinced that this new pocket guide concept, focusing here on hepatitis C, will become a valuable source of information for our readers.

Analysis of the Atmosphere Aerosol and Ozone Condition Over Tbilisi Using Satellite Data and Ground Truth Measurements

Ground-based measurements of the parameters of atmosphere in Tbilisi during the same period, which are provided by the Mikheil Nodia Institute of geophysics, were used as calibration data. Satellite data monthly averaging, preprocessing, analysis and visualization was performed using Giovanni web-based application. Maps of trends and periodic components of the atmosphere aerosol optical thickness and ozone concentration over the study area were calculated.

Pautes de privacitat pels proveïdors de recursos electrònics

Les biblioteques llicencien la informació electrònica en nom dels seus clients i administradors. L'accés a la majoria dels recursos electrònics disponibles a les biblioteques es proporciona a través del world wide web per mitjà de les interfícies dels navegadors. La ràpida evolució del world wide web, com el mecanisme més gran de distribució d'informació, ha fet del web una rica font d'informació per als proveïdors sobre els interessos, comportaments i hàbits dels usuaris. De vegades es dóna el cas de que aquest tipus d'informació és recollida durant la utilització d'un producte web sense el coneixement o permís de l'individu que està utilitzant el producte.

6

The use of the Internet now has a specific purpose: to find information. Unfortunately, the amount of data available on the Internet is growing exponentially, creating what can be considered a nearly infinite and ever-evolving network with no discernable structure. This rapid growth has raised the question of how to find the most relevant information. Many different techniques have been introduced to address the information overload, including search engines, Semantic Web, and recommender systems, among others. Recommender systems are computer-based techniques that are used to reduce information overload and recommend products likely to interest a user when given some information about the user's profile. This technique is mainly used in e-Commerce to suggest items that fit a customer's purchasing tendencies. The use of recommender systems for e-Government is a research topic that is intended to improve the interaction among public administrations, citizens, and the private sector through reducing information overload on e-Government services. More specifically, e-Democracy aims to increase citizens' participation in democratic processes through the use of information and communication technologies. In this chapter, an architecture of a recommender system that uses fuzzy clustering methods for e-Elections is introduced. In addition, a comparison with the smartvote system, a Web-based Voting Assistance Application (VAA) used to aid voters in finding the party or candidate that is most in line with their preferences, is presented.

General Practitioners' willingness to pay for continuing medical education in a fee-for-service universal coverage health care system

Background: Sponsoring of physicians meetings by life science companies has led to reduced participation fees but might influence physician's prescription practices. A ban on such sponsoring may increase participation fees. We aimed to evaluate factors associated with physicians' willingness to pay for medical meetings, their position on the sponsoring of medical meetings and their opinion on alternative financing options. Methods: An anonymous web-based questionnaire was sent to 447 general practitioners in one state in Switzerland, identified through their affiliation to a medical association. The questionnaire evaluated physicians' willingness to pay for medical meetings, their perception of a bias in prescription practices induced by commercial support, their opinion on the introduction of a binding legislation and alternative financing options, their frequency of exchange with sales representatives and other relevant socioeconomic factors. We built a multivariate predictor logistic regression model to identify determinants of willingness to pay. Results: Of the 115 physicians who responded (response rate 26%), 48% were willing to pay more than what they currently pay for congresses, 79% disagreed that commercial support introduced a bias in their prescription practices and 61% disagreed that it introduced a bias in their colleagues' prescription practices. Based on the multivariate logistic regression, perception of a bias in peers prescription practices (OR=7.47, 95% CI 1.65-38.18) and group practice structure (OR=4.62, 95% CI 1.34-22.29) were significantly associated with an increase in willingness to pay. Two thirds (76%) of physicians did not support the introduction of a binding legislation and 53% were in favour of creating a general fund administered by an independent body. Conclusion: Our results suggest that almost half of physicians surveyed are willing to pay more than what they currently pay for congresses. Predictors of an increase in physicians' willingness to pay were perception of the influence of bias in peers prescription practices and group practice structure. Most responders did not agree that sponsoring introduced prescribing bias nor did they support the 2 introduction of a binding legislation prohibiting sponsoring but a majority did agree to an independent body that would centrally administer a general fund.

trEST, trGEN and Hits: access to databases of predicted protein sequences.

High throughput genome (HTG) and expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences are currently the most abundant nucleotide sequence classes in the public database. The large volume, high degree of fragmentation and lack of gene structure annotations prevent efficient and effective searches of HTG and EST data for protein sequence homologies by standard search methods. Here, we briefly describe three newly developed resources that should make discovery of interesting genes in these sequence classes easier in the future, especially to biologists not having access to a powerful local bioinformatics environment. trEST and trGEN are regularly regenerated databases of hypothetical protein sequences predicted from EST and HTG sequences, respectively. Hits is a web-based data retrieval and analysis system providing access to precomputed matches between protein sequences (including sequences from trEST and trGEN) and patterns and profiles from Prosite and Pfam. The three resources can be accessed via the Hits home page (http://hits. isb-sib.ch).