EDP - Energias de Portugal: Electric utilities: Equity Investment Report

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

The impact of the measurement unit of unit price on consumer preference and choice

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

The fitting of the German yield curve: A dynamic approach using latent, macroeconomic and stock market variables

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Atomic force microscopy assisted with electron and ion beam microscopy for the direct measurement of biostructures and DNA samples

Dissertation to obtain a Master degree in Biotechnology

CSR practices and labor retention: How can these variables be related?

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

Uncertainty, generalization, and neural representation of relevant variables for decision making

Dissertation presented to obtain the Ph.D degree in Biology, Computational Biology.

Experimental high-throughput adsorption unit for multi-evaluation of adsorbents for gas capture, storage and separation applications

Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Química e Bioquímica

Technology transition towards electric mobility - technology assessment as a tool for policy design

Paper presented at the Colloquium Gerpisa 2013, Paris (http://gerpisa.org/node/2085), Session n°: 19 New kinds of mobility: old and new business models

Construction of Lean and Green indexes to measure companies’ performance

The demand for costs and time reductions in companies’ processes, in order to increase efficiency, leads companies to seek innovative management paradigms to support their needs for growth and continuous improvement. The Lean paradigm has great relevance in companies’ need for waste reduction, particularly in manufacturing companies. On the other hand the demand of companies for waste reduction has gained a new dimension not only at the material level, but also at the environmental level with the introduction of the Green paradigm. As such, manufacturing companies have been adopting practices that reduce the impact of their activities on the environment. Although nowadays many manufacturing companies already implement waste reduction practices related to Lean and Green paradigms, many of them are unable to understand specifically if their efforts are enough for the application of these practices to be successful or even if their actual performance in implementing Lean or Green practices reflects the self-assessment that they have of themselves. Thus, besides the study of the development of Lean and Green paradigms in recent years, the present dissertation has the important objective of the construction of two indexes (the Lean Index and the Green Index) enabling the measurement of the performance of Portuguese manufacturing companies relating the implementation of Lean and Green practices. The data used to create the Lean and Green indexes where obtained from the implementation of the European Manufacturing Survey 2012 in Portugal. The survey questions related to the implementation of Lean and Green practices are used as variables in the development of the model for the two indexes. For the construction of representative expressions of Lean Index and Green Index it was applied the Factorial Analysis for assigning the variables weights and aggregation.

Control system for actuation and sensing in digital microfluidics devices

Digital Microfluidics (DMF) is a second generation technique, derived from the conventional microfluidics that instead of using continuous liquid fluxes, it uses only individual droplets driven by external electric signals. In this thesis a new DMF control/sensing system for visualization, droplet control (movement, dispensing, merging and splitting) and real time impedance measurement have been developed. The software for the proposed system was implemented in MATLAB with a graphical user interface. An Arduino was used as control board and dedicated circuits for voltage switching and contacts were designed and implemented in printed circuit boards. A high resolution camera was integrated for visualization. In our new approach, the DMF chips are driven by a dual-tone signal where the sum of two independent ac signals (one for droplet operations and the other for impedance sensing) is applied to the electrodes, and afterwards independently evaluated by a lock-in amplifier. With this new approach we were able to choose the appropriated amplitudes and frequencies for the different proposes (actuation and sensing). The measurements made were used to evaluate the real time droplet impedance enabling the knowledge of its position and velocity. This new approach opens new possibilities for impedance sensing and feedback control in DMF devices.

Monitorização de consumos energéticos em edifícios: um estudo de caso na Schneider Electric

Na sequência do panorama económico atual, existe cada vez mais uma tendência de redução de custos e de, em simultâneo, obter a eficiência energética desejada, mais concretamente no setor dos edifícios, uma vez que este tem um peso bastante considerável nos consumos totais em Portugal e na Europa. Existem variadas formas de atuar neste sentido nomeadamente ao nível dos equipamentos e sistemas instalados, bem como, nos hábitos e comportamentos dos ocupantes. Com esse intuito, muitas empresas têm desenvolvido mecanismos ou formas de minimizar os gastos, nomeadamente em termos de consumos elétricos. Dentro dos possíveis caminhos para se alcançar esse objetivo, surgem os sistemas de monitorização e os sistemas de gestão técnica centralizada. O objetivo de reduzir a discrepância entre a fatura que se paga pela eletricidade e o que realmente consiste numa necessidade de consumo é atualmente uma preocupação real. Desta forma, o desenvolvimento de soluções com capacidade para garantir a redução do erro na tomada de decisão bem como as que tornem possível o acompanhamento do desempenho de toda a instalação em detalhe e em tempo real são áreas nas quais se tem e se vai continuar a investir. É por isso, realmente importante, perceber onde e porquê se consome mais e é um desafio alterar esse panorama e continuar a realizar a monitorização dos registos. Para tal, a empresa Schneider Electric tem instaladas estações de medida, mais concretamente analisadores de energia, nos seus quadros elétricos, de forma a conseguir percecionar os consumos de forma mais detalhada e direcionada, ou seja, permitindo visualizar dados de todas as frações do piso. 281 Esta dissertação tem como objetivo a avaliação dos consumos de eletricidade de forma detalhada, tendo como objeto de estudo o edifício onde está sediada a empresa Schneider Eletric, de forma detalhada e a posterior identificação de hábitos ou fatores que influenciem os mesmos da forma não pretendida. Tem ainda o objetivo de avaliar o comportamento da técnica solar passiva utilizada no referido edifício. Desta forma será possível saber, não só o perfil de consumos e respetivos impactos bem como sugerir possíveis ajustes que levem a uma maior eficiência energética. Os resultados deste estudo deverão permitir às pessoas responsáveis pela entidade tomar decisões assentes em informação concreta e detalhada.

Numerical prediction of diffusion and electric field-induced iron nanoparticle transport

Zero valent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) are considered very promising for the remediation of contaminated soils and groundwaters. However, an important issue related to their limited mobility remains unsolved. Direct current can be used to enhance the nanoparticles transport, based on the same principles of electrokinetic remediation. In this work, a generalized physicochemical model was developed and solved numerically to describe the nZVI transport through porous media under electric field, and with different electrolytes (with different ionic strengths). The model consists of the Nernst–Planck coupled system of equations, which accounts for the mass balance of ionic species in a fluid medium, when both the diffusion and electromigration of the ions are considered. The diffusion and electrophoretic transport of the negatively charged nZVI particles were also considered in the system. The contribution of electroosmotic flow to the overall mass transport was included in the model for all cases. The nZVI effective mobility values in the porous medium are very low (10−7–10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1), due to the counterbalance between the positive electroosmotic flow and the electrophoretic transport of the negatively charged nanoparticles. The higher the nZVI concentration is in the matrix, the higher the aggregation; therefore, low concentration of nZVI suspensions must be used for successful field application.

Fair value measurement: Is the debate around level II and level III assets and liabilities relevant

Double Degree. A Work Project presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA- School of Business and Economics and a Masters Degree in Business Engineering from Louvain school of Management

Designing and implementing a performance measurement system in Auto Ribeiro, Lda.

In any business it is very important to measure the performance and it helps to select key information to make better decisions on time. This research focuses on the design and implementation of a performance measurement system in a Portuguese medium size firm operating in the specialized health care transformation vehicles industry. From the evidence that outputs from Auto Ribeiro’s current information system is misaligned with the company’s objectives and strategy, this research tries to solve this business problem through the development of a Balanced Scorecard analysis, although there are some issues, which deserve further development.

Analysis of sandflies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in Barra do Garças, State of Mato Grosso, Brazil, and the influence of environmental variables on the vector density of Lutzomyia longipalpis (Lutz & Neiva, 1912)

INTRODUCTION: Leishmaniasis is an infectious and parasitic zoonotic, non-contagious, vector-borne disease caused by protozoa of the genus Leishmania. In Brazil, the major vector of Leishmania (Leishmania) infantum chagasi (Cunha & Chagas, 1934) is Lutzomyia longipalpis. Barra do Garças, State of Mato Grosso, was designated as a priority area by the Brazilian Ministry of Health for american visceral leishmaniasis, and it is important to identify the vector species present in this municipality. Our objective was to raise sandflies and study the influence of environmental variables on the vector density of Lutzomyia longipalpis. METHODS: We performed entomological monitoring in 3 districts using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) light traps and recorded human cases of american visceral leishmaniasis in the city. We calculated the relative frequency and richness of sandflies and applied a transfer function model to the vector density correlate with relative humidity. RESULTS: The sandfly population was composed of 2 genera and 27 species, totaling 8,097 individuals. Monitoring identified Lutzomyia longipalpis (44%), followed by Lutzomyia lenti (18.9%), Lutzomyia whitmani (13.9%), Lutzomyia carmelinoi (9.1%), Lutzomyia evandroi (5.1%), Lutzomyia termitophila (3.3%), Lutzomyia sordellii (1.9%), and 20 other species (<4%). The male:female ratio was 3.5:1. We observed high species diversity (Dα = 6.65). Lutzomyia longipalpis showed occurrence peaks during the rainy season; there was a temporal correlation with humidity, but not with frequency or temperature. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of Lutzomyia longipalpis in the urban area of Barra do Garças underscores the changing disease profile, which was previously restricted to the wild environment.