Evaluation of Leishmania antigens preparation and storage for use in enzyme immunoassays

The influence of time and temperature on the storage of an alkaline antigen of L.major-like and L.(V.) braziliensis promastigotes added or not of a proteases inhibitor (PMSF) was evaluted by means of an IgG-ELISA. Antibodies in assays using L. major-like antigen stored at -20oC for 6 monsths had a statistically lower geometric mean titer (GMT) and different 95% confidence interval limits (CL) than antigens stored otherwise, as assessed by the "t" statistic. The PMSF L. major-like antigen after storage for 6 months at a temperature of 4oC had the same GMT and 95% CL displayed at time zero as well as when storage for 4 and 6 months at -20oC. Significant diferences were not found when L.(V.) braziliensis antigens were stored at times and temperatures mentioned; the PMSF antigen stored for 2 months at -70oC resulted in a lower serum GMT and 95% CL than any other, as assessed by the "t" statistic. Antigen performance did not show any statistical difference associated to the addition of PMSF within the same species; the largest difference between antigens was that between PMSF-L. (V.) braziliensis and L. major-like without PMSF.

Mineração de repositórios de software modelos de previsão de pedidos de evolução de software

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

TSKY: a dependable middleware solution for data privacy using public storage clouds

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Healing replicas in a software component replication system

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Business plan analysis of a Brazilian software company

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

How reporting and controlling systems can be effectively designed to support the decision-making process: The case of a Software SME

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

Software for pattern recognition of the larvae of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus

Software for pattern recognition of the larvae of mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, biological vectors of dengue and yellow fever, has been developed. Rapid field identification of larva using a digital camera linked to a laptop computer equipped with this software may greatly help prevention campaigns.

Environmental sanitation conditions and health impact: a case-control study

This epidemiological investigation examines the impact of several environmental sanitation conditions and hygiene practices on diarrhea occurrence among children under five years of age living in an urban area. The case-control design was employed; 997 cases and 999 controls were included in the investigation. Cases were defined as children with diarrhea and controls were randomly selected among children under five years of age. After logistic regression adjustment, the following variables were found to be significantly associated with diarrhea: washing and purifying fruit and vegetables; presence of wastewater in the street; refuse storage, collection and disposal; domestic water reservoir conditions; feces disposal from swaddles; presence of vectors in the house and flooding in the lot. The estimates of the relative risks reached values up to 2.87. The present study revealed the feasibility of developing and implementing an adequate model to establish intervention priorities in the field of environmental sanitation.

Evaluation of an immunochromatography test for malaria diagnosis under different storage conditions

This study aimed to evaluate the second-generation OptiMal test for malaria diagnosis under various storage conditions. It detected all the positive samples, except for two Plasmodium malariae samples. Further research evaluating diverse environmental conditions are important for ICT test applicability in Brazilian malaria areas.

Formação em Gestão, Tradução, Localização e Testes de Projetos de Software

Relatório de Estágio apresentado para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Tradução – Especialização em Inglês

How enterprise 2,0 firms take advantage of emergent social software platforms to manage knowledge

This research aims to provide a better understanding on how firms stimulate knowledge sharing through the utilization of collaboration tools, in particular Emergent Social Software Platforms (ESSPs). It focuses on the distinctive applications of ESSPs and on the initiatives contributing to maximize its advantages. In the first part of the research, I have itemized all types of existing collaboration tools and classify them in different categories according to their capabilities, objectives and according to their faculty for promoting knowledge sharing. In the second part, and based on an exploratory case study at Cisco Systems, I have identified the main applications of an existing enterprise social software platform named Webex Social. By combining a qualitative and quantitative approach, as well as combining data collected from survey’s results and from the analysis of the company’s documents, I am expecting to maximize the outcome of this investigation and reduce the risk of bias. Although effects cannot be universalized based on one single case study, some utilization patterns have been underlined from the data collected and potential trends in managing knowledge have been observed. The results of the research have also enabled identifying most of the constraints experienced by the users of the firm’s social software platform. Utterly, this research should provide a primary framework for firms planning to create or implement a social software platform and for firms willing to increase adoption levels and to promote the overall participation of users. It highlights the common traps that should be avoided by developers when designing a social software platform and the capabilities that it should inherently carry to support an effective knowledge management strategy.

Criação de software para análise do batimento ciliar em peixe-zebra

O peixe-zebra é utilizado como modelo vertebrado para estudos in vivo de diversas patologias de origem genética. Neste trabalho pretendeu-se estudar a discinesia ciliar primária através do estudo in vivo do organizador da esquerda-direita destes peixes, conhecido por vesícula de Kupffer. Em particular, após análise de sequências de imagens captadas a alta velocidade, avaliou-se o com-portamento dinâmico de cílios normais e comparou-se com o de cílios com alte-rações genéticas com o objectivo de melhor compreender os processos que in-fluenciam a localização assimétrica dos órgãos internos, associados a esta doen-ça. De vídeos obtidos por microscopia de alta velocidade do interior da vesí-cula de Kupffer foram analisados 32 cílios, sendo 8 normais e os restantes cílios pertencentes a três alterações genéticas diferentes: subexpressão de Pkd2, so-brexpressão de Arl13b e mutação no gene deltaD. Para cada cílio calculou-se a frequência de batimento e caracterizou-se quantitativamente o movimento. Esta última análise teve como base a segmentação manual do cílio em quatro pontos definindo a base, o meio e a ponta. De seguida, estudou-se a dinâmica de cada uma das rectas constituídas por estas três estruturas ao longo do tempo. Com recurso à análise estatística ANOVA podemos comprovar diferenças no movi-mento entre os cílios alterados quando comparados com os normais. A análise da frequência demonstrou que todos os cílios estudados possu-em uma frequência média 34,9 Hz. Demonstrou-se ainda que, quando compa-rados com cílios normais, os cílios Pkd2 possuem um movimento 60% mais rí-gido, os Alr13b são caracterizados por amplitudes angulares 26% superiores no seu movimento e, por fim, a relação entre as amplitudes base/meio é 23% supe-rior nos cílios Delta D. Para implementar estes estudos, desenvolveu-se uma ferramenta baseada num plugin para ImageJ conjuntamente com códigos em R, que poderá vir a ser utilizada em investigações da discinesia ciliar primária em peixes-zebra.

Modelação não linear de estruturas metálicas e mistas em situação de incêndio no software OpenSees

Os incêndios em edifícios representam um fenómeno que pode ter consequências devastadoras quando não controlado, não só em termos de perdas de vidas humanas, como em termos económicos. No passado, a ocorrência de incêndios de grandes dimensões mostrou os efeitos do fogo descontrolado nos edifícios, assim como a ineficiência dos meios de segurança ativa ao fogo. Nas últimas duas décadas, estas questões motivaram o estudo e compreensão da ação dos incêndios nas estruturas dos edifícios. Neste trabalho estuda-se a modelação da ação do fogo em estruturas metálicas e mistas, com o objetivo de contribuir para a sua melhor caracterização. A presente tese foca-se na validação e compreensão da implementação de análises termo-mecânicas a estruturas mistas no software de elementos finitos OpenSees (Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation), contribuindo assim para futuros estudos, não só de análises de estruturas mistas sujeitas a incêndio, mas também de análises de estruturas mistas sujeitas a eventos consecutivos, como sismo seguido de incêndio. Neste trabalho é feita uma breve descrição do fenómeno fogo, assim como dos processos inerentes à dinâmica de um incêndio que constituem uma fonte de incerteza para a modelação de cenários de incêndio num edifício. Posto isto, são abordados alguns modelos de incêndios presentes nos Eurocódigos, assim como o recente modelo de fogos móveis(“Travelling fires”). São realizados exemplos de aplicação no software e dois casos de estudo. O primeiro consiste na modelação de dois ensaios ao fogo realizados na Alemanha em 1986 em estruturas metálicas à escala 1/4. O segundo consiste na modelação de um ensaio ao fogo a uma viga de betão armado simplesmente apoiada, realizado no Instituto Superior Técnico em 2010. Os modelos numéricos desenvolvidos no OpenSees contabilizam as não linearidades físicas e geométricas, com elementos finitos de plasticidade distribuída e com uma formulação baseada em deslocamentos. Os resultados numéricos são então comparados com os experimentais, de modo a validar as análises termo-mecânicas no OpenSees.

A solution for estimates in software development projects

The Corporate world is becoming more and more competitive. This leads organisations to adapt to this reality, by adopting more efficient processes, which result in a decrease in cost as well as an increase of product quality. One of these processes consists in making proposals to clients, which necessarily include a cost estimation of the project. This estimation is the main focus of this project. In particular, one of the goals is to evaluate which estimation models fit the Altran Portugal software factory the most, the organization where the fieldwork of this thesis will be carried out. There is no broad agreement about which is the type of estimation model more suitable to be used in software projects. Concerning contexts where there is plenty of objective information available to be used as input to an estimation model, model-based methods usually yield better results than the expert judgment. However, what happens more frequently is not having this volume and quality of information, which has a negative impact in the model-based methods performance, favouring the usage of expert judgement. In practice, most organisations use expert judgment, making themselves dependent on the expert. A common problem found is that the performance of the expert’s estimation depends on his previous experience with identical projects. This means that when new types of projects arrive, the estimation will have an unpredictable accuracy. Moreover, different experts will make different estimates, based on their individual experience. As a result, the company will not directly attain a continuous growing knowledge about how the estimate should be carried. Estimation models depend on the input information collected from previous projects, the size of the project database and the resources available. Altran currently does not store the input information from previous projects in a systematic way. It has a small project database and a team of experts. Our work is targeted to companies that operate in similar contexts. We start by gathering information from the organisation in order to identify which estimation approaches can be applied considering the organization’s context. A gap analysis is used to understand what type of information the company would have to collect so that other approaches would become available. Based on our assessment, in our opinion, expert judgment is the most adequate approach for Altran Portugal, in the current context. We analysed past development and evolution projects from Altran Portugal and assessed their estimates. This resulted in the identification of common estimation deviations, errors, and patterns, which lead to the proposal of metrics to help estimators produce estimates leveraging past projects quantitative and qualitative information in a convenient way. This dissertation aims to contribute to more realistic estimates, by identifying shortcomings in the current estimation process and supporting the self-improvement of the process, by gathering as much relevant information as possible from each finished project.

A CMMI-compliant requirements management and development process

Requirements Engineering has been acknowledged an essential discipline for Software Quality. Poorly-defined processes for eliciting, analyzing, specifying and validating requirements can lead to unclear issues or misunderstandings on business needs and project’s scope. These typically result in customers’ non-satisfaction with either the products’ quality or the increase of the project’s budget and duration. Maturity models allow an organization to measure the quality of its processes and improve them according to an evolutionary path based on levels. The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) addresses the aforementioned Requirements Engineering issues. CMMI defines a set of best practices for process improvement that are divided into several process areas. Requirements Management and Requirements Development are the process areas concerned with Requirements Engineering maturity. Altran Portugal is a consulting company concerned with the quality of its software. In 2012, the Solution Center department has developed and applied successfully a set of processes aligned with CMMI-DEV v1.3, what granted them a Level 2 maturity certification. For 2015, they defined an organizational goal of addressing CMMI-DEV maturity level 3. This MSc dissertation is part of this organization effort. In particular, it is concerned with the required process areas that address the activities of Requirements Engineering. Our main goal is to contribute for the development of Altran’s internal engineering processes to conform to the guidelines of the Requirements Development process area. Throughout this dissertation, we started with an evaluation method based on CMMI and conducted a compliance assessment of Altran’s current processes. This allowed demonstrating their alignment with the CMMI Requirements Management process area and to highlight the improvements needed to conform to the Requirements Development process area. Based on the study of alternative solutions for the gaps found, we proposed a new Requirements Management and Development process that was later validated using three different approaches. The main contribution of this dissertation is the new process developed for Altran Portugal. However, given that studies on these topics are not abundant in the literature, we also expect to contribute with useful evidences to the existing body of knowledge with a survey on CMMI and requirements engineering trends. Most importantly, we hope that the implementation of the proposed processes’ improvements will minimize the risks of mishandled requirements, increasing Altran’s performance and taking them one step further to the desired maturity level.