Designing market-based instruments for biodiversity conservation: learning with the Australian experience and evaluating Portugal's potential

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente, perfil Gestão de Sistemas Ambientais

Gestão de resíduos produzidos num sistema de drenagem e tratamento de águas residuais

O presente trabalho centra-se na gestão de resíduos produzidos no sistema de drenagem e tratamento de águas residuais do município de Vila Nova de Gaia. A entidade onde decorreu o trabalho é uma empresa responsável pela distribuição de água e pela drenagem e tratamento de águas residuais. A empresa está certificada pela norma NP EN ISO 14001, desde 2001, sendo então um dos objectivos o enquadramento da gestão dos resíduos em estudo na referida norma, acompanhando os requisitos da mesma com vista ao seu total cumprimento. Outros dos objectivos foi estudar qual a opção de tratamento mais adequada a aplicar ao resíduo no seu local de armazenamento temporário com vista a minorar os seus impactes ambientais. De acordo com a caracterização analítica do resíduo e com os aspetos legais aplicáveis, foram também analisados os destinos finais possíveis e ambientalmente adequados ao resíduo. A medida proposta para a minimização de impactes no local de armazenamento temporário do resíduo foi a estabilização com cal nos leitos de secagem, disponíveis numa antiga ETAR de loteamento. O doseamento de cal a aplicar ao resíduo será de 10 kg de cal apagada comercial (Ca (OH)2) por uma tonelada de resíduo fresco com um período mínimo de secagem de 2 meses. Outra das medidas de minimização de impactes selecionada foi a implantação de uma cortina arbórea ao redor da instalação. Sendo o resíduo em estudo muito heterogéneo, constituído principalmente por areias, terras e gradados, a valorização foi equacionada mas não foram encontrados alternativas viáveis. O destino final considerado como mais adequado tendo em conta todas as características do resíduo e eluato, analisadas de acordo com o previsto no Decreto-Lei n.º 183/2009 de 10 de Agosto, foi o aterro para resíduos não perigosos. Foi também objecto do estudo a identificação e análise de todos os aspectos ambientais relacionados com a gestão de resíduos e a avaliação da sua significância. Dos aspectos ambientais identificados como significativos, destacam-se aqueles que ocorrem presentemente, os resíduos armazenados (gradados/limpeza de redes), e os que podem ocorrer em situações de emergência, fuga/derrame de óleos/combustíveis e cheiros/odores. De forma a minimizar os aspectos ambientais identificados, e de acordo com a norma NP EN ISO 14001, foram propostas ações que constam de um programa de gestão elaborado para este trabalho, onde se definem os objectivos, metas e prazos. As principais medidas propostas no programa de gestão foram: Estabilização com cal (inicial e reforço se necessário); melhoria do espaço envolvente; análise de questões de saúde ocupacional/segurança; adjudicação de prestação de serviços da recolha por operador licenciado; implantação da cortina arbórea; registo no SIRAPA; criação de planos de emergência ambiental e de segurança.

Apropriação de conteúdos do conhecimento explícito da língua por alunos do 2.º ano do 1.º ciclo do ensino básico

Relatório de Estágio apresentado à Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para obtenção de grau de mestre em Ensino do 1.º e 2.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

Implementation of a new reference values database for semiquantification in123I-FP-CIT brain single emission tomography

Brain dopamine transporters imaging by Single Emission Tomography (SPECT) with 123I-FP-CIT (DaTScanTM) has become an important tool in the diagnosis and evaluation of Parkinson syndromes.This diagnostic method allows the visualization of a portion of the striatum – where healthy pattern resemble two symmetric commas - allowing the evaluation of dopamine presynaptic system, in which dopamine transporters are responsible for dopamine release into the synaptic cleft, and their reabsorption into the nigrostriatal nerve terminals, in order to be stored or degraded. In daily practice for assessment of DaTScan TM, it is common to rely only on visual assessment for diagnosis. However, this process is complex and subjective as it depends on the observer’s experience and it is associated with high variability intra and inter observer. Studies have shown that semiquantification can improve the diagnosis of Parkinson syndromes. For semiquantification, analysis methods of image segmentation using regions of interest (ROI) are necessary. ROIs are drawn, in specific - striatum - and in nonspecific – background – uptake areas. Subsequently, specific binding ratios are calculated. Low adherence of semiquantification for diagnosis of Parkinson syndromes is related, not only with the associated time spent, but also with the need of an adapted database of reference values for the population concerned, as well as, the examination of each service protocol. Studies have concluded, that this process increases the reproducibility of semiquantification. The aim of this investigation was to create and validate a database of healthy controls for Dopamine transporters with DaTScanTM named DBRV. The created database has been adapted to the Nuclear Medicine Department’s protocol, and the population of Infanta Cristina’s Hospital located in Badajoz, Spain.

JPEG decoder implementation on FPGA using dynamic partial reconfiguration

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia de Electrónica e telecomunicações

CodeSkelGen: a program skeleton generator

Existent computer programming training environments help users to learn programming by solving problems from scratch. Nevertheless, initiating the resolution of a program can be frustrating and demotivating if the student does not know where and how to start. Skeleton programming facilitates a top-down design approach, where a partially functional system with complete high level structures is available, so the student needs only to progressively complete or update the code to meet the requirements of the problem. This paper presents CodeSkelGen - a program skeleton generator. CodeSkelGen generates skeleton or buggy Java programs from a complete annotated program solution provided by the teacher. The annotations are formally described within an annotation type and processed by an annotation processor. This processor is responsible for a set of actions ranging from the creation of dummy methods to the exchange of operator types included in the source code. The generator tool will be included in a learning environment that aims to assist teachers in the creation of programming exercises and to help students in their resolution.

Implementação de um programa de fiabilidade de aeronaves

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

Design and implementation of an autonomous, proactive, and reactive software infrastructure to help improving the management level of projects

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Cooperative memory and database transactions

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

An implementation of dynamic fully compressed suffix trees

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

MASS CONSERVATION ENHANCEMENT OF FREE BOUNDARY FLOWS IN COMPOSITES MANUFACTURING

Undesirable void formation during the injection phase of the liquid composite molding process can be understood as a consequence of the non-uniformity of the flow front progression, caused by the dual porosity of the fiber perform. Therefore the best examination of the void formation physics can be provided by a mesolevel analysis, where the characteristic dimension is given by the fiber tow diameter. In mesolevel analysis, liquid impregnation along two different scales; inside fiber tows and within the spaces between them; must be considered and the coupling between these flow regimes must be addressed. In such case, it is extremely important to account correctly for the surface tension effects, which can be modeled as capillary pressure applied at the flow front. When continues Galerkin method is used, exploiting elements with velocity components and pressure as nodal variables, strong numerical implementation of such boundary conditions leads to ill-posing of the problem, in terms of the weak classical as well as stabilized formulation. As a consequence, there is an error in mass conservation accumulated especially along the free flow front. This article presents a numerical procedure, which was formulated and implemented in the existing Free Boundary Program in order to significantly reduce this error.

Mass Conservation Enhancement of Free Boundary Mesolevel Flows during LCM Processes of Composites Manufacturing

Undesirable void formation during the injection phase of the liquid composite moulding process can be understood as a consequence of the non-uniformity of the flow front progression, caused by the dual porosity of the fibre perform. Therefore the best examination of the void formation physics can be provided by a mesolevel analysis, where the characteristic dimension is given by the fibre tow diameter. In mesolevel analysis, liquid impregnation along two different scales; inside fibre tows and within the open spaces between them; must be considered and the coupling between these flow regimes must be addressed. In such case, it is extremely important to account correctly for the surface tension effects, which can be modelled as capillary pressure applied at the flow front. Numerical implementation of such boundary conditions leads to ill-posing of the problem, in terms of the weak classical as well as stabilized formulation. As a consequence, there is an error in mass conservation accumulated especially along the free flow front. This contribution presents a numerical procedure, which was formulated and implemented in the existing Free Boundary Program in order to significantly reduce this error.

Numerical Method to Predict Void Formation during The Liquid Composite Molding Process

Void formation during the injection phase of the liquid composite molding process can be explained as a consequence of the non-uniformity of the flow front progression. This is due to the dual porosity within the fiber perform (spacing between the fiber tows is much larger than between the fibers within in a tow) and therefore the best explanation can be provided by a mesolevel analysis, where the characteristic dimension is given by the fiber tow diameter of the order of millimeters. In mesolevel analysis, liquid impregnation along two different scales; inside fiber tows and within the open spaces between the fiber tows must be considered and the coupling between the flow regimes must be addressed. In such cases, it is extremely important to account correctly for the surface tension effects, which can be modeled as capillary pressure applied at the flow front. Numerical implementation of such boundary conditions leads to illposing of the problem, in terms of the weak classical as well as stabilized formulation. As a consequence, there is an error in mass conservation accumulated especially along the free flow front. A numerical procedure was formulated and is implemented in an existing Free Boundary Program to reduce this error significantly.

Interactive whiteboards in Portuguese primary schools: the teachers' view

Focusing on the use of Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) in primary schools in Oeiras municipality, this article presents primary teachers’ views, from their experience, on the implementation of this innovation as a resource for the teaching and learning processes. IWBs have been recently launched in the framework of a major program aiming the technological modernization of Portuguese schools, in order to promote the use of ICT in teaching and learning, as well as in school management. Findings show that teachers are enthusiastic about Interactive White Boards because they really believe their pupils learn better and in a more joyful way. However, they draw attention to the need of training in order to fully exploit the potential of this resourc

Implementation of a Campus wide DGPS Data Server

Although the Navigation Satellite Timing and Ranging (NAVSTAR) Global Positioning System (GPS) is, de facto, the standard positioning system used in outdoor navigation, it does not provide, per se, all the features required to perform many outdoor navigational tasks. The accuracy of the GPS measurements is the most critical issue. The quest for higher position readings accuracy led to the development, in the late nineties, of the Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS). The differential GPS method detects the range errors of the GPS satellites received and broadcasts them. The DGPS/GPS receivers correlate the DGPS data with the GPS satellite data they are receiving, granting users increased accuracy. DGPS data is broadcasted using terrestrial radio beacons, satellites and, more recently, the Internet. Our goal is to have access, within the ISEP campus, to DGPS correction data. To achieve this objective we designed and implemented a distributed system composed of two main modules which are interconnected: a distributed application responsible for the establishment of the data link over the Internet between the remote DGPS stations and the campus, and the campus-wide DGPS data server application. The DGPS data Internet link is provided by a two-tier client/server distributed application where the server-side is connected to the DGPS station and the client-side is located at the campus. The second unit, the campus DGPS data server application, diffuses DGPS data received at the campus via the Intranet and via a wireless data link. The wireless broadcast is intended for DGPS/GPS portable receivers equipped with an air interface and the Intranet link is provided for DGPS/GPS receivers with just a RS232 DGPS data interface. While the DGPS data Internet link servers receive the DGPS data from the DGPS base stations and forward it to the DGPS data Internet link client, the DGPS data Internet link client outputs the received DGPS data to the campus DGPS data server application. The distributed system is expected to provide adequate support for accurate (sub-metric) outdoor campus navigation tasks. This paper describes in detail the overall distributed application.