Fitting phase type distribution to service process with sequential phases

The work of this thesis is concerned with fitting Hypo-exponential and Erlang phase type distributions for modeling real life processes with non-exponential service time. There exist situations where exponential distributions cannot explain the distribution of service time properly. This thesis presents the application of two traditional statistical estimation techniques to approximate the service distributions of processes with coefficient of variation less than one. It also presents an algorithm to fit Hypo-exponential distribution for complex situations which can’t be handled properly with traditional estimation techniques. The result shows the effect of variation of sample size and other parameters on the efficiency of the estimation techniques by comparing their respective outputs. Furthermore it checks how accurately the proposed algorithm approximates a given distribution.

O tempo de permanência como caracterizador do espaço habitacional

para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Arquitectura, apresentada na Universidade de Lisboa - Faculdade de Arquitectura.

Probabilistic methods for seasonal forecasting in a changing climate: Cox-type regression models.

For climate risk management, cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) are an important source of information. They are ideally suited to compare probabilistic forecasts of primary (e.g. rainfall) or secondary data (e.g. crop yields). Summarised as CDFs, such forecasts allow an easy quantitative assessment of possible, alternative actions. Although the degree of uncertainty associated with CDF estimation could influence decisions, such information is rarely provided. Hence, we propose Cox-type regression models (CRMs) as a statistical framework for making inferences on CDFs in climate science. CRMs were designed for modelling probability distributions rather than just mean or median values. This makes the approach appealing for risk assessments where probabilities of extremes are often more informative than central tendency measures. CRMs are semi-parametric approaches originally designed for modelling risks arising from time-to-event data. Here we extend this original concept beyond time-dependent measures to other variables of interest. We also provide tools for estimating CDFs and surrounding uncertainty envelopes from empirical data. These statistical techniques intrinsically account for non-stationarities in time series that might be the result of climate change. This feature makes CRMs attractive candidates to investigate the feasibility of developing rigorous global circulation model (GCM)-CRM interfaces for provision of user-relevant forecasts. To demonstrate the applicability of CRMs, we present two examples for El Ni ? no/Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-based forecasts: the onset date of the wet season (Cairns, Australia) and total wet season rainfall (Quixeramobim, Brazil). This study emphasises the methodological aspects of CRMs rather than discussing merits or limitations of the ENSO-based predictors.

Work, Professional Development And Teaching Commitment: Deconstructing Meanings

The paper we present is part of the research project "The professional identity of teacher studies", that we are development for last 3 years. The third phase of this research put the focus on the experience of job placement of novel teachers, graduated no more than 5 years. We work with focal groups and professional experience and teacher education accounts of teachers implied in this research. Also, for any teachers, we do biographical interviews to deepen on processes of construction of professional identity. In this paper we present the Ana Belen History, a female teacher of pre-school education with an experience of 4 years in school, working in a urban school with students in risk of exclusion. This school have a educative project, commitment with the neighbourhood, joint with the community and other social groups. Ana Belen story, from professional perspective, is linked with the social politic and educational commitment of this school. Our interest is focused in the comprehension of professional identity that Ana Belen has gone forging along her personal story and how her education and job placement has contributed for it. Also we are interested in knowing how early professional experiences have influenced in her professional development as teacher. Specifically we ask ourselves about what influence have for her professional identity, that her career starts in this particular school. In consequence, this paper leads us to question the current teacher education model. In particular we are interested on the kind of professional experience that have place and, so, the kinds of commitments that enables. We understand that frameworks in which professional education and experience have place are relevant to enable more or less transformer understandings about teaching. From conceptual perspective this paper adopts a socio-critical point of view (Gergen, 1985; Kincheloe, 2001; Wenger, 1988, etc.). We understand that teaching has to be analysing according work contexts and personal stories of teachers, because we face processes historical and collective building. Teaching is the result of action of their actors, over time, and in specific stage. So, with this research we intend to break with the old gap between pre and in-service education. We think that both of them are part of the same process and are formed according similar logical; although scenes change. We understand that they are part of a continuous process in which is giving sense to different and complex settings where teaching profession is built, but they are not differenced and independent stages. The teacher work, so, is subject to particular conditions, generated from such different fields as institutional, corporative, cultural, social, political, moral, etc. It displays a kaleidoscopic view on space, time, context, ... These are the axis in which the teaching is formed, from the complexity and heterogeneity. How this complexity is articulated results in different ways to face the teacher work, according different personal and professional stories. The teacher acts with subjects in instituted contexts from relationships he has with them, which gives a situated and contingent character. But, these contexts are strongly structured and ruled according centralized and generalized positions; which is, at the very least, paradoxical. Possibly, from our point of view, same of the crisis of teaching have to explain from this paradoxical perspective and the conflict, which characterize this job (Rivas, Leite y Cortés, 2011)

Tiempo y espacio como ideología

This article analyzes the relationship of the categories of time and of space, as long as holder of the ideological process, since the alteration of these categories is what characterizes to such a process. That is to say, the divisions of this even dialectical categorial bears a characterization of the reality like something static. Also, it thinks about the timespatiality concept as a notion that re-establishes the dialectical unit of the categories of time and space, and that it allows the apprehension of the movement.

O corpo na dança - A dança no corpo

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica.

Dealing with crisis: Early childhood teachers perceived role in supporting children

The study explored how two experienced early childhood teachers support children dealing with crisis in their home environment, namely divorce, domestic violence and imprisonment of parents. The focus was on the relationship between the educational environment (organisation of space, time and relationships in an ecological perspective) and children's emotional well-being. This study builds on studies in Portugal about emotional well-being (Portugal & Laevers, 2010) and about the impact on children from imprisoned parents (Afonso, 2005, Kominsky, Pinto & Miyashiro, 2005, Tavares, 2011), domestic violence (Batista, 2014, Lisboa et al., 2002, Ribeiro, 2010) and divorce (Martons, 2010, Rego, 2008). The theoretical framework was weaved with Laevers (2004) concepts of emotional well-being and involvement and Siraj-Blatchford (2002) and Figueiredo (2013) perspective of pedagogy as including different dimensions of which the educational environment is essential. In-depth interviews with both teachers and some observations of their classroom dynamics were analysed for emerging cross themes in this qualitative study. Anonymity was preserved throughout the study by the use of codes. The study was presented to the teachers and questions were presented in advance. Both teachers expressed preference for adapting existing pedagogical tools (e.g. the classroom diary) and the daily dynamic to support children instead of using special interventions. Domestic violence was seen as the most problematic situation for its repercussions. Attention to emotional well-being, a strong relationship with the child and the families was highlighted. Pedagogy was described as answering different challenges, with a strong emphasis on children's participation. Thematising teachers' pedagogical knowledge is important.

Prevalencia e incidencia de cáncer en habitantes de Sibaté, y georeferenciación de casos 2010-2014

Introducción: El Cáncer es prevenible en algunos casos, si se evita la exposición a sustancias cancerígenas en el medio ambiente. En Colombia, Cundinamarca es uno de los departamentos con mayores incrementos en la tasa de mortalidad y en el municipio de Sibaté, habitantes han manifestado preocupación por el incremento de la enfermedad. En el campo de la salud ambiental mundial, la georreferenciación aplicada al estudio de fenómenos en salud, ha tenido éxito con resultados válidos. El estudio propuso usar herramientas de información geográfica, para generar análisis de tiempo y espacio que hicieran visible el comportamiento del cáncer en Sibaté y sustentaran hipótesis de influencias ambientales sobre concentraciones de casos. Objetivo: Obtener incidencia y prevalencia de casos de cáncer en habitantes de Sibaté y georreferenciar los casos en un periodo de 5 años, con base en indagación de registros. Metodología: Estudio exploratorio descriptivo de corte transversal,sobre todos los diagnósticos de cáncer entre los años 2010 a 2014, encontrados en los archivos de la Secretaria de Salud municipal. Se incluyeron unicamente quienes tuvieron residencia permanente en el municipio y fueron diagnosticados con cáncer entre los años de 2010 a 2104. Sobre cada caso se obtuvo género, edad, estrato socioeconómico, nivel académico, ocupación y estado civil. Para el análisis de tiempo se usó la fecha de diagnóstico y para el análisis de espacio, la dirección de residencia, tipo de cáncer y coordenada geográfica. Se generaron coordenadas geográficas con un equipo GPS Garmin y se crearon mapas con los puntos de la ubicación de las viviendas de los pacientes. Se proceso la información, con Epi Info 7 Resultados: Se encontraron 107 casos de cáncer registrados en la Secretaria de Salud de Sibaté, 66 mujeres, 41 hombres. Sin división de género, el 30.93% de la población presento cáncer del sistema reproductor, el 18,56% digestivo y el 17,53% tegumentario. Se presentaron 2 grandes casos de agrupaciones espaciales en el territorio estudiado, una en el Barrio Pablo Neruda con 12 (21,05%) casos y en el casco Urbano de Sibaté con 38 (66,67%) casos. Conclusión: Se corroboro que el análisis geográfico con variables espacio temporales y de exposición, puede ser la herramienta para generar hipótesis sobre asociaciones de casos de cáncer con factores ambientales.

Aprendizagem das ciências em espaços não-formais: visita de estudo na rota das energias renováveis

Nos programas actuais defende-se um ensino contextualizado numa perspectiva CTSA - Ciência, Tecnologia, Sociedade e Ambiente, e a diversificação de estratégias e actividades é recomendada. Numa perspectiva construtivista, a aprendizagem fora da sala de aula, aprendizagem em espaços não-formais - as visitas de estudo - são consideradas como uma das estratégias com elevado potencial pedagógico. No presente estudo foram realizadas e avaliadas duas visitas de estudo no âmbito da disciplina de Física e Química do 10° ano de escolaridade, tendo a primeira sido feita como estudo-piloto ao Centro de Ciência Viva de Constância e uma segunda como estudo principal, Na Rota das Energias Renováveis, à Barragem do Alqueva, Central Solar Fotovoltaica da Amareleja, Parque de Natureza de Noudar e Herdade do Esporão. Realizou-se uma pré-visita aos locais a visitar, estabeleceram-se contactos privilegiados com as instituições visitadas, preparam-se materiais didácticos, um Roteiro e um Guia de Campo para cada local visitado, foram elaborados e apresentados aos alunos questionários sobre o seu grau de satisfação com as visitas e realizaram-se ainda entrevistas em grupo com alguns alunos para recolher as suas impressões. Os alunos realizaram trabalhos de divulgação da visita tendo sido disponibilizada, no "site" da escola, informação detalhada sobre a visita. Neste estudo analisou-se em que medida uma aprendizagem contextualizada num espaço não-formal foi promotora de um envolvimento produtivo dos alunos. As aprendizagens realizadas situaram-se no domínio cognitivo, social ou atitudinal e os materiais didácticos, como o Guia de Campo tiveram um papel relevante para essas aprendizagens. A motivação dos alunos para a disciplina melhorou durante e após a visita. A colaboração com as instituições visitadas mostrou-se importante no estabelecimento de uma interface entre o espaço formal e o não-formal. A realização de visitas de estudo é uma componente importante dos curricula e deve ser encarada com naturalidade a sua realização frequente, como parte de uma estratégia para motivar os alunos para a disciplina e aumentar a sua capacidade de aprender os conteúdos. ABSTRACT: Nowadays programs defend teaching model that follows a perspective based in Science, Technology, Society and Environment, with special focus in the diversification of strategies. Outside of classroom teaching, in non-formal spaces, as in field trips, is considered one of the strategies with the highest pedagogic potential. ln this study, two field trips were made based on the Physics and Chemistry program for the 1Oth grade, with the first one as the pilot visit to Centro de Ciência Viva de Constância, and the second one as the main study, ln the Path of Renewable Energies, to Alqueva’s dam, Amareleja's Solar Photovoltaic Center, Noudar's Nature Park and Herdade do Esporão. A pre-visit was made for each one of the places to visit, contacts were made, materials were created, an itinerary and a Field Guide for both field trips, satisfaction questionaries were made to the students and the teacher also interviewed some students for appreciations about the visit. The students created posters about the field trip, and information was also showed in the school website. With this study, the benefits of a contextualized learning in a non-formal space were demonstrated. These acquisitions of knowledge were in various domains, such as cognition, social behavior and the didactic materials had a relevant role in these acquirements. Moreover, the students' motivation for the subject in question improved significantly during and after the field trip. The cooperation with the visited institutions revealed to be important in the establishment of an interface between the formal and the non-formal spaces. Making field trips is an important component in the curricula and should be encouraged and seen as a natural part of a strategy of motivation of the students for a certain subject, increasing its ability to learn matters.

Orchestration of multiscale model for computational oncology

Cancer is a challenging disease that involves multiple types of biological interactions in different time and space scales. Often computational modelling has been facing problems that, in the current technology level, is impracticable to represent in a single space-time continuum. To handle this sort of problems, complex orchestrations of multiscale models is frequently done. PRIMAGE is a large EU project that aims to support personalized childhood cancer diagnosis and prognosis. The goal is to do so predicting the growth of the solid tumour using multiscale in-silico technologies. The project proposes an open cloud-based platform to support decision making in the clinical management of paediatric cancers. The orchestration of predictive models is in general complex and would require a software framework that support and facilitate such task. The present work, proposes the development of an updated framework, referred herein as the VPH-HFv3, as a part of the PRIMAGE project. This framework, a complete re-writing with respect to the previous versions, aims to orchestrate several models, which are in concurrent development, using an architecture as simple as possible, easy to maintain and with high reusability. This sort of problem generally requires unfeasible execution times. To overcome this problem was developed a strategy of particularisation, which maps the upper-scale model results into a smaller number and homogenisation which does the inverse way and analysed the accuracy of this approach.

Percezione depth guidata mediante proiezione virtuale di pattern

L’utilizzo di informazioni di profondità è oggi di fondamentale utilità per molteplici settori applicativi come la robotica, la guida autonoma o assistita, la realtà aumentata e il monitoraggio ambientale. I sensori di profondità disponibili possono essere divisi in attivi e passivi, dove i sensori passivi ricavano le informazioni di profondità dall'ambiente senza emettere segnali, bensì utilizzando i segnali provenienti dall'ambiente (e.g., luce solare). Nei sensori depth passivi stereo è richiesto un algoritmo per elaborare le immagini delle due camere: la tecnica di stereo matching viene utilizzata appunto per stimare la profondità di una scena. Di recente la ricerca si è occupata anche della sinergia con sensori attivi al fine di migliorare la stima della depth ottenuta da un sensore stereo: si utilizzano i punti affidabili generati dal sensore attivo per guidare l'algoritmo di stereo matching verso la soluzione corretta. In questa tesi si è deciso di affrontare questa tematica da un punto di vista nuovo, utilizzando un sistema di proiezione virtuale di punti corrispondenti in immagini stereo: i pixel delle immagini vengono alterati per guidare l'algoritmo ottimizzando i costi. Un altro vantaggio della strategia proposta è la possibilità di iterare il processo, andando a cambiare il pattern in ogni passo: aggregando i passi in un unico risultato, è possibile migliorare il risultato finale. I punti affidabili sono ottenuti mediante sensori attivi (e.g. LiDAR, ToF), oppure direttamente dalle immagini, stimando la confidenza delle mappe prodotte dal medesimo sistema stereo: la confidenza permette di classificare la bontà di un punto fornito dall'algoritmo di matching. Nel corso della tesi sono stati utilizzati sensori attivi per verificare l'efficacia della proiezione virtuale, ma sono state anche effettuate analisi sulle misure di confidenza: lo scopo è verificare se le misure di confidenza possono rimpiazzare o assistere i sensori attivi.

Investigation of the residence time distribution in a plate heat exchanger with series and parallel arrangements using a non-ideal tracer detection technique

The objective was to study the flow pattern in a plate heat exchanger (PHE) through residence time distribution (RTD) experiments. The tested PHE had flat plates and it was part of a laboratory scale pasteurization unit. Series flow and parallel flow configurations were tested with a variable number of passes and channels per pass. Owing to the small scale of the equipment and the short residence times, it was necessary to take into account the influence of the tracer detection unit on the RID data. Four theoretical RID models were adjusted: combined, series combined, generalized convection and axial dispersion. The combined model provided the best fit and it was useful to quantify the active and dead space volumes of the PHE and their dependence on its configuration. Results suggest that the axial dispersion model would present good results for a larger number of passes because of the turbulence associated with the changes of pass. This type of study can be useful to compare the hydraulic performance of different plates or to provide data for the evaluation of heat-induced changes that occur in the processing of heat-sensitive products. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

FROM NON-PLACE TO PLACE: A STUDY OF EUROPEAN PUBLIC SPACE AS A SPACE OF IDENTITY

Master Erasmus Mundus Crossways in European Humanities

Gaussian estimates for the density of the non-linear stochastic heat equation in any space dimension

In this paper, we establish lower and upper Gaussian bounds for the probability density of the mild solution to the stochastic heat equation with multiplicative noise and in any space dimension. The driving perturbation is a Gaussian noise which is white in time with some spatially homogeneous covariance. These estimates are obtained using tools of the Malliavin calculus. The most challenging part is the lower bound, which is obtained by adapting a general method developed by Kohatsu-Higa to the underlying spatially homogeneous Gaussian setting. Both lower and upper estimates have the same form: a Gaussian density with a variance which is equal to that of the mild solution of the corresponding linear equation with additive noise.