Entrepreneurship Education : The role of the Higher Education Institutions in the Entrepreneurial Attitudes of the Students

8th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation. 18-20 November, 2015, Seville, Spain.

Sensing Cloud Optimization applied to a non-convex constrained economical dispatch

Conferência: 39th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial-Electronics-Society (IECON) - NOV 10-14, 2013

Academic mobility: a non-Machiavellian means to global citizenship

Although Mobility is a trendy and an important keyword in education matters, it has been a knowledge tool since the beginning of times, namely the Classical Antiquity, when students were moving from place to place following the masters. Over the time, different types of academic mobility can be found and this tool has been taken both by the education and business sector as almost a compulsory process since the world has gone global. Mobility is, of course, not an end but a means. And as far as academic mobility is concerned it is above all a means to get knowledge, being it theoretical or practical. But why does it still make sense to move from one place to another to get knowledge if never as before we have heaps of information and experiences available around us, either through personal contacts, in books, journals, newspapers or online? With this paper we intend to discuss the purpose of international mobility in the global world of the 21st century as a means to the development of world citizens able to live, work and learn in different and unfamiliar contexts. Based on our own experience as International Coordinator in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) over the last 8 years, on the latest research on academic mobility and still on studies on employability we will show how and why academic mobility can develop skills either in students or in other academic staff that are hardly possible to build in a classroom, or in a non-mobile academic or professional experience and that are highly valued by employers and society in general.

Educational in a global environment: non-formal examples of learning practices at the international office

23rd SPACE AGM and Conference from 9 to 12 May 2012 Conference theme: The Role of Professional Higher Education: Responsibility and Reflection Venue: Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences, Mikkeli, Finland

Economic, environmental and mixed objective functions in non-linear process optimization using simulated annealing and tabu search

Screening of topologies developed by hierarchical heuristic procedures can be carried out by comparing their optimal performance. In this work we will be exploiting mono-objective process optimization using two algorithms, simulated annealing and tabu search, and four different objective functions: two of the net present value type, one of them including environmental costs and two of the global potential impact type. The hydrodealkylation of toluene to produce benzene was used as case study, considering five topologies with different complexities mainly obtained by including or not liquid recycling and heat integration. The performance of the algorithms together with the objective functions was observed, analyzed and discussed from various perspectives: average deviation of results for each algorithm, capacity for producing high purity product, screening of topologies, objective functions robustness in screening of topologies, trade-offs between economic and environmental type objective functions and variability of optimum solutions.

Social contextual factors contributing to child and adolescent labor: an ecological analysis

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between social contextual factors and child and adolescent labor. METHODS: Population-based cohort study carried out with 2,512 families living in 23 subareas of a large urban city in Brazil from 2000 to 2002. A random one-stage cluster sampling was used to select families. Data were obtained through individual household interviews using questionnaires. The annual cumulative incidence of child and adolescent labor was estimated for each district. New child and adolescent labor cases were those who had their first job over the two-year follow-up. The annual cumulative incidence of child and adolescent labor was the response variable and predictors were contextual factors such as lack of social support, social deprivation, unstructured family, perceived violence, poor school quality, poor environment conditions, and poor public services. Pearson's correlation and multiple linear regression were used to assess the associations. RESULTS: There were selected 943 families corresponding to 1,326 non-working children and adolescents aged 8 to 17 years. Lack of social support, social deprivation, perceived violence were all positively and individually associated with the annual cumulative incidence of child and adolescent labor. In the multiple linear regression model, however, only lack of social support and perceived violence in the neighborhood were positively associated to child and adolescent labor. No effect was found for poor school quality, poor environment conditions, poor public services or unstructured family. CONCLUSIONS: Poverty reduction programs can reduce the contextual factors associated with child and adolescent labor. Violence reduction programs and strengthening social support at the community level may contribute to reduce CAL.

Mixed integer non linear programming and artificial neural network based approach to ancillary services dispatch in competitive electricity markets

Ancillary services represent a good business opportunity that must be considered by market players. This paper presents a new methodology for ancillary services market dispatch. The method considers the bids submitted to the market and includes a market clearing mechanism based on deterministic optimization. An Artificial Neural Network is used for day-ahead prediction of Regulation Down, regulation-up, Spin Reserve and Non-Spin Reserve requirements. Two test cases based on California Independent System Operator data concerning dispatch of Regulation Down, Regulation Up, Spin Reserve and Non-Spin Reserve services are included in this paper to illustrate the application of the proposed method: (1) dispatch considering simple bids; (2) dispatch considering complex bids.

Friction losses of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids flowing in laminar regime in a helical coil

This study aimed to carry out experimental work to determine, for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, the friction factor (fc) with simultaneous heat transfer, at constant wall temperature as boundary condition, in fully developed laminar flow inside a vertical helical coil. The Newtonian fluids studied were aqueous solutions of glycerol, 25%, 36%, 43%, 59% and 78% (w/w). The non-Newtonian fluids were aqueous solutions of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), a polymer, with concentrations of 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.6% (w/w) and aqueous solutions of xanthan gum (XG), another polymer, with concentrations of 0.1% and 0.2% (w/w). According to the rheological study done, the polymer solutions had shear-thinning behavior and different values of viscoelasticity. The helical coil used has an internal diameter, curvature ratio, length and pitch, respectively: 0.00483 m, 0.0263, 5.0 m and 11.34 mm. It was concluded that the friction factors, with simultaneous heat transfer, for Newtonian fluids can be calculated using expressions from literature for isothermal flows. The friction factors for CMC and XG solutions are similar to those for Newtonian fluids when the Dean number, based in a generalized Reynolds number, is less than 80. For Dean numbers higher than 80, the friction factors of the CMC solutions are lower those of the XG solutions and of the Newtonian fluids. In this range the friction factors decrease with the increase of the viscometric component of the solution and increase for increasing elastic component. The change of behavior at Dean number 80, for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, is in accordance with the study of Ali [4]. There is a change of behavior at Dean number 80, for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, which is in according to previous studies. The data also showed that the use of the bulk temperature or of the film temperature to calculate the physical properties of the fluid has a residual effect in the friction factor values.

Heat transfer coefficients from Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids flowing in laminar regime in a helical coil

This study aimed to carry out experimental work to obtain, for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, heat transfer coefficients, at constant wall temperature as boundary condition, in fully developed laminar flow inside a helical coil. The Newtonian fluids studied were aqueous solutions of glycerol, 25%, 36%, 43%, 59% and 78% (w/w) and the non-Newtonian fluids aqueous solutions of carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), a polymer, with concentrations 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.6% (w/w) and aqueous solutions of xanthan gum (XG), another polymer, with concentrations 0.1% and 0.2% (w/w). According to the rheological study performed, the polymer solutions had shear thinning behavior and different values of elasticity. The helical coil used has internal diameter, curvature ratio, length and pitch, respectively: 0.004575 m, 0.0263, 5.0 m and 11.34 mm. The Nusselt numbers for the CMC solutions are, on average, slightly higher than those for Newtonian fluids, for identical Prandtl and generalized Dean numbers. As outcome, the viscous component of the shear thinning polymer tends to potentiate the mixing effect of the Dean cells. The Nusselt numbers of the XG solutions are significant lower than those of the Newtonian solutions, for identical Prandtl and generalized Dean numbers. Therefore, the elastic component of the polymer tends to diminish the mixing effect of the Dean cells. A global correlation, for Nusselt number as a function of Péclet, generalized Dean and Weissenberg numbers for all Newtonian and non-Newtonian solutions studied, is presented.

Anti-tumoral effect of the non-nucleoside DNMT inhibitor RG108 in human prostate cancer cells

Background: Current therapeutic strategies for advanced prostate cancer (PCa) are largely ineffective. Because aberrant DNA methylation associated with inappropriate gene-silencing is a common feature of PCa, DNA methylation inhibitors might constitute an alternative therapy. In this study we aimed to evaluate the anti-cancer properties of RG108, a novel non-nucleoside inhibitor of DNA methyltransferases (DNMT), in PCa cell lines. Methods: The anti-tumoral impact of RG108 in LNCaP, 22Rv1, DU145 and PC-3 cell lines was assessed through standard cell viability, apoptosis and cell cycle assays. Likewise, DNMT activity, DNMT1 expression and global levels of DNA methylation were evaluated in the same cell lines. The effectiveness of DNA demethylation was further assessed through the determination of promoter methylation and transcript levels of GSTP1, APC and RAR-β2, by quantitative methylation-specific PCR and RT-PCR, respectively. Results: RG108 led to a significant dose and time dependent growth inhibition and apoptosis induction in LNCaP, 22Rv1 and DU145. LNCaP and 22Rv1 also displayed decreased DNMT activity, DNMT1 expression and global DNA methylation. Interestingly, chronic treatment with RG108 significantly decreased GSTP1, APC and RAR-β2 promoter hypermethylation levels, although mRNA re-expression was only attained GSTP1 and APC. Conclusions: RG108 is an effective tumor growth suppressor in most PCa cell lines tested. This effect is likely mediated by reversion of aberrant DNA methylation affecting cancer related-genes epigenetically silenced in PCa. However, additional mechanism might underlie the anti-tumor effects of RG108. In vivo studies are now mandatory to confirm these promising results and evaluate the potential of this compound for PCa therapy.

Differences of absorptive capacity between firms within a cluster

Firms located within a cluster have access to tacit, complex and specific local knowledge which allow them to develop competitive advantage. However, firms have no equal ability to access and to apply that knowledge, meaning that not all have a similar knowledge absorptive capacity. Using a sample of the largest Portuguese firms within a footwear cluster, this paper examine whether there are significant differences in firm’s absorptive capacity and whether such differences within a cluster are related to firms’ specific characteristics. The results suggest that absorptive capacity is significantly associated with the firms’ characteristics, namely size, export intensity and position within the cluster.

Cabo e radio frequência em sistemas deteção de incêndio

Novos produtos são sempre aliados a novas tecnologias, mas nem sempre aplicadas no imediato. No que se refere à radio frequência (RF), são inúmeros os obstáculos aplicados à deteção de incêndio sejam eles, o custo, o interface ou somente a falta de informação por parte da engenharia de projeto. Durante os últimos anos a comunicação sem fios esteve também aliada a equipamentos para aplicação dita “doméstica”, com pouca fiabilidade, baixa autonomia, difícil comunicação entre equipamentos e essencialmente não regulada, isto é, sem normalização. Por parte do comité europeu de normalização, no que se refere à introdução desta tecnologia pela norma que regula os equipamentos de deteção de incêndio, EN54, estão reunidas as condições para que os equipamentos certificados pelos diferentes e reconhecidos laboratórios, entre outros, a LPCB, BSI ou VdS possam ser utilizados conferindo assim à engenharia de segurança e ao utilizador a confiança necessária para a sua instalação. Sistemas de deteção de incêndio por cabo usam tecnologias e protocolos de tal forma evoluídos que são “integráveis” com os sistemas que completam a gestão técnica e de emergência de uma infraestrutura,

Non pre-emptive scheduling of messages on SMTV token-passing networks

Fieldbus communication networks aim to interconnect sensors, actuators and controllers within distributed computer-controlled systems. Therefore, they constitute the foundation upon which real-time applications are to be implemented. A specific class of fieldbus communication networks is based on a simplified version of token-passing protocols, where each station may transfer, at most, a single message per token visit (SMTV). In this paper, we establish an analogy between non-preemptive task scheduling in single processors and the scheduling of messages on SMTV token-passing networks. Moreover, we clearly show that concepts such as blocking and interference in non-preemptive task scheduling have their counterparts in the scheduling of messages on SMTV token-passing networks. Based on this task/message scheduling analogy, we provide pre-run-time schedulability conditions for supporting real-time messages with SMTV token-passing networks. We provide both utilisation-based and response time tests to perform the pre-run-time schedulability analysis of real-time messages on SMTV token-passing networks, considering RM/DM (rate monotonic/deadline monotonic) and EDF (earliest deadline first) priority assignment schemes

Preemption delay analysis for floating non-preemptive region scheduling

In real-time systems, there are two distinct trends for scheduling task sets on unicore systems: non-preemptive and preemptive scheduling. Non-preemptive scheduling is obviously not subject to any preemption delay but its schedulability may be quite poor, whereas fully preemptive scheduling is subject to preemption delay, but benefits from a higher flexibility in the scheduling decisions. The time-delay involved by task preemptions is a major source of pessimism in the analysis of the task Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET) in real-time systems. Preemptive scheduling policies including non-preemptive regions are a hybrid solution between non-preemptive and fully preemptive scheduling paradigms, which enables to conjugate both world's benefits. In this paper, we exploit the connection between the progression of a task in its operations, and the knowledge of the preemption delays as a function of its progression. The pessimism in the preemption delay estimation is then reduced in comparison to state of the art methods, due to the increase in information available in the analysis.