How to improve supply chain performance of a specialized retailer: Managing landed costs of Zippy’s global supply chain

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

Influências da performance na música entre 1970 e 90 em Portugal : Jorge Peixinho, Clotilde Rosa, Eduardo Sérgio

Dissertação de Mestrado em Ciências Musicais Área de Especialização em Musicologia Histórica

O Fim da Transgressão na Performance Social e Artística

A presente dissertação intitulada “O fim da transgressão na performance social e artística” pretende descrever e enquadrar numa perspectiva teórica a contemporaneidade destas duas dimensões, problematizando-as, de forma a indagar um estado de posição argumentativa coerente e actual sobre as mesmas. “O fim da transgressão” anuncia que o conceito de transgressão será aqui analisado e aprofundado tendo presentes as perspectivas de vários autores, compreendendo o seu surgimento, as variantes e influências que o conceito pode tomar e ser influenciado. Este conceito é inserido em possíveis interpretações da sociedade, desde escalas macro sociais a casos particulares, e depois enumerado num esquema transversal da história da performance artística. De modo que a correlação entre o estado da sociedade influencia o estado da arte, e vice-versa, reflectindo-se sobre as suas regras e lei. A argumentação apresentada é um estudo da transgressão na reflexão da moral e da psicologia da massa social, inquirindo o normativo, o desvanecimento dos valores considerados ultrapassados e a biotecnologia vigente desde o humanismo, passando pelo pós-humanismo no devir do homem-máquina e enquadrando o metahumanismo da segunda década do século XX. Problematiza-se a viabilidade da transgressão ou norma num mundo de consumismo espectacular, de hedonismo personalizado e narcisismo massivo.

Fractionation of hydro-ethanolic extracts from grape pomace through membrane processing: the effect of membrane and extracting media on process performance

The EM3E Master is an Education Programme supported by the European Commission, the European Membrane Society (EMS), the European Membrane House (EMH), and a large international network of industrial companies, research centers and universities

Utilidade da tomografia computorizada cardíaca na avaliação da doença coronária

RESUMO: Apesar de toda a evolução farmacológica e de meios complementares de diagnóstico possível nos últimos anos, o enfarte agudo do miocárdio e a morte súbita continuam a ser a primeira manifestação da aterosclerose coronária para muitos doentes, que estavam previamente assintomáticos. Os exames complementares de diagnóstico tradicionalmente usados para avaliar a presença de doença coronária, baseiam‐se na documentação de isquémia do miocárdio e por este motivo a sua positividade depende da presença de lesões coronárias obstrutivas. As lesões coronárias não obstrutivas estão também frequentemente implicadas no desenvolvimento de eventos coronários. Apesar de o risco absoluto de instabilização por placa ser superior para as lesões mais volumosas e obstrutivas, estas são menos prevalentes do que as placas não obstrutivas e assim, por questões probabilísticas, os eventos coronários resultam com frequência da rotura ou erosão destas últimas. Estudos recentes de imagiologia intracoronária avançada forneceram evidência de que apesar de ser possível identificar algumas características de vulnerabilidade em placas associadas ao desenvolvimento subsequente de eventos coronários, a sua sensibilidade e especificidade é muito baixa para aplicação clínica. Mais do que o risco associado a uma placa em particular, para o doente poderá ser mais importante o risco global da sua árvore coronária reflexo da soma das probabilidade de todas as suas lesões, sendo que quanto maior for a carga aterosclerótica maior será o seu risco. A angio TC cardíaca é a mais recente técnica de imagem não invasiva para o estudo da doença coronária e surgiu nos últimos anos fruto de importantes avanços na tecnologia de TC multidetectores. Estes avanços, permitiram uma progressiva melhoria da resolução espacial e temporal, contribuindo para a melhoria da qualidade dos exames, bem como uma significativa redução da dose de radiação. A par desta evolução tecnológica, foi aumentando a experiência e gerada mais evidência científica, tornando a angio TC cardíaca cada vez mais robusta na avaliação da doença coronária e aumentando a sua aplicabilidade clínica. Mais recentemente apareceram vários trabalhos que validaram o seu valor prognóstico, assinalando a sua chegada à idade adulta. Para além de permitir excluir a presença de doença coronária e de identificar a presença de estenoses significativas, a angio TC cardíaca permite identificar a presença de lesões coronárias não obstrutivas, característica impar desta técnica como modalidade de imagem não invasiva. Ao permitir identificar a totalidade das lesões ateroscleróticas (obstrutivas e não obstrutivas), a 18 angio TC cardíaca poderá fornecer uma quantificação da carga aterosclerótica coronária total, podendo essa identificação ser útil na estratificação dos indivíduos em risco de eventos coronários. Neste trabalho foi possível identificar preditores demográficos e clínicos de uma elevada carga aterosclerótica coronária documentada pela angioTC cardíaca, embora o seu poder discriminativo tenha sido relativamente modesto, mesmo quando agrupados em scores clínicos. Entre os vários scores, o desempenho foi um pouco melhor para o score de risco cardiovascular Heartscore. Estas limitações espelham a dificuldade de prever apenas com base em variáveis clínicas, mesmo quando agrupadas em scores, a presença e extensão da doença coronária. Um dos factores de risco clássicos, a obesidade, parece ter uma relação paradoxal com a carga aterosclerótica, o que pode justificar algumas limitações da estimativa com base em scores clínicos. A diabetes mellitus, por outro lado, foi um dos preditores clínicos mais importantes, funcionando como modelo de doença coronária mais avançada, útil para avaliar o desempenho dos diferentes índices de carga aterosclerótica. Dada a elevada prevalência de placas ateroscleróticas identificáveis por angio TC na árvore coronária, torna-‐se importante desenvolver ferramentas que permitam quantificar a carga aterosclerótica e assim identificar os indivíduos que poderão eventualmente beneficiar de medidas de prevenção mais intensivas. Com este objectivo, foi desenvolvido um índice de carga aterosclerótica que reúne a informação global acerca da localização, do grau de estenose e do tipo de placa, obtida pela angio TC cardíaca, o CT--‐LeSc. Este score poderá vir a ser uma ferramenta útil para quantificação da carga aterosclerótica coronária, sendo de esperar que possa traduzir a informação prognóstica da angio TC cardíaca. Por fim, o conceito de árvore coronária vulnerável poderá ser mais importante do que o da placa vulnerável e a sua identificação pela angio TC cardíaca poderá ser importante numa estratégia de prevenção mais avançada. Esta poderá permitir personalizar as medidas de prevenção primária, doseando melhor a sua intensidade em função da carga aterosclerótica, podendo esta vir a constituir uma das mais importantes indicações da angio TC cardíaca no futuro.---------------- ABSTRACT Despite the significant advances made possible in recent years in the field of pharmacology and diagnostic tests, acute yocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death remain the first manifestation of coronary atherosclerosis in a significant proportion of patients, as many were previously asymptomatic. Traditionally, the diagnostic exams employed for the evaluation of possible coronary artery disease are based on the documentation of myocardial ischemia and, in this way, they are linked to the presence of obstructive coronary stenosis. Nonobstructive coronary lesions are also frequently involved in the development of coronary events. Although the absolute risk of becoming unstable per plaque is higher for more obstructive and higher burden plaques, these are much less frequent than nonobstructive lesions and therefore, in terms of probability for the patient, coronary events are often the result of rupture or erosion of the latter ones. Recent advanced intracoronary imaging studies provided evidence that although it is possible to identify some features of vulnerability in plaques associated with subsequente development of coronary events, the sensitivity and sensibility are very limited for clinical application. More important than the individual risk associated with a certain plaque, for the patient it might be more important the global risk of the total coronary tree, as reflected by the sum of the diferent probabilities of all the lesions, since the higher the coronary Atherosclerotic burden, the higher the risk for the patient. Cardiac CT or Coronary CT angiography is still a young modality. It is the most recente noninvasive imaging modality in the study of coronary artery disease and its development was possible due to important advances in multidetector CT technology. These allowed significant improvements in temporal and spatial resolution, leading to better image quality and also some impressive reductions in radiation dose. At the same time, the increasing experience with this technique lead to a growing body of scientific evidence, making cardiac CT a robust imaging tool for the evaluation of coronary artery disease and increased its clinical indications. More recently, several publications documented its prognostic value, marking the transition of cardiac CT to adulthood. Besides being able to exclude the presence of coronary artery disease and of obstructive lesions, Cardiac CT allows also the identification of nonobstructive lesions, making this a unique tool in the field of noninvasive imaging modalities. By evaluating both obstructive and nonobstructive lesions, cardiac CT can provide for the quantification of total coronary atherosclerotic burden, and this can be useful to stratify the risk of future coronary events. In the present work, it was possible to identify significant demographic and clinical predictors of a high coronary atherosclerotic burden as assessed by cardiac CT, but with modest odds ratios, even when the individual variables were gathered in clinical scores. Among these diferent clinical scores, the performance was better for the Heartscore, a cardiovascular risk score. This modest performance underline the limitations on predicting the presence and severity of coronary disease based only on clinical variables, even when optimized together in risk scores, One of the classical risk factors, obesity, had in fact a paradoxical relation with coronary atherosclerotic burden and might explain some of the limitations of the clinical models. On the opposite, diabetes mellitus was one of the strongest clinical predictors, and was considered to be a model of more advanced coronary disease, useful to evaluate the performance of diferent plaque burden scores. In face of the high prevalence of plaques that can be identified in the coronary tree of patients undergoing cardiac CT, it is of utmost importance to develop tools to quantify the total coronary atherosclerotic burden providing the identification of patients that could eventually benefit from more intensive preventive measures. This was the rational for the development of a coronary atherosclerotic burden score, reflecting the comprehensive information on localization, degree of stenosis and plaque composition provided by cardiac CT – the CT-LeSc. This score may become a useful tool to quantify total coronary atherosclerotic burden and is expected to convey the strong prognostic information of cardiac CT. Lastly, the concept of vulnerable coronary tree might become more important than the concept of the vulnerable plaque and his assessment by cardiac CT Might become important in a more advance primary prevention strategy. This Could lead to a more custom-made primary prevention, tailoring the intensity of preventive measures to the atherosclerotic burden and this might become one of the most important indications of cardiac CT In the near future.

Hole cleaning performance monitoring during the drilling of directional wells

During drilling operation, cuttings are produced downhole and must be removed to avoid issues which can lead to Non Productive Time (NPT). Most of stuck pipe and then Bottom-Hole Assembly (BHA) lost events are hole cleaned related. There are many parameters which help determine hole cleaning conditions, but a proper selection of the key parameters will facilitate monitoring hole cleaning conditions and interventions. The aim of Hole Cleaning Monitoring is to keep track of borehole conditions including hole cleaning efficiency and wellbore stability issues during drilling operations. Adequate hole cleaning is the one of the main concerns in the underbalanced drilling operations especially for directional and horizontal wells. This dissertation addresses some hole cleaning fundamentals which will act as the basis for recommendation practice during drilling operations. Understand how parameters such as Flowrate, Rotation per Minute (RPM), Rate of Penetration (ROP) and Mud Weight are useful to improve the hole cleaning performance and how Equivalent Circulate Density (ECD), Torque & Drag (T&D) and Cuttings Volumes coming from downhole help to indicate how clean and stable the well is. For case study, hole cleaning performance or cuttings volume removal monitoring, will be based on real-time measurements of the cuttings volume removal from downhole at certain time, taking into account Flowrate, RPM, ROP and Drilling fluid or Mud properties, and then will be plotted and compared to the volume being drilled expected. ECD monitoring will dictate hole stability conditions and T&D and Cuttings Volume coming from downhole monitoring will dictate how clean the well is. T&D Modeling Software provide theoretical calculated T&D trends which will be plotted and compared to the real-time measurements. It will use the measured hookloads to perform a back-calculation of friction factors along the wellbore.

Thermal performance of cool facades: evaluation by Infrared Thermography

High reflective paints (cool paints) are used on flat roofs to reduce heat gains from the incidence of solar radiation and thus improve the thermal comfort and energy efficiency of buildings, especially in summer periods. Given the application potential of these paints on vertical surfaces, a research study has been developed to evaluate the thermal performance of reflective paints on walls under real exposure conditions. Accordingly, different reflective paints have been applied as the final coating of an ETICS type solution, on the facades of a full scale experimental cell built at LNEC campus. For being applied in an ETICS system a paint has to fulfill several requirements, whether aesthetic or functional (such as the adhesion between the coating layers or the durability of the insulation), essential for its efficient performance. Since this construction coating system is subject to a prolonged sun exposure, various problems may arise, such as paint degradation or deterioration of the thermal insulation properties, particularly when dark colors are applied. To evaluate the thermal performance of the chosen paints, the method of non-destructive analysis by Infrared Thermography was used. Thermography allows knowing the temperature distribution of facades by measuring the radiation emitted by their surfaces. To complement the thermographic diagnosis, thermocouples were placed between the insulation and the paint system of the experimental cell. Additional laboratory tests allowed the characterization of the optical properties (reflectance and emittance) of the different reflective paints used in this study. The comparative analysis of the thermal performance of reflective and conventional paints revealed that the reflective paint allows a reduction of the facade surface temperature, reducing the risk of loss of insulating properties of the ETICS system and thus ensuring its longevity and functionality. The color of the paint used affects, naturally, the reflective ability of the surface and may have an important role in energy balance of the building. This paper also showed the potential of infrared thermography in the evaluation of the thermal performance of reflective paints.

Influence of Lean and Green on supply chain performance: an interpretive structural modelling model

This work aims to identify and rank a set of Lean and Green practices and supply chain performance measures on which managers should focus to achieve competitiveness and improve the performance of automotive supply chains. The identification of the contextual relationships among the suggested practices and measures, was performed through literature review. Their ranking was done by interviews with professionals from the automotive industry and academics with wide knowledge on the subject. The methodology of interpretive structural modelling (ISM) is a useful methodology to identify inter relationships among Lean and Green practices and supply chain performance measures and to support the evaluation of automotive supply chain performance. Using the ISM methodology, the variables under study were clustered according to their driving power and dependence power. The ISM methodology was proposed to be used in this work. The model intends to provide a better understanding of the variables that have more influence (driving variables), the others and those which are most influenced (dependent variables) by others. The information provided by this model is strategic for managers who can use it to identify which variables they should focus on in order to have competitive supply chains.

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.

Antropologia e Performance - Agir, Atuar, Exibir

Estamos na Primavera de 2012, de visita ao museu do Quai d’Orsay, em Paris. Enquanto nos deslocamos pelo espaço da exposição permanente, deparamos com um grupo de crianças, acompanhado por duas professoras. São meninos de uma escola primária de Paris e estão de visita ao museu. Uma das professoras pede-lhes que se sentem no chão, numa das partes da longa exposição permanente, enquanto se aproxima uma mulher vestida com um traje que se identifica de maneira difusa com a América Latina. Atriz ou antropóloga? A mulher fala com os meninos da dança dos Chunchus e da Morenada bolivianas, encena, dramatiza, chama-os a participar. Ensina e representa, enquanto o público infantil colabora. Alguns meninos menos timoratos entram no jogo, dão-lhe troco, agem e atuam, exibem-se e encenam. Escapam ao papel, reinventam-no e têm de ser reencaminhados para o contexto de partida. Play e ritual: a performatividade precipita a realidade, nesta transição entre o retorno da liberdade recreativa, do jogo, da brincadeira, até à gramática do ritual, repleta de regras, de interdições, de noções de correção, de um rito (Boissevain, 1992). Transforma as relações pela sua simples enunciação, no sentido que é dado ao termo «performativo»: dizer é fazer (Austin, 1962).

Comparison of the performance of polymerase chain reaction and pp65 antigenemia for the detection of human cytomegalovirus in immunosuppressed patients

INTRODUCTION: Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is often reactive in latently infected immunosuppressed patients. Accordingly, HCMV remains one of the most common infections following solid organ and hemopoietic stem cell transplantations, resulting in significant morbidity, graft loss and occasional mortality. The early diagnosis of HCMV disease is important in immunosuppressed patients, since in these individuals, preemptive treatment is useful. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of the in-house qualitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and pp65 antigenemia to HCMV infection in immunosuppressed patients in the Hospital de Clínicas of Porto Alegre (HCPA). METHODS: A total of 216 blood samples collected between August 2006 and January 2007 were investigated. RESULTS: Among the samples analyzed, 81 (37.5%) were HCMV-positive by PCR, while 48 (22.2%) were positive for antigenemia. Considering antigenemia as the gold standard, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values and negative predictive values for PCR were 87.5%, 76.8%, 51.8% and 95.5% respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrated that qualitative PCR has high sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV). Consequently PCR is especially indicated for the initial diagnosis of HCMV infection. In the case of preemptive treatment strategy, identification of patients at high-risk for HCMV disease is fundamental and PCR can be useful tool.

Design, implementation, and performance of a distributed and scalable sensor system for critical distance measurements in the CMS detector at LHC

The “CMS Safety Closing Sensors System” (SCSS, or CSS for brevity) is a remote monitoring system design to control safety clearance and tight mechanical movements of parts of the CMS detector, especially during CMS assembly phases. We present the different systems that makes SCSS: its sensor technologies, the readout system, the data acquisition and control software. We also report on calibration and installation details, which determine the resolution and limits of the system. We present as well our experience from the operation of the system and the analysis of the data collected since 2008. Special emphasis is given to study positioning reproducibility during detector assembly and understanding how the magnetic fields influence the detector structure.

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.

Long-run performance of sovereign rating changes

This paper examines the impact of Sovereign rating changes on the aggregate stock and bond market returns both in emerging and developed countries. Rating downgrades in emerging markets are associated with significant negative wealth effects both in the stock and bond markets. Moreover, the effects of rating downgrades persist up to six-months after the event. In contrast, upgrades in emerging markets convey no information. Rating changes in developed markets have no significant impact on either stock and bond market returns. Rating agencies act pro-cyclically, downgrading countries in bad times and, consequently, contributing to the instability in emerging markets.