Does companionate love express itself unequally in different organizational forms (private companies, hybrid and non-governmental organizations)?

Although, the word “Love” in organizations is seen as a rare concept, but it has gained importance in management theoretical foundation. This study seeks to explore the companionate love in distinct of organizational forms (Private companies; Social organizations; NGO and IPSS) through interviews. The results propose that it is a tensional concept with a complex dynamic: tension of personal behavior, tension of professional behavior; tension of individual impact and tension of community impact. The love dynamic has common points to all organizations, but its expression depends on the specific form of the organization.

Cell encapsulated hydrogel microspheres as "building blocks" for producing 3D constructs

Cell encapsulation within hydrogel microspheres shows great promise in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM). However, the assembling of microspheres as building blocks to produce complex tissues is a hard task because of their inability to place along length scales in space. We propose a proof-of-concept strategy to produce 3D constructs using cell encapsulated as building blocks by perfusion based LbL technique. This technique exploits the â bindingâ potential of multilayers apart from coating

Non emergency patients transport - a mixed integer linear programming

This work presents a model and a heuristic to solve the non-emergency patients transport (NEPT) service issues given the new rules recently established in Portugal. The model follows the same principle of the Team Orienteering Problem by selecting the patients to be included in the routes attending the maximum reduction in costs when compared with individual transportation. This model establishes the best sets of patients to be transported together. The model was implemented in AMPL and a compact formulation was solved using NEOS Server. A heuristic procedure based on iteratively solving problems with one vehicle was presented, and this heuristic provides good results in terms of accuracy and computation time.

The non-emergency patient transport modelled as a team orienteering problem

This work presents an improved model to solve the non-emergency patients transport (NEPT) service issues given the new rules recently established in Portugal. The model follows the same principle of the Team Orienteering Problem by selecting the patients to be included in the routes attending the maximum reduction in costs when compared with individual transportation. This model establishes the best sets of patients to be transported together. The model was implemented in AMPL and a compact formulation was solved using NEOS Server. A heuristic procedure based on iteratively solving Orienteering Problems is presented, and this heuristic provides good results in terms of accuracy and computation time. Euclidean instances as well as asymmetric real data gathered from Google maps were used, and the model has a promising performance mainly with asymmetric cost matrices.

Genetic algorithms for the non emergency patients transport service

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the paper. The authors would like to thank Dr. Elaine DeBock for reviewing the manuscript.

Masonry macro-block analysis

The structural analysis involves the definition of the model and selection of the analysis type. The model should represent the stiffness, the mass and the loads of the structure. The structures can be represented using simplified models, such as the lumped mass models, and advanced models resorting the Finite Element Method (FEM) and Discrete Element Method (DEM). Depending on the characteristics of the structure, different types of analysis can be used such as limit analysis, linear and non-linear static analysis and linear and non-linear dynamic analysis. Unreinforced masonry structures present low tensile strength and the linear analyses seem to not be adequate for assessing their structural behaviour. On the other hand, the static and dynamic non-linear analyses are complex, since they involve large time computational requirements and advanced knowledge of the practitioner. The non-linear analysis requires advanced knowledge on the material properties, analysis tools and interpretation of results. The limit analysis with macro-blocks can be assumed as a more practical method in the estimation of maximum load capacity of structure. Furthermore, the limit analysis require a reduced number of parameters, which is an advantage for the assessment of ancient and historical masonry structures, due to the difficult in obtaining reliable data.

Study of the muscular activation in obese and non-obese subjects during lifting loads

The obesity prevalence is increasing among the workforce of the developed countries. However, obesity seems to negatively affect the individuals’ work performance. In occupational contexts, manual lifting tasks are frequent and can produce significant muscle loading. With the aim of analysing the possible effect of obesity on workers’ muscular activation, surface electromyography data were collected from six muscles recruited during these tasks. In the current study, 6 different tasks of manual lifting (3 loads × 2 lifting styles) were performed by 14 participants with different obesity levels. Electromyography data normalization was based on the percentage of maximum contraction during each task. The muscles’ activation times before each task were also calculated. The current study suggests that obesity can increase the maximum contraction during each task and the delays on muscles’ activation time. This study suggests that obese individuals can present some changes on their muscle activation during lifting, when comparing with non-obese individuals, and reinforces the need to develop further studies focused on obesity as a risk factor for musculoskeletal disorders development.

Observation and measurements of the production of prompt and non-prompt J/ψ mesons in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at s√ = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The production of a Z boson in association with a J/ψ meson in proton--proton collisions probes the production mechanisms of quarkonium and heavy flavour in association with vector bosons, and allows studies of multiple parton scattering. Using 20.3fb−1 of data collected with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, in pp collisions at s√=8 TeV, the first measurement of associated Z+J/ψ production is presented for both prompt and non-prompt J/ψ production, with both signatures having a significance in excess of 5σ. The inclusive production cross-sections for Z boson production (in μ+μ− or e+e− decay modes) in association with prompt and non-prompt J/ψ(→μ+μ−) are measured relative to the inclusive production rate of Z bosons in the same fiducial volume to be (88±16±6)×10−8 and (157±22±10)×10−8 respectively. Normalised differential production cross-sections are also determined as a function of the J/ψ transverse momentum. The fraction of signal events arising from single and double parton scattering is estimated, and a lower limit of 5.3 (3.7)mb at 68 (95) confidence level is placed on the effective cross-section regulating double parton interactions.

Combining non-dominance, objective-order and spread metric to extend firefly algorithm to multi-objective optimization

In this paper, we propose an extension of the firefly algorithm (FA) to multi-objective optimization. FA is a swarm intelligence optimization algorithm inspired by the flashing behavior of fireflies at night that is capable of computing global solutions to continuous optimization problems. Our proposal relies on a fitness assignment scheme that gives lower fitness values to the positions of fireflies that correspond to non-dominated points with smaller aggregation of objective function distances to the minimum values. Furthermore, FA randomness is based on the spread metric to reduce the gaps between consecutive non-dominated solutions. The obtained results from the preliminary computational experiments show that our proposal gives a dense and well distributed approximated Pareto front with a large number of points.

The economic crisis in Portugal and children’s rights to non-discrimination

The consequences that arose from the ‘global economy’ have been significant in Portuguese children’s lives and we believe it is fundamental to reflect on the ongoing structuring of childhood through this global culture/ideology and the concrete implications that they have. It is also important to understand how childhood is constructed and experienced, as well as to consider the impacts of political economic conditions on children’s lives and in childhood in general, taking into account the effects brought on by public policies. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the ways through which the economic crisis affecting the general Portuguese population has impacted children in particular and promoted discrimination and a lack of opportunities in childhood. We will focus on two dimensions: first, on general data about the ongoing policies that have been reducing social rights, increasing poverty rates and threatening basic rights such as educational and health rights, to show their impact on children´s lives. Second, we will discuss some data collected with children throughout different research projects in order to characterize the meanings and impacts of the crisis in their lives from their points of view

Local non-negative initial data scalar characterization of the Kerr solution

For any vacuum initial data set, we define a local, non-negative scalar quantity which vanishes at every point of the data hypersurface if and only if the data are Kerr initial data. Our scalar quantity only depends on the quantities used to construct the vacuum initial data set which are the Riemannian metric defined on the initial data hypersurface and a symmetric tensor which plays the role of the second fundamental form of the embedded initial data hypersurface. The dependency is algorithmic in the sense that given the initial data one can compute the scalar quantity by algebraic and differential manipulations, being thus suitable for an implementation in a numerical code. The scalar could also be useful in studies of the non-linear stability of the Kerr solution because it serves to measure the deviation of a vacuum initial data set from the Kerr initial data in a local and algorithmic way.