Capital requirements and loan market conditions insight into the Portuguese banking system (2004-2011)

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Gestão de infra-estruturas e avaliação de equipamentos laboratoriais

RESUMO: A confiabilidade e qualidade dos resultados clínicos de um laboratório, estão dependentes da qualidade do equipamento onde estes são processados. A qualidade de um equipamento consiste em apresentar resultados com uma confiabilidade metrológica de acordo com os processos de medição realizados. Desta forma, os equipamentos de medição devem conter características metrológicas de acordo com os requisitos dos processos que estão inseridos, tais como: erro máximo, incerteza, resolução… Todos os equipamentos por muito bons que sejam, apresentam perdas das suas características metrológicas ao longo do tempo, o que se torna importante a determinação periódica das suas calibrações, manutenções e o seu respectivo ajuste. A periodicidade das calibrações, devem ser baseadas, em critérios bem estabelecidos de modo a evitar a ocorrência da não conformidade, devido às medições com os equipamentos fora das suas especificações, garantindo-se assim, a confiabilidade metrológica e o aumento da produtividade devido ao controlo dos processos, evitando-se desta forma qualquer tipo de avaria por parte destes. Os normativos de Qualidade e Certificação estabelecem como requisito a calibração dos equipamentos de medição em intervalos adequados, mas não definem claramente qual o intervalo adequado. O importante é gerir as etapas de calibração e manutenção de acordo com os equipamentos de modo a garantir que os resultados emitidos por estes sejam mantidos em condições confiáveis, dentro do período entre calibrações e manutenções, de modo a que nãoocorra uma condição de falha, e por conseguinte, medições com grande quantidade de erros.------------ ABSTRACT: The reliability and quality of the results of a clinical laboratory, are dependent on the quality of the equipment where they are processed. The quality of a product is to present results with a metrological reliability according to the measuring processes carried out. Thus, measuring equipment must contain metrological characteristics according to the requirements of the processes that are included, such as: maximum error, uncertainty, resolution ... All equipment for very good they are, show losses of its metrological characteristics over time, it becomes important to determine its periodic calibrations, maintenance and its adjustment. The frequency of calibrations should be based on well-established criteria in order to avoid the occurrence of non-compliance due to the measurements with the equipment beyond its specifications, thus ensuring the metrological reliability and increased productivity due to the control of processes, thus avoiding any kind of damage on the part thereof. The normative and Quality Certification as a requirement to establish calibration of measuring equipment at appropriate intervals, but not clearly stipulate the proper range. It is important to manage the steps of calibration and maintenance equipment according to ensure that the results emitted by these conditions are maintained in trusted within the period between calibrations and maintenance, sothat there occurs a fault condition, and therefore, large amount of measurements with errors.

Unstabilised rammed earth: characterization of material collected from old constructions in South Portugal and comparison to normative requirements

International Journal of Architectural Heritage, 8: 185–212, 2014

Service-oriented architecture for device lifecycle support in industrial automation

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores Especialidade: Robótica e Manufactura Integrada

Options and Requirements for a potential market entry into Portugal with renewable energy technologies that are applicable for heating and cooling of buildings

NSBE-UNL

A CMMI-compliant requirements management and development process

Requirements Engineering has been acknowledged an essential discipline for Software Quality. Poorly-defined processes for eliciting, analyzing, specifying and validating requirements can lead to unclear issues or misunderstandings on business needs and project’s scope. These typically result in customers’ non-satisfaction with either the products’ quality or the increase of the project’s budget and duration. Maturity models allow an organization to measure the quality of its processes and improve them according to an evolutionary path based on levels. The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) addresses the aforementioned Requirements Engineering issues. CMMI defines a set of best practices for process improvement that are divided into several process areas. Requirements Management and Requirements Development are the process areas concerned with Requirements Engineering maturity. Altran Portugal is a consulting company concerned with the quality of its software. In 2012, the Solution Center department has developed and applied successfully a set of processes aligned with CMMI-DEV v1.3, what granted them a Level 2 maturity certification. For 2015, they defined an organizational goal of addressing CMMI-DEV maturity level 3. This MSc dissertation is part of this organization effort. In particular, it is concerned with the required process areas that address the activities of Requirements Engineering. Our main goal is to contribute for the development of Altran’s internal engineering processes to conform to the guidelines of the Requirements Development process area. Throughout this dissertation, we started with an evaluation method based on CMMI and conducted a compliance assessment of Altran’s current processes. This allowed demonstrating their alignment with the CMMI Requirements Management process area and to highlight the improvements needed to conform to the Requirements Development process area. Based on the study of alternative solutions for the gaps found, we proposed a new Requirements Management and Development process that was later validated using three different approaches. The main contribution of this dissertation is the new process developed for Altran Portugal. However, given that studies on these topics are not abundant in the literature, we also expect to contribute with useful evidences to the existing body of knowledge with a survey on CMMI and requirements engineering trends. Most importantly, we hope that the implementation of the proposed processes’ improvements will minimize the risks of mishandled requirements, increasing Altran’s performance and taking them one step further to the desired maturity level.

Managing marginal capital requirements in solvency II: Analysis of a real insurance portfolio

This thesis provides a complete analysis of the Standard Capital Requirements given by Solvency II for a real insurance portfolio. We analyze the investment portfolio of BPI Vida e Pensões, an insurance company affiliated with a Portuguese bank BPI, both at security, sub-portfolio and asset class levels. By using the Standard Formula from EIOPA, Total SCR amounts to 239M€. This value is mostly explained by Market and Default Risk whereas the former is driven by Spread and Concentration Risks. Following the methodology of Leblanc (2011), we examine the Marginal Contribution of an asset to the SCR which allows for the evaluation of the risks of each security given its characteristics and interactions in the portfolio. The top contributors to the SCR are Corporate Bonds and Term Deposits. By exploring further the composition of the portfolio, our results show that slight changes in allocation of Term and Cash Deposits have severe impacts on the total Concentration and Default Risks, respectively. Also, diversification effects are very relevant by representing savings of 122M€. Finally, Solvency II represents an opportunity for the portfolio optimization. By constructing efficient frontiers, we find that as the target expected return increases, a shift from Term Deposits/ Commercial Papers to Eurozone/Peripheral and finally Equities occurs.

Basel III new capital requirements, impacts and bank behavior

For some years, researchers could not find a clear effect of capital adequacy on the risk profile of banks, as shareholders could increase the riskiness of the assets (qualitative effect), crowding-out the effect of reduced leverage (volume effect). Some shareholders might have the will to increase the riskiness of the assets, but they may lack the power to do so. Considering only ”powerful” shareholders, definitive conclusions were drawn but with constant ownership profile. In this paper I investigate whether there is a significant change in the type of shareholders in response to regulatory capital shocks and, if so, will the banking system be in the hands of more “desired” shareholders. I find that ownership profile responds to a regulatory shock, changing the risk appetite of the ruling power at the bank. I find more banks and the government in the ownership of undercapitalised banks and much less institutional shareholders and free float. I claim that these new shareholders may not the desired ones, given the objective of the regulatory change, as they are associated with a preference for more leverage. One possible explanation for this crowding-out effect is that regulators are trying to contain idiosyncratic risk (more linked to the riskiness of the assets) with a rule that contains systematic risk (capital adequacy). This has a distorting effect on ownership. Another insight can be drawn from the tests: supervisors should be aware of significant ownership movements that cause the crowding-out.

Capital requirements and loan market conditions insight into Portuguese Banking system (2004-2011)

Capital Requirements have been gaining importance in the current macroeconomic and financial environment and Portugal is no exception. Nonetheless, despite the several media articles on this subject, the associations with Loan Market Conditions, namely availability and pricing are still unstudied. Thus, this project adds to the existing literature a characterization of Portuguese four biggest banks on capital reporting and requirements fulfillment. It is concluded that banks under analysis need to increase capital and that there is an association between the variables under study: Share Capital is negatively correlated with Credit Volume, and it is positively correlated with Net Commercial Income.

Basel III: The impact of new capital requirements on profitability of Portuguese Banks

This empirical study aims to explore the impact of increased capital ratio requirements, on the ROE of the Portuguese banking sector. The paper employs both a quantitative- and qualitative approach, with the qualitative approach as the main method of research. The method adopted to conduct the qualitative research was semi structured elite interviews with banking executives. Higher capital requirements decrease the ROE of banks in Portugal, but huge impairments charges, macroeconomic factors and increased costs of deposits are clearly the dominant reasons for the reduced levels of ROE the past years. Among the measures taken to increase capital ratios, reduction of RWAs and non-core assets have been the main focus, but the issuance of CoCos is regarded as the most expensive measure due to high interest payments. However, the CoCos will not have any effect on the ROE in the long term. It is difficult to draw any conclusions on the impact of more equity in the balance sheet on the ROE of Portuguese banks, as many banks currently don’t generate enough money to pay back on shareholders´ investments.

Mitigating the impact of occupational noise exposure for elderly workers: Setting the functional requirements for an ANC system

Noise affects people in very different aspects and in almost every aspect of our daily life. The most prominent impact of noise exposure is hearing loss. However, it can also impair people at their work settings due to other effects rather than hearing loss. Older works tend to be more susceptible to noise exposure effects at work, firstly because most of them already have some ‘natural’ hearing loss, as a results of the ageing process, and secondly because they also tend to be more susceptible at an psychological level. The current study is an attempt to describe the potential problem and to make a survey to identify the available active noise cancelation systems, as well as to specific the main requirements of this type of systems to be applied in such contexts. Several aspects of characteristics of the ANC systems were identified and are presented in this study. From the obtained results it was possible to have a clearer idea about the potential of this technology, and to confirm that this type of solution can be extremely important as a component of an active ageing program, as the preservation of hearing will also impact on the social life of the exposed workers.

Refinement and variability techniques in model transformation of software requirements

Tese de Doutoramento em Tecnologias e Sistemas de Informação

Avaliação da camada intermetálica em placas de circuito impresso com acabamento superficial HASL com diferentes processos de soldagem

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia de Materiais

Conceção técnica e avaliação económica de um veículo solar para venda de produtos refrigerados

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Mecânica

Adaptive facade systems - review of performance requirements, design approaches, use cases and market needs

The paper reflects the work of COST Action TU1403 Workgroup 3/Task group 1. The aim is to identify research needs from a review of the state of the art of three aspects related to adaptive façade systems: (1) dynamic performance requirements; (2) façade design under stochastic boundary conditions and (3) experiences with adaptive façade systems and market needs.