Recent history of fractional calculus

This survey intends to report some of the major documents and events in the area of fractional calculus that took place since 1974 up to the present date

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC

Organizational challenge or inevitability

Em 2018, o setor do transporte aéreo continuava em franca expansão. Com efeito, o número de passageiros interessados em voar permanecia superior ao número de lugares disponibilizados pelas diversas companhias aéreas a nível mundial. E os dois principais fabricantes de aviões, a Airbus e a Boeing, acumulavam ordens de encomenda que lhes garantiam uma produção contínua superior a cinco (5) anos. Porém, a satisfação dos níveis de procura por viagens aéreas está, também, diretamente ligada à disponibilidade e à capacidade das infraestruturas aeroportuárias. E, em 2018, mais de 200 aeroportos em todo o mundo já tinham esgotado a sua capacidade, sendo que, destes, 100 estão instalados no continente europeu. Portugal não foi exceção. Em apenas sete (7) anos, entre 2013 e 2019, viu o número de passageiros transportados crescer de 32,6 milhões para 60,1 milhões. Simultaneamente, o número de movimentos de aviões aumentou para mais de 418 mil movimentos anuais (o que representa um aumento superior a 65%). Lisboa, enquanto maior e principal aeroporto nacional, foi aquele que registou, em 2018, o maior aumento no número de passageiros transportados e de movimentos de aviões, totalizando mais de 29 milhões de passageiros processados e mais de 210 mil movimentos de aviões. Não obstante, quanto maior é a pressão exercida sobre a estrutura aeroportuária, maior será a probabilidade de colapso ou de uma forte diminuição dos níveis de qualidade e de pontualidade dessa mesma estrutura. Nessa medida, com uma percentagem média de partidas atrasadas de 68,6% e a maior média de partidas atrasadas (22,8 minutos), o Aeroporto de Lisboa foi classificado, em 2018, como o menos pontual de entre os 20 aeroportos europeus menos pontuais.Flight punctuality is an essential issue among passengers, airports operators, and airlines. But, like in any other means of transportation, there will always be external factors of disruption. Adverse weather, airport congestion, lack of capacity, or industrial actions are just a few examples that will, inevitably, cause delays for airlines. However, in general, airline punctuality is most influenced by the performance of airlines and airports. After being appointed in the early days of 2019, by the Official Aviation Guide (OAG), as one of the top ten least punctual airline companies in the world, TAP Air Portugal (TAP) was forced to react. While operating one of the largest and most radical upgrades of its fleet, with the phase-in and phase-out of nearly 30 aircraft in less than two (2) years, TAP implemented a series of mitigating measures to try to improve its punctuality. In this study we will analyse, not only, the measures adopted by the company, but also, try to understand the real impact that external factors (airport capacity, ATC restrictions, and handling) had on the (lack of) punctuality of the Portuguese airline in 2018 and 2019.In 2018, the average delay per departure in Lisbon International Airport (LIS) reach a record value of 22,8 minutes per flight. On the following year, LIS ranked first (#1) in the table of the twenty least punctual European airports for the second time in three (3) consecutive years (2017 and 2019). This lack of airport capacity along with the numerous ATC restrictions formed a perfect storm that TAP decided to ignore. Or, at least, it failed to anticipate. Otherwise, it would not have been possible for the company to be considered, in March 2019, as the most punctual airline among the most active European airlines in LIS

The role of hospital hospitality management in implementing hospitality practices in hospitals: A study about a Portuguese private health care group

Hospital and hospitality are two words with the same etymological root and, during Classical Antiquity, hotels and hospitals shared the same physical space. With evolution, they became two distinct institutions, but there is still something that brings them together – both provide a service for people who, for different reasons, have to stay away from home for a certain period of time. During the 1970s, some private hospitals felt the need to improve the quality of service provided by their non-clinical areas, and, thus, the creation of Hospital Hospitality Management departments emerged, responsible for implementing hospitality practices in hospitals by adapting conventional hotel services to the hospital reality. The present dissertation focuses on a Portuguese private health group, and its main goal is to understand the role of this Hospital Hospitality department in the implementation of hospitality practices in the respective hospitals. In order to analyse this issue, a qualitative study was carried out through the conduction of three interviews with hospital hospitality managers. The results obtained show the importance of the investment in these services, since they allow the hospital service to become more human, focused on the customers’ individual needs, and also through the creation of more welcoming spaces capable of mitigating the cold environment of the hospitals, which translates both in the satisfaction of their customers and in the professionals from the group.Hospital e hospitalidade são duas palavras com a mesma raiz etimológica e, durante a Antiguidade Clássica, hotéis e hospitais partilhavam do mesmo espaço físico. Com a evolução, passaram a ser duas instituições distintas, mas continua a existir algo que as aproxima – ambas prestam um serviço dirigido às pessoas que, por motivos diferentes, têm de permanecer afastadas de casa durante um certo período. Durante os anos 70, alguns hospitais privados sentiram a necessidade de melhorar a qualidade do serviço prestado pelas suas áreas nãoclínicas, e, deste modo, surgiu a criação de departamentos de Gestão Hoteleira Hospitalar, responsáveis pela implementação de práticas de hospitalidade nos hospitais através da adaptação de serviços da hotelaria convencional à realidade hospitalar. A presente dissertação incide sobre um grupo português de saúde privada, e o seu principal objetivo é perceber o papel deste departamento de Hotelaria Hospitalar na implementação de práticas de hospitalidade nos respetivos hospitais. Para analisar esta questão, optou-se pela elaboração de um estudo qualitativo através da realização de três entrevistas com gestores de hotelaria hospitalar. Os resultados obtidos demonstram a importância do investimento nestes serviços, uma vez que permitem tornar o serviço dos hospitais mais humano, focado nas necessidades individuais dos clientes, e, também, através da criação de espaços mais acolhedores capazes de atenuar o ambiente frio dos hospitais, que se traduz, tanto na satisfação dos seus clientes como na dos profissionais do grupo

Time delay systems - meromorphic functions control approach

The paper brings an engineering acceptable approach for anisochronic controllers. The method is based on algebraic tools in the ring of RQ-meromorphic functions and it was developed for a wide class of delayed systems. This contribution deals with so-called anisochronic systems which include delays also in dynamics. Both stable and unstable systems are assumed. The control synthesis consists in the solution of the Bèzout identity and Youla-Kučera parameterization resulting in the Smith-like control structure. A final controller can be tuned by a suitable choice of a scalar real parameter. Among many others tuning methods, the equalization method is adopted. The approach is suitable also for high order dynamics approximation and autotuning procedures. First order stable and unstable simulation examples are presented. Copyright © 2007 IFAC

Combining intention and emotional state inference in a dynamic neural field architecture for human-robot joint action

We report on our approach towards creating socially intelligent robots, which is heavily inspired by recent experimental findings about the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying action and emotion understanding in humans. Our approach uses neuro-dynamics as a theoretical language to model cognition, emotional states, decision making and action. The control architecture is formalized by a coupled system of dynamic neural fields representing a distributed network of local but connected neural populations. Different pools of neurons encode relevant information in the form of self-sustained activation patterns, which are triggered by input from connected populations and evolve continuously in time. The architecture implements a dynamic and flexible context-dependent mapping from observed hand and facial actions of the human onto adequate complementary behaviors of the robot that take into account the inferred goal and inferred emotional state of the co-actor. The dynamic control architecture was validated in multiple scenarios in which an anthropomorphic robot and a human operator assemble a toy object from its components. The scenarios focus on the robot’s capacity to understand the human’s actions, and emotional states, detect errors and adapt its behavior accordingly by adjusting its decisions and movements during the execution of the task.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was possible in part by the funding of research grants from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (grant numbers SFRH/BD/48527/2008, SFRH/BPD/71874/2010, SFRH/BD/81334/2011), and with funding from FP6-IST2 EU-IP Project JAST (project number 003747) and FP7 Marie Curie ITN Neural Engineering Transformative Technologies NETT (project number 289146).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Disruption Management in Airline Operations Control – An Intelligent Agent-Based Approach

Operations control is one of the most important areas for an airline company. Through operations control mechanisms an airline company monitors all the flights checking if they follow the schedule that was previously defined by other areas of the company. Unfortunately, some problems may arise during this stage (Clausen et al., 2005). Those problems can be related with crewmembers, aircrafts and passengers. The Airline Operations Control Centre (AOCC) includes teams of experts specialized in solving the above problems under the supervision of an operation control manager. Each team has a specific goal contributing to the common and general goal of having the airline operation running under as few problems as possible. The process of solving these kinds of problems is known as Disruption Management (Kohl et al., 2004) or Operations Recovery

Business Models of Journalistic Startups in Portugal: an Analysis of Product Innovation, Dissemination and Monetization in Media Enterprises

Purpose: Journalistic startups are thriving around the world, bringing new approaches to the news media environment in terms of concepts, contents, dissemination, internal organization, and business models. This research is relevant to create a prospective view on the evolution of the news media business in the next years, also allowing us to identify some trends and experiences which can be useful to future researchers work, and for professionals of news media companies, startups or not, to get some insights that might help to develop (or even save) their own businesses. Methodology: Through semi-structured interviews with the editorial managers of each of the research subjects, we tried to understand the genesis, concepts, processes, and goals of these startups. We made a thematic analysis of the content, using an adapted version of the IPTC NewsCodes, to understand the editorial approach in terms of Genre, Subject, Media Topic, Media, and Priority in each of the startup’s publication platform. To better understand the business, we did a business model mapping, using the Business Model Canvas conceptual tool, for all the subjects. Findings/Contribution: The main findings indicate that all the startups in this research started through the identification of a problem or a need, within a small group of friends or colleagues. They all try to fit into a niche and not compete with legacy media, and search for alternative financing sources. All the teams are small, produce mainly long form reporting and interviews, and use mostly written text - but video tends to grow in volume. All the subjects work for niche audiences, by location or interests. These results contribute to create a structured and broader view of the journalistic startups scene in Portugal, but can also help other researchers to apply similar methods to map different realities, in geographical or thematical terms. This research can also contribute to better understanding the challenges that digital news media face in this networked society we live in

VI Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods: Book of Abstracts

The VI Workshop on Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods (WCDANM) is going to be held on June 27-29, 2019, in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Beira Interior (UBI), Covilhã, Portugal and it is a unique opportunity to disseminate scientific research related to the areas of Mathematics in general, with particular relevance to the areas of Computational Data Analysis and Numerical Methods in theoretical and/or practical field, using new techniques, giving especial emphasis to applications in Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology, Engineering, Industry, Environmental Sciences, Finance, Insurance, Management and Administration. The meeting will provide a forum for discussion and debate of ideas with interest to the scientific community in general. With this meeting new scientific collaborations among colleagues, namely new collaborations in Masters and PhD projects are expected. The event is open to the entire scientific community (with or without communication/poster)