Monitoring 2 REINFFORCE Network arboretums. Health status, growth and phenology

Mestrado em Engenharia Florestal e dos Recursos Naturais / Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Universidade de LisboaClimate change is affecting plant and animal composition in forest ecosystems. Understanding how trees and insects are coping with climate change is most relevant to develop sustainable forest plantations, in the future. Using two REINFFORCE network arboretums, we aimed to analyse how different species and provenances are affected by abiotic and biotic damaging. Additionally, we also aimed to assess phenology influence on herbivory, having as model two Oak species, a native and an exotic, as well as their provenances. In general, there were significant differences in survivorship from different species. However, it did not differ between coniferous and broadleaved species (p = 0.659). It differed at genus level, such as Pinus, where we observed a higher survivorship on natives when compared to exotics. This relation was not verified in oak species. Discolouration was the main damage type verified in some species, in particular on Carob tree, Ceratonia siliqua, which suggests the presence of abiotic stressors, possibly linked to climate conditions and soil. Defoliation values were higher in two broadleaved genera, Quercus and Fagus. Lisbon arboretum had higher damaging and pests than Sintra arboretum, which might be related with the climate differences on both sites and also, the physiological and vegetative status of trees, which presented higher stamina in Sintra. Overall, herbivore damaging was lesser in exotic species than native ones. In herbivory assessment from the two studied Oak species, along Spring season, it was shown that the native species Quercus robur suffered three times more damage, than the exotic species Quercus rubra. Additionally, we showed that herbivore damaging was directly related to phenology development from provenances, thus proving this factor influenceN/

Patent-driven M&A - an inside-out approach on pre- and post-acquisition operational performance

The acquisition of technology entails one of the main knowledge gathering strategies of modern-day companies. This Work Project analyses the operational performance and the synergies in the acquisition of Osram Licht AG by ams AG. I find evidence of post acquisition operational performance deterioration on key financial indicators such as operational margin, operational asset turnover, return on invested capital and return on equity, at least in the short term. Even though this patent-driven acquisition generated a net synergy of EUR 2,648 million, non-negligible financial dyssynergies also seem to be present, particularly associated to higher WACC conditions

What if simulation for a Brazilian company regarding marketing budget

The article research is a case study regarding how to design the marketing budget for a small Brazilian company that started the activity one year ago. Taking into account the data that we gather, we decided to use What-if simulation. The case study is a simplified model representation of a company, adjusted according to the data that is released as target for the following year. In practice, the formulation of a scenario allows the construction of a hypothetical world that the analyst can see and navigate.

“Mistérios do Som” – development of a serious game for children with speech and hearing disorders

The way we speak is extremely important when communicating with others, and out of all the forms of communication, this is surely the one that reveals most of our personality and emotions. Therefore, there is a problem to be solved when children begin to reveal some difficulties pronouncing and saying certain sounds and words, making it important to solve them promptly, as these problems can later reveal themselves in other topics, such as writing. Nowadays there are several types of exercises and tools that aim at diagnosing, treating and accompanying children to overcome these problems. Although the exercises used in the therapy sessions are somewhat successful, it is difficult to captivate and in-centive children during each session. To mitigate these issues, serious games arise, a concept that unites education and entertainment into one. Serious games can improve results in therapy sessions, stimulat-ing children and the therapist through a differentiating experience, and helping parents when their child is at home. It is within this concept that the “Mistérios do Som” game emerges, a serious game for children aged 6 to 10 that have speech and hearing disorders, combining gameplay in a 3D world with exercises that suit the needs of the child, giving the appropriate feedback according to their performance

Herding through the tails?

This paper investigates institutional herding for extreme event-days in the US stock market between 2000 and 2010. We show that, for more extreme return’ stocks, abnormal returns and abnormal turnover are strongly linked to institutional ownership. Six month post-event performance show evidence of overreaction and underreaction by institutions on the event-days, consistent to findings related to informational cascades and the uncertain information hypothesis

How to improve the business model of Olá: srategies to mitigate the limitations of the visibility model

CEM

Novelty detection for semantic place categorization

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

From the April revolution to times of austerity in Portugal: a portrait of poverty, social exclusion and inequalities

In the last forty years Portugal was confronted with a series of transformations. The revolutionary process of April 1974 and the European integration drove the country towards the economic policy convergence of the most developed member-states of European Union. This approach was slowing since the beginning of the Millennium, reversed with the advent of the economic and financial crisis in 2007. The crisis generated a response on austerity policies, with deep impacts on public policy with consequences in different dimensions. Poverty, a persistent phenomenon in Portugal, affecting hundreds of thousands of families in the last decades, increased with the crisis. This article discusses ideas about poverty, social exclusion and inequality, to analyze in synthetic form the recent evolution of the Portuguese case in the context of austerity

Melhoria do processo produtivo da Yazaki Porto Technical Centre

No actual contexto macroeconómico, a melhoria dos processos e o aproveitamento de todas as sinergias, são factores que se tornaram ainda mais importantes e nalguns casos, condição sine qua non para a sobrevivência das próprias empresas. Cada vez mais as empresas são obrigadas a produzir mais com menos recursos, com a qualidade desejada pelos clientes e a preços competitivos. A qualidade do produto final não deve ser afectada com a desculpa da implementação de uma política da redução de custos. Pelo contrário, deve existir a preocupação de eliminar da cadeia de valor tudo o que não contribui com valor acrescentado, melhorando nalguns casos a própria qualidade do produto final. A realização deste projecto tem como objectivo, analisar e implementar, através de ferramentas relacionadas com a metodologia Lean, melhorias na produção de aplicadores de cravação numa empresa multinacional ligada ao ramo automóvel. Pretende-se um aumento da taxa de produção diária em 50%, obtida essencialmente através do balanceamento dos recursos humanos e no desenvolvimento de um sistema kanban incorporado no sector produtivo. A parte inicial do trabalho incidiu no estudo e análise do produto e respectivo processo produtivo. Posteriormente e por várias fases efectuaram-se análises aos tempos de fabrico e ao sequenciamento das operações, com vista ao conhecimento de todo o processo de montagem de modo a identificar os aspectos de melhoria. Após o registo dos pontos a eliminar e/ou a melhorar, procedeu-se a uma análise criteriosa dos dados recolhidos, efectuando-se o balanceamento dos recursos de modo a tornar eficaz a implementação do sistema kanban. Este sistema é a base da melhoria proposta para este tema de dissertação. Após implementação do sistema kanban, foi avaliado o seu desempenho e foram registadas melhorias na produção diária dos aplicadores bem como no lead time despendido no processamento dos mesmos.In the current macroeconomic environment, the improvement of processes and the use of all synergies are factors that have become even more important and, in some cases, sine qua non condition for the survival of the companies. More and more, companies are obliged to produce more with fewer resources, with the quality desired by customers and competitive prices. The quality of the final product shouldn’t be affected under the pretext of implementing a policy of cost reduction. Rather, the concern must be to eliminate from the value chain, all that doesn’t added any value, improving in some cases the quality of the final product. The realization of this project aims to analyse and implement, through the tools related to Lean methodology, improvements on crimping applicators production for a multinational company linked to the automotive industry. An increase of daily production rate of 50%, obtained essentially through balancing of human resources and the development of a kanban system incorporated into the productive sector is the goal to achieve. The initial part of the work was focussed on product study and its analysis as well as the production process. Then, analyses were performed to manufacturing times and sequencing of operations, in order to identify aspects for improvement. After registration of the points to eliminate and/or improve, was performed a careful analysis of the collected data, which helped the balance of the resources, to make an effective implementation of the kanban system. This system is the basis of the improvement purposed in this dissertation theme. After implementation of kanban system, the performance was evaluated and improvements were registered on daily production of applicators as well as lead time spent on product processing