Peacekeeping and crisis management: a brief assessment of EU-UN cooperation

The present short paper aims to add to the debate on the future of peacekeeping and crisis management in the current context of international relations. Starting from the premise that cooperation between the European Union and the United Nations (UN) for peace and security is a significant source of synergies between both organisations, the paper highlights the way in which the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) were built, summarising the applicable legal regime, especially following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. By providing a review of the legal background to EU crisis management and assessing the EU’s added value for UN-led efforts, the paper concludes that the Lisbon Treaty provisions provide the EU with the instruments necessary to assume a significant role in peacekeeping and crisis management. Although the EU’s natural partner in the field of peacekeeping and crisis management is the UN, there is growing uncertainty regarding the strength of the ties between both organisations as multilateralism traverses a crisis seemingly unlike others in the past

A new risk prioritization model for reliability assessment in design phase of new products

Trabalho final de mestrado para obtenção do grau de mestre em Engenharia MecânicaNowadays, companies take very seriously the subject of product quality, and make great efforts to guarantee that a reliable product is deployed into the market. Early detection of product faults is less costly and easier to correct. Therefore, companies tend to proceed with reliability tasks along all product development stages, such as Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) which is a well-known tool used to identify failure modes and thus enhance system reliability through the development of suitable correction actions. Few companies have the resources to tackle all failure modes so they resort to prioritization methodologies in order to focus on the most critical ones. The most commonly prioritization methodology used worldwide is the Risk Priority Number (RPN). However, it has been raised by scientific community awareness towards RPN shortcomings that may result in misleading prioritization outcomes. Despite all the critics, conventional RPN is still utilized worldwide for prioritization of failure modes, probably due to its simplicity. In this study, it is proposed an alternative computation model (RPN beta - RPNb) for risk prioritization, which attempts to maintain application simplicity while eliminating some of conventional RPN shortcomings – 1) No consideration of risk drivers’ relative importance, 2) repetition of RPN values through different risk drivers’ combinations, 3) non-continuity of RPN values scale, and 4) high sensitiveness to variations in risk drivers scoring. Companies cannot rely on ineffective methodologies to support the decision-making, and implementation of corrective action for reliability improvement is not an exception. It is of utmost importance to replace the utilization of conventional RPN for failure modes prioritization. Based on a comparative analysis of a case study, RPNb presents itself as an apparently robust alternative, capable of delivering sustained results, adjustable to industry/area specific characteristics, through a straightforward computation mode.Atualmente, as empresas tratam a questão da qualidade de produtos com seriedade, e procedem a grandes esforços para colocar no mercado produtos fiáveis. Neste sentido, as empresas promovem tarefas com vista o aumento da fiabilidade durante todo o ciclo de vida do produto. A Análise de Modos de Falha e Efeitos (FMEA) é uma ferramenta usada a nível mundial na identificação de modos de falha e assim promover o aumento da fiabilidade através da implementação de ações corretivas. São poucas as empresas que possuem os recursos necessários para retificar todos os modos de falha identificados, e como tal recorrem a metodologias de priorização de modo a orientar esforços nos mais críticos. A metodologia de priorização mais comum é o Número Prioritário de Risco (RPN). No entanto, este tem sido alvo de críticas por parte da comunidade científica devido à existência de lacunas que podem levar a resultados enganadores. Apesar das críticas, o RPN convencional é ainda utilizado mundialmente na priorização de modos de falha, provavelmente devido à sua simplicidade. Neste estudo, é proposto um modelo de computação alternativo (RPNb) para priorização de risco com vista a eliminação de algumas lacunas do RPN convencional – Não consideração da importância relativa dos parâmetros de risco; Repetição dos valores de RPN através de diferentes combinações dos parâmetros de risco; Nãocontinuidade da escala RPN; Elevada sensibilidade a variações na pontuação dos parâmetros de risco – e a manutenção da simplicidade de aplicação. Na procura pela melhoria da fiabilidade, as empresas não devem suportar a tomada de decisão em metodologias pouco eficazes. Assim, é importante promover a substituição do RPN convencional na priorização de modos de falha. Neste sentido, e com base no caso de estudo, o RPNb é uma alternativa aparentemente robusta, capaz de fornecer resultados coerentes, ajustadável às características da indústria/área, através de um modelo simples.N/

Bio-inspired anatomy for autonomous DPWS-compliant automation components

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Engenharia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresThis thesis approaches the use of the DPWS technology to implement web-services on small devices, addresses its limitations, and explains an architecture to solve it. An approach to an autonomous device’s simple architecture was realized, using DPWS, and was called Simple DPWS. The objective was to implement/simplify some features in a device in a way that the device can work on its own. The designed architecture is based on that each component has its framework of modules, having always at least the skeleton modules communication and Event Router-Scheduler. The communication module controls all the communication between the devices and the ERS is the responsible for the other modules’ real-time communication. The DPWS toolkit offers no capability of interacting with run-time-appearing services. Thus there was a necessity to do enhancements over the DPWS toolkit to have a dynamic stub and skeleton. This service was called the dynamic service. An experience was done connecting a DPWS toolkit sample service with the corresponding hand-created dynamic service. It was used the lighting service that consists on turning a lamp ON or OFF and getting its status. A GUI was done for the application to be more user-friendly. The results were satisfactory, as the connection worked

Internationalization strategy of Quinta dos Termos to Canada

Quinta dos Termos, a Portuguese winery, currently faces the need to expand internationally due to difficulties in distributing its current production in Portugal. This work project will analyze the firm’s characteristics, its development in the Portuguese market and the value proposition it offers. A market analysis will also be performed prior to evaluating the internationalization need of Quinta dos Termos. The Canadian market will be assessed as an opportunity to expand internationally by evaluating factors supporting that strategy; namely the market attractiveness, the most adequate implementation plan and a competitive analysis to better understand the success expectations in the market

Macroprudential policy in the euro area: does cross country and banking heterogeneity matters?

The following Dissertation addresses how cross country and banking heterogeneity affects the design and implementation of a given macroprudential policy framework in the Euro Area. Panel data econometric methods to quarterly data collected from 12 Euro Area Member States, from 2015 up to 2019, from the BIS, ECB, and Eurostat databases were employed. The extracted variables are related to credit lent to the non-financial sector (households and nonfinancial firms) and their corresponding main drivers, according to the literature related to financial stability topics. It was explored the effects of bank’s capital indicators, following the criteria established from the Basel III accords, namely liquidity, leverage, credit risk, bank’s average size, interest rate charged to non-financial economic agents, real estate asset prices, monetary aggregates and business cycle on bank lending dynamics. Furthermore, robustness checks and the possible nonlinear effects of the explanatory variables described previously were also tested. The findings state that different factors influence credit dynamics on households and nonfinancial firms, reflecting that possible measures that have the main goal of controlling excessive credit growth must be well-targeted, in order to avoid general approaches. Moreover, the existence of non-linear effects on the variables statistically significant to explain credit flows was observed, showing that a future macroprudential policy framework for the Euro Area must consider cross country and banking heterogeneity among Member States.A presente Dissertação aborda a forma como a heterogeneidade entre países e bancos afeta a elaboração e implementação de um determinado enquadramento de política macroprudencial na Zona Euro. Para o efeito, recorreu-se a métodos de estimação econométrica de dados em painel, usando dados trimestrais, entre 2015 e 2019, de 12 países da Zona Euro, tendo como fontes o BIS, o BCE, e o Eurostat, relacionados com o crédito concedido ao setor não financeiro (particulares e sociedades não financeiras) e os seus principais fatores explicativos, tendo em consideração a literatura existente. Averiguou-se quais os efeitos dos indicadores de capital dos bancos, de acordo com os critérios de Basileia III, de liquidez, de alavancagem, risco de crédito, dimensão media das instituições bancárias, taxa de juro aplicada aos agentes económicos não financeiros, preço dos ativos imobiliários, agregados monetários e comportamento do PIB na concessão de crédito bancário. Além disso, foram implementados testes de robustez e estudados possíveis efeitos não lineares associados às variáveis explicativas. Os resultados da presente Dissertação permitem concluir que diferentes fatores influenciam o crédito concedido às famílias e às sociedades não financeiras, pelo que possíveis medidas que têm como objetivo combater o crescimento excessivo do endividamento do setor não financeiro devem ter objetivos muito concretos, evitando abordagens genéricas. Conclui-se igualmente pela existência de efeitos não-lineares para a evolução do crédito concedido, reforçando o argumento de que um futuro cenário de políticas macroprudenciais na Zona Euro deve considerar as heterogeneidades entre Estados Membros e os seus correspondentes sistemas bancários

Marine algae extracts as source of natural antileishmanial compounds

This thesis aimed to identify Cystoseira macroalgae compounds displaying antileishmanial activity. Concerning the need to ensure the identification of the samples used for the drug screening, a second aim was determined to evaluate the usefulness of mitochondrial markers for identification of Cystoseira. A comprehensive review showed that marine algae, and in particular Cystoseira, are important sources of bioactive compounds, which can be used as antiparasitic agents (Chapter I and II). This work revealed that these algae contains compounds with antileishmanial activity. Forty five extracts from 15 species was submitted to bio-guided fractionation and its activity against L. infantum promastigotes and their cytotoxicity evaluated. Among the studied algae, Cystoseira extracts (C. baccata, C. barbata, C. nodicaulis and C. tamariscifolia) displayed the most interesting activities against this parasite (Chapter III). C. baccata baccatabaccata hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was hexane extract was further investigated, to the isolation of two active active active active active meroterpenoids meroterpenoids meroterpenoids meroterpenoids : the the (3R)- and (3S)-tetraprenyltoluquinone with an unknown structure, and the (3R)- and (3S)-tetraprenyltoluquinol previously isolated and active against Leishmania intracellular amastigote forms. Promastigote ultrastructural alterations, DNA fragmentation and mitochondrial potential variations suggest that the mechanism of action of these compounds interfere with the mitochondrial metabolism (Chapters IV). Moreover, the investigation of the chemical composition of the Cystoseira crude extracts showed that these algae contain fatty acids, triacylglycerols, carotenoids, steroids and meroterpenoids (Chapter III). This characterization complement published data, suggesting that these compounds might also be involved in the antileishmanial activity here unravelled (Chapter II). Concerning the identification of Cystoseira, samples from twenty-two Cystoseira species were analysed generating 135 new sequences of three mitochondrial regions (COI, 23S and mt-spacer). This work demonstrated that these three markers are suitable to distinguish these species. The results allowed for the correct identification of Cystoseira samples used for drug screening, encouraging the study of taxonomy and evolutionary elucidation of these brown algae using genetic tools (Chapter V)

Computational design with flexible backbone sampling for protein remodeling and scaffolding of complex binding sites

Dissertation presented to obtain the Doutoramento (Ph.D.) degree in Biochemistry at the Instituto de Tecnologia Qu mica e Biol ogica da Universidade Nova de LisboaComputational protein design has achieved several milestones, including the design of a new protein fold, the design of enzymes for reactions that lack natural catalysts, and the re-engineering of protein-protein and protein-DNA binding speci city. These achievements have spurred demand to apply protein design methods to a wider array of research problems. However, the existing computational methods have largely relied on xed-backbone approaches that may limit the scope of problems that can be tackled. Here, we describe four computational protocols - side chain grafting, exible backbone remodeling, backbone grafting, and de novo sca old design - that expand the methodological protein design repertoire, three of which incorporate backbone exibility. Brie y, in the side chain grafting method, side chains of a structural motif are transplanted to a protein with a similar backbone conformation; in exible backbone remodeling, de novo segments of backbone are built and designed; in backbone grafting, structural motifs are explicitly grafted onto other proteins; and in de novo sca olding, a protein is folded and designed around a structural motif. We developed these new methods for the design of epitope-sca old vaccines in which viral neutralization epitopes of known three-dimensional structure were transplanted onto nonviral sca old proteins for conformational stabilization and immune presentation.(...