The impact of energy transition in integrated oil companies

Sustainability and the need for an energy transition are among the most talked topics worldwide due to the repercussions it may have in future generations. As governments and international entities push towards a more sustainable framework, change is inevitable, and the Energy sector must accept the progress and be prepared to embrace new regulations and business models. However, such deep changes, impactful to the foundations in which society is built, are not sudden and will require time. Integrated Oil Companies should aim to understand the pace of transformation and how to redesign its own structures. This paper attempts to identify the main key issues and factors, how they currently affect these companies, and how they should be addressed. The analysis assumes a rational economic and social point of view, considering the principle of continuity, with companies having the objective of extending their economic activity and adapting to market conditions if required, and the principle of maximizing the value creation for all stakeholders, from consumers to shareholders or members of the society in which they operate

Flexible and dynamic replication control for interdependent distributed real-time embedded systems, in

Abstract Replication is a proven concept for increasing the availability of distributed systems. However, actively replicating every software component in distributed embedded systems may not be a feasible approach. Not only the available resources are often limited, but also the imposed overhead could significantly degrade the system's performance. This paper proposes heuristics to dynamically determine which componentsto replicate based on their significance to the system as a whole, its consequent number of passive replicas, and where to place those replicas in the network. The activation of passive replicas is coordinated through a fast convergence protocol that reduces the complexity of the needed interactions among nodes until a new collective global service solution is determined. Abstract. Replication is a proven concept for increasing the availability of distributed systems. However, actively replicating every software component in distributed embedded systems may not be a feasible approach. Not only the available resources are often limited, but also the imposed overhead could significantly degrade the system's performance. This paper proposes heuristics to dynamically determine which components to replicate based on their significance to the system as a whole, its consequent number of passive replicas, and where to place those replicas in the network. The activation of passive replicas is coordinated through a fast convergence protocol that reduces the complexity of the needed interactions among nodes until a new collective global service solution is determined

Phakic Intraocular Lens Implantation After Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty: Retrospective Case Series Analysis With Long-Term Follow-Up

Purpose: To report outcomes of phakic intraocular lens (IOL) implantation after deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) to correct high ametropia. Setting: Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto, Portugal. Methods: Retrospective case series with 11 eyes submitted to phakic IOL implantation after DALK. Main outcomes measured were uncorrected and corrected distance visual acuity (UDVA and CDVA), refractive error components, tomographic parameters and endothelial cell density (ECD). The minimum follow-up was 3 years for all cases. Results: Mean ECD loss was 8.7±6.7% at 1 year, 13.1±8.6% at 3 years (n=11; p=0.016, p=0.007, respectively) and 14.0±20.4% at 5 years (n=5, p=0.212). Mean logMAR UDVA increased from 1.27±0.90logMAR preoperatively to 0.16±0.15logMAR postoperatively (p≤0.001) and no statistically significant differences were registered during follow-up. All patients gained at least 5 lines of UDVA. 54.5% of the eyes gained 1 line in CDVA postoperative and only one eye lost one CDVA line through follow-up. Efficacy and safety indexes at 1 and 3 years were 1.01-0.97 and 1.24-1.21, respectively. Mean spherical equivalent was reduced from -7.84±4.63 D preoperatively to -1.05±1.07 D postoperatively (p=0.001). Mean percentage of reduction in refractive cylinder and spherical error was 83.8±15.8% and 73.1±31.5%, respectively, p≤0.001 for both. In one eye there was a significantly gradual ECD loss over 5 years follow-up and the patient will be submitted to IOL explant. Conclusion: Phakic IOLs were effective for correction high ametropia after DALK, showing high efficacy and safety indexes with stability over time. However, it was registered a continuing endothelial cell loss postoperatively, which assumed to be higher than those reported in eyes without DALK.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Autoestima sexual, identidade LGB e homofobia internalizada numa população de lésbicas, gays e bissexuais

Dissertação de mestrado, Psicologia Clínica e da Saúde, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Algarve, 2014O presente trabalho tem como principal objetivo analisar as associações entre a autoestima sexual e a homofobia internalizada, a identidade LGB, a autoestima geral e a satisfação sexual. Procuramos ainda perceber de que modo estas variáveis são influenciadas pela orientação sexual e o coming out. ! Foram inquiridos 89 indivíduos LGB através da realização de um questionário online que avaliasse as variáveis em questão. Para o efeito, utilizou-se um questionário de dados sociodemográficos, a Escala de Avaliação de Homofobia Internalizada, a Escala de Identificação Lésbica, Gay e Bissexual, a Escala de Autoestima Sexual, a Escala de Autoestima de Rosenberg e uma Escala de Satisfação Sexual. Os resultados indicam relações significativas entre as variáveis em estudo, nomeadamente, entre a autoestima sexual e a homofobia internalizada, a identidade LGB e a autoestima geral. A satisfação sexual não está associada à autoestima sexual. Verificámos que os indivíduos bissexuais apresentam níveis inferiores de autoestima geral comparativamente às lésbicas e aos gays. A não revelação da orientação sexual parece estar relacionada com níveis superiores de homofobia internalizada, bem como uma fraca identificação à orientação LGB. Os sujeitos que realizaram o coming out revelam uma maior adaptação sexual. Os nossos principais resultados parecem sugerir que a autoestima sexual é influenciada por fatores inerentes ao self, sendo a homofobia internalizada um importante fator de vulnerabilidade na eclosão de perturbações psicossociais. Os resultados obtidos são discutidos com base na investigação empírica existente neste domínio

Cylindrical Sandwich Shells for Civil Engineering Applications

Presented at the 1st International Online Conference on Buildings, 24–26 October 2023; Available online: https://iocbd2023.sciforum.net/ // Submitted for possible open access publication under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licenseLiterature is not abundant on the mechanical characterization of cylindrical shells for civil engineering applications, especially in terms of impact response. In this context, this study intends to evaluate the impact response of cylindrical sandwich shells produced with various types of fibers. Analysis was done on three alternative configurations: carbon fibers only, carbon fibers and glass, and carbon fibers and basalt. All configurations were tested for static and impact strength. It was concluded that the constituents of the cylindrical sandwich shells are determinants in both static and impact strength. In terms of compressive properties, the lowest displacement (4.4 mm) and highest compressive strength (873 N) and stiffness (354 N/mm) are attributed to configuration 6C. However, the incorporation of basalt fibers decreased these properties to the lowest values, and reductions of 22% and 44% were found for the compressive strength and stiffness, respectively, while the displacement increased around 66%. On the other hand, in terms of impact, significant benefits were achieved with the introduction of glass fibers. Compared to configurations 6C and 2C+2B+2C, for instance, the elastic recuperation was 25% and 64.6% higher, respectively.FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia UIDB/00285/2020 LA/P/0112/202

Multi-impact response of semicylindrical composite laminated shells with different thicknesses

Nowadays, composite materials are increasingly used in the most diverse areas of engineering, where non-planar geometries begin to be quite frequent. However, the existing knowledge about its mechanical performance is still not enough for structural applications. Therefore, experimental tests were carried out to study the thickness effect on static compression and multi-impact response of laminated E-glass/Polyester semicylindrical shells. For this purpose, specimen with thicknesses of 1.1 mm, 1.6 mm and 2.1 mm (corresponding to 6, 9 and 12 woven fabric layers) were considered. In terms of static response, higher thicknesses are responsible for higher compressive strength and stiffness, reaching, in the first case, differences of 252.6 % between the thinnest and thickest shells. Regarding the multi-impact response, the impact fatigue life increases 17.4 times for the analysed thickness range, which can be explained by the different damage mechanisms observed. It was observed that impact damage becomes more localized with increasing thickness, because the energy is dissipated by more interfaces

Impact of COVID-19 outbreak by income: hitting hardest the most deprived

Background: The impact of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has many facets. This ecological study analysed age-standardized incidence rates by economic level in Barcelona. Methods: We evaluated confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Barcelona (Spain) between 26 February 2020 and 19 April 2020. Districts were classified according to most recent (2017) mean income data. The reference for estimating age-standardized cumulative incidence rates was the 2018 European population. The association between incidence rate and mean income by district was estimated with the Spearman rho. Results: The lower the mean income, the higher the COVID-19 incidence (Spearman rho = 0.83; P value = 0.003). Districts with the lowest mean income had the highest incidence of COVID-19 per 10 000 inhabitants; in contrast, those with the highest income had the lowest incidence. Specifically, the district with the lowest income had 2.5 times greater incidence of the disease, compared with the highest-income district [70 (95% confidence interval 66-73) versus 28 (25-31), respectively]. Conclusions: The incidence of COVID-19 showed an inverse socioeconomic gradient by mean income in the 10 districts of the city of Barcelona. Beyond healthcare for people with the disease, attention must focus on a health strategy for the whole population, particularly in the most deprived areas

Implantation of intracorneal ring segments in pediatric patients: long-term follow-up

Purpose: To analyze the long-term outcomes of intracorneal ring segments (ICRS) implantation for keratoconus management in pediatric patients. Methods: Retrospective case series review of the long-term (>5 years) outcomes of Intacs® ICRS implantation for keratoconus in pediatric patients (age <18 years old at the time of surgery) between January 2008 and December 2011 at Ophthalmology Department of Hospital de Santo António. Demographic data, follow-up time, preoperative and postoperative uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in decimal scale, and corneal topography were evaluated. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS for windows (version 24). Significance was set at p<0.0125. Results: Fourteen eyes of 14 patients, with a mean age of 15.36 years (range 10-18 years), were included in this study. All patients had been diagnosed with keratoconus with reported progression in the 6 months prior to surgery. Follow-up time was 6.36±0.97 years. UCVA and BCVA improved after ICRS implantation (p<0.0125). Keratometry (K) minimum (Kmin) and K maximum (Kmax) decreased after surgery (p<0.0125). During follow-up, UCVA, BCVA, Kmin, and Kmax values ranged, showing a tendency to worsen at the end of follow-up. However, statistically significant differences were not observed. Conclusion: ICRS implantation showed good visual and topographic results in pediatric patients. Long-term follow-up suggests that, despite ICRS implantation, there is still progression of keratoconus. To the best of our knowledge, there are no reports regarding the long-term efficacy of ICRS implantation in pediatric patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Deep autoencoders for acoustic anomaly detection: experiments with working machine and in-vehicle audio

The growing usage of digital microphones has generated an increased interest in the topic of Acoustic Anomaly Detection (AAD). Indeed, there are several real-world AAD application domains, including working machines and in-vehicle intelligence (the main target of this research project). This paper introduces three deep AutoEncoders (AE) for unsupervised AAD tasks, namely a Dense AE, a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) AE and Long Short-Term Memory Autoencoder (LSTM) AE. To tune the deep learning architectures, development data were adopted from public domain audio datasets related with working machines. A large set of computational experiments was held, showing that the three proposed deep autoencoders, when combined with a melspectrogram sound preprocessing, are quite competitive and outperform a recently proposed AE baseline. Next, on a second experimental stage, aiming to address the final in-vehicle passenger safety goal, the three AEs were adapted to learn from in-vehicle normal audio, assuming three realistic scenarios that were generated by a synthetic audio mixture tool. In general, a high quality AAD discrimination was obtained: working machine data - 72% to 91%; and in-vehicle audio - 78% to 81%. In conjunction with an automotive company, an in-vehicle AAD intelligent system prototype was further developed, aiming to test a selected model (LSTM AE) during a pilot demonstration event that targeted the cough anomaly. Interesting results were obtained, with the AAD system presenting a high cough classification accuracy (e.g., 100% for front seat locations).This work is supported by the European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) - Project no 039334; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039334