M-commerce: motivations and dynamics from Generation Z e-buyers

Generation Z is recognized as the generation that does not know a world without the internet, grows side to side with innovation and demands more from the market. Brands need to work for new digital updates, constant innovative systems, and interactive processes to captivate these consumers. Understanding the behaviors towards different digital platforms by Generation Z exposes the way this generation looks to the m-commerce platforms. This study aims to explore the shopping motivations and dynamics of Generation Z e-buyers from a cross-country panorama, contributing insights to e-retailers creating effective marketing strategies. The research intends to identify which factors impact the adoption of mobile shopping applications from Generation Z individuals. The study proposes a modified version of the UTAUT2 conceptual model, by adding the constructs Brand/Seller Reputation and Trust, using Gender and Nationality as moderators’ variables. The data for this study includes a sample of 600 responses from Generation Z individuals within Portugal and Italy. The outcomes of this study found that Habitat was the highest predictor of behavioral intentions, followed by Trust and Brand/Seller Reputation. In contrast, Social Influence, Facilitating Conditions, and Hedonic Motivations have low effects. Additionally, the variables Gender and Nationality do not demonstrate significant variations between the groups. The study’s results formulate solid implications for e-retailers.A Geração Z é reconhecida como a geração que não conhece um mundo sem a internet, nasceu lado a lado com a inovação e exige cada vez mais do mercado. As marcas devem trabalhar em prol de novos progressos digitais, de uma inovação constante nos seus sistemas e por processos interativos que captem esta geração de consumidores. Compreender o comportamento da Geração Z nas diferentes plataformas digitais, expõe como esta geração observa as plataformas de comércio móvel. O estudo tem como objetivo explorar as motivações e as dinâmicas de compra dos indivíduos da Geração Z através de uma perspetiva de dois países, proporcionando "insights" aos retalhistas "online" para a criação de estratégias de marketing eficientes. A pesquisa pretende identificar quais os fatores que impactam a adoção de aplicações de compra móveis pelos indíviduos da Geração Z. O estudo propõe uma versão modificada do modelo conceptual UTAUT2, que incluem os novos fatores Confiança e Reputação da Marca/Retalhista, utilizando o Género e a Nacionalidade como variáveis moderadoras. Os dados para este estudo incluem uma amostra de 600 respostas de indivíduos da Geração Z de Portugal e Itália. Através dos resultados obtidos descobriu-se que o Hábito foi o fator que mais contribuía para a intenção de compra, seguindo-se a Reputação da Marca/Retalhista e a Confiança. Contrariamente, as Influências Sociais, Condições Facilitadoras e Motivações Hedónicas tiveram efeitos reduzidos. Adicionalmente, as variáveis Género e Nacionalidade não demonstraram variações significativas entre os grupos. Os resultados do estudo geraram implicações significativas para os retalhistas presentes "online"

Performance of earth based products reinforced with rice husk for indoor refurbishment

The use of environment friendly materials, with low environmental impact and low production costs is becoming an issue of great interest in the building sector. It is known that there is a need to reduce the energy requirement in buildings, once they account for 40% of total energy consumption in European Union (EU). The adoption of sustainable and efficient solutions could be the answer to improve the energy performance of buildings, leading to a reduction of the energy demand and cost for the building sector. From a global point of view the use of bio-based materials provides low-cost and short-term opportunities to contribute to the EU objective to have nearly zero-energy buildings and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions. Bio-based materials are known for their environmental benefits but specially for being materials with high hygroscopic behaviour. The use of natural fibres in earth composites reinforcement has become an interest matter in the construction world, not only due to the availability, embodied energy and hygroscopic behaviour of the earth but also due to the properties and advantages of the use of reinforcement fibres. Earth is a construction material with high advantages but the negative aspects are also relevant, whereas the use of binders to reduce the negative aspects is very common. Based on these fundaments, the present thesis studies the production of a novel bio-based insulation material with earth, stabilised with gypsum and lime and reinforced with rice husk. The objective was to produce a high-performance material that not only could be used as an insulation material but also as a regulator of the indoor air humidity. The implementation of an image analysis method enables to assess of the influence of the length and orientation of the natural fibres on the physical and thermal properties of the composite. In order to evaluate the influence of these factors on the performance of a bio-based material, a comparison was made with previously produced earth blocks, with different natural fibre contents, different production methods and dimensions. The experimental tests showed promising results, especially on the hygrothermal properties of the earth panels. Despite having a relatively low thermal conductivity, the results still do not allow the panels to be considered an insulation material but they could contribute to the indoor thermal comfort. As a regulator of the humidity the panels show great ability to adsorb and desorb the air moisture with relative humidity changes, proving the effectiveness of earth and natural fibres on the hygrothermal comfort

Chinese investment in Europe and Portugal: the case of EDP

This report addresses the question: “Was the CTG partnership successful for EDP?”. The People’s Republic of China, through years of economic growth, and under the “Go Global” initiative, has increased substantially its investment in foreign economies. Portugal is no exception to this trend. With the purpose of analyzing the impact of these investments to target firms, the China Three Gorges’ 21.35% acquisition of EDP, with a subsequent establishment of a strategic alliance, was studied. This investment constitutes the largest made by a Chinese firm in the Portuguese market. Through data gathered from company reports, press releases and Bloomberg, the success of the partnership was measured. This paper reaches the conclusion that the partnership was successful for the EDP group, and for its shareholders

An analysis of us clean energy indexes risk factors

Environmental concerns coupled with the increasingly importance of the alternative energies in the world economy are moving the energy consumption from oil, towards more environmental friendly sources. Whereas it is commonly known that, an increase oil price has a good financial impact on alternative energy stock prices, the works that analyzes the alternative energy risk factors are scarce. This thesis analyzes the risk factors of investing in alternative energies, using for this purpose, a four variable regression where the factors are oil prices, technology stock prices, S&P 500 and interest rates. Due to their growing importance in markets, it is of interest of investors, managers and policy makers to know the risks of this kind of investments. The correlation matrix show that clean energy companies are more influenced by technology companies returns than with oil prices movements. The regression analysis show that oil prices, technology stock prices, risk free rate and the S&P 500 have some relative strength in explaining clean energy stock price movements. In addition, it also demonstrates that technology stock price movements are more important to explain alternative energy stock price movements than oil price movements because investors may see alternative energy companies similar to technology companies.Preocupações ambientais juntamente com a crescente importância das energias alternativas na economia mundial estão a mudar os hábitos de consumo energéticos do petróleo, em direção a fontes mais ecológicas. Enquanto é conhecido que, um aumento no preço do petróleo tem um impacto financeiro positivo no preço das ações das energias alternativas, os trabalhos que analisam os fatores de risco das energias alternativas são escassos. Esta tese analisa os fatores de risco de investir em energias alternativas, usando para este propósito, uma regressão com quatro variáveis onde os fatores de risco são preços do petróleo, preços de ações de empresas tecnológicas, S&P 500 e taxas de juro. Devido à sua crescente importância nos mercados, é portanto do interesse dos investidores, empresários e políticos saber quais os riscos deste tipo de investimentos. A matriz de correlação indica que as empresas de energias alternativas são mais influenciadas pelo retorno de empresas tecnológicas do que pelas alterações dos preços do petróleo. A análise da regressão estatística demonstra que os preços do petróleo, as cotações das ações das empresas de tecnologia, as taxas de juro e o S&P 500 tem algum poder relativo na explicação das alterações das cotações das ações das empresas de energia alternativa. A regressão mostra ainda que, as alterações do preço das ações das empresas tecnológicas têm maior importância na explicação dos movimentos dos preços das ações das empresas de energia alternativa do que as oscilações do preço do petróleo, devido à forma como os investidores poderão ver as empresas de energia alternativa semelhantes às empresas tecnológicas

Novel insights into mitochondrial phospholipid homeostasis in a disease-relevant yeast model

The proper function of mitochondria critically depends on their membrane lipid composition. To ensure lipid homeostasis, de novo synthesis, intracellular and intraorganellar transport, remodeling, and degradation of lipids must be tightly regulated. Several studies have emphasised the importance of the mitochondrial signature phospholipid, cardiolipin (CL) for the organelle function. The acquisition of mature CL species is catalyzed by the phospholipid acyltransferase, Tafazzin. The importance of CL remodeling is underscored by the fact that mutations in Tafazzin lead to a life-threatening genetic disorder, Barth syndrome (BTHS). Currently, the biochemical processes underlying this clinical disorder remain unclear. Deletion of the yeast homologue Taz1 results in similar phenotypes to those observed in patients suffering from BTHS, making this organism an optimal model system to study the pathomechanism of the disease. To shed light on the pathomechanism of BTHS, I searched for yeast multi-copy suppressors of the taz1Δ growth defect and identified the branched-chain amino acid transaminases (BCATs) BAT1 and BAT2 as such suppressors. Similarly, overexpression of the mitochondrial isoform BCAT2 in mammalian cells lacking TAZ improves their growth. Accordingly, supplying both yeast and mammalian cells lacking Tafazzin function with certain amino acids restored their growth behavior. Although elevated levels of Bat1 or Bat2 did not restore all the mitochondrial defects of BTHS, it could correct the higher respiration rate observed in taz1Δ cells. These findings outline that the metabolism of amino acids can influence the BTHS phenotype and has an important and disease relevant role in cells lacking Taffazzin function. In another project, I investigated the transfer of lipids between mitochondria and vacuoles. The absence of documented mitochondrial vesicular lipid exchange suggests that membrane contact sites (MCSs) facilitate lipids transport between mitochondria and other cellular membranes. Recently, it has been demonstrated that the lack of one contact site leads to the expansion of an alternative one. Specifically, loss of the ER-mitochondria encounter structure (ERMES) can be bypassed by point mutations in the vacuolar protein Vps13, or by overexpression of the mitochondrial Mdm10 complementing protein 1 (Mcp1). However, the mechanism by which this bypass support lipid homeostasis has remained unclear. In this work, I analyzed the membrane topology of Mcp1. My findings revealed that Mcp1 functions as a recruiter of Vps13 to mitochondria and promotes formation of vacuole-mitochondria MCS. I demonstrated that the N-terminal region of Mcp1 is exposed to the cytosol and mediates the recruitment of Vps13, thus establishing a functional mitochondria-vacuole MCS that compensate for the loss of ERMES. Finally, in a third project of my doctoral studies I investigated the relationship between the ERMES complex and the coenzyme Q6 (CoQ6) biosynthesis system. I observed that supplementation of yeast cells lacking functional ERMES with CoQ6 could rescue the growth retardation and the altered mitochondrial morphology of these mutated cells. Based on additional results from collaborating groups, we suggest that the ERMES complex coordinates coenzyme Q biosynthesis

Palmitato de Paliperidona num Adulto com Síndrome de Asperger

Asperger’s syndrome is a disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and a pattern of stereotyped behaviors. These include repetitive behaviors, irritability, aggressiveness, hyperactivity and inattention. The treatment of behavioral symptoms is a challenge, with few studies on the effectiveness of different therapeutic approaches. This article is the first description of the successful use of monthly paliperidone palmitate in the treatment of behavioral symptoms in an adult with Asperger’s syndrome. A síndrome de Asperger éuma perturbação caraterizada pelo compromisso da interação social e um padrão de comportamentos estereotipados. Estes incluem comportamentos repetitivos, irritabilidade, agressividade, hiperatividade e desatenção. O tratamento dos sintomas comportamentais constitui um desafio, com escassos estudos acerca da eficácia das diferentes abordagens terapêuticas. Este artigo é a primeira descrição do uso bem‑sucedido de palmitato de paliperidona mensal no tratamento de sintomas comportamentais num adulto com síndrome de Asperger.&nbsp

MONDEO: Multistage Botnet Detection

Mobile devices have widespread to become the most used piece of technology. Due to their characteristics, they have become major targets for botnet-related malware. FluBot is one example of botnet malware that infects mobile devices. In particular, FluBot is a DNS-based botnet that uses Domain Generation Algorithms (DGA) to establish communication with the Command and Control Server (C2). MONDEO is a multistage mechanism with a flexible design to detect DNS-based botnet malware. MONDEO is lightweight and can be deployed without requiring the deployment of software, agents, or configuration in mobile devices, allowing easy integration in core networks. MONDEO comprises four detection stages: Blacklisting/Whitelisting, Query rate analysis, DGA analysis, and Machine learning evaluation. It was created with the goal of processing streams of packets to identify attacks with high efficiency, in the distinct phases. MONDEO was tested against several datasets to measure its efficiency and performance, being able to achieve high performance with RandomForest classifiers. The implementation is available at github

Optimal sampling schedules for h2h_2 and h∞h_\infty state-feedback control

We consider a discrete-time linear system for which the control input is updated at every sampling time, but the state is measured at a slower rate. We allow the state to be sampled according to a periodic schedule, which dictates when the state should be sampled along a period. Given a desired average sampling interval, our goal is to determine sampling schedules that are optimal in the sense that they minimize the $h_2$ or the $h_\infty$ closed-loop norm, under an optimal state-feedback control law. Our results show that, when the desired average sampling interval is an integer, the optimal state sampling turns out to be evenly spaced. This result indicates that, for the $h_2$ and $h_\infty$ performance metrics, there is relatively little benefit to go beyond constant-period sampling