Resiliência em idosos viúvos

Dissertação de Mestrado em Gerontologia SocialA dissertação de mestrado exposta neste documento revela o processo de resiliência no idoso. A vulnerabilidade dos idosos é facto assente, podendo ser intensificada por eventos de vida stressantes. A viuvez como um momento de transição de vida vivenciado por muitos idosos é descrita como um processo complexo. Ao ter sido estudada a fase da resolução do luto, foi possível apreender os factores que ajudam os idosos a reorganizarem as suas vidas e quais os que colocam em perigo a reabilitação. Optou-se por entrevistar viúvos a viver sós, salvaguardando-se a ocorrência do fenómeno de resiliência em idosos que, à partida, estavam a conseguir gerir o stress a as dificuldades geradas pelo luto e viuvez. Mais do que estudar o modo como os idosos resolvem o luto, pretendeu-se analisar as implicações, transformações e adaptações daí decorrentes. O estudo prende-se com o processo de transição gerado pelo luto, do evento de vida de morte do cônjuge e com os estilos e estratégias de coping, reconhecidas pelos idosos como sendo ou tendo sido importantes para a manutenção da sua autonomia. O estudo qualitativo incidiu na análise destes recursos, com entrevistas semi-estruturadas a 10 mulheres e a 8 homens. A análise do conteúdo revelou várias condições que devem coexistir para que a resiliência se manifeste e perdure, possibilitando um resultado final positivo. Das condições necessárias à manutenção do idoso viúvo no seu lar, destaca-se o apoio familiar, a saúde em geral, os recursos económicos e o auto conceito positivo. Apesar dos idosos do estudo ainda não terem reorganizado as suas vidas de forma clara e evidenciarem muitas fragilidades emocionais, demonstram percepção das suas capacidades e actuam no sentido de colmatar as suas carências. Os idosos aceitam a morte do seu cônjuge, apesar do sofrimento emocional que lhes causa. Embora a solidão esteja presente, os idosos não forçam os contactos sociais, favorecendo mesmo o isolamento e a introspecção. O seu comportamento não revela a manutenção de actividades inúteis, mas também não demonstra vontade expressa de reorganização da vida. O fenómeno da resiliência no luto dos idosos perdura aquando da presença permanente de factores de protecção, minimizando os factores de risco que persistem.ABSTRACT: The master's thesis expounded in this document reveals the process of resilience in the elderly. The vulnerability of the elderly is unarguable and it can be intensified by stressful life events. Widowhood as a transitional moment of life experienced by many elderly people is described as a complex process. By studying, the phase of resolution of mourning, it was possible to identify which factors help older people to reorganize their lives and which endanger this rehabilitation. We chose to interview widows/widowers living alone, safeguarding the occurrence of the phenomenon of resilience in older people who, by reasonable assumption, were able to manage the stress and the difficulties created by grief and widowhood. More than studying how the elderly resolve grief, we sought to examine the implications, changes and adjustments derived from it. The study relates to the transition process generated by grief, the event of life and death of the spouse and the coping styles and strategies, recognized by the elderly as being important to maintain their autonomy. The qualitative study focused on analysis of projected resources, semi-structured interviews to 10 women and 8 men. The content analysis revealed several conditions that must coexist to manifest resilience and ensure its maintenance, allowing a positive outcome. From the conditions necessary to maintain the elderly widow/widower in her/his home, there are family support, health in general, the economic resources and positive self-concept. Although the elderly studied have not yet clearly reorganized their lives and show many emotional weaknesses, they demonstrate awareness of their capabilities and act to remedy their drawbacks. Older people accept the death of a spouse, despite the emotional pain it causes. Although loneliness is present, the elderly do not force social contact; instead, they favor the isolation and introspection. Their behavior does not reveal the maintenance of useless activities, but also doesn't show an expressed desire for the reorganization of life. The phenomenon of resilience in the mourning of the elderly occurs and persists when protective factors are a permanent presence, minimizing the persisting risk factors

A Blockchain-based Educational Record Repository

BEST PAPER AWARD - 7th International Workshop on ADVANCEs in ICT Infrastructures and Services - ADVANCE 2019 - PAPER: "A Blockchain-based Educational Record Repository"International audienceThe Blockchain technology was initially adopted to implement various cryptocurrencies. Currently, Blockchain is foreseen as a general purpose technology with a huge potential in many areas. Blockchain-based applications have inherent characteristics like authenticity, immutability and consensus. Beyond that, records stored on Blockchain ledger can be accessed any time and from any location. Blockchain has a great potential for managing and maintaining educational records. This paper presents a Blockchain-based Educational Record Repository (BcER 2) that manages and distributes educational assets for academic and industry professionals. The BcER 2 system allows educational records like e-diplomas and e-certificates to be securely and seamless transferred, shared and distributed by parties

Study of Helium II heat transport phenomena in superconducting rutherford type cables

This thesis is a study of how heat is transported in non-steady-state conditions from a superconducting Rutherford cable to a bath of superfluid helium (He II). The same type of superconducting cable is used in the dipole magnets of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The dipole magnets of the LHC are immersed in a bath of He II at 1.9 K. At this temperature helium has an extremely high thermal conductivity. During operation, heat needs to be efficiently extracted from the dipole magnets to keep their superconducting state. The thermal stability of the magnets is crucial for the operation of the LHC, therefore it is necessary to understand how heat is transported from the superconducting cables to the He II bath. In He II the heat transfer can be described by the Landau regime or by the Gorter-Mellink regime, depending on the heat flux. In this thesis both measurements and numerical simulation have been performed to study the heat transfer in the two regimes. A temperature increase of 8 2 mK of the superconducting cables was successfully measured experimentally. A new numerical model that covers the two heat transfer regimes has been developed. The numerical model has been validated by comparison with existing experimental data. A comparison is made between the measurements and the numerical results obtained with the developed model

Previsão da tendência da bitcoin utilizando extração de sentimentos do Twitter

Bitcoin is the first decentralized digital currency constituting a successful alternative economic system. As a result, the Bitcoin financial market occupies an important position in society, where it has gained increasing popularity. The correct prediction of this type of market can drastically reduce losses and maximize investor profits. One of the most popular aspects of predicting the cryptocurrency market is the analysis of sentiment in posts shared publicly on social networks. Currently, the Twitter platform generates millions of posts a day, which has attracted several researchers in search of problem solving using sentimental analysis in tweets. With this evolution, it is intended to develop, through Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, models capable of predicting the Bitcoin trend based on daily sentimental analysis of posts made on the Twitter platform with Bitcoin’s historical data. Specifically, it is intended to assess whether sentiment positively influences the Bitcoin trend, and whether positive, neutral and negative feelings positively influence the Bitcoin trend in the same way. Finally, it is also objective to assess whether indicators such as market volume and the volume of tweets carried out within the scope of the Bitcoin theme positively influence its trend. To validate the potential of the study, two AI models were developed. The first model was created to classify the sentiments of tweets into three typologies: positive, neutral and negative. This model focused on AI techniques based on Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (BI-LSTM) and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). In turn, the second model was designed to classify Bitcoin’s future trends into strong uptrend, uptrend, downtrend and strong downtrend. In this sense, the model focused on AI techniques based on LSTM and Random Forest Classifier. In general, it was possible to achieve good performance in the development of sentiment classification models, achieving an accuracy value of 87 % in the LSTM and BI-LSTM models and 86% in the model based on CNN technology. Regarding the model focused on predicting the Bitcoin trend, it was possible to validate that sentiment positively influences the Bitcoin trend prediction. More interestingly, neutral sentiment volume has a more significant impact on Bitcoin trend prediction. The Random Forest Classifier technique proved to be the best, recording accuracy of 57.35% in predicting the Bitcoin trend. Removing the sentiment variable made it possible to verify a cadence of 15% to 20% in the Bitcoin trend forecast, which effectively validates that sentiment positively influences the trend forecast.A Bitcoin é considerada a primeira moeda digital descentralizada constituindo um sistema económico alternativo de sucesso. Em resultado, o mercado financeiro da Bitcoin ocupa uma posição importante na sociedade, onde tem vindo a angariar cada vez mais popularidade. Prever acertadamente este tipo de mercado pode reduzir drasticamente as perdas e maximizar os lucros dos investidores. Um dos aspetos mais populares, quando se trata de prever o mercado de cryptomoedas, passa pela análise de sentimentos em posts partilhados publicamente em redes sociais. Atualmente, a plataforma do Twitter, gera milhões de posts todos os dias, o que tem atraído diversos investigadores na procura de resoluções de problemas com recurso à análise sentimental em tweets. Com esta evolução, pretende-se desenvolver através de técnicas de Inteligência Artificial (IA), modelos capazes de prever a trend da Bitcoin com base numa análise sentimental diária dos posts efetuados na plataforma do Twitter com os dados históricos da Bitcoin. Em específico, tenciona-se avaliar se o sentimento influencia positivamente a trend da Bitcoin, bem como avaliar se os sentimentos positivos, neutros e negativos, de forma isolada, influenciam da mesma forma positivamente a trend da Bitcoin. Por fim, é ainda objetivo, avaliar se indicadores como o volume de mercado e o volume de tweets realizado no âmbito do tema da Bitcoin influenciam positivamente a trend da mesma. De forma a validar o potencial do estudo, foram desenvolvidos dois modelos de IA. O primeiro modelo foi criado para efetuar a classificação de sentimentos dos tweets em três tipologias: positivos, neutros e negativos. Este modelo, focou-se em técnicas de IA basedas em LSTM, BI-LSTM e CNN. Por sua vez, o segundo modelo foi elaborado para classificar as trends futuras da Bitcoin em quatro tipologias: strong uptrend, uptrend, downtrend e strong downtrend. Neste sentido, o modelo focou-se em técnicas de IA baseadas em LSTM e Random Forest Classifier. Em geral, foi possível atingir uma boa performance no desenvolvimento dos modelos de classificação de sentimento, atingindo um valor de accuracy de 87% nos modelos LSTM e BI-LSTM, e 86% no modelo baseado na técnica de CNN. Em relação ao modelo focado em prever a trend da Bitcoin, foi possível validar que o sentimento realmente influencia positivamente a previsão da trend da Bitcoin. Mais curiosamente, verificou-se que o volume de sentimento neutro tem um impacto mais significativo na previsão da trend da Bitcoin. A técnica Random Forest Classifier demonstrou ser a melhor, registando uma accuracy de 57,35% na previsão da trend da Bitcoin. Ao remover a variável sentimento foi possível verificar uma cadência de 15% a 20% na previsão da trend da Bitcoin, o que valida efetivamente que o sentimento influencia positivamente a previsão da trend

Efeitos ecotoxicológicos de ciprofloxacina em espécies aquáticas

Mestrado em Toxicologia e EcotoxicologiaOs antibióticos têm sido detectados em amostras de água naturais, no entanto, os seus efeitos ecotoxicológicos em espécies aquáticas não-alvo ainda não foram estudados de forma extensiva. A sua actividade biológica pode constituir um perigo ambiental, quer pela actuação directa nos organismos que possuam receptores e vias metabólicas que possam ser alteradas pelo antibiótico, quer pelo desenvolvimento de resistência bacteriana. Este estudo avaliou os efeitos de ciprofloxacina na bioluminescência de Vibrio fischeri, no crescimento de Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata e Lemna minor, na sobrevivência e ciclo de vida de Daphnia magna e na sobrevivência de Gambusia holbrooki. Pretendeu-se assim avaliar efeitos a diferentes níveis tróficos, recorrendo também ao cálculo dos riscos associados à exposição a ciprofloxacina através da determinação de quocientes PEC/PNEC (PEC – concentração ambiental prevista; PNEC – concentração para a qual não se prevê a ocorrência de um efeito). Registouse inibição da bioluminescência de V. fischeri ao fim de 30 minutos de exposição. O crescimento das espécies produtoras P. subcapitata e L. minor foi também significativamente inibido. A toxicidade aguda de ciprofloxacina em D. magna foi moderada, no entanto, verificou-se que exposições a longo prazo a concentrações mais baixas do antibiótico conseguem produzir alterações nos parâmetros de história de vida da espécie, principalmente no tamanho de neonatos da primeira ninhada e nas taxas de fecundidade. Por outro lado, a ciprofloxacina não apresentou toxicidade aguda para G. holbrooki. De um modo geral, os valores de toxicidade obtidos (mg L-1) foram superiores às concentrações ambientais apresentadas em estudos prévios. No entanto, a exposição a longo prazo a concentrações reduzidas de antibiótico podem representar um perigo directo para os organismos não alvo, afectando vias metabólicas a um nível de organização biológica inferior. Por outro lado, os efeitos assim produzidos podem indirectamente afectar o equilíbrio na cadeia trófica de ecossistemas dulçaquícolas, principalmente quando os danos recaem sobre a base da cadeia trófica (produtores e consumidores primários). Efectivamente a integração de dados de avaliação da exposição e de efeitos da ciprofloxacina através do cálculo de quocientes PEC/PNEC indicou que esta fluorquinolona representa um risco para espécies aquáticas sensíveis. Este resultado reforça a necessidade de refinar a avaliação de risco deste fármaco recorrendo a ferramentas e espécies sensíveis que permitiram uma caracterização de risco mais protectora do equilíbrio dos ecossistemas aquáticos.Antibiotics have been detected in natural samples, but their ecotoxicological effects in aquatic wildlife have not been extensively studied yet. Their biological activity may pose an environmental threat, either due to their direct action on similar receptors and metabolic pathways present in non-target organisms or due to development of bacterial resistance. This study evaluated the effects of ciprofloxacin on the bioluminescence of Vibrio fischeri, the growth of Pseudokircheneriella subcapitata and Lemna minor, on the survival and lifecycle of Daphnia magna and on the survival of Gambusia holbrooki. This way, it was evaluated the effects of ciprofloxacin on different trophic levels, while determining its risks associated with environmental exposure of non-target organisms, through the derivation of PEC/PNEC ratios (PEC – predictedenvironmental- concentration, PNEC – predicted-no-effect-concentration). The bioluminescence of V. fischeri was inhibited after 30 minutes of exposure. The growth of the producers’ species P. subcapitata and L. minor was also significantly inhibited. The acute toxicity of ciprofloxacin to D. magna was moderate, however, long-term exposures to lower concentrations of the antibiotic led to negative changes on life-history endpoints of D. magna, especially regarding the size of neonates from the first brood and the fecundity rates. On the other hand, ciprofloxacin was not acutely toxic for G. holbrooki. In general, the toxicity values obtained (mg L-1) were higher than the environmental concentrations presented in previous studies. Nevertheless, long-term exposures to low concentrations of the antibiotic may be a direct hazard to non-target organisms, while affecting metabolic pathways at a lower biological level of organization. Besides, the effects produced can also indirectly affect the balance of trophic chains in freshwater ecosystems, especially when the impairments fall over basis of the trophic chains (i.e., producers and primary consumers). Actually, the integration of exposure and effect data of ciprofloxacin in the PEC/PNEC ratios indicated that this fluoroquinolone represents a risk for the most sensitive aquatic species. This outcome reinforces the need of performing a more refined risk assessment, using more sensitive ecotoxicological tools and species that allow a protective risk characterization hence promoting the integrity of aquatic ecosystems

Determinants of Portuguese trade: 1986-2010

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsThis paper aims to assess the determinants of Portuguese trade in the years 1986 to 2010. The beginning of this period is marked by the Portuguese entry to the EEC and the Single European Act in 1985, the introduction of Euro in 1999, while the end is defined by the 2007 financial crisis and the late 2010 sovereign debt crisis. The results show that some sectors of the Portuguese economy suffered a structural change in their behavior, regarding international trade. Apart from some exceptions, the results also show that, in general, the economy behaved as expected. Capital stocks (K), human capital (HC) and infrastructures (IF) promote higher exports whereas economies of scale (ES) has an ambiguous contribution. For the Retail (G), Construction (F) and Health/ Social Work (N+O+P) sectors, the results suggest an increase of intra-industry trade

Major Concerns and Systematic literature Review on Enterprise Resource Planning

Organizations seek to optimize their business processes and one of the best ways to achieve this goal is to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning system. ERP systems have evolved in recent decades with the aim of helping organizations improve the way they work and increase their performance. These systems have differentiated and flexible characteristics and can provide opportunities for growth and sustainability for large companies, but also for small and medium-sized companies. This dissertation addresses the major concerns on ERP systems through a systematic review of a decade of research (2011- 2021). Publications from the last decade addressed different themes and topics in different phases of ERP life cycle and used different study methodologies. Researchers have played a leading role in the study and understanding of ERP systems adopted in the most different contexts. The systematic review carried out was based on the structure and organization of PRISMA 2020, a document developed to facilitate the creation of systematic reviews and served as a methodological guide. Based on a systematic review, it was defined a taxonomy to characterize and categorize study methodologies, life cycle phases, and major concerns. The definition of a work methodology was important to guarantee a cohesive, solid, and sustainable work. The publications analysed in this research were obtained following the guidelines of the previously defined methodology and came from scientific repositories available at B-on, respectively, ACM, EBSCO, IEEE, SAGE, Scopus, Taylor & Francis, WoS. The first search phase obtained 2610 publications. After applying the eligibility criteria, a final result with 126 eligible publications was get, which were the basis of this study. There was a clear preference for case studies among the categories of research methods. Regarding the various phases of the ERP life cycle, implementation, operation, and decision were the most studied phases in the eligible publications. Implementation, integration approaches, user participation, decision making, and risks management were the top five concerns on ERP systems out of a list of twenty-two. These and other results were presented and discussed. Finally, main industry and academia contributions and some limitations were presented, and possible future works were proposed

Underground Marble Exploitation - A Portuguese Case Study and Technical Aspects

The underground ornamental rocks (dimension stones) exploitation has its specificities, according to the type of rock to be extracted and the geological characteristics of the rock mass. For economic and security reasons, the option to go for underground exploitation should be taken if an open pit is completely impossible. This study makes a brief historical introduction to the subject, presents the technical foundations that support it and presents the study of a case of application of underground marble exploitation in the anticlinal of Estremoz, Portugal

A BLOCKCHAIN-BASED EDUCATIONAL RECORD REPOSITORY

The Blockchain technology was initially adopted to implement various cryptocurrencies. Currently, Blockchain is foreseen as a general purpose technology with a huge potential in many areas. Blockchain-based applications have inherent characteristics like authenticity, immutability and consensus. Beyond that, records stored on Blockchain ledger can be accessed any time and from any location. Blockchain has a great potential for managing and maintaining educational records. This paper presents a Blockchain-based Educational Record Repository (BcER²) that manages and distributes educational assets for academic and industry professionals. The BcER² system allows educational records like e-diplomas and e-certificates to be securely and seamless transferred, shared and distributed by parties. The Blockchain technology was initially adopted to implement various cryptocurrencies. Currently, Blockchain is foreseen as a general purpose technology with a huge potential in many areas. Blockchain-based applications have inherent characteristics like authenticity, immutability and consensus. Beyond that, records stored on Blockchain ledger can be accessed any time and from any location. Blockchain has a great potential for managing and maintaining educational records. This paper presents a Blockchain-based Educational Record Repository (BcER²) that manages and distributes educational assets for academic and industry professionals. The BcER² system allows educational records like e-diplomas and e-certificates to be securely and seamless transferred, shared and distributed by partie