Automatização de testes SIP

As redes IP são actualmente as principais infra- estruturas de comunicação utilizadas por um conjunto crescente de aplicações e serviços heterogéneos, nos quais se incluem os serviços de voz. Neste sentido, as funções de transmissão e gestão de sessões são muitas vezes asseguradas por protocolos dedicados, como seja o exemplo do Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) e o Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). O protocolo SIP apresenta um papel preponderante na gestão de sessões, desempenhando funções vitais num conjunto extenso de soluções. Contudo, a disseminação do protocolo acarreta alguns desafios, tais como a validação e teste de soluções SIP. Estes processos de validação necessitam de considerar diversos fatores, como seja o caso da análise de cabeçalhos, validação de valores dinâmicos, verificação de fluxos de mensagens, entre outros. Nesta perspetiva, a validação manual de soluções SIP apresenta-se como um processo moroso e dispendioso, sendo crucial o desenvolvimento de processos automatizados nesta área. Neste contexto, este resumo alargado aborda e analisa de forma integrada a temática geral da validação de soluções SIP, apresentando também ferramentas e aplicações capazes de auxiliarem os processos de automatização de testes de soluções SIP

Contributos de Gaspar Frutuoso para o conhecimento das águas interiores dos Açores

A secção UAciência é coordenada pelo Professor Universitário Armindo Rodrigues.[…]. Se hoje temos conhecimento das características e da biodiversidade das lagoas e ribeiras dos Açores e reconhecemos a sua importância apesar do impacte que as atividades humanas exerceram sobre estes ecossistemas, pouco sabemos sobre como é que eles eram quando os primeiros povoadores chegaram a estas ilhas. Há fundamentalmente duas maneiras de descobrirmos as características destes ecossistemas no passado: as fontes bibliográficas, isto é, os escritos antigos, e o estudo dos vestígios que ficam acumulados nos seus sedimentos, por outras palavras, através da paleolimnologia. É neste ponto que chegamos à obra de Gaspar Frutuoso e ao seu contributo para o estudo dos ecossistemas aquáticos interiores dos Açores. Gaspar Frutuoso (1522-1591) escreveu seis livros que compõe “Saudades da Terra” onde descreve a geografia física e humana das ilhas dos Açores, Madeira e Canárias nos séculos XV e XVI. Esta obra constitui o relato mais completo dos arquipélagos macaronésios neste período e a principal fonte de informação sobre a sua geografia, história, economia, cultura, fauna e flora. […].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

When I grow up I will be a teacher: how futureteachers represent teacher’s identity

A afirmação e a discussão das identidades atravessa hoje todas as culturas e todas as sociedades e, no interior destas, os mais diversos grupos, entre os quais os de natureza profissional, à semelhança dos professores, cada um com a sua especificidade e elementos de ligação, mas todos com alguns pontos em comum. Nesse contexto, apresenta-se um estudo que tem como objetivo central a explicitação e a problematização da identidade docente e do interesse e das condições do seu exercício. Tal estudo é feito, quer num plano teórico, revisitando alguma bibliografia de referência, designadamente a relacionada com a construção e o papel da(s) identidade(s); quer num plano empírico, decorrente da análise de representações sociais de 96 jovens estudantes de licenciaturas em ensino de uma universidade portuguesa. O recurso às representações sociais como instrumento para a compreensão da identidade docente perspectivada por futuros professores afigura- -se pertinente, seja pelo papel daquelas na interpretação da atividade profissional do professor e na configuração do trabalho deste, seja pelo seu papel de orientação da própria ação docente e de justificação dela. Acrescente-se ainda que o quadro teórico que serve de suporte ao estudo permite perceber em que medida as representações sociais dos inquiridos sobre os processos de ensino-aprendizagem em que intervirão, já como professores, incorporam as suas próprias experiências

Caracterização de uma conta de vidro proveniente do povoado fortificado calcolítico da Moita da Ladra (Vila Franca de Xira)

The full excavation of the fortified Chalcolithic settlement of Moita da Ladra by one of us (J.L.C.) has shown the existence of a single archaeological layer corresponding to the occupation of the site during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. Among the archaeological remains collected during the field campaigns there is a bead, with a spheroid shape, longitudinally fractured, presenting a black matrix with numerous whitish spots. The fracture presents a vitreous greasy surface, and exposes a suspension cylindrical bore. Various techniques were used to identify the material that was used in the manufacture of the artifact, including CHN elemental analysis, EDXRF, μ-PIXE and XRD, conducted by the other authors. It was found that the material is not organic (carbon is absent), presenting significant amounts of the elements Si, K, Ca, Ti, Fe, Sr, Zr, and Sb. The X-ray diffraction spectra indicates that the material has an essentially vitreous nature, being the whitish particles dispersed in the vitreous mass identified as quartz. μ-PIXE results show a chemical composition that is consistent with an artificial glass, which implies a much more recent chronology for the bead than that of the Chalcolithic archaeological layer where it was recovered. Thus, although the bead was recorded from a Chalcolithic context, its provenance must be ascribed to the Late Bronze Age occupation recorded nearby and resulting from the early Phoenician trade.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How crowdsourcing impacts prices and customer satisfaction: the Airbnb case

The travel accommodation industry has changed drastically due to the sharing economy. This sharing economy depends significantly on crowdsourcing in the form of quantitative and qualitative reviews. In this thesis, we study the impact of expressed sentiments in the text reviews on listing prices; we explore differences in the factors that lead to satisfaction according to customer origin and the effects of external shocks on Airbnb´s prices. We employ NLP to extract the sentiment and emotion scores to be modeled as a function of different characteristics and geophysical information. Our study provides an important contribute to the research on pricing and customer satisfaction in the sharing economy by finding a significant effect of the expression of positive sentiments on prices, describing the differences in the factors that lead to satisfaction according to customer origin, and revealing that guests moved away from main municipalities and valued listings with more bedrooms during the Covid-19 pandemic

Towards automated test and validation of SIP solutions

IP networks are currently the major communication infrastructure used by an increasing number of applications and heterogeneous services, including voice services. In this context, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol widely used for controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice or video calls over IP networks, thus performing vital functions in an extensive set of public and enter- prise solutions. However, the SIP protocol dissemination also entails some challenges, such as the complexity associated with the testing/validation processes of IMS/SIP networks. As a consequence, manual IMS/SIP testing solutions are inherently costly and time consuming tasks, being crucial to develop automated approaches in this specific area. In this perspective, this article presents an experimental approach for automated testing/validation of SIP scenarios in IMS networks. For that purpose, an automation framework is proposed allowing to replicate the configuration of SIP equipment from the pro- duction network and submit such equipment to a battery of tests in the testing network. The proposed solution allows to drastically reduce the test and validation times when compared with traditional manual approaches, also allowing to enhance testing reliability and coverage. The automation framework comprises of some freely available tools which are conveniently integrated with other specific modules implemented within the context of this work. In order to illustrate the advantages of the proposed automated framework, a real case study taken from a PT Inovação customer is presented comparing the time required to perform a manual SIP testing approach with the one time required when using the proposed auto- mated framework. The presented results clearly corroborate the advantages of using the presented framework.This work has been supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: PEstOE/EEI/UI0319/2014. This research work was developed within the collaboration of PT Inovação (http://www.ptinovacao.pt/ en/)

Control of zootechnology leads to improved Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis, L.) reproduction performance up to pre-industrial levels

Cephalopods are gaining momentum as an alternate group for aquaculture species diversification, not only because they are a good food source (highly appreciated in some worldwide markets) but they also have the potential to quickly reach a market size. However, there are some bottlenecks impeding the transition of culture technology from the laboratory to industry. One is related to control over reproduction in captivity. The objective of the present experiment was to verify the effects of tanks with different bottom areas/volumes on the reproduction performance of S. officinalis breeding stocks, when sex ratios were controlled a priori; and the food cost associated with such performance when individuals are fed a natural frozen diet. One hundred and ninety two juvenile cuttlefish were used to compare three different round-shaped tanks: one type with 3000L volume and two types with 9000L volume (with differences in bottom areas and water column). Individuals had their sex and maturity stage determined to establish a sexual ratio of 2 female:1 male per tank and assure that cuttlefish were still immature. Biological data was collected during both growth and reproduction stages and until the death of all females in each tank. The experiment lasted nearly 300 days. Temperature differences between tank types were registered during both stages. The optimizing of rearing conditions has allowed for higher growth and a higher amount of cuttlefish available for breeding purposes. A total of 123,751 eggs (in 85 batches) was obtained during this experiment, which is a number that may meet a small scale cuttlefish commercial hatchery facility requirements. The present conditions contributed to a better and predictable reproduction performance in specific 9000L tanks, with values reaching pre-industrial numbers (approximate to 24,000 eggs/tank). Moreover, both the amount of eggs per batch and the overall quality of eggs has increased. Three of these 9000L tanks have an overall consumption of approximate to 38.64 Kg tank(-1), which translates in an investment in feed of approximate to 193 (sic) tank(-1), 8.40 (sic) per cuttlefish and an overall daily tank expense of 1.76 (sic) d(-1).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Structural Optimization Techniques Combined With Meshless Methods: A Review

Structural optimization has been growing in recent years, as it is an excellent tool to obtain reliable and high-performance products. In addition to reducing the waste of resources and emissions as well as the production cost, this can be applied in several areas from engineering to medicine. The numerical method most used in recent decades to obtain structurally optimized parts is the finite element method (FEM) and it is included in the group called mesh-based methods. However, the application of these methods in parts with complex geometries and in large deformation problems result in low accuracy and instable solutions. In order to solve this problem, in the last decades, methods that are independent of a mesh have been developed to obtain unknown variables, called meshless methods. Although meshless methods are still recent and there are few documentations, these have been showing good results compared to the mesh-based methods, proving to be a good alternative. Considering what has been said previously, this work has as main objective the study and analysis of parts subjected to structural optimization using mesh-based and meshless methods, in order to compare the results and verify the benefits of using a type of method instead of the other.A optimização estrutural tem vindo a crescer nos últimos anos, uma vez que é uma excelente ferramenta para a obtenção de produtos fiáveis e de alto desempenho. Para além de que reduz o gasto de recursos e emissões assim como o preço de produção das mesmas, esta pode ser aplicada em diversas áreas desde a engenharia à medicina. O método numérico mais utilizado nas últimas décadas para a obtenção de partes estruturalmente optimizadas é o método dos elementos finitos (MEF), o qual pode ser incluído no grupo denominado de métodos com malha. No entanto, a aplicação destes métodos em partes com geometrias complexas e em problemas com grandes deformações resultam em soluções com pouca precisão e de baixa estabilidade. De modo a solucionar este problema, nas últimas décadas, têm vindo a ser desenvolvidos métodos que são independentes de uma malha para a obtenção das varáveis desconhecidas, denominados de métodos sem malha. Apesar dos métodos sem malha ainda serem recentes e existir pouca documentação, estes têm vindo a mostrar bons resultados comparativamente aos métodos com malha provando ser uma boa alternativa. Tendo em conta o referido anteriormente, este trabalho tem como objectivo principal o estudo e análise de partes submetidas a optimização estrutural utilizando métodos com malha e sem malha, de modo a comparar os resultados e verificar os benefícios da utilização de um tipo de método relativamente ao outro

An axiomatic design framework to design interoperable buyer–supplier dyads

Cooperation arrangements in the form of buyer–supplier dyads are a way that companies have found to deal with the current competitive environment. Despite the contributions in the interoperability literature, a cohesive framework is lacking that would allow the systematization of solutions for interoperable problems in such cooperation. Therefore, we propose a framework for systematically detail interoperability issues and to provide solutions that fit business conditions.Through a case study conducted on an automotive dyad, it is possible to achieve a better interoperable scenario, by systematically addressing the issues and providing solutions that comply with the AD independence axiom.authorsversionpublishe

Apple pomace aqueous extract as a food ingredient

The present work aimed to assess the potential of apple pomace (AP) as a low priced source of food ingredients rich in bioactive compounds. In order to determine its safety, AP was evaluated regarding Total Aerobic Mesophiles (TAM), Yeasts and Moulds (YM) and Enterobacteriaceae (ENT). A hot water extract of AP was investigated concerning total phenolic content (TPC) by the Folin-Ciocalteu method and its antioxidant capacity by the hydroxyl scavenging (OH˙) and ABTS˙+ methods. The extract was incorporated into a yoghurt and its microbiological parameters, antioxidant activity and sensorial acceptability were evaluated. AP had very acceptable microbial levels respecting the TAM, YM and ENT, potentiating its valuation as a source of food ingredients. The AP extract presented a TPC of ≈11 µg of GAE/g, which resulted in the capability to inhibit OH˙ radical and the ABTS˙+ radicals. These properties were reflected by an increased antioxidant activity of the yoghurts fortified with the extract, reaching more than twice of the controls. This was achieved without affecting the native yoghurt lactic acid bacteria and sensorial acceptance. Although the present strategy proves to be very promising for the valuation of AP, further studies are required in order to better elucidate the extracts’ bioactivity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio