How can the start-ups compete with the incumbents in the automotive market?

This master thesis addresses how start-ups can become competitive in the actual EV-changing automotive market as well as what incumbents should do to adapt themselves. In fact, there are plenty of researches and published articles made towards the changing to EV’s from the automotive industry. A lot of authors have approached the incentives for this change, the consumer’s expectation, the penetration growth rates of EV’s in the market, among other phenomena. Although, no one has ever approached the fact that this industry change can possibly allow start-ups to step in and take a position on the market, as well as what strategies should these companies take in such a competitive environment. In order to study this matter, the author analyzed several strategies from market incumbents taken towards EV adoption, collected business paths of certain companies that were recent start-ups in the market and did an unprecedented empirical analysis of the automotive market through a linear regression that explains the financial success of an automotive company through nine explanatory variables related with EV adoption. The research and the empirical analysis revealed that incumbent companies distinguish themselves between the ones that have adopted a first mover approach and the ones who took a laggard strategy towards the EV’s. The first ones tend to spend more resources in R&D as well as with Capex expenses, but they benefit by being able to produce their own batteries and powertrain equipment which allow them to become independent from other companies, supply them with their assets and knowledge and produce native EV’s who present financial advantages in relation to non-native ones. The second ones have such a market position that allows them to take a laggard approach, not investing resources on R&D and Capex expenses as the first movers did. These companies tend to take advantage of the path left behind by the first movers and only invest in this market after making sure that there is enough demand to fulfill their supplies. Either ones or the others benefit from the formation of partnerships between each other and with with other companies from different complementary industries, as well as from incentives by the governments related to EV’s consumption. For start-ups it was made clear that they needed to find external help either by incentives of the government or other private investors through events like crowdfunding campaigns in order to support the first years of investment. It was also discovered that start-ups, like the incumbent companies, also benefit from partnerships and are almost obligated to do them if initially they don’t have the necessary engineering knowledge or resources to develop own equipment. Dealing with start-ups is a very delicate process and the empirical cases from companies who were recent start-ups and become succeeded as well as the coefficients presented by the linear regression helped a lot drawing the author’s perspective of the “ideal” market strategy approach to them.Esta dissertação aborda a temática de como as start-ups podem tornar-se competitivas no atual mercado automóvel que se apresenta em mutação para os automóveis elétricos, assim como o que é que as empresas incumbentes devem fazer para se adaptarem a essa mudança. De facto, existem muitas pesquisas e artigos publicados sobre a mudança da indústria automóvel para os automóveis elétricos. Muitos autores abordaram os incentivos que levaram a essa mudança, a expectativa do lado dos consumidores, a taxa de crescimento da penetração dos automóveis elétricos no mercado, entre outros fenómenos. Contudo, ninguém ainda tinha abordado o facto de que esta mudança na indústria possivelmente poderia abrir portas para novas empresas (start-ups) entrarem e tomarem uma posição no mercado, assim como que estratégias é que estas empresas devem adotar num mercado tão competitivo. De forma a estudar este assunto, o autor analisou diversas estratégias relacionadas com a adoção de automóveis elétricos que os incumbentes do mercado adotaram, colecionou dados de casos concretos de empresas que foram recentemente start-ups e fez uma inédita análise empírica do mercado automóvel através de uma regressão linear que explica o sucesso financeiro de uma empresa automóvel através de nove variáveis explicativas relacionadas com a adoção de automóveis elétricos. A pesquisa e a análise empírica revelaram que as empresas incumbentes distinguem-se entre as que adotaram uma postura pioneira no mercado dos carros elétricos e as que decidiram atrasar essa entrada no mercado. As primeiras acabam por despender mais recursos em investigação e desenvolvimento assim como com despesas relacionadas com Capex, mas beneficiam por conseguirem produzir as suas próprias baterias e equipamentos de forma a tornarem-se independentes das restantes, puderem fornecer o seu equipamento e conhecimento, e produzirem carros elétricos nativos (que promovem mais vantagens financeiras que os não-nativos). As segundas empresas possuem uma posição de mercado tal, que lhes permite darem-se ao luxo de entrar tarde no mercado, não despendendo tantos recursos no investimento necessário. Estas empresas acabam por se aproveitar do caminho deixado pelas pioneiras e apenas investem nos carros elétricos quando têm a certeza que o mercado possui a procura necessária para absorver a oferta. Tanto umas como as outras beneficiam da formação de parcerias entre elas e entre outras empresas de indústrias complementares assim como de incentivos pelo governo ao consumo de carros elétricos. Para as start-ups (empresas novas) ficou claro que precisariam de encontrar ajuda externa, sejam incentivos governamentais ou outros investimentos privados através de eventos como campanhas de crowdfunding de forma a puder suportar os primeiros anos de investimento. Também foi descoberto que as start-ups, como as empresas incumbentes, também beneficiam de parcerias e são praticamente obrigadas a fazê-las se, inicialmente, não apresentarem o conhecimento de engenharia ou os recursos necessários para desenvolver o seu próprio equipamento. Lidar com start-ups é um processo muito delicado e os casos empíricos de empresas que foram recentemente start-ups, e se tornaram bem-sucedidas, assim como os coeficientes apresentados pela regressão linear ajudaram bastante a desenhar a perspetiva do autor da abordagem estratégica de mercado ideal para elas.; ; ;

Medium and large sized mammals and the effect of habitat heterogeneity from a Caatinga shrubby forest at Serra de Santa Catarina, Paraíba, Brazil

In xeric environments, such as Caatinga Biome, habitat characteristics such as phytophysiognomy type and presence of water bodies can represent higher resource availability. In this context, the present study investigated the effect of phytophysiognomies and presence of water bodies in the abundance and community structure of medium and large mammal species (MLM) in the Serra de Santa Catarina, Paraíba, Brazil. To evaluate these variables we conduct an effort of 373 camera-trap days, between August 2012 and November 2014. We recorded 12 MLM species, distributed in six orders and 11 families. From those, Kerodon rupestris is the only one listed in the Brazilian List of Threatened Fauna. Regarding the habitat, the Mann-Whitney showed a significant higher frequency to the Shrubby habitat and the ANOSIM showed no shifts in the community structure between Arboreal and Shrubby. Concerning the presence of water bodies, both the Mann-Whitney and the ANOSIM showed significant higher frequency to the habitat with water presence. We observed that both phytophysiognomy and water bodies are important variables which affect mainly the abundance of mammalian species from semiarid environments. Nonetheless, whereas the forest remnants get smaller the existence of water bodies becomes a preponderant factor to the MLM species and its community structure

Sex differences in functional connectivity between resting state brain networks in Autism Spectrum Disorder

© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Functional brain connectivity (FBC) has previously been examined in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between-resting-state networks (RSNs) using a highly sensitive and reproducible hypothesis-free approach. However, results have been inconsistent and sex differences have only recently been taken into consideration using this approach. We estimated main effects of diagnosis and sex and a diagnosis by sex interaction on between-RSNs FBC in 83 ASD (40 females/43 males) and 85 typically developing controls (TC; 43 females/42 males). We found increased connectivity between the default mode (DM) and (a) the executive control networks in ASD (vs. TC); (b) the cerebellum networks in males (vs. females); and (c) female-specific altered connectivity involving visual, language and basal ganglia (BG) networks in ASD-in suggestive compatibility with ASD cognitive and neuroscientific theories.VT received support from Fundação Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) PhD fellowship (PD/BD/114460/2016) and paid by FCT DSAIPA/DS/0065/2018 Grant. DP was supported by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme Marie Curie Career Integration Grant FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG-631952, the 2016 Bial Foundation Psychophysiology Grant Ref. 292/16, and the IF/00787/2014, LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-030907 and DSAIPA/DS/0065/2018 FCT Grants, and the iMM Lisboa Director’s Fund Breakthrough Idea Grant 2016; and is co-founder and shareholder of the neuroimaging research services company NeuroPsyAI, Ltd. MA was supported by FCT Grant UID/MAT/00006/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Aspectos históricos da caça no Brasil nos séculos XVIII e XIX

Esse trabalho teve como objetivo abordar o histórico sobre a caça de animais silvestres no Brasil nos séculos XVIII e XIX. Nossas discussões apontam que os documentos do século XVIII primordialmente serviam apenas como informes ao Império Português sobre os aproveitamentos potenciais da fauna nativa, com poucas mudanças em relação aos dois primeiros séculos pós-descobrimento. O cenário muda drasticamente com a abertura dos portos para as nações estrangeiras no século XIX. Foi possível identificar mudanças no status de conservação de algumas espécies em relação aos dias de hoje, tais como depleções populacionais e extinções locais

OpenADR: intelligent electrical energy consumption towards Internet-of-Things

With the growing of intermittent renewable energy sources, like wind and solar, are required energy backup solutions to establish an advantageous compromise between the energy production and consumption. Typically, these renewable energy sources are not installed at the end-users level, which can cre-ate the problem of uncontrolled distributed energy sources. In this research work we propose a solution based on the standard OpenADR to handle this problem, creating a platform based on internet-of-things capable to turn-on or off electrical devices based on a central decision process that meets the requirements of energy producers and consumers. Producers can provide energy according to the con-sumer’s requirements and take part of energy production and costs fluctuations. Based on an OpenADR standard for energy data exchange and a central cloud server, a list of services are provided to handle this transactions, with georefer-enced information to minimize energy losses in the distribution process.(undefined

Programas de ejercicio en la prevención de lesiones en los jugadores de fútbol : una revisión sistemática

Dentre as lesões ocorridas em jogadores de futebol, as lesões dos isquiotibiais são as mais frequentes. Programas de exercício que previnam o seu aparecimento e diminuam a sua recorrência e severidade são de extrema importância para os fisioterapeutas, treinadores e jogadores. Conhecer as evidências científicas sobre a eficácia de programas de exercício na prevenção de lesões dos isquiotibiais, em jogadores de futebol masculino. Os estudos foram selecionados para revisão em diferentes bases de dados. Para avaliar a qualidade metodológica dos estudos e a força de evidência dos resultados utilizou-se a escala da Base de dados de Evidência em Fisioterapia (PEDro) e o sistema de classificação Melhor Síntese de Evidência, respectivamente. Os programas de exercício utilizados foram: força concêntrica e excêntrica; força excêntrica Nordic Hamstrings; The FIFA 11+; e elasticidade. As variáveis estudadas foram a incidência de lesões, a incidência de novas lesões, a recorrência de lesões, a severidade das lesões e o risco de lesão. O programa de força concêntrica e excêntrica e o programa de força excêntrica Nordic Hamstrings parecem ser os mais eficazes na redução da incidência das lesões e da incidência de novas lesões dos isquiotibiais, respetivamente (evidências limitadas). O programa de exercício de força excêntrica Nordic Hamstring não é eficaz na diminuição do risco de lesão (evidências limitada) e na melhoria da severidade das lesões (evidência moderada). O programa The FIFA 11+ não é eficaz na redução da incidência das lesões (evidência limitada). Há evidências contraditórias nas variáveis restantes.Hamstrings injuries are one of the most frequent injuries in football players. Exercise programs leading to lower levels of injury, diminishing their recurrence and severity are extremely important for coaches, physical therapist and players. To recognize the scientific evidence of the effectiveness of exercise intervention programs in the prevention of hamstring injuries, in male football players. Different studies were selected for revision from several databases. To evaluate the methodological quality of these studies we used the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) and determined the strength of the evidence using the best evidence synthesis grading system. The used exercise programs where based in concentric and eccentric strength, the eccentric strength exercise Nordic Hamstrings, The FIFA 11+, and flexibility exercises. The variables studied were: the incidence, the incidence of new injuries, recurrence of injuries, the severity, and the risk of injuries. The concentric and eccentric strength program and the Nordic Hamstrings program seem to be the most effective in reducing the incidence of injuries and the incidence of new injuries, respectively (limited evidence). The Nordic Hamstrings program does not reduce the risk of injuries (limited evidence) and does not improve the level of severity of the injuries (moderate evidence). The FIFA 11+program does not reduce the incidence of injuries (limited evidence). There are contradictory evidences on the other variables.De entre las lesiones ocurridas en jugadores de fútbol, las lesiones de los isquiotibiales son las más frecuentes. Los programas de ejercicio que prevengan su aparición y disminuyan su recurrencia y severidad son de extrema importancia para los fisioterapeutas, entrenadores y jugadores. Conocer las evidencias científicas sobre la eficacia de programas de ejercicio en la prevención de lesiones de los isquiotibiales, en jugadores de fútbol masculino. Los estudios fueron seleccionados para revisión en diferentes bases de datos. Para evaluar la calidad metodológica de los estudios y la fuerza de evidencia de los resultados se utilizó la escala de Base de datos de evidencia en fisioterapia (PEDro) y el sistema de clasificación Mejor Síntesis de Evidencia, respectivamente. Los programas de ejercicio utilizados fueron: fuerza concéntrica y excéntrica; fuerza excéntrica Nordic Hamstrings; The FIFA 11+; y elasticidad. Las variables estudiadas fueron la incidencia de lesiones, la incidencia de nuevas lesiones, la recurrencia de lesiones, la severidad de las lesiones y el riesgo de lesión. El programa de fuerza concéntrica y excéntrica y el programa de fuerza excéntrica Nordic Hamstrings parecen ser los más eficaces en la reducción de la incidencia de las lesiones y de la incidencia de las nuevas lesiones de los isquiotibiales, respectivamente (evidencias limitadas). El programa de ejercicio de fuerza excéntrica Nordic Hamstrings no es eficaz en la disminución del riesgo de lesión (evidencias limitadas) y tampoco en la mejora de la severidad de las lesiones (evidencia moderada). El programa de The FIFA 11+ no es eficaz en la reducción de la incidencia de las lesiones (evidencia limitada). Hay evidencias contradictorias en las restantes variables

Bidirectional transformation of model-driven spreadsheets

Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 7307, 2012Spreadsheets play an important role in software organizations. Indeed, in large software organizations, spreadsheets are not only used to define sheets containing data and formulas, but also to collect information from diferent systems, to adapt data coming from one system to the format required by another, to perform operations to enrich or simplify data, etc. In fact, over time many spreadsheets turn out to be used for storing and processing increasing amounts of data and supporting increasing numbers of users. Unfortunately, spreadsheet systems provide poor support for modularity, abstraction, and transformation, thus, making the maintenance, update and evolution of spreadsheets a very complex and error-prone task. We present techniques for model-driven spreadsheet engineering where we employ bidirectional transformations to maintain spreadsheet models and instances synchronized. In our setting, the business logic of spreadsheets is defined by ClassSheet models to which the spreadsheet data conforms, and spreadsheet users may evolve both the model and the data instances. Our techniques are implemented as part of the MDSheet framework: an extension for a traditional spreadsheet system.(undefined

Studies on the interaction of three lytic bacteriophages with a wide collection of Escherichia coli strains implicated in swine enteric colibacillosis

bioRxiv - the Preprint Server for BiologyThe misuse of antibiotics in the swine industry and their on-going restriction requires alternatives to control enterotoxigenic and shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (ETEC and STEC, respectively). This study evaluates the potential of three coliphages, vB_EcoM_FJ1, vB_EcoM_FN and vB_EcoM_SP1 against 104 ETEC, STEC and ETEC/STEC strains isolated from pig colibacillosis in Portuguese (2018-2020) and Spanish farms (2006-2016), encompassing 71.2% mcr-positive strains (33.7% with mcr-1, 1.9% mcr-2, 35.6% mcr-4 and 2.9% mcr-5) and 18.3% positive strains for TEM (1%), SHV (6.7%), and CTX-M (11.5%) extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-encoding genes. In general, all bacteriophages presented a narrow lytic spectrum (up to 2.9%) against the 104 ETEC, STEC and ETEC/STEC. Bacteriophages shared >80% overall nucleotide identity with E. coli phage T4 (Tevenvirinae subfamily), but a particular look at the distal part of the long tail fiber (gp38) revealed no homology. All bacteriophages recognize lipopolysaccharides as receptors, and additionally, FN binds to an outer membrane protein A. Bacteriophage-insensitive mutants of vB_EcoM_FJ1 (90%) and vB_EcoM_FN (100%) were shown to be more susceptible to pig serum inactivation comparatively to the parental strain and furthermore, their adhesion capacity to porcine intestinal cells was diminished by, approximately, 90%. Contrariwise, vB_EcoM_SP1 insensitive variants did not display phenotypic differences comparing to the wild-type strain. This study demonstrates that besides being T4-like, these bacteriophages revealed a narrow lytic spectrum against diarrhoeagenic E. coli strains and that the acquisition of novel bacteriophage-encoded adhesins (gp38) seems to be determinant for such results.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Normas avaliativas de imagens nas dimensões de dor física e dor psicológica

No presente trabalho são apresentadas normas avaliativas relativamente a um conjunto de 300 imagens pertencentes a 5 categorias, onde se incluem imagens alusivas a dor física, a dor psicológica e adicionalmente a categorias valenciadas com objectos e situações genéricas (neutra, positiva e negativa). Estas imagens foram avaliadas nas dimensões de dor física (ou sensorial), dor psicológica (ou afectiva), valência e prazer. A valência de cada uma das imagens foi aferida através da media das respostas em três escalas continuas referenciadas em 7 pontos, Mau/Bom, Não-Gosto/Gosto-Muito, Negativo/Positivo, fornecidas por uma amostra de estudantes universitários do curso de psicologia. Para alem disso foi também avaliado o quanto a imagem era representativa de dor física (ou sensorial), dor psicológica (ou afectiva) e prazer, estando estas três escalas ancoradas em nada (1) e totalmente (7). As medias, desvios-padrão e intervalos de confiança a 95% sao apresentados em tabelas ordenadas para a dimensão dor física com o objectivo de serem utilizadas em futuras investigações acerca do processamento da dor nas mais diversas áreas como na psicologia e neurociências afectivas e sociais

Are endolysins promising agents in controlling E. coli associated post-weaning diarrhea in piglets?

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) associated infections are the major cause of piglets mortality in weaning and post-weaning period, resulting in significant economic losses to the swine industry. Furthermore, the increase of multidrug resistant ETECs have been recognized a public health danger due to the potential transfer of resistance into the food chain. Bacterio(phages) endolysins are enzymes produced in the end of phage lytic cycle that are responsible for cell lysis. So far, no resistance has been reported, which make endolysins an attractive alternative to antibiotics. In the present work, endolysins were exploited to tackle ETECs in piglets. Two enzymes previously cloned were tested against ETEC SP23 strain exponential cells. First, Lys68 (used herein as proof of concept) was tested alone or in combination with 5 different organics acids (already implemented in the piglets diet) citric, malic, formic, lactic and sorbic acids in 20 mM HEPES, 149 mM PBS and 140.33 mM simulated intestinal fluid (SIF). Later, PlyF307 endolysin was also tested with malic and citric acids in SIF. Results demonstrated that both enzymes reduced ETEC concentration in more than 4 orders of magnitude in HEPES. Lys68 together with malic acid displayed the best antibacterial activity in PBS, being able to reduce approximately 1 order of magnitude. However, enzymes efficacy was drastically reduced when tested in buffers that mimicked physiological conditions. In SIF, Lys68 and PlyF307 did not display antibacterial activity. In summary, phage endolysins revealed to be ineffective to treat ETEC bacterial load in more complex environments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio