O terrorismo integrista no Norte de África e a situação geoestratégica da Península Ibérica

O presente ensaio produz uma retrospectiva da formação do fenómeno integrista islâmico, designadamente em matéria do respectivo desenvolvimento, assinalado nos anos mais recentes. Depois de um breve relance sobre a origem histórica e religiosa do radicalismo islâmico, o autor prossegue com a análise da situação no Médio-Oriente e na Região do Golfo Pérsico. Com a discussão centrada no conflito israelo-árabe, identificaram-se os factores susceptíveis de catalisar a violência terrorista, no quadro de um litígio que se prolonga há várias décadas, sem que se vislumhre solução imediata e definitiva. Em seguida, a implantação do integrismo Islâmico nos países do Norte de África, é passada em revista. A tónica é colocada no balanço das movimentações dos principais grupos armados que praticam o terrorismo urbano. Após uma referência aos restantes países de afirmação do integrismo, o apontamento termina com a análise das condições geoestratégicas - nomeadamente a proximidade geográfica entre a Península Ibérica e o Norte de África - que determinam preocupações. Destacam-se os factores essenciais que caracterizam a potencial ameaça integrista, à segurança da Península Ibérica e da Europa Comunitária. O Terrorismo integrista islâmico é considerado, neste trabalho, como uma séria ameaça à segurança internacional - em especial do mundo ocidental - e são apontadas sugestões com vista à reduçâo da sua zona de influência. Trata-se de um fenómeno simultaneamente religioso e ideológico. Os seus dignitários pretendem impor um determinado culto e conquistar o Poder Político. Para instaurarem Estados islâmicos, suprimirem direitos e liberdades públicas e extinguirem, assim, os regimes democráticos

Equity research - Pfizer Inc.

Mestrado Bolonha em FinançasThis report includes a detailed valuation of Pfizer Inc. The format of this Equity Research Report combines both rules of ISEG Master Final Work Project and the CFA institute recommendations. The choice of Pfizer Inc was firstly because the pharmaceutical industry is a trending topic nowadays, due to covid-19, and secondly because Pfizer developed the first covid-19 vaccine which awakened in me a special interest in learning more about the company. Pfizer Inc. (PFE) is a research-based, global biopharmaceutical company, that is committed to the discovery, development, manufacture, marketing, sales, and distribution of biopharmaceutical products worldwide – with 2020FY revenues of $41.9Bn and a market capitalization of$205 Bn. Pfizer has a BUY recommendation, with a 2022FY PT of $54.48/share, which represents an upside potential of 18.3$46.07/share on August 31st, 2021, with medium risk. The PT was obtained using Discounted Cash Flow model (DCF), other methodologies were considered to reach Pfizer’s PT such as the Adjusted Present Value (APV), the Flow-to-Equity (FTE) method, the Dividend Discount Model (DDM), and a Relative Valuation using market multiples from peers. The report also includes a detailed explanation about the risks that can affect the price target, as well as a sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of those risks in the investment recommendation. This report considers all the public information available until 31st August 2021.Este relatório inclui uma avaliação detalhada da Pfizer Inc. O formato desta Equity Research combina as regras do Projeto de Trabalho Final de Mestrado do ISEG e as recomendações do CFA Institute. A escolha da Pfizer Inc foi em primeiro lugar devido à indústria farmacêutica ser uma indústria que está na moda hoje em dia, devido à pandemia de covid-19, e em segundo lugar porque a Pfizer foi a empresa que desenvolveu a primeira vacina, o que despertou em mim um interesse especial em aprender mais sobre a empresa. A Pfizer Inc. (PFE) é uma empresa farmacêutica que opera a nível global dedicando-se à pesquisa, descoberta, desenvolvimento, produção, marketing, vendas e distribuição de produtos farmacêuticos em todo o mundo - com uma receita no final do ano de 2020 de 41,9 mil milhões de dólares e uma capitalização de mercado de 205 mil milhões de dólares. A Pfizer tem uma recomendação de COMPRA, com um preço alvo de $54,48/ação para o final do ano de 2022, o que representa uma potencial valorização de 18,3$ 46,07/ação em 31 de agosto de 2021, com risco médio. O preço alvo foi obtido usando o modelo dos Fluxos de Caixa Descontados (DCF), outras metodologias foram consideradas para calcular o preço alvo da Pfizer, como o Valor Presente Ajustado (APV), o método Flow-to-Equity (FTE), o Modelo de Dividendos Descontados (DDM) e uma Avaliação Relativa usando múltiplos de mercado de empresas comparáveis. O relatório também inclui uma explicação detalhada sobre os riscos que podem afetar o preço alvo bem como uma análise de sensibilidade para quantificar o impacto desses riscos na recomendação. Para este relatório foram consideradas todas as informações públicas disponíveis até 31 de agosto de 2021.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Automatic extraction of concepts from texts and applications

The extraction of relevant terms from texts is an extensively researched task in Text- Mining. Relevant terms have been applied in areas such as Information Retrieval or document clustering and classification. However, relevance has a rather fuzzy nature since the classification of some terms as relevant or not relevant is not consensual. For instance, while words such as "president" and "republic" are generally considered relevant by human evaluators, and words like "the" and "or" are not, terms such as "read" and "finish" gather no consensus about their semantic and informativeness. Concepts, on the other hand, have a less fuzzy nature. Therefore, instead of deciding on the relevance of a term during the extraction phase, as most extractors do, I propose to first extract, from texts, what I have called generic concepts (all concepts) and postpone the decision about relevance for downstream applications, accordingly to their needs. For instance, a keyword extractor may assume that the most relevant keywords are the most frequent concepts on the documents. Moreover, most statistical extractors are incapable of extracting single-word and multi-word expressions using the same methodology. These factors led to the development of the ConceptExtractor, a statistical and language-independent methodology which is explained in Part I of this thesis. In Part II, I will show that the automatic extraction of concepts has great applicability. For instance, for the extraction of keywords from documents, using the Tf-Idf metric only on concepts yields better results than using Tf-Idf without concepts, specially for multi-words. In addition, since concepts can be semantically related to other concepts, this allows us to build implicit document descriptors. These applications led to published work. Finally, I will present some work that, although not published yet, is briefly discussed in this document.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia - SFRH/BD/61543/200

How do Eurozone stock markets react to ECB unconventional monetary policy announcements? A comparison accross countries

This research applies a short-term event study methodology to estimate the abnormal returns of the Eurozone indices around the European Central Bank’ unconventional monetary announcements. It considers all the publicly available nonstandard policy statements between September 2008 and the end of 2016. The ones related to Asset Purchase Programs had a significant positive effect on the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish stock markets throughout the entire sample while the German and Dutch indices show a negative one. Moreover, it is observable that some indices such as the BEL20 delivered significant negative cumulative abnormal returns when the European Central Bank announced the first tools concerning the Provision of Liquidity during the crisis, but nowadays the reaction to this kind of events is almost null

Orientações concetuais dos enfermeiros especialistas em Enfermagem de Reabilitação em hospitais portugueses

Objective: To identify the most consensual conceptions of nursing, individuals, health and environment among the nurses specialists in rehabilitation nursing. Method: A quantitative, descriptive-exploratory study was carried out in 36 hospital institutions, and 306 specialist nurses were involved in this research. As a tool for data collection, it was performed a self-completion questionnaire. Results: Although there are differences in the five regions of the country, the nursing, individuals, health and environment conceptions that nurses in rehabilitation nursing designate as fully in accordance with their practice are those of Afaf Meleis, Dorothea Orem, Callista Roy and Madeleine Leininger. Conclusion: The congruence observed in the results regarding the different conceptions shows the consistency of the conceptual guidelines of the participants. In this sense, the challenge is to consolidate the support of the professional practice of nurses who are specialists in rehabilitation nursing in the theoretical frameworks whose conceptions are considered fully in accordance with their practice.Objetivo: Identificar las concepciones de enfermería, persona, salud y ambiente más consensuadas entre los enfermeros especialistas en enfermería de rehabilitación. Método: Estudio cuantitativo, descriptivo-exploratorio que se realizó en 36 instituciones hospitalarias, con la participación de 306 enfermeros especialistas. Como instrumento de recogida de datos, se utilizó un cuestionario de auto relleno. Resultados: Aunque existen diferencias en las cinco regiones del país, las concepciones de enfermería, persona, salud y ambiente que los enfermeros especialistas en enfermería de rehabilitación califican como totalmente de acuerdo con su práctica son las de Afaf Meleis, Dorothea Orem, Callista Roy y Madeleine Leininger. Conclusión: La congruencia observada en los resultados con respecto a las diferentes concepciones revela la consistencia de la orientación conceptual de los participantes. En este sentido, el desafío pasa por consolidar la sustentación del ejercicio profesional de los enfermeros especialistas en enfermería de rehabilitación en los referenciales teóricos cuyas concepciones son consideradas como totalmente de acuerdo con su práctica.Objetivo: Identificar as conceções de enfermagem, pessoa, saúde e ambiente mais consensuais entre os enfermeiros especialistas em enfermagem de reabilitação. Método: Estudo quantitativo, descritivo-exploratório, realizado em 36 instituições hospitalares, com a participação de 306 enfermeiros especialistas. Como instrumento de colheita de dados utilizou-se um questionário de autopreenchimento. Resultados: Apesar de existirem diferenças nas cinco regiões do país, as conceções de enfermagem, pessoa, saúde e ambiente que os enfermeiros especialistas em enfermagem de reabilitação qualificam como totalmente de acordo com a sua prática são as de Afaf Meleis, Dorothea Orem, Callista Roy e Madeleine Leininger. Conclusão: A congruência observada nos resultados relativamente às diferentes conceções revela a consistência da orientação concetual dos participantes. Neste sentido, o desafio passa por consolidar a sustentação do exercício profissional dos enfermeiros especialistas em enfermagem de reabilitação nos referenciais teóricos, cujas conceções são consideradas como totalmente de acordo com a sua prática

Radiographic image quality criteria for osteoarthritis of the knee

The femorotibial joint is the most affected in osteoarthritis (OA) and the main symptom is pain. Weight-bearing plain radiographs of the knees are the most reliable diagnostic tool for evaluating and grading the severity of this disease. The joint space width (JSW) has been increasingly used to assess the severity of OA from radiographs. To present a reliable method for visual image quality assessment of weight-bearing knee radiographs and proposes guidelines for diagnostic measurements predictors of OA.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Warm Inflation, Neutrinos and Dark matter: a minimal extension of the Standard Model

We show that warm inflation can be realized within a minimal extension of the Standard Model with three right-handed neutrinos, three complex scalars and a gauged lepton/B-L U(1) symmetry. This simple model can address all the shortcomings of the Standard Model that are not related to fine-tuning, within general relativity, with distinctive experimental signatures that can be probed in the near future. The inflaton field emerges from the collective breaking of the U(1) symmetry, and interacts with two of the right-handed neutrinos, sustaining a high-temperature radiation bath during inflation. The discrete interchange symmetry of the model protects the scalar potential against large thermal corrections and leads to a stable inflaton remnant at late times which can account for dark matter. Consistency of the model and agreement with Cosmic Microwave Background observations naturally yield light neutrino masses below 0.1 eV, while thermal leptogenesis occurs naturally after a smooth exit from inflation into the radiation era.Comment: 43 pages (30 main + 13 appendices), 8 figures. Comments are welcom

Analysis of tongue shape and motion in speech production using statistical modeling

The mechanisms of speech production are complex and have been raising attention from researchers of both medical and computer vision fields. In the speech production mechanism, the articulator’s study is a complex issue, since they have a high level of freedom along this process, namely the tongue, which instigates a problem in its control and observation. In this work it is automatically characterized the tongues shape during the articulation of the oral vowels of Portuguese European by using statistical modeling on MR-images. A point distribution model is built from a set of images collected during artificially sustained articulations of Portuguese European sounds, which can extract the main characteristics of the motion of the tongue. The model built in this work allows under standing more clearly the dynamic speech events involved during sustained articulations. The tongue shape model built can also be useful for speech rehabilitation purposes, specifically to recognize the compensatory movements of the articulators during speech production

Modelling and segmentation of the vocal track during speech production by using deformable models in magnetic resonance images

The first and second authors would like to thank the support of the PhD grants with references SFRH/BD/28817/2006 and SFRH/PROTEC/49517/2009, respectively, from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnol ogia (FCT). This work was partially done in the scope of the project “Methodologies to Analyze Organs from Complex Medical Images – Applications to Fema le Pelvic Cavity”, wi th reference PTDC/EEA- CRO/103320/2008, financially supported by FCT.Since ancient times, speech production has attracted particularly interest aiming at reaching a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved by considering both morphological and speech acoustic aspects. The central anatomical aspects and the physiology of the human vocal tract are common to all individuals. However, speech production is an exceptionally complex and individualistic process. Therefore, the modelling of the mechanisms involved in speech production implies the enclosing of adequate flexibility in order to consider individual variations accurately. In this work, the shape of vocal tract in the articulation of some European Portuguese (EP) sounds is evaluated by using deformable models applied in Magnetic Resonance (MR) images. Additionally, the deformable models built are afterwards used to automatically segment the modelled vocal tract in MR images. From the imaging modalities that have been take n into consideration in order to study the vocal tract shape and articulators, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has been the most commonly accepted. Actually, the use of MRI allows the study of the entire human vocal tract and, in addition, the quality and resolution of soft-tissues and the use of non-ionizing radiation are key advantages presented by MRI. The deformable model used, commonly known as Point Distribution Model (PDM), was built from a set of training images acquired du ring artificially sustained articulations of 21 EP sounds. In a brief review, one can assert that PDM’s are obtained by a statistical analysis done on the co-ordinates of landmark points that represent the shape to be modelled: after aligning the training shapes, a Principal Component Analysis is performed in order to obtain the model mean shape and the modes of variation relatively to this mean shap e. Combining the geometrical information of the PDM with the grey levels of the landmark points us ed in its building one can build the Active Shape Models (ASM) and the Active Appearance Models (AAM). With these enhanced models is possible to segment the modelled shape in new images in a fully automated way. From the experimental results obtained in this work, one may conclude that the PDM built could efficiently characterize the behaviour of the voca l tract shape during the production of the EP sounds studied with MRI. Furthermore, one can ve rify that the ASM and the AAM built could be used to segment the modelled vocal tract in MR images in a successful manner. Therefore, the deformable models built should be considered towards the efficient and automatic study of the vocal tract during speech production with MRI, in particular for enhanced speech production simulation and speech rehabilitation therapies.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT