An Intercultural trip down the Old Continent – Analyzing A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

Final Version (This version contains the jury’s input and suggestions)The present thesis is based on the literary analysis of the 19th Century Intercultural Travel book A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain. In it, I approach a particular set of topics that are associated with the multiple fields studied throughout my degree, such as the characterization of various cultures, the contextualization of said cultures at the time (in this case study, the 19th Century), the first signs of touristic traveling, intercultural concepts as the formation of stereotypes or various forms of prejudice, and the construction of cultural identities, firstly introduced by Stuart Hall. Using a structured analysis, I start my dissertation by reading and interpreting the book that will serve as a main reference: A Tramp Abroad (1880), by Mark Twain. I present a brief biography of Mark Twain, with a description of some of the author’s main personal and professional accomplishments. With that, an historical contextualization of the author and the book that leads to a much deeper and enlightening recognition of the man and writer behind one of the most remarkable intercultural works in Western literary history. I also present a detailed analysis of A Tramp Abroad, with a brief summary of all chapters, appendixes, and characters of the book. From there, I select three of the most interculturally relevant chapters. This selection allows me to reflect, interpret, and display my argumentation based on the concepts within the realm of the study of interculturality, stereotypes, prejudice, and the formation of identity – theoretical observations cemented on a myriad of authors and cientific works within this area of study. Finally, as the analysis of a travel book is exhibited, it is important to understand the concept of tourism as well as the notion of a literary text (within this thematic context). Consequently, this thesis will also contemplate the history and cultural significance of touristic travel and the definitions of literature, literary text, and language as they all reveal themselves to have a valuable contribution to the connection that is ought to be made between the real-life experiences described by Mark Twain and the main theories and study areas related to this degree.A presente tese tem como base a análise literária do livro de viagens intercultural do século XIX A Tramp Abroad, de Mark Twain. Nela, são abordados um conjunto particular de tópicos que estão naturalmente associados aos campos de estudo do meu mestrado, como a caracterização de várias culturas, a contextualização das referidas culturas na época (neste caso de estudo, no século XIX), as primeiras viagens turísticas, questões interculturais como a formação de estereótipos ou várias formas de preconceito, e ainda a construção de identidades culturais, introduzidas primeiramente por Stuart Hall. Recorrendo a uma análise estruturada, iniciarei a minha dissertação com a leitura e interpretação do livro que servirá como principal referência: A Tramp Abroad (1880), de Mark Twain. Apresento uma breve biografia do autor, onde evidencio alguns dos seus principais feitos pessoais e profissionais. Com ela, uma contextualização histórica do autor e da sua obra que me conduz a um reconhecimento mais profundo e elucidativo do homem e escritor que produziu umas das obras interculturais mais marcantes do história literária ocidental. Apresento ainda uma análise detalhada de A Tramp Abroad, com um breve resumo de todos os capítulos, apêndices e personagens do livro. A partir desse estudo, selecciono três dos capítulos que considero mais interculturalmente relevantes. Esta selecção permite-me reflectir, interpretar, e apresentar argumentação sobre conceitos no âmbito dos estudos da interculturalidade, dos estereótipos, do preconceito e da formação da identidade - observações teóricas cimentadas na leitura de diversos autores e obras científicas canónicas na área. Por último, tratando-se de um livro de viagens, é fundamental entender o conceito de turismo, bem como a noção de texto literário (agregado ao seu enquadramento temático). Consequentemente, a presente tese contemplará também a história e o significado cultural das viagens turísticas e as definições de literatura, texto literário e linguagem, uma vez que todas elas são uma valiosa contribuição para a ligação interpretativa que pode e deve ser feita entre as vivências reais descritas por Mark Twain, e as principais teorias e áreas de estudo relacionadas com este mestrado

NGS Panels applied to Hereditary Cancer Syndromes

Cancer is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide (Okur et al, 2017). Germline pathogenic variants for monogenic, highly penetrant cancer susceptibility genes are observed in 5%–10% of all cancers (Lu et al, 2014). Hereditary cancers due to monogenic causes are characterized by earlier age of onset, other associated cancers, and often a family history of specific cancers. From the clinical perspective, it is important to recognize the affected individuals to provide them the best clinical management (Hennessy et al, 2010; Ledermann et al, 2014; Pennington et al, 2014) and to identify at-risk family members who will benefit from predictive genetic testing and enhanced surveillance, including early detection and/or risk reduction measures (Kurian et al, 2010; Okur et al, 2017). Germline variants identified in major cancer susceptibility genes associated with hereditary breast or ovarian cancer (HBOC) or hereditary colorectal cancer (HCRC), also account for 5-10% of the patients with these cancers. In the last years, new susceptibility genes, with different penetrance degrees, have been identified. Variants in any of those genes are rare and classical methodologies (e.g. Sanger sequencing - SS) are time consuming and expensive. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has several advantages compared to SS, including the simultaneous analysis of many samples and sequencing of a large set of genes, higher sensitivity (down to 1% vs 15-20% in SS), lower cost and faster turnaround time, reasons that make NGS the best approach for molecular diagnosis. It is possible nowadays to choose between whole-genome sequencing (WGS), whole-exome sequencing (WES) and NGS limited to a set of genes (NGS-Panel). In cases where a suspected genetic disease or condition has been identified, targeted sequencing of specific genes or genomic regions is preferred (Grada et al, 2013). For that reason, we use NGS-Panel approach using TruSight Cancer (Illumina) to sequence DNA extracted from blood samples of patients with personal and/or familiar history of cancer. This hereditary cancer gene panel sequences 94 genes associated with both common (e.g., breast, colorectal) and rare hereditary cancers and allows the creation of virtual gene panels according to each phenotype or disease under study. NGS workflow analysis (Figure 1) includes five steps: quality assessment of raw data, read alignment to a reference genome, variant identification/calling, variant annotation and data visualization (Pabinger et al, 2013). The establishment of the most appropriate bioinformatics pipeline is crucial in order to achieve the best results. NGS data allows the identification of several types of variants like single nucleotide variants (SNVs), small insertions/deletions, inversions and also copy number variants (CNVs).FCT - UID/BIM/0009/2016info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Scalable allocation of safety integrity levels in automotive systems

The allocation of safety integrity requirements is an important problem in modern safety engineering. It is necessary to find an allocation that meets system level safety integrity targets and that is simultaneously cost-effective. As safety-critical systems grow in size and complexity, the problem becomes too difficult to be solved in the context of a manual process. Although this thesis addresses the generic problem of safety integrity requirements allocation, the automotive industry is taken as an application example.Recently, the problem has been partially addressed with the use of model-based safety analysis techniques and exact optimisation methods. However, usually, allocation cost impacts are either not directly taken into account or simple, linear cost models are considered; furthermore, given the combinatorial nature of the problem, applicability of the exact techniques to large problems is not a given. This thesis argues that it is possible to effectively and relatively efficiently solve the allocation problem using a mixture of model-based safety analysis and metaheuristic optimisation techniques. Since suitable model-based safety analysis techniques were already known at the start of this project (e.g. HiP-HOPS), the research focuses on the optimisation task.The thesis reviews the process of safety integrity requirements allocation and presents relevant related work. Then, the state-of-the-art of metaheuristic optimisation is analysed and a series of techniques, based on Genetic Algorithms, the Particle Swarm Optimiser and Tabu Search are developed. These techniques are applied to a set of problems based on complex engineering systems considering the use of different cost functions. The most promising method is selected for investigation of performance improvements and usability enhancements. Overall, the results show the feasibility of the approach and suggest good scalability whilst also pointing towards areas for improvement

Detecção de configurações de obstáculos perigosas: aplicação no robô EnCuRRalado

Este artigo descreve o agente robótico EnCuRRalado participante no concurso Ciber-Rato 2002 integrado no Festival Nacional de Robótica 2002. Este robô utiliza um algoritmo, baseado no seguimento de paredes, que conta o número de cantos existentes com ângulos positivos ou negativos. Este método permite detectar certas configurações de obstáculos que podem ser potencialmente perigosos

Adequação dos exames de radiologia solicitados por um departamento de emergência: um estudo retrospetivo

Imaging tests are essential for diagnosis in the emergency context and convey clinical information that is essential to assess the appropriateness of the tests and improve their interpretation. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the imaging tests requested by the Emergency Department in a district hospital.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Presumed TP53 mosaicism: variants detected using a NGS hereditary cancer multigene panel

Aims/Context: NGS multigene panels are routinely used to identify germline pathogenic variants in cancer susceptibility genes. In addition, NGS allows the identification of low-level mosaicism events that may not be detectable by conventional Sanger sequencing. We describe two cases of presumed TP53 mosaic variants detected by NGS on blood-derived DNA, and confirmed by ARMS-PCR and Sanger sequencing. Case 1: female, 87 years old, colon cancer at 83 and metachronous breast cancer at 86, no history of familial cancer. Case 2: female, 75 years old, ovarian cancer at 71, local relapse at 74. Methods: NGS using TruSight® Cancer Sequencing Panel and TruSight® Rapid Capture kit (Illumina) and paired-end sequencing on MiSeq® platform (Illumina). Bioinformatic analysis with MiSeq Reporter, Enrichment, VariantStudio, VEP, Alamut Visual, VarAFT, VarSome and IGV. ARMS-PCR and Sanger sequencing were used to confirm the TP53 variants. Results and Conclusions: Two cases of presumed TP53 mosaic variants were studied. Case 1: the missense alteration TP53: c.764T>G, p.(Ile255Ser) was detected with a variant allele frequency (VAF) of 26% (39/150 reads). This variant is described in ClinVar as a somatic alteration, classified as likely pathogenic. It is not reported in gnomAD and VarSome software classified it as a variant of uncertain significance. Case 2: missense variant TP53: c.524G>A, p.(Arg175His) detected with a VAF of 15% (10/58 reads). This variant is described as pathogenic in HGMD Professional, LOVD and ClinVar, in association with Li-Fraumeni syndrome. These two cases seem to represent TP53 mosaicism, supported by: i) VAF lower than 30%, ii) detection at the sensitivity limit of Sanger sequencing and iii) confirmation by ARMS-PCR. Confirming this hypothesis by studying tumor and other tissue samples and offspring analysis (underway in both cases), is essential for disease diagnosis, assessing recurrence risk and genetic counseling. The hypothesis of acquired aberrant clonal expansion limited to the hematologic compartment, versus a germline variant should be considered in similar cases, and confirmatory methodologies are mandatory.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Success in higher education: a discussion of selection criteria

This paper analyses the determinants of success of undergraduate Nova SBE students from 2008 to 2011. We account for the question of selection that is likely to occur when we just observe the success of those students who were admitted and enrolled at school. The main result of our empirical analysis is that the high school score appears to be a stronger predictor of the students´ success than the national Math’s exam score. In addition, the evidence also suggests that male students tend to have a better performance in Economics than female students and displaced management students have more difficulties in terms of their scores. Finally, it does not seem to exist a strong visible difference on the final GPA between students from public and private schools