Avaliação da Ilha de calor de Bragança

O presente estudo, realizado no âmbito do projeto transfronteiriço POCTEP - BIOURB, tem por objetivo avaliar o efeito de ilha de calor urbana (ICU) na cidade de Bragança. Para o efeito, foi instalada uma rede de medição de temperatura e de humidade do ar, com vinte e três termo-higrómetros colocados em diferentes locais da cidade e no espaço rural, complementada com um estação meteorológica automática. Os resultados evidenciam a existência do efeito de ICU. Este efeito tem relevância nos pontos com uma urbanização mais densa e decresce nos pontos de menor densidade de edifícios. No período de inverno, a intensidade do efeito de ICU atinge em média os 2ºC, embora tenham sido registados máximos na ordem dos 5ºC. Tal como seria de esperar, é na época de verão que se verificaram as maiores diferenças entre zonas urbanas e zonas rurais, sendo que a média sobe para os 3ºC nas zonas mais urbanizadas, onde se registam máximos na ordem dos 6ºC. Em ambos os casos, os picos de intensidade observaram-se predominantemente uma a duas horas antes do nascer do sol, em particular em dias de vento fraco. Ao início da manhã registou-se ainda um efeito de ilha de frio

Pilares da Estratégia: uma Proposta de Dimensões para Análise e Dimensionamento dos Recursos Estratégicos

As pesquisas em estratégia têm evoluído substancialmente nos últimos 50 anos na tentativa de explicar as origens da vantagem competitiva. O caráter evolucionário e complementar dos estudos realizados resultou em diferentes escolas e abordagens. Dentre as diversas escolas teóricas nos concentraremos neste trabalho na perspectiva Resource-Based View of the Firm ? ?RBV? que emergiu a partir da década de 80. Embora esta vertente seja uma das perspectivas contemporâneas mais utilizadas para as pesquisas de conteúdo estratégico segundo Foss (1998), há ainda uma carência de estudos que especifiquem quais são os recursos organizacionais com caráter estratégico e de que forma estes recursos influenciam o desempenho competitivo. Nesse contexto, o objetivo desse trabalho é identificar dimensões para análise e dimensionamento dos recursos estratégicos. A pesquisa de caráter descritivo e exploratório foi desenvolvida por meio de uma extensa pesquisa bibliográfica seguida por um estudo multicasos. A partir da análise qualitativa e longitudinal dos casos selecionados, foi possível identificar que recursos comuns foram determinantes para o sucesso das empresas estudadas, destacando-se quatro dimensões a que designamos de pilares da estratégia: líder e equipe executiva, foco estratégico, aposta para o futuro e sustentação pelos recursos.Estratégia, Pilares da stratégia, RBV

Context-based multi-agent recommender system, supported on IoT, for guiding the occupants of a building in case of a fire

The evacuation of buildings in case of fire is a sensitive issue for civil society that also motivates the academic community to develop and study solutions to improve the efficiency of evacuating these spaces. The study of human behavior in fire emergencies has been one of the areas that have deserved the attention of researchers. However, this modeling of human behavior is difficult and complex because it depends on factors that are difficult to know and that vary from country to country. In this paper, a paradigm shift is proposed which, instead of focusing on modeling the behavior of occupants, focuses on conditioning this behavior by providing real-time information on the most efficient evacuation routes. Making this information available to occupants is possible with a solution that takes advantage of the growing use of the IoT (Internet of Things) in buildings to help occupants adapt to the environment. Supported by the IoT, multi-agent recommender systems can help users to adapt to the environment and provide the occupants with the most efficient evacuation routes. This paradigm shift is achieved through a context-based multi-agent recommender system based on contextual data obtained from IoT devices, which recommends the most efficient evacuation routes at any given time. The obtained results suggest that the proposed solution can improve the efficiency of evacuating buildings in the event of a fire; for a scenario with two hundred people following the system recommendations, the time they take to reach a safe place decreases by 17.7%.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An ontology for fire building evacuation

Guiding the building occupants under fire emergency to a safe place is an open research problem, and finding solutions to address the problem requires a perfect knowledge of the fire building evacuation domain. The use of ontologies to model knowledge of a domain allows a common and shared understanding of that domain, between people and heterogeneous systems. This paper presents an ontology that aims to build a knowledge model to understand the referred domain better and help develop more capable building evacuation solutions and systems. The herein proposed ontology considers the different variables and actors involved in the fire building evacuation process. We followed the Methontology methodology for its developing, and we present all the development steps, from the specification to its implementation with the Protégé tool.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An ontological model for fire evacuation route recommendation in buildings

Guiding the occupants of a building to a safe place is an area of research that deserves the attention of researchers. Finding solutions for the problem of guiding the building occupants requires a perfect knowledge of the fire building evacuation domain. The use of ontologies to model the knowledge of a domain allows a common and shared understanding of that domain. This paper presents an ontology that has the purpose to deepen the understanding of that domain and help develop building evacuation solutions and systems capable of guiding the occupants during a building evacuation process. The proposed ontology considers the different variables and actors involved in the fire building evacuation process. The ontology development followed the Methontology methodology, and for implementation, the Protégé tool was used. The ontological model was successfully submitted to a thorough evaluation process and is publicly available on the Web.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Study on project management in Portugal within the scope of the Portuguese Project Management Observatory

The Portuguese Project Management Observatory (PPMO), an initiative of the Portuguese Association of Project Management (APOGEP), is being developed by the University of Minho in partnership with other 17 Higher Education institutions. The main objectives of this research were to understand the tools and techniques most and least used by organizations, the use of agile methodologies, the maturity of each Project Management area, and success dimensions. The method selected for this study was a survey applied through an online questionnaire directed to Portuguese organizations. The results show that the most used Tools and Techniques are Kick-off Meeting, Progress Meetings, Project Work Description, Gantt Chart, and Activity List; and the least used are Monte Carlo Analysis, Decision Tree, Project Management Software for Simulation, Conferences for Bidding, and Parametric Estimation. Statistically significant differences were found between the use of various Tools and Techniques and factors such as gender, age, current position, education level, and activity sector. Agile methodologies are used in a large part of the respondents' organizations, however, no correlation was identified between the use of agile methodologies and the accomplishment of scope, time and cost of projects. The process identified as having the highest maturity is Definition of Activities in the Project Schedule Management area, followed by Project Execution in the Project Integration Management area, and the Schedule Development in the Project Schedule Management area. Customer Satisfaction is the KPI most used.- (undefined

Development and characterization of b-carotene microcapsules composed of starch and protein extract from Amaranth

The 19th Gums & Stabilisers for the Food Industry Conference: Hydrocolloid multifunctionalityStudies that have explored the use of biopolymers of Amaranth as encapsulating materials for bioactive compounds1,2,3 demonstrate that it is possible to isolate and encapsulate bioactive compounds with Amaranth biopolymers. Therefore, the added value of Amaranth can be increased, evidenced and studied through the extraction of its compounds and the formation of microcapsules. The objective of this study was the evaluation of the ability of Amaranth biopolymers to microencapsulate a bioactive compound - -carotene. The microencapsulation was performed by spray drying4, and -carotene was added to the Amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus) starch or protein through a solution prepared at the ratio of 1:10 (polymer:-carotene) in corn oil (1 %). The microcapsules were characterized by mean diameter (volume%), particle size distribution, microcapsules morphology by epifluorescence microscopy, microstructure by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and by measuring encapsulation efficiency. Microcapsules exhibited an average size of 2.22 ± 1.84 m and 1.55 ± 1.12 m for microcapsules composed of Amaranth protein and Amaranth starch, respectively. The microscopy images of both microcapsules showed good sphericity and presence of fluorescence, which indicates good encapsulation capacity of -carotene. FT-IR results showed no differences between spectra of all samples, which indicates that there was no chemical bonding between the capsules and -carotene, but rather an entrapment of -carotene into starch and protein microparticles. The encapsulation efficiency was 71.29 % and 69.32 % for Amaranth starch and protein microcapsules, respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that the biopolymers extracted from Amaranth can be considered good encapsulating agents for bioactive compounds, thus valorising their use in food formulations.This study was funded by the CNPQ-Brazil; FCT – Portugal (SFRH/BPD/89992/2012, SFRH/BPD/101181/2014, SFRH/BPD/104712/2014 and IF/00300/2015 fellowships); Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER- 027462); Project UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER- 006684) and Project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Inovação e redes de relacionamento na geração de conhecimento em incubadoras

Este estudo visa auxiliar na compreensão do papel das redes de relacionamento na geração de conhecimento e de inovação nas incubadoras. Trata-se uma pesquisa teórica, que parte da compreensão da situação atual de estudos e pesquisas sobre incubadoras e discute a importância da gestão do conhecimento e das redes de relacionamentos na inovação dos diferentes tipos de incubadoras. Como resultados, podemos inferir que estudos e pesquisa sobre incubadoras têm recebido significativa atenção de acadêmicos e pesquisadores nos últimos anos e que não existe um modelo desenvolvido e aceito para a compreensão dos mesmos. Entretanto, existe um consenso que as incubadoras de base tecnológica promovem a criação e o compartilhamento de conhecimento apoiados pela existência de fortes redes de relacionamento e de colaborações científicas e tecnológicas importantes para a acumulação de capacidade de inovação.incubadoras, networks, redes relacionais, incubators

Characterization and bioaccessibility of β-carotene encapsulated on microcapsules produced with starch and protein from amaranth grain

Laylla Coelho acknowledges the CNPQ-Brazil for her fellowship (IF/00300/2015). Pedro Silva acknowledges the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for his fellowship (SFRD/BD/130247/2017). FCT is also thanked for the Investigator FCT program (PF) and for the grant ref. SFRH/BPD/104712/2014 (IG). This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of the UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 – Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ultrasonic-assisted extraction and natural deep eutectic solvents combination: A green strategy to improve the recovery of phenolic compounds from Lavandula Pedunculata subsp. Lusitanica (Chaytor) Franco

The present study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of different natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) on the extraction of phenolic compounds from Lavandula pedunculata subsp. lusitanica (Chaytor) Franco, on the antioxidant activity, and acetylcholinesterase (AChE), butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) and tyrosinase (Tyr) inhibitory capacities. Ten different NADES were used in this research and compared with conventional solvents. Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) for 60 min proved to be the best extraction condition, and proline:lactic acid (1:1) and choline chloride:urea (1:2) extracts showed the highest total phenolic contents (56.00 ± 0.77 mgGAE/gdw) and antioxidant activity [64.35 ± 1.74 mgTE/gdw and 72.13 ± 0.97 mgTE/gdw in 2.2-diphenyl-1- picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2.20 -azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) methods, respectively]. These extracts also exhibited enzymes inhibitory capacity particularly against Tyr and AChE. Even so, organic acid-based NADES showed to be the best extractants producing extracts with considerable ability to inhibit enzymes. Twenty-four phenolic compounds were identified by HPLC-HRMS, being rosmarinic acid, ferulic acid and salvianolic acid B the major compounds. The results confirmed that the combination of UAE and NADES provide an excellent alternative to organic solvents for sustainable and green extraction, and have huge potential for use in industrial applications involving the extraction of bioactive compounds from plants.Grant SFRH/BD/145243/2019, UIDB/05183/2020info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio