The pandemonics of informal credit markets

Credit markets are at the core of any economic crisis, and informal loans are largely understudied. We collect a dataset on an online informal lending community to study the impact that the 2020 pandemic crisis had on informal credit markets. We find that these informal loans are short duration, expensive and that borrowers and lenders exhibit some sense of community. Our results suggest that the financial hardship imposed by stay at home orders is perceived as persistent, and borrowers expect lower future income, hence reducing loan demand. Moreover, loans directly associated with the pandemic are more likely to be transacted by newcomers to this market, and mentioning the pandemic in a loan request lowers the chance that it originates a loan. The absence of an increase of violations of community rules and the reduction in promised repayment time highlights the importance of informal credit communities in hard times.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

DEVELOP-FPS: ferramenta de desenvolvimento de comportamentos baseados em regras para personagens virtuais

Tese de mestrado em Engenharia Informática (Sistemas de Informação), apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2011Os videojogos não param de evoluir, fornecendo ao jogador novos desafios para que este se mantenha interessado e motivado para experimentar novas experiências. Estes desafios, normalmente, passam pela interacção do jogador com os NPCs (Non-Player Characters), sejam eles de combate, de cooperação ou mesmo de para troca de informação. Com a evolução dos computadores existe oportunidade e recursos para investigar e aplicar novas técnicas de inteligência artificial no desenvolvimento de comportamentos para os NPCs, tornando-os mais complexos. Para que isto seja possível, é necessário munir os investigadores com ferramentas profissionais com capacidade para construir, testar e validar os comportamentos desenvolvidos. Este trabalho apresenta uma arquitectura genérica para ferramentas de desenvolvimento de comportamentos escritos em Jess para personagens virtuais inseridas num ambiente de videojogo do género First-Person Shooter (Unreal Torunament 2004). A ferramenta desenvolvida, com base nesta arquitectura, permite realizar o debugging e a avaliação de comportamentos individuais ou cooperativos fornecendo capacidades para preparar cenários de teste; monitorizar e controlar todos os intervenientes; realizar experiências; testar e comparar os comportamentos.Video games are constantly evolving providing new challenges for the player to remain interested and motivated to try new experiences. These challenges usually involve player interaction with NPCs (Non Player Characters), they fight, cooperate to overcome obstacles, or communicate with each other to enrich the storyline. With the growing resources available with the evolution of computers there is an increasing interest in investigating and applying new techniques of artificial intelligence in the development of ever more complex behaviors for NPCs. To make this possible, it is necessary to equip researchers with professional tools to build, test and validate the behaviors developed. This paper presents a generic architecture development tool to achieve a NPC behavior written in Jess, inserted in an environment of the video game First-Person Shooter genre (Unreal torunament 2004). The tool developed, based on this architecture, allows debugging and evaluation of individual or cooperative behaviors, providing capabilities to prepare test scenarios, monitor and control all NPCs; conduct experiments; test and compares the behaviors

O impacto da complexidade e das revisões das IFRS na qualidade do normativo e no alcance dos objetivos do IASB

Esta dissertação visa compreender como é que a complexidade das International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) e as constantes alterações que estas normas têm sofrido ao longo dos anos, afetam a sua qualidade e os objetivos delineados pelo seu emissor, o International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Para tal, realizaram-se entrevistas semiestruturadas a representantes de associações/ordens profissionais de contabilidade europeias. Contribui assim para a literatura com um estudo qualitativo sobre as consequências da complexidade e das alterações das normas, na sua aplicação e no cumprimento dos seus objetivos enquanto ferramenta contabilística, obtendo para tal a perceção atual de profissionais e académicos que lidam diretamente com este normativo. Os resultados sugerem que as IAS/IFRS estão a ficar cada vez mais baseadas em regras e complexas, e que esta complexidade afeta negativamente a sua qualidade. Contudo este efeito negativo é mitigado por um elevado nível de investimento e preparação, por parte das entidades e dos profissionais da área. As revisões e reformas das normas, apesar de necessárias à sua aplicação e no cumprimento dos seus objetivos, contribuem para este impacto negativo, principalmente pelo volume e frequência com que ocorrem.This dissertation aims to understand how the complexity of the International Accounting Standards (IAS)/International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and the several changes that these standards have undergone over the years, affect their quality and the objectives outlined by their issuer, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of professional accounting associations/orders from Europe. It contributes to the literature with a qualitative study about the consequences of the complexity and changes in international standards, on their application and fulfilment of their objectives as an accounting tool, obtaining for this purpose the current perception of professionals and academics who deal directly with these standards. The results suggest that IAS/IFRS are becoming increasingly rules-based and complex and that this complexity negatively affects their quality. However, this negative effect is mitigated by a high level of investment and preparation by entities and professionals in the field. Revisions and amendments of the standards, although necessary for their application and to meet their objectives, contribute to this negative impact, mainly due to the volume and frequency with which they occur

Intervenção e projeto para uma paisagem de finisterra

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Arquitetura, com a especialização em Arquitetura, apresentada na Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre.N/

Relatório de estágio

Numa população cada vez mais envelhecida em que o índice de dependência das pessoas idosas é também elevado, o aumento da necessidade de apoio a estas pessoas dependentes tem levado a que os cuidadores informais assumam os cuidados a estas pessoas em ambiente domiciliário. Desta forma e após a realização de um diagnóstico de saúde à população, concluí que um dos factores que mais afecta o cuidador informal é o défice de informação sobre a prevenção de úlceras de pressão, o que contribui para o aumento da sobrecarga do papel de cuidador informal. O projecto de intervenção, por mim executado, esteve relacionado essencialmente com o elevado risco de úlcera de pressão dos utentes e o défice de informação por parte dos cuidadores relativamente a esta prioridade identificada. Para a consecução deste estudo foram aplicados, aos cuidadores informais, formulários que incluíram escalas de avaliação validadas, sendo que a amostra foi igual á população total. Os resultados foram tratados utilizando a estatística descritiva, para posterior análise, através da qual concluí que o défice de conhecimento por parte dos cuidadores relativamente à prevenção do aparecimento de úlceras de pressão, contribui para o aumento do risco de incidência das mesmas e para o aumento dos efeitos da sobrecarga do cuidador, interferindo e colocando em causa a saúde e qualidade de vida do mesmo, do idoso dependente e de toda a unidade familiarIn an increasingly aging population in which the dependency ratio of elderly people is also high, the increased need to support these dependents has led to informal caregivers take care of these people in home environment. Thus, after the initial diagnosis of a health population, concluded that one of the factors that most affect the informal caregiver is the lack of information about the prevention of pressure ulcers, which contributes to increasing the role of caregiver burden informal. The intervention project, run by me, was primarily related to the high risk of pressure ulcers and the users' information deficit on the part of caregivers identified for this priority. To achieve this study were applied to informal caregivers, forms that included validated rating scales, and the sample was equal to the total population. The results were processed using descriptive statistics for later analysis, through which concluded that the lack of knowledge and information for caregivers on the prevention of the occurrence of pressure ulcers, contributes to the increased risk of incidence of the same and the increased effects of caregiver burden, interfering and jeopardizing the healthand quality of life of the same, the elderly and dependent on the entire family uni

Increase of protein content and production of lignocellulolytic enzymes by simultaneous solid-state fermentations of brewery, olive mill and winery wastes

Frequently, the agro-industrial wastes are used as animal feed, however many times these wastes have a poor nutritional quality, mainly they have a low protein content and their digestibility is hard. These disadvantages can be avoided by solid-state fermentation (SSF) of the wastes by filamentous fungi. Winery, brewery and olive mill wastes were used as solid substrates for the production of lignocellulolytic enzymes and to increase the crude protein content of agro-industrial wastes. After selection of the fungus in previously study, it was performed an experimental design to evaluate the benefits of using mixtures of wastes in different proportions as solid substrate in SSF by A. ibericus. The optimum substrate was a mixture of brewery spent grain and vine-shoot trimmings which achieved and increase the protein content (16.3 %), xylanase (89.33 U/g), cellulose (3.46 U/g) and -glucosidase (21.91 U/g) activities. Through this study, it was possible to conclude that the SSF by A. ibericus is a suitable biotechnology process to increase the nutritional quality of agro-industrial wastes and to produce value-added products as enzymes in the same low-cost process.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Management of carob tree orchards in Mediterranean ecosystems: strategies for a carbon economy implementation

This paper offers a different framework for managing Mediterranean drought carob-tree orchard ecosystems. Two dry-farming systems were compared during two consecutive years: pure productive orchards and mixed orchards in a total of 360 mature trees distributed by 18 plots with areas of 0.55 and 0.30 ha per plot, respectively. Carob, fig, almond and olive trees compose mixed orchards. Trees of the mixed orchards were more productive than those of pure orchards. The main problem of both systems was the large variability and the low fruit production due to non-bearing trees, inducing unfavorable economic returns. Yield varied between 7.7 and 28.5 kg tree(-1) respectively in pure and mixed orchards. In this paper we propose to use carbon sequestration calculations as an added benefit to farmers. A carbon stocking model estimation was established, based on trunk diameters of different trees. We depicted two management scenarios based on fruits production and carbon sequestration incomes: a low value scenario, using mean fruit production, and a high valuable scenario based on the hypothesis that all trees reached its potential maximum. Since under dry-farming systems fruit production irregularity is still a pendent problem, mixed orchards may offer a potential higher revenue, while maintaining higher crop diversification and whole biodiversity. C sequestration benefit, as here we purpose, may represent 125-300 % of income, respectively under low or high valuable scenario. Thus, CO2 equivalent is a novel ecological economic incentive that may potentiate a new income for farmers while assuring carob ecosystem services.[AGRO306

In situ experiments with synchrotron high-energy x-rays of Ni-Ti alloys produced by powder metallurgy

The structural evolution that takes place during the homogenization heat treatments of powder metallurgical Ni-Ti- alloys was studied by in situ synchrotron diffraction. It is proposed to get a deeper understanding of this phenomenon by using different types of thermal/mechanical cycles