The Dating of the Cancioneiro de Paris and a Proposed Timeline for its Compilation

UID/EAT/00693/2019 SFRH/BD/140077/2018O Cancioneiro de Paris (manuscrito F-Peb Masson 56) é a colecção portuguesa de música profana mais extensa que se conhece; como tal, constitui uma fonte de grande importância na história da música em Portugal. Contudo, o problema da datação tem sido bastante descurado, com excepção das breves contribuições de Eugenio Asensio (1989) e Manuel Pedro Ferreira (2008). Na minha tese de mestrado (2017) apresentei uma primeira proposta para a datação do cancioneiro fundamentada através de um estudo aprofundado dos aspectos físicos do manuscrito e do repertório. Neste artigo pretendo retomar alguns desses aspectos, no sentido de apresentar uma revisão. Inicialmente, analiso as características codicológicas e paleográficas do cancioneiro através do estudo das marcas de água e das caligrafias, o que permitirá compreender as camadas sucessivas de compilação e as intervenções das diversas mãos. De seguida, abordo o problema da datação do repertório­­ – sobretudo a partir dos dados biográficos dos poucos autores identificados no cancioneiro, mas também a partir do contexto histórico dos géneros e formas musicais – que permitirá definir o terminus a quo aproximado para cada camada do manuscrito. Finalmente, com base nesta análise, proponho uma cronologia para a compilação do cancioneiro, resumindo, para cada uma das suas etapas, as intervenções dos respectivos copistas e o período aproximado em que terão ocorrido.publishersversionpublishe

Control of robot swarms through natural language dialogue: A case study on monitoring fires

There are numerous environmental and non-environmental disasters happening throughout the world, representing a big danger to common people, community helpers, to the fauna and flora. Developing a program capable of controlling swarms of robots, using natural language processing (NLP) and further on, a speech to text system, will enable a more mobile solution, with no need for keyboard and mouse or a mobile device for operating with the robots. Using a welldeveloped NLP system will allow the program to understand natural languagebased interactions, making this system able to be used in different contexts. In firefighting, the use of robots, more specifically drones, enables new ways to obtain reliable information that before was based on guesses or knowledge from someone who had long-time experience on field. Using a swarm of robots to monitor fire enables innumerous advantages, from the creation of a dynamic fire map, climate information inside the fire, to finding lost firefighters on field through the generated map. This work uses firefighting as a case-study, but other situations can be considered, like searching someone in the sea or searching for toxins in an open environmental area.Existem muitos desastres ambientais e não ambientais em todo o mundo, representando um grande perigo para pessoas comuns, ajudantes da comunidade e para a fauna e flora. O desenvolvimento de um programa capaz de controlar enxames de robôs, usando Processamento Computacional da Língua (PCL) e, posteriormente, um sistema de fala-para-texto, permitirá uma solução mais móvel, sem necessidade de teclado e rato ou dispositivos móveis para operar com os robôs. O uso de um sistema bem desenvolvido de PCL permitirá que o programa entenda interações baseadas em linguagem natural, tornando-o capaz de ser usado em diferentes contextos. O uso de robôs (mais especificamente drones) no combate a incêndios, permite novas maneiras de obter informações confiáveis que antes eram baseadas em suposições ou conhecimentos de pessoas com longa experiência em campo. O uso de um enxame de robôs para monitorizar o incêndio permite inúmeras vantagens, desde a criação de um mapa dinâmico do incêndio, informações climáticas dentro do mesmo, até encontrar bombeiros perdidos no campo, através do mapa gerado pelos robôs. Este trabalho usa o combate a incêndios como um estudo de caso, mas outras situações podem ser consideradas, como procurar alguém no mar ou procurar toxinas numa área ambiental aberta

Dietary intake, B vitamins and health outcomes in the very old : b analysis of the Newcastle 85+ study

PhD ThesisThe very old (aged 85 and over) are the fastest growing age group in the UK and most western societies. High incidence of disability and chronic diseases, financial constraints, polypharmacy, hospitalisation, body composition, sensory and gastrointestinal changes place very old adults at increased risk of malnutrition. However, very little is known about the dietary habits and health trajectories in this age group. Further, because one-carbon (1-C) metabolism biomarkers are largely modifiable and have been associated with cognition, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality, its modulation is of special interest. The overall aim of this PhD thesis was to provide an accurate snapshot of the dietary habits of the very old and examine health trajectories with respect to 1-C metabolism biomarkers in a unique cohort such as the Newcastle 85+ Study. Specifically, we aimed to explore the dietary habits of the very old; to investigate the association between folate, vitamin B12 and its status; and to investigate the cognitive decline and mortality trajectories with respect to 1-C metabolism biomarkers. The Newcastle 85+ Study is a longitudinal population-based study of health trajectories and outcomes over 5 years in 845 eighty-five year olds in North East England. Dietary intake was assessed at baseline on two non-consecutive occasions by a 24 hour Multiple Pass Recall. Baseline red blood cell folate (RBC folate), plasma vitamin B12 and total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations were determined by immunoassays. Cognitive function was assessed at baseline, 1.5, 3 and 5 years with the standardized mini-mental state examination and a battery of attention tests. Mortality was obtained from the Health and Social Care Information Service, UK. A high percentage of the participants did not meet the dietary reference values for energy, non-starch polysaccharides and several micronutrients. Cereals and cereal products were the top contributors for energy, most macronutrients and several micronutrients, including folate. RBC folate and tHcy were associated with better global cognition at baseline but were not predictive of the rate of decline over 5 years. Higher concentrations of tHcy in all participants and plasma vitamin B12 in women were associated with increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. This thesis highlights the paucity of data and uncertainties in this age group. Furthermore, it demonstrates a link between 1-C metabolism biomarkers and age-related diseases.Swales Bequest fun

Two Unnoticed Portuguese Villancicos in a Sixteenth-Century Italian Songbook

UID/EAT/00693/2019 SFRH/BD/140077/2018Sixteenth-century secular music in the Portuguese language, which is already a rarity in Portuguese cancioneiros, is very infrequently found in non-Portuguese sources. There are, however, two Portuguese villancicos preserved in a set of partbooks of Italian origin that seem to have been unnoticed until now. These manuscripts, currently kept at the British Library (GB-Lbl Royal Appendix 59-62, also known as the Fitzalan Partbooks) are, to my knowledge, the only known non-Iberian source of Portuguese sixteenth-century songs. In spite of the seemingly unassuming nature of their music, these two songs prove to be fascinating testimonies to repertory circulation and transcultural transmission on several different levels. This article aims to present these villancicos to the musicological community for the first time, through the description and analysis of their poetic and musical contents, and attempts to reconstruct the historical path that took the songs from Portugal to Italy by establishing connections and concordances with other Iberian and Italian sources.publishersversionpublishe

Molecular diversity of bla genes in Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli isolates

Dissertation presented to obtain a Ph.D. degree in Biology, speciality Microbiology, by Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaAntimicrobial resistance is a growing problem worldwide, with extended-spectrum β- lactamase (ESBL)-producing organisms remaining an important cause of cephalosporin therapy failure. The main purpose of the work presented in this dissertation was to search for the molecular diversity of Ambler class A β-lactamase encoding genes in clinical Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli isolates and its consequences. In a first step, the evaluation of ESBL detection and confirmation methods for K. pneumoniae, using different guidelines, was performed, with nucleotide sequencing allowing the identification of a new ESBL (SHV-55). The enzymatic properties of this new β-lactamase confirmed a higher affinity towards extended-spectrum cephalosporins, which is characteristic of ESBLs, contrasting to the parental enzyme SHV-1. For the new β-lactamase SHV-72, the higher value of 50% inhibitory concentration of clavulanic acid than for SHV-1 correlated with the values of higher afinity towards penicillins,which are characteristic of an inhibitor resistance enzyme. Simulation of molecular dynamics suggested that the Lys234Arg substitution in SHV-72 was responsible for stabilizing an atipical conformation of the Ser130 side chain, which may decrease susceptibility to clavulanic acid by preventing cross-linking between Ser130 and Ser70. Among the collection of K. pneumoniae strains studied, we identified several genes coding for different enzymes belonging to the CTX-M, GES, LEN, OKP, OXA, TEM, and SHV families and, among them, 35 were new β-lactamases. Among ESBL-producing isolates from 1999 and 2006, we detected the presence of CTX-M enzymes only in the latest period. Overall, the complex molecular diversity of the blaSHV genes detected impelled us to propose a classification for this gene family, based on nucleotide synonymous mutations and the presence or absence of the nonsynonymous mutation T92A. Finally, among E. coli isolates colected in Portugal, a predominat multidrug resistant clone, producing TEM, OXA and CTX-M enzymes, was present in different hospital wards and community environments. The high dissemination of the CTX-M enzymes detected could also be associated with horizontal transfer of plasmids or mobile elements, like ISEcp1. In Algeria, we identified the same insertion sequence in clinical E. coli strains producing TEM and either CTX-M-3 or CTX-M-15 β-lactamases. In conclusion, the results from this dissertation extended our knowledge about the most important mechanism of resistance – the β-lactamases production – focusing on the phenotypic characteristics, biochemical properties, structure-function relationships, molecular diversity and dissemination, which are of most importance to the comprehension of the general resistance scenario in Portugal and worldwide

Smooth Transition Regression models: Theory and Applications in JMulti

This tutorial aims to analyze nonlinear models of Smooth Transition Regression with JMulTi and contribute to the understanding of STR specification, from the estimation until the evaluation cycle of these models. It provides pedagogical explanations, combining theoretical concepts and empirical results coherently. Especially in economic relationships, where an asymmetric behaviour with distinct effects is often found on contractions and expansions. As economic series generally present asymmetric/nonlinear behaviour, Smooth Transition Regression (STR) models provide a flexible empirical strategy that allows capturing the impacts of possible types of asymmetry in the data, Souza (2016).An overview of theory and applications in software is described. These nonlinear models describe in-sample movements of the stock returns series better than the corresponding linear model. The data used in this study consist of daily prices index from January 02, 1995 to March 29, 2013, a total of 4761 observations, from Germany (DAX30). The data was collected from the DataStream database considering 5 days a week. The data (price index) is converted to base 100 and the yields are then calculated based on the first differences in the log price series. 10-year interest rates treasury bond regarding the same markets identified has also been collected for the same period

Database Replication applied to Network Management

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a recent approach used to manage networks. Most of the time it is paired with OpenFlow, a low-level communication protocol used by controlling and switching devices to communicate. Since it is low-level, it does not grant the possibility to explore all the switching functionalities, especially as they get extended with more and more features. It is therefore required to find alternative ways of coordinating controlling and switching devices without resorting to low-level protocols to be able to access those functionalities. One of the possible approaches, which was recently implemented in a data center, uses databases and its respective replication to store and exchange information between the devices. Applying the same approach to manage wide area networks would provide a more flexible way to control them. The goal of this work consists of improving an existing prototype that simulates a small network. It was built originally using a SQL database and an asynchronous external replication software. We replace them with a NoSQL database that natively supports replication, which enables us to remove unnecessary software from the prototype while taking advantage of the database features. Some of the features, the more notable being non-uniform replication with the help of CRDTs, are used to improve network monitoring, which is a recent addition to the prototype. Network monitoring is a highly important component of network management that facilitates decision making processes. We evaluate the new version of the prototype by comparing with directly with the old version. We collect the convergence time of the network after an event on a device triggers a modification in its state to help with the comparison. By splinting the convergence time into a sum of smaller actions, we take conclusions regarding different moments of the convergence process

Experimental and numerical assessment of the impact test performance between two UHSS toe cap models

This paper presents an integrated approach for an ultimate high-performance safety toe cap with significant milestones in slim design and weight saving. The study of crashworthiness properties was performed through impact-crash test conditions exploring the potential of applicant solutions by the combination of an advanced high-strength steel and enhanced geometric stiffening models. The structural response for a significant thickness reduction was assessed and it provides an evolved discussion for improvements in energy absorption capacity. The present case study focuses on two geometric models from the S3 slim toe cap development by prototypes made of a martensitic 1200 steel alloy. The comparison of results is complemented using numerical simulation models with mathematical description of the dynamic plasticity behaviour by applying a constitutive Cowper-Symonds equation with fundamental parameters for material strain-rate dependence.Acknowledgments The funding support from Projects I&DT Project S3 - Safety Slim Shoe, FCOMP-01-0202-FEDER-018458 is acknowledged

Processing temporal information in unstructured documents

Tese de doutoramento, Informática (Ciência da Computação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2013Temporal information processing has received substantial attention in the last few years, due to the appearance of evaluation challenges focused on the extraction of temporal information from texts written in natural language. This research area belongs to the broader field of information extraction, which aims to automatically find specific pieces of information in texts, producing structured representations of that information, which can then be easily used by other computer applications. It has the potential to be useful in several applications that deal with natural language, given that many languages, among which we find Portuguese, extensively refer to time. Despite that, temporal processing is still incipient for many language, Portuguese being one of them. The present dissertation has various goals. On one hand, it addresses this current gap, by developing and making available resources that support the development of tools for this task, employing this language, and also by developing precisely this kind of tools. On the other hand, its purpose is also to report on important results of the research on this area of temporal processing. This work shows how temporal processing requires and benefits from modeling different kinds of knowledge: grammatical knowledge, logical knowledge, knowledge about the world, etc. Additionally, both machine learning methods and rule-based approaches are explored and used in the development of hybrid systems that are capable of taking advantage of the strengths of each of these two types of approach.O processamento de informação temporal tem recebido bastante atenção nos últimos anos, devido ao surgimento de desafios de avaliação focados na extração de informação temporal de textos escritos em linguagem natural. Esta área de investigação enquadra-se no campo mais lato da extração de informação, que visa encontrar automaticamente informação específica presente em textos, produzindo representações estruturadas da mesma, que podem depois ser facilmente utilizadas por outras aplicações computacionais. Tem o potencial de ser útil em diversas aplicações que lidam com linguagem natural, dado o caráter quase ubíquo da referência ao tempo cronólogico em muitas línguas, entre as quais o Português. Apesar de tudo, o processamento temporal encontra-se ainda incipiente para bastantes línguas, sendo o Português uma delas. A presente dissertação tem vários objetivos. Por um lado vem colmatar esta lacuna existente, desenvolvendo e disponibilizando recursos que suportam o desenvolvimento de ferramentas para esta tarefa, utilizando esta língua, e desenvolvendo também precisamente este tipo de ferramentas. Por outro serve também para relatar resultados importantes da pesquisa nesta área do processamento temporal. Neste trabalho, mostra- -se como o processamento temporal requer e beneficia da modelação de conhecimento de diversos níveis: gramatical, lógico, acerca do mundo, etc. Adicionalmente, são explorados tanto métodos de aprendizagem automática como abordagens baseadas em regras, desenvolvendo-se sistemas híbridos capazes de tirar partido das vantagens de cada um destes dois tipos de abordagem.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, SFRH/BD/40140/2007

A satisfação no acompanhamento social e expetativas futuras de utentes beneficiários de RSI

Projecto de Graduação apresentado à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau Licenciado em Serviço SocialO presente projeto aborda o Rendimento Social de Inserção (RSI). Pretendemos aferir o nível de satisfação dos utentes beneficiários de RSI, relativamente ao acompanhamento social, e às expetativas futuras dos mesmos. Apresenta-se um breve historial do Rendimento Social de Inserção, bem como a legislação portuguesa relativa a esta medida e a análise de algumas questões sobre o mesmo. Segue-se a parte empírica deste trabalho relativamente a apresentação e discussão dos resultados. Para tal, realizamos um inquérito, respondido por 20 utentes na freguesia da Maia. O objetivo foi o de tentar compreender melhor a visão dos mesmos relativamente ao seu acompanhamento social e ao seu futuro analisado no presente projeto