The importance of creative collectives in music industry: the Leiria's microclimatic music scene case

The present dissertation has for subject "The importance of creative clusters in Music Industry", but also takes in consideration the Microclimatic music scene case of Leiria, a city in the centre of Portugal. Music always have defined and influenced societies. Nowadays, it still plays a major role in modern society, but also has a profound and meaningful position in the world’s economy. Following this idea, it is purposed to consider the definition and context of Music Industry, to better understand how it influences the all market behind and how it interacts with companies and organizations that can be related to music. It was of interest to understand how Music scenes arise in certain geographic areas, once they have been one of the steps to have a greater understanding of the importance of clustering geographically, and its influences in the development of regional economic growth, where some scenarios were taken in account. The following chapter refers to creative industries and creative clusters, where it is searched the importance of creative industries to cluster and its influences in communities around. The last chapter takes in account the music scene in Leiria, how it aroused and the influences on the community. Finally, it was conducted a survey for music bands/music artists, creatives, producers, agents and promoters, to understand, what are, in fact, the importance's of creative collectives in producing and collaborating with music bands/music artists on their works.A presente dissertação tem como título "A importância das aglomerações de criativos na Indústria da Música", mas considera, também, o caso do Microclima do cenário musical de Leiria, uma cidade no centro de Portugal. A música sempre definiu e influenciou sociedades. Nos dias de hoje, ainda tem um papel bastante importante na Sociedade moderna, mas tem, também, uma profunda e significante posição na economia mundial. Através desta ideia, é proposto a consideração da definição e contexto da Indústria da Música, para melhor perceber como influencia todo o mercado envolvente, e como interage com empresas e organizações que podem estar relacionadas com música. Revelou ser de interesse, perceber de que forma crescem alguns cenários musicais, em certas áreas geográficas, uma vez que estes foram dos principais passos para ter uma maior compreensão da importância de aglomerações geográficas, assim como das suas influências no desenvolvimento do crescimento económico regional. Alguns cenários, são tidos em consideração. O seguinte capítulo refere-se às Indústrias criativas e às aglomerações criativas, onde se procura perceber a importância de aglomerações entre Indústrias criativas, assim como das suas influências nas comunidades adjacentes. Por último, é conduzido um questionário para bandas musicais/artistas musicais, criativos, produtores, agentes e promotores, para melhor perceber, qual é de fato, a importância dos coletivos de criativos na produção e colaboração em trabalhos para bandas musicais/artistas musicais

Study and Characterization of Composite Materials: Biomedical Applications

In the scope of the Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering - Industrial Production, it was sought to study the impact of sustainable materials in biomedical applications, with special focus on composite materials. When gathering information to perform the state of the art of this work, regarding composite materials and some of their biomedical applications, it was found that there was not much evidence regarding the customized production of transfemoral prostheses using both sustainable materials and home-available low-cost manufacturing technologies. To contribute exploring the identified research gap, numerical models were developed to carry out simulations based on finite element analysis. In turn, these have made it possible to evaluate not only the effect of friction, but also the effect that the materials and their constitutive laws have on the stress field developed in the biomechanical system, which directly affects the comfort and health of patients. Additionally, the simulations also made it possible to analyze various materials to verify their suitability for the application in question. The results obtained made it possible to highlight sustainable materials with the potential to be used to produce sockets for transfemoral prostheses and, in turn, to demonstrate the possible suitability for customized production of these medical devices directly by patients in their homes, using low-cost additive technologies that can be easily available at home

Agentes com aprendizagem automática para jogos de computador

In recent years, new Reinforcement Learning algorithms have been developed. These algorithms use Deep Neural Networks to represent the agent’s knowledge. After surpassing previous Artificial Intelligence (AI) milestones, such as Chess and Go, these Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) methods were able to surpass the human level in very complex games like Dota 2, where long-term planning is required and in which professional teams of human players train daily to win e-sports competitions. These algorithms start from scratch, do not use examples of human behavior, and can be applied in various domains. Learning from experience, new and better behaviors were discovered, indicating a lot of potential in these algorithms. However, they require a lot of computational power and training time. Computer games are used in an AI course at the University of Aveiro as an application domain of the AI knowledge acquired by students. The students should develop software agents for these games and try to get the best scores. The objective of this dissertation is to develop agents using the latest DRL techniques and to compare their performance with the agents developed by students. To begin with, DRL agents were developed for a simpler game like Tic-Tac-Toe, where various learning options will be addressed until a robust agent capable of playing against multiple opponents is created. Then, DRL agents capable of playing the version of Pac-Man used in the University of Aveiro course, in the 2018/19 academic year, were developed through the realization of various experiments where the parameters used in the learning process were modified in order to obtain better scores. The developed agent, that obtained the best score, is able to play in all game configurations used in the evaluation of the course and reached the top 7 ranking, among more than 50 agents developed by students that used hard-coded strategies with pathfinding algorithms.Nos últimos anos, novos algoritmos de Aprendizagem por Reforço foram desenvolvidos. Estes algoritmos usam Redes Neuronais Profundas para representar o conhecimento do agente. Após ultrapassarem marcos anteriores da Inteligência Artificial (AI), como o Xadrez e o Go, esses métodos de Aprendizagem Profunda por Reforço (DRL) foram capazes de superar o nível humano em jogos muito complexos como o Dota 2, onde é necessário um planeamento a longo prazo e nos quais equipas profissionais de jogadores humanos treinam diariamente para ganhar competições de desportos eletrónicos. Estes algoritmos começam do zero, não usam exemplos de comportamento humano e podem ser aplicados em vários domínios. Aprendendo pela experiência, novos e melhores comportamentos foram descobertos, indicando um grande potencial nestes algoritmos. No entanto, eles exigem muito poder computacional e tempo de treino. Os jogos de computador são utilizados numa disciplina de AI da Universidade de Aveiro como domínio de aplicação dos conhecimentos de AI adquiridos pelos alunos. Os alunos devem desenvolver agentes de software para esses jogos e tentar obter as melhores pontuações. O objetivo desta dissertação é desenvolver agentes usando as mais recentes técnicas de DRL e comparar o seu desempenho com o dos agentes desenvolvidos pelos alunos. Para começar, os agentes com DRL foram desenvolvidos para um jogo mais simples como o Jogo do Galo, onde várias opções de aprendizagem foram abordadas até ser criado um agente robusto capaz de jogar contra vários oponentes. Posteriormente, foram desenvolvidos agentes com DRL capazes de jogar a versão do Pac-Man utilizada na disciplina da Universidade de Aveiro, no ano letivo de 2018/19, através da realização de diversas experiências onde os parâmetros utilizados no processo de aprendizagem foram modificados de forma a obter melhores pontuações. O agente desenvolvido, que obteve a melhor pontuação, consegue jogar em todas as configurações de jogo utilizadas na avaliação da disciplina e alcançou o top 7 das classificações, entre mais de 50 agentes desenvolvidos por alunos que utilizaram estratégias embutidas no código com algoritmos de pesquisa.Mestrado em Engenharia Informátic

How are top officials hybrid management models present across political-administrative systems?

Comunicação apresentada na 4th Annual ICPA - International Conference on Public Administration "Building bridges to the future: leadership and collaboration in public administration", na Universidade de Minnesota nos Estados Unidos, de 24 a 26 de setembro de 2008Bureaucracy is nowadays often considered a synonymous of inefficiency, ineffectiveness, impersonality, stiffness, uselessness, wastefulness and even corruption. Nevertheless, it is true that bureaucracy is an essential structure for the implementation of public policies. Authors like Mozzicafreddo, Peters, Aberbach, Chevalier, and others, consider that relations between public officials (permanently appointed) and politicians (elected for a limited time) are formally “crystal”, but in practice, reality has proven to be more complex. Top public officials are in a hybrid place some elsewhere between political and administrative spheres, which reanimates the long-lasting discussion on how senior civil servants should be selected. This paper intends to contribute to a more clarified discussion on how top officials hybrid management models can, or not, be a good practice, taking into consideration different case studies on administrative culture

Near Real-Time Sentiment and Topic Analysis of Sport Events

Sport events’ media consumption patterns have started transitioning to a multi-screen paradigm, where, through multitasking, viewers are able to search for additional information about the event they are watching live, as well as contribute with their perspective of the event to other viewers. The audiovisual and multimedia industries, however, are failing to capitalize on this by not providing the sports’ teams and those in charge of the audiovisual production with insights on the final consumers perspective of sport events. As a result of this opportunity, this document focuses on presenting the development of a near real-time sentiment analysis tool and a near real-time topic analysis tool for the analysis of sports events’ related social media content that was published during the transmission of the respective events, thus enabling, in near real-time, the understanding of the sentiment of the viewers and the topics being discussed through each event.Os padrões de consumo de media, têm vindo a mudar para um paradigma de ecrãs múltiplos, onde, através de multitasking, os telespetadores podem pesquisar informações adicionais sobre o evento que estão a assistir, bem como partilhar a sua perspetiva do evento. As indústrias do setor audiovisual e multimédia, no entanto, não estão a aproveitar esta oportunidade, falhando em fornecer às equipas desportivas e aos responsáveis pela produção audiovisual uma visão sobre a perspetiva dos consumidores finais dos eventos desportivos. Como resultado desta oportunidade, este documento foca-se em apresentar o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de análise de sentimento e uma ferramenta de análise de tópicos para a análise, em perto de tempo real, de conteúdo das redes sociais relacionado com eventos esportivos e publicado durante a transmissão dos respetivos eventos, permitindo assim, em perto de tempo real, perceber o sentimento dos espectadores e os tópicos mais falados durante cada evento

Pastor.i: a smartphone application to facilitate grazing management

Grazing in extensive beef farming systems is often manage in an empirical way based on past experience and on the visual appreciation of animal behavior and forage potential. Records of entrances and exits of the animals in the paddocks are rare. However, knowing the occupation period and the animal density, when coupled with biomass defines the grazing pressure. This knowledge is essential for planning and making informed decisions, that influence the profitability of the farm. Moreover, adequate grazing pressure is crucial for the sustainability of many SSPs where system maintenance is dependent on the balance between grazing pressure and regeneration or maintenance of trees and shrubs. Pastor.i is a smartphone application (APP) designed to allow pasture data logging to be very simple. The application is synchronized with the website and allows the producer to have in his pocket all the farm, being possible to identify the paddock, calculate the area, record the movements of the animals and consult the occupation history of the paddock. The application calculates the actual stocking rate, that can be associated with the location of the animals, obtained if the animals are using collars with GPS, which allows to know the areas of the paddock that are most grazed, visualized through heat maps. The information enables localized actions, such as fertilizing or sowing, to improve areas that are not grazed. The application also allows you to save photos of the sward. This temporal photographic record provides information on the condition of trees, the botanical composition and on the tendency of grazing to improve or to worsen coverage. The APP is available for download, is compatible with Android and is being tested with focus groups

The collective challenges of epidemics

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020Currently, COVID-19 is perceived as an epidemic, a new «plague», referring to the matrix metaphor of the pestis expressed in the series contagion – death – fear – isolation. This article aims to understand the multiple collective challenges posed by plague epidemics. The analysis of these challenges may contribute to the reflection on several dimensions that shape the COVID-19 pandemic threat. Individuals interpret the different pasts aiming to solve the problems they face in the present. The collective challenges that the political and medical «management» of the plague place are shaped by circumstantial coalitions of diverse interests, enabling the recognition, demarcation, and legitimisation of actions regarding its public management and control, materialised in concrete health policies, such as the development of several specific devices (isolation, health cordons, lazarettos, quarantine), thus intervening in the configuration of «collective management» of epidemics.publishersversionpublishe

The Children’s Bathing Colony O Século

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020This article aims to understand the process of institutionalisation of the social configuration of a bathing colony aimed at lower-class children, promoted by the leaders of the newspaper O Século in the early twentieth century. A perspective that conceptually relates to the social space of health and tourism was favoured. Health is a cultural construction – as a notion – and a political construction – as a space – that can be apprehended relationally, as a product of the social world. In the conceptualisation of tourism, mobility and leisure are central (although not exclusive) axes, understood as dynamic phenomena and concepts, taking on various forms and multiple meanings according to sociohistorical contexts. The paper seeks to demonstrate that the institution of the bathing colony was socially defined, with specific individuals and groups being decisive in this process.publishersversionpublishe

Intralesional treatment with mesenchymal stem cells in horses with suspensory ligament desmitis and super cial digital exor tendonitis: a retrospective study

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) promote the regeneration of scarless tendon tissue after injury. Various sources have been described and used to obtain MSCs, adipose tissue and bone-marrow are one of the most used. A population of 49 horses, that suffered superficial digital flexor tendonitis or suspensory ligament desmitis and were treated either with the combination of stromal vascular fraction and platelet rich plasma, or with allogenic bone marrow derived MSCs, was analyzed retrospectively. The influence of different factors (age, breed, discipline, injury chronicity, treated structure and type of MSCs used) on the outcome of the therapy was evaluated. The re-injury rate observed on the total population was 4% six months after MSC therapy, and 17,8% after 12 months. The results obtained are similar to results obtained in other studies that evaluated the therapeutic effect of MSCs in horses, encouraging the use of these cells in the treatment of tendinoligamentous disorders; Resumo: Tratamento intralesional com células estaminais mesenquimatosas em cavalos com desmite do ligamento suspensor e tendinite do tendão flexor superficial digital: um estudo retrospetivo. As células estaminais mesenquimatosas (MSCs) promovem regeneração de tecido tendinoso saudável após a lesão. Vários tecidos têm sido usados para obter MSCs, mas o tecido adiposo e a medula óssea têm sido os mais populares. Este estudo analisou retrospetivamente uma população de 49 cavalos, com tendinite do tendão flexor digital superficial ou desmite do ligamento suspensor, que foram tratados com uma combinação de fração estromal vascular com plasma rico em plaquetas, ou com células estaminais mesenquimatosas alogénicas derivadas de medula óssea, avaliando a influência de diversos fatores (idade, disciplina, raça, cronicidade da lesão, estrutura tratada e tipo de células estaminais usadas) sobre o resultado da terapia. A taxa de lesões recidivas na população em estudo era de 4% 6 meses depois do tratamento com células estaminais, e 17,8% após 12 meses. Os resultados obtidos neste estudo são semelhantes a outros estudos que avaliaram o mesmo tipo de terapias