Optimização de redes ópticas de distribuição de serviços

O aumento da utilização e da oferta de tipos de serviços nas redes de acesso conduziram à necessidade de encontrar uma solução capaz de responder às exigências da sociedade de informação, em particular dos utilizadores, sendo o consequente aumento de largura de banda a medida mais tomada pelos operadores de telecomunicações. Perante este cenário é inevitável a migração das redes de acesso de cobre para redes de acesso em fibra óptica de elevada disponibilidade. Esta dissertação propõe-se realizar um estudo sobre o projecto e a optimização das redes ópticas de distribuição de serviços urbanos e exemplificar esse tema através da implementação de um caso de estudo. Para tal, numa primeira fase, foi realizado o estudo das várias redes de acesso existentes no mercado, DSL, cabo, Ethernet, etc., bem como a sua evolução para redes PON e a migração de serviços. Numa segunda etapa procedeu-se à aplicação dos conceitos, anteriormente analisados, através da implementação prática do projecto numa rede urbana em fibra óptica, no município da Amadora, com recurso à tecnologia actual. A implementação do caso de estudo foi útil para melhorar a largura de banda existente, o tipo de acesso e a quantidade de serviços de rede disponibilizados, bem como a redução de custos com as comunicações de voz e dados

Integrated thinking and its relevance in contemporary management decisions: applying intergrated thinking to Volkswagen´s emissions test scandal case.

In this fast pacing world, managers need to quickly adapt their strategies bearing in mind companies goals and business plan. Was not this challenging enough, the number of agents and aspects to have in consideration are increasing and their needs go from environmental sustainability to companies’ profit and social impact. A wrong decision can unleash serious issues that affect companies’ finances and name/image. Being so, the aim of this report is to highlight the usefulness of Integrated Thinking dealing with this reality, by applying this methodology to Volkswagen in a period where its reputation, strategy and business plan are being questioned and it has the need to overcome this situation

Income and wealth inequality : analyses of monetary policy channels role

Mestrado em Economia Monetária e FinanceiraO objetivo do trabalho é analisar a relação entre política monetária e seus canais de transmissão para a desigualdade de renda e de riqueza nos países da zona do Euro. Nós analisamos três dos principais canais identificados pela literatura (Earnings Heterogeneity, Portfolio Composition e Income Composition) que possam explicar como as decisões de política monetária podem afetar as distribuições de renda e riqueza. No nosso trabalho empírico também incluímos uma regressão conjunta com todas as nossas variáveis explicativas com o objetivo de entender o impacto dos canais supracitados de forma combinada.This dissertation aims at analysing the relation between monetary policy and its transmission channels on both income and wealth inequality for the Euro Area. We analysed three different channels identified by the literature (Income, Portfolio and Earnings Heterogeneity) that might explain how monetary policy decisions may affect wealth and income distribution. In this empirical research we also set up a fourth regression combining all our selected explanatory variables with the goal of studying the impact of the aforementioned channels combined.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluation of Nosocomial Infection Risk Using a Hybrid Approach

Nosocomial infections have severe consequences for the patients and the society in general, being one of the causes that increase the length of stay in healthcare facilities. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to be preventive, being aware of how probable is to have that kind of infection, although it is hard to do with traditional methodologies and tools for problem solving. Therefore, this work will focus on the development of a decision support system that will cater for an individual risk evaluation tool with respect to catch nosocomial infections. The Knowledge Representation and Reasoning procedures used will be based on an extension to the Logic Programming language, allowing the handling of incomplete and/or default data. The computational framework in place will be centered on Artificial Neural Networks. It may be emphasized that in addition to the nosocomial infections risk evaluation, it is provided the Degree-of-Confidence that one has on such a happening

Recent advances in the field of anti-cancer immunotherapy

AbstractBackgroundThe main goal of anti-cancer therapy is to specifically inhibit the malignant activity of cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells unaffected. As such, for every proposed therapy, it is important to keep in mind the therapeutic index — the ratio of the toxic dose over the therapeutic dose. The use of immunotherapy has allowed a means to both specifically block protein–protein interaction and deliver cytotoxic events to a tumor-specific antigen.Review scopeIt is the objective of this review to give an overview on current immunotherapy treatment for cancers using monoclonal antibodies. We demonstrate three exciting targets for immunotherapy, TNF-α Converting Enzyme (TACE), Cathepsin S and Urokinase Plasmogen Activator and go over the advances made with one of the most used monoclonal antibodies in cancer therapy, Rituximab; as well as Herceptin, which is used for breast cancer therapy. Furthermore, we touch on other venues of immunotherapy, such as adaptive cell transfer, the use of nucleic acids and the use of dendritic cells. Finally, we summarize some ongoing studies that spell tentative advancements for anti-cancer immunotherapy.General significanceImmunotherapy is at the forefront of anti-cancer therapies, allying both a high degree of specificity to general high effectiveness and fewer side-effects

Education and wage inequality in Portugal

The main goal of this Master’s thesis is to identify the impact of education on changes in the Portuguese wage distribution using quantile regression methods. I explore the counterfactual decomposition method proposed by Machado and Mata(2005) to decompose changes in the wage distribution from 1994 to 2018 into the factors contributing to those changes: composition effects (characteristics of the Portuguese working force) and structural effects (returns to those characteristics).The results show that education was a key factor contributing to higher wages but also greater wage inequality

Evaluation of concrete deterioration through artificial neural networks based systems

The deterioration of concrete structures is one of the major concerns of our society. Indeed, concrete is a relatively sensitive material, which degrades throughout time. Factors like age, use, periodic maintenance, type of environmental exposure and aggression by biological, chemical, mechanical and physical agents are important to determine the level of degradation of the concrete structures. Logic Programming was used for knowledge representation and reasoning, letting the modeling of the universe of discourse in terms of defective data, information and knowledge. Artificial Neural Networks were used in order to evaluate the deterioration of concrete structures and the degree of confidence that one has on such a happening

Solving Challenging Problems in the Oil Industry Using Artificial Intelligence Based Tools

Predictive modelling is a process used in predictive analytics to create a statistical model of future behaviour. Predictive analytics is the area of data mining concerned with forecasting probabilities and trends. On the other hand, Artificial Intelligence (AI) concerns itself with intelligent behaviour, i.e. the things that make us seem intelligent. Following this process of thinking, in this work we have as the main goal the assessment of the impact of using AI based tools for the development of intelligent predictive models, in particular those that may be used to classify industrial waste, such as the residual waters in a refinery, based on the type of the mixtures of crude oil that arrive into the site to be processed. Indeed, these models will enable the prediction of the quality classes of the effluents that will be disposed, in order to assure that Industrial Residual Water does not affect negatively the ecology of the receptors or the Staff Health and Safety and obeys the current legislation. The software employed was Clementine 11.1 and C5.0 Algorithm was used to induce decisions trees. The data in the database was collected from 2006 to 2007, and includes production data and effluent analysis data

Desenvolvimento de um Sistema Inteligente para Avaliação da Qualidade da Aprendizagem na Química Geral

Nas Sociedades contemporâneas, cada vez mais dependentes da tecnologia, os cursos de natureza tecnológica em diferentes áreas, têm assumido uma importância crescente. As instituições de Ensino Superior têm procurado corresponder a esse desafio formando profissionais competentes e multifacetados, capazes de resolver problemas e tomar decisões de forma integrada e sustentável. Qualquer curso orientado para o desenvolvimento destas competências globais exige a introdução, no seu planos de estudos, de conteúdos de áreas muito diversas, entre as quais a Química. Contudo, estes conteúdos nem sempre estão adequados aos conhecimentos prévios dos estudantes e nem sempre são introduzidos da forma mais adequada aos objetivos que se pretendem alcançar. Alguns estudos mostram que os estudantes encaram a Química Geral como uma disciplina difícil e sem interesse, o que compromete o papel que ela deve desempenhar na sua formação. Promover uma aprendizagem efetiva e de qualidade que contribua para o desenvolvimento das competências necessárias no futuro profissional dos estudantes constitui, portanto, um grande desafio para os professores. Assim, neste trabalho apresenta-se um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão desenvolvido para avaliar a Qualidade da Aprendizagem na Química Geral, a partir de fatores que a podem condicionar, tais como os conteúdos, os professores e os alunos. O enquadramento formal é baseado em Programação em Lógica, complementado com uma abordagem computacional que utiliza Redes Neuronais Artificiais. Esta metodologia possibilitou o tratamento de informação incompleta, desconhecida ou contraditória, permitindo fornecer respostas adequadas, apresentando uma acuidade global superior a 90%