The Portuguese startup ecosystem : key success factors on the entrepreneurial ecosystem

The purpose of this research is to identify the main driver for Portuguese startups between team oriented factors and product/market oriented factors. Given the importance of startups in the economic growth of modern economies - in job creation or innovation, it is crucial to identify what drives startup success and how it differs between ecosystems. We aim at understand the characteristics of the Portuguese entrepreneurial ecosystem and compare the Portuguese environment with startup ecosystems in the USA and in Germany. First in terms of strengths and areas for improvement of the national ecosystem, and second on the critical factors for success in the perspective of entrepreneurs. The research was developed through survey interviews in which was asked to 92 entrepreneurs from Portuguese startups that participated in Web Summit 2016 to rank ecosystem factors in terms of satisfaction and importance to success. In this study, the factors that affect the startup ecosystems are analyzed and compared, suggesting that the Portuguese ecosystem for startups has a favorable human capital pool and a conductive culture that fosters entrepreneurship. On the other hand, should improve government policy and support from accelerators and incubators. The Portuguese entrepreneurial ecosystem, even though mixed in terms of primary driver for success, is mainly driven by people factors, being key in this ecosystem to access and capture talented people, but also to access international markets. It is found that ecosystems conditions are favorable to the main drivers for success in the perspective of entrepreneurs.O propósito deste estudo é a identificação do principal motivador para as startups portuguesas, entre fatores humanos e fatores relacionados com produto/mercado. Dada a importância das startups no crescimento económico nas economias modernas, seja por criação de emprego ou inovação, é crucial identificar o que leva as startups ao sucesso e como isso difere entre ecossistemas. Pretende-se perceber as características do ecossistema português para o empreendedorismo, comparando-o com ecossitemas de startups nos EUA e na Alemanha. Esta comparação é feita em termos de forças e áreas a melhorar no ecossistema nacional e posteriormente, em termos de fatores críticos para o sucesso na perspectiva do empreendedor. O estudo foi desenvolvido através da resposta a questionários feitos a 92 empreendedores de startups portuguesas que participaram na Web Summit 2016, para que avaliassem fatores do ecossistema, em termos da sua satisfação e importância para o sucesso. Neste estudo, os fatores que afetam o ecossistema de startups são analisados e comparados, sugerindo que o ecossitema português de startups tem capital humano favorável e normas culturais que fomentam empreendedorismo. Por outro lado, devem ser melhoradas políticas governamentais e apoio por parte de aceleradoras e incubadoras. O ecossistema português de empreendedorismo, apesar de misto em termos do principal condutor para o sucesso, é fundamentalmente impulsionado por fatores humanos, sendo essencial o acesso e retenção de pessoas talentosas mas também o accesso a mercados internacionais. Por fim, é exposto que as condições do ecossitema asseguram de forma satisfatória os fatores mais importantes para o sucesso de startups

A probabilistic framework and significance test for the analysis of structural orientations in skyscape archaeology

The assessment of the orientation of built structures is often hampered by the lack of historical or ethnographic records that could be used to support claims of alignments to celestial events such as the rising and settings of sun, moon or stars. This has led to an obsession with surveying large numbers of structures in order to iden- tify patterns in orientation that might betray intentionality - however, no first-principles framework has ever been proposed and the few statistical significance tests used are of limited applicability. This paper addresses these problems by laying out a probabilistic framework for the analysis of structural orientations and using it to develop a test of statistical significance. The framework is based on two simple premises: firstly, that the mea- surement of a structural orientation can be modelled as a probability distribution; and secondly, that in order to assess the likelihood of celestial alignments such a distribution needs to be coordinate-transformed in a man- ner not unlike that of radiocarbon calibration. A method that aggregates multiple structural orientations and quantifies their statistical significance in the form of a p-value is then introduced. Finally, the robustness of the presented methodology over previous approaches is demonstrated using real-world datasets of orientations of an- cient Egyptian temples and tombs and Scottish Recumbent Stone Circles, and the ensuing conclusions compared with past interpretations

JOINT CODING OF MULTIMODAL BIOMEDICAL IMAGES US ING CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORKS

The massive volume of data generated daily by the gathering of medical images with different modalities might be difficult to store in medical facilities and share through communication networks. To alleviate this issue, efficient compression methods must be implemented to reduce the amount of storage and transmission resources required in such applications. However, since the preservation of all image details is highly important in the medical context, the use of lossless image compression algorithms is of utmost importance. This thesis presents the research results on a lossless compression scheme designed to encode both computerized tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET). Different techniques, such as image-to-image translation, intra prediction, and inter prediction are used. Redundancies between both image modalities are also investigated. To perform the image-to-image translation approach, we resort to lossless compression of the original CT data and apply a cross-modality image translation generative adversarial network to obtain an estimation of the corresponding PET. Two approaches were implemented and evaluated to determine a PET residue that will be compressed along with the original CT. In the first method, the residue resulting from the differences between the original PET and its estimation is encoded, whereas in the second method, the residue is obtained using encoders inter-prediction coding tools. Thus, in alternative to compressing two independent picture modalities, i.e., both images of the original PET-CT pair solely the CT is independently encoded alongside with the PET residue, in the proposed method. Along with the proposed pipeline, a post-processing optimization algorithm that modifies the estimated PET image by altering the contrast and rescaling the image is implemented to maximize the compression efficiency. Four different versions (subsets) of a publicly available PET-CT pair dataset were tested. The first proposed subset was used to demonstrate that the concept developed in this work is capable of surpassing the traditional compression schemes. The obtained results showed gains of up to 8.9% using the HEVC. On the other side, JPEG2k proved not to be the most suitable as it failed to obtain good results, having reached only -9.1% compression gain. For the remaining (more challenging) subsets, the results reveal that the proposed refined post-processing scheme attains, when compared to conventional compression methods, up 6.33% compression gain using HEVC, and 7.78% using VVC

Measuring experience in international business: a systematic literature review

The paper explores the indicators that measure the experience in international business. Literature review was used to ascertain the state of the art of the existing indexes and theories. The internationalisation of businesses is a fundamental strategic step to increase companies' competitive advantage and profits. Nevertheless, even though internationalisation is widely accepted as an important source of value for companies and is a broad object of investigation, there is still much to study about how to measure experience at the level of international business. The absence of a coherent approach to measure experience in international businesses in past empirical studies made it difficult to create a solution with theoretical concepts that would support further studies in this matter. The results are not contradictory, but complementary, as, through individual internationalization indicators, it is possible to evolve and create indices, such as the Transnationality Index or the Transnational Activities Spread Index. The biggest constraint on the analysed indices is the fact that they focus mainly on the internationalisation of transnational companies and the type of data that was used to build the indexes (secondary data). However, by studying international experience through the number of years and the network spread, it is possible to overcome some of the existing challenges.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Applying the activity-based costing (abc) model in a consulting company: an improvement of the model

JEL Classification System: M10Em ambientes instáveis e de constante mudança, de que é exemplo o atual mundo das organizações, é notória a necessidade sentida pelas empresas, de conseguirem superar os seus concorrentes, tanto ao nível da estratégia, como ao nível de ferramentas utilizadas. Neste sentido, são cada vez mais as ferramentas disponibilizadas às empresas, que as auxiliam no processo de tomada de decisão, bem como no alcance de uma maior eficiência em todos os seus processos internos. É, também, por este motivo, que existe uma evidente necessidade de estar constantemente a inovar estas ferramentas, de modo a que as organizações consigam estar sempre um passo à frente dos seus concorrentes. O tema deste projeto surge, então, no seguimento da referida necessidade, tendo como objetivo adaptar uma ferramenta (já existente no mercado) – o modelo de custeio Activity-Based Costing – a uma empresa de Consultoria de Gestão, a Winning Management Consulting. Esta aplicação pretende, assim, provar a adaptabilidade deste modelo à Consultoria, uma vez que são diversos os benefícios que uma empresa pode alcançar com a sua utilização, nomeadamente no auxílio da tomada de decisão e também na gestão de custos. Em paralelo, o projeto contemplará, ainda, uma análise secundária (em complemento ao modelo aplicado), que permitirá à empresa atuar, não só sobre os processos principais (que foram alvo de análise no modelo de custeio ABC), mas também sobre todos os processos secundários, que permitem o correto funcionamento da empresa. Pretende-se então, com esta análise, contribuir positivamente para uma melhoria do modelo.In unstable and constant changing environments, as it is the current organizational world, it is notable the real need felt by companies on trying to overcome their competitors, in both employed strategy and auxiliary tools. In this way, there is an increase in the available tools in the market, which aim to help companies in their decision-making process and in the achievement of higher efficiency in the running of all their internal processes. Due to this, the necessity on being constantly innovating these tools outstands significantly in companies, in order to these to be always one step in front of their competitors. From this necessity arises the subject of this project, as it pretends to adapt an existing tool – the costing model “Activity-Based Costing” – to a management consulting company, named Winning Management Consulting. This application aims to prove the adaptability of this model to the Consulting sector, as there are so many benefits that a company may achieve from its application, namely in the assistance to the decision-making process and to the cost management. In parallel, the project will also contemplate a secondary analysis (a complement to the ABC model), which will allow the company to act not only upon the main processes (that were analyzed in the ABC), but also upon all the secondary processes, without which would not be possible the correct running of the business. In conclusion, this analysis aims to positively contribute to the model’s improvement

The role of influencer marketing: a case study in the gas and fuel sector

Currently, consumers look for much information about brands on the Internet, specifically through the disclosure made by digital influencers. Understanding this behaviour, brands seek to create partnerships with influencers (celebrities, macro, micro and nano) to attract consumers and provoke high engagement with brands online. In this context, brands create partnerships with influencers to increase their reach, generate more significant interaction and consequently improve brand value. This study aimed to analyze the role of different influencers in a communication strategy in the gas and fuel sector. The study comprised a quantitative analysis through a questionnaire with a sample of 143 individuals. The results showed that most participants considered influencers specialists in their work area and used shared content as a source of information.publishe

Selecting edible medusae by 18S rDNA sequencing

Poster apresentado no 4º Encontro de Biologia Molecular em Saúde. ESSEM - Escola Superior de Saúde Egas Moniz, Caparica, 21-22 Março de 2014.Poster presented at the 4th Molecular Biology in Health Meeting, 21-22 March 2014, ESSEM - Escola Superior de Saúde Egas Moniz, Caparica, Portugal

Metodologias aplicadas na fiscalização e na coordenação da segurança duma empreitada de construção de um edifício

Visa este meu relatório, caracterizar as metodologias e os procedimentos levados a cabo por uma equipa de Fiscalização de uma empreitada de Construção de um edifício. As actividades levadas a cabo por essa equipa focam-se na Fiscalização propriamente dita e na Coordenação da Segurança em Fase de Obra no estrito cumprimento da legislação em vigor. A informação que colhi para a realização deste relatório resulta da minha participação numa equipa da Consulgal – Consultores de Engenharia e Gestão, SA, durante 4 meses. Este trabalho pretende também ser um apoio para recém formados que tal como eu, pretendem entrar no mercado de trabalho e desconhecem as realidades que ocorrem nas empreitadas de Construção e como se articulam as diversas actividades da Construção até se chegar ao produto final, ou seja a recepção de uma obra concluída. Este trabalho integra 5 capítulos designadamente: - Descrição da obra e da equipa de Fiscalização: Pretende-se descrever a obra e o seu enquadramento no âmbito da legislação em vigor e a constituição da equipa de Fiscalização, contratada para o efeito, bem como as competências que lhe são atribuídas. - Descrição do Projecto de Execução: - Descreve-se o projecto de execução nas suas várias especialidades. - Metodologias e procedimentos na Fiscalização: Pretende-se descrever as metodologias e os procedimentos no âmbito do controlo da Informação, da Qualidade, do Planeamento, do Controlo de Custos, da Segurança e do Ambiente. - Metodologias e procedimentos na Coordenação da Segurança em Fase de Obra: Pretende-se descrever as metodologias e procedimentos levados a cabo pelo Coordenador da Segurança, em fase de obra no estrito cumprimento da legislação em vigor. - Relato das Actividades de Construção: Pretende-se descrever actividades de construção acompanhadas com o respectivo registo fotográfico durante os 4 meses em que integrei a equipa de Fiscalização como estagiário

Metodologia de memorização através de propostas gráficas

Relatório da prática de ensino supervisionada, Mestrado em Ensino de Artes Visuais, Universidade de Lisboa, 2011A sociedade de hoje, com a grande facilidade no acesso à imagem, leva a maioria dos alunos a não exercitar a sua memória visual. Este relatório tem como objectivo ajudar a colmatar essa falha, de forma construir junto do aluno vocabulários gráficos, indispensáveis à criatividade. Esta pesquisa teve como principal referência Harold Speed, que descreve a memorização visual como um processo que exige uma interpretação artística e técnica daquilo que se está a ver. Optou-se então por desenhar no quadro uma proposta de forma a ser memorizada pelos alunos que assim já ultrapassam os problemas interpretativos da tridimensionalidade. Speed indica a necessidade de se memorizar todos os pormenores, os ângulos ou as linhas principais, o que nos levou a inserir mnemónicas visuais a acompanhar a proposta gráfica. A metodologia foi testada, pedindo-se aos alunos que resolvessem primeiro um exercício recorrendo à sua própria memória. A seguir o aluno respondia ao mesmo exercício mas já com a memorização da proposta e o auxílio das mnemónicas. Alguns sentiram maior segurança recorrendo às suas próprias referências do que memorizando propostas dadas. No entanto as melhores respostas foram obtidas na segunda resposta com a aplicação da metodologia. Constatou-se que através da apreensão de vocabulário gráfico o aluno pode ter mais facilidade na interpretação do mundo que o rodeia.In the modern society, it is very easy to get access to images. This promotes a lack of exercise of most students’ visual memory. This methodology aimed to fill this gap in order to build vocabulary charts, which are essential to creativity. The research had as its main source Harold Speed, who describes visual memory as a process that requires an artistic and technical interpretation of what one is seeing. However this creates a problem for students with shortcomings in representation. So we decided to draw in the board one image that should be memorized by the students, who thus have overcome the problems of translation from three dimensions. Speed indicates the need to memorize all the details, angles or the main lines, which led us to insert visual mnemonics with the proposed design. The methodology was tested by asking students to solve a first exercise using their own memory. After this, the students responded to the same exercise but now with the memorization of the proposals and mnemonics. Some felt safer with their own referrals rather than memorizing the proposals at hand. However, the majority responded better in the second resolution with the application of the methodology . It was found that through the seizure of graphic vocabulary, students may have greater ease in the artistic interpretation of the world around them