An exploration of modal, serial, stochastic, electroacoustic and computer aided compositional techniques and their application into a series of original compositions

The text is divided into two parts preceded by an introduction. The introduction focuses on some general issues that relate to musical composition: More specifically, it discusses the motivation of a composer and the goals he tries to achieve. The first section of part I focuses on small-scale technical aspects in relation to the music submitted. More specifically, it deals with aspects relating to melody and harmony, counterpoint, timbre, tempo, rhythm and meter. The second section of the first part focuses on large-scale construction elements like the juxtaposition and development of ideas, the role of numbers and proportions on the submitted music as well as on certain aesthetic issues. In this first part, an overview is given of the techniques that were used in order to create the pieces that are included in this PhD. The goal is not to give a detailed analysis of the techniques but to emphasize the ideas that might interest other composers and facilitate them in then: search for their own organisational tools. Consequently, the creation of a 'system' of musical composition is out of the scope of this research. It is also true that there are many aspects of contemporary composition that are not discussed in this text, mainly because of the fact that they were not used in these particular pieces that were submitted with the theoretical part. Part II focuses on the main subject of the PhD, the submitted pieces themselves. It contains information that relates to the program notes as well as the actual scores of the pieces that can be studied together with the available recordings found on the CD. The opening commentaries of the second part include key structural points of the music as well as issues regarding their aesthetic approach. Each submitted piece is an 'amalgamation' of a series of techniques and thoughts on music so that the reader will be able to trace the evolution of thoughts among the different pieces. The works, however, are presented at random rather than in chronological order. This is because they were not written one after the other, but have undergone changes affecting one another up the last completion of the entire project. In this sense they do form a larger 'circle' of musical pieces while the last one, Engraving, which was composed separately at the very end of this 'circle', functions as a 'coda' to the whole project. The Epilogue of the theoretical part deals with personal thoughts regarding future 'musical quests'. The music and the ideas take composers into certain directions regarding future works and professional decisions that relate to the compositional activity as well as to decisions regarding technical and aesthetic issues. These are presented at the end of the text

Low-Cost Broadband Connections: A Key Factor for SME Virtual Organizations

In an open global market, SMEs are facing new challenges while trying to compete with large worldwide corporations. The forming of innovative alliances, known as virtual organizations (VO), is one of the most interesting proposals to achieve competitiveness and exploit strategic advantages. However, besides the obvious positive potential of innovative actions like VOs, there are several drawbacks, especially when SMEs are involved in such projects. VOs have very high needs for IT and communications; in fact they rely so much on them that the forming of a VO is only possible with the development of an extensive information and communication infrastructure. A lot of innovating management, re-forming and re-structuring is involved in joining several independent companies into a new virtual schema and several cultural, economical and legislative problems must also be overcome. In this paper we focus on the technological needs, and in particular, the need for an organization-wide data sharing and communication network. The high cost involved with the investments necessary in IT and communications technology make the effort harder for SMEs, even if it was to be assumed that they could manage the other important aspects of forming a VO. Along with the cost of computer equipment and specialized software, networking cost has until recently been a particularly prohibiting factor for SMEs even on the most advanced business sectors. A new term, the “virtual organization technology threshold†is introduced, defined as the minimum of IT and communication technologies necessary to form a “true†virtual organization, in its pure and functional form described and widely adopted by the scientific community. The investments needed for IT and communications to form a VO are analyzed and compared to the related investments of conventional SMEs in EU. The evolution in the cost, focused around the networking tools, is then examined to extract useful information about the feasibility of such specialized investments compared to the overall investment and turnovers of typical SMEs. We then argue that a recent development, the price drop and wide spread of broadband connections can act as a “key factor†that could make the difference in lowering the “threshold†and increasing the possibilities for SMEs to compete successfully by utilizing technological advantages and innovations that have until now considered to be more suitable for larger enterprises.

applying health promotion principles to a pandemic threat

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Health in Europe and in Portugal – A Commentary on the ‘Health at a Glance: Europe 2018’ Report

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Plongeons, précipitations et projections d'offrandes : mort et mouvement dans la poésie grecque archaïque

Cette thèse se propose d’étudier l’expression du mouvement dans la poésie grecque ancienne et plus particulièrement le lien qui unit la mort au mouvement de chute dans la poésie homérique. La question du mouvement apparaît en filigrane dans toutes les études qui se préoccupent de la mort en Grèce ancienne et de ses différentes représentations. À travers non seulement différentes expressions métaphoriques, mais aussi via la chute des corps sur le champ de bataille, la chute de certains objets et le plongeon de différents personnages, le mouvement illustre la mort ou son imminence. Loin de figurer seulement le plongeon de l’âme vers les Enfers, le mouvement de chute figure aussi un large éventail d’états émotionnels et s’avère un moyen efficace d’exprimer des états altérés de conscience, par exemple le passage entre la vie et la mort, le sommeil, la folie et l’ivresse, mais aussi des émotions d’une grande intensité telles que la colère, la douleur et la tristesse. Cette utilisation du mouvement de chute dans la poésie grecque s’exprime dans l’imaginaire poétique, mais également dans les pratiques rituelles recensées dans la poésie homérique. En effet, dans l’Iliade, le mouvement de chute, qui apparaît dans la libation, le serment rituel et les rites funéraires, ne signifierait pas seulement la mort, mais dans certains cas, la mort sans inhumation. Cette découverte nous permet de poser un regard nouveau sur les pratiques rituelles du poème qui mettent en lumière la véritable volonté des Achéens, explicitée au chant 3 (Il. 3. 276-301). Celle-ci consisterait non seulement à tuer les hommes et les enfants, et à mettre les femmes en esclavage, mais aussi à abandonner les corps de leurs ennemis aux éléments et donc de leur refuser l’inhumation, ce qui pose problème dans le contexte religieux de la Grèce ancienne. Le mouvement de chute, à travers le geste de projection, exprime une menace que le public grec devait parfaitement comprendre et qui s’avère centrale pour l’ensemble de l’intrigue. Il apparaît aussi que le mouvement posséderait une « efficacité magique » qui permettrait de déclencher et de sceller un serment. Durant toute l’Antiquité, la signification du mouvement change à travers le temps, s’approfondit, se complexifie et s’il permettait de représenter la mort et la tristesse chez Homère, durant toute la fin de l’époque archaïque jusqu’aux derniers jours de l’Empire romain, le mouvement prend parfois une connotation érotique. En raison de la capacité du mouvement à représenter différents états altérés de conscience et de ses liens étroits avec la mort et le deuil, le plongeon devient alors le modèle exemplaire de la souffrance amoureuse. Cette thèse permet donc d’observer l’évolution d’un motif qui conserve tout au long de l’Antiquité sa dimension mortifère, mais qui, encore aujourd’hui, exprime un lien poétique étroit entre la mort et l’érotisme.This thesis proposes to study the expression of movement in ancient Greek poetry and particularly the link between death and the physical act of falling in Homeric poetry. The question of movement appears implicitly in all studies concerned with death in ancient Greece and its different representations. Through not only different metaphorical expressions, but also through the fall of bodies on the battlefield, the fall of certain objects and the plunge of different characters, human and divine, the movement illustrates death or its imminence. Far from representing only the plunge of the soul into the Underworld, the falling movement also represents a wide range of emotional states and proves to be an effective way of expressing altered states of consciousness, for example the passage between life and death, sleep, madness and drunkenness, but also emotions of great intensity such as anger, pain and sadness. This use of the movement in Greek poetry is expressed in the poetic imagination, but also in the ritual practices recorded in Homeric poetry. Indeed, in the Iliad, the movement of fall which appears in libation, ritual oath and funeral rites would not only mean death, but in certain cases, death without burial. This discovery allows us to take a new look at the ritual practices of the poem which bring to light the true will of the Achaeans, explicitly shown in the third book (Il. 3. 276- 301), which is not only to kill men and children, and to enslave women, but to abandon the bodies of their enemies to the elements and thus to refusing them burial, which is problematic in the religious context of the ancient Greece. The falling movement, through the gesture of projection, expresses a threat that the Greek audience had to fully understand and is central to the entire plot. It also appears that the movement would possess a "magical efficiency" which would make it possible to trigger and seal an oath. Throughout Antiquity, the meaning of the movement through time became more complex and if it represents death and sadness in Homer, throughout the end of the archaic period until the last days of the Roman Empire, the movement eventually took an erotic connotation. Because of his capacity to represent various altered states of consciousness and its close links with death and mourning, the plunge then becomes the exemplary model of the suffering in love. This thesis thus makes it possible to observe the evolution of a motive which preserves throughout Antiquity its mortiferous dimension, but which, even today, expresses a close poetic link between death and eroticism

Le saut de Leucade : érotique et contre-érotique d’un rituel de précipitation en Grèce ancienne

L’amour, la mort et la souffrance sont parmi les expériences les plus incompréhensibles que l’homme doit affronter dans sa vie. Elles définissent sa nature et font partie intégrante de son univers symbolique. Le saut de Leucade aurait été pratiqué pendant plus de mille ans. À la fois présent dans les récits mythiques, religieux et historiques, le rituel est attesté par les premiers historiens de l’Antiquité qui décrivent ce phénomène à partir des données de l’historiographie antique. La forme traditionnelle du saut s’inscrit dans l’univers mythologique des Grecs et le plongeon est un acte de délivrance de la passion amoureuse. La nature du rituel change selon les contextes littéraires, passant d’un rite érotique à un rituel apotropaïque pour se voir perpétuer de manière désacralisée dans les récits plus tardifs. L’analyse des différentes fonctions du saut semble démontrer le profil d’une expérience limite, où la mort serait vécue de manière métaphorique et pose le problème de la nature ordalique du rituel qui serait à la base de son efficacité pragmatique. Cette étude projette d’analyser les formes de la pensée grecque dans son expression anthropologique à travers la dialectique du mythe et du rite et vise à comprendre l’interprétation de la souffrance amoureuse dans le cadre du rituel de précipitation. Le saut de Leucade serait dès lors un discours spécifique qui témoignerait d’une certaine conception de la nature humaine, de la mort et de la souffrance amoureuse dans l’imaginaire de la Grèce ancienne.Love, death and suffering are among some of the most incomprehensible experiences confronting man during his life. They define his nature and make up an integral part of his symbolic universe. The Leucadian Leap is deemed to have been practiced for more than a thousand years. Appearing in mythical, religious as well as in historical narratives, the ritual is attested by the first historians in Antiquity who explain this phenomenon from the data of the antique historiography. The traditional meaning of the leap is inscribed in Greek mythological context and the leap is thus relief from passionate love. The nature of the ritual changes according to literary contexts, from a purely erotic rite, to a apotropaic rite, to see it being perpetuated in a deconsecrated manner in later texts. Analysis of the different functions of the leap seem to point toward an extreme death-defying experience where death was experienced in a metaphorical manner and provides a hypothesis for the ritual’s ordalic nature as a basis for its pragmatic efficiency. This study purports to analyze the Greek mental forms as expressed anthropologically through the dialectic of myth and ritual and aims at understanding the interpretation of love suffering within the context of a leaping ritual in Ancient Greece. The Leucadian Leap would thus appear to correspond to a specific discourse which would testify to a certain conception of human nature, of death, of love and of suffering in Ancient Greece’s collective imagination

Os Cuidados de Saúde Face aos Desafios do Nosso Tempo: Contributos para a Gestão da Mudança

Os tempos que vivemos estão carregados de sinais que, se devidamente interpretados, indiciam profundas alterações que exigem mudança. Não são a emblemática e redonda data dos 40 anos do Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS), ou o fim da legislatura e a preparação de uma outra ou sequer a discussão da Lei de Bases da Saúde que estão em causa. Estes não passam de meros pretextos que, se bem aproveitados, podem constituir-se como parte da resposta aos desafios atrás referidos

Sleep patterns and insomnia among portuguese adolescents: a cross-sectional study

AbstractIntroductionInadequate sleep patterns and insomnia are frequently linked and represent common sleep disorders among adolescents. The present study provides data on sleep patterns and insomnia among Portuguese adolescents.Material e methodsIn a cross-sectional study we evaluated 6,919 students from the 7th to the 12th grade from twenty-six secondary schools. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Insomnia was defined based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV criteria and daytime sleepiness was assessed with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Sleep patterns evaluated both sleep duration (“insufficient” sleep was defined as < 8 hours per night) and bedtime schedules and regularity.ResultsThe prevalence of insomnia was 8.3%, insomnia symptoms 21.4% and insufficient sleep 29.3%. All prevalence were higher among girls (P<.001). Average sleep time, on weeknights, was 8:04±1:13 hours. On average adolescents went to bed at 22:18±1:47 hours, took 21 minutes to fall asleep and woke up at 7:15±0:35 hours. Only 6.4% of adolescents stated having a regular bedtime. The majority of adolescents (90.6%) reported having difficulty waking up, 64.7% experienced daytime sleepiness and 53.3% experienced sleep during classes.ConclusionsThere are high prevalence of inadequate sleep patterns, insufficient sleep and insomnia among Portuguese adolescents. Insufficient sleep is associated with sleep patterns and social and behavioural factors. These results add to our knowledge of adolescent sleep worldwide

COVID-19 and Seasonal Flu During the Autumn-Winter of 2020/2021 and the Challenges Lying Ahead for Hospitals

The possibility of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic coexisting with a simultaneous epidemic of influenza and the co-circulation of other seasonal respiratory viruses sets the stage for a perfect storm. Preparing for the Autumn-Winter of 2020/2021 is complex, requiring centralized guidance but local and regional solutions, with strong leadership and a high level of coordination. It is essential to act upstream of hospitals in order to reduce demand on emergency departments, minimizing the risk of transmission that occurs there and the team overload, as well as downstream to ensure capacity for hospitalization and in the hospital itself to optimize resources and organization. The failure of this plan will create unbearable pressure on hospital care. The authors describe the challenges lying ahead for hospitals and the most important measures that should be included in this plan to prepare the Autumn-Winter of 2020/2021 in Portugal.publishersversionpublishe