STRENGTHENING (POST-STRESS) OF MASONRY BUILDINGS METHOD OF VERTICALIZATION OF LOAD

Um método para recuperação das fendas nos arcos em alvenaria

A macroeconomia da construção em alvenaria estrutural e em betão armado

Impacto macroeconómico da construção em alvenaria estrutural

Hope, change, and the financial markets: can Obama's public speeches drive the U.S. stock market

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsBarack Obama arose as President of the United States of America during a financial crisis, that has harmed everyone. While he talked of hope and change, the media praised his rhetoric. This paper proposes a methodology based on word occurrence and manual content analysis to analyse whether his public speeches drive the financial markets. The econometric evidence suggests that even though his speeches per se do not have an impact on the markets, some of his specific oratorical features do. This impact is visible both on contemporaneous daily returns and on cumulative (three days and seven days) returns

Comparação ambiental de alvenaria estrutural e construção convencional: Aplicação ao edifício modelo

Verificar as emissões de CO2 e a energia incorporada na construção em alvenaria estrutural

Análise da sustentabilidade da alvenaria estrutural : unidade cerâmica.

Tese de Doutoramento em Arquitectura, na especialidade de Arquitectura e Gestão da Construção

Comparison of embodied energy and carbon dioxide emissions of brick and concrete based on functional units

Building materials have different consumption patterns of energy and emissions of carbon dioxide during their production. These differences result from the treatment of the raw materials and the techniques applied to production. Subsequently on an environmental classification one wonders what kind of constructive solution becomes more benevolent to the environment. Masonry building technique has made a comeback as an alternative to conventional reinforced concrete structures with ceramic blocks for closing the spans. The present study refers to the environmental comparison of these two systems. As the definition of functional unit has been introduced to facilitate the comparison of different existing alternatives, the walls are chosen as the functional units, for different building plans and conditions. The comparison considers the most important environmental parameters, i.e. the embodied energy and the carbon footprint. Results obtained indicate that masonry-building walls have a lower embodied energy and carbon footprint compared to those of conventional building. The differences vary with the length of the walls, but are over 22% and reach some 55%. It is hoped that the different wall types considered will enable the comparison of the two options for real application

Pathologies - Incompatibility of materials and human intervention in a historic building of Elvas

Preserving and safeguarding the identity and original authenticity are targets to accomplish, in an action of conservation, restoration or rehabilitation of buildings, taking into account that interventions respect the values of compatibility, adaptability and reversibility. Any intervention that takes place in a historic building, will depend on a historical survey which ideally includes the knowledge of the origin, the building design, materials and construction techniques used, building’ s occupants and constructive interventions realized. In a historic building, such as the military building called "Governor’s House of Square" in Elvas, after identifying the constructive anomalies and their causes, it has been found that human action was preponderant, because of vandalism and posterior constructive interventions. Some pathology identified are as, anomalies in the coating or failure in a lintel of the exterior wall. In the first case the anomalies are certainly due to incompatibility between the support material and the coating, because of the exposure to thermal amplitude. The admissible correction in this case will be the removal of the coating, exposure of hidden masonry and implementation of a compatible coating based on lime and sand. The later case shows that mechanical action involved has exceeded the capacity of flexural strength of the lintel. The posterior opening of the entrance caused changes in the distribution of vertical loads and consequently provoked the failure. In an attempt to preserve the building and the testimony of many years, it seems to be of interest to maintain the entrance and instead to replace the lintel adequately in material and dimension.Umbelino Monteiro; ADENE; CIN; Fase; Rebau; Roca; S+; STB; STAP; OMEG; UPorto; FCT

Comparison of costs of brick construction and concrete structure based on functional units

In the context of economic sustainability of building construction, it is an issue to decide which constructive solution is more reasonable without loosing quality. This study is about the comparison of the costs of construction of structural walls; conventional reticulated reinforced concrete structure filled with ceramic blocks versus unreinforced masonry with ceramic blocks. Functional units are defined as inner and outer walls to enable a further specification of the costs in order to perform a more detailed comparison without having designed a specific architecture. The results show a lower cost of unreinforced masonry construction, especially in the case of small buildings, whether for home or public services

Essays on executive performance, pay, and gender inequality

Top managers are key players in modern economies. This thesis contributes to the understanding of top managers' performance and pay. The first chapter advances the literature on optimal CEO characteristics, by studying the impact of newcomer CEOs on rm performance during a major economic crisis. The second and third chapters focus on the managerial power extracted from professional networks, using an original dataset. While the second chapter quantifies the network pay premium for top managers, the last chapter investigates to what extent networks can be an additional source contributing to the gender pay gap at the top of the corporate ladder

Hope, Change, and Financial Markets: Can Obama's Words Drive the Market?

Barack Obama’s victory in the 2009 presidential elections in the United States is widely credited to his personal charisma and his extraordinary rhetorical powers, as revealed throughout the campaign. President Obama was inaugurated in the midst of the worst economic crisis in the country, when individuals and organizations yearned for leadership and signs of change. We code an array of rhetorical features in Obama´s main speeches and press conferences and assess their impact on stock returns of the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and NASDAQ indices, at 3 and 7 day time horizons. We find that words matter. Paragraphs matter, too. We also uncover how some of Obama´s rhetorical abilities that are politically effective seem to be perceived negatively by economic agents, and have a significant negative impact on stock returns.Barack Obama; financial markets; political economy; speech content