A phase of transient subsidence, sediment bypass and deposition of regressive-transgressive cycles during the breakup of Iberia and Newfoundland

Seismic, outcrop and well data from West Iberia and Newfoundland are used to investigate sediment stacking patterns during continental breakup as a function of tectonic subsidence. In West Iberia, two breakup sequences are revealed on seismic data by marked strata offlap oceanwards from the present-day continental shelf. This character is similar to Newfoundland, where correlative strata comprise Lower Cretaceous–Cenomanian coarse-grained siliciclastics accumulated around local sediment-source areas. The interpreted data reveal that the two breakup sequences: 1) materialise sediment bypass onto continental-slope depocentres that experienced important tectonic subsidence during continental breakup, but without showing typical syn-rift growth packages; 2) generate specific forced-regressive stratigraphic intervals that relate to uplift and exhumation of the proximal margin. Subsidence and sediment stacking patterns in both West Iberia and Newfoundland reflect similar continental breakup processes as they evolved from the upper lithosphere- to their mantle-breakup stages. On both margins, coarse-grained siliciclastic units on the proximal margin give rise to thick shaley successions in deep-water basins. This work also confirms that in a setting dominated by a significant sediment influx, yet lacking the burial rates of continental slope basins in Newfoundland, West Iberia comprised accommodation-driven basins during continental breakup, not necessarily sediment starved. As a corollary of our analysis, we classify breakup sequences around the world based on the characteristic lithologies of their regressive–transgressive depositional cycles

Inter- and intra-annual variability of wave energy in Northern mainland Portugal: Application to the HiWave-5 project

Ocean wave energy capacity has been pointed out as one of the unexplored renewable energy sources to help reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, contributing to meeting the European Green Deal targets. However, despite the broad range of wave energy converter technologies already developed in a sustainable and economic model, there is still a lack of structured projects with high performance beyond the prototype stage. This paper investigates the potential for large-scale electricity production by the innovative HiWave-5 project in Aguçadoura (on the Northern coast of mainland Portugal). Wind–wave data (1950–2020) from the ERA5 reanalysis model are used to estimate inter- and intra-annual wave energy variability in Aguçadoura. ERA5 data is compared with field wind–wave data recorded between 2012–2019 near the study area. A mean wave power resource of 25.84 kW/m is obtained, for a possible device capture equal to 119.45 kW, despite a considerable intra-annual variability (ranging between 8.03 and 47.57 kW/m) and inter-annual variability (between 18.29 and 35.47 kW/m). Results show that local wave conditions do not substantially compromise the absolute performance of the device, given its survival limitations to adverse conditions. Considering a Levelized Cost of Energy of around €60/MWh, an annual investment of €62 885 is estimated, tending to meet targets for large sustainable electricity generation with the exponential growth expected until 2030, aided by the increase of devices in an energy farm concept. Wave power resources estimated using ERA5 data can underestimate about 7.20% values obtained with the wave buoy data.The second and third authors thank FCT/MCTES for the financial support to CESAM, Portugal (UIDP/50017/2020+UIDB/50017/ 2020+ LA/P/0094/2020), through national funds. The authors also want to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Optimization Design Flow of Integrated Circuits based on Machine Learning Approaches

Nowadays, the increased complexity of analog/digital circuits and the extremelly wide range of specifications tend to change how an integrated-circuit designer addresses circuit optimization. A traditional analog engineer likes to use some intuition when designing circuits, as a second step following paper-pencil analysis. However, the numerous parameters that influence the circuit IV in modern transistors do not provide good guesses. Moreover, an optimization based on multiple parameter sweep helps only when the design space is reduced, which is not the case in modern designs. The present thesis, developed at INTEL (in Munich site, Germany), addresses new paradigms of circuit optimization. The proposed work relies on the use of machine learning techniques applied to the design of complex CMOS systems

BASSILO - Battery storage sizing and location in distribution systems

This thesis addresses the problem of sizing and optimal location of non-domestic energy storage, batteries, in distribution networks that integrate distributed photovoltaic generation, with the objective of analysing its exploration potential in the energy business. For this purpose, a formulation based on line programming and the EPSO metaheuristic (Evolutionary Particle Swarm Operation) has been proposed for the minimization of the costs of including a storage system in the energy grid.Given the size and location of the battery, a formulation based on linear programming will allow to determine the optimal operation of the battery for the following cases: in the first study, the operation of the battery in the base of one day. In the second, the operation of the battery in the base of multiple consecutive days. The optimal size and location of the battery is determined using the EPSO metaheuristics, which will evaluate the costs involved in the two perspectives of operation of the battery, previously proposed.The results presented are for a realistic power network, CIGRE - European MV distribution network benchmark, modified to be operated as a radial network, comprising distributed loads (commercial and residential) and photovoltaic generation for several operating scenarios in which the variation of energy prices, are considered to validate the proposed business exploration model

Ingestão de cafeína e risco de arritmias

Trabalho complementar (Monografia) realizado no âmbito da Unidade Curricular Estágio da Licenciatura em Ciências da Nutrição da Faculdade de Ciências da Nutrição e Alimentação da Universidade do Porto, sob orientação da Dra. Cristina Arteiro (Faculdade de Ciências da Nutrição e Alimentação da Universidade do Porto e Serviço de Endocrinologia do Hospital de São João)Resumo da tese: A cafeína é uma substância presente em diversos alimentos ou bebidas, nomeadamente, o café, o chá, o chocolate, o cacau, as colas e as bebidas energéticas. Em Portugal, o café é um produto muito consumido e é o que representa a maior fonte de ingestão de cafeína no País. A grande maioria das revisões sistemáticas acerca deste tema indicam que o consumo mais indicado para um individuo saudável corresponde a 400 mg de cafeína por dia. O foco deste trabalho é verificar se um doente com arritmias pode igualmente consumir cafeína como um consumidor saudável; e, no seu desenvolvimento, comprovar-se-á que o consumo de cafeína é até benéfico para algumas doenças cardiovasculares. Além disso, o café, que será um dos produtos mais focado neste trabalho, contém outros componentes que influenciam a ação no organismo; por exemplo, os antioxidantes, que parecem proteger contra arritmias e preservar as funções cardiovasculares. Atualmente, na prática clínica, há ainda o costume de restringir o consumo de cafeína, especialmente, no café e no chá cafeinados, contudo muitos investigadores defendem que esta realidade já foi ultrapassada por novos estudos e é muito importante esclarecê-la e explorá-la. Tudo indica que futuramente será possível aconselhar um doente com arritmias sobre o consumo recomendável de cafeína, sendo que o seu consumo poderá depender de algumas precauções./Thesis abstract: Caffeine is a substance present in many foods or beverages, including coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, colas and energy drinks. In Portugal, people consume a lot of coffee and it represents the main source of caffeine intake in the country. Most of the systematic review on this subject indicates that the most suitable consumption for a healthy individual corresponds to 400 mg of caffeine per day. The focus of this work is to verify if a patient with arrhythmias may also consume caffeine as a healthy person, and in its development, it seems to prove that caffeine is actually beneficial to some cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, coffee will be one of the most focused products in this study, and it contains other components that influence the action in the body; for example, antioxidants, which appear to protect against arrhythmias and preserve the cardiovascular functions. Currently in clinical practice, there is still the custom to restrict caffeine consumption, especially in caffeinated coffee and tea, but many researchers argue that this reality has been superseded by new studies and it is very important to clarify it and exploit it. Everything indicates that in the future it will be possible to advise a patient with arrhythmia about the recommendable consumption of caffeine, and its consumption may depend on a few precautions

Estatísticas temporais relativas a doentes com SIDA sujeitos a tratamento anti retrovírico

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia de SistemasEste projeto retrata o desenvolvimento de estatísticas relativas ao tratamento da SIDA no âmbito de melhorias à aplicação SI.VIDA, na empresa Glintt Healthcare Solutions S.A. Esta aplicação tem como propósito auxiliar os profissionais de saúde com ferramentas e funções que tornem mais eficaz o tratamento a esta epidemia. As estatísticas desenvolvidas visam, a partir dos dados da aplicação, demonstrar, tanto a nível do doente como a nível global, para todos os doentes da unidade hospitalar, a evolução do tratamento a nível de eficácia da terapêutica, da sua aderência por parte dos doentes, bem como do nível de impacto da doença, em termos de números absolutos. São abordadas, neste documento, possíveis conclusões que podem ser tiradas a partir da análise destas estatísticas, bem como do cruzamento de dados entre estas, podendo, com dados reais, obter-se outro tipo de informações, relativamente ao estado do tratamento do vírus da SIDA, que de outra forma seriam mais difíceis de recolher e analisar.This project is the portrait of the development of statistics that are related to AIDS treatment in the scope of the improvements to the SI.VIDA software, in the company Glintt Healthcare Solutions S.A. This software has the purpose of helping healthcare professionals with tools and functions that make the treatment to this epidemic, more effective. Based on software data, the developed statistics aims to show, at a patient level as well a global level, to all patients in the hospital unit, the evolution of the treatment in therapeutics effectiveness, its patient adherence, as well as the disease’s impact, in terms of absolute numbers. In this document, many possible conclusions are approached, that may be taken from the analysis of these statistics, as well as crossing data between them, giving the possibility, with real data, to obtain another kind of information, related to the state of the treatment of AIDS, that otherwise would be difficult to obtain and analyze

Vintage in New Zealand – Framingham Wines

Mestrado em Engenharia de Viticultura e Enologia (Double degree) / Instituto Superior de Agronomia. Universidade de Lisboa / Faculdade de Ciências. Universidade do PortoSince the first maritime explorations, the culture of vine and everything relates with have known new horizons and new philosophies; in this new world outside Europe there is a great technological advance and an attempt to affirm itself with a distinct terroir to the old world. With the arrival of Europeans from different wine regions, New Zealand has successfully combined the different ways of seeing vines and wine to such an extent that it is now one of the most respected countries when it comes to winemaking; Marlborough with its environmental characteristics has been producing wines with identity, being very rich in aroma and complexity, mainly from its queen variety, the Sauvignon Blanc. The winemaking company Framingham Wines, belongs to the Portuguese group SOGRAPE and has been making high quality wines since the construction of its winery in the late 90's and early 2000's, making it one of the best wine producers in New Zealand in recent years with its own concept. This internship report prepared for the purposes of a master's degree dissertation intends to report the experience in a winery during the vintage period, with all the surrounding environment, mainly in a year in which at a social level was very strange and demanding, caused by the world pandemic, during the most important period of an agricultural year in the culture of the vineN/

Solar Intensity Forecasting using Artificial Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines

This paper presents several forecasting methodologies based on the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Support Vector Machines (SVM), directed to the prediction of the solar radiance intensity. The methodologies differ from each other by using different information in the training of the methods, i.e, different environmental complementary fields such as the wind speed, temperature, and humidity. Additionally, different ways of considering the data series information have been considered. Sensitivity testing has been performed on all methodologies in order to achieve the best parameterizations for the proposed approaches. Results show that the SVM approach using the exponential Radial Basis Function (eRBF) is capable of achieving the best forecasting results, and in half execution time of the ANN based approaches

Mortality predictive factors in subjects with COPD after a pulmonary rehabilitation program: A 3-year study

BACKGROUND: COPD is a high-mortality disease and projected to become the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2030. Our aim was to evaluate predictors of 3-y mortality and factors associated with early (1 y) and late (second and third year) mortality in subjects with severe COPD who completed a pulmonary rehabilitation program. METHODS: A historical cohort study was performed with subjects with COPD who were admitted to a day-hospital for chronic respiratory failure for a pulmonary rehabilitation program, from January 2008 to December 2010. The population was characterized based on sociodemographic factors, body mass index, smoking habits, lung function tests, respiratory failure, comorbidities, bacterial colonization, Modified Medical Research Council dyspnea index, 6-min walk test, mechanical ventilation, noninvasive ventilation, long-term oxygen therapy, hospital admissions, and mortality. RESULTS: From 183 patients who completed a pulmonary rehabilitation program, 93 had COPD. Our cohort had 78 male and 15 female subjects. The mean age +/- SD was 68.6 +/- 8.9 y, ranging from 43 to 85 y. After the pulmonary rehabilitation program, there were fewer, although not statistically significantly different hospital admissions (2.1 vs 1.7, P =.17). Three years after the pulmonary rehabilitation program, 34 subjects died (36.6%). Hypercapnic respiratory failure (P = .02), noninvasive ventilation (P = .002), lung cancer (P = .001), shorter 6-min walk distance (P = .03), and higher number of previous hospital admissions (P <.001) were associated with a higher mortality rate. CONCLUSION: There is a high mortality rate in late-stage patients with COPD. The most relevant factors associated with mortality were lung cancer, respiratory failure and noninvasive ventilation, severe exacerbations with hospitalization, and lower functional exercise capacity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio