Big data in cloud: a data architecture

Nowadays, organizations have at their disposal a large volume of data with a wide variety of types. Technology-driven organizations want to capture process and analyze this data at a fast velocity, in order to better understand and manage their customers, their operations and their business processes. As much as data volume and variety increases and as faster analytic results are needed, more demanding is for a data architecture. This data architecture should enable collecting, storing, and analyzing Big Data in Cloud Environment. Cloud Computing, ensures timeliness, ubiquity and easy access by users. This paper proposes to develop a data architecture to support Big Data in Cloud and, finally, validate the architecture with a proof of concept.This work was financed by FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia for the project: PEst-OE/EEI/UI0319/201

A multi-driven approach to requirements analysis of data warehouse model: A case study

In this paper, a multi-driven approach to data modeling in data warehousing will be presented, which integrates three existing approaches normally used separately: goal-driven, user-driven and data-driven; and two approaches usually not used in data warehousing field: process-driven and technology-driven. Goal-driven approach produces subjects and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) of main business fields. User-driven approach produces analytical requirements represented by measures and dimensions of each subject. Process-driven approach propose improvements in business processes (by using and creating subject oriented enterprise data model) to satisfy the KPI’s, measures and dimensions identified in the previous approaches. Technology-driven approach is an enabler or an obstacle to be considered in a data warehouse model. Data-driven approach is a combination of the results of previous approaches and results in a data warehouse model. By using a multi-driven approach with five stages, a layered data warehouse model more aligned with business and individual needs can be obtained. This will be illustrated by using examples of a case study

Análise comparativa do sistema nacional de colocação de professores em Portugal

A colocação dos professores no ensino secundário em Portugal é efetuada sobre a responsabilidade do Ministério da Educação e Ciência, que é quem define as regras do funcionamento do sistema, ou seja é um sistema centralizado. Esse sistema é alvo de críticas por parte dos seus intervenientes sobretudo dos próprios professores. Este artigo tem como objetivo efetuar uma revisão sistemática e uma meta análise de como são efetuadas as colocações de professores em Portugal, bem como noutros países europeu

A modern data architecture: a test case

Atualmente os dados são vistos como tendo tipos e origens distintas. Os tipos de dados podem ser estruturados, semiestruturados e não estruturados. As origens dos dados podem ser diversas como Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), folhas de cálculo, documentos de texto, redes sociais, imagens, vídeos, sensores entre outros. Esta diversidade de dados exige uma arquitetura moderna que permita a recolha dos dados de várias origens e tipos, viabilizando igualmente a extração, transformação e limpeza dos mesmos através do processo de Extract, Transform and Load (ETL), bem como o armazenamento e integração dos dados para posteriores análises. Esta arquitetura deve ser suportada por um ambiente de Cloud Computing, garantindo assim a sua atualidade, ubiquidade e fácil acesso pelos utilizadores. Este artigo propõe-se desenvolver uma arquitetura e implementar uma solução que será validade através de um caso de teste com dados da área da saúde.Currently the data are seen as having distinct types and origins. Data types may be structured, semi-structured and unstructured. The data sources can be diverse as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), spreadsheets, text documents, social networks, images, videos, and other sensors. This diversity of data requires a modern architecture that enables the collection of data from multiple sources and types, also enabling the extraction, processing and cleaning of data through the Extract and Transform and Load (ETL) process, and the storage and integration of data for further analysis. This architecture must be supported by a Cloud Computing environment, thus ensuring its relevance, ubiquity and easy access by users. This article proposes to develop an architecture and implement a solution that is validated through a test case with health care data.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - PEst-OE/EEI/UI0319/201

Issues of sustainable development in civil engineering in Portugal

There are, in Portugal, nine universities with degree programs of civil engineeringaccredited by the Ordem dos Engenheiros (Engineering Professional Body). However,none of them present disciplines expressly dedicated to teach or to learn SD in the studyplan. In the two last years of the five year study plan, generally in the fourth year of degree,most of the courses of civil engineering introduces SD in an implicit way. It is forinstance associated to studies of town planning and of evaluation of environmental impacts.Of the nine degree programs of civil engineering analyzed, in the option of buildingconstruction, only two present disciplines that are optional and are directly associatedwith sustainable construction. Six present disciplines of evaluation of environmentalimpact and of town planning. The importance of SD in a degree program of civil engineeringis unquestionable. Some of the issues like building maintenance and managementrepresent a large impact on energy spending and on pollution of the atmosphere and ofthe earth. Another area of civil engineering that is important for SD is hydraulics and thewater, river and sea management. A very important area is the cycle and recycle of constructionmaterials with the creation of by-products that are one of the main sources ofenvironment contamination. There are many other areas of civil engineering where SD isvery important like transportation, planning and industrial construction. The adaptation ofcivil engineering disciplines of the SD principles and theories will prepare the future civilengineers to address their profession with SD as a major concern and beacon. The continuingeducation and professional development activities and courses will have a quickerimpact on the transformation of the actions of the current civil engineers

The value of TPM for Portuguese companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of a maintenance philosophy, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), on the operational performance of the Portuguese industry, identifying how it enables the systematic reduction of waste in maintenance. Design/methodology/approach – A structured questionnaire was constructed and sent to 472 Portuguese enterprises, having obtained a sample constituted of 84 valid answers. With a five-point Likert scale, it was possible to assess the impact of the TPM on five operational performance dimensions, being them: quality, flexibility, productivity, safety and costs. Findings – It was found that the planned maintenance, together with education and training are the practices with the highest degree of implementation in the Portuguese industry, exceeding 70% for both. The productivity is the dimension with a higher degree of impact from the implementation of TPM and costs the dimension that suffered a lesser impact. Practical implications – This paper shows and analyses the current state of TPM implementation in the Portuguese industry and it will be useful for maintenance professionals, researchers and others concerned with maintenance, in order to understand the effects of TPM implementation on the operational performance of the Portuguese industries. Originality/value – The findings from this paper will be valuable for professionals who desire and are looking forward to implement an effective maintenance approach in the maintenance management system, in order to achieve the excellence in maintenance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Information systems development course: integrating business, IT and IS competencies

Information systems development (ISD) is a capstone course in the Information Systems and Technology undergraduate program at School of Engineering, University of Minho, Portugal. ISD is viewed as an organizational change project that aims at improving an organization through the adoption of IT applications. The course is designed following a project led approach. The project involves describing an organization as a system, describing its information handling activities and proposing a set of IT applications that could be adopted and used. Students are guided by a ISD methodology that demands the application of previous developed competencies in areas such as: organization theory, accounting, marketing, information systems fundamentals, data bases, software engineering, computer networks and several other IT courses. Together with the ISD course, students are also taking courses on organizational behavior and data-warehousing. Students are organized into large teams of 10 to 12 members. Several roles are distributed among team members: e.g., team leader, analyst, document officer, technology officer, methodologist, development tools specialist, IT specialist. Students are suggested a fictional organization in a specific business area. Ideally students should deal with a real organization. As the course is having around 100 students enrolled this is not possible. However it is common that each project team finds an organization in the proposed business area where they go and have actual contact with an organization. The main outputs of the project include: project plan; organization description including - purpose, environment, main activities, business ontology, main performance indicators; general information systems description using UML; requirements for an IT application; IT architecture. One of the most important steps of the project is to decide on what IT to suggest to the organization. The decision should take into consideration the capability of current IT, the specifics of the business area and its current practices. Besides the reports, each team makes two public presentations. The first one is to present the organization description making sure business is clearly understood. The final one is to present the solution in terms of information systems and IT architecture. These presentations are attended by industry guests that focus their attention on the students' communication skills from the perspective of a manager. The evaluation of students' performance is based on: reports corresponding to the outputs mentioned above; public presentations; weekly assessments of the teams' progress. The final mark attributed to each team (a numerical value from 0 to 20, where above 10 is a pass) can be re-distributed among team members, by themselves, in order to account for different levels of commitment or effort within the team. Several other rules are set in order to promote professional behavior.(undefined

FEM applied to building physics: modeling solar radiation and heat transfer of PCM enhanced test cells

In passive solar buildings, energy can be stored using either sensible heat materials or latent heat materials. Phase change materials (PCM) can contribute to temperature control in passive solar buildings when melting occurs near to comfort temperature required for building’s interior spaces. The use of finite element method (FEM) as a numerical methodology for solving the thermal problem associated with heat transfer in current building materials and PCMs make sense, as it is a well-known technique, generalized and dominated, however, still little applied to the domain of building physics. In this work, a solar model was developed and applied in order to simulate numerically the effect of solar radiation incidence on each face of the test cells (with different solar exposures) without neglecting the main objective of the recommended numerical simulation: the study of the action of PCM. During the experimental campaign, two test cells with distinct inner layers were used to evaluate the effect of solar radiation: (i) REFM test cell (without PCM) with a reference mortar; (ii) PCMM test cell (with PCM) with a PCM mortar. The temperatures monitored inside the REFM and PCMM test cells were compared with the values resulting from the numerical simulation, using FEM with 3D discretization and the explicit modeling of the solar radiation, and the obtained results revealed a significant coherence of values

Estoques e frações oxidáveis da matéria organica do solo, sob cafeeiros em sistemas orgânicos agroflorestais

Research evaluating the impact of different management systems coffee are essential for determining soil quality. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of production systems for organic coffee and agroforestry on stocks of carbon, nitrogen and organic matter quality in two farms in the region Caparaó- Espírito Santo- Brazil. In farm 1 systems were evaluated primary forest, organic coffee and conventional coffee. In farm 2 systems were evaluated secondary forest, organic coffee intercropped with inga, organic coffee intercropped with leucaena and inga, organic coffee intercropped cedar and conventional coffee full sun. Soil samples were collected in canopy projection coffee in the depths 0-10, 10-20, 20-40, 40-60 and 60-100 cm. The C and N stock reflected the management history in relation to forest areas, with the greatest impact in the 0-10 cm. This depth, to the farm 1, the conventional coffee obtained reductions of 27.3 % and 14.9 % respectively in C and N stocks in relation to organic coffee. For farm 2, reductions in C and N stocks the coffee conventional full sun in relation to agroforestry coffee were 22.1 % and 31.4 %, respectively. The C stocks accumulated were reduced in coffee systems in 28.6 % and 17.4 % respectively in relation to primary and secondary forests. The mineralizable C content was higher in the soil surface layers and in the organic coffee systems compared to conventional coffee, in the farm 2. The coffee agroforestry system provided higher carbon management index in relation to organic coffee without consortium and conventional coffee, providing better soil quality.Pesquisas avaliando o impacto de diferentes sistemas de manejo do cafeeiro são essenciais para determinação da qualidade do solo. Objetivou-se, neste trabalho, avaliar o impacto de sistemas de produção de cafeeiro orgânico e agroflorestal sobre os estoques de carbono, nitrogênio e a qualidade da matéria orgânica em duas propriedades rurais na região do Caparaó- Espírito Santo- Brasil. Na propriedade 1, foram avaliados os sistemas mata primária, café orgânico e café convencional. Na propriedade 2, foram avaliados os sistemas mata secundária, café orgânico consorciado com ingá, café orgânico consorciado com ingá e leucena, café orgânico consorciado com cedro e café convencional a pleno sol. As amostras de solo foram coletadas na projeção da copa do cafeeiro nas profundidades 0-10, 10-20, 20-40, 40 60 e 60-100 cm. O estoque de carbono orgânico total (estoque C) e nitrogênio total (estoque N) refletiram o histórico de manejo com maior impacto na camada 0-10 cm. Nessa profundidade, para a propriedade 1, o cafeeiro convencional obteve reduções de 27,3% e 14,9%, respectivamente no estoque C e estoque N em relação ao cafeeiro orgânico; para a propriedade 2, as reduções no estoque C e estoque N do cafeeiro convencional a pleno sol, em relação aos cafeeiros agroflorestais, foram de 22,1% e 31,4%, respectivamente. Os estoques de C acumulados foram reduzidos nos sistemas cafeeiros em 28,6% e 17,4% em relação às matas primária e secundária, respectivamente. Os teores de C mineralizável foram maiores nas camadas superficiais do solo e nos sistemas de café orgânico, em relação ao café convencional, na propriedade 2. O sistema cafeeiro agroflorestal proporcionou maior índice de manejo do carbono, em relação ao cafeeiro orgânico sem consórcio e convencional, proporcionando melhor qualidade do solo