Venturing into cashew business in Guinea - Bissau

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsThis project consists of a business plan for a cashew processing factory in Guinea-Bissau. A company will be created to implement the project with the objective to sell whole white cashews to the general cashew market of the Netherland. To do so the company will have to acquire the ISO 22000 certification and fulfill the Dutch importers quality and quantity standards. In the second year the company will either sell the cashews as certified organic products or expand the factory capacity. The financial projections were made and both strategies (enter organic niche market or expand) will result in a positive NPV project with an IRR of 61% and 63% respectively. In terms of long run objectives the company will continue to expand. Besides implementing a sustainable and profitable project this new company will surely have a social-economic impact

A framework for developing motion-based games

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia InformáticaNowadays, whenever one intents to develop an application that allows interaction through the use of more or less complex gestures, it is necessary to go through a long process. In this process, the gesture recognition system may not obtain high accuracy results, particularly among different users. Since the total number of applications for mobile systems, like Android and iOS, is close to a million and a half and is still increasing, it appears essential the development of a platform that abstracts developers from all the low-level gesture gathering and that streamlines the process of developing applications that make use of this kind of interaction, in a standardize way. In this case such was developed for the iOS system. At the present time, given the existing environment issues, it is ideal to attract the attention, motivate and influence the greatest number of people into having more proenvironmental behaviors. Thus, as a proof of concept for the developed framework, an educational game was created, using persuasive technology, to influence players’s behaviors and attitudes in a pro-environmental way. Therefore, having this idea as a basis, it was also developed a game that is presented in a public ambient display and can be played by any participant close to the displaywho has a device with iOS mobile system

The race for Anadarko

This case looks into Occidental Petroleum’s acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum, one of the latest energy megadeals. It presents an overview of the bidding process between the two potential acquirers, Occidental and Chevron, the rationale and arranged financing structure behind Occidental’s bids, as well as Warren Buffett’s preferred stock investment and the opposition of activist investor Carl Icahn. The supporting teaching note provides an analysis of several topics related to corporate finance, particularly, acquisition payment types and financing sources, distinct valuation techniques and the roles of the buyer and the seller’s management and board of directors in M&A

Relatorio de Estágio em Psicologia clínica e da saúde

O presente relatório descreve em grande parte os momentos vividos no processo de estágio curricular em Psicologia Clinica e da Saúde realizado no Hospital Dr. Baptista de Sousa no âmbito do 4º ano do curso de Psicologia ministrada pela Universidade do Mindelo. O estágio teve como objectivo integrar os conhecimentos científicos adquiridos ao longo da formação, preparando assim o futuro profissional para a função de psicólogo clinico e da saúde. Este decorreu num período de 7 meses e foi dividido em 3 fases distintas: A primeira fase, que durou cerca de um mês teve como finalidade a adaptação dos estagiários á instituição, consistindo em consultas dos processos clínicos, contacto com a equipa técnica e com os pacientes internados na enfermaria de Saúde Mental. O segundo momento, que teve uma duração de cerca de dois meses, deu-se com a realização de entrevistas aos pacientes internados na enfermaria e assistência às primeiras consultas externas. A última fase, desenrolou-se nas enfermarias de Saúde Mental, Pediatria, e Cirurgia com a realização das primeiras consultas com o propósito de se proceder a avaliação psicológica. Essa fase durou quatro meses. O presente relatório é constituído por três partes, sendo que a primeira descreve a caracterização geral do contexto institucional onde se realizou o estágio, bem como a exposição das actividades realizadas nos serviços. A segunda parte, apresenta dois estudos de casos com a devida fundamentação e compreensão. A terceira e última parte, engloba a conclusão do relatório, e algumas recomendações na perspectiva do estagiário para a melhoria do processo de estágio

A qualitative study on how therapists negotiate gendered perceptions of the division of parental responsibility and labour, using a story completion and vignette task

Aims: The argument that therapeutic practice affirms a reductionist paradigm of distress and overlooks socio-environmental understandings of suffering suggests that Psychology may collude with systems of power, privilege, and oppression. As key proponents of social justice it is critical that Counselling Psychologists add to the literature exploring this. This thesis employed a scenario depicting a couple’s distress over divisions of parental labour, to explore the dominant discourses that therapeutic practitioners draw upon in formulating a situation of distress situated in a socio-environmental context.Methods: A combination of story completion (SC) and vignette stimuli were used to obtain qualitative data in this study, from forty-three practitioners qualified in an integrative therapeutic approach. Using a constructionist thematic analysis three themes were identified: 1) the recreation of gender roles, 2) the motherhood penalty and 3) reformulating distress.Findings: Therapeutic practitioners drew on two overarching discourses across their stories: heteronormative and biomedical. The dominant story type across the dataset reaffirmed these dominant regulatory, whilst a ‘secondary’ or less common story type simultaneously challenged the dominant rhetoric. Implications: The thesis provides evidence that therapists reaffirm and challenge reductionist paradigms of distress, thus engaging in a complex reproduction/subversion of dominant cultural discourses. Importantly, the results highlight that therapists are influenced by the same stereotypes as everyone else and remind us that psychology as a profession rest upon a set of social practices with implications beyond those which we are immediately aware of. The discussion inquires into the discipline’s current stance on the intersection between models of human suffering and social justice. Furthermore, this work highlights opportunities posed by transposing the locus of change from the individual to wider contexts, aiding a more realistic assessment of therapeutic change and nudging the discipline into greater alignment and coherence with the social justice narrative (Woodger, 2020). Clinical implications, limitations and avenues for future research are also discussed

Los marcadores de ordenación y la expresión oral del español académico: análisis de conferencias y propuesta didáctica para estudiantes ELE

La presente tesis doctoral viene a contribuir a profundizar en una cuestión poco trabajada hasta el momento como es el empleo de los marcadores en el discurso oral formal del español. Este trabajo incluye dos investigaciones: una primera en la que se analizaron los marcadores de ordenación utilizados en dicho discurso y una segunda en la que se llevó a cabo una aplicación didáctica de estos contenidos. En el primer estudio, se examinó el uso de estas partículas en el discurso monologal y especializado. La investigación se centró en los marcadores de ordenación a partir de los datos obtenidos de treinta conferencias de tipo académico y profesional de la Biblioteca Nacional de España y de la Fundación Juan March. En el corpus, creado expresamente para la investigación, se incluyeron tanto ponencias como conferencias plenarias de muy diferentes áreas de conocimiento, como la Historia, la Filosofía, la Biología o la Química. Se pudo comprobar que las conferencias eran un contexto ideal para el uso de estos marcadores de ordenación, y se encontraron ciento cincuenta y cinco casos de estos ordenadores..

Estágio no Hospital Garcia de Orta

Os principais objetivos deste estágio seriam dar a conhecer de perto como funciona todo o ambiente hospitalar, numa perspetiva de gestão de equipamentos, e ganhar experiência e conhecimentos ao nível dos mesmos. Durante o período de 90 dias deste estágio, foi-me possível conhecer e lidar de perto com vários equipamentos e dispositivos médicos, como funcionam e o seu propósito, como são geridos no que toca a avarias, manutenção, aquisição e substituição, como se rege o Serviço de Instalações e Equipamentos e quem são as grandes empresas no meio hospitalar. Lidei com vários engenheiros e técnicos especializados que foram fulcrais nesta partilha de conhecimento. Concluído o meu estágio, é fácil afirmar que o mundo hospitalar é muito maior do que eu imaginava inicialmente, sendo até algo intimidante numa primeira fase. Todavia, adquiri variados conhecimentos não só a nível de equipamentos, mas a nível de todo o processo de gestão de situações e recursos humanos, fazendo deste estágio uma experiência bastante positiva.The main objectives of this internship would be getting to know up close how the hospital environment works, according to equipment management, and earn valuable knowledge and experience related to the referred equipment. During the internship’s 90 days period, it was possible to get to know and deal with various equipment and medical devices, how they work and what’s their function, how they’re managed when it comes to malfunctions, maintenance, acquisition and replacement, the rules of the Service of Installations and Equipment and who the big enterprises in the hospital scene are. I dealt with several specialized technicians and engineers who were essential in this knowledge sharing. With my internship over, it’s easy to acknowledge that the hospital environment world is much bigger than initially imagined, being even intimidating at first glance. However, i’ve obtained knowledge and know how not only about the equipment but also on all the management process of dealing with different sorts of situations and human resources, making this internship an invaluable and overwhelmingly positive experience

The Induction of APC with a Distinct Tolerogenic Phenotype via Contact-Dependent STAT3 Activation

BACKGROUND: Activation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) within antigen presenting cells (APCs) is linked to abnormal APCs differentiation and function. We have previously shown that STAT3 is activated within APC by a novel contact-dependent mechanism, which plays a key role in mediating the immunomodulatory effects of hMSC. In order to better understand the underlying mechanisms that control APC maturation in a contact dependent manner, we extended our observation to tumor cells. Tumors were shown to secrete a variety of tumor-derived factors that activate STAT3 within infiltrating APCs. We now tested whether tumor cells can activate STAT3 within APC using the contact-dependent mechanism, in addition to soluble factors, and compared these two STAT3 activating pathways. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We demonstrate that in addition to tumor-derived secreted factors tumor cells activate STAT3 by a mechanism that is based on cell-cell interaction. We further demonstrate that these two STAT3 activating mechanisms differ in their JAK usage and their susceptibility to JSI-124 inhibition thereby representing two distinct pathways. Significantly, although both pathways activate STAT3, they modulate DCs maturation in a different manner that results in disparate phenotypic outcomes. Whereas the soluble-dependent pathway results in an immature phenotype, the contact-dependent pathway results in an apparently mature phenotype. Albeit their mature-like phenotype these latter cells express the tolerogenic markers ILT3 and ILT4 and possess T cell inhibitory activity. SIGNIFICANCE: This data suggests that, in at least certain cellular microenvironments, cell:cell interactions represent a novel way to activate STAT3 signaling, uncouple APC activation events and consequently regulate immunity and tolerance. Significantly, we have now demonstrated that this contact-dependent signaling pathway differs from that mediated by soluble factors and cytokines, inducing disparate phenotypic outcome, suggesting these two mechanisms have different and possibly complementary biological functions