Biofilms for babies: introducing microbes and biofilms to preschool-aged children

Microbes are beneficial to life on our planet as they facilitate natural processes such as global nutrient cycling in our environment. This article details a 30-minute activity to introduce pre-school children ranging from 3 to 5 years of age to microbes and biofilms in the natural environment

Basel II : operational risk measurement in the portuguese Banking sector and an evaluation of the quantitive impacts

The present work is aimed at understanding the general notion and origin of the New Basel Accord, which intends to attain international bank stability, emphasizing the convergence between regulatory capital and economic capital, applying its risk sensitive methodologies. This work focuses on one of the principal novelties of Basel II – operational risk and its respective methodologies for calculating minimum capital requirements. The New Capital Accord encourages financial institutions to gradually evolve from basic to sophisticated methodologies. Institutions using more sophisticated methods will be rewarded by deductions on the capital allocated for the calculation of the capital ratio. The methodologies associated to operational risk will be applied to a group of national banking institutions. These methodologies are referred to in Pillar I of the New Capital Accord: (i) basic indicator approach, (ii) the standardized approach and (iii) the alternative standardized approach. The purpose of this practical application is to evaluate and quantify the impact due to the introduction of Basel II.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contextualism in Context: Interview with Michael Williams

This interview was carried out on 13 December 2018 as Michael Williams was in Porto for a meeting of the Contextualism Network organised by the MLAG – Mind, Language, and Action Research Group (Institute of Philosophy of the University of Porto). We would like to thank him for his willingness to reply to our questions

PSI-20 fluctuation : correlation of the portuguese stock market with major global capital markets

In this paper, we will analyze the increase of correlations in the market during periods of crisis, due to its paramount importance to the management and optimization of the portfolio, and especially for risk diversification in portfolio management. An evaluation of the level of correlation between the stock markets is important for several reasons. First, it enables to evaluate changes in the patterns of correlation, and thus to make the proper adjustments in portfolios’ investment. Second, policy makers are also interested in these correlations because of its implications for the stability of the financial system. The correlation coefficients are biased measures of dependence when markets become more volatile. This paper explores the correlation of the Portuguese capital markets with the Asian, American, European and Latin American Spanish stock markets. To this end, we used the PSI-20 index, Nikkei 225, NASDAQ, S&P 500, Euronext 100 and Ibex-35. Our analysis results show that the correlation does exist as a phenomenon during financial crises (Bear Market), reducing the benefits of portfolio diversification when most needed. Moreover, we believe that correlations have increased between the markets in recent years.N/

Facets for Art Gallery Problems

The Art Gallery Problem (AGP) asks for placing a minimum number of stationary guards in a polygonal region P, such that all points in P are guarded. The problem is known to be NP-hard, and its inherent continuous structure (with both the set of points that need to be guarded and the set of points that can be used for guarding being uncountably infinite) makes it difficult to apply a straightforward formulation as an Integer Linear Program. We use an iterative primal-dual relaxation approach for solving AGP instances to optimality. At each stage, a pair of LP relaxations for a finite candidate subset of primal covering and dual packing constraints and variables is considered; these correspond to possible guard positions and points that are to be guarded. Particularly useful are cutting planes for eliminating fractional solutions. We identify two classes of facets, based on Edge Cover and Set Cover (SC) inequalities. Solving the separation problem for the latter is NP-complete, but exploiting the underlying geometric structure, we show that large subclasses of fractional SC solutions cannot occur for the AGP. This allows us to separate the relevant subset of facets in polynomial time. We also characterize all facets for finite AGP relaxations with coefficients in {0, 1, 2}. Finally, we demonstrate the practical usefulness of our approach. Our cutting plane technique yields a significant improvement in terms of speed and solution quality due to considerably reduced integrality gaps as compared to the approach by Kr\"oller et al.Comment: 29 pages, 18 figures, 1 tabl

Foreign language anxiety on a massive open online language course

This paper examines learner attitudes, self-efficacy beliefs, and anxiety in a beginners’ Spanish Language Massive Open Online Course (LMOOC) by answering three research questions: (1) how do learners feel about acquiring speaking skills on an LMOOC?; (2) do they experience anxiety with regards to speaking?; and (3) do their self-efficacy beliefs remain unchanged during the LMOOC? Data was collected from over 900 participants registered on two Spanish for Beginners programmes offered by The Open University (UK). Quantitative data was collected through reflective questionnaires (11 items) and participants’ comments were obtained on two discussion forums. Results indicate that learners have positive attitudes towards LMOOCs and present higher speaking self-efficacy beliefs by the end of the course. Although spoken interactions in this environment are not synchronous, most participants report feeling intimidated by the idea of posting their recordings on the course forum

Future entrepreneur’s profile

Given that entrepreneurship plays a key role in the development of a country’s economy, governments should stimulate entrepreneurial orientation, particularly among youngsters in their formative years; schools must play a pertinent role in the promotion and support of these capacities. Indeed, the European Commission advises that schools foster such skills. In this context, we apply a frame to screen school populations in the Azores Islands, Portugal, for prospects of entrepreneurship and to study the profiles of those who noticeably show entrepreneurial orientations. Knowing the ideal combination of personality traits that foretell young entrepreneurs, schools can develop the syllabuses that are best aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and increasing the capacities of those who prove to be entrepreneurially oriented. This work leads to the following main findings: first, that one quarter of all senior students in high school in the Azores Islands bears prospects for entrepreneurship and, second, this same group shows a well-defined psychological profile that may vary depending on one’s willingness to expend effort.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio