Influência do caudal de ventilação no desempenho económico de um sistema AVAC de um edifício administrativo

Este estudo pretende analisar a influência do caudal de ar novo insuflado num edifício administrativo no desempenho energético do seu sistema AVAC. O RSECE determina os caudais mínimos de AN para renovação do ar interior e qualidade do ar aceitável em espaços em que não haja fontes atípicas de poluentes e sem fumadores. Existe uma tendência para se projectar sistemas AVAC insuflando o caudal mínimo de AN, para assim se poupar no consumo de energia. No entanto, em determinadas situações, com esse procedimento está-se a fazer precisamente o contrário. Nessas situações não se está a aproveitar a oportunidade de aumentar a QAI e, simultaneamente, reduzir o consumo de energia. Neste estudo calculou-se o consumo energético do sistema AVAC do edifício, inicialmente insuflando o caudal mínimo de AN, e depois repetiu-se o cálculo várias vezes aumentando esse mesmo caudal progressivamente. Este cálculo foi feito para dois tipos de sistemas de ar, CAV e VAV, e para três localizações diferentes do mesmo edifício. Foi também estudada a possibilidade do sistema funcionar em regime de “free cooling”, e também foram feitos cálculos para diferentes temperaturas de insuflação em situação de arrefecimento. Concluiu-se que, para as localizações do edifício em que este apresenta necessidades de arrefecimento anuais superiores às de aquecimento, o caudal de AN responsável pelo menor consumo energético do seu sistema AVAC é superior ao mínimo imposto pelo RSECE. Observou-se também que, quando se insufla no edifício o caudal mínimo de AN e o sistema está preparado para funcionar em regime de “free cooling”, conseguem-se poupanças no consumo energético anual do sistema bastante relevantes, independentemente do balanço entre as necessidades de aquecimento e arrefecimento anuais que o edifício apresenta. Em relação aos dois sistemas de ar estudados concluiu-se que, em qualquer das situações estudadas, o sistema VAV apresenta consumos energéticos inferiores

Os efeitos da Trazodona na cognição humana: uma revisão sistemática

A trazodona é um antidepressivo amplamente utilizado, útil também no controlo da agitação e da insónia na doença de Alzheimer. É atualmente reconhecido um novo mecanismo de ação para a trazodona, com base nos seus efeitos na via da Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), restaurando a tradução de proteínas e atrasando a progressão neurodegenerativa em ratos. Esses mecanismos poderão ser encarados como promissores no tratamento modificador da demência. Para explorar os efeitos da trazodona na cognição humana e procurar evidências clínicas de seus supostos benefícios em doenças neurodegenerativas, foi elaborada uma revisão sistemática para estudos que avaliaram o efeito de um mínimo de 25 mg de trazodona por dia, durante pelo menos uma semana, na cognição de indivíduos saudáveis ou com qualquer patologia com dezoito anos ou mais. A pesquisa foi realizada na MEDLINE, Web of Science e CENTRAL a partir das bases de dados da Cochrane, resultando num total de 16 estudos, após a seleção. Desses, sete estudos não evidenciaram qualquer efeito da trazodona sobre a cognição, cinco demostraram um efeito benéfico ao melhorar ou reduzir o declínio cognitivo e quatro evidenciaram função cognitiva deteriorada. A nossa análise destaca a possibilidade de um efeito duplo, dose-independente, da trazodona na cognição humana, com a utilização aguda associada ao comprometimento da função cognitiva e o uso a longo prazo com prevenção da deterioração da mesma. Não houve evidência de que a trazodona pudesse ser usada como um tratamento ativo de doenças neurodegenerativas por si só, mas a maioria (n = 12) dos nossos resultados indicam que o fármaco não possui efeito cognitivo prejudicial a longo prazo. Assim, estudos futuros devem explorar o papel da trazodona na via da UPR e as implicações em doenças neurodegenerativas em humanos.Trazodone is a widely used antidepressant, also useful in the control of agitation and insomnia in Alzheimer's disease. It is now recognized a new mechanism of action for trazodone, based on its effect on the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) pathway, restoring protein translation and slowing neurodegenerative progression in mice. These mechanisms may be seen as promising in dementia modifying treatment. To explore the effects of trazodone on human cognition and search for clinical evidence of its putative benefits in human's neurodegenerative diseases, a systematic review was conducted for studies that evaluated the effect of a minimum of 25 mg of trazodone daily, for at least one week, in the cognition of healthy or diseased patients with eighteen years or more. The search was run in MEDLINE, Web of Science, and CENTRAL from Cochrane databases, yielding a total of 16 studies, after selection. Overall, seven studies showed no effect of trazodone on cognition, five showed a beneficial effect by improving or reducing cognitive decline and four evidenced impaired cognitive function. Our analysis highlights the possibility of a dose-independent dual effect of trazodone on human cognition, with acute utilization associated with impaired cognitive function and long-term use with cognitive deterioration prevention. There was no evidence that trazodone could be used as an active treatment of neurodegenerative diseases itself, but the majority (n=12) of our findings indicate that it has no long-term cognitive detrimental effect. Future studies should explore trazodone's role in the UPR pathway and the implications in neurodegenerative diseases in humans

Civilizing the Police(man): Police Reform, Culture and Practice in Lisbon, c. 1860-1910

This thesis examines the development of a modern urban police force - professional and civil - and its role in the everyday life of the Portuguese capital city, between the start of the city's modern growth in the 1860s and the Republican Revolution of October 1910. It begins by examining the political process of institutional reform during the early 1860s, which led to the creation of Policia Civil de Lisboa in 1867. Using the daily orders of Policia Civil as the anchor source, the thesis concentrates attention on the processes of organizational shaping that marked the development of this police force. The social and cultural diversity within this police force is examined by considering both the rank-file and also the police leadership and the professional specialization that began emerging in the end of the century. But the main focus of this work is on the beat policeman. The thesis examines the organizational strategies devised to 'fabricate' a civilised policeman, as well as their daily enforcement. The evolution of the police's manpower and its deployment throughout the city's territory, together with the arrangement of the working routines, demonstrate that the police increasingly became a central actor in the mediation of social relations in the city. On the part of the population, the growing expectation of the police's availability to intervene was another key factor in the general evolution of the 'idea of police' during this period. Finally, this thesis argues that, while the population became used to 'calling the police', popular criticisms of police actions were also central in the shaping of policing practice.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A Methodology to Estimate Real-world Vehicle Fuel Use and Emissions based on Certification Cycle Data

AbstractThis work presents a methodology to estimate vehicle fuel consumption and NOx mass emission rates using only public certification data from individual vehicles. Using on-road data collected from 14 vehicles it was possible to establish trends of fuel use and emissions according with the power demand, using the Vehicle Specific Power methodology, which were further applied to estimate modal fuel consumption and NOx emission rates on Diesel vehicles. Comparing with real-world operation, fuel consumption estimates presented average absolute deviations lower than 10%. Regarding NOx estimates, average absolute deviation is around 22%. With this method it is possible to evaluate an individual vehicle using public data without have to measure it on-road and establishing links between certification and real-world vehicle operation

Design and Manufacture of a mini-turbojet

The development and production of small engines with a jet propulsion system is, relatively recent, taking into account that this type of gas turbine started to be studied and developed many years before the first construction of these small turbojets. However, with the time evolving, the gas turbines turned out to be a greater challenge, becoming more and more difficult to develop and improve. The gas turbine requires an intense study of the several areas related to its functioning, demanding additional knowledge and skill to improve a small detail. Although the detail could be small, the effect on overall performance would be considerable. Until recent times, these small engines were developed without a significant role in the aviation industry, being only used for model jet engines. Even though, in the account of the science evolution, these engines are being studied and prepared to integrate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAV’s, as their propulsion system [1]. This dissertation consists on the development of a turbojet, in a small-scale, respecting the dimensions of the two, previously obtained, components, the compressor, and turbine, from the model turbo IHI RHB31 VZ21. To understand how to execute a design with suitable dimensions, the study of every present component in a turbojet was carried out, in parallel with the fundamental areas, regarding the functioning of a turbojet, such as thermodynamic cycles. At the end of a general study of the turbojet, the author proceeded to the design phase, in which the dimensioning process starts based on the information contained in the various sources of information, found at the bibliography. The dimensioning was carried through by the use of a scale factor. This scale factor was obtained by the compressor’s diameters ratio. In brief, in the Mr.Thomas Kamps’ book, the author advises the novice to divide his compressor diameter by the compressor used for Mr.Kamps’s engine. The diameters ratio, or the scale factor, was applied to the remaining components, produced by Mr.Thomas Kamps,in order to attain the measures for this gas turbine, respecting the recommended. The dimensions of the compressor shroud, inlet flange, diffuser, shaft, shaft housing, combustion chamber, fuel distribution ring, nozzle guide vanes, exhaust nozzle and, the last, outer casing were obtained. The next step was the design process of the referred components, in regard to the observed designs, found in the studied literature, using the three-dimensional design software CATIA V5R18. The design is an empiric process, which reveals itself as extremely difficult to consider one design as absolute. The manufacturing process of the turbojet was executed, at the time, the design process had been concluded. The following action was to acquire the necessary material for the production of the pieces, essentially, aluminum and stainless steel. The aluminum used was cast aluminum, being, then, worked to acquire the requested shape concerning the established design. The majority of the components were manufactured with stainless steel sheets, in which, the pieces were cut, according to their dimensions and shape, in-plane geometry. The chapter describing the manufacture process, as well as, the design process, is explained to allow a future reproduction of the work completed or adaptation for a different compressor/turbine set. Unfortunately, the fabrication of the diffuser and compressor shroud was not possible, since it had extremely small dimensions to be produced in the 5-axis vertical machining center. Moreover, the welding applied to the manufactured pieces was not executed with the required quality, even having increased the material thickness to facilitate the process, as it is explained in chapter 4.3. Therefore, one of the main objectives was not accomplished due to the insufficient means that disabled the manufacture of the jet engine’s parts.O desenvolvimento e produção de pequenos motores a propulsão jato é relativamente recente, tendo em conta que, este tipo de turbina a gás começou a ser estudado e desenvolvido muito antes. No entanto, com a evolução dos tempos, as turbinas a gás foram-se tornando um desafio cada vez mais dificil de as desenvolver e melhorar. Este tipo de motor requere um estudo intenso das várias áreas relacionadas com o seu funcionamento, exigindo cada vez mais conhecimentos e perícia, para que um pequeno detalhe seja melhorado. Apesar de o detalhe poder ser pequeno, o efeito no desempenho geral é considerável. Até tempos recentes, estes pequenos motores foram desenvolvidos sem um papel significativo na indústria aeronáutica, apenas sendo utilizados para aeromodelos. Contudo, à conta da evolução na ciência, estes motores começam a ser estudados e preparados para integrarem Veículos Aéreos Não Tripulados, UAV, como o seu sistema de propulsão [1]. Este projeto consiste no desenvolvimento de um turbojato, respeitando as dimensões de dois componentes previamente obtidos, o compressor e a turbina, do turbo modelo IHI RHB31 VZ21. Para perceber como se executa o design com o dimensionamento adequado, o estudo de todo componente presente num turbojato foi prosseguido, em paralelo com as áreas fundamentais relativas ao funcionamento do turbojato, por exemplo, ciclos termodinâmicos. No final de um estudo geral do turbojato, o autor prosseguiu para a fase de design, na qual o processo de dimensionamento começa com base na informação contida nas várias fontes de informação, encontradas na bibliografia. O dimensionamento foi realizado pelo o uso de um fator de escala. Este fator de escala foi obtido por uma razão de diâmetros de compressores. Sucintamente, no livro do Sr.Thomas Kamps, o autor aconselha o novato a dividir o tamanho do seu compressor pelo do compressor utilizado para o motor do Sr.Thomas Kamps. A razão de diâmetros, ou fator de escala, foi aplicada nos restantes componentes, produzidos pelo Sr.Thomas Kamps, permitindo chegar às medidas para esta turbina a gás, respeitando o recomendado. As dimensões da cobertura do compressor, flange de entrada, difusor, veio, túnel de acoplamento do veio, câmara de combustão, anel de distribuição do combustível, bocal anterior à turbina com pás guias para o escoamento, bocal dos gases de escape e, por último, o invólucro externo, foram obtidas. O próximo passo foi o processo de design dos componentes referidos, em relação aos designs observados na literatura estudada, utilizando o software de três dimensões CATIA V5R18. O design é um processo empírico, que se torna extremamente difícil de considerar um design como absoluto. O processo de fabrico do turbojato foi realizado, aquando, o processo de design ter sido concluído. A próxima ação foi obter os materias necessários para a produção das peças, essencialmente, alumínio e aço inox. O alumínio usado foi alumínio fundido, sendo, depois, maquinado para adquirir as formas exigidas relativas ao desgin estabelecido. A maioria dos componentes foram produzidos com folhas de chapa de aço inox, na qual as peças foram cortadas, de acordo com as suas dimensões e forma, em geometria plana. O capítulo que descreve o processo de manufatura, assim como, o processo de design, é explicado para permitir uma futura reprodução do trabalho completado ou adaptação para um conjunto compressor/turbina diferente. Infelizmente, a fabricação do difusor e cobertura do compressor não foi possível, sendo que tinham dimensões extremamente pequenas para serem produzidas numa fresadora vertical de comando numérico de cinco eixos. Para além disso, a soldadura aplicada nas peças produzidas não foi executada com a qualidade exigida, mesmo tendo-se aumentado a espessura das peças para facilitar o processo, como foi explicado no capítulo 4.3. Portanto, um dos objetivos não foi atingido devido aos meios insuficientes que impediram a fabricação das partes do motor a jato

Influence of materials’ hygroscopicity in the control of relative humidity and temperature of old buildings

The comfort of buildings indoor environment and materials durability are severally affected by peaks of temperature and relative humidity (RH) in interior of buildings and therefore they should be controlled and damped. The presence of people inside buildings as well as artificial illumination and all kind of equipment cause a releasing of moisture to environment, which originates an increment of its relative humidity. The occupants, artificial illumination and equipment also originate a temperature raising depending the occupants’ activity and the quantity and power of illumination and equipment. In order to reach an interior environment with values of relative humidity and temperature that ensure acceptable conditions to human health and materials longevity, it is important to install measures to control them. These measures can be active or passive if, respectively, they intend to remediate the unacceptable values of RH or temperature or if those acceptable values are achieved by installing coating materials capable of control both parameters during all seasons. If the materials are able to control temperature and relative humidity of indoor, so they contribute to improving thermal and hygroscopic inertia of buildings. Old buildings are characterized by having high thermal inertia and this means that its interior environment has a significant gap in relation to the exterior one, with regard to temperature. However, the temperature also affects relative humidity once both have an inverse relation of proportionality. This makes that it is important to damp relative humidity of old buildings indoor that would not have those values if it did not have high thermal inertia. This fact makes that be important to control relative humidity and temperature of old buildings indoor, preferably using passive measures, to preserve some very important works of art, books or documents, in case of being a museum or an archive. To control temperature and relative humidity of interior environment it is necessary to choose the best coating materials that can provide to buildings higher hygroscopic and thermal inertia. For that, it is indispensable to make correct materials characterization in order to discover their real behavior and, with base on those characteristics obtained experimentally, they could be properly chosen to be applied in buildings. In consequence of that, in the present dissertation, the materials behavior at different ranges of RH was analyzed as well as the time of exposition to those controlled environments. For that, it was chosen to make the tests of adsorption/desorption isotherm, Moisture Buffering Value (MBV), moisture permeability, thermal conductivity and response time. Additionally, the response of materials to certain interior environment was determined, by making a hygrothermal simulation in transient regime, with recourse to software Wufi Plus

Improving Millennium Bank's personal finance manager: How to cater a more useful, usable and tech-advanced tool to gain competitive advantage in the Polish banking competitive arena

Double DegreeThis dissertation reviews and analyzes the best practices in the Online banking business, namely in those which concern the Personal Finance Manager (PFM) tools for clients. Poland is currently a European leading market in Online banking, ranking amongst the most technologically advanced platforms in the Continent and being considered very reliable when it comes to security of payments. Considering that the Polish banking sector reached saturation and further growth should not be expected1, industry-experts predict that profitability will be gained mostly through cost-savings deriving from less face-to-face contact in customer support which will gradually be replaced by online contact channels. This paper focuses on improving the Personal Finance Manager’s (PFM for short) functions of Millenium Bank’s online platform (which directly or indirectly correspond to money transactions) and aims at analyzing how to develop competitive advantage through a more feature-rich easy-to-use and intuitive online platform (hence the execution of a study on international best practices concerning PFM). A study on the top 5 Polish retail banks is conducted to understand how advanced Millennium’s PFM is in relation with competition (whose results are compared with the aforementioned analysis on the best practices applied by internationally leading PFMs). Next, and on the basis of both these elements, specific suggestions were reached to improve the actual PFM tool. All in all, the objective of the report is to condense all the gathered information into a set of recommendations for Millennium to use in the development of their new PFM platform. The task was of special importance for two reasons: it is estimated that banks’ profitability in the future will be mostly driven by the “digitalization of clients” (resulting in cost savings for the institutions) rather than by the acquisition of new ones (which means that online banking platforms ought to be appeasing for customers); Millennium’s homebanking platform is already very advanced for Polish and even European standards, thus being hard to improve, even marginally

Participatory design in children’s diet: strategies to design public services

This paper aims to show a project carried out by a student of the Design Master’s at Universidade de Aveiro, which consists of a Food Diary supported by a ludic and pedagogical kit implemented in 1st grade schools. Western lifestyles have had several consequences in Public Health, particularly in children’s diets. With this project we intended to demonstrate the role of design in the development of a social project, in its ability to design in a participatory way and in its ability to change behaviours, in particular, children’s food behaviours. The methodology applied has its roots in participatory design, thus the conceptual process was undertaken collaboratively with a diverse team of professionals, several institutions in the region and the children themselves, being the designer a mediator between their different contributions. In its results, we would like to highlight the positive impact of this project in the children involved, who through the Kit’s usage, became aware of the unhealthy diet available to them, both at school and at home, and started demanding from their parents’ and the schools cooks’ healthier alternatives. It is our belief that this project could be implemented as a public service, in health or education sectors

Participatory Design for Public services: a food diary for children

This paper aims to show a project carried out by a student of the Design Master’s at Universidade de Aveiro, which consists of a Food Diary supported by a ludic and pedagogical kit implemented in 1st grade schools. Western lifestyles have had several consequences in Public Health, particularly in children’s diets. With this project we intended to demonstrate the role of design in the development of a social project, in its ability to design in a participatory way and in its ability to change behaviours, in particular, children’s food behaviours. The methodology applied has its roots in participatory design, thus the conceptual process was undertaken collaboratively with a diverse team of professionals, several institutions in the region and the children themselves, being the designer a mediator between their different contributions. In its results, we would like to highlight the positive impact of this project in the children involved, who through the Kit’s usage, became aware of the unhealthy diet available to them, both at school and at home, and started demanding from their parents’ and the schools cooks’ healthier alternatives. It is our belief that this project could be implemented as a public service, in health or education sectors

Energy and Environmental Impacts of Potential Application of Fully or Partially Electric Propulsion Vehicles: Application to Lisbon and São Miguel, Portugal

AbstractThe transportation sector has been one of the fastest growing sectors resulting in a high final energy consumption in Portugal (40% in 2011), with road transportation sector being responsible for 82% of that energy consumption. As a result, alternative vehicle technologies such as electric vehicles are becoming increasingly important since they may contribute to greater energy efficiency. However, their electric autonomy limitations influence the mobility paradigm, making their acceptance dependent on the location and context of driving. Thus, the objective of this study was to characterize mobility patterns and compare the potential application of fully or partially electric propulsion vehicles in two different Portuguese contexts: the Lisbon region (city pattern) and the Island of São Miguel, Azores, Portugal (rural pattern). This characterization was performed by on road monitoring of 9 drivers in Lisbon and 17 drivers in Sao Miguel. São Miguel drivers are those which have a more suitable pattern for using alternative vehicles comparably to the Lisbon region, since they travel about 47% less than the Lisbon population (33 km daily compared to 62 km per day) and, consequently, having a charging time availability about 30% higher. The São Miguel population also has greater presence in lower vehicle specific power (VSP) modes, with an average speed 25% lower than the Lisbon population. São Miguel drivers present greater efficiency in electricity consumption per kilometer (25% more efficient) than the Lisbon sample. Finally, the impacts of using alternative vehicles were quantified, concluding that the alternative technologies would reduce the Well-to-Wheel (WTW) energy consumption per kilometer between 37% and 68%