The Montado agroforestry system microclimatic specificity in the context of global change

The effects of oak trees on microclimatic parameters in Quercus rotundifolia Lam. woodland in the Alentejo, Southern Portugal, are reported. Results show that oak tree create a marked differentiation in the grass matrix, between open and undercanopy areas. Compared to open areas, it presents lower soil moisture beneath the oak canopy, lower soil temperatures and lower photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). Soil temperatures outside trees canopy were generally higher than undercanopy areas, reaching twice its values during the winter. The decrease of soil water content is more rapid in areas outside the trees canopy action, but the replenishment starts early and is faster in those areas. PAR intercepted by tree canopy is greater than 60%, and affects dramatically herbaceous production. Different climatic conditions due to the presence of the tree, associated with greater variability in chemistry environment undercanopy, if combined with the IPCC forecasts for Mediterranean region, pose new challenges in the management of the montado areas

Marketing communication on a non-profit organization: A case study about the activity of a students' union - Associação de Estudantes do ISCTE-IUL

The following Case Study aims to study the importance of following a communication strategy in the context of a Student’ Union of an institution of higher education, applied to the case of Associação de Estudantes do ISCTE-IUL, also denominated as AEISCTE-IUL. Through the analysis of the case, it is bear in mind the understanding that both profitable and non-profit organizations aim to achieve certain results in terms of their communication, must be increasingly market-oriented and to the consumer, given the new trends. In this way, these tendencies are linked to Marketing communication concepts, such as Digital Engagement, a 21st century phenomenon provoked by the emergence of several social media and has brought to brands new interactive forms of communicating with consumers and vice-versa, or the integration of online and offline platforms through the IMC program. It is also relevant the study of the phenomenon of Festa do Caloiro, a cultural and recreational event organized by AEISCTE-IUL. With this, it is presented the problematic of the Students’ Union and its difficulties of interacting with three main targets, which in this case are International Students, Doctorate students and Alumni. Finally, it is important to reflect on the most compelling communication strategies with the competitive reality of the market.O caso pedagógico seguinte visa o estudo da importância de seguir uma estratégia de comunicação no contexto de uma Associação de Estudantes de uma Instituição do Ensino Superior, aplicado ao caso da Associação de Estudantes do ISCTE-IUL, também denominada como AEISCTE-IUL. Através da análise do caso, tem-se em vista a compreensão de que, tanto as organizações lucrativas como as não lucrativas, visam atingir determinados resultados em termos da sua comunicação, que deve ser cada vez mais orientada para o mercado e para o consumidor, dadas as novas tendências. Desta forma, essas tendências estão ligadas a conceitos de Comunicação de Marketing, como são o Digital Engagement, um fenómeno do Século XXI provocado pelo aparecimento de vários social media e que trouxe às marcas novas formas interativas de comunicar com os consumidores e vice-versa, ou a integração das plataformas online e offline através do programa do IMC. Também é relevante o estudo de fenómenos como a Festa do Caloiro, um evento de teor cultural e recreativo organizado pela AEISCTE-IUL. Com isto, apresenta-se também a problemática ao leitor de que a Associação de Estudantes do ISCTE-IUL tem algumas dificuldades de interação com três targets principais, que neste caso são os estudantes internacionais, os estudantes de doutoramento e os Alumni, pelo que, no final, importa refletir sobre as estratégias de comunicação mais contundentes com a realidade competitiva do mercado

Customer lifetime value in insurance

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced AnalyticsThroughout the years, companies from several business sectors have strived to strengthen their client portfolio by acquiring and retaining the most profitable. For this to happen, current and potential clients must be clearly classified based on their past and future interactions with a company throughout the lifetime of their relationship. This report presents how the previous scenario was implemented using Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) in one of the biggest bancassurance companies in Portugal, during a 9-month internship. Before delving into the detailed set of this project phases, the concept of CLV was reviewed, as well as the characteristics which define its several approaches, followed by the alignment of the chosen approach to the company reality. This CLV model was limited to a 12-month future horizon, covered 7 company dimensions (one global, plus 1 per lines of business) and took into consideration as main future client interactions churn, cross-sell, upsell and risk of claiming. These previous components were modeled with the help of SAS Enterprise Miner or estimated using SAS Enterprise Guide and analyzing historical events. Besides a purely monetary CLV, it was also generated an ordinal output using a set of business rules and a ranking data discretization method. Finally, a back-test validation procedure was executed to evaluate the reliability of both types of outputs in each of the considered dimensions and its results were analyzed.Ao longo dos anos, empresas de diversos setores têm-se esforçado para fortalecer o seu portfolio de clientes, adquirindo e retendo os mais lucrativos. Para que isto acontecer, os clientes atuais e potenciais têm de ser devidamente categorizados com base nas suas interações passadas e futuras com uma determinada empresa, ao longo do ciclo de vida da sua relação com a mesma. Este relatório vez por sua vez apresentar como o cenário anterior foi implementado durante um estágio de 9 meses numa das maiores empresas de bancassurance em Portugal, recorrendo ao Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Antes de aprofundar o conjunto de fases deste projeto, foi feita uma revisão do conceito de CLV, assim como das principais características que definem as diversas abordagens, seguido do alinhamento da abordagem escolhida com a realidade da companhia. Este modelo foi limitado a um horizonte futuro de 12 meses, compreendeu 7 dimensões (uma global e uma por cada linha de negócio) e integrou como principais interações futuras do cliente o churn, cross-sell, upsell e risco de sinistralidade. Estes componentes foram modelados com a ajuda da ferramenta SAS Enterprise Miner, ou estimados utilizando o SAS Enterprise Guide para analisar eventos passados. Além de um CLV puramente monetário, também foi criado um output ordinal recorrendo a um conjunto de regras de negócio e um método de ranking data discretization. No fim, foi executado um procedimento de validação back-test com o intuito de avaliar a credibilidade dos dois tipos de outputs ao longo das várias dimensões e foi feita uma análise dos resultados finais

ORÁCULO: Detection of Spatiotemporal Hot Spots of Conflict-Related Events Extracted from Online News Sources

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Geographic Information Systems and ScienceAchieving situational awareness in peace operations requires understanding where and when conflict-related activity is most intense. However, the irregular nature of most factions hinders the use of remote sensing, while winning the trust of the host populations to allow the collection of wide-ranging human intelligence is a slow process. Thus, our proposed solution, ORÁCULO, is an information system which detects spatiotemporal hot spots of conflict-related activity by analyzing the patterns of events extracted from online news sources, allowing immediate situational awareness. To do so, it combines a closed-domain supervised event extractor with emerging hot spots analysis of event space-time cubes. The prototype of ORÁCULO was tested on tweets scraped from the Twitter accounts of local and international news sources covering the Central African Republic Civil War, and its test results show that it achieved near state-of-theart event extraction performance, significant overlap with a reference event dataset, and strong correlation with the hot spots space-time cube generated from the reference event dataset, proving the viability of the proposed solution. Future work will focus on improving the event extraction performance and on testing ORÁCULO in cooperation with peacekeeping organizations. Keywords: event extraction, natural language understanding, spatiotemporal analysis, peace operations, open-source intelligence.Atingir e manter a consciência situacional em operações de paz requer o conhecimento de quando e onde é que a atividade relacionada com o conflito é mais intensa. Porém, a natureza irregular da maioria das fações dificulta o uso de deteção remota, e ganhar a confiança das populações para permitir a recolha de informações é um processo moroso. Assim, a nossa solução proposta, ORÁCULO, consiste num sistema de informações que deteta “hot spots” espácio-temporais de atividade relacionada com o conflito através da análise dos padrões de eventos extraídos de fontes noticiosas online, (incluindo redes sociais), permitindo consciência situacional imediata. Nesse sentido, a nossa solução combina um extrator de eventos de domínio limitado baseado em aprendizagem supervisionada com a análise de “hot spots” emergentes de cubos espaçotempo de eventos. O protótipo de ORÁCULO foi testado em tweets recolhidos de fontes noticiosas locais e internacionais que cobrem a Guerra Civil da República Centro- Africana. Os resultados dos seus testes demonstram que foram conseguidos um desempenho de extração de eventos próximo do estado da arte, uma sobreposição significativa com um conjunto de eventos de referência e uma correlação forte com o cubo espaço-tempo de “hot spots” gerado a partir desse conjunto de referência, comprovando a viabilidade da solução proposta. Face aos resultados atingidos, o trabalho futuro focar-se-á em melhorar o desempenho de extração de eventos e em testar o sistema ORÁCULO em cooperação com organizações que conduzam operações paz

Energetic rehabilitation in buildings: cost-effective solutions to minimise thermal bridging

Nowadays, the energetic rehabilitation of buildings constitutes an increasing concern of national and international bodies, as a result of a strategic policy towards energy efficiency. In Portugal, one of the most current problems in buildings is thermal bridging. This is a significant source of heat building loss. The prevention of these types of pathologies is essential, for there are an enormous number of existing buildings that reveal such problems and therefore require rehabilitation. New building regulations on thermal behaviour and energy efficiency were recently enacted by the Portuguese Government, following the European Union Directive 2002/91/CE. To cope with the prescriptions of the new regulations, a better thermal quality in the building envelope is required. The rehabilitation of buildings is becoming a great issue. This study is part of wider research to investigate cost-effective constructive solutions of rehabilitation for the improvement of envelope thermal behaviour. From the results of previous studies which characterized the most current and problematic envelope zones, a simulation computer program was used to test the behaviour of several different solutions in order to minimise pathologies caused by thermal bridging. Preliminary results show that it is possible to get adequate solutions that fit harmoniously with the architecture of façades and with decoration of the internal spaces. Further studies will be needed to provide construction designers and builders with appropriate solutions to make the rehabilitation process even easier