Patterns of Entry, Post-Entry Growth and Survival: A Comparison Between Domestic and Foreign Owned Firms

This study compares the patters of entry, survival and growth of domestic and foreign owned firms. We show that the post-entry behavior of foreign owned firms is quite different from that of their domestic counterparts. Among foreign entrants, we were able to distinguish between those which proceed by creating a new firm and those that acquire an already existing business. Our evidence reveals that the choice of the mode of entry in foreign markets exerts an impact upon the performance of firms that persist long after the moment of entry. As a consequence, our work clearly indicates that there is much to be gained in the understanding of the process of entry in foreign markets by studying the behavior of entrants over their first years in these markets.

The Survival of New Domestic and Foreign Owned Firms

We compare the survival of new domestic and foreign owned firms. We analyze the determinants of the survival of new firms and investigate whether foreigness accounts for significant differences in the survival of new foreign and new domestic firms. We find survival to be determined by ownership advantages, size and growth strategies, the internal organization of firms, and by industry characteristics such as economies of scale, and industry entry and growth. After controlling for these characteristics, we find that domestic and foreign firms do not exhibit different chances of survival, that they respond in similar fashions to the determinants of survival and display identical time patterns of exit.

Closure and Divestiture By Foreign Entrants: The Impact of Entry and Post-Entry Strategies

We analyze the longevity of foreign entrants explicitly considering two possible ways of exit: firm closure and capital divestiture. We find that entry and post-entry strategies affect the longevity of firms and of foreign equity holdings, but in different manners. While the ownership arrangements and organizational structure affect the likelihood of divestment, they exert no significant effect upon closure. The entry mode exerts opposite effects on the two modes of exit, greenfield entrants being more likely to shutdown, but less likely to be divested. Only human capital affects closure and divestment in the same manner. Firms with large endowments of human capital are less likely to exit, irrespective of the exit mode considered.

Numerical simulation of EHD flows using Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element methods

The aim of this paper is to explore the capability of Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element methods to solve numerically the charge transport equation in EHD convective flows, in both strong and weak injection regimes. These methods are especially suited to treat purely hyperbolic problems, as it is the charge transport equation in most EHD problems. We consider the 2D electroconvective flow between two parallel plates. We compare our com- putations with the analytical results in the hydrostatic regime, the linear and non-linear stability analysis, computing both the electric and velocity fields. The stability of the finite amplitude electroconvection is also anal- ysed. Comparisons are made with computations in the literature obtained with other numerical techniques. The results show that DG-FEM are a very good alternative to simulate numerically EHD convective flows

Founding Conditions and the Survival of New Firms

We analyze the effects of founding conditions on the survival of new firms. We allow the effects of founding conditions to be transitory and estimate how long such effects last. Our findings indicate that founding effects are important determinants of exit rates. Moreover, in most cases, their effect on survival seems to persist without much of an attenuation for several years after the founding of the firm.Survival of firms; founding effects

Numerical analysis of the stability of the Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) electroconvection between two plates

The time evolution of the problem of Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) convection in a liquid between two plates is analysed numerically. The equations are nondimensionalized using the ion drift velocity and the viscous time scales. Following the non-dimensionalisation of the respective model, two different techniques have been used to describe the charge evolution, namely the Finite-Element Flux-Corrected Transport Method and the Particle-In-Cell technique. The results obtained with the two schemes, apart from showing good agreement, have revealed the appearance of a two-roll structure not described in previous works. This is investigated in detail for both strong and weak injection.Ministerio de ciencia y tecnología FQM-42

The Azores mantle plume and its importance to the noble gas composition (He and Ne) of Terceira lavas

The noble gases signature of Terceira lavas was recently described in terms of binary mixing between a MORB magma type and a plume component. The relative proportions estimated for these components show the strong predominance of MORB. This can be interpreted as a consequence from the localization of Terceira Island or, alternatively, can be explained by the last phases of plume activity as imaged by tomographic data

Monte Carlo Simulation to Estimate Likelihood of Direct Lightning Strikes

A software tool has been designed to quantify the lightning exposure at launch sites of the stack at the pads under different configurations. In order to predict lightning strikes to generic structures, this model uses leaders whose origins (in the x-y plane) are obtained from a 2D random, normal distribution

Recognizing Activities of Daily Living of People with Parkinson's

Tese de mestrado, Informática, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2022Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disease that affects a large part of the world's population. This disease involves a lot of symptoms, however the most prevalent is the change in the patient's movements or even the loss of functionality. There is no treatment, however it exists medication that relieves and reduces the symptoms for a period. A Parkinson’s patient needs to be watched by clinicians to understand if the medication is working correctly and to analyse the disease progression. The current way of doing this evaluation is at clinics where the patient needs to go to the clinic or to live there. With this into consideration it was requested a monitoring system of activities of daily living for Parkinson’s patient. The monitoring system consists in a mobile application in an Android smartphone serving as a diary for the patient of clinician to record the activities done at that moment. With this application, the patient needs to wear an accelerometer in the wrist to gather the acceleration in the 3-axis. The application besides the monitoring function, it gives the ability to the clinician to schedule lists of activities for the patient to do during the day, allowing the clinician to have some control. We carried out a study with 10 healthy participants which used the monitorization system for 3 days each. The patient would worn the accelerometer and record the activities that they would do throughout the day, was asked a minimum of 5 activities per day. Alongside this recording it was schedule 1 list of activities to be carried out each day, this list only had motor activities such as walk, sit down, and stand up. At the end of each participant study, it was made a questionnaire with standard usability questions and an interview that helped us understand if the system was reliable or not

Nutritional management and recommendations for hospital users and medical inpatients

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia InformáticaNutrition is fundamental to human well-being and health, especially when applied to patients who need special health care. In these cases, it is crucial that each patient has adequate nutrition to meet their needs, in order to accelerate their recovery process. Recommender systems make it possible to offer suggestions to users, adapted to their preferences and to previously obtained information about them. Food recommender systems are recommender systems applied to nutrition and diet. They are usually implemented feeding plans recommendation platforms based on food and the person using it. In this sense, the existing gap in the use of these recommendation systems applied to nutrition in health care is notorious. This is mainly due to the difficulty in associating the nutritional value of each food with the needs of patients. The main objective of this project is to fill the existing void, through the development and implementation of a platform that will allow the planning of meals taking into account the nutritional plan of the food and the specific needs associated with the users of the Vila Verde Social Canteen. The use of machine learning algorithms will allow us to identify how the connection between food and patient requirements can be made, making this task possible, which is complex due to the wide domain associated with it. This platform will be used for the generation of kitchen meal plans, which shall be produced using the algorithms developed after a bibliographic study and an investigation of the existing work, in order to understand how they can be implemented and which are the most adequate to the nutritional recommendations system.A nutrição é fundamental no bem-estar e na saúde do ser humano, principalmente quando aplicada a pacientes que necessitam de cuidados de saúde especiais. Nestes casos, é fulcral que cada paciente tenha uma nutrição adequada às suas necessidades, de forma a acelerar o seu processo de recuperação. Os sistemas de recomendação permitem oferecer sugestões aos utilizadores, adequados às suas preferências e às informações previamente obtidas acerca dos mesmos. Os sis-temas de recomendação de alimentos são sistemas de recomendação aplicados à nutrição e alimentação. Estes são usualmente implementados em plataformas de recomendações de receitas e planos de alimentação tendo como base a comida e a pessoa. Neste sentido, é notória a falha atual no que diz respeito à utilização destes sistemas de recomendação aplicados à nutrição em cuidados de saúde. Isto deve-se maioritariamente à dificuldade na associação entre o valor nutricional de cada alimento e as necessidades dos pacientes. Este projeto tem como principal objetivo preencher a lacuna existente, através do desen-volvimento e implementação de uma plataforma que irá permitir o planeamento de refeições tendo em conta o plano nutricional dos alimentos e as necessidades específicas associadas aos utentes da Cantina Social de Vila Verde. A utilização de algoritmos de machine learning permitirá perceber como pode ser feita a conexão entre os alimentos e os requisitos dos pacientes, tornando possível esta tarefa, que é complexa devido ao largo domínio associado à mesma. Esta plataforma será utilizada para a geração de planos de refeições da cozinha, sendo estes produzidos utilizando os algoritmos desenvolvidos após um estudo bibliográfico e uma investigação ao trabalho existente com o objetivo de perceber como poderão ser implementados e quais os mais adequados ao sistema de recomendações nutricional