A Retenção de Pilotos na Força Aérea Portuguesa

A Força Aérea Portuguesa (FAP) debate-se com um problema recorrente, desde há alguns anos a esta parte – a saída de pilotos das suas fileiras antes do tempo previsto, quer pela carreira normal, quer pelo tempo mínimo de permanência no Quadro. Existem, por certo, diversas causas para este fenómeno. Contudo, não existe nenhum estudo aprofundado e específico nesta matéria. A ideia generalizada, porém limitada, associada a este fluxo de pilotos, tem por base motivações económicas, com os pilotos a optarem por seguir uma carreira em empresas de aviação civis. Neste contexto, este trabalho pretendeu averiguar as reais causas que levam os pilotos a saírem da FAP, com vista a encontrar formas de levar os pilotos a quererem permanecer na FAP por oposição a impedir a sua saída, medida tendencialmente preferida por se afigurar mais fácil de implementar. Para concretizar essa intenção recorreu-se ao método de investigação em ciências sociais proposto por Raymond Quivy. Este método é constituído por três fases (rutura, construção e verificação), em que, partindo de uma pergunta inicial, se procuraram respostas através da formulação e exploração de hipóteses. Como enquadramento para a problemática, são apresentados e desenvolvidos alguns tópicos que contribuem para uma melhor compreensão do fenómeno nomeadamente: quais as motivações que levam uma pessoa a optar por uma carreira como piloto militar na FAP; qual a dimensão real da falta de pilotos na FAP; quanto custa formar um piloto na FAP. As pesquisas iniciais efetuadas no âmbito deste trabalho demonstraram que a forma mais adequada para aferir, com precisão, as causas que motivaram as saídas dos pilotos da FAP, passaria por questionar as motivações dos pilotos que já saíram. Para tal, recorreu-se a um inquérito efetuado aos pilotos que saíram da FAP desde 2001, através do preenchimento de um questionário. Esta investigação permitiu identificar a existência de vários fatores que contribuem para as saídas dos pilotos. A conclusão mais importante que se pode extrair deste trabalho é que as causas principais que estão na base da saída dos pilotos da FAP são de ordem interna, com especial incidência na consideração e reconhecimento das chefias para com os pilotos. Abstract: The Portuguese Air Force (PoAF) is facing a persistent problem for a few years – the outflow of pilots before the expected time, either by the regular career or prior to the end of the binding time in the lines. There are, for sure, several causes for this phenomenon. However, there is no profound and specific study in this field. The common idea, relating this outflow of pilots, is that money is the primary motivation that causes pilots to procure a new career, as pilot in an airline company. In this context, this brief study has tried to find out the real causes that drive pilots to leave the PoAF, so that solutions can be found in order to persuade pilots to stay rather that retain them, which is normally the measure taken to face the problem, since it is effortless to put into action. In order to achieve this goal, this paper follows the social science investigation method from Raymond Quivy. This method is divided in three different stages (rupture, construction and verification), in which, starting from a primary question, answers are searched through the formulation and exploration of hypothesis. As an introduction for this problem, several items are presented and discussed to contribute to a better understanding of this issue: what are the motivations that drive someone to choose a life as a military pilot in the PoAF; what is the real dimension of pilot shortage in the PoAF; how much does it cost to train a new pilot for the PoAF. The initial researches for this investigation showed that, the best way to find out with precision, the causes that sustain the outflow of pilots would be by questioning the former PoAF pilots working in civilian companies. For this purpose a query was conducted with pilots that left the PoAF since 2001, by filling in a form with questions relating their individual reasons for that choice. This investigation allowed identifying the existence of several different factors that contributed to the outflow of pilots. The most important conclusion to draw from this work is that the main causes for the PoAF pilots outflow are internal of the PoAF itself, with particular focus on consideration and acknowledgement by the higher ranks towards the pilots

Maintenance behaviour-based prediction system using data mining

In the last years we have assisted to several and deep changes in industrial manufacturing. Induced by the need of increasing efficiency, bigger flexibility, better quality and lower costs, it became more complex. The complexity of this new scenario has caused big pressure under enterprises production systems and consequently in its maintenance systems. Manufacturing systems recognize high level costs due equipment breakdown, motivated by the time spent to repair, which corresponds to no production time and scrapyard, and also money spent in repair actions. Usually, enterprises do not share data produced from their maintenance interventions. This investigation intends to create an organizational architecture that integrates data produced in factories on their activities of reactive, predictive and preventive maintenance. The main idea is to develop a decentralized predictive maintenance system based on data mining concepts. Predicting the possibility of breakdowns with bigger accuracy will increase systems reliability

Gold nanoprobes for the detection of mutations associated with antibiotic resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Genética Molecular e BiomedicinaTuberculosis is still one of the leading human infectious diseases, with 8.7 million new cases reported in 2011 alone. Also, the increasing rate of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and its treatment difficulties pose a serious public health threat especially in developing countries. Resistance to isoniazid and rifampicin, first line antibiotics, is commonly associated with point mutations in katG, inhA and rpoB genes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC). Therefore, the development of a cheap, fast and simple molecular method to assess susceptibility profiles would have a huge impact in the capacity of early diagnosis and treatment of MDR-TB patients. Gold nanoparticles functionalised with thiol-modified oligonucleotides (Au-nanoprobes) have shown the potential to provide a rapid and sensitive detection method for MTBC and single base mutations associated with antibiotic resistance, namely the characterisation of the three most relevant codons in rpoB gene associated to rifampicin resistance. In this work the Au-nanoprobe approach is extended towards the discrimination of specific mutations within inhA gene which is associated with resistance to isoniazid. Using a multiplex PCR reaction for rpoB and inhA genes, it was possible to assess both loci in parallel, and extend the potential of the Au-nanoprobe method to MDR-TB molecular characterisation with special application in the most frequent genotypes circulating in the Lisbon Health Region

Gold Nanoparticles to Tackle Drug Resistance in Cancer

The most common type of cancer treatment, chemotherapy, often fails due to the acquisition of resistance. It is therefore of the utmost importance to better understand the cellular mechanisms of resistance, while developing new strategies to tackle drug resistance. Nanomedicine promises to develop new tools for diagnosing and treating of diseases, improving human health. This thesis explored five main strategies to overcome drug resistance in cancer cells: i) new anti-cancer compounds, ii) nanovectorisation and targeting of compounds, iii) gold nanoparticles (AuNP) for hyperthermia and combination with chemotherapy iv) AuNP assisted angiogenesis arrest with laser ablation and chemotherapy v) AuNP mediated gene silencing of efflux pumps. We started by characterizing the mechanism of action of a new anti-tumour compound (ZnD), that was able to reduce the viability of a colon cancer cell line (HCT116 DR) resistant to doxorubicin (DOX), a first-line chemotherapeutic. We vectorized our compound with AuNP, resulting in increased toxicity to HCT116 DR mouse xenografts. Taking advantage of the photothermal properties of AuNP, we combined chemotherapy with photo hyperthermia by irradiating AuNP with a green laser. Hyperthermia was especially effective against HCT116 DR. Since angiogenesis is a milestone in cancer development, we aimed to prevent it, using an anti-angiogenic peptide vectorized with AuNP and laser irradiation, resulting in a vascularization reduction of 91% in vivo. We have observed that ABCB1 efflux pump was the major cause of resistance of DOX resist cell line, therefore we silenced its mRNA with an anti-sense oligonucleotide AuNP. Our results showed that although the silencing was effective, cells did not return to a sensitive phenotype, requiring further experiments. Altogether this thesis shows the potential of nanotechnology for cancer treatment, both in chemotherapy and in surgery, where green lasers are already used. This work can be applied to drug resistant tumours, increasing the efficacy of treatment

State-Space estimation for OFDM and SC-FDE Schemes with Strongly Varying Carrier Frequency Offset

Parametric algorithms for the estimation of rapidly-varying Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) usually employ pilot symbols multiplexed with the data transmission. As the CFO variation rate increases so has to increase the density of pilot symbols transmitted, thus impairing the bandwidth efficiency. In order to reduce the number of pilot symbols used in the estimation of rapidly-varying CFO it was proposed to use a truncated Taylors series to predict the CFO, where the derivatives up to order d-1 are recursively estimated with a d-order Kalman filter (KF).We propose to compare the performance of a fourth-order KF predictor in the most popular block transmission systems: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Single Carrier Frequency-Domain Equalization (SC-FDE). Simulating different transmission scenarios, e.g., channel coding and spatial diversity, our results show that for static multipath fading channels the proposed receiver for the SC-FDE scheme exhibits better Bit Error Rate (BER) performance than that of OFD

An SNMP filesystem in userspace

Modern computer networks are constantly increasing in size and complexity. Despite this, data networks are a critical factor for the success of many organizations. Monitoring their health and operation sta- tus is fundamental, and usually performed through specific network man- agement architectures, developed and standardized in the last decades. On the other hand, file systems have become one of the best well known paradigms of human-computer interaction, and have been around since early days in the personal computer industry. In this paper we propose a file system interface to network management information, allowing users to open, edit and visualize network and systems operation information

Inorganic Coordination Chemistry: Where We Stand in Cancer Treatment?

Metals have unique characteristics such as variable coordination modes, redox activity, and reactivity being indispensable for several biochemical processes in cells. Due to their reactivity, their concentration is tightly regulated inside the cells, and abnormal concentrations are associated with many disorders, such as cancer. As such metal complexes turned out to be very attractive as potential anticancer agents. The discovery of cisplatin was a crucial moment, which prompted the interest in Pt(II) and other metal complexes as potential anticancer agents. This chapter highlights the state of the art on metal complexes in cancer therapy, highlighting their uptake mechanisms, biological targets, toxicity, and drug resistance. Finally, based on the importance of selective target of cancer cells, drug delivery systems will also be discussed

Towards a IoT secure smart environment system

Systems that deal with personal data always bring privacy and security issues. And also the balance of these issues, with the need that persons have in interact with spaces in a transparent way, and that those spaces smartly adapt to their preferences. That said, in this project, is proposed a solution to overcome these issues, and don’t compromise the balance between security and personal comfort. Currently IoT systems are in a big security risk. Especially because the developers, are not worried enough about the safety of such systems. However, with the growing trend of such systems and is integration in our everyday lives, this concern will have to increase as they start to appear isolated cases which have harmed the users, both financially and in their safety and welfare. This project, deals with the actual problem of secure an IoT system. Namely using secure techniques to secure a Smart Environment System. This work wants to promote a balanced solution between the need of personal information and the user’s privacy expectations. We propose a solution based on requiring the minimal information possible, together with techniques to anonymize and disassociate the preferences from the users. The proposed security architecture, to one of these IoT systems, wants to avoid any of the presented risks, to the users of this system.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Towards a IoT secure smart environment system

Currently IoT systems are in a big security risk. Especially because the developers, are not worried enough about the safety of such systems. However, with the growing trend of such systems and is integration in our everyday lives, this concern will have to increase as they start to appear isolated cases which have harmed the users, both financially and in their safety and welfare. The proposed security architecture, to one of these IoT systems, wants to avoid any of the presented risks, to the users of this system. For future work, we have identified the need to develop solutions that enable communication between the application and the local system, using different communication technologies without user interaction. Some extra work must be done to overcome this constraint, and get a transparent use solution for every user.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio