Is there room for a conscious capitalism?

Companies have generally looked to have some sort of positive impact on society through their activity. However, most would agree that, when profit is the main concern, that is not always an easy achievement. Most companies develop their more consciously focused activities around philanthropy and help generally comes at a cost. However, is there room for a scenario where both the company operating in a market economy and society profit from capitalist business activity? To find an answer to that question, we first look towards how Corporate Social Responsibility is traditionally developed by companies and the benefits it brings. We arrive at the conclusion that CSR is generally a cost for companies and has very few reasons to be developed other than poor sheer will to help and, thus, could use some reinvisioning more in line with the capitalist ideals, so that the company can profit and have incentive to help and support causes while these causes are also tended to. To this purpose, we aimed to understand the way companies can alternatively look at Corporate Social Responsibility and make it a profitable endeavor while making it so the positive outcomes that stem from CSR better suit the needs of those affected by these programs. We argue that if a company wishes to be more socially conscious and have that represent an increase in profit, they should first look towards socially inclusive business models, where co-creation is key, as a way to lower costs and provide job opportunities for the poor and that these ideals should be considered not only after activity has been established, but from the beginning. Companies may also look towards rethinking the way they measure profit, including people and environment in the equation, while also considering impoverished markets as a potential source of profit, should they aim to act in a more conscious manner. Finally, companies also benefit from being conscious through improving consumer perception, with the ideals of Marketing 3.0 showing that current consumers care about companies who act to help those in need

Implementation of an API for distributed communication between processes in closed contexts

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia de ComunicaçõesExistem atualmente diversas Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) que ajudam na programação de aplicações distribuídas. Na maior parte dos casos, estas utilizam de forma in exível um único tipo de protocolo aplicacional e interface, cando dependente dos protocolos de transporte já existentes e do sistema operativo. Para o programador, a stack de protocolos e o tipo de interface têm que ser decididos explicitamente antes do estabelecimento da comunicação entre os processos. Algumas APIs facilitam a programação ocultando alguns aspetos espec í cos dos mecanismos e protocolos de comunicação utilizados, disponibilizando uma interface mais homogeneizada. No entanto, a programação continua a não ser totalmente transparente e independente dos protocolos de comunicação utilizados, dos sistemas operativos e da localização relativa dos processos comunicantes. Além disso, estas APIs não tomam decisões sobre o mecanismo de comunicação a utilizar quando existem várias alternativas possíveis, sendo esta decisão da responsabilidade do programador. Num contexto de implementação de simuladores distribuídos e modulares para protocolos de redes de computadores e sistemas de comunicação, seria vantajoso poder-se utilizar uma API para comunicação dos processos de simulação que disponibilizasse apenas um único interface de programação e que decidisse de forma transparente o mecanismo ou protocolo comunicacional mais e ciente, tendo em conta a localização relativa dos processos. Nesta dissertação são abordadas as soluções semelhantes já existentes e é estudada uma API que pretende preencher estas lacunas. A arquitetura desta API será depois apresentada, assim como uma solução com base na investigação realizada. Por m, os resultados dos testes serão analizados e a conclusão apresentada. Esta dissertação foi desenvolvida no contexto do projeto RoutUM, um simulador de redes de computadores atualmente a ser desenvolvido pela Universidade do Minho.There are several Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) available to simplify the development of distributed applications. In most cases, they invariably use one type of application protocol and interface, being dependent of the existing transport protocols and operating system. To the programmer, the protocol stack and the type of interface must be explicitly chosen before initiating communication between processes. Some APIs simplify programming by hiding some speci c aspects about the communication protocols and mechanisms, revealing a more homogenized interface. However, the programming is still not completely transparent and independent from the communication protocols, the operating system and the relative location of the communicating processes. Also, they are unable to decide which communication mechanism to be used when there are several available possibilities, leaving that responsibility to the programmer. On the context of implementation of distributed and modular simulators for network protocols and communication systems, it would be desirable to be able to use an API that would allow communication between the processes while providing only one programming interface. It would then transparently decide the most e cient mechanism or communication protocol from the relative location of the communicating processes. This dissertation will present and discuss the currently available solutions and the problems associated with the development of an API which attempts to ll the missing features indicated above. The API's architecture will then be shown and developed into a solution based on the results from the investigation. In the end, this solution will be tested and the nal results will be presented. This dissertation was developed in the context of the RoutUM project, a network simulator being currently developed in the University of Minho

Going zero waste in canteens: Exploring food demand using data analytics

Nowadays, almost all of the catering service's food demand management, including its quantitative forecasting, is based either on intuitive managers' guesses or through modeling customers' behavior only as a function of time, which in turn may arise problems such as food menus' underestimation or overestimation, as the latter leads to food waste.Therefore, in order to reduce such waste arising from mismanagement, this paper aims to describe a system capable of, under several circumstances, predicting daily food demand - number of dishes - for a given menu. This system will be firstly designed taking into account the surrounding environment of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto's (FEUP) canteen, from which characteristic factors, influencing food consumption, can emerge. Therefore, factors such as weather conditions, holidays, students' timetable, are included in the model proposed. This study explores the use of advanced data mining techniques - Random Forests (RFs), Support Vector Regression (SVRs) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs).In this work, models were built for each type of dish - meat, fish and vegetarian - in order to predict their daily demand. Such models reached a mean absolute error (MAE) - difference between observed and predicted values - around 50 dishes for meat, 30 dishes for fish and 12 dishes for vegetarian. When comparing such results to the effective waste verified each month, it is possible to state that this system fulfills its main purpose, reducing food waste

Multi-robot coordination for a heterogeneous fleet of robots

There is an increasing need for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in industrial environments. The capability of autonomous movement and transportation of items in industrial environments provides a significant increase in productivity and efficiency. This need, coupled with the possibility of controlling groups of heterogeneous robots, simultaneously addresses a wide range of tasks with different characteristics in the same environment, further increasing productivity and efficiency. This paper will present an implementation of a system capable of coordinating a fleet of heterogeneous robots with robustness. The implemented system must be able to plan a safe and efficient path for these different robots. To achieve this task, the TEA* (Time Enhanced A*) graph search algorithm will be used to coordinate the paths of the robots, along with a graph decomposition module that will be used to improve the efficiency and safety of this system. The project was implemented using the ROS framework and the Stage simulator. Results validate the proposed approach since the system was able to coordinate a fleet of robots in various different tests efficiently and safely, given the heterogeneity of the robots.This work is financed by the ERDF - European Regional Development Fund, through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisa tion - COMPETE 2020 Programme under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agree ment, within project CrossLog, with reference POCI-01-0247-FEDER-039895info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

O problema de roteamento de veículos com custos de combustível dependentes do peso

O VRP é um problema que já vem a ser estudado há várias décadas e as suas variantes têm sofrido uma constante evolução. Contudo, o problema e todas as suas características variam entre si, tornando o problema complexo de resolver. Neste artigo é estudada a vertente do VRP que engloba o peso dos veículos e o seu impacto no combustível consumido e, consequentemente, os custos associados para a transportadora. Foi também feita uma simulação para otimizar os custos, a distribuição de peso pelos veículos e as rotas. Os resultados da simulação foram positivos, verificando-se que realmente o consumo do combustível tem impacto direto na forma como as rotas são calculadas e definidas e também um impacto no custo final de cada rota.VRP is a problem that has been studied for several decades and its variants have gone through a constant evolution. However, the problem and all its characteristics vary, making the problem complex to solve. In this article, the VRP variant that considers the weight of the vehicle load is studied, which includes the weight of vehicles and their impact on the fuel consumed and, consequently, the associated costs for the carrier. A simulation was also carried out to optimize costs, weight distribution of the load in the vehicles and routes. The results of the simulation were positive, verifying that fuel consumption does have a direct impact on the way routes are calculated and defined and also an impact on the final cost of each route

Biodegradation of mono-, di- and trifluoroacetate by microbial cultures with different origins

This work focused on the biodegradation of three structurally related fluoroacetates (FAs), mono- (MFA), di- (DFA) and trifluoroacetate (TFA), using as microbial inocula samples collected from a site with a long history of industrial contamination and activated sludge obtained from a municipal wastewater treatment plant. Biodegradation experiments were carried out under different modes of substrate supplementation, which included (i) FAs fed as sole carbon sources; (ii) FAs (only for DFA and TFA) fed in co-metabolism with sodium acetate; and (iii) mixtures of MFA with DFA or TFA. Biodegradation of the target compounds was assessed through fluoride ion release. Defluorination was obtained in the cultures fed with MFA, while DFA and TFA were recalcitrant in all tested conditions. When present in mixture, DFA was shown to inhibit biodegradation of MFA, while TFA had no effect. A total of 13 bacterial isolates obtained from MFA degrading cultures were found to degrade 20mgL-1 of this compound, as single strains, when supplemented as a sole carbon source. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene indicated that among these degrading bacteria only Delftia acidovorans had been previously reported to be able to degrade MFA. This work shows that, despite their similar chemical structures, biodegradation of the three tested FAs is very distinct and draws attention to the unknown impacts that the accumulation of DFA and TFA may have in the environment as a result of their high recalcitrance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effect of vineyard characteristics on the functional diversity of insectivorous birds as indicator of potential biocontrol services

Insectivorous birds have a large potential to provide biocontrol services in vineyards, thus contributing to the sustainability of this agroecosystem. Bird communities are influenced by vineyard management practices and surrounding landscape, which may influence their role as ecosystem service providers. Functional diversity indices are indicators of bird community composition, and thus may reflect potential biocontrol services. We surveyed 31 vineyard plots in southern Portugal to assess vineyard characteristics (management intensity and landscape context) that may influence functional insectivorous birds in vineyards, using seven functional diversity indices as potential biocontrol indicators. We used eight characteristics of vineyard plots to define three vineyard types for our case-study: TREE – smaller vineyard plots surround by a more diverse landscape, with larger proportion of tree-habitats; AGRI – vineyard plots with medium size and greater cover by herbaceous vegetation, mostly surrounded by agricultural habitats (pastureland, crops); and VINE – vineyard plots of larger size and higher inter-row herbaceous vegetation, often surrounded by other vineyard plots. Five potential biocontrol indicators seemed to vary according to vineyard type. The richness of functional insectivorous birds, functional dispersion, functional richness, and Rao’s functional diversity were all higher in vineyard TREE type compared to both AGRI and VINE types. The functional divergence was higher in vineyard TREE type than in VINE type, but similar to AGRI type. Accordingly, TREE type vineyards hold bird communities with more diverse and widespread ecological functions. This implies that smaller vineyard plots, in more heterogeneous landscapes, with neighbouring woodlands seem to have a higher potential of biocontrol services provided by insectivorous birds as suggested by using functional diversity indices as indicators