A solution for estimates in software development projects

The Corporate world is becoming more and more competitive. This leads organisations to adapt to this reality, by adopting more efficient processes, which result in a decrease in cost as well as an increase of product quality. One of these processes consists in making proposals to clients, which necessarily include a cost estimation of the project. This estimation is the main focus of this project. In particular, one of the goals is to evaluate which estimation models fit the Altran Portugal software factory the most, the organization where the fieldwork of this thesis will be carried out. There is no broad agreement about which is the type of estimation model more suitable to be used in software projects. Concerning contexts where there is plenty of objective information available to be used as input to an estimation model, model-based methods usually yield better results than the expert judgment. However, what happens more frequently is not having this volume and quality of information, which has a negative impact in the model-based methods performance, favouring the usage of expert judgement. In practice, most organisations use expert judgment, making themselves dependent on the expert. A common problem found is that the performance of the expert’s estimation depends on his previous experience with identical projects. This means that when new types of projects arrive, the estimation will have an unpredictable accuracy. Moreover, different experts will make different estimates, based on their individual experience. As a result, the company will not directly attain a continuous growing knowledge about how the estimate should be carried. Estimation models depend on the input information collected from previous projects, the size of the project database and the resources available. Altran currently does not store the input information from previous projects in a systematic way. It has a small project database and a team of experts. Our work is targeted to companies that operate in similar contexts. We start by gathering information from the organisation in order to identify which estimation approaches can be applied considering the organization’s context. A gap analysis is used to understand what type of information the company would have to collect so that other approaches would become available. Based on our assessment, in our opinion, expert judgment is the most adequate approach for Altran Portugal, in the current context. We analysed past development and evolution projects from Altran Portugal and assessed their estimates. This resulted in the identification of common estimation deviations, errors, and patterns, which lead to the proposal of metrics to help estimators produce estimates leveraging past projects quantitative and qualitative information in a convenient way. This dissertation aims to contribute to more realistic estimates, by identifying shortcomings in the current estimation process and supporting the self-improvement of the process, by gathering as much relevant information as possible from each finished project

Radicalização e terrorismo: os pilares da prevenção e da deteção

Projeto de Graduação apresentado à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Licenciado em CriminologiaO Terrorismo é um fenómeno criminal que assola permanentemente as sociedades ocidentais e que acarreta consequências nefastas, não só para as suas vítimas diretas, mas também para as populações onde fica instaurado o sentimento de insegurança. Derivado dos ataques terroristas que se mostraram mais frequentes na última década, especialmente em território europeu, foram desenvolvidos diversos documentos estratégicos com foco na prevenção, tanto da radicalização como dos atos terroristas. No entanto, a evolução das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação e o acesso generalizado à internet mudaram o paradigma dos processos de adesão e maturação da radicalização.Terrorism is a criminal phenomenon that permanently plagues Western societies and has harmful consequences, not only for its direct victims, but also for the populations where the feeling of insecurity is established. Derived from the terrorist attacks that have been shown to be more frequent in the last decade, especially in Europe, a number of strategic documents have been developed focusing on the prevention of both radicalisation and terrorist acts. However, the evolution of Information and Communication Technologies and widespread access to the Internet have changed the paradigm of the processes of access and maturation of radicalisation.N/

Estágio realizado no Instituto Português de Reumatologia

As doenças reumáticas (DR) são doenças crónicas e afetam, em muito, a população, tendo consequências na saúde, funcionalidade, realização das atividades da vida diária (AVD`s) e na qualidade de vida dos indivíduos. O presente relatório surge na necessidade de relatar e descrever as atividades de estágio curricular no IPR, no âmbito do Mestrado de Exercício e Saúde. Para além desta descrição, foi realizado uma análise estatística, recorrendo aos dados recolhidos durante todo o estágio, comparando dois momentos diferentes. Parte do relatório inclinou-se na Espondilite Anquilosante (EA), uma doença reumática inflamatória que provoca um funcionamento menos correto do sistema imunitário e afeta principalmente a coluna vertebral, que se caracteriza por uma rigidez na coluna vertebral e limitação de movimentos. O exercício, para além do tratamento farmacológico, vem cada vez mais, com o passar do tempo, a revelar-se uma forma eficaz de promover uma melhoria significativa na qualidade de vida do doente. Os objetivos de estágio passaram pela utilização dos conhecimentos adquiridos, desenvolvimento e aplicação de estratégias, planeamento e desenvolvimento de programas de exercício/atividade física, através da avaliação subjetiva e objetiva daaptidão física na população em causa. A maior dificuldade sentida ao longo do tempo, foi sem dúvida a adesão à prática de exercício, especificamente um programa de exercícios domiciliário, estruturado e planeado. De uma forma geral foram identificadas melhorias significativas a nível subjetivo e objetivo, ou seja, através da perceção de melhoria do doente, bem como através dos resultados da avaliação de testes realizados entre um primeiro e um segundo momento.Rheumatic diseases (RD) are chronic diseases and seriously affect the population, having consequences on health, functionality, daily life activities (ADL`s) and quality life of individuals. The present report arises from the need to report and describe curricular internship activities of IPR, within the Master's Degree Course in Exercise and Health. In addition to this description, a statistical analysis was performed using data collected during the whole stage, comparing two different moments. Part of the report leans on Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), a rheumatic inflammatory disease that causes a less correct functioning of the immune system and mainly affects the spine, which is characterized by stiffness in spine and limited movement. Exercise, in addition to pharmacological treatment, increasingly, over time, proves to be an effective way to promote a significant improvement in the patient's quality life. The internship objectives were to apply the knowledge acquired, develop and implement strategies, plan and develop exercise/physic activity programs, by a subjective and objective assessment of physical fitness in the population concerned. The greatest difficulty felt over time, was no doubt an adherence to the exercise, through a structured and planned home exercises program. In general, significant improvements were identified at a subjective and objective level, that is, through the perception of patient improvement, as well as evaluation results on tests performed between a first and a second moment

Learning Bayes-optimal dendritic opinion pooling

Pooling different opinions and weighting them according to their reliability is conducive to making good decisions. We demonstrate that single cortical neurons, through the biophysics of conductance-based coupling, perform such complex probabilistic computations via their natural dynamics. While the effective computation can be described as a feedforward process, the implementation critically relies on the bidirectional current flow along the dendritic tree. We suggest that dendritic membrane potentials and conductances encode opinions and their associated reliabilities, on which the soma acts as a decision maker. Furthermore, we derive gradient-based plasticity rules, allowing neurons to learn to represent desired target distributions and to weight afferents according to their reliability. Our theory shows how neurons perform Bayes-optimal cue integration. It also explains various experimental findings, both on the system and on the single-cell level, and makes new, testable predictions for intracortical neuron and synapse dynamics

A contrastive rule for meta-learning

Meta-learning algorithms leverage regularities that are present on a set of tasks to speed up and improve the performance of a subsidiary learning process. Recent work on deep neural networks has shown that prior gradient-based learning of meta-parameters can greatly improve the efficiency of subsequent learning. Here, we present a biologically plausible meta-learning algorithm based on equilibrium propagation. Instead of explicitly differentiating the learning process, our contrastive meta-learning rule estimates meta-parameter gradients by executing the subsidiary process more than once. This avoids reversing the learning dynamics in time and computing second-order derivatives. In spite of this, and unlike previous first-order methods, our rule recovers an arbitrarily accurate meta-parameter update given enough compute. We establish theoretical bounds on its performance and present experiments on a set of standard benchmarks and neural network architectures

REACTIVE ARTHRITIS (SYN: REITER’S SYNDROME)

Artrite reactiva, anteriormente conhecida como Síndrome de Reiter, refere-se à tríade clássica de artrite, uretrite e conjuntivite, que ocorre após episódio de infecção génito-urinária ou gastrointestinal. Nos adultos, a causa mais frequente é a infecção por Chlamydia trachomatis. Pode também apresentar-se sem todos os elementos da tríade, ou acompanhar-se de manifestações cutâneas ou viscerais. Enquadra-se no grupo das espondiloartropatias seronegativas, e existe uma forte associação com o gene HLA-B27. A doença pode ocorrer de forma aguda ou evoluir para a cronicidade. O tratamento vai depender da infecção desencadeante.Reactive arthritis, previously known as Reiter’s Syndrome, is the classic triad of arthritis, urethritis and conjunctivitis, which occurs after an acute episode of genito-urinary or gastrointestinal infection. In adults, the most frequent cause is infection by Chlamydia trahomatis. It may also present as an incomplete triad or be associated with dermatological or visceral symptoms. It is classified as a seronegative spondyloarthropathy, and is strongly associated with HLA-B27. Reactive arthritis may occur as an acute disease or progress to a chronic form, and treatment depends on the eliciting infection

Green approaches for extraction, chemical modification and processing of marine polysaccharides for biomedical applications

Over the past few decades, natural-origin polysaccharides have received increasing attention across different fields of application, including biomedicine and biotechnology, because of their specific physicochemical and biological properties that have afforded the fabrication of a plethora of multifunctional devices for healthcare applications. More recently, marine raw materials from fisheries and aquaculture have emerged as a highly sustainable approach to convert marine biomass into added-value polysaccharides for human benefit. Nowadays, significant efforts have been made to combine such circular bio-based approach with cost-effective and environmentally-friendly technologies that enable the isolation of marine-origin polysaccharides up to the final construction of a biomedical device, thus developing an entirely sustainable pipeline. In this regard, the present review intends to provide an up-to-date outlook on the current green extraction methodologies of marine-origin polysaccharides and their molecular engineering toolbox for designing a multitude of biomaterial platforms for healthcare. Furthermore, we discuss how to foster circular bio-based approaches to pursue the further development of added-value biomedical devices, while preserving the marine ecosystem.publishe

Learning Bayes-optimal dendritic opinion pooling

In functional network models, neurons are commonly conceptualized as linearly summing presynaptic inputs before applying a non-linear gain function to produce output activity. In contrast, synaptic coupling between neurons in the central nervous system is regulated by dynamic permeabilities of ion channels. So far, the computational role of these membrane conductances remains unclear and is often considered an artifact of the biological substrate. Here we demonstrate that conductance-based synaptic coupling allow neurons to represent, process and learn uncertainties. We suggest that membrane potentials and conductances on dendritic branches code opinions with associated reliabilities. The biophysics of the membrane combines these opinions by taking account their reliabilities, and the soma thus acts as a decision maker. We derive a gradient-based plasticity rule, allowing neurons to learn desired target distributions and weight synaptic inputs by their relative reliabilities. Our theory explains various experimental findings on the system and single-cell level related to multi-sensory integration, and makes testable predictions on dendritic integration and synaptic plasticity.Comment: 36 pages, 10 figures; Mihai A. Petrovici and Walter Senn share senior authorshi