Desenvolvimento de equipamento para ajuda ao consumo da energia eléctrica em ambiente residencial

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Eletrotécnica e de Computadores - Major Energia. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

O outsourcing na exploração de empresa multimunicipal de saneamento

Mestrado em Engenharia e Gestão IndustrialA evolução das metodologias utilizadas na gestão de empresas, no caso concreto em análise, empresas de serviços, tem levado ao desenvolvimento e disseminação de estratégias que permitam a concretização de objetivos como a redução de custos ou maior flexibilidade na utilização de recursos, por forma a aumentar a competitividade, fazer face às dinâmicas próprias do mercado e garantir o nível de serviço esperado pelos utentes, mas também por forma a cumprir requisitos legais e normativos aplicáveis. Neste contexto, o presente trabalho pretende apresentar uma proposta de abordagem à adoção de políticas de outsourcing das atividades de exploração – entendendo-se como tal as atividades de operação e manutenção – de uma empresa multimunicipal de saneamento básico. Com base nas suas especificidades e necessidades, utilizando como estudo de caso a empresa SIMRIA, com um histórico de exploração de 13 anos, e a partir da análise dos conceitos e estratégias que constituem o estado da arte do outsourcing, é proposto um modelo de decisão sobre os recursos a utilizar – internos ou outsourcing – que integra as etapas e as variáveis relevantes para a tomada de decisão. A metodologia de trabalho desenvolvida assenta em três grandes fases. Começa pela descrição da conjuntura que condiciona e influencia a avaliação do recurso a estratégias de outsourcing, elencando os fatores de contexto internos e externos identificados no caso prático em análise. De seguida, é realizada uma apresentação dos conceitos ligados ao outsourcing nas suas definições mais recentes, das políticas de gestão alternativas a considerar, e dos resultados e implicações expectáveis da sua aplicação. A última fase é a definição de etapas e o enquadramento das variáveis relevantes num modelo de apoio ao processo de tomada de decisão relativo à opção pelo outsourcing. Para tal, são relacionadas as especificidades e necessidades da área de exploração de uma empresa multimunicipal de saneamento, da sua organização e do seu contexto de atuação com o estado da arte das estratégias de outsourcing.The evolution of the methodologies used in the management of companies, in the specific case under examination, service companies, has led to the development and dissemination of strategies to achieve goals such as the reduction of costs and increased flexibility in the use of resources, in order to increase competitiveness, to cope with the dynamics of the market and ensure the level of service expected by users but also to meet applicable legal and regulatory requirements. In this context, the present study aims at presenting a proposed approach to adoption of outsourcing policies of exploration activities – meaning the operation and maintenance activities – an intermunicipal sanitation company. Based on its specificities and needs, using as a case study the company SIMRIA, with a 13-year operating history, and from the analysis of the concepts and strategies that constitute the state of the art of outsourcing, it is proposed a decision model of resource to use – internal or outsourcing – which includes the steps and the variables relevant to decision-making. The methodology developed is based in three main phases. It begins with the description of the situation that determines and influences the assessment of resource to outsourcing strategies, touting the internal and external context factors identified in the case study. Below is a presentation of concepts related to outsourcing in their latest definitions, alternative management policies to consider and of the results and the expected implications of its implementation. The final phase is the definition of steps and the framing of relevant variables in a model to support the decision-making process for the outsourcing option. To do so, the peculiarities and needs of the exploration area of an intermunicipal sanitation company, their organisation and its context of performance are related with state of art of outsourcing strategies

Leveraging RISC-V to build an open-source (hardware) OS framework for reconfigurable IoT devices

With the growing interest in RISC-V systems and the endless possi bilities of creating customized hardware architectures, we introduce the first proof of concept (PoC) implementation of ChamelIoT, the first open-source agnostic hardware operating system (OS) frame work for reconfigurable Internet of Things (IoT) low-end devices. At this stage, ChamelIoT, leveraging the Rocket Custom Co-Processor Interface (RoCC), provides hardware acceleration support for thread management and scheduling of three different OSes: RIOT, Zephyr, and FreeRTOS. This paper overviews the overall ChamelIoT archi tecture and describes the implementation details of the current PoC deployment. Our first experiments were carried out on a Xilinx Arty-35T FPGA Evaluation kit and the preliminary results are very promising, showing that the desired agnosticism and flexibility can be achieved with determinism and performance advantages at a reasonable cost of hardware resources

A reconciled version of the cork oak tree genome-scale metabolic model

Quercus suber, commonly known as cork oak tree, is an evergreen tree which produces a thick bark (also known as cork) with multiple (a)biotic stress resistance properties (1). Due to corks natural characteristics, such as the low weight, excellent insulation and low permeability, the cellular structure has a significant economic value as it has multiple applications. For instance, it can be used as a wine bottle sealant and insulation boards (2,3). Additionally, cork is harvested periodically throughout the trees lifetime (4). Nevertheless, the corks quality can only be properly assessed after 40 years of tree growth, which makes the identification of metabolic traits, associated to high-quality cork, of the utmost importance (5). Genome-Scale Metabolic (GSM) models comprise both genomic and metabolic information and can predict the phenotypic behavior of an organism when subjected to distinct environmental conditions (6). Therefore, a reconstructed GSM model of the cork oak tree can point to metabolic properties related to cork quality. Additionally, in silico metabolic engineering strategies could lead to the development of metabolically enhanced trees. The current Quercus suber leaf model, reconstructed within merlin (7), contains 3126 reactions, 2648 metabolites, 7258 genes and was subjected to extensive manual curation, while the biomass and energy requirements were revamped. In silico simulations, using Flux Balance Analysis (8), accurately predict the phenotypic behavior of the leaf cell when exposed to phototrophic and heterotrophic conditions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Operating systems for Internet of Things low-end devices: analysis and benchmarking

In the era of the Internet of Things (IoT), billions of wirelessly connected embedded devices rapidly became part of our daily lives. As a key tool for each Internet-enabled object, embedded operating systems (OSes) provide a set of services and abstractions which eases the development and speedups the deployment of IoT solutions at scale. This article starts by discussing the requirements of an IoT-enabled OS, taking into consideration the major concerns when developing solutions at the network edge, followed by a deep comparative analysis and benchmarking on Contiki-NG, RIOT, and Zephyr. Such OSes were considered as the best representative of their class considering the main key-points that best define an OS for resource-constrained IoT devices: low-power consumption, real-time capabilities, security awareness, interoperability, and connectivity. While evaluating each OS under different network conditions, the gathered results revealed distinct behaviors for each OS feature, mainly due to differences in kernel and network stack implementations.This work has been supported by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019

Quinolines: microwave-assisted synthesis and their antifungal, anticancer and radical scavenger properties

An efficient method for the synthesis of quinolines using microwave irradiation was developed providing 28 quinolines with good yields. The reaction procedures are environmentally friendly, convenient, mild and of easy work-up. Quinolines were evaluated for their antifungal, anticancer and antioxidant properties and exhibited high activities in all tests performed.Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Ciencias Aplicada

Physical and transport proferties of edible films composed of galactomannan and chitosan

Edible films and coatings can provide additional protection for food, while being a fully biodegradable, environmentally friendly packaging system. The main objective of the study was to produce edible films and coatings based on chitosan and galactomannan of A. pavonina L., with the incorporation of sodium acetate and characterize them as to their physical properties. Films were cast and, the water vapor, O2 and CO2 permeabilities of the films were determined, together with their solubility in water, opacity, color and mechanical properties. The film of chitosangalactomannan with the addition of sodium acetate had lower permeability to water vapor (1.40 ± 0.02 (g.(m.day.atm)-1)) and elongation at break (67.11 ± 0.89%) being the most rigid film for presenting the highest Youngs modulus (35.68 ± 0.64 MPa). The blends showed the highest values of maximum voltage and breakdown voltage. The films based on galactomannan had a decreased permeability to O2 of 0.20 to 0.18 x 10-12 (g.(m.Pa.s.m2)-1, incorporating sodium acetate, also showing high permeability to CO2. The chitosan film without addition of sodium acetate had low lightness value L * (81.23 ± 1.43) and a higher opacity compared with the film containing acetate, suggesting that incorporation of sodium acetate increased transparency of the film. The films containing chitosan exhibited low water solubility and high b* component values, indicating the predominance of yellowing. The reported results is important once it will reduce the characterization work needed in subsequent applications of these coatings/films on foods

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

Outcomes from elective colorectal cancer surgery during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

This study aimed to describe the change in surgical practice and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on mortality after surgical resection of colorectal cancer during the initial phases of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic