Search results for: Carla Vilela

Authors: Nadia Chougui, Nawal Makhloufi, Farouk Rezgui, Elias Benramdane, Carmen S. R. Freire, Carla Vilela, Armando J. D. Silvestre

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Native to Mexico, Opuntia ficus-indica was introduced in southern Spain, and thereafter, it was spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin by the Spanish conquerors in the 16th and 17th centuries. O. ficus-indica is a tropical and subtropical plant able to grow in arid and semi-arid regions, such as the Mediterranean and Central America regions. The culture of Opuntia covers about 200,000 ha in North Africa. This tree is used against soil erosion and desertification for fruit production and is encouraged to promote the livestock sector. It has recently received ever-increasing attention from researchers worldwide for the multivalent pharmaceutical and cosmetical potential of its different compartments (fruits, seeds, cladodes). The present study investigated the elaboration by casting method and characterization of new biodegradable films composed of cladodes powder (CP) of the plant raw material mentioned above, and a marine seaweed derivative, namely agar (A). The effect of glycerol concentration on the properties of the films was evaluated at four different contents (30, 40, 50 and 60 wt.%). The films present UV-blocking properties, thermal stability as well as moderate mechanical performance and water vapor transmission rate (WVTR). The results point to an increase in thickness, elongation at break, moisture content, water solubility, and WVTR with increasing glycerol content. On the contrary, Young’s modulus, tensile strength and contact angle decreased as glycerol concentration increased. The best combination is obtained for the film with 30% glycerol, based on an intermediate compromise between physical, mechanical, thermal and barrier properties. All these outcomes express the potentiality of the powder obtained from grinding the OFI cladodes as raw material to produce low-cost films for the development of sustainable packaging materials.

Keywords: Opuntia ficus-indica cladodes powder, agar, biobased films, effect of plasticizer, sustainable packaging

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Authors: Andreia Cortes, Carla Pimentel-Rodrigues, Joao Almeida, Myriam Kanoun-Boule, Carla Carvalho, Antonio Tadeu, Armando Silva-Afonso

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The adoption of green infrastructure is nowadays encouraged as an essential measure of urban planning and territorial development whenever it offers a better alternative, or is complementary, to current solutions. Green walls and living facades often provide healthy alternatives to traditional grey infrastructures, offering many benefits for both citizens and cities. Beyond the ability to improve environmental conditions and quality of life, they can augment the energy efficiency of buildings, enhance biodiversity and deliver a range of ecosystem services such as water purification, reduction of the urban heat island effect, improvement of air quality and climate change adaptation. For this communication, a systematic survey of the existing green walls and living facades in Portugal was carried out. Different systems were analyzed and compared in terms of dimensions, constructive solutions, vegetative species, maintenance necessities and environmental aspects.

Keywords: green buildings, green walls, living facades, sustainability construction

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Authors: Noemi Bessa Vilela

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The citizenship of the European Union nowadays established under article 20/1 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union has been a hallmark of the EU’s political integration since the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty. Initially received with some doubt regarding what it would mean to be a European citizen, and what would happen to individual national citizenships, the Union’s citizenship appears to have been relegated at present times to a secondary position in relation to other, more pressing, economic and market policies. Notwithstanding the veritable myriad of specific rights and freedoms attributed to citizens of the Union, it is not hard to understand that, given the importance of citizenship as a true cohesion policy at its core, somewhere along the way the Union has failed in its mission of giving its citizens a feeling of European identity, along with the values it so bravely wants to defend and promote. In fact, notwithstanding the ever-so-permanent presence of the blue and yellow flag next to national flags, and the elections to European Parliament, most citizens have no idea of the relevance of EU law as an integral part of their legal heritage. In fact, it is safe to state, while the majority of traveling nationals are aware of i.e. their right to freely move in between Member-States, most overlook the fact that this is a result of their status as EU citizens. We have now arrived at a crossroad between accepting the law as it is, or to create new possibilities. The question raised is whether the citizens of UK may, or may not, and shall or shall not, keep the EU citizenship.

Keywords: Brexit, democracy, EU citizenship, EU law, TFUE

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Authors: Carla Silva

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The aim of this research is to study the relationship between the performance of humanities students in different statistics classes and their performance in their specific courses. Several factors are been studied, such as gender and final grades in statistics and math. Participants of this study comprised a sample of students at a Lisbon University during their academic year. A significant relationship tends to appear between these factors and the performance of these students. However this relationship tends to be stronger with students who had previous studied calculus and math.

Keywords: education, performance, statistic, humanities

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Authors: Fernandes A. C. B. C. J., de Jesus V. C., Sepideh N., Vilela OFGG, Somarin K. K., França R., Pinheiro F. H. S. L.

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Objective: The purpose of this study was to look at the effect of pre-treatment of enamel with pumice and/or 37% phosphoric acid on the shear bond strength (SBS) of orthodontic tubes bonded to enamel while simultaneously evaluating the efficacy of orthodontic tubes bonded by self-etch primer (SEP). Materials and Methods: 39 of the crown halves were divided into 3 groups at random. Group, I was the control group utilizing both prophy paste and the conventional double etching pre-treatment method. Group II excluded the use of prophy paste prior to double etching. Group III excluded the use of both prophy paste and double etching and only utilized SEP. Bond strength of the orthodontic tubes was measured by SBS. One way ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD test were used to compare SBS values between the three groups. The statistical significance was set to p<0.05. Results: The difference in SBS values of groups I (36.672 ± 9.315 Mpa), II (34.242 ± 9.986 Mpa), and III (39.055 ± 5.565) were not statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: This study suggested that the use of prophy paste or pre-acid etch of the enamel surface did not provide a statistically significant difference in SBS between the three groups.

Keywords: shear bond strength, orthodontic bracket, self-etch primer, pumice, prophy

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Authors: R. Vidyasagar, G. L. S. Vilela, B. M. Guiraldelli, A. B. Henriques, J. Moodera

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Nano-scaled magnetic systems that can have both magnetic and optical transitions controlled and manipulated by external means have received enormous research attention for their potential applications in magneto-optics and spintronic devices. Among several ferrimagnetic insulators, the Tm₃Fe₅O₁₂ (TmIG) has become a prototype material displaying huge perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Nevertheless, the optical properties of nano-scale TnIG films have not yet been investigated. We report the observation of giant splitting in the optical transitions of high-quality thin films of Tm₃Fe₅O₁₂ (TmIG) grown by rf sputtering on gadolinium gallium garnet substrates (GGG-111) substrate. The optical absorbance profiles measured with optical absorption spectroscopy show a dual optical transition in visible frequency regimes attributed to the transitions of electrons from the O-2p valence band to the Fe-3d conduction band and from the O-2p valence band to the Fe-2p⁵3d⁶ excitonic states at the Γ-symmetric point of the TmIG Brillouin zone. When the thickness of the film is reduced from 120 nm to 7.5 nm, the 1st optical transition energy shifted from 2.98 to 3.11 eV ( ~130 meV), and the 2nd transition energy shifted from 2.62 to 2.56 eV (~ 60 meV). The giant band splitting of both transitions can be attributed to the population of excited states associated with the atomic modification pertaining to the compressive or tensile strains.

Keywords: optical transitions, thin films, ferrimagnetic insulator, strains

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Authors: Bruno de Almeida Vilela, Heinz Ahn, Ana Lúcia Miranda Lopes, Marcelo Azevedo Costa

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Benchmarking public utilities such as transmission system operators (TSOs) is one of the main strategies employed by regulators in order to fix monopolistic companies’ revenues. Since 2007 the Brazilian regulator has been utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to benchmark TSOs. Despite the application of DEA to improve the transmission sector’s efficiency, some problems can be pointed out, such as the high price of electricity in Brazil; the limitation of the benchmarking only to operational expenses (OPEX); the absence of variables that represent the outcomes of the transmission service; and the presence of extremely low and high efficiencies. As an alternative to the current concept of benchmarking the Brazilian regulator uses, we propose a goal-oriented approach. Our proposal supports input/output selection by taking traditional organizational goals and measures as a basis for the selection of factors for benchmarking purposes. As the main advantage, it resolves the classical DEA problems of input/output selection, undesirable and dual-role factors. We also provide a demonstration of our goal-oriented concept regarding service quality. As a result, most TSOs’ efficiencies in Brazil might improve when considering quality as important in their efficiency estimation.

Keywords: decision making, goal-oriented benchmarking, input/output factor determination, TSO regulation

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Authors: Lucas A. Silva, Carla R. Aguiar

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This work presents a proposal to perform contextual sentiment analysis using a supervised learning algorithm and disregarding the extensive training of annotators. To achieve this goal, a web platform was developed to perform the entire procedure outlined in this paper. The main contribution of the pipeline described in this article is to simplify and automate the annotation process through a system of analysis of congruence between the notes. This ensured satisfactory results even without using specialized annotators in the context of the research, avoiding the generation of biased training data for the classifiers. For this, a case study was conducted in a blog of entrepreneurship. The experimental results were consistent with the literature related annotation using formalized process with experts.

Keywords: sentiment analysis, untrained annotators, naive bayes, entrepreneurship, contextualized classifier

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Authors: Danilo Habermann, Aleksander Medella, Carla Cremon, Yusef Caceres

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This paper aims to analyze the ability of 2d point clouds features to classify different models of helicopters using radars. This method does not need to estimate the blade length, the number of blades of helicopters, and the period of their micro-Doppler signatures. It is also not necessary to generate spectrograms (or any other image based on time and frequency domain). This work transforms a radar return signal into a 2D point cloud and extracts features of it. Three classifiers are used to distinguish 9 different helicopter models in order to analyze the performance of the features used in this work. The high accuracy obtained with each of the classifiers demonstrates that the 2D point clouds features are very useful for classifying helicopters from radar signal.

Keywords: helicopter classification, point clouds features, radar, supervised classifiers

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Authors: Diogo Santos, Nelson Zagalo, Carla Morais

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No Man’s Sky (NMS) is a sci-fi video game about survival and exploration where players fly spaceships, search for elements, and use them to survive. NMS isn’t a serious game, and not all the science in the game is presented with scientific evidence. To find how players felt about the scientific content in the game and how they perceive the chemistry in it, a survey was sent to NMS’s players, from which were collected answers from 124 respondents from 23 countries. Chemophobia is still a phenomenon when chemistry or chemicals are a subject of discussion, but 68,9% of our respondents showed a positive attitude towards the presence of chemistry in NMS, with 57% stating that playing the video game motivated them to know more about science. 8% of the players stated that NMS often prompted conversations about the science in the video game between them and teachers, parents, or friends. These results give us ideas on how an entertainment game can potentially help scientists, educators, and science communicators reach a growing, evolving, vibrant, diverse, and demanding audience.

Keywords: digital games, science communication, chemistry, informal learning, No Man’s Sky

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Authors: Carla E. O. de Moraes, Gladson O. Antunes, Mauro A. Rincon

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The aim of this paper is to study the internal stabilization of the Bernoulli-Euler equation numerically. For this, we consider a square plate subjected to a feedback/damping force distributed only in a subdomain. An algorithm for obtaining an approximate solution to this problem was proposed and implemented. The numerical method used was the Finite Difference Method. Numerical simulations were performed and showed the behavior of the solution, confirming the theoretical results that have already been proved in the literature. In addition, we studied the validation of the numerical scheme proposed, followed by an analysis of the numerical error; and we conducted a study on the decay of the energy associated.

Keywords: Bernoulli-Euler plate equation, numerical simulations, stability, energy decay, finite difference method

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Authors: Samuel Bonato, Cineia Santos, Roberta Leite, Carla Ten Caten

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This paper aims to apply the A3 strategy deployment in a local department for healthcare. As a literature review, it was evaluated articles related to the period 2009 - 2018, considering the key-words A3, healthcare, public services and strategy deployment. The methodology used was action research, involving all the actors inside the secretary, beginning with the top management and deploying it through meetings and evaluation conferences with the participation of all secretary coordination. As main results, it is possible to highlight the development of 8 A3, one as the "mother A3" and 7 as "son A3", each one related to each coordination. In each A3, past results, new goals, new projects to achieve these goals and control deadlines were defined and implemented to a management strategy. In addition to this result, this paper is planning to present the use of this A3 during 6 months in 2019.

Keywords: A3 Strategy, strategy deployment, healthcare, Public services

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Authors: Quervin Zacary M. Roldan, Gwyneth Gabrielle M. Fajardo, Carmela M. Maciar

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Alcohol in the Philippines is regarded as a part of their culture however, it is also stigmatized, as alcohol addiction is prevalent among Filipino Males leading them to develop Alcohol Use Disorder. With this, Discourses of alcohol consumption from Individuals recovering from AUD from different rehabilitation centers in the Philippines were analyzed in the study to explore how they ‘talk’ about their alcohol consumption. By utilizing the Foucauldian Discourse Analysis following the six steps by Carla Willig, four (4) major discourses were major construed by the recovering individuals of AUD which are: (1) Being alcohol-free was a dream, (2) Drinking alcohol turns you into a demon that will destroy your life, (3) Drinking alcohol as ‘doing’ drugs and (4) Alcohol is a temporary solution. These discourses construct alcohol consumption as something that is being referred to as a 'bad' substance which is both normalized and stigmatized in Philippine society.

Keywords: alcohol, alcohol consumption, alcohol-based beverages, psychological effects, discourse, alcohol use disorder, stigma

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Authors: Carla Van De Sande, Jana Vandenberg

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Just like physical skills, cognitive skills grow rusty over time unless they are regularly used and practiced, so academic breaks can have negative consequences on student learning and success. The Keeping in School Shape (KiSS) program is an engaging, accessible, and cost-effective intervention that harnesses the benefits of retrieval practice by using technology to help students maintain proficiency over breaks from school by delivering a daily review problem via text message or email. A growth mindset is promoted through feedback messages encouraging students to try again if they get a problem wrong and to take on a challenging problem if they get a problem correct. This paper reports on the relationship between confidence, accuracy, and decision-making during the implementation of the KiSS Program at a large university during winter break for students enrolled in an engineering introductory Calculus course sequence.

Keywords: growth mindset, learning loss, on-the-go learning, retrieval practice

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Authors: Noemia Bessa Vilela, Jose Caramelo Gomes

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All law student are familiarized, in the first years of their bachelor of laws with the concepts of “public goods” and “ private goods”; often, such legal concept does not exactly match such economic concept, and there are consequences are some sort of confusion being created. The list of goods that follow under each category is not exhaustive, nor are students given proper mechanisms to acknowledge that some legal fields can, on its own, be considered as a “public good”; this is the case of Competition. Legal authors consider that “competition law is used to promote public interest” and, as such, it is a “public good”; in economics theory, Competition is the first public good in a market economy, as the enabler of allocation efficiency. Competition law is the legal tool to support the proper functioning of the market economy and democracy itself. It is fact that Competition Law only applies to economic activities, still, competition is object of private litigation as an integral part of Public Law. Still, regardless of the importance of Competition Law in the economic activity and market regulation, most student complete their studies in law, join the Bar Associations and engage in their professional activities never having been given sufficient tools to deal with the increasing demands of a globalized world. The lack of knowledge of economics, market functioning and the mechanisms at their reach in order to ensure proper realization of their duties as lawyers/ attorneys-at-law would be tackled if Competition Law would be included as part of the curricula of Law Schools. Proper teaching of Competition Law would combine the foundations of Competition Law, doctrine, case solving and Case Law study. Students should to understand and apply the analytical model. Special emphasis should be given to EU Competition Law, namely the TFEU Articles 101 to 106. Damages Directive should also be part of the curriculum. Students must in the first place acquire and master the economic rationale as competition and the world of competition law are the cornerstone of sound and efficient market. The teaching of Competition Law in undergraduate programs in Law would contribute to fulfill the potential of the students who will deal with matters related to consumer protection, economic and commercial law issues both in private practice and as in-house lawyers for companies.

Keywords: higher education, competition law, legal education, law, market economy, industrial economics

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Authors: Carla Michelle Gastelum Knight

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In an era where teacher educators and student teachers have almost unrestricted access to all kinds of sources through the internet, a research project carried out with a group of student-teachers has revealed how self-made videos are an exciting new way to motivate and engage students. The project was carried out at Universidad de Sonora, a public university in Northern Mexico, where 39 students of the Bachelor in Arts in English Language Teaching (B.A. in ELT) programme participated creating their own videos. In the process, they worked collaboratively, they exploited their creativity, they were highly motivated and showed more interest in the subject. The videos were shared in a private YouTube channel where students had the opportunity to review their peers’ work and where videos are available at any time for later viewing. This experience has led course instructor to face the challenge of planning and designing meaningful tasks that can and to find ways of exploiting the use of these resources for learning and training purposes.

Keywords: self-made materials, student-teachers, teacher education programme, teacher training

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Authors: Tianjiao Chu, Carla Rios Luci, Christy Maksoudian, Ara Sargsian, Bella B. Manshian, Stefaan J. Soenen

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Nanomaterials have gained high interest in their use as potent anticancer agents. Apart from delivering chemotherapeutic agents in order to reduce off-target effects, molecular agents have also been widely explored. The advances in our understanding of cell biology and cell death mechanisms1 has generated a broad library of potential therapeutic targets by siRNA, mRNA, or pDNA complexes. In the present study, we explore the ability of pDNA-polyplexes to induce tumor-specific necroptosis. This results in a cascade of effects, where immunogenic cell death potentiates anti-tumor immune responses and results in an influx of dendritic cells and cytotoxic T cells, rendering the tumor more amenable to immune checkpoint inhibition. This study aims to explore whether the induction of necroptosis in a subpopulation of tumor cells can be used to potentiate immune checkpoint inhibition studies.

Keywords: nanoparticle, MLKL, necroptosis, immunotherapy

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Authors: Mona Lisa M. Oliveira, Nara A. Policarpo, Ana Luiza B. P. Barros, Carla A. Silva

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Selective catalytic reduction systems for nitrogen oxides reduction by ammonia has been the chosen technology by most of diesel vehicle (i.e. bus and truck) manufacturers in Brazil, as also in Europe. Furthermore, at some conditions, over-stoichiometric ammonia availability is also needed that increases the NH₃ slips even more. Ammonia (NH₃) by this vehicle exhaust aftertreatment system provides a maximum efficiency of NOx removal if a significant amount of NH₃ is stored on its catalyst surface. In the other words, the practice shows that slightly less than 100% of the NOx conversion is usually targeted, so that the aqueous urea solution hydrolyzes to NH₃ via other species formation, under relatively low temperatures. This paper presents a model based on neural networks integrated with a road vehicle simulator that allows to estimate NH₃-slip emission factors for different driving conditions and patterns. The proposed model generates high NH₃slips which are not also limited in Brazil, but more efforts needed to be made to elucidate the contribution of vehicle-emitted NH₃ to the urban atmosphere.

Keywords: ammonia slip, neural-network, vehicles emissions, SCR-NOx

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Authors: Hallan Moura Ladeira, Carla Tatiana Mota Anflor

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The drilling process for bolted or riveted joints of components is very common in the naval, aeronautical, mechanical, and civil industries. In this context, the present work aims to study, through computer simulation, the influence of hole geometry (through, chamfered, and rounded) on crack propagation when submitted to static and dynamic loads. For the static crack evaluation, failure was considered when the stress intensity factor (FIT) exceeds the fracture toughness of the material (KIc). In the case of fatigue, the condition of the small crack tip plastification zone and the Paris Law were considered for determining region II of the dadN x ΔK curve. Initially, a parametric analysis of the hole geometry was performed to obtain a topology that would result in less discontinuity of the stress field and, consequently, less influence on static crack growth. The best performing topology was then used to study the fatigue crack growth rate considering the Paris Law. The numerical tests were performed on a 7075-T6 aluminum specimen resulting in dadN x ΔK curves in good agreement with the literature.

Keywords: holes, cracks, loading, fracture toughness

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Authors: Carla Silva

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Recent development of information and communication technology enables us to acquire, collect, analyse data in various fields of socioeconomic – technological systems. Along with the increase of economic globalization and the evolution of information technology, data mining has become an important approach for economic data analysis. As a result, there has been a critical need for automated approaches to effective and efficient usage of massive amount of educational data, in order to support institutions to a strategic planning and investment decision-making. In this article, we will address data from several different perspectives and define the applied data to sciences. Many believe that 'big data' will transform business, government, and other aspects of the economy. We discuss how new data may impact educational policy and educational research. Large scale administrative data sets and proprietary private sector data can greatly improve the way we measure, track, and describe educational activity and educational impact. We also consider whether the big data predictive modeling tools that have emerged in statistics and computer science may prove useful in educational and furthermore in economics. Finally, we highlight a number of challenges and opportunities for future research.

Keywords: data mining, research analysis, investment decision-making, educational research

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Authors: Paulo Lopes Henriques, Carla Curado

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According to literature, knowledge sharing behaviors are influenced by organizational values and structures, namely organizational climate. The manuscript examines the antecedents of the knowledge sharing oriented organizational climate. According to theoretical expectations the study adopts the following explanatory conditions: knowledge sharing costs, knowledge sharing incentives, perceptions of knowledge sharing contributing to performance and tenure. The study confronts results considering two groups of firms: nondigital (firms without intranet) vs digital (firms with intranet). The paper applies fsQCA technique to analyze data by using fsQCA 2.5 software (www.fsqca.com) testing several conditional arguments to explain the outcome variable. Main results strengthen claims on the relevancy of the contribution of knowledge sharing to performance. Secondly, evidence brings tenure - an explanatory condition that is associated to organizational memory – to the spotlight. The study provides an original contribution not previously addressed in literature, since it identifies the sufficient conditions sets to knowledge sharing oriented organizational climate using fsQCA, which is, to our knowledge, a novel application of the technique.

Keywords: fsQCA, knowledge sharing oriented organizational climate, knowledge sharing costs, knowledge sharing incentives

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Authors: Suzy Pereira, Alberto Rocha, Ana Almeida, Catarina Figueiredo, Helena Fonseca, Leonor Moreira, Carla Blum Vestena, Cristina Costa-Lobo

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The socio-educational support to parents, through parental education intervention programs, is part of European social policies, aiming to respond to the needs of education, promotion of well-being and development of children and young people. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of the Positive Parenting Program on the subjective well-being of the parents of gifted children. The Positive Parenting Program is authored and is conducted by the National Association of Study and Intervention in Giftedness, Portuguese Association. The central question to be explored in this research is: Does the promotion of positive parenting in parents of gifted children have a positive impact on the subjective well-being? The sample consisted of 30 parents, non-probabilistic sampling of convenience, of which 15 parents belong to the intervention group and the rest to the control group. One dimension will be evaluated - subjective well-being, through the PANAS questionnaire - before and after the sessions of this program. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of the process and results of the positive parenting program in parents of gifted children.

Keywords: positive parenting, subjective well-being, giftedness, parental education intervention programs

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Authors: Sílvia tuyà Viñas, Bruno Fernández-Valdés, Carla Pérez-Chirinos, Monica Morral-Yepes, Lucas del Campo Montoliu, Gerard Moras Feliu

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Some researchers stated that whole body vibration (WBV) generates postural destabilization, although there is no extensive research. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze movement variability when performing a half-squat with a different type of ballasts and rhythms with (V) and without (NV) WBV in male athletes using entropy. Twelve experienced in strength training males (age: 21.24  2.35 years, height: 176.83  5.80 cm, body mass: 70.63  8.58 kg) performed a half-squat with weighted vest (WV), dumbbells (D), and a bar with the weights suspended with elastic bands (B), in V and NV at 40 bpm and 60 bpm. Subjects performed one set of twelve repetitions of each situation, composed by the combination of the three factors. The movement variability was analyzed by calculating the Sample Entropy (SampEn) of the total acceleration signal recorded at the waist. In V, significant differences were found between D and WV (p<0.001; ES: 2.87 at 40 bpm; p<0.001; ES: 3.17 at 60 bpm) and between the B and WV at both rhythms (p<0.001; ES: 3.12 at 40 bpm; p<0.001; ES: 2.93 at 60 bpm) and a higher SampEn was obtained at 40 bpm with all ballasts (p<0.001; ES of WV: 1.22; ES of D: 4.49; ES of B: 4.03). No significant differences were found in NV. WBV is a disturbing and destabilizing stimulus. Strength and conditioning coaches should choose the combination of ballast and rhythm of execution according to the level and objectives of each athlete.

Keywords: accelerometry, destabilization, entropy, movement variability, resistance training

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Authors: Sofía Luna, Carla González Salamanca

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The 2008 economic crisis had huge implications in Europe. In this continent, the repercussions of the crisis were not only economic but also political and institutional. The economic stress has generated changes in the perception of the citizens, their attitude and the confidence placed in the political organizations. The lost of confidence is not only present in the debtor countries but it is also present in the European economic powers like Germany and France. This research explains how the economic crisis had an impact in the identity, population’s attitude and how this generated the rise of extreme right parties. In addition, it defines the different types of attitudes and support that exist towards these political and economic institutions. The results of this investigation show that the depression beside of its economic implications, it caused institutional, social and political difficulties for the Union. Moreover, the support and attitudes of the population were severely strained because the confidence in the political organization decreased. Furthermore, a rise in the otherness sentiment was shown. In other words, the distinction between “us” and “them” increased causing repercussions in the collective European identity. Additionally, there was a spread in national identities that caused the rise of the extreme right wing parties. In conclusion, the 2008 economic crisis caused not only economic stress but also it generated a political, social and institutional crisis in Europe.

Keywords: Europe, identity, economic crisis, otherness sentiment

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Authors: Carla Ferreira, Helena Barros

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The paper termed “Design of reinforced concrete with Eurocode 2” presents the theory regarding the design of reinforced concrete sections and the development of the tables and abacuses to verify the concrete section to the ultimate limit and service limit states. This paper is a complement of it, showing how to use the previous tools. Different numerical results are shown, proving the capability of the methodology. When a section of a beam is already chosen, the computer program presents the reinforcing steel in many locations along the structure, and it is the engineer´s task to choose the layout available for the construction, considering the maximum regular kind of reinforcing bars. There are many computer programs available for this task, but the interest of the present kind of tools is the fast and easy way of making the design and choose the optimal solution. Another application of these design tools is in the definition of the section dimensions, in a way that when stresses are evaluated, the final design is acceptable. In the design offices, these are considered by the engineers a very quick and useful way of designing reinforced concrete sections, employing variable strength concrete and higher steel classes. Examples of nonlinear analyses and redistribution of the bending moment will be considered, according to the Eurocode 2 recommendations, for sections under bending moment and axial forces. Examples of the evaluation of the service limit state will be presented.

Keywords: design examples, eurocode 2, reinforced concrete, section design

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Authors: Olphiara Rodolpheza Alexandre, Carla David, Rafael Guerra Lund, Nadia Ferreira

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Due to the increasing demand for biomaterials in the dental field, especially in endodontics, calcium silicate-based cements (CSCs) have gained prominence because of their biocompatibility and tissue regeneration capabilities. Originating from Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (MTA), the first bioceramic in endodontics derived from Portland cement, these materials are becoming increasingly prevalent in the market. For any drug released to the market, pharmacovigilance must ensure the absence of adverse health effects on consumers through rigorous toxicological testing. Although these materials have undergone in vitro and in vivo testing, such tests have typically been conducted over a limited period. Some effects may only become apparent after several years, and these studies are generally carried out on a non-specific population. However, the variety of calcium silicate-based products, including cement and sealers, raises questions about their toxicity, particularly considering potential long-term effects not addressed in existing studies. While the scientific literature includes comparative studies on the toxicity of these materials, the consistency of their conclusions is often controversial. Therefore, this project aims to map the scientific evidence from in vitro biocompatibility studies, including those investigating the toxicity of calcium silicate-based bioceramics.

Keywords: toxicity, toxicity test, bioceramics, calcium silicate, genotoxicity

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Authors: Carla Caiazza, Valentina Preziosi, Giovanna Tomaiuolo, Denis O'Sullivan, Vincenzo Guida, Stefano Guido

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In the last decades, wormlike micellar solutions have been extensively used to tune the rheological behavior of home care and personal care products. This and other successful applications underlie the growing attention that both basic and applied research are devoting to these systems, and to their unique rheological and flow properties. One of the key research topics is the occurrence of flow instabilities at high shear rates (such as shear banding), with the possibility of appearance of flow induced structures. In this scenario, microfluidics is a powerful tool to get a deeper insight into the flow behavior of a wormlike micellar solution, as the high confinement of a microfluidic device facilitates the onset of the flow instabilities; furthermore, thanks to its small dimensions, it can be coupled with optical microscopy, allowing a direct visualization of flow structuring phenomena. Here, the flow of a widely used wormlike micellar solution through a glass capillary has been studied, by coupling the microfluidic device with μPIV techniques. The direct visualization of flow-induced structures and the flow visualization analysis highlight a relationship between solution structuring and the onset of discontinuities in the velocity profile.

Keywords: flow instabilities, flow-induced structures, μPIV, wormlike micelles

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Authors: Renato Morbidelli, Carla Saltalippi, Alessia Flammini, Tommaso Picciafuoco, Corrado Corradini

Abstract:

A considerable part of rainfall data to be used in the hydrological practice is available in aggregated form within constant time intervals. This can produce undesirable effects, like the underestimate of the annual maximum rainfall depth, Hd, associated with a given duration, d, that is the basic quantity in the development of rainfall depth-duration-frequency relationships and in determining if climate change is producing effects on extreme event intensities and frequencies. The errors in the evaluation of Hd from data characterized by a coarse temporal aggregation, ta, and a procedure to reduce the non-homogeneity of the Hd series are here investigated. Our results indicate that: 1) in the worst conditions, for d=ta, the estimation of a single Hd value can be affected by an underestimation error up to 50%, while the average underestimation error for a series with at least 15-20 Hd values, is less than or equal to 16.7%; 2) the underestimation error values follow an exponential probability density function; 3) each very long time series of Hd contains many underestimated values; 4) relationships between the non-dimensional ratio ta/d and the average underestimate of Hd, derived from continuous rainfall data observed in many stations of Central Italy, may overcome this issue; 5) these equations should allow to improve the Hd estimates and the associated depth-duration-frequency curves at least in areas with similar climatic conditions.

Keywords: central Italy, extreme events, rainfall data, underestimation errors

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Authors: Cristina Costa-Lobo, Carla B. Vestena, Filomena E. Ponte

Abstract:

Creativity and intelligence are concepts that have aroused very expressive interest in the field of educational sciences and the field of psychological science since the middle of the last century since they have a great impact on the potential and well-being of individuals. However, due to progress in cognitive and positive psychology, there has been a growing interest in the psychoeducational domain of intelligence and creativity in the last decade. In this theoretical work, are analyzed comparatively the theoretical models that relate the intelligence and the creativity, are analyzed several psychoeducational intervention programs that have been implemented with a view to the promotion of creativity and signal possibilities, realities and ironies around the psychological evaluation of intelligence and creativity. In order to reach a broad perspective on creativity, the evidence is presented that points the need to evaluate different psychological domains. The psychoeducational intervention programs addressed have, with a common characteristic, the full stimulation of the creative potential of the participants, assumed as a highly valued capacity at the present time. The results point to the systematize that all interventions in the ambit of creativity have two guiding principles: all individuals can be creative, and creativity is a capacity that can be stimulated. This work refers to the importance of stimulus creativity in educational contexts, to the usefulness and pertinence of the creation, the implementation, and monitoring of flexible curricula, adapted to the educational needs of students, promoting a collaborative work among teachers, parents, students, psychologists, managers and educational administrators.

Keywords: creativity, intelligence, psychoeducational intervention programs, psychological evaluation, educational contexts

Procedia PDF Downloads 405

Authors: Bryan D. Llenarizas, Maria Carla F. Manzano

Abstract:

The rapid growth of electricity demand has led to a pursuit of alternative energy sources with high power output and not harmful to the environment. The fuel cell is a device that generates electricity via chemical reactions between the fuel and oxidant. Fuel cells have been known for decades, but the development of high-power output and durability was still one of the drawbacks of this energy source. This study investigates the potential of layer-by-layer composite for fuel cell applications. A two-electrode electrochemical cell was used for the galvanostatic electrochemical deposition method to fabricate a Polypyrrole/rGO|Polypyrrole/ZnO layer-by-layer composite material for fuel cell applications. In the synthesis, the first layer comprised 0.1M pyrrole monomer and 1mg of rGO, while the second layer had 0.1M pyrrole monomer and variations of ZnO concentration ranging from 0.08M up to 0.12M. A constant current density of 8mA/cm² was applied for 1 hour in fabricating each layer. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for the fabricated LBL material shows a globular surface with white spots. These white spots are the ZnO particles confirmed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, indicating a successful deposition of the second layer onto the first layer. The observed surface morphology was consistent for each variation of ZnO concentrations. AC measurements were conducted to obtain the AC resistance of the fabricated film. Results show a decrease in AC resistance as the concentration of ZnO increases.

Keywords: anode, composite material, electropolymerization, fuel cell, galvanostatic, polypyrrole

Procedia PDF Downloads 79