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A key aspect for a successful management of marine non-indigenous species (NIS) is the cooperation with local stakeholders. In this study we assessed stakeholders' baseline knowledge and perceptions on marine NIS foreseeing support for their management in the Azores and Madeira archipelagos (Portugal). Survey questionnaires were designed to assess: i) current knowledge and stakeholder perception of NIS and associated problems; ii) influence of communication media on NIS dissemination; iii) stakeholder willingness to be involved in NIS management actions and; iv) which factors predict stakeholder participation in NIS management actions. Face-to face survey questionnaires were administered in recreational marinas of Sao Miguel (Azores) and Madeira islands. Four groups of stakeholders classified based on their putative relation with NIS were selected as target. In total 214 survey questionnaires were collected and analysed. Our results showed no significant differences between stakeholders based in Sao Miguel and the ones from Madeira. Overall a strong baseline knowledge on NIS and associated consequences was found but a weak accuracy to identify NIS examples was demonstrated. Types of communication media revealed to be stakeholder-specific and information-specific. Decision tree predictive models showed three powerful factors to forecast the respondent's participation in NIS management actions: 1- to belong to one of the four stakeholder groups; 2- to have a good level of NIS knowledge; and 3- to have the perception that NIS introduction is an important issue. Despite the positive attitude exhibited by stakeholders in engaging NIS management, our results highlighted a consensus to attribute governmental responsibility to such activities. The results of this work constitute a baseline to develop further management actions aiming to reduce the local spread of marine NIS and so contributing to a better environmental status of Portuguese marine waters.

The thermal performance of cementitious mortars can be improved with the use of form-stable phase change materials (PCMs) consisting of a solid-liquid paraffin mix impregnating diatomite in a diatomite-vermiculite mineral system. The present study includes designing, developing, and characterizing a novel PCM based on a combination of diatomite and calcined, expanded vermiculite, and an optimized paraffin system consisting of a mixture of solid paraffin and naphthenic oil. The diatomite is expected to store the paraffin and wrap the vermiculite particles, increasing the amount of stagnant air. X-ray fluorescence is used to assess the chemical composition of the diatomite and vermiculite. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) measurements are used to characterize the paraffin mixes aimed at optimum performance for residential and commercial buildings. PCM samples made from paraffin and diatomite (PCM1), vermiculite (PCM2), and a mix of diatomite and vermiculite (PCM(1 + 2)) are characterized by scanning electron microscopy and FT-IR. Cement mortars are prepared in the volume ratios of 1:4 cement:sand (reference mortar), 1:4:1 cement:sand:diatomite, 1:4:1 cement:sand:vermiculite, and 1:4:1 cement:sand:PCM. The thermal properties of these materials are evaluated. The DSC results of the paraffin mixtures indicate that 20% naphthenic oil is the ideal concentration in the paraffin mixture to optimize the solid-liquid temperature (57.45 °C) and latent heat for building applications (159.42 J/g). All PCMs have reduced thermal conductivities compared to the reference mortar (1.47 W/m·K), with the lowest being associated with the PCM(1 + 2) sample (0.82 W/m·K). The PCM(1 + 2) sample also presents an improved combination of diffusivity, volumetric heat capacity, and thermal resistivity. The simultaneous addition of vermiculite and diatomite to the PCM composition improves the thermal properties, while maintaining the basic characteristics such as chemical and structural stability.

Feature selection is one of the most important concepts in data mining when dimensionality reduction is needed. The performance measures of feature selection encompass predictive accuracy and result comprehensibility. Consistency‐based methods are a significant category of feature selection research that substantially improves the comprehensibility of the result using the parsimony principle. In this work, the biobjective version of the algorithm logical analysis of inconsistent data is applied to large volumes of data. In order to deal with hundreds of thousands of attributes, heuristic decomposition uses parallel processing to solve a set covering problem and a cross‐validation technique. The biobjective solutions contain the number of reduced features and the accuracy. The algorithm is applied to omics datasets with genome‐like characteristics of patients with rare diseases. This work used the EGI, European Grid Infrastructure, with the support of the IBERGRID, Iberian Grid Infrastructure, and INCD (Portugal); NCG‐INGRID‐PT; FCT, Grant/Award Number: UID/Multi/04046/2013 info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

O aumento da urbanização mundial, com previsões para 60% da população mundial viver em grandes cidades até 2050, leva as cidades a tornarem-se tecnologicamente mais avançadas. Assim, são desenvolvidas as cidades inteligentes com o objetivo de melhorar a comunicação entre cidadãos e autoridades decisoras e pela criação de serviços mais dirigidos às necessidades e preocupações das populações. reduzindo ainda os custos globais. Mas o que se entende por cidade inteligente? info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Feature selection is one of the most important concepts in data mining when dimensionality reduction is needed. The performance measures of feature selection encompass predictive accuracy and result comprehensibility. Consistency based feature selection is a significant category of feature selection research that substantially improves the comprehensibility of the result using the parsimony principle. In this work, the feature selection algorithm LAID, Logical Analysis of Inconsistent Data, is applied to large volumes of data. In order to deal with hundreds of thousands of attributes, a problem de-composition strategy associated with a set covering problem formulation is used. The algorithm is applied to artificial datasets with genome-like characteristics of patients with rare diseases.

Dissertação de Mestrado em Ensino de Educação Física, nos Ensinos Básico e Secundário O estágio pedagógico é o culminar de todo um processo com vista à obtenção de qualificações essenciais para a docência. Durante este ano de estágio foram postos em prática todos os conhecimentos aquiridos ao longo do percurso académico, assumindo-se como um ano abastado em consolidação de aprendizagens teóricas e, acima de tudo, na aplicação dessas aprendizagens em cada unidade de ensino. O presente relatório de estágio tem como grande finalidade retratar reflexivamente o meu ano de estágio, no âmbito do 2º ano do mestrado em Ensino da Educação Física nos ensinos Básico e Secundário, na Universidade de Trás-os- Montes e alto Douro. Este Relatório de Estágio é a junção, por escrito, de um vasto leque de vivências variadas e diferentes de dia para dia, obtidos durante um ano de árduo trabalho, porém gratificante, exercido na Escola Secundária Morgado de Mateus. O Relatório de Estágio está dividido em duas partes. Numa primeira parte é realizada uma reflexão sobre toda a minha atividade enquanto docente, onde, primeiramente serão expostas as estratégias utilizadas na planificação, realização e avaliação, existindo sempre uma consideração sobre o que foi feito, de que forma foi feito e o que poderá ser melhorarado e, por último, serão retratadas de forma detalhada as vivências na participação na escola, principalmente nas atividades de promoção da prática desportiva para os jovens. A segunda parte é composta por um estudo de investigação e reflexão, relativo ao tema “Motivação para as aulas de Educação Física nos diferentes ciclos de ensino: preferência por modalidades coletivas e individuais”, onde são esmiuçadas as causas da (des)motivação nas aulas de educação física, bem como as razões que as justificam. The pedagogical internship is the culmination of a process with a view to the acquisition of essential qualifications for teaching. During this probationary year were put into practice all the knowledge acquired over the academic career, assuming it was a year rich in consolidating learning theory and, above all, in applying these learnings in each teaching unit. This internship report has as great purpose reflexively portray my placement year within the 2nd year of the Masters in Teaching Physical Education in Elementary and Secondary teaching at the University of Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro. This Internship Report is the joint, in writing, a wide range of different experiences and different from day to day, obtained during a year of hard work, but rewarding, performed at the High School Morgado de Mateus. The Internship Report is divided into two parts. The first part is performed to reflect on all of my activity as a teacher, which primarily will be exposed to strategies used in planning, implementation and evaluation, there is always a consideration of what was done, how it was done and what may be improved, and last are portrayed in detail the experiences of participation in school, principally engaged in the promotion of sport for young people. The second part consists of a research study and reflection concerning the subject "Motivation for Physical Education classes at different levels of education: preference for collective and individual sports" where are teased the causes of (de)motivation in lessons in physical education, as well as the reasons which justify them.

The measure of climate change in dairy farms can be achieved by using the emissions of methane by the ruminants converted in CO2 equivalent (CO2-eq). In order to know the impact of future quotes of methane in the Azorean dairy milk farms, a decision model is built to the Azorean intensive grazing system of dairy farms. Some scenarios of methane levels reductions from 10 to 75% are considered and their impact is evaluated upon dairy farms income, level of CO2-eq emissions and intensity level of grazing system. The results have shown that any reduction of the methane level always implies a consequent decrease in income. If the CO2-eq has to be limited than there is the need to find alternative income activities for farmers in order to preserve economic sustainability. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

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Purpose/aim: 3Y-TZP is a biocompatible material that presents appropriated mechanical and tribological properties to be used as metal free prosthesis in dentistry. Processing parameters such as sintering temperature and time affect simultaneously the tribological behavior. The aim of this study was to evaluate the coefficient of friction of 3Y-TZP ceramics sintered at different temperatures and times and to relate this with average grain size and hardness of these materials

A secção UAciência é coordenada pelo Professor Universitário Armindo Rodrigues. […]. Neste trabalho pretendemos compreender o papel do Facebook e do Moodle, como ferramentas de apoio as atividades de aprendizagem fora da sala de aula. Para isso, conduzimos um estudo por inquérito com uma amostra de estudantes das licenciaturas de Informática - Redes e Multimédia e de Psicologia da Universidade dos Açores. Escolhemos estes cursos de licenciatura na expectativa de encontrar diferenças significativas nas formas e na frequência da utilização das ferramentas para as atividades de aprendizagem, tendo em conta as respetivas áreas científicas de formação. […]. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

CISTI'2015 - 10ª Conferência Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação, 17 a 20 de junho de 2015, Águeda, Aveiro, Portugal. Learning management systems and social networks on Web have been tools most used by students in higher education institutions as learning support tools outside of the classroom. In this paper, we present the results from a survey conducted at a Portuguese university to 159 students in Computer Science and Psychology about the purposes and reasons for the use of Moodle and Facebook. We conclude, among other conclusions, that they complement each other: while the first is mostly used for formal communication with teachers, the second is mostly used for informal communication with peers.

Neste trabalho, descreve-se um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão para fornecer indicadores de suporte a decisões de gestão numa organização de poder local, a autarquia de Lagoa - S. Miguel, Açores. É contemplada a modelação, recorrendo à notação UML, a criação de base de dados relacional MySQL, algoritmos de recolha de dados implementados em PHP e modelos de previsão na linguagem R. O sistema disponibiliza aos utilizadores previsões efetuadas por diferentes modelos, para os vários indicadores, aconselhando aqueles com erros mais próximos de zero. Usam-se funções R para alisamento exponencial, decomposição clássica com tendência linear e modelos ARIMA. Da aplicação realizada, com dados para 12 anos, concluiu-se que para a maior parte dos indicadores, o modelo da decomposição clássica é o aconselhado. Mas, para alguns indicadores, verificou-se que as duas medidas de erro usadas não são coerentes, deixando-se ao decisor a escolha final de qual o modelo a utilizar., Revista de Ciências da Computação, v. 10 (2015)

This paper describes a Decision Support System to provide indicators to support budget plan decisions, in a local government organization, the municipality of Lagoa - S. Miguel, Azores. The work includes system modeling, using the UML notation, the development of a MySQL relational database, algorithms for data collection using PHP, and forecasting models using R functions, such as exponential smoothing, classical decomposition with linear trend, and ARIMA models. Users have access to predictions made by different models for several indicators, being suggested to use the models with closest to zero errors. From the analysis performed considering 12 years data, it is concluded that for most of indicators, the classical decomposition model is the most successful. However, for some indicators, it was found that the two error measures used are not consistent. In these cases, the final decision is left to the decision-maker, taking advantage of his domain knowledge. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

One of the most important decisions a retailer can make is where to locate a retail outlet. Because convenience is so important to today's consumers, a retail store can prosper or fail solely based on its location. Recently, a changing retail environment is augmenting the location importance as retail economic groups develop multi-outlet chains of small stores. The methods used in the development and calibration of location models for commercial spaces and sales forecast are multiple, varying from simple analogy forecast models to very complex spatial interactions models, which may incorporate dependence models in a gravitational or logit structure and many exploratory variables. More recent developments incorporating meta-heuristics such as genetic algorithms for the global problem of the multi-outlet chain configuration, or the use of Voronoi diagrams in store trade area delimitation, are also presented. Finally, the Geographical Information Systems' role on the decision support process is equally explored.

A growing population world might exceed its food supply in the future. Food availability needs an increasing agricultural productivity and production through technology and innovation. European concerns about innovation policies reflected on the Lisbon Agenda include the European program PROPRURAL+ for the Portuguese Azores Islands. The agricultural innovation in the Azores started with the Green Revolution, which increased agricultural production, using seeds, fertilizers, chemical products and agricultural equipment. But much more innovation is needed for the Azores to became a well-sustained and competitive European region in this economic sector. For example, concerning milk, the region is responsible for more than 30% of the national production. But, since the liberalization in EU imposed by the global markets, a crisis in the sector is installed. Dairy producers are now facing many difficulties in trying to enhance the profitability of their farms, by reducing costs and improving efficiency. A characterization of the Azorean agriculture, emphasizing the milk production sector is presented. The specificities and the potential of the region are discussed and some agricultural innovations with IoT technologies are pointed out.

A paremiologic (study of proverbs) case is presented as part of a wider project based on data collected among the Azorean population. Given the considerable distance between the Azores islands, the authors present the hypothesis that there are significant differences in the proverbs from each island, thus permitting the identification of the native island of the interviewee based on his or her knowledge of proverbs. In this chapter, a feature selection algorithm that combines Rough Sets and the Logical Analysis of Data (LAD) is presented. The algorithm named LAID (Logical Analysis of Inconsistent Data) deals with noisy data, and the authors believe that an important link was established between the two different schools with similar approaches. The algorithm was applied to a real world dataset based on data collected using thousands of interviews of Azoreans, involving an initial set of twenty-two thousand Portuguese proverbs.

BACKGROUND Previously we reported that cultures of fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) samples synthesize different cytokine pattern depending on the alloimmune response towards the kidney graft. However, we failed to find a clear picture for growth factors implicated in early T-cell activation (interferon-gamma, interleukin [IL]-4, IL-12), although we observed that interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) was associated with absence of acute rejection. We have now studied tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and its two soluble receptors, sTNFRI and sTNFRII, IL-1beta and soluble IL-1 receptor II (sIL-1RII), and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), all potential modulators of T-cell activation. METHODS Sixty-six cadaver kidney transplants (KTX) were divided into four groups: group 1, day 7 after KTX, stable (n=30); group 2, day 7 after KTX, 8+/-4.5 days before acute rejection (n=12); group 3, first day of acute rejection (n=17); and group 4, day 14 after KTX, stable (n=32). Patients from groups 1 and 4 remained rejection-free for the first 6 months. All rejection episodes were confirmed by core renal biopsy. FNAB samples were cultured according to our published methodology, and culture supernatants were collected at 48 hr and analyzed by ELISA for IL-1beta, sIL-1RII, TNF-alpha, sTNFRI, sTNFRII, and LIF. Serum levels for sIL-1RII, sTNFRI, and sTNFRII were also measured. RESULTS FNAB cultures from groups 1 and 4 synthesized significantly lower amounts of sTNFRI and sTNFRII than those from either groups 2 or 3. Both sTNFRI and sTNFRII reached high positive and negative predictive values for acute rejection. IL-1beta and sIL-1RII were synthesized by all groups but without differences. No trace of LIF and TNF-alpha was found. sTNFRII was significantly higher in serum from group 3. CONCLUSIONS Both TNF receptors were positively associated with acute rejection and were good predictors of impending acute rejection. The ratio of sIL-1RII over IL-1 (together with IL-1ra that we previously measured in FNAB cultures) suggests that IL-1 actions may be inhibited with current immunosuppression early after transplantation.

Initially an eleven variable, sixteen assay 215−11 fractional factorial design, was used to determine the key factors in the production of violacein produced by Chromobacterium violaceum, CCT 3496. Subsequently five and three factor central composite designs were executed to determine response surfaces with the aim of optimizing cellular mass and crude violacein production. The 7.5 g l−1 dry cell mass and 0.17 g l−1 crude violacein productions obtained with our initial culture medium were increased to 21 g l−1 and 0.43 g l−1, respectively, for a medium investigated in the three factor design.

Copyright © 2013 Springer Netherlands. This chapter proposes to estimate the technical efficiency in agricultural grazing systemsgrazing systems (dairy, beef and mixed) in Azores, in the year 2002. This research used 184 agricultural farms of FADN – Farm Accountancy Data Network. DEA, a non-parametric methodology, was used to estimate efficiency by means of DEAP software. The results have shown that the average technical efficiency in the dairy grazing system was 63.2% (CRS) and was higher (71.4%) in VRS, and the scale efficiency was about 89.2%. In beef grazing system, the average technical efficiency (CRS) was 69.4%; VRS and the scale efficiency were 82.9 and 84.2%, espectively. In the mixed grazing system, the average technical efficiency (CRS) was 89%, the VRS was higher (99.24%) and the scale efficiency was 89.8%. The mixed system is the most efficient, and about half (46.7%) of the farms were efficient. In the dairy grazing system and in the beef systems, only 9.8 and 11.1% were efficient farms. The efficiency is generally higher in mixed systems than in dairy and beef systems.

Copyright © 2013 Springer Netherlands. The producers always aspire at increasing the efficiency of their production process. However, they do not always succeed in optimising their production. In the last years, the interest on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as a powerful tool for measuring efficiency has increased. This is due to the large amount of data sets collected to better understand the phenomena under study and, at the same time, to the need of timely and inexpensive information. The "Productivity Analysis with R" (PAR) framework establishes a user-friendly data envelopment analysis environment with special emphasis on variable selection, aggregation, summarisation and interpretation of the results. The starting point is the following R packages: DEA (Diaz-Martinez and Fernandez-Menendez 2008) and FEAR (Wilson 2008). The DEA package performs some models of data envelopment analysis presented in Cooper et al. (2007). FEAR is a software package for computing nonparametric efficiency estimates and testing hypotheses in frontier models. FEAR implements the bootstrap methods described in Simar and Wilson (2000). PAR is a software framework using a portfolio of models for efficiency estimation and also providing results explanation functionality. PAR framework has been developed to distinguish between efficient and inefficient observations and to explicitly advise the producers about possibilities for production optimisation. PAR framework offers several R functions for a reasonable interpretation of the data analysis results and text presentation of the obtained information. The output of an efficiency study with PAR software is self-explanatory. We are applying PAR framework to estimate the efficiency of the agricultural system in Azores (Mendes et al. 2009). All Azorean farms will be clustered into homogeneous groups according to their efficiency measurements to define clusters of "good" practices and cluster of "less good" practices. This makes PAR appropriate to support public policies in agriculture sector in Azores.

Para os fins deste ensaio, defino desenvolvimento como a criação de condições tendentes à promoção do ser humano em sua integridade. É, portanto, um processo plus o sucesso resultante...

Copyright © 2013 Springer Netherlands. Superefficiency is an important extension of DEA that overcomes some limitations of the traditional models, specifically allowing ranking of efficient units and a unique set of weights for those units. Weights restriction is a well-known technique in the DEA field. When those techniques are applied, weights cluster around its new limits, making its evaluation dependent of its levels. This chapter introduces a new approach to weights adjustment by goal programming techniques, avoiding the imposition of hard restrictions that can even lead to unfeasibility. This method results in models that are more flexible.

Copyright © 2013 Springer Netherlands. In this concluding chapter the editors make some important remarks on the importance and conclusions of the book as a whole, focusing on its importance, relevance and adequacy to an extended audience of researchers in the efficiency analysis in the agricultural and environment fields.

Copyright © 2013 Springer Netherlands. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a popular non-parametric method used to measure efficiency. It uses linear programming to identify points on a convex hull defined by the inputs and outputs of the most efficient Decision Making Units (DMUs). Two critical elements account for the strength of the DEA approach: (1) no a priori structure is placed on the production process of the firm, and (2) the models can yield a measure of efficiency even with a very small number of data points. The first point is particularly important because the measure of efficiency is based upon the best practice of the DMUs at any of the levels of output observed. Data envelopment analysis measures efficiency and is very sensitive to the choice of variables for two reasons: the number of efficient DMUs is directly related to the number of variables, and the selection of the variables greatly affects the measure of efficiency when the number of DMUs is few and/or when the number of explanatory variables needed to compute the measure of efficiency is too large. Our approach advises which variables should be included in a DEA model. Hence, a variable selection method is presented for the deterministic DEA approach. First, a definition of different measures of efficiency and the various DEA models used to measure efficiency is provided, and then a variable selection method is proposed. The Azorean agricultural system is used as an example to illustrate the method.

Extracting knowledge from data is the major objective of any data analysis process, including the ones developed in several sciences as statistics and quantitative methods, data base \ data warehouse and data mining. From the latter disciplines the data mining is the most ambitious because intends to analyse and extract knowledge from massive often badly structured data with many specific objectives. It is also used for relational data base data, network data, text data, log file data, and data in many other forms. In this way, is no surprise that a myriad of applications and methodologies have been and are being developed and applied for data analysis functions, where CRISP-DM (cross industry standard process for data mining) and SEMMA (sample, explore, modify, model, assessment) are two examples. The need for a roadmap is, therefore, highly recognised in the field and almost every software company has established their own process model.

A secção UAciência é coordenada pelo Professor Universitário Armindo Rodrigues. O iFarm e um serviço inovador que oferece uma experiencia interativa na Internet, e proporciona a oportunidade de produzir géneros alimentares com base nos conceitos de agricultura biológica e alimentação saudável. E uma ideia que surgiu num projeto transversal, impulsionado e estimulado na 1a edição da Pós-Graduação em Tecnologias Web (P3W em http://p3w.uac.pt), da Universidade dos Acores. A P3W assume que as competências em Informática são fatores potenciadores de sucesso pessoal e profissional num mundo globalizado de forte inspiração tecnológica. […]. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

15th Portuguese Conference on Artificial Inteligence - EPIA 2011. Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, 10-13 Outubro 2011. A paremiologic (study of proverbs) case is presented as a part of a wider project, based on data collected by thousands of interviews made to people from Azores, and involving a set of twenty-two thousand Portuguese proverbs, where we searched for the minimum information needed to identify the birthplace island of an interviewee. The concept of birthplace was extended for all respondents that have lived in any locations more than 5 years, unintentionally introducing inconsistencies in the data classification task. The rough sets differ from classical sets by their ability to deal with inconsistent data. A parallel approach to data reduction is given by the logical analysis of data (LAD). LAD handicaps, like the inability to cope with the contradiction and the limited number of classification classes, will be overcome in this version of Logical Analysis of Inconsistent Data (LAID).

Given the large amount of data provided by the Web 2.0, there is a pressing need to obtain new metrics to better understand the network structure; how their communities are organized and the way they evolve over time. Complex network and graph mining metrics are essentially based on low complexity computational procedures like the diameter of the graph, clustering coefficient and the degree distribution of the nodes. The connected communities in the social networks have, essentially, been studied in two contexts: global metrics like the clustering coefficient and the node groups, such as the graph partitions and clique communities.

Workshop "Modelos de Apoio à Decisão na Agricultura e Ambiente". Universidade dos Açores, Angra do Heroísmo, Ilha Terceira, Açores, 16 de Setembro de 2011. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is becoming an increasingly popular management tool for decision support related to efficiency comparisons. The task of the DEA is to evaluate the relative performance of units of a system. Is not a problem solution technique but an important problem analysis method based in mathematical programming with some similarities with Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). DEA makes it possible to identify efficient and inefficient units in a framework where results are considered in their particular context. The units to be assessed should be relatively homogeneous and were originally called Decision Making Units (DMUs). It is an extreme point method that compares each DMU with the "best" DMUs. The “Productivity Analysis with R” (PAR) framework establishes a user - friendly data envelopment analysis environment with special emphasis on variable selection and aggregation, and summarization and interpretation of the results. PAR framework has been developed to distinguish between efficient and inefficient observations of performances and to advise explicitly for producers’ possibilities to optimize their production. In this work we will apply PAR to farms in Terceira Island, with a small data set of 30 farms. This data set includes 14 input variables and 4 output variables. With PAR was possible to conclude that 4 farms are scale – efficient and the others are scale inefficiency due to decreasing returns to scale or increasing returns to scale. This implies that either the dairy farm is too big (the number of cows is too large) or to small and that the farmer can improve the productivity of inputs and hence reduce unit costs by reducing or increasing the dimension of the farm.

Neste trabalho identificam-se as causas responsáveis por variações no consumo horário de energia com base na identificação de padrões e relações entre os dados de consumo e várias variáveis climatéricas. Para tal utilizam-se técnicas de data mining, nomeadamente a metodologia CRISP-DM e software de data warehouse MS SQL Server. Assim, foi possível verificar que as variáveis climatéricas têm influência muito significativa na produção de energia eléctrica, tendo sido possível prever os consumos de 2007 com um erro absoluto médio de 1,4 MW. Identificam-se ainda vários padrões no comportamento do consumo ou produção de energia eléctrica, nem todos espectáveis face ao conhecimento actual de domínio. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

14º Congresso da APDIO, 7 a 9 de Setembro de 2009, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia - Caparica. Na análise de redes sociais, uma k-clique é a relaxação de uma clique, i.e., uma k-clique é um quase sub-grafo completo. Um k-clique num grafo é um sub-grafo onde a distancia entre quaisquer par de vértices não é maior que k. A visualização de um pequeno número de vértices é fácil de obter. Contudo, quando o número de vértices aumenta a visualização torna-se incompreensível. Nesta comunicação, propomos uma nova abordagem na extracção de conhecimento em grafos, utilizando k-cliques. O conceito que clique relaxado é estendido para todo o grafo, de forma a ter uma visão geral, ao cobrir a rede com k-cliques. Sequências de coberturas de k-cliques são apresentadas combinando o conceito dos "pequenos mundos" com estruturas com coesão. Resultados computacionais e exemplos são apresentados. ABSTRACT: In social network analysis, a k-clique is a relaxed clique, i.e., a k-clique is a quasi-complete sub-graph. A k-clique in a graph is a sub-graph where the distance between any two vertices is no greater than k. The visualization of a small number of vertices can be easy to perform in a graph. However, when the number of vertices and edges increases the visualization becomes incomprehensible. In this paper, we propose a new graph mining approach based on k-cliques. The concept of relaxed clique is extended to whole the graph, to achieve a general view, by covering the network with k-cliques. The sequence of k-clique covers is presented, combining small world concepts with community structure components. Computational results and examples are presented.

2009 International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Data Mining (ASONAM 2009), 20-22 July, Athens, Greece. In a series of interviews, we collected a heterogeneous set of several million relations of positive and negative knowledge that a group of thousands of people has about a set of circa twenty-two thousand Portuguese proverbs. One of the interesting questions was if we could find a minimum base of proverbs as an indicator to decide from which place a person came due to their specific profile of proverbial knowledge. Before trying this challenge, we will analyse, in this article, the probability of achieving such an idea by trying to find out if a homomorphism between the proverbial knowledge and the geographical location of a person could exist. To solve this question, we chose an approach based on the analysis of social networks where the broadcast of oral culture, at least historically, could be interpreted as a trace of direct social contact between some of their users. We found, in the present pilot-project based on small data sets, that there are clusters where the neighbourhood relation inducted by the minimum Hamming distance could be a reflex of the geographical distribution and of some migration flux of the population.

14th Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence, EPIA 2009, Aveiro, Portugal, October 12-15, 2009. In social network analysis, a k-clique is a relaxed clique, i.e., a kclique is a quasi-complete sub-graph. A k-clique in a graph is a sub-graph where the distance between any two vertices is no greater than k. The visualization of a small number of vertices can be easily performed in a graph. However, when the number of vertices and edges increases the visualization becomes incomprehensible. In this paper, we propose a new graph mining approach based on k-cliques. The concept of relaxed clique is extended to the whole graph, to achieve a general view, by covering the network with k-cliques. The sequence of k-clique covers is presented, combining small world concepts with community structure components. Computational results and examples are presented.

O projecto descrito tem o objectivo de apoiar decisões de investimento em infraestruturas de comunicação na Electricidade Dos Açores (EDA), a empresa responsável pela geração, transporte e venda de corrente eléctrica na Região Autónoma dos Açores. A decisão imediata a apoiar consistia em saber se as comunicações entre ilhas deveriam passar para tecnologias Voice over IP (VoIP), um serviço actualmente contratado em regime de outsourcing. Foi estabelecido um projecto de business intelligence, usando tecnologias OLAP do Microsoft SQL Server, para ler e pré-processar os ficheiros CSV de grande dimensão, combinar esses dados com bases de dados existentes e apresentar os resultados sobre a forma de cubos multidimensionais. Posteriormente, implementaram-se igualmente algoritmos de data mining, integrando na metodologia CRISP-DM as duas técnicas utilizadas. Construindo vários modelos foi possível, além de apoiar a decisão pretendida, identificar situações ineficientes e mesmo fraudulentas. Os modelos construídos foram ainda disponibilizados aos decisores estratégicos e de controlo, assim como toda a estrutura de reutilização, manutenção e realimentação que suporta o OLAP e os modelos de data mining., Revista de Ciências da Computação, v. 3 (2008)

3ª Conferência Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação (CISTI 2008), 19 a 21 de Junho de 2008, organizada pela Universidad de Vigo. Este artigo descreve um Sistema de Apoio à Decisão capaz de fornecer informação precisa e de qualidade sobre as comunicações na Electricidade Dos Açores (EDA). A decisão imediata a apoiar consistia em saber se as comunicações entre ilhas deveriam passar para tecnologias Voice over IP (VoIP), um serviço actualmente contratado a uma empresa de comunicações externa. Num projecto de business intelligence e usando tecnologias Microsoft SQL server, o sistema lê e pré-processa ficheiros CSV de grande dimensão, recebidas da empresa de comunicações, combina esses dados com bases de dados existentes e apresenta os resultados sobre a forma de cubos multidimensionais. Posteriormente, este trabalho foi integrado num projecto de data minig, usando a metodologia CRISP-DM, tendo sido possível além de apoiar a decisão pretendida identificar situações ineficientes e mesmo de utilização fraudulenta de equipamentos de comunicação. Vários modelos foram construídos e disponibilizados a diferentes decisores para apoiar decisões estratégicas e de controlo.

Copyright © 2006 The authors. Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This work is part of a supermarket chain expansion study and is intended to cluster the existent outlets in order to support the evaluation of outlet performance and new outlet site location. To overcome the curse of dimensionality (a large number of attributes for a very small number of existing outlets) experts' knowledge is considered in the clustering process. Three alternative approaches are compared for this end, the experts being required to: (1) a priori: provide values for perceived dissimilarities between pairs of outlets; (2) a posteriori: evaluate results from alternative regression trees; (3) interactively: help to select base variables and evaluate results from alternative dendrograms. The later approach provided the best results according to the marketing experts.

Publicado originalmente em "Advances in Doctoral Research in Management", Volume 1, pp. 171-195, Fevereiro de 2006. ISBN 978-981-256-044-5 (Hardcover). This work is part of a dissertation that addresses the supermarket site assessment problem. We propose a 3-steps method for stores' site evaluation. (The 1st step yields the constitution of analogue groups of existent supermarkets, using a clustering procedure. On the 2nd step we use classification trees to classify new stores into specific analogue groups. Finally, on the 3rd step, we build a linear regression model to forecast new sites’ sales, based on several predictor variables, including dummy variables referred to analogue groups). In order to deal with demographic and competition data related to each supermarket, we use neighborhood delimitation techniques. Three alternative delimitation techniques and two aggregation procedures are compared. Results are evaluated based on the proportion of sales turnover variance that the alternative predictors are able to explain. (As a result, we select one aggregation procedure, although we conclude that none of the delimitation models: shortest path polygons and multiplicative weighted Voronoi diagrams, first and second order, present similar performance). Finally, we compare the relative importance of spatial data predictors in site assessment evaluation, using Dominance Analysis. As a result, the relevance of spatial analysis predictors clearly emerges being only dominated by the "trade area".