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Abstract Despite the relevance of crowdfunding as a financing tool for underrepresented entrepreneurs, prior research pays scant attention to the funding gap for refugee entrepreneurs. Using a composite framework that integrates both entrepreneurship research and signalling theory, the current study investigates how microfinance institutions (MFIs) and refugee entrepreneurs can deploy signals to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities on digital platforms. The results, based on refugee data pertaining to 5615 loans on Kiva during 2015–2018, reveal that when refugee loan campaigns are affiliated with an MFI that itself features lower default rates, achieves high profitability, adopts an entrepreneurial support orientation, operates transnationally and is digitally focused, the campaign achieves better crowdfunding performance outcomes than refugees campaigns affiliated with an MFI that lacks these features. These findings provide clear evidence that when MFIs offer reputational signals, visible to the crowd of lenders, it can increase entrepreneurial financing and democratize resource acquisition among financially excluded refugee entrepreneurs. Plain English Summary Can microfinance institutions boost crowdfunding among refugee entrepreneurs and their small businesses? Yes, they can. Third-party signals may support growth in alternative finance for #refugees. While research on entrepreneurship has largely targeted immigrant entrepreneurs, the refugee context has been neglected, namely how refugee entrepreneurs fund their economic activities. With signalling literature on new venture financing of entrepreneurship being greatly fragmented, we contribute to the understanding of how crowdfunding microfinance boost venture financing of refugees. We study the gain of legitimacy by refugee entrepreneurs displayed through reputational signals intertwined with the reputation of microfinance institutions (MFI). Our results reveal higher success in funding outcomes when the loan campaign is linked with microfinance institutions with lower loan default rates, higher profitability, driven by entrepreneurial support, operating internationally and with a digital presence, compared with MFI that lacks these features. Our work has relevant implications for underrepresented refugee entrepreneurs, crowdfunding actors, policymakers and scholars. Our findings indicate that the affiliation between refugees-microfinance institutions creates certain reputational signals which enhance entrepreneurial finance and shape conditions for societal integration in the host country. For crowdfunding platforms, we show that to develop an effective, self-perpetuating entrepreneurial ecosystem, they should work to build their reputation among lenders, by capitalizing on and making third-party signals more readily available. At the same time, they must conduct due diligence to assess and monitor MFIs’ behaviour. Policy makers are recommended to build up on this digital microfinance experience to enhance new venturing finance refugee programs. We, thus, extend prior findings about the importance of third-party affiliations by establishing a composite framework of third-party signals in the context of new venture financing for financially excluded communities, and refugees in particular. Accordingly, for scholars, we offer cross-disciplinary insights into which characteristics of intermediaries can facilitate links between the supply (crowd of lenders) and demand (refugee entrepreneurs) sides in prosocial crowdfunding.

Through digital evolution, digital marketing capabilities for companies have become essential for capturing business results. It, therefore, became relevant to find out from top managers and marketing managers in Portugal what characteristics and skills companies are most looking for in digital marketing professionals. As a result, it was verified, in this study, not only the fundamental characteristics that digital marketing professionals must have but also a high market demand for these professionals since the recognition of the importance of digital marketing for obtaining business results is recognized and valued by the market in this digital age. Com a evolução do digital, a capacitação das empresas em marketing digital tornou-se imprescindível para a captação de resultados de negócio. Tornou-se assim pertinente apurar junto dos gestores de topo e gestores de marketing em Portugal, quais as caracteristas e habilitades que as empresas mais procuram nos profissionais de marketing digital. Verificou-se, neste estudo, não apenas as caracteristicas fundamentais que os profissionais de marketing digital devem ter, como uma alta procura do mercado por estes profissionais, uma vez que o reconhecimento da importância do marketing digital para a obtenção de resultados de negócio é reconhecido e valorizado pelo mercado nesta era digital.

Para proteger a privacidade dos utilizadores, foram implementadas diversas políticas de privacidade sobre a utilização de tecnologias de rastreio, para possibilitar a aquisição do consentimento dos utilizadores antes da recolha de dados. Mas será que um sítio Web cumprindo todas estas políticas respeita por completo a privacidade de um utilizador? Não arranja outras formas subliminares para violar a privacidade de um utilizador e desta forma rastreá-lo sem o seu consentimento? A presente dissertação tem por objetivo fazer uma análise a um conjunto variado de sítios Web, com o intuito de certificar que estes sítios Web estão de acordo com um conjunto de requisitos relacionados com a privacidade a partir de serviços que o utilizador esteja a usufruir. Neste sentido foi criado um quadro de avaliação que proporcionou uma classificação, tendo em conta atributos implementados num sítio Web que são considerados prejudiciais para a privacidade de um utilizador. Desta forma os sítios Web foram separados por categorias de jornais, compras, bancos, governo, instituições universitárias e sítios Web relacionados com transportes e reservas online. A categoria de jornais foi a que demonstrou ter um nível de privacidade mais grave para o utilizador com uma percentagem de 80% e a categoria de universidades foi a que demonstrou ter uma privacidade muito boa para o utilizador com uma percentagem de 100%. To protect user’s privacy, several privacy policies on the use of tracking technologies have been implemented, to make it possible to acquire user’s consent before collecting data. But does a Website complying with all these policies fully respect a user's privacy? Doesn’t it come up with other subliminal ways to violate a user's privacy and thus track him without his consent? The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze a variety of Websites, in order to certify that these Websites comply with a set of requirements related to privacy from services that the user is enjoying. In this sense, an evaluation table was created that provided a classification, taking into account attributes implemented in a Website that are considered harmful to the privacy of a user. In this way the Websites were separated by categories of newspapers, shopping, banking, government, university institutions, and transportation-related websites and online booking. The newspaper category was the one that was shown to have the most severe level of privacy for the user with a percentage of 80% and the university institutions category was the one that was shown to have very good privacy for the user with a percentage of 100%. Mestrado em Engenharia Informática

En este trabajo de investigación, se realiza un análisis de riesgos sobre todos los trabajos realizados por los empleados de la empresa mencionada, que se encuentran expuestos a líquidos cloacales y peligros inherentes a las tareas. Se realizan recomendaciones de medidas correctivas y preventivas para reducir la valoración de los riesgos analizados y de esta manera reducir la probabilidad de ocurrencia de accidentes y enfermedades laborales. Fil: Pasculli, Mónica Noemi. Universidad Católica de Salta. Facultad de Ingeniería; Argentina. Fil: Márquez, Ricardo Emanuel. Universidad Católica de Salta. Facultad de Ingeniería; Argentina.

This study addresses the successive calls to better understand the contexts of crowdfunding as well as the interplay between social and financial factors in driving lender decisions by deploying ec...

Tese de doutoramento em Biomedical Engineering, O tratamento da leishmaniose é normalmente baseado em formulações de anfotericina B (AmB), que apresentam sérias limitações. Apesar dos progressos realizados nesta área, continua a ser necessário desenvolver alternativas menos dispendiosas e menos tóxicas. Esta tese tem como objetivo desenvolver um processo simples e de baixo custo para produzir nanocomplexos de AmB-polissacarídeo solúveis em água, com atividade anti-leishmaniose e reduzida toxicidade. Foram produzidas formulações não covalentes de dextrino (Dex-AmB) e de ácido hialurónico (HA-AmB) (genericamente designados de nanocomplexos) e covalentes (designados de complexos covalentes), neste caso pelo método de aminação redutiva (HA-AmBi). Foram testadas diversas soluções para a secagem das formulações, por liofilização (FD) e pulverização (spray-drying, SD). Todas as formulações testadas permitiram melhorar a solubilidade da AmB, possivelmente devido à amorfização do fármaco. O teor de AmB nos nanocomplexos é comparável ao obtido para o conjugado covalente, o que valoriza o processo operacionalmente mais simples da conjugação não química. Contrariamente às formulações com dextrino (Dex), as obtidas com ácido hialurónico (HA) apresentam uma estabilidade coloidal elevada, devido ao seu potencial zeta (-30mV). Estudos de atividade in vitro mostraram que as formulações apresentam boa atividade anti-leishmaniose (IC50: 0.017 e 0.023 μM para Dex-AmB FD e Dex-AmB SD, respetivamente; 0.026 e 0.030 μM para HA-AmB FD e HA-AmB SD, respetivamente; 0.023 μM para HAAmBi), associada a uma redução significativa na toxicidade do fármaco. Este efeito foi mais acentuado no nanocomplexo HA-AmB, obtido usando SD. Foi testado o desempenho in vivo das formulações HAAmB SD e HA-AmBi, tendo-se observado uma redução da toxicidade em ratinhos após administração intravenosa. As formulações promoveram uma supressão similar da carga de parasitas no baço e no fígado. Embora os nanocomplexos sejam menos eficazes na redução da infeção no fígado, comparativamente ao AmBisome®, os resultados demonstram que usando um método muito simples e direto é possível obter uma formulação promissora para o tratamento de leishmaniose visceral., The treatment of leishmaniasis is usually based on amphotericin B (AmB) and its formulations, which have serious limitations. Despite the progress made in this area, there is still a need to develop less expensive and less toxic alternatives. This thesis aims to develop a simple and low-cost process to produce water-soluble AmB-polysaccharide nanocomplexes with anti-leishmaniasis activity and reduced toxicity. Non-covalent formulations of dextrin (Dex-AmB) and hyaluronic acid (HA-AmB) (generically called nanocomplexes) and covalent formulations (called covalent complexes) were produced, in this case by the reductive amination method (HA-AmBi). Several solutions were tested for drying the formulations, namely using lyophilization (FD) and spraying (spray-drying, SD). All tested formulations improved the AmB solubility, possibly due to drug amorphization. The AmB content in the nanocomplexes is comparable to that obtained for the covalent conjugate, which favors the operationally simpler process of non-chemical conjugation. Unlike formulations with dextrin (Dex), those obtained with hyaluronic acid (HA) have a high colloidal stability, due to the higher zeta-potential (˗30mV). In vitro activity studies showed that the formulations have good anti-leishmanial activity (IC50: 0.017 and 0.023 μM for Dex-AmB FD and Dex-AmB SD, respectively; 0.026 and 0.030 μM for HA-AmB FD and HA-AmB SD, respectively; 0.023 μM for HA-AmBi), associated with a significant reduction in drug toxicity. This effect was more pronounced in the HA-AmB nanocomplex obtained using SD. The in vivo performance of the HA-AmB SD and HA-AmBi formulations was tested and a reduction in toxicity was observed in mice, after intravenous administration. Both formulations promoted a similar suppression of parasite load in the spleen and liver. Although nanocomplexes are less effective in reducing liver infection compared to AmBisome®, the results demonstrate that using a very simple and straightforward method it is possible to obtain a promising formulation for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis., Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for the PhD grant (SFRH/BD/118880/2016) and all the funding entities that supported the work., FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020; BioTecNorte operations (NORTE- 01-0145-FEDER-000004 and NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000012) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte; i3S Scientific Platform BioSciences Screening, member of the PPBI (PPBI-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022122).

The Supporting Information is available free of charge at: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.biomac.1c01451, Amphotericin B (AmB) is a highly hydrophobic drug with significant leishmanicidal activity whose use is limited by its poor water solubility and adverse effects. Polymer-drug conjugates are proposed as a delivery system designed to overcome those limitations while improving drug bioavailability, safety, and activity. Here, AmB was covalently linked to periodate-oxidized hyaluronic acid (HA) (oxidation degree of 30.1 ± 5.6%) via a Schiff base (HA-AmB imine). The conjugate presents high water solubility and self-assembles into particles with a mean size of 88.2 ± 17.6 nm, a negative charge (28.3 ± 0.9 mV), and a drug content of 17.8 ± 1.4%. Spectroscopic studies revealed the presence of AmB in aggregate and super-aggregated forms in the conjugate, which could explain the significant reduction of the in vitro cytotoxicity and hemolytic activity. The formulation showed not only in vitro anti-leishmanial activity against L. infantum-infected macrophages (IC50 = 0.023 M) but also against an in vivo infected mouse model, promoting a 1.32- and a 4.98-log10 suppression of the L. infantum burden in the spleens and liver, respectively, without toxic effects. In summary, this study describes the safe and effective use of water-soluble HA-AmB imine conjugates for leishmaniasis treatment., The authors would like to acknowledge Irina Amorim from the Department of Molecular Pathology and Molecular Immunology department of ICBAS, Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, for the histopathological analysis. This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding UIDB/04469/2020 and UIDB/04293/2020 and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004, Underpinning Biotechnology to Foster the North of Portugal Bioeconomy, and NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000012, Structured Program on Bioengineered Therapies for Infectious Diseases and Tissue Regeneration) funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the scope of Norte2020. FCT and national funds (PIDDAC) through I.P/MCTES also supported this work by funding PTDC/BIA-MIC/5343/2020. The authors acknowledge the support of the i3S Scientific Platform BioSciences Screening, member of the PPBI (PPBI-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022122) and PT-OPENSCREEN. R.S.-C. and T.L. gratefully acknowledge FCT for the granted scholarships (SFRH/BD/118880/2016 and 2020.05346.BD, respectively)., info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Trabalho de projeto Submitted by Anabela Novais (anabelanovais@eseig.ipp.pt) on 2021-11-16T10:22:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DM_RicardoLeite_2021.pdf: 79908741 bytes, checksum: f548bc01baba4c830e044d31890e9e5b (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2021-11-16T10:22:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DM_RicardoLeite_2021.pdf: 79908741 bytes, checksum: f548bc01baba4c830e044d31890e9e5b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2021-10-25

El comercio informal es un fenómeno propio de todas las economías a nivel mundial; sin embargo, el elemento central de discusión es el derecho al trabajo; es un tema de interés para los GAD en Ecuador; por ello, surge el interés de analizar la regulación en el ordenamiento jurídico y propuesto de ordenanza del comercio informal en la ciudad de Machala en situación post-pandemia en el año 2020. Se aplica una modalidad documental bibliográfica y entre los resultados, la principal fuente del derecho es la constitución que contiene principios, derechos y garantías bases fundamentales que tutelan el desarrollo del ordenamiento jurídico. La promulgación de ordenanzas municipales es una de las representaciones del principio constitucional de autonomía.

Primary neuroendocrine differentiation in prostate cancer occurs infrequently and represents a therapeutic challenge at present due to the poor prognosis involved. We present the case of a patient with de novo neuroendocrine prostate cancer who later developed metastases to adrenals bilaterally which were initially managed surgically.

Flow instability is a class of abnormal operation in subsea oil wells. Applying machine learning models and improving detection and classification performance is decisive to reduce operational costs and downtime. In this paper we evaluate a pipeline of methods in order to increase correct classification rates. Our strategy is defined to avoid the similarity bias and approaches the binary problem in two distinct ways: A) using normal labels as negative and B) using both normal labels and all other kind of defects as negative, leveraging all data in the available dataset. The workflow includes feature extraction, hyperparameter tuning, feature selection with sequential algorithms, hybrid ranking wrapper and also with genetic algorithm. We show that hyperparameter tuning produces minor improvements and due to problem complexity a robust feature selection algorithm is required to deliver higher results.

This paper describes a method to estimate the performance and active mass of a coreless Axial Flux Permanent Magnet (AFPM) machine for integration in aircraft propulsion systems. The use of coreless AFPM machines has many advantages. Mainly, the high efficiency due to the elimination of the core losses and natural convective refrigeration air flow. Both leading to high power per unit mass. The determination of the motor constant considers the circuit flux linkage distribution from 2D Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The Back Electromotive Force (BEMF) waveform is also obtained. A simple model for estimating the motor active mass is implemented in an effort to implement a motor design parametric study of the ratio K V /active mass as the motor Figure of merit. The proposed methodology is compared with experimental results of a similar electrical machine.

In offshore petroleum exploration, subsea systems are susceptible to a variety of undesirable events or faults, in which oil wells operation is considered abnormal. Proper detection and classification of such events is crucial in order to reduce downtime, maintenance costs, and even damage to installations. Flow instability is a type of event inherently related to hydrocarbon multiphase flow and root cause of equipment stress and failure. This work investigates applying binary machine learning classifiers on real world captured data for the task of flow instability fault detection. Four different evaluation scenarios were considered. The mostly common scenarios used by the machine learning research community showed that even simple algorithms can reach high classification performance. The remaining scenarios, however, try to avoid the similarity bias problem and showed more realistic results.

In 1704 the French priest S ebastien Truchet published a paper where he explored and counted patterns made up from a square divided by a diagonal line into two colored parts,, now known as a Truchet tile. A few years later, Father Dominique Douat continued Truchet's work and published a book in 1722 containing many more patterns and further counts of con gurations. In this paper, we extend the work introduced by Truchet and Douat by considering all possible rosettes made up of an mXn array of square or non-square Truchet tiles. We then classify the rosettes according to their symmetry group and count all the distinct rosettes in each group, for all possible sizes. The results are summarized in a separate section where we further analyze the asymptotic behavior of the counts for square arrays. Finally, some applications are shown using two types of square flexagons. published

Fruto da realidade vivida atualmente no setor da saúde, onde se verifica um aumento da competitividade e onde o controlo dos custos é cada vez mais evidente, a gestão do desempenho nesta área é distinta e mais complexa, comparativamente a outras áreas. Surgindo, assim, o Balanced Scorecard (BSC), como a ferramenta ideal para melhorar o desempenho das organizações de saúde. com potencial para clarificar os objetivos estratégicos das organizações de saúde e para auxiliar na seleção dos indicadores de desempenho mais adequados a utilizar. Para o seu sucesso, é importante o alinhamento entre a estratégia da organização e a estratégia dos serviços, bem como o envolvimento das chefias. Esta dissertação tem como principal objetivo fazer um diagnóstico do estado da arte, no que respeita à implementação do BSC em Unidades Hospitalares. Para alcançar esse objetivo, realizou-se uma revisão sistemática da literatura e procurou-se responder a nove questões relacionadas com o objetivo em causa. Da pesquisa realizada, foram selecionados para a revisão da literatura 24 artigos, que respondiam aos critérios de inclusão. Da análise destes artigos foi possível concluir que a implementação desta ferramenta pode representar uma mais valia para o sucesso das organizações de saúde em geral, e das Unidades Hospitalares em particular. A evidência empírica sugere que, através da implementação do BSC, as Unidades Hospitalares têm conseguido aumentar o seu nível de qualidade, a satisfação dos utentes e profissionais, bem como contribuir para a eficiência e eficácia das mesmas. No entanto, e apesar dos seus benefícios, a implementação do BSC ainda não é um processo linear, sendo identificadas várias limitações e/ou dificuldades no processo de conceção e implementação desta ferramenta. As a result of the reality currently experienced in the health sector, where there has been an increase in competitiveness and where cost control is increasingly evident, performance management in this sector is distinct and more complex, compared to other sectors. Thus, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), emerged as the ideal tool to control and improve the performance of healthcare organizations. The BSC is a management tool with potential to clarify the strategic objectives of healthcare organizations and to assist in the selection of the most appropriate performance indicators. For its success, it is important to align the strategy of the organization with the strategy of the different services or departments, and to ensure that management is involved in the process. The aim of this dissertation is to make a diagnosis of the state of the art in which regards to the implementation of the BSC in Hospital Units. To achieve this aim, a systematic literature review was carried out and an attempt was made to answer nine questions related to the main goal. From this literature review, 24 articles were selected and thoroughly analyzed. One of the main conclusions is that the BSC might provide a very valuable contribution for the success of healthcare organizations. In particular, it can contribute to increase the quality of the services, the satisfaction of users and professionals, as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of the organizations that implement it. However, despite its benefits, the process of implementing an effective BSC is not linear and some challenges need to be addressed.

The authors regret to inform that there are some inaccuracies in the above referred article. More specifically, in the end of the Results and Discussion section 3.6. Anti-Leishmania activity against axenic promastigote and intramacrophagic L. infantum amastigotes it is described the following “Dex-AmB nanocomplexes had an activity similar to the free-drug, despite the slightly higher IC50 values - 0.017 ± 0.009 and 0.023 ± 0.006 μM for Dex-AmB FD and Dex-AmB SD, respectively - promoting a decrease in the amastigote parasite burden in the used concentration range. These results are consistent with the literature where reduced and unreduced AmB-AG conjugates were able to decrease the percentage of macrophages infected with L. infantum (ED50 of 0.035 mg/mL and 0.027 mg/mL, respectively) [75]”. In this sentence the units “mg/mL” are incorrect and the correct ones are “μg/mL”. Moreover, the reference numbered with 75 should be “J. Golenser, et al., Efficacious treatment of experimental leishmaniasis with amphotericin B-arabinogalactan water-soluble derivatives. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 43(9) (1999) 2209-14” instead of “R. Falk, et al. A novel injectable water-soluble amphotericin B-arabinogalactan conjugate. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., 43 (8) (1999), pp. 1975-1981”. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused., (undefined), info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

A indústria offshore é responsável pela maior parte da produção de petróleo e gás no Brasil. Devido ao elevado nível de complexidade nessa indústria, ela vem sendo a precursora de novas tecnologias ao longo dos últimos anos. O presente trabalho tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um sistema para detecção de falhas em poços de produção de petróleo operados com elevação por gas lift. São utilizados autoencoders empilhados para redução de dimensionalidade e diferentes técnicas de reconhecimento de padrões, verificando métricas de desempenho dos modelos em observações reais de operação disponíveis. Após o desenvolvimento dos classificadores, obteve-se valores de recall elevado (boa parte superior a 0,98), o que mostra a grande aplicabilidade do sistema proposto em detectar falhas em poços de produção offshore.

Anomalias em poços produtores de petróleo podem provocar impactos financeiros significativos. O uso de aprendizado de máquina para detectar essas situações podem prevenir interrupções indesejadas de produção bem como custos de manutenção. Nesse contexto, este trabalho propõe a aplicação e comparação de classificadores para detecção de anomalias em poços de produção de petróleo e gás. Classificadores de classe única Floresta de Isolamento, \textit{One-class Support Vector Machine} (OCSVM), \textit{Local Outlier Factor} (LOF) e Envelope Elíptico foram aplicados em uma base de dados com casos reais, sendo o melhor desempenho obtido pelo LOF com medida F1 de 88,2\%, seguido da Floresta de Isolamento com 74,3\%. Os resultados obtidos apresentam melhoria em comparação ao \textit{benchmark} de referência e estimulam a continuação do trabalho com a experimentação de outras famílias de classificadores.

To provide new insights into the determinants of fundraising success for loans requested by refugees on a prosocial peer-to-peer (P2P) platform, this study investigates more than 180,000 business loan campaigns during 2015–2018. The leading online P2P platform offers access to financing for refugee entrepreneurs in developing countries, and the benefits are especially strong for refugees with prior borrowing experience. However, the results also reveal discrimination against female refugee entrepreneurs, compared with their non-refugee counterparts, in this P2P prosocial context. This gap should be addressed by scholars and policymakers determined to reach excluded and niche groups, including women and refugees.

International audience; Within the European development of a future tokamak demonstration fusion power plant (DEMO) [1] the pre-conceptual studies on the plasma diagnostic and control (D&C) system are progressing to prepare the basis for reliable plasma operation at high overall performance [2]. A variety of plasma diagnostics will be employed on DEMO together with advanced control techniques in order to provide an accurate knowledge of the plasma state, which is needed to maintain plasma operation within the allowed physical and technical limits. The integration of diagnostic front-end components has to cope with strong adverse effects arising from neutron and gamma irradiation, heat loads, impinging particles and forces. In this environment, the quality of measurements can only be ensured for longer periods by using robust diagnostic components, mounting them in sufficiently protected (retracted) locations, and any maintenance can only be performed via remote handling. Major open issues are the durability of magnetic measurements in the presence of irradiation induced effects and the feasibility of detachment control under DEMO conditions. In parallel to diagnostic developments, the details of the main control issues are being formulated and investigated by quantitative plasma control simulations. To obtain the envisaged performance DEMO operates close to some physics limits where even small disturbances, if not properly controlled, can trigger major variations of the plasma parameters. Equilibrium control requires high control power and can drive the poloidal field coil system to its operational limits. Within this paper, we will provide an overview on the current status of the ongoing D&C developments for the European DEMO concept.

Across the European Union, the market size of crowdfunding totals €16.9 billion with 1,231 active platforms (Chervyakov and Rocholl, 2019). However, the shares of microcredit (MC) allocated to business and personal loans are difficult to compute (European Commission, 2007a), and accessing the availability of banking industry MC is equally hard to ascertain (European Commission, 2007b). Recent efforts by the European Microfinance Network (EMN) report that between 2012 and 2017 business loans were losing ground to personal loans both in the number (60% to 41%) and the value of disbursed loans (80% to 52%) as well as in terms of active borrowers (61% to 41%) (Bendig et al. 2014; Botti et al. 2016; Diriker et al. 2018). Personal loans are thus quickly catching up with business microloans and verged on €1 billion in 2017. Based on data about Eastern European countries sourced from the online peer-to-peer (P2P) crowdfunding platform Kiva, this paper examines the relation between soft information and prosocial P2P crowdfunding performance, in particular the funding speed, both for personal and for business loans. To the best of our knowledge, this paper represents the first to identify a relationship between soft information, measured by the text length describing the loan purpose on personal and business loans, and P2P crowdfunding performance. In keeping with previous studies (e.g., Dorfleitner et al., 2019a; Dorfleitner and Oswald, 2016), we apply a censored tobit regression model to predict the speed of loan funding on Kiva, by controlling for field partner, loan, borrower, and socioeconomic-geopolitical characteristics respectively. We furthermore deployed two datasets: the Kiva P2P crowdfunding platform and the World Bank. The Kiva’s dataset comprises 29,739 loans applied for between 2011 to 2018 from five European countries (two countries from the lower middle-income group: the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, and three from the upper middle-income group: Albania, Armenia, and Georgia). This paper identifies how applying for personal loans increases the speed of funding time compared to business loans. Additionally, the results support the hypothesis of a quasi-U-shaped relationship between soft information and funding speed but applicable only to business loans. We provide new evidence on the relationship between personal versus business loans and crowdfunding performance. The resulting policy recommendations suggest P2P crowdfunding may require a greater focus on personal loans which constitute the “weakest link” in P2P lending marketplaces such as Kiva and furthermore gain less support from lenders. The results provide insights about microentrepreneurs to lenders with investing in education, skills and entrepreneurial training therefore appearing as crucial to their business success in line with thematic objective 10 (FI-Compass, 2018, 2016)

Trabalho Final do Curso de Mestrado Integrado em Medicina, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, 2020 Submitted by Sofia Amador (sofiamador@fm.ul.pt) on 2021-06-07T13:53:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RicardoEAbrantes .pdf: 1546665 bytes, checksum: c80e550c96270d24f4266cf6437ac2aa (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2021-06-07T14:52:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RicardoEAbrantes .pdf: 1546665 bytes, checksum: c80e550c96270d24f4266cf6437ac2aa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2020-07-27

Submitted by Manuel Moreno (manuelmoreno@campus.ul.pt) on 2020-05-26T10:34:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ulfl_tm.pdf: 9689839 bytes, checksum: bdcbc5d15d59f0c34e76fceb6f685f04 (MD5) Approved for entry into archive by Manuel Moreno (manuelmoreno@campus.ul.pt) on 2020-05-26T10:34:30Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ulfl_tm.pdf: 9689839 bytes, checksum: bdcbc5d15d59f0c34e76fceb6f685f04 (MD5) Approved for entry into archive by Manuel Moreno (manuelmoreno@campus.ul.pt) on 2020-05-26T10:34:41Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ulfl_tm.pdf: 9689839 bytes, checksum: bdcbc5d15d59f0c34e76fceb6f685f04 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2020-05-26T10:34:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ulfl_tm.pdf: 9689839 bytes, checksum: bdcbc5d15d59f0c34e76fceb6f685f04 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2020-03-11