Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2014-04-11"
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- A música contemporânea para trombone como estratégia de motivação no ensino secundárioPublication . Silva, David Alexandre Madureira Rocha da; Dawa, Ana Sofia Almeida Sá SerraA Música Contemporânea, pelas suas qualidades estilísticas no uso de ritmos invulgares, de timbres ricos, de efeitos e técnicas sonoras inovadoras e pela sua notação com base em símbolos, contrariando com o rigor tradicional, é considerada uma vertente cativante do ensino de música pelo grau de liberdade de execução e expressão que confere aos alunos, tendo um papel fundamental na educação musical. A presente dissertação tem como objetivo compreender a influência da abordagem de repertório contemporâneo nos níveis de motivação dos alunos de trombone do ensino secundário. Desta forma, este estudo pretende sugerir a utilização da música contemporânea como um veiculo para o progresso integral dos alunos, oferecendo a uma formação mais completa nos mesmos. Para suportar este propósito procedeu-se a uma comparação de dois tipos de repertório (tradicional e contemporâneo) a fim de avaliar o impacto da utilização de cada um deles no desenvolvimento musical, técnico cognitivo e psico-motor nos alunos, bem como nos níveis de motivação dos alunos, através da observação direta do investigador e métodos de investigação como as entrevistas e relatório de avaliação sobre a evolução dos alunos. Os resultados indicaram que o emprego de repertório contemporâneo tem um impacto positivo na aprendizagem musical dos alunos, pelo que se recomenda a sua aplicação no ensino secundário.
- Create, protect, capture : the impact of trade secrets and non-compete agreements on technological entrepreneurshipPublication . Matos, Joana Rita Neves de; Conti, RaffaeleOver the last years, firms have increasingly pursued ways to protect the knowledge they possess. The purpose of this thesis is to understand impact of two intellectual property rights tools –trade secrets and non-compete agreements –on technological entrepreneurship. I express technological entrepreneurship as the entry of firms, both new and established, in new technological domains. The aim of the study is to assess if a stronger enforcement of these tools is beneficial for entrepreneurial activity in technological markets. To achieve this goal, I have performed a Poisson panel estimation analysis on a sample comprising 4380 observations, each representing a state and technological category, in a specific year. The main empirical findings point out that the use of trade secrets has a positive impact in the entry of firms in a new technological domain, while non-compete agreements do not. These results are of practical relevance and present both practitioners and policy makers with a possible approach to enhance entrepreneurial activity.
- The role of experience and talent in the quality of an inventionPublication . Paredes, Rita Maria Berberan Gens Ramalho; Conti, RaffaeleThe purpose of this dissertation is to understand the role of innate talent and acquired expertise in the quality of an invention. The main argument is that ability and expertise positively interact in affecting the inventions’ quality. In other words, an individual who possesses innate ability is better positioned to take advantage from acquired expertise. This study was conducted on a random sample of 5144 European inventors from 1978 to 1999, for which I have information regarding all their previous patented inventions. To assess an invention’s quality, I referred to the number of forward citations of an invention, and to measure innate ability I followed a two-steps empirical strategy: first of all, I performed an OLS and estimated the fixed effect as a proxy for individual ability. Secondly, I used a Poisson model in which I included the estimated fixed effect, interacted with three measures of experience: stock of past inventions, breadth of social experience and breadth of technological experience. Empirical findings suggest that innate ability combined with acquired expertise (measured as the stock of past inventions) and breadth of social experience have a positive impact on the quality of an invention.
- Do trade-secrets and non-competition agreements affect venture capital investments?Publication . Mota, José Filipe Monteiro; Conti, RaffaeleThis study investigates the impacts of stricter enforcement of non-competition agreements and stronger trade secrets protection on Venture Capital investments. I argue that non-competition agreements, by reducing outbound mobility and knowledge leakages to competitors, harm entrepreneurship. By contrast, trade secrets do not impede previous employee to found their own companies, assuming they are not misappropriating any trade secrets. As a result, trade secrets are not an impediment to knowledge spillovers and thus foster entrepreneurship. Moreover, non-competition agreements protect the human capital of the employees by preventing them to move to a competitor, whereas trade secrets protect some knowledge complementary to employee human capital, this indicates that these two legal means of protection might be complementary. This study uses data about Venture Capital investments in the U.S. from 1980 to 1994 and considers longitudinal variation in the enforcement of noncompetition agreements and trade secrets. The results indicate that stricter enforcement of non-competition agreements reduces Venture Capital investments and that stronger trade secrets protection increases Venture Capital investments. Finally, these results also indicate that the stricter the enforcement of non-competition agreements, the higher the positive impact of trade secrets on Venture Capital investments.
- A Sociedade Orpheon Portuense: Tradição e Inovação. A questão metodológicaPublication . Vieira de Andrade, Constança; Gomes de Araújo, Henrique L.Desde o seu esboço inicial de 2005, este projeto definiu como resultado principal, a edição de uma obra cultural. Por tal, entendíamos o produto do encontro criativo de linguagens artísticas e científicas díspares: a musical, a musicológica, a histórica, a antropológica, a económica, a psicológica, a biográfica, etc. Os tempos da criação / investigação científica habitavam, assim, desde o seu início, o centro deste projeto. Tempos que se cruzavam na síntese possível da linguagem analógica dos primeiros com a linguagem digitálica dos segundos. O que se pretende com esta comunicação é falar sobre a aplicação de metodologias do tempo presente (como a etnográfica, baseada em entrevistas, levadas a cabo pelos dois autores desta comunicação) para melhor compreender o contexto histórico e sócio-cultural do Orpheon Portuense, sociedade musical criada no Porto Romântico. É objectivo desta comunicação formular algumas questões decorrentes da experiência da utilização das metodologias em referência.
- Synthesis and characterization of new oligosaccharides with prebiotic activityPublication . Montenegro, Maria Inês Pereira; Pintado, Maria Manuela Estevez; Cardelle-Cobas, Alejandra; Gullón, BeatrizThe importance of human intestinal microbiota in maintaining host health is well-known and in the past few decades, the consumer’s awareness for healthier foods has increased. There are several strategies to stimulate the proliferation of beneficial intestinal bacteria, including the consumption of prebiotics. Currently, there is a range of prebiotic carbohydrates on the market, most of them isolated from plant polysaccharides such as inulin and fructooligosaccharides (FOS) but there is an increasing interest in the development of new prebiotics, with added functionality. In this sense, chitosan, which is a polysaccharide composed of glucosamine (GlcN) and N-acetyl glucosamine (GlcNAc) units, linked by β (1→4) bonds, presents a structure very similar to prebiotic glucooligosaccharides. The main difference is the presence of amino groups, which are the cause of antimicrobial effect of chitosan. Chemical modification of chitosan by substitution of its amino groups could eliminate the antimicrobial effect and convert chitosan in a new interesting prebiotic ingredient. Thus, the objective of the present work is to chemically modify chitosan to be used in the food industry as prebiotic ingredient. In order to achieve this objective, the optimization of the synthesis of chitosan derivatives with glucose by the Maillard reaction and enzymatic hydrolysis, was conducted and the obtained purified derivatives were assayed for molar mass distribution and structural characterization by Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR) and colloid titration. The purified product was assayed for its prebiotic potential by means of in vitro fermentability assays performed with individual microbial strains and human faecal inocula. The experimental data showed that the refined chitooligosaccharide (COS) derivatives obtained in this work had potential prebiotic effects, inducing changes in both the pattern of generated metabolic products and the count of Bifidobacterium, which might contribute to a healthy intestinal environment. Finally, the in vitro cytotoxicity of the COS derivatives synthesized was performed by flow cytometry. The results obtained demonstrated that the COS derivatives are biocompatible molecules. Also, the assay showed that the substitution of the amino groups decreased the cytotoxicity of the COS derivatives when compared to unmodified COS. Nevertheless, further studies are recommended, mainly in vivo tests, to eventually confirm these in vitro results.