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Publications

2016

Determinants of knowledge-based entrepreneurship: an exploratory approach

Authors
Moutinho, R; Au Yong Oliveira, M; Coelho, A; Manso, JP;

Publication
INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND MANAGEMENT JOURNAL

Abstract
We intend to further the research related to the factors that determine successful entrepreneurial endeavours by academic researchers, and thus put forth an exploratory model of Knowledge-Based Entrepreneurship (KBE). Given the lack of extant adequate indicators, a new scale was developed based on the most frequently cited constructs in the literature. A sample of 1,401 researchers from Portuguese universities was administered a questionnaire and the data collected permitted a validation with regards to the psychometric properties of the questionnaire, to see its applicability to the study. The findings suggest that the absence of a patenting history or start-up portfolio act as significant barriers to academic entrepreneurship. However, when the institutional strategy is to increase patenting and spin-off activities, the university should begin investing in creating a networking environment capable of reinforcing the researchers' Social Capital. Observing the example of successful entrepreneurs motivates other researchers to consider the possibility of developing their own ventures. The Structural Equations Modelling (SEM) approach allowed for us to identify and measure the non-linear relationships that shape the core of KBE and influence the attainment of measurable outcomes aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship. A relatively high share of the variance of the dependent variables is explained by the model, ensuring their representativeness and contributing to the state-of-art of the knowledge in this research field.

2016

Help Me! Sharing of Instructions Between Remote and Heterogeneous Robots

Authors
Ji, JM; Fazli, P; Liu, S; Pereira, T; Lu, DC; Liu, JC; Veloso, M; Chen, XP;

Publication
SOCIAL ROBOTICS, (ICSR 2016)

Abstract
Service robots frequently face similar tasks. However, they are still not able to share their knowledge efficiently on how to accomplish those tasks. We introduce a new framework, which allows remote and heterogeneous robots to share instructions on the tasks assigned to them. This framework is used to initiate tasks for the robots, to receive or provide instructions on how to accomplish the tasks, and to ground the instructions in the robots' capabilities. We demonstrate the feasibility of the framework with experiments between two geographically distributed robots and analyze the performance of the proposed framework quantitatively.

2016

A Procedure for Identification of Appropriate State Space and ARIMA Models Based on Time-Series Cross-Validation

Authors
Ramos, P; Oliveira, JM;

Publication
ALGORITHMS

Abstract
In this work, a cross-validation procedure is used to identify an appropriate Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average model and an appropriate state space model for a time series. A minimum size for the training set is specified. The procedure is based on one-step forecasts and uses different training sets, each containing one more observation than the previous one. All possible state space models and all ARIMA models where the orders are allowed to range reasonably are fitted considering raw data and log-transformed data with regular differencing (up to second order differences) and, if the time series is seasonal, seasonal differencing (up to first order differences). The value of root mean squared error for each model is calculated averaging the one-step forecasts obtained. The model which has the lowest root mean squared error value and passes the Ljung-Box test using all of the available data with a reasonable significance level is selected among all the ARIMA and state space models considered. The procedure is exemplified in this paper with a case study of retail sales of different categories of women's footwear from a Portuguese retailer, and its accuracy is compared with three reliable forecasting approaches. The results show that our procedure consistently forecasts more accurately than the other approaches and the improvements in the accuracy are significant.

2016

A methodology to incorporate risk and uncertainty in electricity power planning

Authors
Santos, MJ; Ferreira, P; Araujo, M;

Publication
ENERGY

Abstract
Deterministic models based on most likely forecasts can bring simplicity to the electricity power planning but do not explicitly consider uncertainties and risks which are always present on the electricity systems. Stochastic models can account for uncertain parameters that are critical to obtain a robust solution, requiring however higher modelling and computational effort. The aim of this work was to propose a methodology to identify major uncertainties presented in the electricity system and demonstrate their impact in the long-term electricity production mix, through scenario analysis. The case of an electricity system with high renewable contribution was used to demonstrate how renewables uncertainty can be included in long term planning, combining Monte Carlo Simulation with a deterministic optimization model. This case showed that the problem, of including risk in electricity planning could be explored in short running time even for large real systems. The results indicate that high growth demand rate combined with climate uncertainty represent major sources of risk for the definition of robust optimal technology mixes for the future. This is particularly important for the case of electricity systems with high share of renewables as climate change can have a major role on the expected power output.

2016

An Ontology for Licensing Public Transport Services

Authors
Cledou, G; Barbosa, LS;

Publication
9TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THEORY AND PRACTICE OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNANCE (ICEGOV 2016)

Abstract
By 2050 it is expected that 66% of the world population will reside in cities, compared to 54% in 2014. One particular challenge associated to urban population growth refers to transportation systems, and as an approach to face it, governments are investing significant efforts enhancing public transport services. An important aspect of public transport is ensuring that licensing of such services fulfill existing government regulations. Due to the differences in government regulations, and to the difficulties in ensuring the fulfillment of their specific features, many local governments develop tailored Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions to automate the licensing of public transport services. In this paper we propose an ontology for licensing such services following the REFSENO methodology. In particular, the ontology captures common concepts involved in the application and processing stage of licensing public bus passenger services. The main contribution of the proposed ontology is to define a common vocabulary to share knowledge between domain experts and software engineers, and to support the definition of a software product line for families of public transport licensing services.

2016

An Overview of Evolutionary Computing for Interpretation in the Oil and Gas Industry

Authors
Lopes, RL; Jahromi, HN; Jorge, AM;

Publication
C3S2E

Abstract
The Oil and Gas Exploration & Production (E&P) field deals with high-dimensional heterogeneous data, collected at different stages of the E&P activities from various sources. Over the years different soft-computing algorithms have been proposed for data-driven oil and gas applications. The most popular by far are Artificial Neural Networks, but there are applications of Fuzzy Logic systems, Support Vector Machines, and Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) as well. This article provides an overview of the applications of EAs in the oil and gas E&P industry. The relevant literature is reviewed and categorised, showing an increasing interest amongst the geoscience community.

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