2015
Autores
Santos, MS; Moreira, AC; Vieira, ES;
Publicação
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT
Abstract
This paper investigates if the existence of complex structures plays an important role in corporate governance. It uses GMM estimation on a panel of Western European firms. We find that the presence of a second and third large shareholder has a significant positive effect on firm value. This study underlines the importance of the number of blockholders as a determinant of firm value, when taken as a moderator of the contestability effect. It shows that the legal context and company-specific characteristics play a crucial moderating role for contestability. In contrast to previous research, we find that contestability plays a less relevant role in family firms. We also find that this last result does not vary significantly with the identity of the remaining elements of the coalition. Also, our study suggests that contestability is less important in companies led by majority shareholders.
2015
Autores
Pinho, T; Moreira, AP; Boaventura Cunha, J;
Publicação
CONTROLO'2014 - PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH PORTUGUESE CONFERENCE ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL
Abstract
In robotics, a reliable simulation tool is an important design and test resource because the performance of algorithms is evaluated before being implemented in real mobile robots. The virtual environment makes it possible to conduct extensive experiments in controlled scenarios, without the dependence of a physical platform, in a faster and inexpensive way. Although, simulators should be able to represent all the relevant characteristics that are present in the real environment, like dynamic (shape, mass, surface friction, etc.), impact simulation, realistic noise, among other factors, in order to guarantee the accuracy and reliability of the results. This paper presents a ROS (Robot Operating System) framework for the SimTwo simulator. ROS is an open-source library that is commonly used for the development of robotic applications since it provides standard services and promotes large-scale integrative robotic research. SimTwo is a realistic simulation software suitable for test and design of several types of robots. This simulator conducts realistic navigation procedures, since the driving systems, the sensors, the mechanical and physical properties of the bodies are precisely modeled. The framework presented in this research provides the integration of ROS-based systems with the SimTwo simulator. Therefore, this framework reduces the risk of damage of expensive robotic platforms and it can be used for the development of new mobile robot controllers, as well as for educational purposes.
2015
Autores
Pinto, AM; Costa, PG; Moreira, AP;
Publicação
CONTROLO'2014 - PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH PORTUGUESE CONFERENCE ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL
Abstract
Human being has an extraordinary capability for motion perception due to its remarkable visual sensing system that makes it possible to perceive, distinguish and characterize the different moving elements of the environment. Thus, it extracts information through sensory experience and conducts reliable judgments based on intrinsic motion features, namely, location, direction, trajectory, magnitude, colors, boundary and shape. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for mobile robots. The critical nature of visual perception for these kinds of systems turns motion detection and analysis as one of the most relevant areas discussed on the literature, existing several models and methods to perform motion analysis in a variety of environments. This paper discusses motion analysis for mobile robots. A brief description about the complexity of motion perception based on moving observations and for surveillance applications is presented. In addition, the most often encountered approaches and future orientations are also discussed.
2015
Autores
Nunes, RR; Pedrosa, D; Fonseca, B; Paredes, H; Cravino, J; Morgado, L; Martins, P;
Publicação
UNIVERSAL ACCESS IN HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: ACCESS TO LEARNING, HEALTH AND WELL-BEING, UAHCI 2015, PT III
Abstract
To motivate students to study advanced programming techniques, including the use of architectural styles such as the model-view-controller pattern, we have conducted action research upon a project based-learning approach. In addition to collaboration, the approach includes students' searching and analysis of scientific documents and their involvement in communities of practice outside academia. In this paper, we report the findings of second action research cycle, which took place throughout the fourth semester of a six-semester program. As with the previous cycle during the previous academic year, students did not satisfactorily achieve expected learning out-comes. More groups completed the assigned activities, but results continue to reflect poor engagement in the communities of practice and very low performance in other learning tasks. From the collected data we have identified new approaches and recommendations for subsequent research.
2015
Autores
Sobral, T; Dias, TG; Borges, JL;
Publicação
EXPLORING SERVICES SCIENCE, IESS 2015
Abstract
Urban mobility services generate massive amounts of raw data that are usually not explored in depth by the entities that own them. Visualisation techniques could improve knowledge extraction and decision-making, as well as support the reengineering of those services. Some studies in Information Visualisation provide a domain-independent classification for visualisations based on their own characteristics and the data they support, although independent of their context of use. We propose a classification for visualisations of urban mobility data according to their context of use and their characteristics. Our first results are encouraging and are supported by a user-centred design process carried with urban mobility experts, in which we developed and evaluated a set of visualisation prototypes. The conclusions form a first effort towards a conceptual framework proposal for classifying visualisations of this domain, and are expected to guide researchers and practitioners searching for adequate ways to visually represent their data.
2015
Autores
Faia, R; Pinto, T; Vale, Z;
Publicação
HIGHLIGHTS OF PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF AGENTS, MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS, AND SUSTAINABILITY: THE PAAMS COLLECTION, PAAMS 2015
Abstract
With the recent liberalization of electricity markets, market players need to decide whether to and how to participate in each electricity market type that is available to them. The search for the best opportunities to sell or buy the required energy is, however, not an easy task. Moreover, the changes that electricity markets are constantly suffering make this an highly dynamic environment, with huge associated unpredictability. Decision support tools become, therefore, essential for market players to be able to take the best advantage from market participation. This paper proposes a methodology to estimate the expected prices of bilateral contracts based on the analysis of contracts' historic log. The proposed method is based on the application of a clustering methodology that groups the historic contracts according to their prices' similarity. The optimal number of groups is automatically calculated taking into account the preference for the balance between the estimation error and the number of groups. The centroids of each cluster are used to define a dynamic fuzzy variable that approximates the tendency of contracts' history. The resulting fuzzy variable allows estimating expected prices for contracts instantaneously and approximating missing values in the historic contracts log.
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