Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2010

O CD-ROM acompanhante do exemplar que se encontra no piso, encontra-se no armário do piso -1 / Tese de Mestrado. Mestrado em Tecnologia Multimédia. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2007

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2009

Tese de mestrado. Engenharia Informática. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2008

Tese de mestrado. Engenharia Elecrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 1999

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2008

With the increasingly rapid adoption of vehicles with autonomous features, concerns over human driver and passenger safety in such vehicles have greatly increased, especially in regards to autonomous driving features such as Tesla’s Autopilot. In order to improve current

Computational modeling approaches have lately been earning their place as viable tools in drug discovery. Research efforts more often include computational component and the usage of the scientific software is commonplace at more stages of the drug discovery pipeline. However, as software takes on more responsibility and the computational methods grow more involved, the gap grows between research entities that have the means to maintain the necessary computational infrastructure and those that lack the technical expertise or financial means to obtain and include computational component in their scientific efforts. To fill this gap and to meet the need of many, mainly academic, labs numerous community contributions collectively known as open source projects play an increasingly important role. This work describes design, implementation and application of a set of drug discovery workflows based on the CHARMMing (CHARMM interface and graphics) web-server. The protocols described herein include docking, virtual target screening, de novo drug design, SAR/QSAR modeling as well as chemical education. The performance of the newly developed workflows is evaluated by applying them to a number of scientific problems that include reproducibility of crystal poses of small molecules in protein-ligand systems, identification of potential targets of a library of natural compounds as well as elucidating molecular targets of a vitamin. The results of these inquiries show that protocols developed as part of this effort perform comparably to commercial products, are able to produce results consistent with the experimental data and can substantially enrich the research efforts of labs with otherwise little or no computational component.

Fundamental to the conceptualization of leader-membership exchange (LMX), particularly within the context of teams, is that leaders do not necessarily treat each follower equally. Studies that have examined LMX within the context of the team often fail to capture these complexities, or rely exclusively upon self-report, or survey-based data to make inferences. Therefore, it is the purpose of this study to examine the effects of experimentally manipulated relative LMX within teams on individual conflict processes, attitudes, and psychological distress, as well as team-level performance. This study examined conflict processes and outcomes within 113 virtual, project teams engaged in a decision-making task that required intensive interdependence. Teams were composed of three subordinates and a confederate leader who engaged in behaviors designed to heighten LMX with all, some, or none of the participants, depending on the condition. Results suggest that objectively manipulated leader behaviors influenced perceived levels of LMX as well as leader and teammate satisfaction, psychological distress, use of collaborative and individualistic conflict processes, and motivation to perform with the team. Results also indicate that relative LMX condition moderates the relationship between LMX condition and outcomes of interest, such that LMX condition has a stronger effect on outcomes when individuals are in a minority configuration (i.e., have a higher RLMX) than when they are in a shared configuration.

The rapid growth of the internet over the past decade has provided increasing opportunities for individuals to engage in computer-mediated social interaction in virtual environments. Despite this rapid growth there has been limited research into the way people use the Internet, and the effect Internet use has on their lives (Kraut, 1996). The overall aim in the research presented in this thesis was to explore how characteristics of the individual interact with characteristics of computer-mediated communication to enable socio-emotional communication and behaviour in social text-based virtual environments. Three studies are presented. Studies One and Two are qualitative studies of social interaction in two text-based, synchronous ('real time') virtual environments: MOOs (Multi User Dimensions, Object Oriented) and Internet Relay' Chat (IRC). Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) methodology was used to develop formal theories of social interaction within these environments. Stage models of virtual environment use were developed that described changes in social interaction over time. In MOOs, changes in social interaction over time reflected the process of coming to terms with what was initially viewed by users as an alternative reality. In IRC the central feature of social interaction that emerged was the perceived ease of communication. This was attributed to the effortlessness of meeting a wide range of potential communication partners in a social context where the communication itself was simplified to text only communication. The hypotheses developed from the qualitative research in Studies One and Two were tested in Study Three. This was a longitudinal study of new Internet users that examined the bi-directional effects of personality characteristics and computer-mediated communication on behaviour. Personality measures were poor predictors of time spent in ++ / both specific types of virtual environments and on-line in general. Based on the usage patterns across the three studies a decision pathway for the use of virtual environments was developed. A key finding across the studies was the potential for virtual environments to enhance psychological well-being for individuals who experience social discomfort in off-line settings. Limitations of the research were discussed and suggestions made for future research.