Browsing by Author "Silva, Catarina"
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- Assessing the liquidity in Portuguese hotel companiesPublication . Silva, Catarina; Santos, Luís Lima; Gomes, Conceição; Malheiros, CátiaThe hospitality companies have had substantial growth in the tourism sector which gives them a large part of the revenue generated by the sector. In this regard, its impact, whether negative or positive, is quite high and generates a response to a need felt by agents of the environment in which it operates. As a short-term sustainability indicator, the liquidity level of a company demonstrates its ability to repay its obligations, being a great management support for decision making and anticipation of financial problems that may arise. Considering the volatility of hotel companies, greater importance is given to the study of liquidity. The main liquidity ratios of Portuguese hotels in the 2010-2017 period will be analysed; data was collected on July 4, 2019, on the SABI platform and the original sample is composed of 2161 hotel companies registered with two Portuguese economic activity codes (CAE), “55111 - Hotels with restaurant” and “55121 - Hotels without restaurant”. The assessment of liquidity level will be important to decision makers understand if there are differences between hotels with or without restaurant and among the Portuguese districts were hotels are located. The results of this study are expected to be of assistance to hotel managers as decisions taken within the organization can be more deliberate and informed.
- Assistive Mobile Applications for DyslexiaPublication . Madeira, Jorge; Silva, Catarina; Ferreira, Paula Cristina; Marcelino, LuísThe ability to read is one of the main skills of a human being. However, some of us have reading difficulties, regardless of social status, level of intelligence or education. This disorder is the main characteristic of dyslexia and is maintained throughout life,requiring early and specialized intervention. Dyslexia is defined as a learning disturbance in the area of reading, writing and spelling. Although the numbers of prevalence rely heavily on the type of investigation conducted, several studies indicate that up to 17% of the world population is dyslexic, and that men have greater prevalence. In this work we will address the use of assistive mobile applications for dyslexia by analyzing possible solutions and proposing a prototype of a mobile application that can be used by dyslexic and whilst giving feedback both to the dyslexic him/herself and to the assisting technician or teacher. The implemented prototype focuses the Portuguese language and was tested with Portuguese students with ages between 10 and 12 years old. Preliminary results show that the proposed gamified set of activities, allow dyslexics to improve multisensory perception, constituting an added value facilitator of adaptiveness and learning.
- Deep learning with realtime inference for human detection in search and rescuePublication . Llasag Rosero, Raúl; Grilo, Carlos; Silva, CatarinaHuman casualties in natural disasters have motivated tech- nological innovations in Search and Rescue (SAR) activities. Di cult ac- cess to places where res, tsunamis, earthquakes, or volcanoes eruptions occur has been delaying rescue activities. Thus, technological advances have gradually been nding their purpose in aiding to identify and nd the best locations to put available resources and e orts to improve rescue processes. In this scenario, the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Computer Vision (CV) techniques can be extremely valuable for accelerating SAR activities. However, the computing capabilities of this type of aerial vehicles are scarce and time to make decisions is also rele- vant when determining the next steps. In this work, we compare di erent Deep Learning (DL) imaging detectors for human detection in SAR im- ages. A setup with drone-mounted cameras and mobile devices for drone control and image processing is put in place in Ecuador, where volcanic activity is frequent. The main focus is on the inference time in DL learn- ing approaches, given the dynamic environment where decisions must be fast. Results show that a slim version of the model YOLOv3, while using less computing resources and fewer parameters than the original model, still achieves comparable detection performance and is therefore more appropriate for SAR approaches with limited computing resources.
- Exploring the potential of wine industry by-products as source of additives to improve the quality of aquafeedPublication . Câmara, José S.; Lourenço, Sílvia; Silva, Catarina; Lopes, André; Andrade, Carlos; Perestrelo, RosaThe recent growing concern driven by consumer interest in the safety and quality of seafood, has boosted the search for healthy and functional aquafeeds. The current study represents the first approach to assess the potential of volatile composition of the wine industry by products (e.g., grape pomace, grape stems, lees), as additives for improving the quality of fish feeds in terms of organoleptic characteristics (e.g., aroma and flavor) and health benefits. Headspace solid-phase microextraction followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME/GC–MS) was used to establish the volatile profile of wine industry by-products. A total of 153 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which belong to different chemical families, comprising 36 esters, 31 carbonyl compound, 20 alcohols, 18 terpenoids, 17 acids, 11 furanic compounds, four volatile phenols, two lactones, and 14 miscellaneous, were identified. Esters and terpenoids showed a positive contribution to the aquafeeds aroma with fruity, sweet, green, fresh, and berry notes, whereas some acids (e.g., hexanoic acid) and terpenoids (e.g., limonene) could be used as antimicrobial, antioxidant and antiproliferative agents. Our findings confirmed the potential of wine industry by-products as a rich source of essential compounds to enhance the quality of aquafeeds towards the valorization of winery waste based on the concept of circular economy. Further investigation on the extraction, isolation and purification of VOCs from a natural bio-source will guarantee the safety of the aquafeed and compliance with the requirements of the animal feed industry.