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The case-study building of this work is the Medieval Inn of Gralheira (“Pousada Medieval da Gralheira”) located in Vila Pouca de Aguiar, Portugal. This building is an example of the structures of that time, located in Trás-os-Montes, Portugal. A large amount of the built heritage suffers from advanced degradation, making the recovery, increasing the complexity of the rehabilitation and restoration intervention and implying a highly specialized interdisciplinary component. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to carry out a study of the building in order to perform an analysis of its wood floor and assess its structural behaviour and conservation status. This work also presents some examples of intervention methods and rehabilitation techniques used to solve problems in the masonry structure and wood structures.

In this work, a numerical model of a wood pavement of a medieval building is presented, which was developed and calibrated with values obtained in an experimental campaign of wood specimens extracted from the floor structure and the deformation measured in situ. This model aims to analyse and predict the behaviour of the structure in terms of serviceability limit states. Rehabilitation and reinforcing techniques are described, for specific damages, complemented with a critical comparative analysis to define the most appropriate rehabilitation measures for each situation.

In this work, for the numerical model of the medieval building under consideration, the support of the beams in the walls between 50 per cent embedded and simply supported (hinge supports) was used. Since the beams have some restriction imposed by the wall, they have a delivery about 20 cm in the wall. The consideration of the delivery between beam and columns as simply supported (hinge supports) is a reasonable approximation. There is a difference between the values of deformation obtained in the numerical model and in situ due to the support conditions and also due to the consideration of the pavement loads as a distributed load, which does not correspond entirely to reality, since the pavement confers rigidity to the floor, behaving like a diaphragm. The presented intervention techniques are not applicable in all structures because each building has different characteristics, in terms of materials and construction. The pathologies occur due to many sources and each case is unique, and must be carefully studied before taking decisions about the rehabilitation methods to use.

This work presents a numerical model of wood pavement of a medieval building developed according to some experimental values obtained in an experimental campaign using wood specimens extracted from original beams and based on in situ measurements. This study is part of master thesis of Michael Andrade, an original research work.

The infill masonry walls in recent worldwide earthquakes have shown that it is necessary to conduct further studies to characterize the behavior of existing buildings and, in particular, of infill masonry walls under seismic activity. The lack of characterization studies of infill walls made by concrete blocks justifies the investigation reported herein, which includes experimental tests on sample sets to evaluate the mechanical properties of masonry components (units and mortar) and assemblages (wallets) made with masonry units from Faial. For the later, normal compressive, diagonal tensile/shear and out-of-plane flexural strengths were obtained according to standard procedures, the results of which are presented in the manuscript. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

One experimental campaign was conducted with the aim to mechanically characterize concrete blocks masonry samples. Several experimental tests were carried out in full-scale masonry concrete wallets according to the constructive methodology used.

Based on the data obtained from the mechanical characterization tests of the concrete masonry blocks, it can be seen that under simple compression, the masonry specimens’ average resistance is about 6 times superior than the average resistance to diagonal shear/tension, while the stiffness is almost doubled. In simple compression tests, it was observed that the masonry specimens cracked in areas of higher drilling of the blocks. In the tensile tests by diagonal compression, it was found that the test specimens were mainly fissured by the block/mortar joint interfaces, following the delineation of settlement and top joints.

There are no experimental results available in the literature for this type of bricks that can contribute to the development of numerical studies.

The antique structures are part of the inheritance that our elders left, being important to preserve their memories. It is important to preserve, rehabilitate and restore the historic buildings protecting the cultural patrimony, attending to the actual comfort and habitability requirements. It is necessary to study the behaviour of the various elements that compose antique structures (masonry and wood) in order to develop assessment measures according to the characteristics of the original materials. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

An experimental campaign to characterize the mechanical behaviour of the wood of the roof of the “sequeiro” of “Quinta Lobeira de Cima”, a building from the twentieth century located in Minho, was carried out. The tested wood specimens are from two different species: chestnut and oak. Compression, tension and static flexion tests according to parallel to the grain direction were performed. Other parameters, such as density, moisture content and longitudinal modulus of elasticity in compression and in tension, were also obtained. The measurement of displacements was made with Digital Image Correlation (DIC).

The results of this study show the similarity between experimental and empirical values for the studied woods species.

This original study aimed at characterizing the mechanical properties using DIC of wood of the roof of the “sequeiro” of “Quinta Lobeira de Cima”, a building from the twentieth century located in Minho (Portugal). This study is part of master thesis of João Martins, an original research work.

Recent studies have proposed the application of local fatigue approaches based on fracture mechanics or on strain-life material relations for the fatigue analysis of metallic structures. However, only few studies in the literature apply local approaches in the riveted bridges analysis; although these approaches can be applied to any type of connections, requiring a detailed stress analysis of joints and, consequently, considerable computational resources costs. The approach based on S-N curves, formulated in nominal or net stresses, is more usual in the fatigue analysis of riveted bridges. Due to economic factors, riveted bridges have had their operating life extended, while changes in the transport system over the years have subjected such structures to overloads different from those originally planned. These bridges, most of them centenary, were not originally designed accounting for fatigue damage; they represent an important group of structures that are very likely subjected to significant fatigue damage indexes. These factors make necessary detailed residual fatigue life studies to substantiate the decisions of extend (or not) the operational period of these bridges. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The present paper presents a methodology aiming at applying the local approaches in the fatigue analysis of riveted joints of metallic bridges, through the use of sub-modeling techniques and procedures automation. The use of such techniques made such an application viable by keeping the computational costs involved at a moderate level. The proposed procedures were demonstrated using the Trezói Railway Bridge, located on the Beira Alta line, Portugal, built shortly after the Second World War. The proposed set of procedures allowed, through finite elements analysis, to obtain the relevant stresses to perform local fatigue damage analysis. A global structural model was constructed, using beam elements, and local models of a critical node were built with solid finite elements. The structure is analyzed under the passage of regulatory trains. The details of the modeling performed and the computation of the principal stresses in the vicinity of a node and the tangential/circumferential stresses at the holes of two critical riveted connections of that node are analyzed and a fatigue damage analysis is carried out.

In the proposed submodelling approach, disassembling the complex riveted nodes into riveted subassemblies allowed the evaluation of the local stresses at riveted holes at an affordable computational cost.

A methodology is proposed to allow the application of local fatigue analysis in real complex riveted joints, mitigating the computational costs that would result from a full model of the node with all rivets.

Wicked problems require collaborative innovation approaches. Understanding the problem from the users' perspective is essential. Based on a complex and ill-defined case, the purpose of the current paper is to identify some critical success factors in defining the “right problem” to be addressed.

An empirical research study was carried out in a low-density municipality (case study). Extensive data were collected from official databases, individual semi-structured interviews and a focus group involving citizens, local authorities, civil servants and other relevant stakeholders.

As defined by the central government, the problem to be addressed by the research team was to identify which justice services should be made available locally to a small- and low-density community. The problem was initially formulated using top-down reasoning. In-depth contact with citizens and key local players revealed that the lack of justice services was not “the issue” for that community. Mobility constraints and the shortage of economic opportunities had a considerable impact on the lack of demand for justice services. By using a bottom-up perspective, it was possible to reframe the problem to be addressed and suggest a new concept to be tested at later stages.

The approach followed called attention to the importance of listening to citizens and local organisations with a profound knowledge of the territory to effectively identify and circumscribe a local problem in the justice field.

The paper highlights the limitations of traditional rational problem-solving approaches and contributes to expanding the voice-of-the-customer principle showing how it can lead to a substantially new definition of the problem to be addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of spirituality and emotional intelligence in understanding creativity, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, perceived behavioural control (PBC) and entrepreneurial intention of students of a Portuguese higher education institution. A conceptual model is proposed representing direct and indirect relationships among these constructs.

A quantitative approach was adopted in the form of a survey questionnaire applied to a sample of 345 university students. To test the hypothesised relationships between the constructs, the authors used the path analysis technique.

Results show that personal attitudes towards entrepreneurship and PBC have a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention, and mediate the effect of emotional intelligence on entrepreneurial intention. Emotional intelligence has a direct positive effect on creativity. The results reveal no or a tenuous influence of spirituality in the various concepts studied.

It is expected that the model can serve as a support for facilitating and promoting entrepreneurship in higher education environments. It could be of valuable use to furthering our understanding of the role of individual/psychological characteristics, motivational and attitudinal factors in fostering entrepreneurial intention of university students.

Some studies suggest that psychological factors play an essential role in developing alternative models to the entrepreneurial process. However, the studies that directly explore how individual differences in emotional intelligence, spirituality and creativity relate to entrepreneurial intention are relatively few.

“A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them.” Jose Marti, Cuban writer, poet and statesman.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how and why differences in gender affect entrepreneurial intention (EI). Although there are many studies in this area, scholars have yet to reach a consensus.

This study uses a survey of students at Malaga University in two stages to introduce a new perspective that links gender and university degree subject with the predisposition towards business creation. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is applied.

Comparing the explanatory power of an additive model and a multiplicative model, this paper confirms that socialisation conditions both men and women in their choice of university studies. Consequently, gender and university degree subject choice are shown to be linked and both affect EI.

These findings provide a starting point for closing the information gap in the literature, but deeper analysis is required to combine other factors, such as international variations and the influence of different education systems on entrepreneurship.

These results are of special value to universities interested in fomenting entrepreneurship in their graduates, allowing them to better propose educational policies and communication campaigns reducing the effect of gender on degree choice.

The contribution of this research is the development of introducing university degree subjects as tied to gender. The study forms one construct together, and not a descriptive variable of the sample selected or as two independent exogenous variables, as is the case in most of the literature in this area.