Expectativas dos stakeholders para as fusões e aquisições: um estudo de caso: aquisição do Finibanco pelo Montepio

Dissertação apresentada ao ISCAP para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Auditoria Orientada por: Prof. Doutora Alcina Dias

O Controlo interno nas Juntas de Freguesia

Orientadora: Doutora Alcina Dias Co-Orientadora: Doutora Ana Paula Lopes

Modelling an e-learning environment for learning programming languages

It is widely accepted that solving programming exercises is fundamental to learn how to program. Nevertheless, solving exercises is only effective if students receive an assessment on their work. An exercise solved wrong will consolidate a false belief, and without feedback many students will not be able to overcome their difficulties. However, creating, managing and accessing a large number of exercises, covering all the points in the curricula of a programming course, in classes with large number of students, can be a daunting task without the appropriated tools working in unison. This involves a diversity of tools, from the environments where programs are coded, to automatic program evaluators providing feedback on the attempts of students, passing through the authoring, management and sequencing of programming exercises as learning objects. We believe that the integration of these tools will have a great impact in acquiring programming skills. Our research objective is to manage and coordinate a network of eLearning systems where students can solve computer programming exercises. Networks of this kind include systems such as learning management systems (LMS), evaluation engines (EE), learning objects repositories (LOR) and exercise resolution environments (ERE). Our strategy to achieve the interoperability among these tools is based on a shared definition of programming exercise as a Learning Object (LO).

Intelligent Distributed Environmental Decision Support System

This article discusses the development of an Intelligent Distributed Environmental Decision Support System, built upon the association of a Multi-agent Belief Revision System with a Geographical Information System (GIS). The inherent multidisciplinary features of the involved expertises in the field of environmental management, the need to define clear policies that allow the synthesis of divergent perspectives, its systematic application, and the reduction of the costs and time that result from this integration, are the main reasons that motivate the proposal of this project. This paper is organised in two parts: in the first part we present and discuss the developed Distributed Belief Revision Test-bed — DiBeRT; in the second part we analyse its application to the environmental decision support domain, with special emphasis on the interface with a GIS.

Beliefs and Conflicts in a Real World Multi-Agent System

In a real world multiagent system, where the agents are faced with partial, incomplete and intrinsically dynamic knowledge, conflicts are inevitable. Frequently, different agents have goals or beliefs that cannot hold simultaneously. Conflict resolution methodologies have to be adopted to overcome such undesirable occurrences. In this paper we investigate the application of distributed belief revision techniques as the support for conflict resolution in the analysis of the validity of the candidate beams to be produced in the CERN particle accelerators. This CERN multiagent system contains a higher hierarchy agent, the Specialist agent, which makes use of meta-knowledge (on how the con- flicting beliefs have been produced by the other agents) in order to detect which beliefs should be abandoned. Upon solving a conflict, the Specialist instructs the involved agents to revise their beliefs accordingly. Conflicts in the problem domain are mapped into conflicting beliefs of the distributed belief revision system, where they can be handled by proven formal methods. This technique builds on well established concepts and combines them in a new way to solve important problems. We find this approach generally applicable in several domains.

"Não nos deixem dormir...": Projeto de intervenção num Centro de Dia

O presente relatório apresenta o projeto desenvolvido na Casa-Acolhimento Santa Marta, cuja finalidade era a promoção de um envelhecimento ativo e bem-sucedido com vista à melhoria da qualidade de vida das pessoas idosas que frequentam a resposta social de Centro de Dia. O conhecimento coconstruído com as pessoas idosas e os profissionais da instituição permitiu a conceção e o desenvolvimento do projeto “Não nos deixem dormir…”. Sendo um projeto, elaborado em conjunto com os indivíduos, privilegiou os pressupostos da metodologia de investigação-ação participativa. Inerente a este posicionamento, incentivando a exploração e a rentabilização dos recursos e das potencialidades endógenas, bem como procurando atenuar ou resolver os problemas e as necessidades subjacentes, procurou-se tornar os sujeitos atores e autores das suas vidas. Deste modo, partindo dos contributos e das necessidades dos idosos o projeto justifica a sua importância, designadamente pela realização de ações que proporcionaram um maior número de atividades de acordo com as suas expectativas e os seus interesses e que promoveram as relações interpessoais propiciando momentos de convívio e de diálogo, fomentando o auto e o hétero conhecimento, bem como o respeito mútuo entre os idosos. De forma a sustentar a investigação e a intervenção, mobilizou-se contributos teóricos ligados sobretudo à terceira idade, que se tornaram essenciais na problematização, na reflexão e na ação. A concretização do projeto permitiu ainda uma constante reflexão acerca do papel do Educador Social junto da população idosa, bem como da pertinência da sua presença neste âmbito de intervenção.

Influence of entrepreneurial orientation in export performance

This study aims at investigating the influence that entrepreneurial orientation has on export performance of Portuguese footwear small and mediumenterprises (SMEs). Therefore, a quantitative methodological approach was used, conducting a descriptive, exploratory and transversal empirical study, having applied a questionnaire to a sample of Portuguese companies exporting footwear. The research results suggest that entrepreneurial orientation enhances export performance in the analysed SMEs, particularly innovation and proactiveness, through the amount of funds invested, human resources dedicated to this activity, number of new products or services introduced in the market and frequent change in product lines or services and materialization of a long-term perspective, which is accompanied by innovative activities or new businesses. Therefore, the findings sustain the necessity to invest in entrepreneurial orientation as a strategic determinant, which contributes to the growth of small firms in foreignmarkets. Finally, the main limitation of this study is related to the sample size, since it was difficult to find companies willing to collaborate with this kind of research.