Motivations in volunteer work

The objective of this paper is to review and discuss the literature about volunteers’ motivations to donate their time to NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations). According to Parboteeah, Cullenb & Lim (2004) management research has not paid much attention to voluntarism, however, voluntarism is a substantial part of productive work for many societies. Wilson & Pimm (1996) show that in Great Britain about 39% of the adult population has been involved in some volunteer activity for some period of time. In the U.S.A. these values reach 50% (Wilson & Pimm, 1996). Considering the benefits that voluntarism can bring to an organisation, we understand that more attention must be devoted to this phenomenon. The more an organisation knows volunteers, the better this organisation will be able to meet the needs and expectations of these individuals. We present a literature review that illustrates and compares the different motivations associated with volunteer work. The paper includes a bibliographical databases search in specialised journals. The search used the key words “motivations” and “voluntarism” (in the heading and text body) and covered all numbers between 2000 and 2007. We identify the existence of repeated motivations (Holmberg & Söderlung, 2005; Prouteau & Wolff, 2008; Soupourmas & Ironmonger, 2001; Yavas & Riecken, 1997), which allow the establishment of a typology of volunteers’ motivations, based on four categories: altruism, social needs, self-esteem, learning and self-development. Finally we identify three main gaps in the literature that justify further research. First, research focusing on the differences between motivations related to volunteers’ "Attraction" versus "Retention" in NGO’s is nil. Second, the great majority of the studies rely on north American (USA and Canada) and Australian context, which demands for further research in European countries. Third, the majority of NGOs researched are related to sport, art or the environment, and it would be interesting to explore the relationship between motivation and NGO type. These questions may obtain interesting answers for NGO management, in particular with regard to volunteer attraction and retention.

Autoeficácia e satisfação no trabalho em técnicos de diagnóstico e terapêutica

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Gestão das Organizações, Ramo de Gestão de Empresas Orientada por Professora Doutora Diana Margarida Pinheiro de Aguiar Vieira Esta dissertação não inclui as críticas e as sugestões feitas pelo júri

Boas práticas de igualdade de género e sua relação nos domínios da satisfação laboral e clima organizacional

A Igualdade entre Homens e Mulheres e a não discriminação constituem princípios fundamentais da Constituição da Republica Portuguesa e do Tratado que institui a União Europeia – Tratado de Lisboa. A desigualdade entre Homens e Mulheres constitui uma violação dos direitos fundamentais, e impõe um pesado custo à economia na medida em que se desaproveitam talentos em função do género. A promoção de uma efetiva igualdade entre Homens e Mulheres constitui um dever fundamental do Estado. A promoção da participação ativa de Homens e Mulheres na vida política, ao nível da administração central, regional e local, é também um forte indicador da qualidade da democracia de um estado. Tomando por base a temática da Igualdade de Género, o Roteiro para a Igualdade entre Homens e Mulheres (2006-2010), o pacto Europeu para a Igualdade entre os Sexos (2006), a Estratégia para a Igualdade entre Homens e Mulheres 2010-2015 que elencam ações consideradas prioritárias – igualdade na independência económica; igualdade na remuneração por trabalho igual e por trabalho de igual valor; igualdade na tomada de decisões; promoção da dignidade e a integridade, pôr fim à violência de género; e questões horizontais – papéis desempenhados por Homens e Mulheres, legislação, governação e instrumentos no domínio da igualdade entre Homens e Mulheres, o objeto deste estudo centra-se na atividade do Estado Português, mais concretamente ao nível local. Procurou-se enquadrar esta temática na Gestão dos Recursos Humanos, na busca de um conhecimento mais aprofundado sobre a implementação de Boas Práticas de Igualdade de Género e a sua relação nos domínios da Satisfação Laboral assim como no Clima Organizacional. O presente estudo expõe uma abordagem quantitativa, de carácter descritivo, exploratório, correlacional e preditivo. O tratamento estatístico realizou-se com recurso ao programa IBM SPSS Statistics, versão 21. Os resultados encontrados apontam para uma associação positiva entre a existência de boas práticas de igualdade de género e a satisfação laboral dos trabalhadores, assim como do clima organizacional. São apresentadas pistas para a intervenção no domínio da função da gestão e desenvolvimento dos recursos humanos.

Object transportation by multiple mobile robots controlled by attractor dynamics: theory and implementation

Dynamical systems theory is used as a theoretical language and tool to design a distributed control architecture for teams of mobile robots, that must transport a large object and simultaneously avoid collisions with (either static or dynamic) obstacles. Here we demonstrate in simulations and implementations in real robots that it is possible to simplify the architectures presented in previous work and to extend the approach to teams of n robots. The robots have no prior knowledge of the environment. The motion of each robot is controlled by a time series of asymptotical stable states. The attractor dynamics permits the integration of information from various sources in a graded manner. As a result, the robots show a strikingly smooth an stable team behaviour.

Teaching accounting and management through business simulation:

Everyday accounting and management teachers face the challenge of creating learning environments that motivate students. This chapter describes the Business Simulation (BS) experience that has taken place at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Institute of Accounting and Administration (IPP/ISCAP). The chapter presents students’ perceptions about the course and the teaching/learning approach. The results show that pedagogical methods used (competency-oriented), generic competencies (cooperation and group work), and interpersonal skills (organisational and communication skills) are relevant for future accounting professionals. In addition, positive remarks and possible constraints based on observation, staff meetings, and past research are reported. The chapter concludes with some recommendations from the project implementation.

Soil sampling design and sampling techniques for soil properties monitoring – common difficulties related to forest soils

Mathematical models and statistical analysis are key instruments in soil science scientific research as they can describe and/or predict the current state of a soil system. These tools allow us to explore the behavior of soil related processes and properties as well as to generate new hypotheses for future experimentation. A good model and analysis of soil properties variations, that permit us to extract suitable conclusions and estimating spatially correlated variables at unsampled locations, is clearly dependent on the amount and quality of data and of the robustness techniques and estimators. On the other hand, the quality of data is obviously dependent from a competent data collection procedure and from a capable laboratory analytical work. Following the standard soil sampling protocols available, soil samples should be collected according to key points such as a convenient spatial scale, landscape homogeneity (or non-homogeneity), land color, soil texture, land slope, land solar exposition. Obtaining good quality data from forest soils is predictably expensive as it is labor intensive and demands many manpower and equipment both in field work and in laboratory analysis. Also, the sampling collection scheme that should be used on a data collection procedure in forest field is not simple to design as the sampling strategies chosen are strongly dependent on soil taxonomy. In fact, a sampling grid will not be able to be followed if rocks at the predicted collecting depth are found, or no soil at all is found, or large trees bar the soil collection. Considering this, a proficient design of a soil data sampling campaign in forest field is not always a simple process and sometimes represents a truly huge challenge. In this work, we present some difficulties that have occurred during two experiments on forest soil that were conducted in order to study the spatial variation of some soil physical-chemical properties. Two different sampling protocols were considered for monitoring two types of forest soils located in NW Portugal: umbric regosol and lithosol. Two different equipments for sampling collection were also used: a manual auger and a shovel. Both scenarios were analyzed and the results achieved have allowed us to consider that monitoring forest soil in order to do some mathematical and statistical investigations needs a sampling procedure to data collection compatible to established protocols but a pre-defined grid assumption often fail when the variability of the soil property is not uniform in space. In this case, sampling grid should be conveniently adapted from one part of the landscape to another and this fact should be taken into consideration of a mathematical procedure.

Controlo interno na Administração Local implantação de um novo procedimento numa Autarquia

Trabalho de Projeto Apresentado ao Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Auditoria, sob orientação do Mestre Carlos Mendes e coorientação da Engª Sónia Rodrigues

Terminology and knowledge engineering conference. New frontiers in the constructive symbiosis of terminology and knowledge engineering

To meet the increasing demands of the complex inter-organizational processes and the demand for continuous innovation and internationalization, it is evident that new forms of organisation are being adopted, fostering more intensive collaboration processes and sharing of resources, in what can be called collaborative networks (Camarinha-Matos, 2006:03). Information and knowledge are crucial resources in collaborative networks, being their management fundamental processes to optimize. Knowledge organisation and collaboration systems are thus important instruments for the success of collaborative networks of organisations having been researched in the last decade in the areas of computer science, information science, management sciences, terminology and linguistics. Nevertheless, research in this area didn’t give much attention to multilingual contexts of collaboration, which pose specific and challenging problems. It is then clear that access to and representation of knowledge will happen more and more on a multilingual setting which implies the overcoming of difficulties inherent to the presence of multiple languages, through the use of processes like localization of ontologies. Although localization, like other processes that involve multilingualism, is a rather well-developed practice and its methodologies and tools fruitfully employed by the language industry in the development and adaptation of multilingual content, it has not yet been sufficiently explored as an element of support to the development of knowledge representations - in particular ontologies - expressed in more than one language. Multilingual knowledge representation is then an open research area calling for cross-contributions from knowledge engineering, terminology, ontology engineering, cognitive sciences, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and management sciences. This workshop joined researchers interested in multilingual knowledge representation, in a multidisciplinary environment to debate the possibilities of cross-fertilization between knowledge engineering, terminology, ontology engineering, cognitive sciences, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and management sciences applied to contexts where multilingualism continuously creates new and demanding challenges to current knowledge representation methods and techniques. In this workshop six papers dealing with different approaches to multilingual knowledge representation are presented, most of them describing tools, approaches and results obtained in the development of ongoing projects. In the first case, Andrés Domínguez Burgos, Koen Kerremansa and Rita Temmerman present a software module that is part of a workbench for terminological and ontological mining, Termontospider, a wiki crawler that aims at optimally traverse Wikipedia in search of domainspecific texts for extracting terminological and ontological information. The crawler is part of a tool suite for automatically developing multilingual termontological databases, i.e. ontologicallyunderpinned multilingual terminological databases. In this paper the authors describe the basic principles behind the crawler and summarized the research setting in which the tool is currently tested. In the second paper, Fumiko Kano presents a work comparing four feature-based similarity measures derived from cognitive sciences. The purpose of the comparative analysis presented by the author is to verify the potentially most effective model that can be applied for mapping independent ontologies in a culturally influenced domain. For that, datasets based on standardized pre-defined feature dimensions and values, which are obtainable from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) have been used for the comparative analysis of the similarity measures. The purpose of the comparison is to verify the similarity measures based on the objectively developed datasets. According to the author the results demonstrate that the Bayesian Model of Generalization provides for the most effective cognitive model for identifying the most similar corresponding concepts existing for a targeted socio-cultural community. In another presentation, Thierry Declerck, Hans-Ulrich Krieger and Dagmar Gromann present an ongoing work and propose an approach to automatic extraction of information from multilingual financial Web resources, to provide candidate terms for building ontology elements or instances of ontology concepts. The authors present a complementary approach to the direct localization/translation of ontology labels, by acquiring terminologies through the access and harvesting of multilingual Web presences of structured information providers in the field of finance, leading to both the detection of candidate terms in various multilingual sources in the financial domain that can be used not only as labels of ontology classes and properties but also for the possible generation of (multilingual) domain ontologies themselves. In the next paper, Manuel Silva, António Lucas Soares and Rute Costa claim that despite the availability of tools, resources and techniques aimed at the construction of ontological artifacts, developing a shared conceptualization of a given reality still raises questions about the principles and methods that support the initial phases of conceptualization. These questions become, according to the authors, more complex when the conceptualization occurs in a multilingual setting. To tackle these issues the authors present a collaborative platform – conceptME - where terminological and knowledge representation processes support domain experts throughout a conceptualization framework, allowing the inclusion of multilingual data as a way to promote knowledge sharing and enhance conceptualization and support a multilingual ontology specification. In another presentation Frieda Steurs and Hendrik J. Kockaert present us TermWise, a large project dealing with legal terminology and phraseology for the Belgian public services, i.e. the translation office of the ministry of justice, a project which aims at developing an advanced tool including expert knowledge in the algorithms that extract specialized language from textual data (legal documents) and whose outcome is a knowledge database including Dutch/French equivalents for legal concepts, enriched with the phraseology related to the terms under discussion. Finally, Deborah Grbac, Luca Losito, Andrea Sada and Paolo Sirito report on the preliminary results of a pilot project currently ongoing at UCSC Central Library, where they propose to adapt to subject librarians, employed in large and multilingual Academic Institutions, the model used by translators working within European Union Institutions. The authors are using User Experience (UX) Analysis in order to provide subject librarians with a visual support, by means of “ontology tables” depicting conceptual linking and connections of words with concepts presented according to their semantic and linguistic meaning. The organizers hope that the selection of papers presented here will be of interest to a broad audience, and will be a starting point for further discussion and cooperation.

A quest for the right word enhancing reflexivity and technology in terminology training

INTED2010, the 4th International Technology, Education and Development Conference was held in Valencia (Spain), on March 8, 9 and 10, 2010.

Satisfaction towards human resources practices and repatriates’ retention: an empirical examination in the portuguese companies context

This paper examines the relationship between the level of satisfaction towards Human Resources Management practices among repatriates and the decision to remain on the home company after expatriation. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews of 28 Portuguese repatriates who remain and 16 organisational representatives from eight companies located in Portugal. The results show that (1) compensation system during the international assignment; (2) permanent support during the international assignment and; (3) recognition upon the return of the work and effort of expatriates during the international assignment are the most important HRM practices for promoting satisfaction among repatriates. Moreover, it is at repatriation phase that repatriates show higher dissatisfaction with HRM support. These findings will be discussed in detail and implications and suggestions for future research will be proposed as well.

Two divergent ways to manage HR and to get to the top: an exploratory study in micro firms

Aim of the paper: The purpose of this paper is to examine human resources management practices (HRM practices) in small firms and to improve the understanding of the relationship between this kind of practices and business growth. This exploratory study is based on the resource-based view of the firm and empirical work carried out in two small firms by relating HRM practices with the firms’ results. Contribution to the literature: This is an in-depth study of HRM practices and its impact on performance growth in micro firms, isolating and controlling for most of the contextual and internal variables considered in the literature that relate HRM to growth. Firm growth analysis was broadened by the use of several dependent variables: employment growth and operational and financial performance growth. Some hypotheses for further research in identifying HRM practices in small business and its relation with firm growth are suggested. Methodology: Case study methodology was used to study two firms. The techniques used to collect data were semi-structured interviews to the owner and all the employees, unstructured observation at the firms’ facilities (during two days), entrepreneur profile definition (survey answer) and document data collection (on demographic characterization and performance results). Data was analyzed through content analysis methodology, and categories derived from the interviews’ protocols and literature. Results and implications: Results revealed that despite the firms’ organizational characteristics similarities, they differ significantly in owners’ motivation to grow, HRM practices and organizational performance and growth. Future studies should pay special attention to owner willingness to grow, to firms’ years of experience in business, to staff’s years of experience in their field of work and turnover. HRM practices in micro/small firms should be better defined and characterized. The external image of management posture relating to longitudinal financial results and growth should also be explored.

Teaching accounting and management through business simulation

Everyday accounting and management teachers face the challenge of creating learning environments that motivate students. This chapter describes the Business Simulation (BS) experience that has taken place at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Institute of Accounting and Administration (IPP/ISCAP). The chapter presents students’ perceptions about the course and the teaching/learning approach. The results show that pedagogical methods used (competency-oriented), generic competencies (cooperation and group work), and interpersonal skills (organisational and communication skills) are relevant for future accounting professionals. In addition, positive remarks and possible constraints based on observation, staff meetings, and past research are reported. The chapter concludes with some recommendations from the project implementation

Developing an aquaponics system to learn sustainability and social compromise skills

The goal of this project, one of the proposals of the EPS@ISEP Spring 2014, was to develop an Aquaponics System. Over recent years Aquaponics systems have received increased attention since they contribute to reduce the strain on resources within 1st and 3rd world countries. Aquaponics is the combination of Hydroponics and Aquaculture, mimicking a natural environment in order to successfully apply and enhance the understanding of natural cycles within an indoor process. Using this knowledge of natural cycles, it was possible to create a system with capabilities similar to that of a natural environment with the support of electronics, enhancing the overall efficiency of the system. The multinational team involved in the development of this system was composed of five students from five countries and fields of study. This paper describes their solution, including the overall design, the technology involved and the benefits it can bring to the current market. The team was able to design and render the Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawings of the prototype, assemble all components, successfully test the electronics and comply with the budget. Furthermore, the designed solution was supported by a product sustainability study and included a specific marketing plan. Last but not least, the students enrolled in this project obtained new multidisciplinary knowledge and increased their team work and cross-cultural communication skills.

Quantification and viability analyses of Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata algal cells using image-based cytometry

This work aims to evaluate the feasibility of using image-based cytometry (IBC) in the analysis of algal cell quantification and viability, using Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata as a cell model. Cell concentration was determined by IBC to be in a linear range between 1 × 105 and 8 × 106 cells mL−1. Algal viability was defined on the basis that the intact membrane of viable cells excludes the SYTOX Green (SG) probe. The disruption of membrane integrity represents irreversible damage and consequently results in cell death. Using IBC, we were able to successfully discriminate between live (SG-negative cells) and dead algal cells (heat-treated at 65 °C for 60 min; SG-positive cells). The observed viability of algal populations containing different proportions of killed cells was well correlated (R 2 = 0.994) with the theoretical viability. The validation of the use of this technology was carried out by exposing algal cells of P. subcapitata to a copper stress test for 96 h. IBC allowed us to follow the evolution of cell concentration and the viability of copper-exposed algal populations. This technology overcomes several main drawbacks usually associated with microscopy counting, such as labour-intensive experiments, tedious work and lack of the representativeness of the cell counting. In conclusion, IBC allowed a fast and automated determination of the total number of algal cells and allowed us to analyse viability. This technology can provide a useful tool for a wide variety of fields that utilise microalgae, such as the aquatic toxicology and biotechnology fields.

XATA 2010 : XML : Associated Technologies and Applications, 8th

These are the proceedings for the eighth national conference on XML, its Associated Technologies and its Applications (XATA'2010). The paper selection resulted in 33% of papers accepted as full papers, and 33% of papers accepted as short papers. While these two types of papers were distinguish during the conference, and they had different talk duration, they all had the same limit of 12 pages. We are happy that the selected papers focus both aspects of the conference: XML technologies, and XML applications. In the first group we can include the articles on parsing and transformation technologies, like “Processing XML: a rewriting system approach", “Visual Programming of XSLT from examples", “A Refactoring Model for XML Documents", “A Performance based Approach for Processing Large XML Files in Multicore Machines", “XML to paper publishing with manual intervention" and “Parsing XML Documents in Java using Annotations". XML-core related papers are also available, focusing XML tools testing on “Test::XML::Generator: Generating XML for Unit Testing" and “XML Archive for Testing: a benchmark for GuessXQ". XML as the base for application development is also present, being discussed on different areas, like “Web Service for Interactive Products and Orders Configuration", “XML Description for Automata Manipulations", “Integration of repositories in Moodle", “XML, Annotations and Database: a Comparative Study of Metadata Definition Strategies for Frameworks", “CardioML: Integrating Personal Cardiac Information for Ubiquous Diagnosis and Analysis", “A Semantic Representation of Users Emotions when Watching Videos" and “Integrating SVG and SMIL in DAISY DTB production to enhance the contents accessibility in the Open Library for Higher Education". The wide spread of subjects makes us believe that for the time being XML is here to stay what enhances the importance of gathering this community to discuss related science and technology. Small conferences are traversing a bad period. Authors look for impact and numbers and only submit their works to big conferences sponsored by the right institutions. However the group of people behind this conference still believes that spaces like this should be preserved and maintained. This 8th gathering marks the beginning of a new cycle. We know who we are, what is our identity and we will keep working to preserve that. We hope the publication containing the works of this year's edition will catch the same attention and interest of the previous editions and above all that this publication helps in some other's work. Finally, we would like to thank all authors for their work and interest in the conference, and to the scientific committee members for their review work.