Key success factors of replicated social businesses

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

People management in the Portuguese nonprofits

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Management consulting labs: Project TAP

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Factors affecting adolescents’ choice of branded vs. fashionable clothing

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

EDP - the making of a global green brand

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

Influence of abiotic stress factors on VOCs emission from Portuguese rice paddy fields: relation with increased climate change

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente Perfil de Gestão de Sistemas Ambientais

Modelling lean and green supply chain

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Industrial

Standardization of project management processes

Software development is a discipline that is almost as old as the history of computers. With the advent of the Internet and all of its related technologies, software development has been on high demand. But, and especially in SME (small and medium enterprise), this was not accompanied with a comparable effort to develop a set of sustainable and standardized activities of project management, which lead to increasing inefficiencies and costs. Given the actual economic situation, it makes sense to engage in an effort to reduce said inefficiencies and rising costs. For that end, this work will analyze the current state of software development’s project management processes on a Portuguese SME, along with its problems and inefficiencies in an effort to create a standardized model to manage software development, with special attention given to critical success factors in an agile software development environment, while using the best practices in process modeling. This work also aims to create guidelines to correctly integrate these changes in the existing IS structure of a company.

Influence of Lean and Green on supply chain performance: an interpretive structural modelling model

This work aims to identify and rank a set of Lean and Green practices and supply chain performance measures on which managers should focus to achieve competitiveness and improve the performance of automotive supply chains. The identification of the contextual relationships among the suggested practices and measures, was performed through literature review. Their ranking was done by interviews with professionals from the automotive industry and academics with wide knowledge on the subject. The methodology of interpretive structural modelling (ISM) is a useful methodology to identify inter relationships among Lean and Green practices and supply chain performance measures and to support the evaluation of automotive supply chain performance. Using the ISM methodology, the variables under study were clustered according to their driving power and dependence power. The ISM methodology was proposed to be used in this work. The model intends to provide a better understanding of the variables that have more influence (driving variables), the others and those which are most influenced (dependent variables) by others. The information provided by this model is strategic for managers who can use it to identify which variables they should focus on in order to have competitive supply chains.

Construction of Lean and Green indexes to measure companies’ performance

The demand for costs and time reductions in companies’ processes, in order to increase efficiency, leads companies to seek innovative management paradigms to support their needs for growth and continuous improvement. The Lean paradigm has great relevance in companies’ need for waste reduction, particularly in manufacturing companies. On the other hand the demand of companies for waste reduction has gained a new dimension not only at the material level, but also at the environmental level with the introduction of the Green paradigm. As such, manufacturing companies have been adopting practices that reduce the impact of their activities on the environment. Although nowadays many manufacturing companies already implement waste reduction practices related to Lean and Green paradigms, many of them are unable to understand specifically if their efforts are enough for the application of these practices to be successful or even if their actual performance in implementing Lean or Green practices reflects the self-assessment that they have of themselves. Thus, besides the study of the development of Lean and Green paradigms in recent years, the present dissertation has the important objective of the construction of two indexes (the Lean Index and the Green Index) enabling the measurement of the performance of Portuguese manufacturing companies relating the implementation of Lean and Green practices. The data used to create the Lean and Green indexes where obtained from the implementation of the European Manufacturing Survey 2012 in Portugal. The survey questions related to the implementation of Lean and Green practices are used as variables in the development of the model for the two indexes. For the construction of representative expressions of Lean Index and Green Index it was applied the Factorial Analysis for assigning the variables weights and aggregation.

Occurrence and risk factors associated with infection by Toxoplasma gondii in goats in the State of Alagoas, Brazil

INTRODUCTION: Goats are considered very susceptible to infection by Toxoplasma gondii and when this occurs during pregnancy, it may cause fetal death with subsequent fetal resorption, abortion, mummification, stillborn or the birth of weak goats. The objective of this work was to determine the occurrence of and identify risk factors for T. gondii infection in goats in different mesoregions in the State of Alagoas. METHODS: The research was conducted on 24 goat breeding farms in 10 municipalities. A total of 454 blood samples were examined for anti-T. gondii antibodies by indirect immunofluorescence antibody test. To evaluate the risk factors of toxoplasmosis in goats, questionnaires were applied analyzing the farm's production system and nutritional, reproductive and sanitary management. RESULTS: Disease occurrence was 39% with 95.8% of farms presenting seropositive animals. Significant associations were observed for mesoregion (OR = 0.23; 95%CI = 0.09 - 0.57), age (OR = 0.36; 95%CI = 0.20 - 0.64), semi-intensive herd management (OR = 8.70; 95%CI = 1.87 - 40.43), access of cats to water provided for goats (OR = 3.38; 95%CI = 1.89-6.02) and cats feeding on placental remnants (OR = 2.73; 95%CI = 1.38 - 5.40). CONCLUSIONS: Toxoplasma gondii infection is disseminated in the State of Alagoas and the adoption of a program that monitors infection foci is required to reduce the risk factors identified in the present study.

Management of post-transplant Epstein-Barr virus-related lymphoproliferative disease in solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell recipients

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-related post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD) is one of the most serious complications associated with solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. PTLD is most frequently seen with primary EBV infection post-transplant, a common scenario for pediatric solid organ recipients. Risk factors for infection or reactivation of EBV following solid organ transplant are stronger immunosuppressive therapy regimens, and being seronegative for receptor. For hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, the risk factors relate to the type of transplant, human leukocyte antigen disparity, the use of stronger immunosuppressants, T-cell depletion, and severe graft-versus-host disease. Mortality is high, and most frequent in patients who develop PTLD in the first six months post-transplant. The primary goal of this article is to provide an overview of the clinical manifestations, diagnosis, accepted therapies, and management of EBV infection in transplant recipients, and to suggest that the adoption of monitoring protocols could contribute to a reduction in related complications.

Study of the risk factors related to acquisition of urinary tract infections in patients submitted to renal transplant

INTRODUCTION: Urinary tract infections (UTI) among transplant recipients are usually caused by gram-negative microorganisms and can provoke a high incidence of morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk factors associated with the acquisition of UTIs during the first year after renal transplantation. METHODS: Here, we report a single-center retrospective cohort study of 99 renal transplant patients followed for the first year after surgery. The definition of a UTI episode was a urine culture showing bacterial growth and leucocyturia when patients presented with urinary symptoms. The absence of infection (asymptomatic bacteriuria) was defined as an absence of symptoms with negative urine culture or bacterial growth with any number of colonies. RESULTS: Ninety-nine patients were included in the study. During the study, 1,847 urine cultures were collected, and 320 (17.3%) tested positive for bacterial growth. Twenty-six (26.2%) patients developed a UTI. The most frequent microorganisms isolated from patients with UTIs were Klebsiella pneumoniae (36%), with 33% of the strains resistant to carbapenems, followed by Escherichia coli (20%). There were no deaths or graft losses associated with UTI episodes. CONCLUSIONS: Among the UTI risk factors studied, the only one that was associated with a higher incidence of infection was female sex. Moreover, the identification of drug-resistant strains is worrisome, as these infections have become widespread globally and represent a challenge in the control and management of infections, especially in solid organ transplantation.

Project management: evaluation of the problems in the portuguese construction industry

During recent decades it has been possible to identify several problems in construction industry project management, related with to systematic failures in terms of fulfilling its schedule, cost and quality targets, which highlight a need for an evaluation of the factors that may cause these failures. Therefore, it is important to understand how project managers plan the projects, so that the performance and the results can be improved. However, it is important to understand if other areas beyond cost and time management that are mentioned on several studies as the most critical areas, receive the necessary attention from construction project managers. Despite the cost and time are the most sensitive areas/fields, there are several other factors that may lead to project failure. This study aims at understand the reasons that may cause the deviation in terms of cost, time and quality, from the project management point of view, looking at the knowledge areas mentioned by PMI (Project Management Institute).

Analysis of integrated management systems from various perspectives

This article compiles the main topics addressed by management systems (MSs) literature concerningMSs integration by performing a systematic literature review. In this paper, it is intended to present themain limitations of non-integratedmanagement systems (IMSs), the main motivations driving an IMS implementation, the major resistances faced, the most common resultant benefits, the suitable guidelines and standards and the critical success factors. In addition, this paper addresses the issues concerning integration strategies and models, the integration levels or degrees achieved by an IMS and the audit function in an integrated context. The motivations that drive companies to integrate their management subsystems, the obstacles faced and the benefits collected may have internal or external origins. The publishing of standards guiding companies on how to integrate their management subsystems has been done mainly at a national level. There are several models that could be used in order to support companies in their management subsystems integration processes, and a sequential or an all-in strategy may be adopted. Four audit typologies can be distinguished, and the adoption of any of these typologies should consider resource availability and audit team know-how, among other features.