Avaliação de Desempenho e Associações de Profissionais: o poder do associativismo nos processos de avaliação de desempenho

Dissertação de mestrado em Sociologia Organizações e Trabalho

Avaliação da eficiência de projetos de reabilitação ambiental de áreas mineiras abandonadas: o caso da área mineira de Covas

Dissertação de mestrado em Geociências (área de especialização em Valorização de Recursos Geológicos)

Avaliação do desempenho docente: conflitos, incertezas e busca de sentido(s)

O texto que propomos parte de uma pesquisa longitudinal, realizada em Portugal entre 2008 e 2010, com professores do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico. Procura evidenciar os conflitos e incertezas que a avaliação do desempenho docente tem produzido e a busca de sentido(s) para esta avaliação e para o ‘ser professor/a’. A implementação de sistemas de avaliação do desempenho dos professores insere-se na procura de soluções para esta inquietação. Foi o que aconteceu em Portugal, em Janeiro de 2007, com a publicação em Diário da República do novo Estatuto da Carreira Docente e o Decreto que regulamentava a Avaliação do Desempenho Docente. As tensões emergiram entre docentes e Ministério da Educação, agudizaram-se com a tomada de consciência da problemática da avaliação do desempenho dos docentes com impacto na carreira profissional e provocaram incertezas e desmotivação face ao sentido do trabalho docente com impacto na identidade profissional dos professores.

Automating the testing process of image processing algorithms

As digital imaging processing techniques become increasingly used in a broad range of consumer applications, the critical need to evaluate algorithm performance has become recognised by developers as an area of vital importance. With digital image processing algorithms now playing a greater role in security and protection applications, it is of crucial importance that we are able to empirically study their performance. Apart from the field of biometrics little emphasis has been put on algorithm performance evaluation until now and where evaluation has taken place, it has been carried out in a somewhat cumbersome and unsystematic fashion, without any standardised approach. This paper presents a comprehensive testing methodology and framework aimed towards automating the evaluation of image processing algorithms. Ultimately, the test framework aims to shorten the algorithm development life cycle by helping to identify algorithm performance problems quickly and more efficiently.

Results of An International Study of Quantitative BCR/ABL Assays Using Defined RNA Samples

Molecular monitoring of BCR/ABL transcripts by real time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) is an essential technique for clinical management of patients with BCR/ABL-positive CML and ALL. Though quantitative BCR/ABL assays are performed in hundreds of laboratories worldwide, results among these laboratories cannot be reliably compared due to heterogeneity in test methods, data analysis, reporting, and lack of quantitative standards. Recent efforts towards standardization have been limited in scope. Aliquots of RNA were sent to clinical test centers worldwide in order to evaluate methods and reporting for e1a2, b2a2, and b3a2 transcript levels using their own qRT-PCR assays. Total RNA was isolated from tissue culture cells that expressed each of the different BCR/ABL transcripts. Serial log dilutions were prepared, ranging from 100 to 10-5, in RNA isolated from HL60 cells. Laboratories performed 5 independent qRT-PCR reactions for each sample type at each dilution. In addition, 15 qRT-PCR reactions of the 10-3 b3a2 RNA dilution were run to assess reproducibility within and between laboratories. Participants were asked to run the samples following their standard protocols and to report cycle threshold (Ct), quantitative values for BCR/ABL and housekeeping genes, and ratios of BCR/ABL to housekeeping genes for each sample RNA. Thirty-seven (n=37) participants have submitted qRT-PCR results for analysis (36, 37, and 34 labs generated data for b2a2, b3a2, and e1a2, respectively). The limit of detection for this study was defined as the lowest dilution that a Ct value could be detected for all 5 replicates. For b2a2, 15, 16, 4, and 1 lab(s) showed a limit of detection at the 10-5, 10-4, 10-3, and 10-2 dilutions, respectively. For b3a2, 20, 13, and 4 labs showed a limit of detection at the 10-5, 10-4, and 10-3 dilutions, respectively. For e1a2, 10, 21, 2, and 1 lab(s) showed a limit of detection at the 10-5, 10-4, 10-3, and 10-2 dilutions, respectively. Log %BCR/ABL ratio values provided a method for comparing results between the different laboratories for each BCR/ABL dilution series. Linear regression analysis revealed concordance among the majority of participant data over the 10-1 to 10-4 dilutions. The overall slope values showed comparable results among the majority of b2a2 (mean=0.939; median=0.9627; range (0.399 - 1.1872)), b3a2 (mean=0.925; median=0.922; range (0.625 - 1.140)), and e1a2 (mean=0.897; median=0.909; range (0.5174 - 1.138)) laboratory results (Fig. 1-3)). Thirty-four (n=34) out of the 37 laboratories reported Ct values for all 15 replicates and only those with a complete data set were included in the inter-lab calculations. Eleven laboratories either did not report their copy number data or used other reporting units such as nanograms or cell numbers; therefore, only 26 laboratories were included in the overall analysis of copy numbers. The median copy number was 348.4, with a range from 15.6 to 547,000 copies (approximately a 4.5 log difference); the median intra-lab %CV was 19.2% with a range from 4.2% to 82.6%. While our international performance evaluation using serially diluted RNA samples has reinforced the fact that heterogeneity exists among clinical laboratories, it has also demonstrated that performance within a laboratory is overall very consistent. Accordingly, the availability of defined BCR/ABL RNAs may facilitate the validation of all phases of quantitative BCR/ABL analysis and may be extremely useful as a tool for monitoring assay performance. Ongoing analyses of these materials, along with the development of additional control materials, may solidify consensus around their application in routine laboratory testing and possible integration in worldwide efforts to standardize quantitative BCR/ABL testing.

Automatic measurement of key ski jumping phases and temporal events with a wearable system.

We propose a new method, based on inertial sensors, to automatically measure at high frequency the durations of the main phases of ski jumping (i.e. take-off release, take-off, and early flight). The kinematics of the ski jumping movement were recorded by four inertial sensors, attached to the thigh and shank of junior athletes, for 40 jumps performed during indoor conditions and 36 jumps in field conditions. An algorithm was designed to detect temporal events from the recorded signals and to estimate the duration of each phase. These durations were evaluated against a reference camera-based motion capture system and by trainers conducting video observations. The precision for the take-off release and take-off durations (indoor < 39 ms, outdoor = 27 ms) can be considered technically valid for performance assessment. The errors for early flight duration (indoor = 22 ms, outdoor = 119 ms) were comparable to the trainers' variability and should be interpreted with caution. No significant changes in the error were noted between indoor and outdoor conditions, and individual jumping technique did not influence the error of take-off release and take-off. Therefore, the proposed system can provide valuable information for performance evaluation of ski jumpers during training sessions.

A Political Agency Model of Coattail Voting

In this paper, I provide a formal justi…cation for a well-established coattail effect, when a popular candidate at one branch of government attracts votes to candidates from the same political party for other branches of government. A political agency frame- work with moral hazard is applied to analyze coattails in simultaneous presidential and congressional elections. I show that coattail voting is a natural outcome of the optimal reelection scheme adopted by a representative voter to motivate politicians' efforts in a retrospective voting environment. I assume that an office-motivated politician (executive or congressman) prefers her counterpart to be affiliated with the same political party. This correlation of incentives leads the voter to adopt a joint performance evaluation rule, which is conditioned on the politicians belonging to the same party or different parties. The two-sided coattail effects then arise. On the one hand, the executive's suc- cess/failure props up/drags down her partisan ally in congressional election, which implies presidential coattails. On the other hand, the executive's reelection itself is affected by the congressman's performance, which results in reverse coattails. JEL classi…fication: D72, D86. Keywords: Coattail voting; Presidential coattails; Reverse coattails; Simultaneous elections; Political Agency; Retrospective voting.

Essays in banking and corporate finance

Abstract This paper presents a model of executive compensation in which the executive is risk-averse and has specific knowledge -knowledge about the optimal actions to take that is costly to transfer to the principal. The model generates predictions that are consistent with the available evidence and provides a rationale for a number of unresolved puzzles in executive compensation. Notably, we find that relative performance evaluation is optimal only if the quality of specific knowledge is low. We also show (1) why some common risk components are not filtered out of executives' pay, (2) why performance is more likely to be evaluated relative to aggregate market movements than relative to industry movements, and (3) why executives with higher perceived abilities are given stronger incentives. Finally, we demonstrate that the relation between risk and incentives may be positive or negative, depending on the quality of the executive's specific knowledge.

Some applications of FISST to wireless communications

This paper aims at illustrating some applications of Finite Random Set (FRS) theory to the design and analysis of wireless communication receivers, and at pointing out similarities and differences between this scenario and that pertaining to multi-target tracking, where the use of FRS has been traditionally advocated. Two case studies are considered, l.e., multiuser detection in a dynamic environment, and multicarrier (OFDM) transmission on a frequency-selective channel. Detector designand performance evaluation are discussed, along with the advantages of importing FRS-based estimation techniques to the context of wireless communications.

GESTÃO E AVALIAÇÃODE DESEMPENHO NA SHELL CABO VERDE, SARL

Cabo Verde foi alcandorado a PDM recentemente o que traz novos e grandes desafios para o seu processo de desenvolvimento. O país que tem as suas vulnerabilidades decorrentes do seu frágil tecido produtivo e da sua reduzida dimensão, para além da escassez de recursos naturais, enfrenta ainda o desafio da insularidade. Assim terá que ancorar-se em primeiro lugar nos seus recursos humanos, para enfrentar esses desafios. A questão da gestão de desempenho e recompensa começa a emergir-se no sector empresarial quer privado quer estatal, como um processo fundamental para se alcançar a excelência operacional, fundamental para enfrentar a competição nos dias de hoje. O presente estudo focou o sistema de avaliação de desempenho na Shell Cabo Verde uma filial do Grupo Shell, que é uma multinacional com uma história rica e com forte experiência no mercado Global. Procurou-se, através de um estudo de caso, fazer o levantamento e o enquadramento teórico do sistema e analisar até que ponto o mesmo tem potenciado a melhoria do desempenho organizacional através do alinhamento dos objectivos individuais e da organização. Cape Verde has recently been upgraded to a Medium Development Country condition which brings along new great challenges to its development process. The country has already its vulnerabilities due to its week productive tissue and its small dimension and beyond the lack of natural resources it has to deal with the challenge of insularity. Thus it has to anchor itself firstly in its human resources to face the challenges. The performance and reward management starts to emerge in both private’s and State’s entrepreneur sector, as a fundamental process to achieve the operational excellence in order to face the competitiveness now-a-days. This study focused the performance evaluation used in Shell Cape Verde, a company that belongs to the multinational Shell with a rich global market experience. We tried, through a case study, to understand the theoric contents of the system and analyze at what point it has enhanced the improvement of the organizational performance through the alignment of individual objectives and organizational objectives.

A avaliação de desempenho como factor de motivação

Este estudo, realizado sobre a temática “A Avaliação de Desempenho como Factor de Motivação”, através da revisão bibliográfica e de um estudo de caso na Sociedade Cabo-verdiana de Tabacos, SA, teve como objectivo mostrar os impactos da avaliação de desempenho na motivação dos colaboradores. O trabalho encontra-se estruturado em quatro capítulos, sendo que no primeiro e segundo fez-se uma revisão bibliográfica, para uma melhor fundamentação teórica do trabalho. O terceiro capítulo, refere-se ao estudo de caso feito na referida empresa, onde foi aplicado um questionário para apurar, acerca da percepção que os colaboradores têm do sistema de avaliação de desempenho que são submetidos e da adequabilidade do mesmo à estrutura da organização, e ainda a aplicação da teoria de Victor Vroom para medir a motivação dos colaboradores. E por último, no quarto capítulo, referimos às conclusões e subsequentes recomendações. Da análise dos dados recolhidos na empresa, verificamos que o nível motivacional com que a maioria dos colaboradores da SCT, SA desenvolvem as suas tarefas está abaixo da média, o que conduziu-nos a conclusão de que eles estão desmotivados, pelo que a empresa deverá criar medidas que possam estimular os colaboradores de forma a reverter essa situação. This study about the topic "Performance Evaluation as Motivation Factor", through literature review and a case study in Sociedade Cabo-verdiana de Tabacos, SA, aimed to show the impact of performance evaluation on employee motivation. The work is structured in four chapters and in the first and second we did a literature review for better theoretical foundation of the work. The third chapter refers to the case study in the company mentioned above, which was administered a questionary to know what the employees think about the performance evaluation system in the company, and so the application of Victor Vroom´s theory to measure the employees motivation. And finally in the fourth chapter we refer some conclusions and recommendations for the company. After the analysis of the data given in the company, we realized that the motivation level witch the majority of the employees in SCT, SA work is under the average, what made us come to the conclusion that they are not motivated. So we suggest the company to develop strategies to stimulate the employees in order to reverse this situation

Gestão do Desempenho como ferramenta para o alcance dos objectivos estratégicos

The current context of a strong competition and the ongoing search for competitive advantages requires more than processes modernization, technological and financial resources. It requires a competent workforce, strongly committed and engaged with Organization’s challenges. Under this scenario, it seems crucial to synchronize their performance with Organization’s strategy, aimed at pursuing its effective achievement. If well used, the Performance Evaluation as a strategy for Human Resource Management presents itself as an instrument to foster high levels of performance. A more recent approach of this policy refers to Performance Management representing a dynamic and participative evaluation system, which combines the development of consensual goals, support and follow-up for further execution of respective assessment. This research was based on the ENAPOR, S.A (Porto da Praia) case, with the intention of checking the alignment of its Performance Evaluation System with the Company's strategic goals and what the process features.

Setting standards: Information accumulation in development

We propose a model in which economic relations and institutions in advancedand less developed economies differ as these societies have access to different amounts of information. This lack of information makes it hard to give the right incentives to managers and entrepreneurs. We argue that differences in the amount of information arise because of the differences in the scale of activities in rich and poor economies; namely, there is too little repetition of similar activities in pooreconomies, thus insufficient information to set the appropriate standards for firm performance. Our model predicts a number of institutional and structural transformations as the economy accumulates capital and information.

Front-crawl instantaneous velocity estimation using a wearable inertial measurement unit.

Monitoring the performance is a crucial task for elite sports during both training and competition. Velocity is the key parameter of performance in swimming, but swimming performance evaluation remains immature due to the complexities of measurements in water. The purpose of this study is to use a single inertial measurement unit (IMU) to estimate front crawl velocity. Thirty swimmers, equipped with an IMU on the sacrum, each performed four different velocity trials of 25 m in ascending order. A tethered speedometer was used as the velocity measurement reference. Deployment of biomechanical constraints of front crawl locomotion and change detection framework on acceleration signal paved the way for a drift-free integration of forward acceleration using IMU to estimate the swimmers velocity. A difference of 0.6 ± 5.4 cm · s(-1) on mean cycle velocity and an RMS difference of 11.3 cm · s(-1) in instantaneous velocity estimation were observed between IMU and the reference. The most important contribution of the study is a new practical tool for objective evaluation of swimming performance. A single body-worn IMU provides timely feedback for coaches and sport scientists without any complicated setup or restraining the swimmer's natural technique.

System-level Support for Mobile Ad hoc Communications: an Algorithmic & Practical Approach

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized and infrastructure-less network. This thesis aims to provide support at the system-level for developers of applications or protocols in such networks. To do this, we propose contributions in both the algorithmic realm and in the practical realm. In the algorithmic realm, we contribute to the field by proposing different context-aware broadcast and multicast algorithms in MANETs, namely six-shot broadcast, six-shot multicast, PLAN-B and ageneric algorithmic approach to optimize the power consumption of existing algorithms. For each algorithm we propose, we compare it to existing algorithms that are either probabilistic or context-aware, and then we evaluate their performance based on simulations. We demonstrate that in some cases, context-aware information, such as location or signal-strength, can improve the effciency. In the practical realm, we propose a testbed framework, namely ManetLab, to implement and to deploy MANET-specific protocols, and to evaluate their performance. This testbed framework aims to increase the accuracy of performance evaluation compared to simulations, while keeping the ease of use offered by the simulators to reproduce a performance evaluation. By evaluating the performance of different probabilistic algorithms with ManetLab, we observe that both simulations and testbeds should be used in a complementary way. In addition to the above original contributions, we also provide two surveys about system-level support for ad hoc communications in order to establish a state of the art. The first is about existing broadcast algorithms and the second is about existing middleware solutions and the way they deal with privacy and especially with location privacy. - Un réseau mobile ad hoc (MANET) est un réseau avec une architecture décentralisée et sans infrastructure. Cette thèse vise à fournir un support adéquat, au niveau système, aux développeurs d'applications ou de protocoles dans de tels réseaux. Dans ce but, nous proposons des contributions à la fois dans le domaine de l'algorithmique et dans celui de la pratique. Nous contribuons au domaine algorithmique en proposant différents algorithmes de diffusion dans les MANETs, algorithmes qui sont sensibles au contexte, à savoir six-shot broadcast,six-shot multicast, PLAN-B ainsi qu'une approche générique permettant d'optimiser la consommation d'énergie de ces algorithmes. Pour chaque algorithme que nous proposons, nous le comparons à des algorithmes existants qui sont soit probabilistes, soit sensibles au contexte, puis nous évaluons leurs performances sur la base de simulations. Nous montrons que, dans certains cas, des informations liées au contexte, telles que la localisation ou l'intensité du signal, peuvent améliorer l'efficience de ces algorithmes. Sur le plan pratique, nous proposons une plateforme logicielle pour la création de bancs d'essai, intitulé ManetLab, permettant d'implémenter, et de déployer des protocoles spécifiques aux MANETs, de sorte à évaluer leur performance. Cet outil logiciel vise à accroître la précision desévaluations de performance comparativement à celles fournies par des simulations, tout en conservant la facilité d'utilisation offerte par les simulateurs pour reproduire uneévaluation de performance. En évaluant les performances de différents algorithmes probabilistes avec ManetLab, nous observons que simulateurs et bancs d'essai doivent être utilisés de manière complémentaire. En plus de ces contributions principales, nous fournissons également deux états de l'art au sujet du support nécessaire pour les communications ad hoc. Le premier porte sur les algorithmes de diffusion existants et le second sur les solutions de type middleware existantes et la façon dont elles traitent de la confidentialité, en particulier celle de la localisation.