Learning from risks: A tool for post-project risk assessment

Risk management (RM) comprises of risk identification, risk analysis, response planning, monitoring and action planning tasks that are carried out throughout the life cycle of a project in order to ensure that project objectives are met. Although the methodological aspects of RM are well-defined, the philosophical background is rather vague. In this paper, a learning-based approach is proposed. In order to implement this approach in practice, a tool has been developed to facilitate construction of a lessons learned database that contains risk-related information and risk assessment throughout the life cycle of a project. The tool is tested on a real construction project. The case study findings demonstrate that it can be used for storing as well as updating risk-related information and finally, carrying out a post-project appraisal. The major weaknesses of the tool are identified as, subjectivity of the risk rating process and unwillingness of people to enter information about reasons of failure.

Think local, act local? Issues of co-ordination and integration in Local Agenda 21

The political response to the complex package of environmental problems which threaten the future of our planet has been to introduce a new agenda of environmental action based on the principles of sustainability and subsidiarity. This has been crystallised in world agreements signed at the Earth Summit in Rio. One of these, Agenda 21, calls for the governments and communities of the world to prepare action plans for their areas which can build consensus between the various stakeholder groups and feed the principles of sustainable development back into their policies and day-to-day practices. This paper explores the experience of Local Agenda 21 type processes at three levels in the South East of England: the regional, county (sub-regional) and local level. In particular it undertakes a critical appraisal of the success of these participatory and consensus-building exercises in developing an integrated and co-ordinated approach to environmental action planning. It concludes that, although much useful work has been done in raising awareness and modifying policy and practice, there are significant cultural and institutional barriers which are hindering progress.

Ações de profissionais relativas ao banco de leite humano : uma perspectiva de mudança

This is an exploratory and descriptive study that aimed to investigate the actions of professionals in the context of breastfeeding, on the assumption that the actions taken by employees working together to postpartum and newborn are not competing to effect the distribution of pasteurized human milk so that it meets the needs of infants who depend on it. Thus, the study aimed to analyze the actions of medical and nursing staff of the distribution of pasteurized human milk to the newly born. The investigation was developed by action research in a federal hospital, located in the capital the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, reference assistance to women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum high risk in 2010. Study participants were fifty-five professionals chosen from the following inclusion criteria: to act in the NICU or rooming, being a pediatrician and / or neonatologists, nurses and technical nursing. According to the methodology of action research a questionnaire was applied, techniques in focus groups and courses were developed, and, finally, action evaluation. The project was submitted to the Ethics Committee at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte and approved with no protocol 448/2009. The problems identified in the responses issued by the social research were grouped into categories according to the similarity between them. The answer to the question of the survey - How is the need for pasteurized human milk for the newborns in neonatal intensive care unit and rooming identified? - Brought subsidies for action planning and implementation of strategies for change in the practice of professionals working in rooming and ICU. Thus, the study has relevance in social care and, when at the local level, will compete for the distribution pasteurized human milk to take effect as best as possible, as recommended by the Ministry of Health. It is also conceived that, in a macro view of society, it could contribute to minimizing the health problem that involves the child population

Uso corporativo do território e turismo no Rio Grande do Norte

Tourism has in recent years a significant growth in the economy, bringing repercussions on use of the territory. Hence the importance of discussing how the activity has been planned by public authorities and business, important actor in this process. Our objective is to analyze the corporative use of the territory Norte-Rio-Grandense by tourism, based on the renewal of geographical thought in Milton Santos and other authors coherent theory. Although planning is seen as a practice that incorporates various scientifics contributions is undeniable eminently geographical base, as it comes to relationshipsand process in the territory. The project Parque das Dunas/Via Costeira driving the development of tourism in Natal as to its construction, the city had a quality hotel infrastructure capable of receiving a greater number of tourists. One of the guiding instruments of state planning in accordance with the Federal Government is the Planejamento Pluri-Anual - PPA, which has the discourse territory, but establishes sectoral actions, which included tourism with the allocation of resources. In addition to receiving funds Prodetur I and II, since the early 1990s, these resources from the BIRD and other lines of funding available through federal financial institutions. Thus the sectoral action planning is disintegrated, while the territorial planning makes us think the whole moving and complexity Our data policies and public and private investments, we proved that the action of companies in line with the state, favors the hegemonic agents, or the corporative use of the territory Norte-Rio-Grandense

(Em defesa dos) Cuidados Paliativos na Atenção Primária à Saúde

One of the basic principles of the Brazilian Public Health System (SUS) is integral assistance, which considers the integrality of the individual, of service and care, which should necessarily include end of life care. Our aim was to analyze the work process of health professionals at the Family Health Strategy / Primary Care that already cared for people in the dying process to propose viable contributions to the Public Health area as regards the implementation of Palliative Care in Primary Care. We present data referring to the following themes: Singular Therapeutic Project (PTS); death quality as PTS goal (work purpose); the team's ways of doing (bonding as a pact condition). Eleven health professionals (four nurses and seven physicians) linked to the Family Health Strategy (ESF) of Campinas (São Paulo) participated on this research. From the interviews, data analysis followed the Socio-Historical Psychology theoretical and methodological approach. The professionals' activity was analyzed in articulation with the specificities of caring for people in the dying process. We found that action planning in health is oriented by the Singular Therapeutic Project (PTS), with an emphasis in social diagnosis and the need of a bond for attaining a pact. It is understood that the purpose of health professionals' activity is to promote dignity and life quality in the dying process, but integral care should include not only individual and family care, but also the defence of full human development during all phases of life.

Planejamento orçamentário empresarial de indústrias do Distrito Industrial I de Bauru

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A Universidade Federal do Pará no processo de modernização da gestão universitária

O desafio de encontrar novos meios de administrar as organizações públicas, os quais não estivessem limitados aos indicadores financeiros e contábeis, foi a grande motivação para o surgimento do planejamento estratégico nas instituições de ensino superior, através de um sistema de gestão estratégica que traduz a missão e a estratégia de organizações, análise do ambiente interno e externo a organização. Esta dissertação aborda a questão da modernização da gestão, através de um estudo de caso de caráter descritivo realizado na Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), de como foi implantado o processo para “aprimorar o sistema de planejamento institucional” com vistas a buscar soluções conjuntas aos problemas enfrentados pelo fator negativo - precariedade do sistema de planejamento - diagnosticado no Plano de Desenvolvimento Institucional da UFPA 2001-2010, tendo a Pró-Reitoria de Planejamento e Desenvolvimento Institucional – PROPLAN, como Unidade Central de Planejamento, responsável em desenvolver e implantar instrumentos gerenciais, padronizados, uniformizando as diretrizes gerais oferecendo a todos os segmentos da universidade um eixo comum, norteador das políticas da Universidade, observadas as peculiaridades da sua configuração multicampi. O objetivo principal desta dissertação é identificar as ações estabelecidas no processo para “aprimorar o sistema de planejamento institucional visando reduzir a precariedade do sistema de planejamento na Universidade Federal do Pará”. A metodologia utilizada é a pesquisa qualitativa e como técnica de coleta de dados utilizou-se a pesquisa documental. Os resultados encontrados indicam que a preocupação com estratégias na gestão universitária, são fatos relativamente recentes e que se encontra em profundas transformações, sendo que, no período analisado, a preocupação maior se dá nas unidades acadêmicas. Foi possível observar que as fases do processo de planejamento das ações não se realizam completamente em todas as Unidades e Campi, pois o sistema de acompanhamento do processo de planejamento, praticamente não existiu. Por conseguinte, até então, inexistia uma cultura de planejamento na organização, com a ausência de integração das ações de planejamento entre as Unidades Acadêmicas e a Unidade Central de Planejamento, contribuindo, assim, com a precariedade do Sistema de Planejamento Institucional na UFPA. Conclui-se assim, que houve um avanço nas mudanças planejadas e executadas, tornando a UFPA uma organização isomórfica, as unidades da UFPA que enfrentam as mesmas condições ambientais, foram compelidas a imitarem umas as outras, as características organizacionais foram modificadas consensualmente, através de decisões colegiadas, por meio de uma gestão democrática, tornando, assim, os elementos estruturais isomórficos, consistindo então, conforme a teoria, em estruturas organizacionais que refletem uma realidade socialmente construída. Mas, apesar de ter ocorrido um avanço nas mudanças planejadas e executadas, a universidade utiliza determinados mecanismos não porque acredite que a tornem mais eficaz, mas porque são mecanismos impostos, por pressões externas, a universidade tem que cumprir atos formais, regras, leis e sanções, numa relação de dominação e dependência, configurando-se o isomorfismo institucional coercitivo. Como, também, conclui-se conforme informações coletadas que não ocorreu uma mudança organizacional no sentido amplo, e sim, algumas modificações específicas. Avaliando-se, então, pode-se dizer que a UFPA conseguiu tornar suas Unidades homogêneas nas práticas administrativas, especificamente na prática de planejar, na busca de aperfeiçoar o sistema de planejamento das ações da UFPA – ao se observar que, das vinte e oito Unidades regimentalmente constituídas até 2006, dezenove elaboraram Planos de Gestão para o período de 2002 a 2009, representando que 64% das unidades realizaram as ações planejadas na sua totalidade. E, 36%, nove Unidades não constituíram Planos de Gestão, não utilizaram, instrumentos gerenciais padronizados, uniformizando as diretrizes gerais oferecendo a todos os segmentos da universidade um eixo comum, norteador das políticas da Universidade.

Qualidade de vida em Porto Velho, Rondônia: perspectivas do processo de desenvolvimento regional

Esta tese de doutorado nasceu da escassez de estudos referentes aos efeitos das grandes obras, sobre a qualidade de vida das cidades. Nesse sentido, visando estudar exatamente esse problema dentro de um cenário amazônico, propôs-se pesquisar os efeitos das usinas hidrelétricas de Jirau e de Santo Antônio, em seu processo de construção, às margens do rio Madeira, em Rondônia e, assim, analisar a qualidade de vida dentro do perímetro urbano da cidade de Porto Velho, o que constituiu o objeto de estudo da presente investigação. Para tanto, buscou-se aporte na teoria do “Fetiche”, de Marx, na obra “O capital” (1980). Assim, procurou-se explicar a migração de trabalhadores, na busca por melhores salários e oportunidades de ganhos econômicos, nas obras das hidrelétricas mencionadas. A perspectiva teórica do “fetichismo da mercadoria”, de Marx (1967), desencadeou a inter-relação com os aspectos diretamente ligados ao âmago da presente tese, que se constitui numa Pesquisa de natureza qualitativa. Essa foi desenvolvida com base no método de Análise Fatorial, utilizando o programa estatístico SPSS, versão 17. Para isso, foram aplicados 1.449 questionários, distribuídos igualitariamente, em grupos de 21, para cada um dos 69 bairros da cidade. E, dessa forma, construir os índices de IQVU (índices de qualidade de vida urbana), segundo Santos e Martins (2002) e, para análises multifatoriais, de acordo com Hair et al. (2005) e com Santana (2007; 2005). A partir disso, os resultados obtidos permitiram concluir que o índice de qualidade de vida de Porto Velho, no período correspondente à fase anterior a chegada das usinas, à região, era de 0,452. Portanto, classificado como um índice de desempenho regular. Em relação à fase atual, esse índice apresentou uma queda de 15,31%, alcançando um valor de 0,392. Por consequência, considerado de ruim desempenho. Desse modo, permitiu-se concluir que a qualidade de vida de Porto Velho, conforme a opinião dos entrevistados, literalmente, piorou com a chegada das usinas hidrelétricas do rio Madeira, em Porto Velho/Rondônia. A relevância do presente estudo reside na análise do espaço intramunicipal e na integração dos dados provenientes da pesquisa de campo, com a informação gerada durante as análises. Isto levou a deduções lógicas, fundamentadas nos critérios adotados e decorrentes dos resultados das avaliações. Consequentemente, esse poderá servir como suporte às decisões políticas, sobre o planejamento de ações a serem executadas, para gestão do território no âmbito municipal.

Inquérito de saúde: condições de vida de hipertensos maiores de 60 anos no Estado de São Paulo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A História e Filosofia da Ciência: Contribuições para o Ensino de Ciências e para a formação de professores

This article integrates results from reflections on the importance of history and philosophy of science for science education and teacher training. Centrally, was based on results from reflections on the importance of this knowledge for teacher training and action planning of science teaching by the teacher, through a thematic approach. To address this latter topic, we attempted to do so by considering the action planning of science teaching in elementary schools. This option is due to the fact that in the discipline, be clearly stated the broad reach of its area, to integrate knowledge about nature, human beings and technology, among others, in a historical and philosophical perspective.

Competência em informação: perspectivas em torno da cultura escolar

Displays the Information Literacy as a method of training for access, evaluation and use of information, which has become, increasingly, the raw material indispensable for intellectual autonomy. Presents the articulation possible - and necessary - between Information and Cultural Competence in School, with emphasis on their relationship. Search is on School Culture, contexts for insertion of procedures developed by the Information Literacy, considering the dimensions of the organization, interpretation and knowledge production. It points out the advantages to realize the Culture School, through practical philosophical context, to support action planning, establishing, in the educational environment, actions related to the development of Competency Information. We used participation research action in the context of a public school in Campo Grande-MS, the research subjects were students of the 6º and 7º grades and their teachers. Data collection took place through observation and interviews relating the development of competencein Information and teaching practices It is noteworthy that this kind of responsibility if developed without an understanding of school culture, becomes a rambling and disjointed practice whose outcomes are at risk of not being achieved.

Geotecnologias para a análise da bacia hidrográfica do Córrego Wenzel - Rio Claro/SP: proposta de gestão de recursos hídricos

The expansion of urban in medium-sized citie, increase the importance of action planning and management of natural resources, among which water is the most important. Such action should include the integration of physical and man-made elements involved. In this context, it becomesimportant for watershed analysis and the use of geotecnologies. Thus, the objective was to demonstrate the contribution of the geo, as a tool for managing a river basin, allowing the integration of physical data and the analysis of anthropogenic environmental scenarios in urban areas. The area chosen, the basin of the Wenzel, is located in Rio Claro / SP, a city whose urbanization process has been intense and continuous. Thematic maps were generated from the physical environment: soil, slope and geological, as well as maps of land use. With regard to land use maps, these were drawn from the visual interpretation of material aerophotogrammetric, considering the years 1995 and 2010, performing an evolutionary analysis. It was observed that the area presents small variation in the physical and structural aspects, with lithological and geomorphological formation favoring the occurrence of floods, erosion and siltation. These processes are accelerated by the forms of land use, with intense urbanization during the period between 1995 and 2010, and poor preservation of permanent preservation areasand. In the floodplain areas there is a high waste disposal is the most notable environmental problem

Emergence of sensory selection mechanisms in Artificial Life simulations

Background The evolutionary advantages of selective attention are unclear. Since the study of selective attention began, it has been suggested that the nervous system only processes the most relevant stimuli because of its limited capacity [1]. An alternative proposal is that action planning requires the inhibition of irrelevant stimuli, which forces the nervous system to limit its processing [2]. An evolutionary approach might provide additional clues to clarify the role of selective attention. Methods We developed Artificial Life simulations wherein animals were repeatedly presented two objects, "left" and "right", each of which could be "food" or "non-food." The animals' neural networks (multilayer perceptrons) had two input nodes, one for each object, and two output nodes to determine if the animal ate each of the objects. The neural networks also had a variable number of hidden nodes, which determined whether or not it had enough capacity to process both stimuli (Table 1). The evolutionary relevance of the left and the right food objects could also vary depending on how much the animal's fitness was increased when ingesting them (Table 1). We compared sensory processing in animals with or without limited capacity, which evolved in simulations in which the objects had the same or different relevances. Table 1. Nine sets of simulations were performed, varying the values of food objects and the number of hidden nodes in the neural networks. The values of left and right food were swapped during the second half of the simulations. Non-food objects were always worth -3. The evolution of neural networks was simulated by a simple genetic algorithm. Fitness was a function of the number of food and non-food objects each animal ate and the chromosomes determined the node biases and synaptic weights. During each simulation, 10 populations of 20 individuals each evolved in parallel for 20,000 generations, then the relevance of food objects was swapped and the simulation was run again for another 20,000 generations. The neural networks were evaluated by their ability to identify the two objects correctly. The detectability (d') for the left and the right objects was calculated using Signal Detection Theory [3]. Results and conclusion When both stimuli were equally relevant, networks with two hidden nodes only processed one stimulus and ignored the other. With four or eight hidden nodes, they could correctly identify both stimuli. When the stimuli had different relevances, the d' for the most relevant stimulus was higher than the d' for the least relevant stimulus, even when the networks had four or eight hidden nodes. We conclude that selection mechanisms arose in our simulations depending not only on the size of the neuron networks but also on the stimuli's relevance for action.

Knowledge management in health: a systematic literature review

Knowledge has been used as a resource for intelligent and effective action planning in organizations. Interest in research on knowledge management processes has intensified in different areas. A systematic literature review was accomplished, based on the question: what are the contributions of Brazilian and international journal publications on knowledge management in health? The sample totaled 32 items that complied with the inclusion criteria. The results showed that 78% of journals that published on the theme are international, 77% of researchers work in higher education and 65% have a Ph.D. The texts gave rise to five thematic categories, mainly: development of knowledge management systems in health (37.5%), discussion of knowledge management application in health (28.1%) and nurses' function in knowledge management (18.7%).

Next-state comfort in learning a vertical stick transportation sequence

Over the last decade, the end-state comfort effect (e.g., Rosenbaum et al., 2006) has received a considerable amount of attention. However, some of the underlying mechanisms are still to be investigated, amongst others, how sequential planning affects end-state comfort and how this effect develops over learning. In a two-step sequencing task, e.g., postural comfort can be planned on the intermediate position (next state) or on the actual end position (final state). It might be hypothesized that, in initial acquisition, next state’s comfort is crucial for action planning but that, in the course of learning, final state’s comfort is taken more and more into account. To test this hypothesis, a variant of Rosenbaum’s vertical stick transportation task was used. Participants (N = 16, right-handed) received extensive practice on a two-step transportation task (10,000 trials over 12 sessions). From the initial position on the middle stair of a staircase in front of the participant, the stick had to be transported either 20 cm upwards and then 40 cm downwards or 20 cm downwards and then 40 cm upwards (N = 8 per subgroup). Participants were supposed to produce fluid movements without changing grasp. In the pre- and posttest, participants were tested on both two-step sequencing tasks as well as on 20 cm single-step upwards and downwards movements (10 trials per condition). For the test trials, grasp height was calculated kinematographically. In the pretest, large end/next/final-state comfort effects for single-step transportation tasks and large next-state comfort effects for sequenced tasks were found. However, no change in grasp height from pre- to posttest could be revealed. Results show that, in vertical stick transportation sequences, the final state is not taken into account when planning grasp height. Instead, action planning seems to be solely based on aspects of the next action goal that is to be reached.