The reasonant influence of supply chain management practices on organizational performance

A single supply chain management (SCM) practice will have a certain impact on organizational performance(OP). However, since it is placed in a system that many other practices are conducted simultaneously, the practice itself will interact with other ones and have a greater impact on OP. This mechanism is named the "resonant" influence. The technique of Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the above mechanism with data collected from Vietnamese garment enterprises. The tcst results showed that the model without mutual interaction among SCM practices could explain 42.8%, 26.3% and 34% variance of operational performance, customer satisfaction and financial performance. While the one containing this interaction is capable to explain 69.5%, 33.1% and 57.3%, respectively.

An investigation of safety design practices of metal machines

BACKGROUND: Machinery safety issues are a challenge facing manufacturers who are supposed to create and provide products in a better and faster way. In spite of their construction and technological advance, they still contribute to many potential hazards for operators and those nearby. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate safety aspects of metal machinery offered for sale on Internet market according to compliance with minimum and fundamental requirements. METHODS: The study was carried out with the application of a checklist prepared on the basis of Directive 2006/42/EC and Directive 2009/104/EC and regulations enforcing them into Polish law. RESULTS: On the basis of the study it was possible to reveal the safety aspects that were not met in practice. It appeared that in the case of minimum requirements the most relevant problems concerned information, signal and control elements, technology and machinery operations, whereas as far as fundamental aspects are concerned it was hard to assure safe work process. CONCLUSIONS: In spite of the fact that more and more legal acts binding in the Member Countries of the European Union are being introduced to alleviate the phenomenon, these regulations are often not fulfilled.

Os contributos do texto literário para o ensino-aprendizagem de PLE: elaboração de uma proposta de didatização de um conto de Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

Dissertação de mestrado em Português Língua Não Materna (PLNM) – Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE) e Língua Segunda (PL2)

Ancient materials and techniques to improve the earthen building durability

A substantial part of the world building heritage has been performed by earthen building. The durability of this existing heritage and mainly of the new buildings built with earth is particularly conditioned by the erosion caused by water action, especially in countries with high levels of rainfall. This research aims to contribute to the increase of knowledge about the ancient building techniques that provide enhanced durability. It is possible to analyse the ancestral practices used to protect the earth material from the water action in order to understand how the old earthen buildings were preserved over the centuries, resisting to harsh weather conditions. Among these techniques are: the incorporation of biopolymers (such as oils or fats from animal or vegetable origin); the addition of some minerals; and the earth stabilization with lime. However, this knowledge seems to be forgotten, probably due to the prejudice related to earthen constructions, which several times are associated with a poor building. This research also focuses on the study of new methods of earth stabilization with lime and biopolymers, adapting the ancient knowledge to improve the durability related to the water action. Therefore, alternative solutions can be obtained to improve the performance of earthen buildings, mainly the resistance of the material in the presence of water, reducing its permeability to water. In addition, with the proposed solutions it is possible to obtain good levels of water vapour permeability, one of the major advantages of the construction with earth.

Portuguese strengths and fragilities on safety and health practices

Despite improvements over the years, accidents continue to be a scourge in the construction sector, leading to an increase in the number of journal articles addressing the issue, in an attempt to help construction industry to increase safety performance [1]. This paper aims to, helping construction industry and particulary tunneling community, describe the Portuguese approach to most typical health and safety problems in underground excavations performed with the Sequential Excavation Method (SEM). The article will address various topics, from safety management and organizational practices, to collective and personal protection equipment, to emergency planning. nt problems in safety and health matters are similar to several other countries, the paper will expose a compilation of Portuguese best practices used to solve that problems. This enunciation of best practices describes experience from most important and recognized Project Owners and Contractors in Portugal. In a second phase it will be analysed Portuguese weaknesses, identifying preventive measures, and their comparative importance, that should be adopted in Portugal in order to reduce accidents and health diseases.

Seismic-resistant building practices resulting from local seismic culture

Considering that vernacular architecture may bear important lessons on hazard mitigation, this chapter focuses on the European Mediterranean countries and studies traditional seismic-resistant architectural elements and techniques that local populations developed to prevent or repair earthquake damage. This area was selected as a case study because, as a highly seismic region, it has suffered the effect of many earthquakes along the history and, thus, regions within this area are prone to have developed a Local Seismic Culture. After reviewing seismic resistant construction concepts, a wide range of traditional construction solutions that, in many cases, have shown to improve the seismic performance of vernacular constructions of these regions is presented, as a contribution to the general overview of retrofitting building systems provided in this book. The main motivation is that most of these techniques can be successfully applied to preserve and to retrofit surviving examples without prejudice for their identity.

A documentação pedagógica no trabalho de projeto: relato de uma experiência em contexto de jardim-de-infância

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

Predicting type of delivery by identification of obstetric risk factors through data mining

In Maternity Care, a quick decision has to be made about the most suitable delivery type for the current patient. Guidelines are followed by physicians to support that decision; however, those practice recommendations are limited and underused. In the last years, caesarean delivery has been pursued in over 28% of pregnancies, and other operative techniques regarding specific problems have also been excessively employed. This study identifies obstetric and pregnancy factors that can be used to predict the most appropriate delivery technique, through the induction of data mining models using real data gathered in the perinatal and maternal care unit of Centro Hospitalar of Oporto (CHP). Predicting the type of birth envisions high-quality services, increased safety and effectiveness of specific practices to help guide maternity care decisions and facilitate optimal outcomes in mother and child. In this work was possible to acquire good results, achieving sensitivity and specificity values of 90.11% and 80.05%, respectively, providing the CHP with a model capable of correctly identify caesarean sections and vaginal deliveries.

O ensino em grupo de instrumentos musicais: um estudo de caso múltiplo em Portugal e no Brasil

Tese de Doutoramento em Estudos da Criança (área de especialização em Educação Musical)

Literacy practices in adult learning biographies: possibilities and constraints

[Extrat] The answer to the social and economic challenges that it is assumed literacy (or its lack) puts to developed countries deeply concerns public policies of governments namely those of the OECD area. In the last decades, these concerns gave origin to several and diverse monitoring devices, initiatives and programmes for reading (mainly) development, putting a strong stress on education. UNESCO (2006, p. 6), for instance, assumes that the literacy challenge can only be met raising the quality of primary and secondary education and intensifying programmes explicitly oriented towards youth and adult literacy. (...)

User expectations for media sharing practices in open display networks

Open Display Networks have the potential to allow many content creators to publish their media to an open-ended set of screen displays. However, this raises the issue of how to match that content to the right displays. In this study, we aim to understand how the perceived utility of particular media sharing scenarios is affected by three independent variables, more specifically: (a) the locativeness of the content being shared; (b) how personal that content is and (c) the scope in which it is being shared. To assess these effects, we composed a set of 24 media sharing scenarios embedded with different treatments of our three independent variables. We then asked 100 participants to express their perception of the relevance of those scenarios. The results suggest a clear preference for scenarios where content is both local and directly related to the person that is publishing it. This is in stark contrast to the types of content that are commonly found in public displays, and confirms the opportunity that open displays networks may represent a new media for self-expression. This novel understanding may inform the design of new publication paradigms that will enable people to share media across the display networks.

Honours students: good marks and what else?

Currently in Portugal academic excellence in higher education is given recognition through merit prizes. Because honours students can be seen as having the potential to achieve imporant levels of professional expertise, especially if they have some personal skills, it is important to know not only the marks of the students but also the personal characteristics that contribute to academic success and which may also be important for career success. Some theoretical models of giftedness and excellence agree with this idea and this work considers the latest contribution of Renzulli (2005) where it is pointed out that excellent achievements result from the combination of motivational, intellectual and creative factors as well as from co-cognitive factors which are most associated with personality functioning in a particular context. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze how honours students differ from their classmates in various psychological dimensions: Cognition-creativity, Motivation and Learning Strategies, Persistence, Social Interaction, Drive for Excellence and Cultural Interest. These dimensions were measured by the Inventory of Psychological Characteristics Associated with Academic Performance (ICPADA), which was constructed taking into consideration the previous study of Scaeger et al. (2012). The sample included 914 Portuguese higher educatoin students from a first cycle degree in the Bologna process. Participants were selected from three different fields of study: Social and Human Sciences; Science and Technology; Arts and Humanities. The data collected through the administration of the ICPADA was presented, and the results revealed a higher self-perception by honours students in all areas analyzed, with the exception of the dimension of social interaction. In addition an interaction effect was revealed for persistence, social interaction, and cultural interest. The field of study and whether the participants were honours students or not were also taken into account. Some implications for future studies are presented here along with possible interventions for honours students.

Family relationship and parenting practices: a pathway to adolesents’ collectivist and individualist values?

Adolescents’ perceptions of parenting and family relationships are important variables for identifying mechanisms involved in how children acquire values and how these values are transmitted through families. In a sample of 515 adolescents, we investigated whether perceptions of the quality of parental practices would predict adolescents’ collectivist and individualist values. We hypothesized that perceived quality of family relations would mediate the relationship between the quality of parental practices and collectivist values but not of individualist values. The results of structural equation modeling suggested that perception of the quality of parental practices predicted adolescents’ both collectivist and individualist values. The predicted mediation effect was found for collectivist values, but not for individualist values. The results point to different functions of parenting and family relations on value acquisition. Implications for practice, such as the development and implementation of interventions to improve the formation of adolescents’ values by enhancing the quality of parenting and family relationships are discussed.

Self-narrative reconstruction after dilemma-focused therapy for depression: a comparison of good and poor outcome cases

Objective: The aim of this study is to improve the understanding of self-changes after an intervention for depression focused on implicative dilemmas, a type of cognitive conflict related to identity. As recent research has highlighted the relevance of identity-related dilemmas in clients with depression, we sought to assess the way in which clients resolve such inner conflicts after a tailored dilemma-focused intervention and how this is reflected in the clients’ self-narratives. Method: We used three instruments to observe differences between good (n = 5) and poor (n = 5) outcome cases: (i) the Repertory Grid Technique to track the resolution of dilemmas, (ii) the Change Interview to compile clients’ accounts of changes at posttreatment, and (iii) the Innovative Moments Coding System to examine the emergence of clients’ novelties at the Change Interview. Results: Groups did not differ in terms of the number and relevance of client-identified significantly helpful events. However, between-group differences were found for the resolution of dilemmas and for the proportion of high-level innovative moment (IM) types. Furthermore, a greater self-narrative reconstruction was associated with higher levels of symptom improvement. Conclusions: Good outcome cases seem to be associated with the resolution of conflicts and high-level IMs.

Rational manipulation of mRNA folding free energy allows rheostat control of pneumolysin production by Streptococcus pneumoniae

Rational manipulation of mRNA folding free energy allows rheostat control of pneumolysin production by Streptococcus pneumoniae