Economic evaluation of occupational safety preventive measures in a hospital

BACKGROUND: When an organization performs an integrated analysis of risks through its Occupational Health and Safety Management System, several steps are suggested to address the implications of the identified risks. Namely, the organization should make a detailed analysis of the monetary impact for the organization of each of the preventive measures considered. However, it is also important to perform an analysis of the impact of each measure on society (externalities). OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to present a case study related to the application of the proposed economic evaluation methodology. METHODS: An analysis of the work accidents in a hospital has been made. Three of the major types of accidents have been selected: needle stings, falls and excessive strain. Following the risk assessment, some preventive measures have been designed. Subsequently, the Benefit/Cost ratio (B/C) of these measures has been calculated, both in financial terms (from the organization’s perspective) and in economic terms (including the benefits for the worker and for the Society). RESULTS: While the financial ratio is only advantageous in some cases, when the externalities are taken into account, the B/C ratio increases significantly. CONCLUSIONS: It is important to consider external

Ensino, aprendizagem e avaliação no Ensino Superior: Perspetivas e práticas

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Educação - Especialidade de Desenvolvimento Curricular

Effects of forest structure components on the occurence, group size and density of groups of bare-face tamarin (Saguinus bicolor - primates: Callitrichinae) in Central Amazonia

This study analyzed the influence of forest structural components on the occurence, size and density of groups of Bare-face Tamarin (Saguinus bicolor) - the most threatened species in the Amazon - and produced the first map of distribution of groups in large-scale spatial within the area of continuous forest. Population censuses were conducted between November 2002 and July 2003, covering 6400 hectares in the Ducke Reserve, Manaus-AM, Brazil. Groups of S. bicolor were recorded 41 times accordingly distributed in the environments: plateau (20); slopes (12); and lowlands (09). The mean group size was 4.8 indiv./group, and ranged from 2 to 11 individuals. In the sites where the groups were recorded, and in an equivalent number of sites where no tamarins were found located at least 500 m from those where they had been recorded, we placed 50 m x 50 m plots to record the following forest structural components: abundance of trees; abundance of lianas; abundance of fruiting trees and lianas; abundance of snags; abundance of logs; percentage of canopy opening; leaf litter depth; and altitude. Bare-face Tamarin more often uses areas with lower abundance of forest logs, smaller canopy opening and with higher abundance of snags, areas in the forest with smaller canopy opening present higher density of S. bicolor groups. Apparently this species does not use the forest in a random way, and may select areas for its daily activities depending on the micro-environmental heterogeneity produced by the forest structural components.

Using students’ learning style to create effective learning groups in MCSCL environments

Students have different ways for learning and processing information. Some students prefer learning through seeing while others prefer learning through listening; some students prefer doing activities while other prefer reflecting.Some students reason logically, while others reason intuitively, etc. Identifying the learning style of each student, and providing learning content based on these styles represents a good method to enhance the learning quality. However, there are no efforts onhow to detect the students’ learning styles in mobile computer supported collaborative learning (MCSCL) environments. We present in this paper new ways for automatically detecting the learning styles of students in MCSCL environments based on the learning style model of Felder-Silverman. The identified learning styles of students could be then stored and used at anytime toassign each one of them to his/her appropriate learning group.

Promoting sustainability as a strategy to mitigate the effects of economic downturn on the construction industry

During the recent years followed by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), most of business and industries around the globe have been hardly hit to the limit that it still struggling to survive, suffering from the crisis financial consequences. For instance, in the construction industry; many construction projects have been suspended or totally cancelled. Nevertheless, among this dilemma, a call has been raised to use the sustainable practices to mitigate the effects of the GFC on construction industry. For the first look, it seems that there is contradiction since the sustainable solutions are often associated with an increase in the initial cost, undoubtedly, the sustainable practices have many advantages in both economic and environment aspects, however, the question which needs to be addressed here is, to what extent using such sustainable practices can mitigate the negative effects of the economic downturn on construction industry. Therefore, it is a challenging argument for using such sustainable construction from its economic perspective, however, this paper is aiming to present the economical benefits of sustainable practices in construction industry, and trying to clear the doubt of the high initial costs of the sustainable construction through studying the life cycle benefit of green building.

Benefits from energy related building renovation beyond costs, energy and emissions

The relevance of the building sector in the global energy use as well as in the global carbon emissions, both in the developed and developing countries, makes the improvement of the overall energy performance of existing buildings an important part of the actions to mitigate climate changes. Regardless of this potential for energy and emissions saving, large scale building renovation has been found hard to trigger, mainly because present standards are mainly focused on new buildings, not responding effectively to the numerous technical, functional and economic constraints of the existing ones. One of the common problems in the assessment of building renovation scenarios is that only energy savings and costs are normally considered, despite the fact that it has been long recognized that investment on energy efficiency and low carbon technologies yield several benefits beyond the value of saved energy which can be as important as the energy cost savings process. Based on the analysis of significant literature and several case studies, the relevance of co-benefits achieved in the renovation process is highlighted. These benefits can be felt at the building level by the owner or user (like increased user comfort, fewer problems with building physics, improved aesthetics) and should therefore be considered in the definition of the renovation measures, but also at the level of the society as a whole (like health effects, job creation, energy security, impact on climate change), and from this perspective, policy makers must be aware of the possible crossed impacts among different areas of the society for the development of public policies.

IEA EBC Annex56 vision for cost effective energy and carbon emissions optimization in building renovation

Building sector has become an important target for carbon emissions reduction, energy consumption and resources depletion. Due to low rates of replacement of the existing buildings, their low energy performances are a major concern. Most of the current regulations are focused on new buildings and do not account with the several technical, functional and economic constraints that have to be faced in the renovation of existing buildings. Thus, a new methodology is proposed to be used in the decision making process for energy related building renovation, allowing finding a cost-effective balance between energy consumption, carbon emissions and overall added value.

The economic crisis in Portugal and children’s rights to non-discrimination

The consequences that arose from the ‘global economy’ have been significant in Portuguese children’s lives and we believe it is fundamental to reflect on the ongoing structuring of childhood through this global culture/ideology and the concrete implications that they have. It is also important to understand how childhood is constructed and experienced, as well as to consider the impacts of political economic conditions on children’s lives and in childhood in general, taking into account the effects brought on by public policies. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the ways through which the economic crisis affecting the general Portuguese population has impacted children in particular and promoted discrimination and a lack of opportunities in childhood. We will focus on two dimensions: first, on general data about the ongoing policies that have been reducing social rights, increasing poverty rates and threatening basic rights such as educational and health rights, to show their impact on children´s lives. Second, we will discuss some data collected with children throughout different research projects in order to characterize the meanings and impacts of the crisis in their lives from their points of view

Um estudo sobre gênero no Brasil do século XIX: o caso Anna Jansen, a Rainha do Maranhão

Dissertação de mestrado em Contabilidade

Alimentação e miopia

Dissertação de mestrado em Optometria Avançada

Rhetoric on the economy: have European parties changed their economic messages?

This study analyses the determinants of dispersion of economic issue mentions in European party manifestos. We examined three main economic domains (governmental control of the economy, free market capitalism and support for the welfare state) as consequences of globalization forces, economic conditions, partisanship and electoral turnout. Employing aggregate-level Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) data from legislative elections in 15 European countries from 1970 to 2010, we confirm that parties hold a common view of the salience of economic control of the state as a consequence of globalization pressure and economic growth levels. Partisanship of the cabinets (regardless of the political orientation) counteracted issue salience concentration in the welfare domain. Government size favoured dispersion in the free market realm. Our results do not indicate clear homogenization of parties’ economic messages in elections over the last 40 years.

Modelo de avaliação do impacto das TSI na produtividade das organizações

Dissertação de mestrado em Sistemas de Informação

Facilitadores e obstáculos do empreendedorismo: o caso das muambeiras de Lubango

Dissertação de mestrado em Estudos de Gestão

Self-compacting concrete and conventional concrete in the arena Pernambuco: comparative study of durability indicators and economic feasibility

This study addressed the application, strength and durability of self-compacting concrete (SCC) in a large-scale construction site, comparing its performance with vibrated conventional concrete (CC) with similar characteristics, assessing its economic feasibility. The studies were undertaken in the Arena Pernambuco project and involved the concreting during May, June and July 2012, for data collection, accompanying the routine concrete control tests and performing specific strength and durability tests. The SCC compressive strength was on average 4.5% higher than the CC one, and its formwork reinforced to withstand greater lateral pressure of the fresh concrete. The durability indicators results were in favour of SCC, which cost was 13.5% higher than CC.

VET: a strategic approach for economic, organisational and personal development in EU countries

Vocational Education and Training (VET) is a continuous long-term process of economic, organisational and personal development. It envisions the construction of dynamic skills to improve performance, productivity and organisational, personal and social development. This article focuses on generating skills. It frames training as a process of work-linked training and as a primary source for generating skills whilst seeking to boost creativity. It sheds light upon the discussion pertaining to learning transfer as a necessary condition to structure performance and competitiveness. It highlights the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI), because it allows to measure the effectiveness of training and it identifies the organisations' weaknesses. The data used were collected from the Eurostat Database.