Environmental mycology in public health: fungi and mycotoxins risk assessment and management

Fungi are essential to the survival of our global ecology, but they might pose a significant threat to the health of occupants when they grow in our buildings. The exposure to fungi in homes is a significant risk factor for a number of respiratory symptoms. Well-known illnesses caused by fungi include allergy and hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Environmental monitoring for fungi and their disease agents are important aspects of exposure assessment, but few guidelines exist for interpreting their health impacts. This book answers the questions: How does one detect and measure the presence of indoor fungi? What is an acceptable level of indoor fungi? How do we relate this information to human health problems?

Regional governance: strategies and disputes in health region management

OBJECTIVE To analyze the regional governance of the health systemin relation to management strategies and disputes.METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES A qualitative study with health managers from 19 municipalities in the health region of Bahia, Northeastern Brazil. Data were drawn from 17 semi-structured interviews of state, regional, and municipal health policymakers and managers; a focus group; observations of the regional interagency committee; and documents in 2012. The political-institutional and the organizational components were analyzed in the light of dialectical hermeneutics.RESULTS The regional interagency committee is the chief regional governance strategy/component and functions as a strategic tool for strengthening governance. It brings together a diversity of members responsible for decision making in the healthcare territories, who need to negotiate the allocation of funding and the distribution of facilities for common use in the region. The high turnover of health secretaries, their lack of autonomy from the local executive decisions, inadequate technical training to exercise their function, and the influence of party politics on decision making stand as obstacles to the regional interagency committee’s permeability to social demands. Funding is insufficient to enable the fulfillment of the officially integrated agreed-upon program or to boost public supply by the system, requiring that public managers procure services from the private market at values higher than the national health service price schedule (Brazilian Unified Health System Table). The study determined that “facilitators” under contract to health departments accelerated access to specialized (diagnostic, therapeutic and/or surgical) services in other municipalities by direct payment to physicians for procedure costs already covered by the Brazilian Unified Health System.CONCLUSIONS The characteristics identified a regionalized system with a conflictive pattern of governance and intermediate institutionalism. The regional interagency committee’s managerial routine needs to incorporate more democratic devices for connecting with educational institutions, devices that are more permeable to social demands relating to regional policy making.

Investment focused strategies in electricity markets using the ITEM-game simulator

This paper presents a methodology to establish investment and trading strategies of a power generation company. These strategies are integrated in the ITEM-Game simulator in order to test their results when played against defined strategies used by other players. The developed strategies are focused on investment decisions, although trading strategies are also implemented to obtain base case results. Two cases are studied considering three players with the same trading strategy. In case 1, all players also have the same investment strategy driven by a market target share. In case 2, player 1 has an improved investment strategy with a target share twice of the target of players 2 and 3. Results put in evidence the influence of the CO2 and fuel prices in the company investment decision. It is also observed the influence of the budget constraint which might prevent the player to take the desired investment decision.

Performance management in primary healthcare services: evidence from a field study

Health services

Scheduling a cutting and treatment stainless steel sheet line with self-management capabilities

With advancement in computer science and information technology, computing systems are becoming increasingly more complex with an increasing number of heterogeneous components. They are thus becoming more difficult to monitor, manage, and maintain. This process has been well known as labor intensive and error prone. In addition, traditional approaches for system management are difficult to keep up with the rapidly changing environments. There is a need for automatic and efficient approaches to monitor and manage complex computing systems. In this paper, we propose an innovative framework for scheduling system management by combining Autonomic Computing (AC) paradigm, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and Nature Inspired Optimization Techniques (NIT). Additionally, we consider the resolution of realistic problems. The scheduling of a Cutting and Treatment Stainless Steel Sheet Line will be evaluated. Results show that proposed approach has advantages when compared with other scheduling systems

Information technology service management: an experimental approach towards IT service prediction

Dissertation presented to obtain a Masters degree in Computer Science

A importância da gestão baseada na criação de valor para o acionista (Value-Based Management): o caso do Grupo Galp Energia

A avaliação de empresas sempre constituiu um tema de elevada reflexão, sendo que vários especialistas tentam encontrar os modelos que melhor se adaptam a situações específicas e para as quais precisam de determinar um valor. No contexto empresarial português começa a ganhar significância a prática da gestão orientada para a criação de valor (Value-Based Management). O conceito de Value-Based Management assistiu a um particular desenvolvimento nos últimos 20 anos como resultado da globalização e desregulamentação dos mercados financeiros, dos avanços nas tecnologias de informação e do aumento da importância dos investidores institucionais. Vários analistas apresentaram evidência de que as empresas que adotam sistemas VBM melhoram o seu desempenho económico em relação a outras de dimensão semelhante no mesmo setor. É neste contexto que o EVA (Economic Value Added) se apresenta como uma métrica de desempenho privilegiada nos processos de controlo das decisões estratégicas tomadas. No presente trabalho pretendemos abordar o conceito da gestão baseada na criação de valor e a sua importância para o acionista, o que implica rever outros modelos de avaliação tradicionais baseados no valor contabilístico. Como métrica de avaliação do desempenho passado da empresa ao nível da criação de valor vamos dar particular importância ao estudo do EVA, fazendo referência à possível correlação entre esta métrica e o MVA (Market Value Added). O objetivo principal é analisar empiricamente a relação do EVA como medida de desempenho associada à criação de valor para os acionistas com a performance da empresa. Com efeito, vamos efetuar um estudo de caso, que vai incidir sobre um grupo empresarial português, referência no seu setor de atividade, o Grupo Galp Energia, cotado na Euronext Lisbon. Pensamos que a crescente prática da gestão baseada na criação de valor nas empresas cotadas em Portugal e a necessidade de aferir os resultados desta, tornam esta investigação pertinente, para além do facto de serem poucos os estudos empíricos à questão da criação de valor e a sua correlação com o valor acrescentado de mercado e com o valor de mercado dos capitais próprios das empresas cotadas em Portugal.

Risk management of new product development process

Dissertation submitted to Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa for the achievement of Integrated Master´s degree in Industrial Management Engineering

Web GIS to support irrigation management: a prototype for SAGRA network, Alentejo Portugal

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Integration of e-portfolios in learning management systems

The LMS plays a decisive role in most eLearning environments. Although they integrate many useful tools for managing eLearning activities, they must also be effectively integrated with other specialized systems typically found in an educational environment such as Repositories of Learning Objects or ePortfolio Systems. Both types of systems evolved separately but in recent years the trend is to combine them, allowing the LMS to benefit from using the ePortfolio assessment features. This paper details the most common strategies for integrating an ePortfolio system into an LMS: the data, the API and the tool integration strategies. It presents a comparative study of strategies based on the technical skills, degree of coupling, security features, batch integration, development effort, status and standardization. This study is validated through the integration of two of the most representative systems on each category - respectively Mahara and Moodle.

Integrated ecological-economic modelling and assessment aproach for coastal ecosystem management

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, New University of Lisbon, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Sciences

Avaliação da satisfação do utente na comunicação com os profissionais de saúde construção e validação de um instrumento

A satisfação do utente na comunicação com profissionais de saúde é um indicador de qualidade dos serviços ou instituições. Na literatura não encontramos instrumentos padronizados e validados, que avaliem a satisfação do utente na comunicação com os profissionais de saúde. O presente estudo tem como objetivo construir e validar um instrumento para avaliar a satisfação do utente na comunicação com os profissionais de saúde. Desenvolvemos este estudo em três ciclos. Um primeiro, revisão da literatura, para identificar dimensões e itens da comunicação interpessoal na saúde. No segundo ciclo, conduzimos um método de Delphi modificado em três rondas, com recurso à plataforma informática de questionários Survey Monkey, no qual participou um painel de 25 peritos; estabelecemos como critério mínimo de retenção para a ronda seguinte os itens que recebessem 70% do consenso por parte do painel. Após as três rondas, obtivemos um instrumento com seis dimensões comunicacionais (comunicação verbal, comunicação não verbal, empatia, respeito, resolução de problemas e material de apoio), vinte e cinco itens específicos, e mais seis dimensões genéricas, que avaliam cada uma das dimensões. No terceiro ciclo avaliamos as características psicométricas, em termos de sensibilidade, validade do construto e fidelidade, numa amostra de 348 participantes. Os resultados mostram que todas as categorias de resposta estavam representadas em todos os itens. Validade do construto- a análise fatorial identificou uma solução de seis componentes que explicam 71% da variância total. Fiabilidade - os valores da correlação item-total variam entre 0,387 e 0,722, existindo uma correlação positiva moderada a forte. O valor de alfa de Cronbach (α=0,928) indica que a consistência interna é excelente. O instrumento construído apresenta boas propriedades psicométricas. Fica assim disponível uma nova ferramenta para auxiliar na gestão e no processo de planeamento necessários ao incremento da qualidade nos serviços e instituições de saúde.

Space-time monitoring of prescribed burnt soils performance – an effective tool for forest management

Among the most important measures to prevent wild forest fires is the use of prescribed and controlled burning actions in order to reduce the availability of fuel mass. However, the impact of these activities on soil physical and chemical properties varies according to the type of both soil and vegetation and is not fully understood. Therefore, soil monitoring campaigns are often used to measure these impacts. In this paper we have successfully used three statistical data treatments - the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test followed by the ANOVA and the Kruskall-Wallis tests – to investigate the variability among the soil pH, soil moisture, soil organic matter and soil iron variables for different monitoring times and sampling procedures.