Projecto timecloud: software de gestão de tempo laboral numa plataforma cloud

O presente projecto tem como objectivo a disponibilização de uma plataforma de serviços para gestão e contabilização de tempo remunerável, através da marcação de horas de trabalho, férias e faltas (com ou sem justificação). Pretende-se a disponibilização de relatórios com base nesta informação e a possibilidade de análise automática dos dados, como por exemplo excesso de faltas e férias sobrepostas de trabalhadores. A ênfase do projecto está na disponibilização de uma arquitectura que facilite a inclusão destas funcionalidades. O projecto está implementado sobre a plataforma Google App Engine (i.e. GAE), de forma a disponibilizar uma solução sob o paradigma de Software as a Service, com garantia de disponibilidade e replicação de dados. A plataforma foi escolhida a partir da análise das principais plataformas cloud existentes: Google App Engine, Windows Azure e Amazon Web Services. Foram analisadas as características de cada plataforma, nomeadamente os modelos de programação, os modelos de dados disponibilizados, os serviços existentes e respectivos custos. A escolha da plataforma foi realizada com base nas suas características à data de iniciação do presente projecto. A solução está estruturada em camadas, com as seguintes componentes: interface da plataforma, lógica de negócio e lógica de acesso a dados. A interface disponibilizada está concebida com observação dos princípios arquitecturais REST, suportando dados nos formatos JSON e XML. A esta arquitectura base foi acrescentada uma componente de autorização, suportada em Spring-Security, sendo a autenticação delegada para os serviços Google Acounts. De forma a permitir o desacoplamento entre as várias camadas foi utilizado o padrão Dependency Injection. A utilização deste padrão reduz a dependência das tecnologias utilizadas nas diversas camadas. Foi implementado um protótipo, para a demonstração do trabalho realizado, que permite interagir com as funcionalidades do serviço implementadas, via pedidos AJAX. Neste protótipo tirou-se partido de várias bibliotecas javascript e padrões que simplificaram a sua realização, tal como o model-view-viewmodel através de data binding. Para dar suporte ao desenvolvimento do projecto foi adoptada uma abordagem de desenvolvimento ágil, baseada em Scrum, de forma a implementar os requisitos do sistema, expressos em user stories. De forma a garantir a qualidade da implementação do serviço foram realizados testes unitários, sendo também feita previamente a análise da funcionalidade e posteriormente produzida a documentação recorrendo a diagramas UML.

The role of European "ro-ro" port terminals in the automotive supply chain management

The aim of this paper is concerned with the design and development of a functional framework for maritime mode integration in European automotive supply chain management when considering outbound distribution. Furthermore, it provides a readjustment of traditional concepts and terminology with findings that the role of ro-ro port terminals should be considered as decoupling points, poles and postponement platforms. Case studies examine relevant Western European ro-ro port terminals for cars and respective links to assembly/factories of vehicles localized in the hinterland and concludes that ro-ro port terminals reduce logistical friction and impedance, as well as promote space/time compression.

Learning management systems usage on higher education institutions

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are used all over Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and the need to know and understand its adoption and usage arises. However, there is a lack of information about how LMSs are being used, which are the most adopted, whether there is a country adoption standard and which countries use more LMSs. A research team is developing a project that tries to fill this lack of information and provide the needed answers. With this purpose, on a first phase, it a survey was taken place. The results of this survey are presented in this paper. Another purpose of this paper is to disseminate the ongoing project.

Performance management in health centres: evidence from a field study

There has been a growing interest in research on performance measurement and management practices, which seems to reflect researchers’ response to calls for the need to increase the relevance of management accounting research. However, despite the development of the new public management literature, studies involving public sector organizations are relatively small compared to those involving business organizations and extremely limited when it comes to public primary health care organizations. Yet, the economic significance of public health care organizations in the economy of developed countries and the criticisms these organizations regularly face from the public suggests there is a need for research. This is particularly true in the case of research that may lead to improvement in performance measurement and management practices and ultimately to improvements in the way health care organizations use their limited resources in the provision of services to the communities. This study reports on a field study involving three public primary health care organisations. The evidence obtained from interviews and archival data suggests a performance management practices in these institutions lacked consistency and coherence, potentially leading to decreased performance. Hierarchical controls seemed to be very weak and accountability limited, leading to a lack of direction, low motivation and, in some circumstances to insufficient managerial abilities and skills. Also, the performance management systems revealed a number of weaknesses, which suggests that there are various opportunities for improvement in performance in the studied organisations.

Aplicação do ABC no sector de transporte público rodoviário de mercadorias: estudo de caso em PME

Mestrado em Contabilidade e Finanças Orientado por: Doutora Cláudia Lopes

Os benefícios e as dificuldades na certificação da qualidade: Norma NP EN ISO 9001:2008

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Assessoria de Administração

Planificação de um sistema de informação para a unidade de formação contínua e avançada da Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico do Porto

Projecto apresentado ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Assessoria de Administração

Programas de self-management em pacientes com DPOC: uma revisão sistemática

Introdução: Programas de self-management têm como objectivo habilitar os pacientes com estratégias necessárias para levar a cabo procedimentos específicos para a patologia. A última revisão sistemática sobre selfmanagament em DPOC foi realizada em 2007, concluindo-se que ainda não era possível fornecer dados claros e suficientes acerca de recomendações sobre a estrutura e conteúdo de programas de self-managament na DPOC. A presente revisão tem o intuito de complementar a análise da revisão anterior, numa tentativa de inferir a influência do ensino do self-management na DPOC. Objectivos: verificar a influência dos programas de self-management na DPOC, em diversos indicadores relacionados com o estado de saúde do paciente e na sua utilização dos serviços de saúde. Estratégia de busca: pesquisa efectuada nas bases de dados PubMed e Cochrane Collaboration (01/01/2007 – 31/08/2010). Palavras-chave: selfmanagement education, self-management program, COPD e pulmonary rehabilitation. Critérios de Selecção: estudos randomizados sobre programas de selfmanagement na DPOC. Extracção e Análise dos Dados: 2 investigadores realizaram, independentemente, a avaliação e extracção de dados de cada artigo. Resultados: foram considerados 4 estudos randomizados em selfmanagement na DPOC nos quais se verificaram benefícios destes programas em diversas variáveis: qualidade de vida a curto e médio prazo, utilização dos diferentes recursos de saúde, adesões a medicação de rotina, controle das exacerbações e diminuição da sintomatologia. Parece não ocorrer alteração na função pulmonar e no uso de medicação de emergência, sendo inconclusivo o seu efeito na capacidade de realização de exercício. Conclusões: programas de self-management aparentam ter impacto positivo na qualidade de vida, recurso a serviços de saúde, adesão à medicação, planos de acção e níveis de conhecimento da DPOC. Discrepâncias nos critérios de selecção das amostras utilizadas, períodos de seguimento desiguais, consistência das variáveis mensuradas, condicionam a informação disponibilizada sobre este assunto.

Technical considerations concerning digital technologies

This chapter addresses technical issues concerning digital technologies. Radiological equipment and technique are briefly introduced together with a discussion about requirements and advantages of digital technologies. Digital technologies offer several advantages when compared to conventional analogical systems, or screen–film (SF) systems. While in clinical practice the practitioners should be aware of technical factors such as image acquisition, management of patient dose, and diagnostic image quality. Thus, digital technologies require an up-to-date scientific knowledge concerning their use in projection radiography. In this chapter, technical considerations concerning digital technologies are provided.

Organization knowledge management change from a complex adaptive systems perpective with ability for ambidexeterity

We are working on the confluence of knowledge management, organizational memory and emergent knowledge with the lens of complex adaptive systems. In order to be fundamentally sustainable organizations search for an adaptive need for managing ambidexterity of day-to-day work and innovation. An organization is an entity of a systemic nature, composed of groups of people who interact to achieve common objectives, making it necessary to capture, store and share interactions knowledge with the organization, this knowledge can be generated in intra-organizational or inter-organizational level. The organizations have organizational memory of knowledge of supported on the Information technology and systems. Each organization, especially in times of uncertainty and radical changes, to meet the demands of the environment, needs timely and sized knowledge on the basis of tacit and explicit. This sizing is a learning process resulting from the interaction that emerges from the relationship between the tacit and explicit knowledge and which we are framing within an approach of Complex Adaptive Systems. The use of complex adaptive systems for building the emerging interdependent relationship, will produce emergent knowledge that will improve the organization unique developing.

Improving management skills through business simulation

A survey was conducted among students of the Accounting and Administration undergraduate degree at ISCAP – IPP (School of Accounting and Administration of Polytechnic Institute of Porto) in order to understand their perception value of their course Business Simulation (BS). This course is provided in a business environment where students can learn by doing through the management of a company as they were in the real life, but risk-free. The learning tasks are provided in an action-oriented format to maximize the learning process. Students learn by doing a set of tasks every session and have also to produce reports and presentations during the course. BS is part of the undergraduate degree of Accounting and Administration at ISCAP – IPP since the beginning of 2003. The questionnaire we used captured the students’ perception about general and specific skills and competencies considered important for managers and accountants in the real life, about the methodology used in the course, which is totally different from the traditional form, and also about the adequacy of the course included as part of the undergraduate degree. The results showed that students’ perception is highly positive and almost all of them think they improve the skills needed for a job during the course. These results are consistent with [1] Adler and Milne’s research in which the authors found that students agree with the use of action-oriented learning tasks in order to provide them the needed attitudes, skills, and knowledge. The improvement of group skills is the most important issue for students, which can be understandable as BS is the only course from the degree in Accounting and Administration they really have to work in groups.

O Contributo do sistema SAP R/3 no controlo interno na REFER

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Auditoria Orientador: Mestre Agostinho Sousa Pinto

Activos fixos tangíveis numa empresa industrial do ramo automóvel transição para o SNC

Dissertação para a obtenção do grau de mestre em Contabilidade e Finanças Orientador: Mestre António Costa Reis

A congestion management and transmission price simulator for competitive electricity markets

In a liberalized electricity market, the Transmission System Operator (TSO) plays a crucial role in power system operation. Among many other tasks, TSO detects congestion situations and allocates the payments of electricity transmission. This paper presents a software tool for congestion management and transmission price determination in electricity markets. The congestion management is based on a reformulated Optimal Power Flow (OPF), whose main goal is to obtain a feasible solution for the re-dispatch minimizing the changes in the dispatch proposed by the market operator. The transmission price computation considers the physical impact caused by the market agents in the transmission network. The final tariff includes existing system costs and also costs due to the initial congestion situation and losses costs. The paper includes a case study for the IEEE 30 bus power system.

Long-term price range forecast applied to risk management using regression models

Long-term contractual decisions are the basis of an efficient risk management. However those types of decisions have to be supported with a robust price forecast methodology. This paper reports a different approach for long-term price forecast which tries to give answers to that need. Making use of regression models, the proposed methodology has as main objective to find the maximum and a minimum Market Clearing Price (MCP) for a specific programming period, and with a desired confidence level α. Due to the problem complexity, the meta-heuristic Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) was used to find the best regression parameters and the results compared with the obtained by using a Genetic Algorithm (GA). To validate these models, results from realistic data are presented and discussed in detail.