O transporte como determinante social de saúde : mobilidade e utilização de transportes públicos na perceção das pessoas idosas : um estudo de caso numa comunidade urbana

RESUMO - O crescimento da população idosa constitui um dos principais desafios para as atuais e futuras sociedades. A possibilidade de as pessoas permanecerem na sua comunidade de forma saudável e ativa, à medida que envelhecem, elevam a importância da questão da mobilidade e da forma como se deslocam, na saúde e qualidade de vida desta população. O presente trabalho propôs-se perceber de que forma o acesso a transporte influencia a saúde e qualidade de vida, na perspetiva das pessoas idosas e identificar fatores que atuassem como barreiras ao acesso e utilização de transportes, principalmente transportes públicos. A metodologia utilizada foi estudo de caso, com base no modelo PRECEDEPROCEED, desenvolvido na Ameixoeira, Lisboa. Os dados resultaram de um questionário aplicado a 24 pessoas idosas, da análise documental e da realização de entrevistas. A análise dos dados sugere que, é ao nível da autonomia e independência que o acesso a transporte influencia a saúde e a qualidade de vida da amostra, e a mobilidade e utilização de transporte, por sua vez, é influenciada por fatores individuais, como a idade, o género, o rendimento e as condições de saúde, e fatores ambientais envolvendo características dos transportes e da zona de residência. Tendo-se focado o trabalho na identificação das barreiras percecionadas pelas pessoas idosas na utilização de transportes públicos, sugere-se o elevado preço, a insuficiente distribuição do serviço, a distância às paragens e os horários inadequados como os principais constrangimentos identificados. Embora os resultados não possam ser extrapolados, devem ser encarados como um ponto de partida para futuras investigações.

Social-media monitoring for cold-start recommendations

Generating personalized movie recommendations to users is a problem that most commonly relies on user-movie ratings. These ratings are generally used either to understand the user preferences or to recommend movies that users with similar rating patterns have rated highly. However, movie recommenders are often subject to the Cold-Start problem: new movies have not been rated by anyone, so, they will not be recommended to anyone; likewise, the preferences of new users who have not rated any movie cannot be learned. In parallel, Social-Media platforms, such as Twitter, collect great amounts of user feedback on movies, as these are very popular nowadays. This thesis proposes to explore feedback shared on Twitter to predict the popularity of new movies and show how it can be used to tackle the Cold-Start problem. It also proposes, at a finer grain, to explore the reputation of directors and actors on IMDb to tackle the Cold-Start problem. To assess these aspects, a Reputation-enhanced Recommendation Algorithm is implemented and evaluated on a crawled IMDb dataset with previous user ratings of old movies,together with Twitter data crawled from January 2014 to March 2014, to recommend 60 movies affected by the Cold-Start problem. Twitter revealed to be a strong reputation predictor, and the Reputation-enhanced Recommendation Algorithm improved over several baseline methods. Additionally, the algorithm also proved to be useful when recommending movies in an extreme Cold-Start scenario, where both new movies and users are affected by the Cold-Start problem.

Social media: The new tool in firms’ marketing strategies

In this work project we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social media as a marketing tool. Four international cases were analyzed to provide anecdotal evidence of how social and viral marketing have been used by four firms in very different industries. We reviewed empirical evidence on the topic to discuss the main components of viral marketing. We concluded that positive (electronic) word of mouth, short response time and seeding through high network value customers are the main drivers of the success of a viral marketing campaign. We also conducted a study of the Portuguese telecommunications industry, in particular, the mobile segment. We found that the three main players operating in this market have been using social media successfully as a marketing tool in a strategic approach to the 14-25 years old segment.

Determinants of social security pensions expenditure in Portugal

In most European countries Social Security (SS) systems are characterized as Pay-asyou- go systems. Their sustainability is being challenged with demographic changes, namely population ageing. Portugal’s population is ageing rapidly being one of the countries where this problem is more critical. With the growing debate on this topic several public choice models have been developed so as to explain SS size. In this work project there is an attempt to understand whether these models contribute to better explain Social security expenditure with pensions (SSEP) and to establish the need of finding ways to reduce present commitment with pension expenditure in Portugal.

Sistematização das atividades de manutenção para uma instituição de solidariedade social

Nos tempos atuais e devido ao ambiente cada vez mais competitivo que as empresas enfrentam, a gestão da manutenção tornou-se reconhecida pelos gestores como uma das atividades mais importantes em empresas industriais e organizações. A presente dissertação foi realizada no âmbito de colaboração entre o DEMI, FCT-UNL e o Banco Alimentar Contra a Fome de Lisboa. Foi estabelecido inicialmente como objetivo, o desenvolvimento de um plano de manutenção preventiva de máquinas e equipamentos existentes no Banco Alimentar. Porém, no desenvolvimento do trabalho, revelou-se a necessidade de se satisfazer outros objetivos prementes. Entre os novos objetivos que surgiram entretanto, destacam-se a codificação dos equipamentos, a criação de novos documentos essenciais na gestão da manutenção, assim como a melhoria dos existentes, e a conceção de bases para uma futura análise da fiabilidade e manutibilidade dos equipamentos. A análise do estado atual do serviço de manutenção foi feita com base na norma NP EN 13306 (2007). Algumas das propostas apresentadas poderão ser de aplicação imediata, com resultados a curto prazo, outras só poderão ter impacto a médio ou longo prazo. As lacunas preenchidas e as propostas de melhoria apresentadas poderão ter impacto significativo, não só a nível de custos imediatos da manutenção de equipamentos, como também a nível organizacional, motivacional dos colaboradores e da disciplina institucional.

Silva Porto na África Central – VIYE / ANGOLA: história social e transcultural de um sertanejo (1839-1890)

O tema de análise neste trabalho é o fenómeno da transculturação em Angola no século XIX. É uma pesquisa centrada na história de vida do sertanejo António Francisco Ferreira da Silva Porto, entre 1839 e 1890, no meio sócio-cultural umbundu. Transculturação é um termo polissémico que integra aspectos da aculturação sendo aqui utilizado no âmbito da História de vida de Silva Porto. Descodifica-se a narrativa no Diário de viagem que Silva Porto redigiu acerca da sua percepção sobre África e do seu percurso de convivência no processo da sua integração em África Central. A transculturação está nessa narrativa e reflecte múltiplas vivências, sobretudo, a visão social do “Outro” em relação à sua própria identidade de origem. Silva Porto é encarado neste trabalho como sujeito, autor, actor principal e protagonista do fenómeno da transculturação, na região do Viye em Angola. Identificaram-se cinco variáveis do fenómeno transcultural, presentes na trajectória de Silva Porto: o casamento, a língua, as viagens, a alimentação e a religião, com particular destaque para o casamento enquanto variável determinante na integração de Silva Porto na sociedade umbundu. Estas variáveis são apresentadas num iceberg de transculturação de Silva Porto que, por sua vez, permitem avaliar as diferenças culturais e o cruzamento entre as culturas sob um processo de alteridade, em confluência com um olhar distanciado. É um estudo onde perpassa o crivo das construções e representações de Silva Porto tendo em conta o seu contexto cultural de origem, predominantemente português, a sua adaptação e inserção nas culturas africanas, particularmente nas práticas sócio-culturais umbundu. A questão de partida deste estudo foi: Quem é Silva Porto depois de 50 anos de vivências em Angola?

Spatio-temporal patterns of tuberculosis incidence in Ribeirão Preto, State of São Paulo, southeast Brazil, and their relationship with social vulnerability: a Bayesian analysis

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this ecological study was to evaluate the urban spatial and temporal distribution of tuberculosis (TB) in Ribeirão Preto, State of São Paulo, southeast Brazil, between 2006 and 2009 and to evaluate its relationship with factors of social vulnerability such as income and education level. METHODS: We evaluated data from TBWeb, an electronic notification system for TB cases. Measures of social vulnerability were obtained from the SEADE Foundation, and information about the number of inhabitants, education and income of the households were obtained from Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Statistical analyses were conducted by a Bayesian regression model assuming a Poisson distribution for the observed new cases of TB in each area. A conditional autoregressive structure was used for the spatial covariance structure. RESULTS: The Bayesian model confirmed the spatial heterogeneity of TB distribution in Ribeirão Preto, identifying areas with elevated risk and the effects of social vulnerability on the disease. We demonstrated that the rate of TB was correlated with the measures of income, education and social vulnerability. However, we observed areas with low vulnerability and high education and income, but with high estimated TB rates. CONCLUSIONS: The study identified areas with different risks for TB, given that the public health system deals with the characteristics of each region individually and prioritizes those that present a higher propensity to risk of TB. Complex relationships may exist between TB incidence and a wide range of environmental and intrinsic factors, which need to be studied in future research.

Do social factors matter for innovation, and do they influence innovation in Aeronautics Industry?

Based on the report for the course on “Social Factors of Innovation” of the PhD Program on Technology Assessment, supervised by Prof. António Brandão Moniz, Monte de Caparica, University NOVA Lisbon, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, July 2013

Impact of corporate social responsibility in the European pharmaceutical market

The objective of this master thesis is to evaluate the impact of CSR measures in the financial performance of the European pharmaceutical industry. By definition, CSR measures is quantified as corporate social disclosure considering the published CSR keywords on the annual reports of the selected companies, over four fiscal years (2010-2013). The financial performance of the companies were measured as return on assets (ROA) and Tobin’s Q. In order to defend the hypothesis developed, a multivariate regression is performed. The results obtained show no significant impact on the financial performance of a company nor in the short-time, nor in the long-time. Moreover, by comparison with other studies, it was possible to conclude that the financial performance is differently affected when considering different industries.

How to design and develop There App: A mobile app focused on live video streaming, promoting new social interactions

This work project aims to demonstrate how to design and develop an innovative concept of video streaming app. The project combines technology push and market pull theories into developing a product that is more suitable for the customer needs, with the particularity that there is no other way of seeing any place in the world, live and ondemand. An analysis on the bigger influencers in terms of design-thinking and new product development, as Tim Brown or Paul Trott, lead to a better understanding on how There App should evolve, keeping in mind the customer desires and technical features.

The effect of social and environmental sustainability on firm resilience

Double degree

Corporate social responsibility

There is general consensus nowadays that CSR is not just altruistic do-gooding but rather a way for both companies and society to prosper. Companies themselves increasingly recognize that their sustainability depends on their willingness to assume responsibility for social and environmental issues. Academic research has, in the past, tried to theorize exactly how CSR improves business, employee satisfaction and productivity. However, few studies have a) separated the different effects of internal CSR and external CSR and b) studied these effects in times of internal organizational distrust. Hence, this paper examines the relationship between each type of CSR with two outcome variables related to employee attitudes: affective organizational commitment (AOC) and turnover intentions (TI). Furthermore, it investigates whether organizational distrust works as a moderator in each of these relationships by testing the hypothesis using a sample of 212 employees from a company that is currently going through a moment of internal crisis. Findings suggest that although all variables are strongly correlated, distrust works as a moderator for external CSR but not for internal CSR. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings conclude the paper.

Measuring social impact: A guideline to implement a tableau de bord

Many impact-seeking organisations cannot measure and demonstrate their social impact because they either lack technical expertise or requisite financial and human resources. This report clarifies the process of social impact measurement to help these organisations engage in social impact measurement practices. It presents a simple guideline to create a measurement approach based on the Tableau de Board. The guideline has been developed through a theoretical revision of best practices in social impact measurement, academic research and the author's individual thoughts and ideas. While a first testing of the approach revealed positive feedback, only future broad-scale testing will demonstrate the approach’s validity and feasibility.

Social impact bond feasibility study

Youth unemployment is one of the most pressing social issues in Portugal, often associated to a lack of skills. Faz-Te Forward (FFWD), a Portuguese employability programme, has demonstrated great potential for impact in solving this issue, especially amongst a neglected segment of the population – those belonging to “sandwich families”. The present thesis, integrated in the SIB Research Programme from the Social Investment Lab, evaluates the feasibility of this programme to be financed through a Social Impact Bond, an innovative outcomes-based financing model. From a data analysis undertaken to FFWD’s historical information, a business case for a SIB was developed.

Social tariffs for water and waste services in mainland Portugal: An impact analysis

This paper proposes to quantify the effect of social tariffs (ST) in the Portuguese water and waste sector (WWS). It calculates the amount of subsidy implicit in ST schemes, characterising the existing tariffs in 2011 and producing a synthetic tariff scene where the regulator’s recommendation is respected. This is the first time such an exercise is undertaken and it is very relevant in a context of deep economic crisis. Results suggest that there are fewer beneficiaries than what income eligibility criteria would imply and that putting the regulator’s recommendation in practice would considerably raise subsidy amounts, potentially leading to a severe increase in non-subsidised user tariffs to allow for break-even.