Trabalho prático em biologia e geologia no ensino secundário : estudo dos documentos oficiais e suas recontextualizações nas práticas dos professores

Tese de doutoramento, Educação (Didática das Ciências), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2014

A divulgação de informação sobre sistemas integrados de gestão (SIG), sustentabilidade empresarial (SE) & responsabilidade social empresarial (RSE), nos websites das empresas portuguesas certificadas "Uma análise exploratória"

A Internet é um meio priviligiado de comunicação, no qual a informação não conhece fronteiras, e a sua divulgação toma uma dimensão universal. No mundo empresarial a comunicação é hoje tida, como o elemneto fulcral dos processos de negócio , em que interação com as partes interessadas, pode ser traduzida em termos do seu exposente máximo pelo website da empresa. Muita da informação hoje divulgada à sociedade pela empresa, visa o seu próprio escrutínio público, na strês dimensões (económica, ambiental e social) do Desenvolvimento Sustentável (DS). A presente investigação visou uma análise exploratória dos websites de 523 empresas que se encontravam certificadas, no fianl do ano de 2011, no âmbito dos sistemas de gestão da qualidade (ISO 9001), ambiente (ISO 14001), segurança e saúde do trabalho (OHSAS 18001). O obketo de estudo proposto visou conhecer quais os conteúdos que são frequentemente mais divulgados, e que perfil tem a empresa portuguesa de Gestão (SIG), Sustentabilidade Empresarial (SE) e Responsabilidade Social Empresarial (RSE). O método de investigação baseou-se na técnica da Análise de Conteúdo, a qual permitiu quantificar por categoria de análise (indicador) e subcategorias de análise (itens), os conteúdos da informação divulgada no website da empresa. A visão holística sobre a dimensão dos contéudos disponibilizados no website da empresa, foir determinada (medida) com auxílio de divulgação no website das empresas, são: a Missão, a Política da Qualidade, Ambiente e Segurança, o Código de Ética & Conduta Empresarial, o Relatório de Sustentabilidade, o Relatório e Contas, os Indicadores & Índices Financeiros, os certificados e marcas do Sistema de Gestão da Qualidade (SGQ), do trabalho (SGSST) e, por fim, os Projetos de Envolvimento com a Comunidade no âmbito da RSE. Em termos de perfil, as empresas portugueas de maior dimensão (volume de vendas), e as sociedades anónimas (S.A:), divulgam mais informação no website, que as outras. Não tendo sido porém, encontrada evidência estatística significativa no estudo da relação das empresas localizadas no distrito de Lisboa & Setúbal, das empresas do setor de atividade secundário (2.º), e das empresas com exposição aos media (rankings nacionais), com a maior divulgação de informação no website da empresa.

Podem as nossas leis tornar-nos mais atrativos?

The concept of soft power offers the opportunity for the States, under the current power shifts, to thrive, in a competitive and globalised scene, shaping o t hers' preference in accordance with their goals. Portugal, though it i s a small country, has soft power skills, according with specialized rankings, due to i t s geography and climate, main economic activities, historical role, legal framework, culture and language. Therefore, we can and we should develop public policies to optimize our resources, converting them in planned outcomes. On the other hand, public entities engaged with foreign trade, investment and tour ism, aid f or development, promotion of culture and language should be structured in or-der to strengthen the performance of Portugal in this area. Being a member of the European Union or of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries is, at last, essential to expand our global presence. In this Master's work project, I decided to make a critical analysis of legislation related with public diplomacy i n Portugal, together wi th research about the approach of two other countries (United Kingdom and Finland) to the same topic, for the sake of improvement.

Students' choice of a master in management in Portugal: A means-end chain approach

In the increasingly competitive market of higher education introduced by the Bologna Declaration, understanding the decision-making of master in management students is at the center of institutional management and marketing efforts on its mission to attract prospective students in a less costly, more efficient manner. The means-end chain approach, applied to the choice of a Portuguese institution in which to pursue a master in management, points to the position in rankings and to the non-specificity of the program as the most important attributes. Additionally, results show that students with distinct demographic, household, or background characteristics choose in significantly different manners.

Why aren't brand names regognized as intangible assets in the financial Statements? A study of the subjectivity of brand valuation

The goal of this paper is to determine and to quantify how subjective brand valuation is. To do so, we review the different valuation methods and apply the Hirose model to a sample of 20 US companies from the technology sector. Even if the results vary in function of the rankings we choose as a comparison, we may identify the trend that brands are usually overvalued in those rankings. It explains why internally generated goodwill (which includes brand names) is not recognized as an intangible asset in the financial statements.

Instrumentos de responsabilidade social corporativa: desenvolvimento de um modelo de análise com aplicação ao setor do alojamento hoteleiro

O conceito de Responsabilidade Social Corporativa (RSC) reflete a necessidade das empresas desempenharem, a par da sua função primordial, funções importantes a nível das sociedades em que estão inseridas visando aumentar a sua contribuição para um mundo mais justo em termos económicos, sociais e ambientais. A Comissão Europeia (2004) define instrumentos como tendo o objetivo de ajudar as empresas a gerir os seus processos, sistemas e impactos, disponibilizando orientações e critérios de referência, apoiando as empresas na promoção da RSC e estabelecendo níveis mínimos de desempenho. Pretende-se nesta dissertação a criação e validação da aplicabilidade prática de um modelo de análise de instrumentos de RSC, adaptando e expandindo as propostas de classificação fornecidas pela literatura em diversidade e escala e dando origem a um modelo de análise para o setor do Alojamento Hoteleiro. Com este objectivo em mente foram compilados 347 instrumentos no modelo de análise elaborado, agrupados em cinco categorias diferentes, nomeadamente, Códigos de conduta, princípios e diretrizes; Sistemas de gestão e outros instrumentos de gestão de RSC; Índices bolsistas; Modelos de divulgação e comunicação; e Prémios e rankings. Foi verificada a sua validade e aplicabilidade prática com recurso à informação disponibilizada por uma amostra constituida por 31 empresas de de âmbito internacional, conseguida pela compilação dos seus relatórios de sustentabilidade publicados na base de dados online da Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). O estado de qualidade positiva da comunicação de temáticas de RSC através de indicadores GRI neste relatórios de sustentabilidade foi analisada e verificou-se inferior a 50%. Para a amostra de empresas de Alojamento Hoteleiro, a aplicação prática do modelo de análise foi validada com sucesso. Durante o teste da validação do modelo foi possivel obter alguns resultados que serão mencionados em seguida. A ordem das categorias do modelo de análise é coincidente com a ordem decrescente da frequência de utilização de instrumentos pela amostra. As frequências relativas mais altas verificaram-se em primeiro lugar em descritores da categoria Códigos de conduta, princípios e diretrizes, seguindo-se da categoria Sistemas de gestão e outros instrumentos de gestão de RSC de cariz ambiental. Parece, no entanto, existir uma falta de correspondência entre os indicadores requeridos pela GRI e avaliados na análise de qualidade dos relatórios e os dados práticos obtidos com a utilização de ferramentas de RSC. Um exemplo prático deste fenómeno vericou-se nos resultados destas duas categorias que obtiveram maiores frequências de utilização de instrumentos de RSC, pois estas foram também as que obtiveram piores resultados de qualidade de comunicação nos relatórios. Durante esta análise foi compilada uma listagem detalhada dos instrumentos mais utilizados em cada nível de análise de cada categoria do modelo.

Treatment intensification and risk factor control: toward more clinically relevant quality measures.

BACKGROUND: Intensification of pharmacotherapy in persons with poorly controlled chronic conditions has been proposed as a clinically meaningful process measure of quality. OBJECTIVE: To validate measures of treatment intensification by evaluating their associations with subsequent control in hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes mellitus across 35 medical facility populations in Kaiser Permanente, Northern California. DESIGN: Hierarchical analyses of associations of improvements in facility-level treatment intensification rates from 2001 to 2003 with patient-level risk factor levels at the end of 2003. PATIENTS: Members (515,072 and 626,130; age >20 years) with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and/or diabetes mellitus in 2001 and 2003, respectively. MEASUREMENTS: Treatment intensification for each risk factor defined as an increase in number of drug classes prescribed, of dosage for at least 1 drug, or switching to a drug from another class within 3 months of observed poor risk factor control. RESULTS: Facility-level improvements in treatment intensification rates between 2001 and 2003 were strongly associated with greater likelihood of being in control at the end of 2003 (P < or = 0.05 for each risk factor) after adjustment for patient- and facility-level covariates. Compared with facility rankings based solely on control, addition of percentages of poorly controlled patients who received treatment intensification changed 2003 rankings substantially: 14%, 51%, and 29% of the facilities changed ranks by 5 or more positions for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Treatment intensification is tightly linked to improved control. Thus, it deserves consideration as a process measure for motivating quality improvement and possibly for measuring clinical performance.

What children value : a scale to guide health promotion programs

Objective. Physical activity is important for the health of all human beings. Although it is important to develop good health promotion programs for children to increase participation in physical activity, to date there appear to be no programs based on what kids value beyond health and physical activity itself. This study proposed to create a scale with strong content and face validity that could uncover what any given population of children value in life regardless of their participation in physical activity and that experts feel could be related to physical activity. These findings will allow the development of targeted health promotion programs to increase children's participation in regular physical activity. Method In this study, a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was used. Data were gathered from seven experts in the field, sixty-seven children in grades three to five, five parents, and three teachers. From these data response groupings were created and sent to four experts to be given single word names. The resulting nine theme names were re-worked into "child-friendly" language. Four children were then asked to discuss theme names to see if they liked and understood them. The next step involved asking children and experts to rank order the nine themes, the children in general and the experts in terms of relevance to physical activity. From these results, possible versions of the scale were then created using the combined expert/children rankings. Each version was examined for content validity. Two versions of a scale resulted. These were sent to experts, parents, teachers and children in order to determine which one they liked better and to suggest any foreseeable problems. Once this information was collected, a beta (final prototype) version of the scale was created. Results. Nine common theme names were created from the response groupings. All four children agreed that they did understand and like each of the nine theme names. Experts and teachers agreed that full coverage of the content had been achieved. Children suggested a single wording change from "Being Accepted" to "Being Included". Five themes were selected for inclusion. The beta version of the scale included 12 forced choice statements, the first ten comparing all themes against one another followed by two anchor statements. Conclusion. At the outset it was recognized that it is essential to know what children think is important in their lives in order to serve as potential benefits in the development of effective physical activity promotion programs. This study developed a scale which could be used to determine what a population of children feel is important in order to focus health promotion programs for physical activity. The scale has strong face and content validity.

Sensitivity to differences between posed and genuine facial expressions : are children easily fooled? /

Adults and children can discriminate various emotional expressions, although there is limited research on sensitivity to the differences between posed and genuine expressions. Adults have shown implicit sensitivity to the difference between posed and genuine happy smiles in that they evaluate T-shirts paired with genuine smiles more favorably than T-shirts paired with posed smiles or neutral expressions (Peace, Miles, & Johnston, 2006). Adults also have shown some explicit sensitivity to posed versus genuine expressions; they are more likely to say that a model i?,feeling happy if the expression is genuine than posed. Nonetheless they are duped by posed expressions about 50% of the time (Miles, & Johnston, in press). There has been no published study to date in which researchers report whether children's evaluation of items varies with expression and there is little research investigating children's sensitivity to the veracity of facial expressions. In the present study the same face stimuli were used as in two previous studies (Miles & Johnston, in press; Peace et al., 2006). The first question to be addressed was whether adults and 7-year-olds have a cognitive understanding of the differences between posed and genuine happiness {scenario task). They evaluated the feelings of children who expressed gratitude for a present that they did or did not want. Results indicated that all participants had a fundamental understanding of the difference between real and posed happiness. The second question involved adults' and children's implicit sensitivity to the veracity of posed and genuine smiles. Participants rated and ranked beach balls paired with faces showing posed smiles, genuine smiles, and neutral expressions. Adults ranked.but did not rate beach balls paired with genuine smiles more favorably than beach balls paired with posed smiles. Children did not demonstrate implicit sensitivity as their ratings and rankings of beach balls did not vary with expressions; they did not even rank beach balls paired with genuine expressions higher than beach balls paired with neutral expressions. In the explicit (show/feel) task, faces were presented without the beach balls and participants were first asked whether each face was showing happy and then whether each face wasfeeling happy. There were also two matching trials that presented two faces at once; participants had to indicate which person was actuallyfeeling happy. In the show condition both adults and 7-year-olds were very accurate on genuine and neutral expressions but made some errors on posed smiles. Adults were fooled about 50% of the time by posed smiles in thefeel condition (i.e., they were likely to say that a model posing happy was really feeling happy) and children were even less accurate, although they showed weak sensitivity to posed versus genuine expressions. Future research should test an older age group of children to determine when explicit sensitivity to posed versus genuine facial expressions becomes adult-like and modify the ranking task to explore the influence of facial expressions on object evaluations.

Educators' attitudes to philosophies of music education

This study used Q methodology to measure the extent to which individuals with five educational roles (student teacher, elementary music teacher, principal, high school music teacher, and music consultant) held five proposed philosophies of music education (hedonic, utilitarian, aesthetic cognitivism, aesthetic formalist, and praxial). Twenty-seven sUbjects participated in the Q study. These subjects were a convenience sample based on their educational role, accessibility, and willingness to participate. Participants completed a background sheet which indicated their background in music, and their responsibility for teaching music. The sUbjects in this Q study rank-ordered a set of 60 Q sort items (each item representing a proposed philosophical position) twice: Sort P to reflect current practice, and Sort I to reflect the ideal situation. The results of the sorting procedures were recorded by the participant on the response page which organized the rankings according to an approximated normal distribution as required by Q methodology. The analysis of the data suggested that the comparison across philosophical positions was significant and that the results of the interaction between philosophical position and educational role were significant, although educational role alone was not significant. Post-hoc analysis of the data was used to determine the significant differences between the levels of the, independent variables used in the model: philosophical position, educational role, and music background. A model of the association of the five philosophical positions was presented and discussed in relation to the Q study results. Further research could refine the Q sort items to better reflect each philosophical position.

Using a Bayesian model for bankruptcy prediction : a comparative approach

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the choice of cut-off points, sampling procedures, and the business cycle on the accuracy of bankruptcy prediction models. Misclassification can result in erroneous predictions leading to prohibitive costs to firms, investors and the economy. To test the impact of the choice of cut-off points and sampling procedures, three bankruptcy prediction models are assessed- Bayesian, Hazard and Mixed Logit. A salient feature of the study is that the analysis includes both parametric and nonparametric bankruptcy prediction models. A sample of firms from Lynn M. LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database in the U. S. was used to evaluate the relative performance of the three models. The choice of a cut-off point and sampling procedures were found to affect the rankings of the various models. In general, the results indicate that the empirical cut-off point estimated from the training sample resulted in the lowest misclassification costs for all three models. Although the Hazard and Mixed Logit models resulted in lower costs of misclassification in the randomly selected samples, the Mixed Logit model did not perform as well across varying business-cycles. In general, the Hazard model has the highest predictive power. However, the higher predictive power of the Bayesian model, when the ratio of the cost of Type I errors to the cost of Type II errors is high, is relatively consistent across all sampling methods. Such an advantage of the Bayesian model may make it more attractive in the current economic environment. This study extends recent research comparing the performance of bankruptcy prediction models by identifying under what conditions a model performs better. It also allays a range of user groups, including auditors, shareholders, employees, suppliers, rating agencies, and creditors' concerns with respect to assessing failure risk.

The National Hockey League (NHL) Entry Draft: An Examination of the Impact of Brand Associations Attached to the Russian Hockey Players

This research was conducted to investigate whether negative brand associations attached to Russian hockey players impact their draft rankings during the National Hockey League (NHL) Entry Draft. A quantitative analysis based on various regression model specifications was used to test whether Russian players were drafted relatively equally to their counterparts in the NHL Entry Draft. The data consisted of the NHL draft picks between 1993 and 2013 and their performance statistics and physical characteristics. The results suggested that Russian players were drafted relatively equal to their counterparts from other countries. Meanwhile, Russian players who played in the CHL before the draft are actually drafted better than Canadians who played in the same league. Hence, the negative brand associations attached to Russians were unlikely to impact their draft rankings. This study redefined the so-called “Russian Factor” from a notion that allegedly damages Russian players’ rankings to one that enhances their rankings.

Disease-Gene Association Using Genetic Programming

As a result of mutation in genes, which is a simple change in our DNA, we will have undesirable phenotypes which are known as genetic diseases or disorders. These small changes, which happen frequently, can have extreme results. Understanding and identifying these changes and associating these mutated genes with genetic diseases can play an important role in our health, by making us able to find better diagnosis and therapeutic strategies for these genetic diseases. As a result of years of experiments, there is a vast amount of data regarding human genome and different genetic diseases that they still need to be processed properly to extract useful information. This work is an effort to analyze some useful datasets and to apply different techniques to associate genes with genetic diseases. Two genetic diseases were studied here: Parkinson’s disease and breast cancer. Using genetic programming, we analyzed the complex network around known disease genes of the aforementioned diseases, and based on that we generated a ranking for genes, based on their relevance to these diseases. In order to generate these rankings, centrality measures of all nodes in the complex network surrounding the known disease genes of the given genetic disease were calculated. Using genetic programming, all the nodes were assigned scores based on the similarity of their centrality measures to those of the known disease genes. Obtained results showed that this method is successful at finding these patterns in centrality measures and the highly ranked genes are worthy as good candidate disease genes for being studied. Using standard benchmark tests, we tested our approach against ENDEAVOUR and CIPHER - two well known disease gene ranking frameworks - and we obtained comparable results.

Ranking Sets of Objects

We provide a survey of the literature on ranking sets of objects. The interpretations of those set rankings include those employed in the theory of choice under complete uncertainty, rankings of opportunity sets, set rankings that appear in matching theory, and the structure of assembly preferences. The survey is prepared for the Handbook of Utility Theory, vol. 2, edited by Salvador Barberà, Peter Hammond, and Christian Seidl, to be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. The chapter number is provisional.

The Possibility of Ordering Infinite Utility Streams

This paper revisits Diamond’s classical impossibility result regarding the ordering of infinite utility streams. We show that if no representability condition is imposed, there do exist strongly Paretian and finitely anonymous orderings of intertemporal utility streams with attractive additional properties. We extend a possibility theorem due to Svensson to a characterization theorem and we provide characterizations of all strongly Paretian and finitely anonymous rankings satisfying the strict transfer principle. In addition, infinite horizon extensions of leximin and of utilitarianism are characterized by adding an equity preference axiom and finite translation-scale measurability, respectively, to strong Pareto and finite anonymity.