Assessing and Explaining the Relative Efficiency of Local Government: Evidence for Portuguese Municipalities

In this paper we measure the relative efficiency of Portuguese local municipalities in a non-parametric framework approach using Data Envelopment Analysis. As an output measure we compute a composite local government output indicator of municipal performance. This allows assessing the extent of municipal spending that seems to be “wasted” relative to the “best-practice” frontier. Our results suggest that most municipalities could achieve, on average, the same level of output using fewer resources, improving performance without necessarily increasing municipal spending. Inefficiency scores are afterwards explained by means of a Tobit analysis with a set of relevant explanatory variables playing the role of non-discretionary inputs..local government; expenditure efficiency; technical efficiency; DEA; Tobit models.

Assessing Hospital Efficiency: Non-parametric Evidence for Portugal

We compute DEA efficiency scores and Malmquist indexes for a panel data set comprising 68 Portuguese public hospitals belonging to the National Health System (NHS) in the period 2000-2005, when several units started being run in an entrepreneurial framework. With data on hospital services’ and resource quantities we construct an output distance function, we assess by how much can output quantities be proportionally expanded without changing input quantities Our results show that, on average, the NHS hospital sector revealed positive but small productivity growth between 2000 and 2004. The mean TFP indices vary between 0.917 and 1.109, implying some differences in the Malmquist indices across specifications. Furthermore, there are significant fluctuations among NHS hospitals in terms of individual efficiency scores from one year to the other.Public hospitals; Data Envelopment Analysis; Malmquist indices; Portugal.

Assessing Hospital Efficiency: Non-parametric Evidence for Portugal

We compute DEA efficiency scores and Malmquist indexes for a panel data set comprising 68 Portuguese public hospitals belonging to the National Health System (NHS) in the period 2000-2005, when several units started being run in an entrepreneurial framework. With data on hospital services' and resource quantities we construct an output distance function, we assess by how much can output quantities be proportionally expanded without changing input quantities Our results show that, on average, the NHS hospital sector revealed positive but small productivity growth between 2000 and 2004. The mean TFP indices vary between 0.917 and 1.109, implying some differences in the Malmquist indices across specifications. Furthermore, there are significant fluctuations among NHS hospitals in terms of individual efficiency scores from one year to the other

Measuring local government spending efficiency: evidence for the Lisbon region

Measuring local government spending efficiency: evidence for the Lisbon region, Regional Studies 40, 39–53. The expenditure efficiency of Portuguese local governments in 2001 was assessed using Data Envelopment Analysis for production frontier estimation. A composite municipal output indicator was constructed and input and output efficiency scores were computed for 51 Portuguese municipalities in the region of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo. This allows a determination of the extent of municipal spending that seems to be ‘wasted’ relative to the theoretical ‘best-practice’ frontier. The results suggest that Vale do Tejo municipalities could achieve, on average, the same level of output allegedly using around one-third fewer resources, improving performance without necessarily increasing municipal spending.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Assessing and explaining the relative efficiency of local government

We assess the relative efficiency of local municipalities using Data Envelopment Analysis and parametric analysis. As an output measure we compute a composite local government indicator of municipal performance, using data for Portuguese municipalities. This allows assessing the extent of possible municipal improvement relative to the “best-practice” frontier. Our results suggest that most municipalities could improve performance without necessarily increasing municipal spending. In a second stage efficiency scores are explained by means of a Tobit analysis with a set of relevant explanatory socio-economic factors playing the role of non-discretionary inputs, such as education and per capita purchasing power.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Efficiency of Local Government Spending: Evidence for the Lisbon Region

In this paper we measure and analyse expenditure efficiency of Portuguese local governments using a non-parametric technique for production frontier estimation known as Free Disposal Hull. We first construct an index of municipal performance and then compute input and output efficiency scores for 51 Portuguese municipalities located in the region of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo (RLVT) in order to estimate the extent of municipal spending that seems to be "wasted" relative to the "best-practice" frontier. The results of our empirical analysis suggest that RLVT municipalities could achieve, on average, roughly the same level of local output with about 39 percent fewer resources, i.e. local performance could be improved without necessarily increasing municipal spending

Assessing and Explaining the Relative Efficiency of Local Government: Evidence for Portuguese Municipalities

In this paper we measure the relative efficiency of Portuguese local municipalities in a non-parametric framework approach using Data Envelopment Analysis. As an output measure we compute a composite local government output indicator of municipal performance. This allows assessing the extent of municipal spending that seems to be "wasted" relative to the "best-practice" frontier. Our results suggest that most municipalities could achieve, on average, the same level of output using fewer resources, improving performance without necessarily increasing municipal spending. Inefficiency scores are afterwards explained by means of a Tobit analysis with a set of relevant explanatory variables playing the role of non-discretionary inputs

O papel dos contos tradicionais no desenvolvimento do sentido de justiça e injustiça na criança no 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico.No âmbito da Prática Supervisionada foi realizado este relatório de estágio, que está incluído no 1.º semestre do 2.º ano do Mestrado em Educação Pré-escolar e Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico da Escola Superior de Educação de Castelo Branco. Esta prática auxiliou-nos bastante no desenvolvimento de competências e na aquisição de capacidades para lidar com crianças com idades compreendidas entre os seis e os sete anos. Na finalização desta, decorreram as atividades que tiveram o intuito de desenvolver o sentido de justiça e injustiça nas crianças, tema que irá ser abordado neste relatório de estágio. Este estudo procurou ativar o conhecimento prévio e promover o desenvolvimento dos conceitos de justiça/injustiça num grupo de crianças do 1.º ciclo do ensino básico. A recolha de dados fez-se através da observação participante, das notas de campo e de questionários às crianças. Esta técnica teve como base a metodologia de estudo de caso. A turma que esteve em estudo, como se poderá observar na análise de dados, demonstrou uma grande capacidade em analisar os conceitos de justiça e injustiça em situações apresentadas através de contos tradicionais e a sua transposição para situações do quotidiano

A genetic and evolutionary programming environment with spatially structured populations and built-in parallelism

The recent development of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation field lead to a kaleidoscope of approaches to problem solving, which are based on a common background. These shared principles are used in order to develop a programming environment that enhances modularity, in terms of software design and implementation. The system's core encapsulates the main features of the Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms, by identifying the entities at stake and implementing them as hierarchies of software modules. This architecture is enriched with the parallelization of the algorithms, based on spatially structured populations, following coarse-grained (Island Model) and fine-grained (Neighborhood Model) strategies. A distributed physical implementation, under the PVM environment, running in a local network, is described.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - PRAXIS/P/EEI/13096/98

Predição na aviação não regular escrita por Sónia Afonso

A crescente procura na aviação comercial em determinados picos operacionais, as avarias inusitadas e as operações charter Ad-hoc, fazem com que as empresas tenham necessidade de procura de aluguer de aeronaves a operadores de aviação. Por vezes deparam-se com dificuldades em encontrar aeronaves disponíveis para realizar o serviço ou simplesmente para que não haja custos acrescidos de aquisição, manutenção e de certo prejuízo em época baixa de operacionalidade, preferem não fazer aquisição de aeronaves de reserva capazes de fazer cobertura para todas as exigências operacionais, ou simplesmente, porque o seu tipo de negócio não abrange a inclusão de compra de aeronaves e preferem recorrência ao aluguer. As empresas de aviação não regular que conseguem colmatar esta carência necessitam ter uma preparação logística atempada. Assim, com este trabalho pretende-se fazer a predição da próxima tipologia operacional, do modelo de aeronave que será procurado e a consequente tripulação necessária para préstimo de serviço a bordo. A capacidade de preparação com antecedência na resposta operacional ao cliente, adequar o leque de oferta de aviões à procura e a existência de tripulação adequada às necessidades operacionais adjacentes, permite prestar um serviço de qualidade, melhoria da capacidade de resposta e melhoria de organização interna empresarial. Com esta dissertação pretende-se encontrar modelos de predição com auxílio a aprendizagem automática, aprendizagem automática com recurso a séries temporais e RNN – LSTM (Recurrent Neural Network - Long Short Memory Term), encontrando assim entre estes o modelo mais adequado a permitir fazer predição. Para a aplicação destas técnicas, foram utilizados os dados de gestão de tripulação e dados de planeamento de aeronaves, onde foi possível encontrar modelação adequada à predição da tipologia operacional, com ANN de classificação, para a modelação para determinação dos modelos de aeronaves, os melhores resultados obtidos foram com Árvores de Decisão de classificação e de tripulação, foi determinado com algumas dificuldades com ANN de regressão, a escolha recaiu na melhor performance.Growing demand in commercial aviation at certain time of operational peaks, facing maintenance problems as AOG (aircraft on ground) and the procurement for Ad-hoc charter operations, means that companies need to seek aircraft leasing from other aviation operators. Sometimes comercial airlines face some difficulties to find available aircrafts to perform their flights or simply to avoid additional costs of acquisition, maintenance and some losses in low peak operating times, instead they prefer not to purchase but rent aircraft capable of covering all operational requirements, or even simply because their type of business does not include the purchase of aircraft and prefer recurrence to rental. The non-scheduled aviation companies that can fill this gap need to have in advance a logistic preparation, thus, with this work, is intend to predict the next type of operation, the aircraft model to be searched and the convenient crew required for service on board. Pre-operational customer adequate response, matching the range of aircraft model supply to demand, and adequate number of crew to the consequent operational requirements, enables quality service, responsiveness improvement and higher internal business organization. This dissertation aims to find prediction models with the aid of machine learning, machine learning with time series and deep learning RNN - LSTM (Long Term Memory Term), finding amongest them the most suitable model to make predictions. To apply those techniques, crew management data and aircraft planning data were used, where it was possible to find appropriate modeling to predict the operational typology, with ANN classification, to predict the aircraft models, the best results were obtained with Decision Trees classification, and the necessary crew, it was determined with regression ANN, the choice was done having in mind the best performance of each model