Evaluating Hospital Efficiency Adjusting for Quality Indicators: an Application to Portuguese NHS Hospitals

The objective of this paper is to develop a methodology to incorporate measures of hospital quality in efficiency analysis, applied to Portuguese NHS hospitals, in order to assess whether there is a trade-off between efficiency and quality in Portuguese hospitals. We develop and compare two methodologies to compute DEA technical efficiency scores adjusted for output quality, for a sample of Portuguese NHS hospitals in 2009. When DEA efficiency scores are adjusted for output quality, the decision making units that lie on the technical efficiency frontier remain largely unaltered, even if a great weight is given to quality indicators over quantity indicators of output. Nevertheless, we find that outside of the frontier adjusting for quality does have an impact in efficiency scores.We conclude that the empirical evidence is not sufficient to identify a clear trade-off between efficiency and quality in the hospitals under review, implying the possibility that efficiency gains may achieved without a significant sacrifice of service quality. Nevertheless, there is enough evidence to conclude that analyzing hospital efficiency without consideration of differences in quality of service will generate biased results. When perceived quality is brought to the analysis, the gap between efficient and inefficient units tends to widen.Hospital efficiency, Hospital quality, Data Envelopment Analysis

Olhares sobre as mulheres no jornalismo desportivo: o caso do jornal "Record"

Relatório de estágio apresentado à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Jornalismo.O presente Relatório de Estágio resultou do estágio curricular que tive oportunidade de realizar, entre 9 de janeiro e 8 de abril de 2017, no jornal desportivo Record. Esta experiência profissional permitiu-me refletir sobre a prática jornalística atual, bem como desenvolver um pequeno exercício investigativo centrado na problemática das representações das mulheres nos media, em particular nos media desportivos, por ser uma área de investigação ainda com pouca expressão nos estudos feministas na sua relação com os media em Portugal. As questões que orientaram a pesquisa foram as seguintes: Como é que as mulheres são retratadas nesta publicação? Quais os papéis sociais que lhes eram atribuídos? E quais os tópicos expressos nas peças jornalísticas? Para alcançar estes objetivos recorremos a uma estratégia metodológica centrada em técnicas de recolha de informação documental: pesquisa bibliográfica aprofundada sobre as questões de género e a sua relação com os media, em particular os media desportivos, bem como documentação institucional do Record para contextualizar o local e o ambiente de estágio. Por último, optamos por uma análise de conteúdo temática a todas as peças escritas e visuais – 1172 conteúdos – onde surgiam figuras femininas. As nossas conclusões acompanham os resultados de investigações que têm sido desenvolvidas internacionalmente sobre este tópico: as mulheres não veem o seu papel como atleta ser devidamente reconhecido. No caso do Record, isso é ainda mais evidente quando percebemos que, nos conteúdos icónicos, existe uma maior representação da mulher associada a uma figura masculina, do que enquanto atleta, e que os atributos físicos do corpo feminino são realçados em quase metade das imagens em análise.ABSTRACT: This Report was the result of the curricular internship that I had opportunity to do, between January 9th and April 8th 2017, in the sports newspaper Record. This professional experience allowed me to reflect on the practices of journalistic nowadays, and also to make a small investigative exercise focused on the problematic of the representations of women in the media, in particular in the sports media, because it is an area of research with still little expression in the feminist studies in its relationship with the media in Portugal. The questions that guided the research were the following: How was the women portrayed in this publication? What social roles were assigned to her? And what themes are expressed in the journalistic pieces? In order to achieve these objectives, we have used a methodological strategy focused on techniques for collecting documentary information: in-depth bibliographic research on gender issues and their relationship with the media, in particular the sports media, as well as institutional documentation of the Record newspaper to contextualize the location and the internship environment. Finally, we opted for a thematic content analysis of all the written and visual pieces – 1172 contents – where the feminine figures appeared. Our conclusions follow the results of research that has been carried out internationally on this topic: women do not see their roles as an athlete properly recognized. In the case of the Record newspaper, this is more evident when we perceive that, in the iconic contents, there is a bigger representation of the woman associated with a male figure, than as an athlete, and the physical attributes of her body are highlighted in almost half of the images.N/

The fitting of the German yield curve: a dynamic approach using latent, macroeconomic and stock market variables

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Finance from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsThe purpose of this Work Project is to build a yield curve model for the German Government yield curve containing latent variables (Level, Slope and Curvature), macroeconomic variables (German IFO and Inflation Rate) and a stock market variable (German Stock Index DAX), while studying the yield curve dynamics. The model incorporates the Nelson and Siegel (1987) factor model under a State-Space framework and the estimation results provided a good fitting of the historical yield curve. Additionally, after doing a Variance Decomposition analysis, this project proves the existence of an interaction between the yield curve and the German Macroeconomy/Stock Market

Integration of BIM in Building Sustainability Assessment methods

Tese de doutoramento em Sustentabilidade do Ambiente ConstruídoThe Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry is highly responsible for several environmental impacts and worldwide authorities and societies are increasingly looking for more sustainable buildings. Given the ambitious targets of climate neutrality and decarbonisation, there is an urgent need to develop specific strategies to act in the building sector, as it has been recognised as a key industry to reverse environmental impacts. Among the existing tools, Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA) methods stand out as a pathway to evaluate and promote the integration of sustainability principles in buildings. However, such methods often require multi-disciplinary information about the building and significant resources such as time, money, and human labour. Consequently, and in the absence of mandatory legislation, BSA is usually neglected or applied in project later stages just to provide a sustainable evaluation of the building. With the deployment of Building Information Modelling (BIM), the opportunity for BSA to adopt and benefit from BIM functionalities arises. Currently, BIM has not been used comprehensively in the evaluation process of BSA but the potential for process automation and simplification are well known. To effectively integrate BSA into BIM environment, this research aims to develop a BIM integration framework for the Portuguese residential BSA method SBToolPT-H. Moreover, such framework will be materialized by the creation of an enduser BIM-based application – SBToolBIM – which will act as a decision support tool regarding building sustainability for the project's early stages. SBToolBIM will automate and accelerate the assessment of SBToolPTH by reflecting its criteria through computable rules. Results show the attractiveness of SBToolBIM, as well as the possibility to have real-time feedback about the building sustainability level in early project stages, allowing for the introduction and comparison of different sustainability measures with few resources. SBToolBIM has established a novel and common approach which can be used as a systematic framework to apply BIM in other BSA schemes, representing a pathway to reduce the building sector impacts and provide valuable contributes to reach worldwide climate neutrality and decarbonisation targets.A indústria da Arquitetura, Engenharia e Construção (AEC) é responsável por diversos impactes ambientais, levando as autoridades e sociedades mundiais à procura por edifícios mais sustentáveis. Perante os ambiciosos objetivos da neutralidade climática e descarbonização, surge a necessidade de desenvolver estratégias específicas para o setor dos edifícios, dado ser uma indústria chave para a reversão dos referidos impactes. Entre as ferramentas existentes, destacam-se os métodos da avaliação da sustentabilidade de edifícios (BSA, do inglês Building Sustainability Assessment) como forma de avaliar e promover a integração de medidas sustentáveis. No entanto, a sua utilização requer informações multidisciplinares do edifício, bem como recursos significativos, tais como tempo, custos e mão de obra. Consequentemente e na ausência de legislação obrigatória, os BSA são geralmente negligenciados ou aplicados em fases finais de projeto, apenas para identificar o nível de sustentabilidade do edifício. Com a implementação do Building Information Modeling (BIM), surge a oportunidade dos BSA adotarem e beneficiarem das suas funcionalidades. Atualmente, o BIM ainda não é integralmente utilizado no processo de avaliação dos BSA, mas as suas potencialidades para automação e simplificação do processo já foram reconhecidas. De modo a integrar os BSA em ambiente BIM, este trabalho visa desenvolver uma estrutura de integração BIM para o método BSA residencial português SBToolPT-H. A estrutura será materializada através da criação de uma aplicação BIM – SBToolBIM – que irá atuar como uma ferramenta de apoio à decisão em fases iniciais de projeto. O SBToolBIM irá automatizar e acelerar os processos de avaliação da sustentabilidade através do SBToolPT-H, refletindo os seus critérios através de regras computacionais. Os resultados demonstram a utilidade do SBToolBIM, bem como a possibilidade de fornecer feedback em tempo real sobre o nível de sustentabilidade do edifício nas fases iniciais de projeto, permitindo a introdução e a comparação de diferentes medidas de sustentabilidade, utilizando poucos recursos. O SBToolBIM estabelece uma nova abordagem sistemática para aplicação do BIM noutros métodos BSA, representando um caminho para a redução dos impactes do setor e dando valiosas contribuições para alcançar as metas de neutralidade climática e descarbonização.SBToolBIM research was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), grant number SFRH/BD/145735/2019

Using Data Mining with Time Series Data in Short-Term Stocks Prediction: A Literature Review

Data Mining (DM) methods are being increasingly used in prediction with time series data, in addition to traditional statistical approaches. This paper presents a literature review of the use of DM with time series data, focusing on short- time stocks prediction. This is an area that has been attracting a great deal of attention from researchers in the field. The main contribution of this paper is to provide an outline of the use of DM with time series data, using mainly examples related with short-term stocks prediction. This is important to a better understanding of the field. Some of the main trends and open issues will also be introduced.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ITV services for socializing in public places

Watching TV in public locations is very different from watching at Home, but it can also be a worthy experience, especially in the context of certain collective events, such as live football. The increasingly rich features of iTV services may even provide the ground for making the Television infrastructure an alternative framework for the deployment of public display services. In this paper, we present and discuss integration scenarios in which the iTV infrastructure and public display services conceived for multi-user interaction in public spaces are combined to generate new types of services offer. It reveals a considerable potential on the idea of leveraging iTV infrastructures for supporting new types of public display services benefiting from content generated and social interactions of the co-located audience. The successful use of these approaches will require a clear understanding of the properties of the iTV infrastructure and a focus on the type of applications in which those properties may provide more added-value than limitations.(undefined

Near real-time analytics engine for vitals and environmental monitoring of first responders

First Responders are on a daily basis exposed to extreme conditions not only because of their duties but also due to the type of environment in which they perform. If the exposure to these conditions is not monitored, it may cause several health problems in long and short-term. This exposure can be controlled through vitals and environmental sensors placed in these professionals. However, the collected data is not relevant if it is not analyzed and processed. This analysis has the most benefits the closer it is to the moment the data is collected, allowing a more informed decision making. The purpose of this thesis is to study and implement a service system in the cloud enabling near real-time processing of the data that was collected by the sensors. This system allows the dynamic change of the running data processing services through a web interface, which also allows changing the source of the data that is going to be processed, whether it is from services that are external to the system or that are read directly from files. For this purpose we need each service to be sufficiently isolated not to interfere with others, choosing to keep a service per container because it addresses the least expensive virtualization option. This solution allows each machine to have several services that share the same computational resources, as its allocation is abstracted by the chosen solution. This system allows not only the integration of processing methods that already exist but also presents enough modularity so that they can be developed and integrated new methods

Synthesis, structural characterization and broadband ferromagnetic resonance in Li ferrite nanoparticles

Producción CientíficaLithium ferrites are well known materials due to its numerous technological applications especially in microwave devices. Lithium ferrite nanoparticles were prepared by sol-gel technique by means of Pechini method, and then annealed at different temperatures in 250–1000 °C range. XRD confirms spinel formation with particles sizes in 15–700 nm range, with increased size with annealing temperature, whereas FTIR and Raman measurement confirm that single phase lithium ferrite with ordered cationic structure is obtained. Microwave magnetoabsorption data of the annealed lithium ferrite nanoparticles were obtained with a broadband system based on a network analyzer that operates up to 8.5 GHz. At fields up to 200 mT we can observe a broad absorption peak that shifts to higher frequencies with magnetic field according to ferromagnetic resonance theory. The amplitude of absorption, up to 85%, together with the frequency width of about 5.5 GHz makes this material suitable as wave absorber. FMR parameters like resonance field, linewidth and broadening are analyzed in order to obtain the characteristic parameters and analyze the microwave behaviour.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad ( project MAT2016-80784-P

Guidelines for analysing the building energy efficiency using BIM

Introduction The benefits of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for the construction industry are already known and proved. One of the applications of BIM is to estimate buildings energy demand and foster the introduction of more efficient design alternatives. BIM creates information to support designers' decision-making and to allow them to compare and select the best options, enhancing buildings energy efficiency. With the increasing use of BIM and energy simulation tools, there is a need to establish a common and valid procedure for buildings energy assessment. Material and Methods By carrying out a building simulation with BIM, this paper identifies and describes the fundamental stages and requirements to perform a reliable, concise and fast energy assessment. These guidelines will consider Autodesk Revit as a BIM platform to create and prepare the building 3D model. Results The proposed guidelines cover all the required tasks for a BIM energy assessment, as the building modulation details and requirements, the software interoperability modes and restrictions and the comparison and selection of improvement measures. Inputs and advice are given regarding the use of some of the existing energy simulation BIM tools. Conclusions With the increasing number of studies addressing energy simulations with BIM, it is essential to define a set of requisites to precisely perform them. By identifying the minimum requirements and tasks, the proposed guidelines will support future studies in achieving more reliable and comparable results. The possibility to estimate and improve the energy demand of a building during the initial project stages allows for the opportunity to build high performance and more sustainable buildings. BIM capabilities might be an essential support to effectively improve the built environment energy efficiency and accomplish environmental goals.FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia(SFRH/BD/145735/2019

A systematic review of the role of BIM in building sustainability assessment methods

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is creating new opportunities for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry. One of them is the integration of the Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA) during the design process. Currently, an approach for using BIM to foster and optimise the application of BSA methods has not been clearly established yet, creating a knowledge gap on the application of BIM for sustainability assessment purposes. Thus, this paper analyses the current role of BIM to evaluate three BSA methods—LEED, BREEAM and SBTool. The current BIM applicability is assessed by performing a systematic review, where the criteria being assessed and the applied BIM software are identified. A comparison is made to determine which BSA method can currently take more advantage from BIM and to identify the number of assessed criteria from each one. Furthermore, the attractiveness of a BIM-based assessment for SBTool is analysed, facing the actual BIM scenario for LEED and BREEAM. Despite the restrictions, BIM use is increasing for sustainability purposes. Most of the analysed studies and identified software are still focused on the use of LEED for assessing sustainability during the design phase. However, BIM software capabilities can also support the assessment of the other BSA methods so that process replicability can happen. Among the most addressed criteria, the energy and material-related categories are the most eminent. Autodesk Revit is the most-used software. A BIM-based assessment for SBTool will have enough attractiveness. It can assess, at least, the same percentage of criteria as the other schemes, creating new opportunities to enhance building sustainability.This research was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, grant number SFRH/BD/145735/2019