Main differences in strategic decisions between sharing economy platforms and collaborative consumption platforms

Literature on sharing economy is still very limited and lacks clear boundaries to which businesses should and should not be included in its sphere. The present study defines the differences and similarities between the business models of pure sharing economy platforms, such as Turo, and collaborative consumption platforms, such as DriveNow, as both are frequently included in the sharing economy sphere. Using the business model canvas framework to compare each of the nine elements that constitute both business models, results show that the customer interface is the only similarity between the two business models while the value proposition, infrastructure management and financial aspects differ significantly between sharing economy and collaborative consumption platforms. Based on these results, it is clear that pure sharing economy platforms and collaborative consumption platforms should not be treated indifferently as part of the sharing economy sphere as generalizations would lead to wrong conclusions based on incorrect assumptions

Regional Tourism Observatory of Alentejo (Portugal) - A conceptual framework to develop a Tourism Satelite Account

This poster focuses on the methodological features of the project Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) in the Alentejo Regional Area of Portugal, developed in the context of Regional Observatory for Tourism in the Alentejo 2010-2012. The purpose is to present the conceptual framework designed to be used in developing a Regional TSA. The literature review was undertaken to identify the methodological frameworks that have been presented at international level to develop the TSA and also to assess the methodologies that have been used in different countries. Primarily results evidence that despite the economic importance of tourism is universally acknowledge, there are still many gaps in information available that can be compared in an international scale

Applicability of Multispectral Imagery for Detection of Prescribed Fires and Rekindling

Forest fires are an increasingly relevant problem nowadays with the worsening of global warming’s most severe consequences. These fire occurrences, that can cause immense damage to forest ecosystems and have a great negative impact in peoples lives,begin often with rekindles. These problems can be very difficult to tackle, needing to involve a lot of people to surveil the areas at risk. A system capable of executing this surveillance protocol and alerting the fire fighting authorities of fire and possible rekindle occurrences would be extremely beneficial in these scenarios.A system aiming to achieve this goal is being implemented, composed of an UAV equipped with a multispectral camera, capturing aerial images of these areas. This dissertation presents a fire detection model to be used in prescribed fires and rekindling situations, identifying fire instances within the captured images. It makes use of the camera’s various spectral bands to highlight the areas at greatest risk and of deep learning technology to autonomously recognise these areas.Incêndios florestais são um problema cada vez mais relevante nos dias de hoje com o agravamento das consequências mais graves do aquecimento global. Estas ocorrências,que podem causar imensos danos aos ecossistemas florestais e ter um grande impacto negativo na vida das pessoas, são muitas vezes iniciadas por reacendimentos. Estes problemas podem ser muito difíceis de combater, necessitando de envolver muitas pessoas para vigiar as áreas de risco. Um sistema capaz de executar este protocolo de vigilância e alertar as autoridades de combate a incêndio sobre fogos e possíveis reacendimentos seria extremamente benéfico nestes cenários.Para alcançar este objetivo, está a ser implementado um sistema composto por um UAV, equipado com uma câmera multiespectral, que irá capturar imagens aéreas dessas áreas. Esta dissertação apresenta um modelo de detecção de incêndios para ser utilizado em situações de fogos controlados e reacendimentos, identificando ocorrências de fogo nas imagens capturadas. Faz uso das várias bandas espectrais da câmera para destacar as áreas de maior risco e de tecnologia de aprendizagem automática para reconhecer essas áreas de forma autônoma

CSR and perceived price fairness : an analysis on willingness to pay and perceived benefit

The objective of this study is to assess the potential effect that engagement in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) may have on consumers’ Perceived Price Fairness. Following the literature that already developed on this topic, the study approaches the knowledge gap in the field by, simultaneously, considering Willingness to Pay, here measured using the Price Sensitivity Meter by Van Westendorp (1976) and Perceived Benefit of active CSR engagement. The study followed an experimental approach via an online survey, concerning three types of products and two social causes supported by CSR engagement. To gather insights, the study follows the Price Sensitivity Meter framework to measure different pricing options and strategies for products from firms who actively engage in CSR. The results point put that to two of the three products under analysis make for increased Willingness to Pay. On all cases, respondents pointed out an increase in added perceived benefit when faced with CSR activities. On the two cases where a positive effect was registered, consumers’ Perceived Benefit increase outmeasured the growth in Willingness to Pay, making a case that CSR engagement indeed provides for an increase in Perceived Price Fairness. In one of the cases. Consumers recognized an increase on Perceived Benefit but their Willingness to Pay followed an opposite direction.O presente estudo tem como objetivo identificar se o compromisso de empresas em ações de Responsabilidade Social Corporativa (RSC) tem efeito na Perceção de Justiça de Preço dos consumidores. Seguindo autores que já exploraram o tema, esta dissertação tenta colmatar uma falha no conhecimento no campo ao contemplar, em simultâneo, a Disponibilidade de Compra por parte dos consumidores e sua perceção de benefício adquirido através da implementação de políticas de RSC. O estudo seguiu uma abordagem experimental através de um questionário online, considerando três tipos de produtos e duas causas sociais apoiadas pelas atividades de RSC. De forma a cogitar conclusões, o estudo segue o modelo do Medidor de Sensibilidade ao Preço de modo a medir diferentes opções e estratégias de preço em produtos oriundos de empresas que ativamente desenvolvam atividades de RSC. Os resultados mostram que em dois dos três produtos analisados existe um aumento na Disponibilidade de Compra. Em todos os casos, registou-se um aumento na perceção de benefício adquirido por parte dos consumidores. Nos dois casos em que se verifica um efeito positivo por parte das atividades de RSC, o aumento do benefício adquirido suplantou o aumento da Disponibilidade de Compra, sendo um indicador de que as atividades de RSC potenciam, de facto, um aumento na Perceção de Justiça de Preço nos consumidores. Num dos casos, os consumidores identificaram um aumento na sua Perceção de Benefício mas a sua Disponibilidade de Compra seguiu um comportamento oposto

Optimal deployment of mobile gateways in LoRaWAN environments

The recent growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has given rise to new applications and technologies. Of these technologies, LoRa is the one that has stood out recently due to its ability to transmit packets over long distances at low energy costs. In addition to this, this technology also uses unlicensed frequency bands, and all these factors make it possible to build low energy cost networks with large coverage areas at low monetary cost. This makes LoRa very appealing for environments where multiple square kilometers need to be covered for monitoring, such as agriculture. This thesis focuses primarily on positioning gateways in a Lo- RaWAN in order to achieve energy fairness in the network.The target in question is an environmental sensor network that monitors conditions inside tree canopies in an orange orchard in the Algarve, south of Portugal.The peculiar characteristics of these orange trees, with heights up to 3.5 m and very dense foliage, makes it a very challenging environment for radio waves propagation and causes a rapid drop in signal quality. The power consumption of the end-nodes of the network is defined by 7 combinations of spreading factor and bandwidth (0 to 6) where 0 represents the slowest and most reliable transmission at the cost of higher power consumption while 6 represents the opposite. The combination of bandwidth and spreading factor is denominated data rate. Environmental factors can negatively impact the quality of LoRa packets and the necessary power adjustments of the end-node to overcome this, and increase signal reliability, can easily define whether a device is able to transmit for 1 year or 10! The main factors that can affect signal quality are obstruction, distance and meteorology. In the case study, of these 3 factors, obstruction affects transmission quality the most. Most of the literature suggests solutions within the framework of optimizing the datarate optimization algorithm (ADR). ADR aims to minimize energy consumption while ensuring the best possible packet transmission rate and achieves this by changing the data rate based on the quality of the last 20 packets received.However, this optimization is done directly to individual end-nodes and does not solve the problem of energy fairness over the whole network because, regardless of how optimized this algorithm is, the algorithm cannot transcend the physical constraints imposed by the devices and the technology itself. Distance and obstruction will always be obstacles to signal quality. Since these physical constraints will always be present in a network and the solutions proposed by the literature only improve performance at the level of individual devices, this ends up creating a large lifetime discrepancy between devices depending on their placement. In the case of LHT65s, the discrepancy in device life expectancy is high. For example the difference between using a data rate of 0 or 5 is about 10 years. The solution proposed in this thesis to overcome this problem is to precompute the optimal position for the gateways in order to guarantee the highest life expectancy for the network. Given a number of available positions for the gateways and having a certain number of gateways less than the number of positions, the goal is to compute the optimal positioning of the gateways in order to maximize the overall network life expectancy by ensuring a fair energy consumption among different end-nodes. The first step in this process was to collect information about signal quality from a real case LoRaWAN deployment. This allowed to better understand the constraints and problems associated with its implementation. This was done using 25 LTH65 devices, 1 RAK 7244 gateway and Chirpstack as the framework to manage the network. Regarding the study of the algorithm before applying it to the practical case, a simulator was used to collect data. The simulator chosen for the development of the application was OMNet++, which besides being easier to use is also better documented than the other options considered. This simulator also offers a graphical interface with great detail that allows you to easily observe the behavior of the network. Using the Flora module it was simulated a LoRaWAN network with the structure suggested by the LoRa Alliance® with 25 devices using Oulu’s path loss model. The information obtained from this simulation was used as input and test for the algorithm that was compiled by CPLEX. In each simulation about 10,000 packets were sent per device and each experiment was repeated 30 times. The results show that the optimization model has the ability to identify the best placement for the gateway given a predefined locations and network geometry. This is due to the fact that the algorithm identifies the lowest value in the highest energy consumption per packet, and minimizing this value creates a balance of consumption among the devices and consequently extends the life expectancy of the network. It can then be concluded that this methodology is indeed efficient for deployments where changing network devices cannot be done frequently. Although it is not easy to relocate gateways in already implemented networks, but in new environments where monitoring and optimization are requirements, and these new environments are built considering the network structure, we can use this methodology since it has proven to be able to improve network life expectancy.O recente crescimento da Internet das Coisas (IoT) deu origem a novas aplicac¸ ˜oes e tecnologias. Destas tecnologias, a LoRa ´e a que se tem destacado recentemente devido `a sua capacidade de transmitir pacotes a longas distˆancias a baixos custos energ´eticos. Al´em disso, esta tecnologia tamb´em utiliza bandas de frequˆencia n˜ao licenciadas, e todos estes factores tornam poss´ıvel a construc¸ ˜ao de redes de baixo custo energ´etico com grandes ´areas de cobertura a baixo custo monet´ario. Isto torna LoRa muito apelativo para ambientes onde v´arios quil´ometros quadrados precisam de ser cobertos para monitorizac¸ ˜ao, tais como a agricultura. Esta tese centra-se principalmente no posicionamento de gateways numa rede LoRaWAN, a fim de alcançar a energy fairness na rede.(...)This work was supported by FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) from Portugal within CEOT (Center for Electronic, Optoelectronic and Telecommunications) and UID/MULTI/00631/2020 project

Unemployment and resilience: The role of optimism in perception of lack of health

This study was performed with the purpose of testing a relationship between optimism and perception of lack of health, as well as its mediation through resilience, in the context of recurrent unemployment. To reach this study goal, research was conducted by using face-to-face and online questionnaires, which were filled by 298 Portuguese unemployed individuals. The sample is composed by different genders, marital status and levels of education; and responses were collected in several different locations. Results confirm that optimistic individuals easily use challenges of being a high number of times unemployed to increase their repertoire of resilience, and by developing their alternatives to cope with adversity, they decrease their perception of lack of health. Furthermore, this study’s results showed that low optimism difficulted the transformation of unpleasant situations into resilient attitudes, which leads to a higher perception of lack of well-being. Practical implications are discussed by highlighting the urgency in developing differentiated interventions to act upon both types of traits

Floods in southern Portugal: their physical and human causes, impacts and human response

Floods have been the most deadly natural disasters in Portugal during the last century, followed by earthquakes. The type of flood known as a ‘progressive flood’ mainly affects the larger basins, such as that of the Tagus River, and results in a large inundated area. These floods are caused by heavy rains associated with a westerly zonal circulation that may persist for weeks. The system of dams within the basin reduces the frequency of flooding, but cannot ‘tame’ the river. The dam system has even contributed to an increase in the peak flow, as in the 1979 flood. Nevertheless, these floods are not a danger for the human population. In contrast, flash floods are more dangerous and deadlier than progressive floods, as demonstrated in 1967 and 1997. They affect the small drainage basins and are caused by heavy and concentrated rainfall, created by convective depressions (active cold pools or depressions caused by the interaction between polar and tropical air masses), active in the south of the country, in the Lisbon region, Alentejo and the Algarve. Deforestation, soil impermeability, chaotic urbanization, building on floodplains, the blockage of small creeks or their canalisation, and the building of walls and transverse embankments along the small creeks all contribute to the aggravation of this kind of flood.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

When the patient denies... Reflection on the rights of the elderly patient

Introducción: la voluntad del paciente es un vector a través del cual él / ella afirma su / sus derechos individuales. El derecho a la "negación" es una expresión práctica de la libertad de elección, biológica, psicológica y social, en conjunto. Objetivo: La reflexión crítica de la voluntad del paciente a través de un caso clínico. Descripción del caso clínico: Mujer de edad avanzada, 74 años, viuda recientemente, independiente en las actividades de la vida diaria. Diabetes mellitus tipo 2, retinopatía y neuropatía. Propuesta amputación del pie izquierdo debido a la extensa úlcera del pie complicada por la osteomielitis, a la cual se niega la paciente. La paciente se encuentra con atención médica domiciliaria, proporcionada por un equipo de profesionales de atención domiciliaria continua integrada de salud de Campanhã. El conjunto clínico se complicó por el desarrollo y diagnóstico de endocarditis bacteriana aguda. El equipo ECCI, psiquiatra y médico de la salud pública intervinieron en un esfuerzo para implicar al paciente en una decisión bien informada. Debido a la persistente negación de la paciente a la orientación y atención, y después de confirmar su idoneidad mental para tomar una decisión de este tipo, se respeta su libertad de elección. Discusión / Conclusión: ¿Hasta dónde debe llegar la asistencia sanitaria? Denegación de asistencia médica, específicamente por el paciente de edad avanzada, podría ser un signo de vulnerabilidad, requiere una orientación específica y la intervención personalizada. El dilema ético es paradójico - el derecho del paciente a la negación y el deber de los profesionales de la salud de aceptarlo, lo que representan el respeto de los principios éticos de autonomía, frente al principio de beneficencia.Introduction: Patient’s will is a vector through which he/she claims his/her individual rights. The right to “denial” is a practical expression of freedom of choice, biological, psychological and social, altogether. Objective: Critical reflection on patient’s will through a clinical case. Description of the Clinical Case: Elderly woman, 74 years old, short-time widowhood, independent for daily life activities. Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, retinopathy and neuropathy. Proposed left foot amputation due to extensive foot ulcer complicated by osteomyelitis, which the patient refuses. The patient was flagged for domiciliary healthcare, provided by a team of integrated continuous domiciliary care healthcare professionals from Campanhã. The clinical set was complicated by the development and diagnosis of acute bacterial endocarditis. The ECCI team, psychiatrist and public health practitioner intervened in an effort to involve the patient in a well-informed decision. Because of the patient’s persistent denial of orientation and care, and after confirming her mental suitability to make such a decision, her freedom of choice was respected. Discussion/Conclusion: How far should we go in healthcare? Refusal of medical assistance, specifically by the elderly patient, might be a sign of vulnerability and requires specific orientation and customized intervention. The ethical dilemma is paradoxical – the patient’s right to denial and the duty of healthcare professionals to accept it, which represent respect for ethical principle of autonomy, versus the principle of beneficence.Introdução A vontade manifesta pelo doente é um vetor de afirmação dos seus direitos individuais. O direito à recusa é uma expressão concreta da liberdade biopsicossocial do doente. Objetivo: Reflexão crítica do tema, através da partilha de um caso clínico. Descrição do Caso Clínico Idosa, 74 anos, independente nas atividades da vida diária, vive só (viuvez recente). Diabetes mellitus tipo 2 com retinopatia e neuropatia. Proposta amputação do pé esquerdo por úlcera extensa com osteomielite, que recusou. Orientada para a Equipa de Cuidados Continuados Integrados (ECCI) de Campanhã. Quadro agravado com posterior diagnóstico de endocardite bacteriana. A equipa multidisciplinar da ECCI, Psiquiatria e Delegada de Saúde interviram para envolver a utente numa decisão informada. Pela recusa sistemática às propostas de orientação e tratamento, e tendo a sua capacidade de decisão sido considerada preservada, foi respeitado o seu direito fundamental de recusa. Discussão/ Conclusão Até onde podemos ir? A recusa de assistência médica, particularmente no doente idoso, pode ser reflexo da sua vulnerabilidade individual, e carece de sinalização e intervenção personalizada. O dilema ético ambivalente e dual na perspetiva – o direito da utente em recusar e o dever dos profissionais de saúde em aceitar a recusa, respeitando o princípio ético da autonomia, versus o princípio da beneficência.peerReviewe

A comparative analysis of the difference in female employment between Spain and Portugal

This study tries to explain why, according to official data, the female employment in Portugal is 9,4% higher when compared to Spain. Previous literature has found relevant drivers when analyzing employment gaps such as fertility and policies concerning fertility, part-time employment, inconsistency in educational attainment; and on a cross-country basis, cultural aspects such as attitudes towards the woman’s role in society. Although a substantial amount of research has been made, comparing the south with the north of Europe, there is a lack of literature on the comparison of the two Iberian countries. This study tries to fill this gap using data from the European Values Survey. It incorporates variables such as age, fertility, growing up with a working mother, education level, marital status, as well as attitudes towards female labor market activity, in a binary model in order to explain the probability of a woman working. Findings show that education, marital status, attitudes and having grown up in a household where the mother works may be important factors explaining this disparity in employment levels.Este estudo tenta explicar por que, de acordo com dados oficiais, o emprego feminino em Portugal é 9,4% maior quando comparado com Espanha. Literatura precedente encontrou fatores relevantes para analisar as diferenças de emprego, como a fertilidade e as políticas relacionadas com a fertilidade, part-time emprego, inconsistência no nível de escolaridade; e em uma base cross-country, aspetos culturais, tais como atitudes em relação ao papel da mulher na sociedade. Embora uma quantidade substancial de investigação tenha sido feito comparando o sul com o norte da Europa, há uma falta de literatura sobre a comparação entre os dois países ibéricos. Este estudo tenta explicar a diferença cross-country nas taxas de emprego das mulheres entre Portugal e Espanha, utilizando dados do European Values Survey. Ele incorpora variáveis como a idade, a fertilidade, a crescer com uma mãe que trabalha, nível de educação, estado civil, bem como atitudes em relação à atividade do mercado de trabalho feminino, num modelo binário para examinar a probabilidade de uma mulher trabalhar. Os resultados mostram que o nível de educação, estado civil, atitudes e tendo crescido em uma casa onde a mãe trabalha podem ser fatores importantes para explicar esta disparidade nos níveis de emprego