IT quality and organization development: using action research to promote employee engagement, leadership development, learning, and organizational improvement

Within IT areas, Quality is often reduced to visions strongly influenced by operational and tactical instruments, relegating to minor dimensions crucial Organization Development (OD) aspects which sustain Learning, and Innovation. The current Program, grounded on the relevance of these aspects, has targeted, within a Bank’s IT Division, an approach to induce organizational change, and to produce strategic actions and behavioural changes which have led to an effective improvement on Customers, and Employees’ Satisfaction. It has followed an Action Research paradigm – addressing a complex, transformational, planed change, and using a multidimensional, integrative approach, based on a holistic, open systemic view – not targeting for the development of new theories, but, mainly, the fulfilment of existing empirical, and methodological gaps. It has integrated a two-cycle OD approach, where a first cycle focused on Service Culture, Leadership, and Employee Engagement has developed the conditions for a second cycle based on the acquired knowledge (double loop) and devoted to strategy implementation. Although the intervention’s achievements cannot be generalized outside the context, they can be transposed to other settings. They’ve revealed important Management Implications which form the relevance basis for this doctoral dissertation, namely a holistic, values-based, and participative framework to address organizational transformation, and the associated critical success factors. An opportunity exists to further research in the field, linking together an OD approach with a TQM approach to organizational excellence. Also, a metamodel of the Action Research process which has been followed – evidencing, at a conceptual level, the main sub-processes, data groups, and linking points between the action and the research dimensions – has been produced. An opportunity exists for further research on the development of this metamodel, including a conceptual data model and a system behavioural perspective (responding to events).Nas áreas de TI, a Qualidade é frequentemente reduzida a visões fortemente influenciadas por instrumentos táticos e operacionais, menorizando aspetos de Desenvolvimento Organizacional (DO) que são essenciais para sustentar a Aprendizagem e a Inovação. O presente programa, alicerçado na relevância destes aspetos, visou, no contexto da Divisão de TI de um Banco, desenvolver uma aproximação indutora de mudança organizacional; produzindo ações de índole estratégica e mudanças comportamentais; tendo conduzindo a um incremento significativo na Satisfação de Clientes Internos e de Colaboradores. Um primeiro ciclo – focado na Cultura de Serviço, na Liderança e no Envolvimento dos Colaboradores – criou as condições para num segundo ciclo, baseado no conhecimento organizacional adquirido, e nas decisões estratégicas emergentes (“double loop” learning), proceder à respetiva implementação. Foi seguido um paradigma de Investigação-Ação – endereçando uma mudança complexa, transformacional, planeada; usando uma abordagem multidimensional e integrativa; baseada numa perspetiva holística e de sistemas abertos – não visando diretamente o desenvolvimento de novas teorias, mas, fundamentalmente o colmatar de lacunas de índole empírica e metodológica. Embora os resultados obtidos não possam ser generalizados fora do contexto, eles podem, contudo, ser transpostos para outras intervenções; evidenciando-se como importantes Implicações para a Gestão que integram a base de relevância desta tese: um Quadro de Referência para a Transformação Organizacional Holística, Participativa e Baseada em Valores e respetivos Fatores Críticos de Sucesso. Numa perspetiva de Desenvolvimento Organizacional abrem-se ainda oportunidades de investigação-ação futura, no mesmo contexto, progredindo para uma abordagem à Qualidade Total e à Excelência Organizacional. Para além disso, outro dos resultados relevantes da investigação corresponde à produção do Metamodelo do Processo de Investigação-Ação que foi seguido – evidenciando, ao nível conceptual, os seus principais subprocessos, grupos de dados e pontos de articulação entre a vertente de ação e a vertente de investigação. Nesta vertente, abrem-se ainda oportunidades de investigação futura em termos de desenvolvimento do metamodelo, por forma a incluir uma visão conceptual de dados e uma perspetiva comportamental de sistema (resposta a eventos)

ACTION, DESIGN & RESEARCH – A PROCESS META-MODEL

Conducting Action and Design Research within organizations – with the objective of solving multidimensional problems, promoting effective change, developing useful artifacts, and generating actionable knowledge – involves the iterative application of a rigorous set of integrated processes. In a previous publication – based on empirical work, on a comprehensive literature review, and the practice of applying it to teach graduate students on qualitative research methods – a high-level conceptual model for Action & Design Research has been developed and published. It has identified – through the presentation of a tri-dimensional perspective, under the form of a cube – the essential processes and data components, emerging from the Organization Development, Engineering, and Science perspectives. Based on that high-level conceptual view, the objective of the current article is to detail a pragmatic approach to the main activities which are involved in the Action and Design Science Research approaches – under the form of high-level Process Meta-Models

Desenvolvimento de uma receita de cone artesanal sem glúten

O crescente número de doentes celíacos torna relevante o desenvolvimento de novas tecnologias na indústria alimentar para um aumento e aperfeiçoamento de produtos sem glúten no mercado. O objetivo geral deste trabalho consistiu no desenvolvimento de uma receita de cone de bolacha artesanal sem glúten. Efetuou-se a formulação da bolacha sem glúten, tendo por base a receita original de bolacha de cone Santini, substituindo a farinha de trigo por farinha de arroz do tipo Remyflo R200 T. As restantes matérias-primas foram mantidas por serem isentas de glúten. Ao longo do estudo, as diversas receitas criadas foram sendo monitorizadas pelo Departamento de Qualidade e Segurança Alimentar da Santini com provas organolépticas e complementadas com análises microbiológicas, nutricionais e de deteção de glúten, para uma selecção qualitativa dos produtos em estudo. Numa fase primária do estudo testou-se a utilização de diferentes matérias-primas de modo a permitir tomar uma decisão de incorporação, ou não, das mesmas. Posteriormente, selecionaram-se duas receitas que demonstraram ter um sabor e textura desejáveis e efetuaram-se provas sensoriais para comparação com uma amostra de cone normal Santini. Essas provas foram realizadas com recurso a um painel de consumidores no Centro de Apoio Tecnológico Agro-Alimentar, em Castelo Branco. Na segunda fase desenvolveu-se o ajuste da quantidade dos ingredientes a usar nas receitas até se chegar à formulação final. Por último, realizou-se uma prova com a formulação final da receita, junto dos clientes Santini, na loja de Cascais, apresentando resultados muito satisfatórios. A receita do cone sem glúten ficou estabilizada com os seguintes ingredientes: farinha de arroz, açúcar, gordura vegetal, lecitina de soja, soro de leite, baunilha, água, gema de ovo, amido de milho, goma xantana e limão. O cone sem glúten foi criado com sucesso no entanto, no futuro seria interessante melhorar o seu perfil nutricional.Abstract : The increasing number of celiac patients makes relevant the development of new technologies in the food industry for a higher quality and improvement of gluten-free products. The primary objective of this study was the development of a gluten-free recipe handcrafted waffle cone. Gluten-free waffle formulation was based on the original recipe of the Santini waffle cone, by replacing the wheat flour with rice flour type Remyflo R200 T. The other raw materials were gluten-free. Throughout the study, several recipes were created and monitored by the Department of Food Quality and Safety of Santini. Organoleptic, microbiological, nutritional and gluten detection tests and analyses were conducted with the goal of a qualitative selection of the studied products. In a first stage of the study, the incorporation of different raw materials was tested in order to allow a decision of incorporated them or not. Subsequently, two recipes that demonstrated a desirable taste and texture were selected for comparison with a normal sample of Santini waffle cone by using tasting tests. These tests were carried out by a panel of trained consumers at the Centro de Apoio Tecnológico Agro-alimentar of Castelo Branco. The second stage served to implemented adjustments in the values of the ingredients until the final formulation recipe was reached. Finally, a test was carried out with the final formulation of the gluten-free recipe, conducted to the Santini customers at Cascais store, and results showed very sucessful. The gluten-free recipe of waffle cone has been stabled with the following ingredients: rice flour, sugar, vegetable fat, soy lecithin, whey, vanilla, water, egg yolk, maize starch, xanthan gum and lemon. The new gluten-free waffle cone was successfully created, however in future, it would be interesting to investigate in terms of improving the nutrional profile of the new recipe

Estimating Listeria monocytogenes growth in ready-to-eat chicken salad using a challenge test for quantitative microbial risk assessment

Research Areas: Public, Environmental & Occupational Health ; Mathematics ; Mathematical Methods In Social SciencesCurrently, there is a growing preference for convenience food products, such as ready-toeat (RTE) foods, associated with long refrigerated shelf-lives, not requiring a heat treatment prior to consumption. Because Listeria monocytogenes is able to grow at refrigeration temperatures, inconsistent temperatures during production, distribution, and at consumer’s household may allow for the pathogen to thrive, reaching unsafe limits. L. monocytogenes is the causative agent of listeriosis, a rare but severe human illness, with high fatality rates, transmitted almost exclusively by food consumption. With the aim of assessing the quantitative microbial risk of L. monocytogenes in RTE chicken salads, a challenge test was performed. Salads were inoculated with a three-strain mixture of cold-adapted L. monocytogenes and stored at 4, 12, and 16 °C for eight days. Results revealed that the salad was able to support L. monocytogenes’ growth, even at refrigeration temperatures. The Baranyi primary model was fitted to microbiological data to estimate the pathogen’s growth kinetic parameters. Temperature effect on the maximum specific growth rate (μmax) was modeled using a square-root-type model. Storage temperature significantly influenced μmax of L. monocytogenes (p < 0.05). These predicted growth models for L. monocytogenes were subsequently used to develop a quantitative microbial risk assessment, estimating a median number of 0.00008726 listeriosis cases per year linked to the consumption of these RTE salads. Sensitivity analysis considering different time–temperature scenarios indicated a very low median risk per portion (<−7 log), even if the assessed RTE chicken salad was kept in abuse storage conditions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Burden of disease estimation based on Escherichia coli quantification in ready-to-eat meals served in Portuguese institutional canteens

Research Areas: Food Science & TechnologyShiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) and enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) are associated with the onset of gastroenteritis with different severities, and STEC has been associated with other sequelae, such as hemolytic uremic syndrome and end stage renal disease. The main goal of this study was to estimate the annual foodborne burden of disease associated with STEC, ETEC and EPEC infection based on E. coli quantification results obtained in the routine analysis of ready-to-eat meals served in institutional canteens from 2018 to 2019. A stochastic Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) model was used to estimate the expected number of cases per health outcome and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). Assuming a daily consumption of a whole meal portion (450 g), the estimated burden was of 4.2 x 10-3 DALYs/person/year for STEC infection, 2.82 x 10-4 DALYs/person/year for ETEC infection and 7.91 x 10-6 DALYs/person/year for EPEC infection. Additionally, using the Sobol method, the sensitivity analysis revealed that the factors with higher influence on the final output (DALYs) were the pathotype's prevalence for the STEC model, the number of people exposed to the hazard for the ETEC model and E. coli concentrations for the EPEC modelinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

a new European Agenda

UIDB/04666/2020 UIDP/04666/2020 UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020publishersversionpublishe

Histone gene replacement reveals a post-transcriptional role for H3K36 in maintaining metazoan transcriptome fidelity

Histone H3 lysine 36 methylation (H3K36me) is thought to participate in a host of co-transcriptional regulatory events. To study the function of this residue independent from the enzymes that modify it, we used a ‘histone replacement’ system in Drosophila to generate a non-modifiable H3K36 lysine-to-arginine (H3K36R) mutant. We observed global dysregulation of mRNA levels in H3K36R animals that correlates with the incidence of H3K36me3. Similar to previous studies, we found that mutation of H3K36 also resulted in H4 hyperacetylation. However, neither cryptic transcription initiation, nor alternative pre-mRNA splicing, contributed to the observed changes in expression, in contrast with previously reported roles for H3K36me. Interestingly, knockdown of the RNA surveillance nuclease, Xrn1, and members of the CCR4-Not deadenylase complex, restored mRNA levels for a class of downregulated, H3K36me3-rich genes. We propose a post-transcriptional role for modification of replication-dependent H3K36 in the control of metazoan gene expression

Prosodic, syntactic, semantic guidelines for topic structures across domains and corpora

This paper presents the annotation guidelines applied to naturally occurring speech, aiming at an integrated account of contrast and parallel structures in European Portuguese. These guidelines were defined to allow for the empirical study of interactions among intonation and syntax-discourse patterns in selected sets of different corpora (monologues and dialogues, by adults and teenagers). In this paper we focus on the multilayer annotation process of left periphery structures by using a small sample of highly spontaneous speech in which the distinct types of topic structures are displayed. The analysis of this sample provides fundamental training andtesting material for further application in a wider range of domains and corpora. The annotation process comprises the following time-linked levels (manual and automatic): phone, syllable and word level transcriptions (including co-articulation effects); tonal events and break levels; part-of-speech tagging; syntactic-discourse patterns (construction type; construction position; syntactic function; discourse function), and disfluency events as well. Speech corpora with such a multi-level annotation are a valuable resource to look into grammar module relations in language use from an integrated viewpoint. Such viewpoint is innovative in our language, and has not been often assumed by studies for other languages

The Histone Deacetylase SIRT6 Restrains Transcription Elongation via Promoter-Proximal Pausing.

Transcriptional regulation in eukaryotes occurs at promoter-proximal regions wherein transcriptionally engaged RNA polymerase II (Pol II) pauses before proceeding toward productive elongation. The role of chromatin in pausing remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that the histone deacetylase SIRT6 binds to Pol II and prevents the release of the negative elongation factor (NELF), thus stabilizing Pol II promoter-proximal pausing. Genetic depletion of SIRT6 or its chromatin deficiency upon glucose deprivation causes intragenic enrichment of acetylated histone H3 at lysines 9 (H3K9ac) and 56 (H3K56ac), activation of cyclin-dependent kinase 9 (CDK9)-that phosphorylates NELF and the carboxyl terminal domain of Pol II-and enrichment of the positive transcription elongation factors MYC, BRD4, PAF1, and the super elongation factors AFF4 and ELL2. These events lead to increased expression of genes involved in metabolism, protein synthesis, and embryonic development. Our results identified SIRT6 as a Pol II promoter-proximal pausing-dedicated histone deacetylase

The Mousterian site of Cobrinhos, Vila Velha de Ródão (Portugal)

Vila Velha de Rodão é particularmente conhecida pela presença de sítios moustierenses de ar livre, alguns deles com muito boa preservação. Dentro destes, destacam-se Foz do Enxarrique (33.4 ka), com a maior colecção de restos faunísticos em contexto de ar livre moustierenses em Portugal e Vilas Ruivas (68 ka +35 ka/−26 ka e 51 ka +13 ka/−12 ka), uma das muito poucas, também de ar livre, com lareiras, buracos de poste, e a única com para-ventos. No presente artigo apresentamos Cobrinhos, um novo sítio moustierense identiicado no Outono de 2014, a 2,3 km para montante da Foz do Enxarrique, durante a ampliação da fábrica de papel da AMS, S.A.. Dada a urgência da intervenção, sem possibilidade de alteração do projecto ou do calendário de obra, foi necessário proceder de forma muito mais expedita do que é usual. Os resultados preliminares mostram que o nível ocupacional constituído por várias dezenas de milhares de peças, se encontra disperso por cerca de 2500 m2, concentrado numa área de 1600m2, mas bem delimitado verticalmente numa facha de 40cm, sem se verificarem quaisquer misturas com artefactos de outras épocas. Apesar de ainda não se encontrar datado, as características de Cobrinhos, principalmente no que diz respeito à sua implantação, mostraram que o conhecimento do Paleolítico na região está longe de se encontrar esgotado e que o seu progresso poderá depender do redireccionamento da investigação para sectores ainda não explorados.Vila Velha de Rodão is particularly known by the presence of open-air Mousterian sites, some of them with great preservation. Among the last, stand out Foz do Enxarrique (33.4 ky), with the largest collection of faunal remains in Mousterian openair contexts in Portugal and Vilas Ruivas (68 ka +35 ka/−26 ka and 51 ka +13 ka/−12 ka), one of the very few, also open-air, with residential structures such as hearts, post-holes and windshields. In this paper we present Cobrinhos, a new Mousterian site found in the fall of 2014, 2.3km upstream of Foz do Enxarrique, during the expansion of the AMS, S.A. paper factory infrastructures. Due to the urge of the intervention, without any possibility of changes of the project or schedule, it was necessary to proceed in a much more expedite fashion than usual. The preliminary results show that the occupational level, composed of several dozen thousand artifacts is dispersed though 2500 m2, but especially concentrate in an area of 1600m2 and well delimited in a vertical strip of 40cm, without any admixture with artifacts of other periods. Although it is not yet dated, the characteristics of Cobrinhos, especially in what concerns to its setting, showed that the knowledge of the Paleolithic in the region is far from being exhausted and that the progress of its investigation might depend of the redirection of the research to sectors yet to be explored.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio