Modelling partial customer churn in the Portuguese fixed telecommunications industry by using survival models

Considering that profits from customer relationships are the lifeblood of firms (Grant and Schlesinger, 1995), an improvement on the customer management is essential to ensure the competitivity and success of firms. For the last decade, Portuguese customers of fixed telecommunications industry have easily switched the service provider, which has been very damaging for the business performance and, therefore, for the economy. The main objective of this study is to analyse the partial churn of residential customers in the fixed-telecommunications industry (fixed-telephone and ADSL), by using survival models. Additionally, we intend to test the assumption of constant customer retention rate over time and across customers. Lastly, the effect of satisfaction on partial customer churn is analysed. The models are developed by using large-scale data from an internal database of a Portuguese fixed telecommunications company. The models are estimated with a large number of covariates, which includes customer’s basic information, demographics, churn flag, customer historical information about usage, billing, subscription, credit, and other. Our results show that the variables that influence the partial customer churn are the service usage, mean overall revenues, current debts, the number of overdue bills, payment method, equipment renting, the existence of flat plans and the province of the customer. Portability also affects the probability of churn in fixed-telephone contracts. The results also suggest that the customer retention rate is neither constant over time nor across customers, for both types of contracts. Lastly, it seems that satisfaction does not influence the cancellation of both types of contracts.Considerando que os lucros gerados pelos clientes são vitais para as empresas (Grant e Schlesinger, 1995), uma melhoria na gestão do cliente é fundamental para assegurar a competitividade e o sucesso das empresas. Na última década, os clientes portugueses das empresas de telecomunicações fixas têm mudado de operador com demasiada facilidade, o que tem prejudicado o desempenho das empresas e, consequentemente, a economia. O principal objectivo deste estudo é analisar o cancelamento de contratos de telefone fixo e ADSL por clientes residenciais, através do uso de modelos de sobrevivência. Para além disso, pretende-se testar o pressuposto de que a taxa de retenção de clientes é constante ao longo do tempo e entre clientes. Por último, pretende-se analisar o efeito da satisfação do cliente no cancelamento destes tipos de contratos. Os modelos são construídos com base numa base de dados de larga escala fornecida por uma empresa portuguesa deste sector. Os modelos são estimados com base num vasto número de variáveis, incluindo informação básica sobre o cliente, dados demográficos, indicação sobre o cancelamento do contrato, dados históricos sobre o uso dos serviços, facturação, contracto, crédito, etc.. Os resultados mostram que as variáveis que influenciam o cancelamento de ambos os tipos de contratos são o uso do serviço, a facturação média, o valor em dívida, o número de facturas em dívida, o método de pagamento, o método de pagamento do equipamento, a existência de tarifas planas e o distrito do cliente. A portabilidade de número parece influenciar o cancelamento de contratos de telefone fixo. Os resultados também mostram que a taxa de retenção de clientes não é constante ao longo do tempo nem entre clientes em ambos os tipos de contratos. Por último, parece que a satisfação não influencia o cancelamento de ambos os tipos de contratos

Conceções e práticas das educadoras cooperantes face à disciplina em contextos de creche e jardim de infância

O presente Relatório do Projeto de Investigação surge no âmbito de Mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar da Escola Superior de Educação de Setúbal e tem como principal objetivo compreender a função das Educadoras Cooperantes na mediação dos conflitos existentes em contextos de Creche e Jardim de Infância. Procurou-se interpretar os modos de intervenção, dos profissionais de educação, na resolução de conflitos, e, ainda, compreender e avaliar a importância atribuída à disciplina na construção do currículo dessas Educadoras Cooperantes. O Relatório do Projeto de Investigação apresenta como metodologias o paradigma interpretativo, sendo orientada por uma investigação qualitativa, baseada na abordagem de investigação-ação que visa interpretar todas as informações recolhidas no âmbito da temática em estudo. Na realização deste relatório foram utilizados dispositivos e procedimentos de recolha de informação, como a observação nos dois contextos de estágio, algumas notas de campo, entrevistas às Educadoras Cooperantes e, por fim, uma análise minuciosa de todos os documentos necessários, como os Projetos Educativos das Instituições, Projetos Pedagógicos das Salas, Projeto Pedagógico do Departamento de Educação Pré-Escolar, do Agrupamento de Escolas do Contexto de Jardim de Infância, notas de campo e as entrevistas realizadas às Educadoras. Depois de analisar todas as informações e documentos foram descritas e interpretadas as conceções e práticas das Educadoras, dando azo às considerações finais sobre diferentes vertentes da investigação, de forma a compreender e avaliar os resultados obtidos. A estrutura do relatório consiste numa síntese crítica e reflexiva, com foco nos dois contextos educativos, tendo em conta as instituições, as salas onde foram realizadas os estágios, as equipas pedagógicas que as constituem e os grupos de crianças. É dado a conhecer os pressupostos teóricos da presente investigação, articulando com experiências vividas em contexto de estágio.This Research Project Report arise at the Master's extent of the Preschool Education of Setúbal College of Education and aims to understand the role of Cooperant Educators in mediating the conflicts into contexts of Nursery and Kindergarten. We sought to interpret the means of intervention, education professionals, conflicts resolution, and also to understand and assess the importance given to the discipline in the construction of the curriculum of these Cooperant Educators. The Research Project Report presents methodologies as the interpretative paradigm, being guided by a qualitative research based on research-action approach that seeks to interpret all information gathered under the thematic study. In achieving this report have been used devices and information gathering procedures, such as observation intership in both contexts, some field notes, interviews with Cooperant Educators, and finally, a thorough analysis of all the necessary documents, just as Educational Projects of the Institutions, Pedagogical Projects of Rooms, Education Program of the Department of Preschool Education, in kindergarten context School Group, field notes and interviews with Educators. After reviewing all the information and documents, have been described and interpreted the conceptions and practices of Educators, which gives rise to the final consideration of various aspects of research in order to understand and evaluate the results. The report's structure is a critical and reflective synthesis, focusing on two educational contexts, taking into consideration the institutions, the rooms where the internships were held, the pedagogical teams that constitute and groups of children. It is given to know the theoretical basis of this research, combining with experiences on internship context.Escola Superior de Educação, Instituto Politécnico de Setúba

Estudo da proteína S100B na doença de Parkinson e no parkinsonismo atípico

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Health-related quality of life and utilities in gastric premalignant conditions and malignant lesions: a multicentre study in a high prevalence country

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A recent review of economic studies relating to gastric cancer revealed that authors use different tests to estimate utilities in patients with and without gastric cancer. Our aim was to determine the utilities of gastric premalignant conditions and adenocarcinoma with a single standardized health measure instrument. METHODS: Cross-sectional nationwide study of patients undergoing upper endoscopy (n=1,434) using the EQ-5D-5L quality of life (QoL) questionnaire. RESULTS: According to EQ-5D-5L, utilities in individuals without gastric lesions were 0.78 (95% confidence interval: 0.76-0.80), with gastric premalignant conditions 0.79 (0.77-0.81), previously treated for gastric cancer 0.77 (0.73-0.81) and with present cancer 0.68 (0.55-0.81). Self-reported QoL according to the visual analogue scale (VAS) for the same groups were 0.67 (0.66-0.69), 0.67 (0.66-0.69), 0.62 (0.59-0.65) and 0.62 (0.54-0.70) respectively. Utilities were consistently lower in women versus men (no lesions 0.71 vs. 0.78; premalignant conditions 0.70 vs. 0.82; treated for cancer 0.72 vs. 0.78 and present cancer 0.66 vs. 0.70). CONCLUSION: The health-related QoL utilities of patients with premalignant conditions are similar to those without gastric diseases whereas patients with present cancer show decreased utilities. Moreover, women had consistently lower utilities than men. These results confirm that the use of a single standardized instrument such as the EQ-5D-5L for all stages of the gastric carcinogenesis cascade is feasible and that it captures differences between conditions and gender dissimilarities, being relevant information for authors pretending to conduct further cost-utility analysis

The managerial and economic effects of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchasing intentions

Despite the fact that celebrity endorsement brings up some risks, it has been used quite extensively in the present era and it is a method to reach competitive advantage by companies. The economic effects for companies are obvious. This study focuses on examining the relationship between a set of variables (gender, credibility, attractiveness, type, multiple endorsements and multiple product endorsement) that were identified during the literature review as characteristics of the TV advertisings and consumers purchasing intentions. A questionnaire survey was applied. This study is based on a sample of 285 young respondents. Respondents answered two sets of questions after viewing an advertisement of a specific product featuring one or more endorsers. A quantitative approach has been adopted to investigate the relationship between the purchase intentions and the perceptions of the six characteristics of celebrity endorsement mentioned above. Results revealed that all the characteristics of celebrity endorsement analyzed had a positive impact in consumers purchasing intentions, however some of them were quite low. This study has an approach with relevant consequences for companies, either economic or managerial, bringing room to analyze and to discuss the related coming up managerial implications.peer-reviewe

A experiência de um centro Português

Aims: The excess demand for pediatric emergency services has caused much concern among health professionals and hospital administrators. The aim of this study was to assess the utilization of a pediatric emergency department and to determine whether its use was injudicious. Methods: Retrospective cross-sectional analysis of all emergency cases treated throughout 2012 in a general hospital located in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, Portugal. The data were obtained from the hospital's computer information system. Each patient was submitted at admission to the Manchester triage system adapted for Portugal, and the episodes were categorized into immediate, very urgent, urgent, standard, nonurgent, and not classified. All those episodes classified as standard and non-urgent were denoted as unjustified urgent episodes. The data were collected anonymously and analyzed by the IBM SPSS Statistics software using the chi-square test and one-way ANOVA at a 5% significance level (p < 0.05). Results: We analyzed 37,099 pediatric emergency department episodes, of which 19,478 patients were male (53%), the median age was 4 years (interquartile range of 1-9 years), and 78.4% were up to 10 years old. Of all the episodes, 21,177 (57.1%) were classified as standard and 15,470 (41.6%) as urgent or very urgent. Of these patients, 27,294 (73.6%) used the emergency department during the week and 28,679 (77.3%) between 10 a.m. and 12 a.m. It was found that in 90.8% of very urgent, 97.1% of urgent, and 99.4% of standard episodes, patients were discharged without the need for hospitalization. Conclusions: More than half of the children who used the pediatric emergency department had standard or non-urgent needs, and almost all of them were discharged with follow-up recommendations by the attending physician. Most of the episodes occurred during opening hours of primary healthcare centers.publishersversionpublishe

The Managerial and Economic Effects of Celebrity Endorsement on Consumer Purchasing Intentions

Despite the fact that celebrity endorsement brings up some risks, it has been used quite extensively in the present era and it is a method to reach competitive advantage by companies. The economic effects for companies are obvious. This study focuses on examining the relationship between a set of variables (gender, credibility, attractiveness, type, multiple endorsements and multiple product endorsement) that were identified during the literature review as characteristics of the TV advertisings and consumers purchasing intentions. A questionnaire survey was applied. This study is based on a sample of 285 young respondents. Respondents answered two sets of questions after viewing an advertisement of a specific product featuring one or more endorsers. A quantitative approach has been adopted to investigate the relationship between the purchase intentions and the perceptions of the six characteristics of celebrity endorsement mentioned above. Results revealed that all the characteristics of celebrity endorsement analyzed had a positive impact in consumers purchasing intentions, however some of them were quite low. This study has an approach with relevant consequences for companies, either economic or managerial, bringing room to analyze and to discuss the related coming up managerial implications

Benchmarking Portuguese Hospitals through a web based platform (HOBE)

Abstract: In a context of international economic crisis the increased efficiency and productivity of public services is seen as a way to maintain quality levels at reduced costs. Increased productivity can be achieved through benchmarking exercises, where a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) are compared between production units. This paper describes a benchmarking platform called HOBE, which compares public hospitals in Portugal. This platform allows hospitals to have on‐line access to a set of indicators based on which each hospital can be compared with its peers (the comparative set of hospitals can be customized). The platform allows benchmarking from a managerial perspective where cost and volume indicators (each subdivided into resources and outputs) are available and can be computed for each service of the hospital. The platform allows the benchmarking between services on individual indicators and also on aggregate indicators. Aggregate service indicators are constructed based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) cost models and allow the consideration of trade‐offs between outputs (something that individual indicators cannot deal with). Aggregate hospital efficiency is also addressed, where we propose a model to aggregate the performance of a set of hospital services into a single performance measure at the hospital level. Some results are presented for the trial years of 2008 and 2009, for which data is publicly available.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Estudo da proteína S100B na doença de Parkinson e no parkinsonismo atípico

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