From the institutional repository to a CRIS system: what challenges?

This article intends to present and reflect on the challenges of adopting a current research information system (CRIS) with the existence of an institutional repository (IR). Higher education institutions, and its research centers, are facing increasingly needs to obtain information on the research undertaken and their results and performance. Most of the times, the answer has been given partly from the IR. The aggregation and availability of publications in one single place has helped to respond more easily to internal issues and external demands from evaluation and funding agencies, especially regarding open access publications. However, needs have increased: research centers and higher education institutions need relevant information for strategic decision-making and guidance in such demanding times. Besides, institutions and researchers must be very responsive to the open access challenges brought by national policies. This study pretends to share and analyze the main challenges that must be aware when adopting or implementing a CRIS if the community has already an IR. The main concerns relate mainly to technological issues of interoperability that will make life easier for researchers: to deposit once and to reuse multiple times. There are also challenges in terms of the continuity of the repositories that will have to reinvent themselves in this new context. Raising awareness and training issues for researchers and modeling processes at the institutional level are also important in facilitating the research management process and delivering successful results for the institution.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The library’s role in the quality and excellence in higher education: a Portuguese case study

This paper aims to present the work done by a library of higher education in the promotion of research and knowledge. They are the identified projects, initiatives, strategies and methodologies adopted in the creation of value added services provided, particularly with regard to teaching and research community. The major objective relates to the specific demonstration of how the skills of information can be exploited and profited for collaboration in the organization's mission through a study case

Gaining a sustainable IR: thinking SWOT

This paper aims to reflect about the next steps and challenges to gain sustainably to our Institutional Repositories (IR’s). We first reference the earlier stage of creating and getting start in the IR: what was needed to do, how we make it and how we are right now. As most of the universities have an IR, now we are starting to think about what is going next. The objective is to reflect, in a practical and objective way, what we need to do. And we purpose to present a brief and concise vision SWOT analysis to each step of the way. Our goal is to reflect about our challenges and prepare ourselves to what will it require

Percursos do movimento de transição em Portugal: Relatório produzido pela equipa do projeto COMPOLIS-Comunicação e Envolvimento Político com Questões Ambientais

No âmbito do projeto de investigação “COMPOLIS – Comunicação e Envolvimento Político com Questões Ambientais”, que decorreu entre agosto de 2013 e dezembro de 2014, procurou-se compreender a relação entre as práticas de comunicação e o envolvimento com questões ambientais. Especificamente, analisou-se a forma como as alterações climáticas e outros problemas ambientais são tratados e debatidos nos documentos políticos oficiais, nos media, nos movimentos sociais e também pelos próprios cidadãos. No presente relatório focar-nos-emos na tarefa 3 do projeto, que se centrou no estudo do envolvimento no Movimento de Transição em Portugal. De forma geral, o Movimento de Transição visa capacitar as comunidades para lidar com as alterações climáticas e o pico do petróleo, através da diminuição do uso de combustíveis fósseis e da construção de resiliência ecológica nas comunidades (Hopkins, 20081). O Movimento de Transição surgiu em 2006, em Totnes, no Reino Unido, e desde então tem vindo a expandir-se internacionalmente. A rede internacional denominada de Transition Network (TN) (www.transitionnetwork.org) reportava a existência de 1196 Iniciativas de Transição (ITs), a novembro de 2014. Em Portugal, o Movimento começou a dar os primeiros passos em 2010, e à semelhança do panorama internacional, tem tido um crescimento significativo em termos de número de ITs. A primeira IT surgiu no distrito do Porto, em Paredes, e foi registada na TN em Abril de 2010. Em Maio de 2015, o número de Iniciativas inscritas na TN era de 22 (TN, 2015).Financiado pelo COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007560 e FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, no âmbito do projeto: UID/CCI/00736/2013

The effects of land-use development policies on forest management

This paper develops a model of a forest owner operating in an open-city environment, where the rent for developed land is increasing concave in nearby preserved open space and is rising over time reflecting an upward trend in households’ income. Thus, our model creates the possibility of switching from forestry to residential use at some point in the future. In addition it allows the optimal harvest length to vary over time even if stumpage prices and regeneration costs remain constant. Within this framework we examine how adjacent preserved open space and alternative development constraints affect the private landowner´s decisions. We find that in the presence of rising income, preserved open space hastens regeneration and conversion cuts but leads to lower density development of nearby unzoned parcels due to indirect dynamic effects. We also find that both a binding development moratorium and a binding minimum-lot-size policy can postpone regeneration and conversion cut dates and thus help to protect open space even if only temporarily. However, the policies do not have the same effects on development density of converted forestland. While the former leads to high-density development, the latter encourages low-density development.FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Forest management in an urbanizing landscape

This paper aims at building a theoretical framework to examine the impact of development pressure on private owner’s forest management practices, namely, on regeneration and conversion cut dates. As the rent for developed land is rising over time, our model creates the possibility of switching from forestry to residential use at some point in the future, thus departing from the Faustmann’s traditional setup. Comparative statics results with respect to stumpage prices, regeneration costs and urban growth parameters are provided. The results obtained depend on the impact on the opportunity cost of holding the stand and the impact on the opportunity cost of holding the land, generalizing Faustmann’s unambiguous results.UECE (Research Unit on Complexity and Economics) is financially supported by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia), Portugal. This paper is part of the Strategic Project PEst-OE/EGE/UI0436/2011 and also benefited from financial support under the project PTDC/EGE-ECO/113403/2009. University of California MRPI Project: Virtual Co-laboratory for Policy Analysis in Greater L.A

Improving stakeholder engagement in local strategic planning - experience sharing based on Portuguese examples

Participatory local governance refers to any mechanism that promotes the involvement of stakeholders in the public policy decision-making process. It goes from weaker initiatives related to conveying information on policy decisions in more effective means to stronger engaging processes in which stakeholders have an actual influence in the public policy (ranging from planning to implementation, monitoring and evaluating). Current context has triggered a fast dissemination of participatory initiatives, prompted by the expected benefits as increasing local government responsiveness and accountability; getting a better match between policy decisions and beneficiaries’ preferences; acknowledging stakeholders’ expertise; improving confidence on politicians; promoting informal knowledge transfer; reinforcing citizens’ capability to intervene and to commit upon the decisions and contributing to a higher implementation success. Yet, there are also some recognized risks as the prolonged decision-making process, overstated stakeholders’ expectations, privileging some specific groups of civil society, lack of technical skills of stakeholders or the possible biased motivation of local authorities. In this context, the main aim of this paper consists in sharing practice based experience on collaborative local strategic planning, highlighting specific methods that have been put in place by the authors to enhance stakeholders’ engagement, trying to surpass some of the identified risks. This experience was gained through the authors’ participation, as an external and independent expertise team, in three Portuguese participatory processes. By combining several group dynamics and problem solving tools, the methods shared in this paper allowed for the development of local strategic plans, built by stakeholders, ensuring a high commitment with the planned objectives and actions. In two of the tree cases analysed, such plans were used to apply to regional policy instruments of ESF for 2014-2020, having been highly recognized by the Structural Funds managing authorities, thus resulting in the allocation of important funds to local entities, vital for territorial development. An evaluation of the applied methods is provided, envisioned to support future similar initiatives. The collaborative methods have received an encouraging feedback expressed both by the citizen representatives and local authorities, being the quality and diversity of stakeholders and the methodology applied by the expertise team referred as its main strengths. Therefore, these can be considered good practice examples for achieving more effective means of local participatory mechanisms as they support independent debate groups, promote equal participation, knowledge sharing, new ideas and consensus reaching, building on local stakeholders technical skills. In sum, the applied methodologies contribute for a strong involvement of stakeholders and actual influence on public policy decisions.N/

Urban containment: An effective tool for environmental protection?

This paper examines the effectiveness of urban containment policies to protect forestland from residential conversion and to increase the provision of forest public goods in the presence of irreversible investments and policy uncertainty. We develop a model of a single landowner that allows for switching between competing land uses (forestry and residential use) at some point in the future. Our results show that urban containment policies can protect (even if temporarily) forestland from being developed but must be supplemented with policies that influence the length and number of harvesting cycles if the goal is to increase nontimber benefits. The threat of a development prohibition creates incentives for preemptive timber harvesting and land conversion. In particular, threatened regulation creates an incentive to shorten rotation cycles to avoid costly land-use restrictions. However, it has an ambiguous effect on forestland conversion as the number of rotation cycles can also be adjusted to maximize the expected returns to land. Finally, in the presence of irreversibility, forestland conversion decisions should be done using real option theory rather than net present value analysi

Therapeutic importance of exercise in neuroplasticity in adults with neurological pathology: systematic review

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: this work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) in the scope of the FCT-IBEB Strategic Project UIDB/00645/2020 (Sofia R. Fernandes); Maria Teresa Tomás is affiliated in Health & Technology Research Center, ESTeSL - Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa which is supported by FCT/MCTES (UIDB/05608/2020 and UIDP/05608/2020).Neuroplasticity is an essential mechanism by which the nervous system shapes and adapts according to functional requirements. Evidence suggests that physical exercise induces a cascade of cellular processes that favors brain plasticity. The Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is a neurotrophin closely linked to neuroplasticity that can be increased due to exercise. To verify the effects of therapeutic exercise on neuroplasticity and/or peripheral BDNF levels in neurological conditions in adults, such as stroke, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and mild cognitive impairment, and address its clinical relevance in the treatment of neurological dysfunctions. A systematic review was carried out using PUBMED, Web of Science, and Scopus databases. Inclusion criteria were: randomized controlled trials or pilot studies; humans age > 18 yrs with a neurological condition; English language; score ≥ 6 on the PEDro Scale (moderate to high quality). Reviews, meta-analyses, and other articles that did not meet the criteria were excluded. The PRISMA methodology was applied for the studies’ selection. A total of 9 studies were selected for a systematic and comprehensive analysis. According to these studies, moderate to high-intensity aerobic exercise (AE), increases the level of peripheral BDNF and positively influences functional gains in neurological conditions. Larger outcomes are observed in protocols with a minimum session duration of 30 minutes, frequency of 3 times/week, and intervention duration of 4 weeks. Current evidence shows that moderate to high-intensity AE induces neuroplasticity in neurological patients, thus being a fundamental therapeutic strategy to include in interventions aiming to repair/delay neurological dysfunctions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A gestão da informação na Católica.Porto

This communication aims to promote the field of Information Management in the context of the Libraries of Higher Education, namely the Library and Information Management (LIM) of the Portuguese Catholic University - Regional Center of Porto. The theme of "new challenges" and "new role" is not new in the context of Higher Education. However, the biggest challenge is to anticipate opportunities for intervention, see market niches that we can bring in academia and thus bring added value and innovation to our services. The LIM is a library of Higher Education with a universe of eight Academic Units, seven research centers / research laboratory and one State Associated Laboratory. Through skilled human resources, rigorous methodologies and tools available can provide the academic units and the proper institution and its own strategic advantage. Our object of study is exactly the end results of the institution’s activities in the higher education: the scientific production