Success evaluation factors in construction project management : some evidence from medium and large portuguese companies

The construction industry plays a very important role in the Portuguese economy. In 2009, it was among the top five economic sectors, representing 13% of total employment. Nevertheless, project failures are still frequent mainly due to inadequate management practices and to the intrinsic characteristics of projects of the construction industry. Even though Portuguese construction has improved in recent years, cost and schedule overruns, low productivity and final product quality problems are still common. In this context, project management is a crucial tool for improving construction operations and for the overall success of projects. The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on success evaluation factors in a field where little has been written – the construction industry. Through a survey of 40 medium and large Portuguese companies several factors were identified which are currently considered in the evaluation of project success, as found in the literature review. The results show that the traditional factors, often referred to as the “Atkinson elements triangle” (cost, time and quality), are still the most relevant for evaluating the success of a project, but others, such as customer involvement and acceptance, have gained importance in recent years

Recommending personalized informative contents on iTV

This paper aims to present an ongoing PhD research of the Doctoral Program Information and Communication in Digital Platforms and proposes a context aware recommender system (CARS) of informative contents about Assistance Services of General Interest for the Elderly (ASGIE) [6], for later exhibition on an Interactive TV (iTV) platform. The first phase of this research has been dedicated to assessing the information needs of seniors and designing a proper CARS data model. Future work will involve designing and implementing a prototype for further evaluation in the field with seniors, in the context of the +TV4E project [20]. In addition, it is intended to study the feasibility of leveraging the prototype over the Catchup TV service built in the UltraTV project [2]. The intended contribution of this doctoral research is to promote greater autonomy, wellbeing and info-inclusion of seniors through a personalized approach

Inequalities in obesity in Portugal: regional and gender differences

Background: Obesity levels vary considerably according to geographical region and socio-economic status. We evaluated the prevalence of obesity by education and occupational position across seven Portuguese regions. Relative and absolute inequalities in obesity were also assessed. Methods: Data was drawn from the Portuguese Health Survey 2005/6 (26 674 adults, 46.6% women). Education was categorized as = 12 complete years of education. Occupational position was grouped as upper white collar, lower white collar and blue collar. The Relative Index of Inequality (RII) and the Slope Index of Inequality (SII) were used to quantify relative and absolute inequalities in obesity, respectively. Results: In women, prevalence of obesity ranged between 10.0% (Algarve) and 20.3% (Azores); in men, it ranged between 13.3% (Algarve) and 16.4% (Lisbon). In women, the educational RII (95% confidence interval) ranged between 2.4 (1.1 to 5.1) in the Centre and 6.6 (3.0 to 14.2) in Alentejo, and the SII (95% CI) between 9.7 (-1.3 to 20.7) and 33.0 (26.0 to 40.0), respectively. In men, the RII ranged between 0.8 (0.4 to 1.5) in Madeira and 1.9 (1.0 to 4.5) in the Centre, and the SII between -8.3 (-19.0 to 2.5) and 9.5 (-0.1 to 19.1), respectively. Occupational RIIs were similar to those for education, although somewhat lower. Conclusion: In Portugal, large educational and occupational inequalities in obesity are observed, but they vary considerably by region and are larger among women than men.Ambizione Grant (nº PZ00P3_147998) from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). H.B. received a grant (SFRH/BSAB/113778/2015) from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Income inequality in host countries and remittances: A discussion of the determinants of Portuguese emigrants’ remittances

The evolution of income inequality in host countries affects the migrants working there. As a significant number of these migrants do not earn high incomes, this evolution tends to significantly affect migrants' abilities to send money back to their home countries. We test this hypothesis considering the evolution of income inequality in 59 countries with Portuguese emigrants through observations from 1996 to 2014. Using the system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator, we found that an increase in income inequality leads to fewer remittances per emigrant. We also controlled income inequality with several determinants of remittances, including the real GDP per capita, unemployment rate, education skills, and the self-employment rates of the host countries.Compete 2020, Portugal 2020, Feder, FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio