O impacto da COVID-19 na comunicação interna: O engajamento de colaboradores de micro e pequenas empresas do Estado de Minas Gerais

Dissertação para obtenção de grau de Mestre em Ciências da Comunicação vertente de Comunicação EstratégicaA presente dissertação tem como objetivo compreender os efeitos da COVID-19 nas ações de comunicação interna e no engajamento dos colaboradores das micro e pequenas empresas de Minas Gerais, Brasil, a partir da descrição dos processos de CI, antes e após o início da pandemia, assim como da aferição do impacto da crise sanitária no engajamento dos trabalhadores. Para que o objetivo seja alcançado, adota-se o método misto paralelo convergente, com as abordagens qualitativa e quantitativa. No primeiro caso, com entrevistas em profundidade, e no segundo com a aplicação de um inquérito por questionário estruturado. O trabalho está inserido no campo das Relações Públicas, e tem como referencial a Teoria Relacional e o Interacionismo Simbólico. A comunicação interna busca uma maior integração entre pessoas numa organização, com o estímulo ao diálogo, à troca de informações e à participação. O seu objetivo é partilhar conhecimento, valores e construir um relacionamento sólido entre organização e colaboradores. Assim, pode resultar no engajamento, que é o nível de envolvimento de um indivíduo com as suas funções organizacionais. Nesta pesquisa, são analisadas as visões dos gestores e colaboradores sobre a CI e o engajamento, antes e após o início da COVID-19. Após análise dos dados obtidos, revela-se, primeiramente, uma leitura imatura, por parte dos gestores, das possibilidades que a CI oferece, focando em assuntos de trabalho. Também não se observa um real conhecimento sobre o que é, de fato, engajamento, e como medi-lo. Com a pandemia e a necessidade de adaptar a rotina organizacional ao novo contexto, percebe-se uma preocupação ainda menor com outros usos da CI e com a mensuração da satisfação dos colaboradores. Os reflexos disto são a piora de indicadores de engajamento, assim como o aumento de problemas de saúde causados pelo trabalho. O impacto identificado da COVID-19 reforça estudos acadêmicos anteriores sobre a necessidade das organizações usarem a CI para a promoção da melhoria da qualidade de vida e para o desenvolvimento de pessoas. A investigação mostra, ainda, outros pontos que carecem de aprofundamento no futuro, como os impactos da comunicação digital no engajamento e no relacionamento entre organizações e colaboradores; e a possibilidade da realização de mais estudos que relacionem CI e imagem organizacional.This study aims to understand COVID-19’s effects on internal communication actions and employees engagement in micro and small companies from Minas Gerais, Brazil. In order to reach its goal, IC processes were described before and after the pandemic as the impact of the sanitary crisis on workers’ engagement. Therefore, research adopted mixed methods convergent parallel design with both qualitative and quantitative approaches, through semi structured interviews and closed questionnaires. This work is within Public Relations field using Relational Theory and Symbolic Interacionism as reference. Internal communication aims for a larger integration between people inside an organization by stimulating dialogue, information exchange and participation. Its main goal is to share knowledge, to promote engagement and to build a solid relationship between managers and employees. Hence, IC doesn’t only inform workers but is also willing to promote meaning and add value to organizational processes. If well managed, it results in engagement, which is individuals’ level of involvement with daily tasks. In this research, managers and employees views on IC and engagement are analysed before and after COVID 19’s beginning. Results firstly show a superficial view from managers when it comes to what IC can offer to organizations sine they tend to see it as a way to inform workers about work-related content. Managers also don’t show a strong knowledge about engagement and how to measure it. After the pandemic, they became less worried about that and focused more on adapting their business to the new reality. This directly affected employees’ engagement indicators, which got worse after COVID-19. In addition to that, health issues related to work increased during this period. Hence, pandemic’s negative impact on engagement reinforced previous published studies that point out the need for organizations to use IC as a way to promote a better quality of life inside the company and to develop people, which result in more engagement at work. That being said, this study still brings up subjects that demand more analysis in the futuresuch as digital communication impact on organizations and workers’ relationship and engagement; and the possibility of more studies that can relate IC to organizational imageN/

A comparison of fuzzy-based energy management systems adjusted by nature-inspired algorithms

The growing energy demand around the world has increased the usage of renewable energy sources (RES) such as photovoltaic and wind energies. The combination of traditional power systems and RESs has generated diverse problems due especially to the stochastic nature of RESs. Microgrids (MG) arise to address these types of problems and to increase the penetration of RES to the utility network. A microgrid includes an energy management system (EMS) to operate its components and energy sources efficiently. The objectives pursued by the EMS are usually economically related to minimizing the operating costs of the MG or maximizing its income. However, due to new regulations of the network operators, a new objective related to the minimization of power peaks and fluctuations in the power profile exchanged with the utility network has taken great interest in recent years. In this regard, EMSs based on off-line trained fuzzy logic control (FLC) have been proposed as an alternative approach to those based on on-line optimization mixed-integer linear (or nonlinear) programming to reduce computational efforts. However, the procedure to adjust the FLC parameters has been barely addressed. This parameter adjustment is an optimization problem itself that can be formulated in terms of a cost/objective function and is susceptible to being solved by metaheuristic nature-inspired algorithms. In particular, this paper evaluates a methodology for adjusting the FLC parameters of the EMS of a residential microgrid that aims to minimize the power peaks and fluctuations on the power profile exchanged with the utility network through two nature-inspired algorithms, namely particle swarm optimization and differential evolution. The methodology is based on the definition of a cost function to be optimized. Numerical simulations on a specific microgrid example are presented to compare and evaluate the performances of these algorithms, also including a comparison with other ones addressed in previous works such as the Cuckoo search approach. These simulations are further used to extract useful conclusions for the FLC parameters adjustment for off-line-trained EMS based designs.This work is part of the projects 2019-PIC-003-CTE and 2020-EXT-007 from the Research Group of Propagation, Electronic Control, and Networking (PROCONET) of Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE. This work has been developed with the support of VLIR-UOS and the Belgian Development Cooperation (DGD) under the project EC2020SIN322A101. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Competitiveness under the grant DPI2017-85404 and PID2019-111443RB-100.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::7 - Energia Assequible i No ContaminantPostprint (published version

La imagen y la narrativa como herramientas para el abordaje psicosocial en escenarios de violencia en Bogotá, Córdoba.

El presente documento muestra el desarrollo de la actividad colaborativa correspondiente a la Evaluación nacional del Diplomado de profundización acompañamiento psicosocial en escenarios de violencia como opción de grado y ofertado por la Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD presentando un material investigativo con enfoque a la temática del mencionado diplomado, se repartió en diez (10) unidades de estudio con las respectivas referencias bibliográficas de lectura y video. Material que permitió además del conocimiento e información, la apropiación para los abordajes críticos de los casos prácticos de la realidad social presentados y con el fin de orientar un acercamiento psicosocial se desarrolló dos fases individual donde se presentó el análisis y postura crítica desde el pensamiento de los integrantes del grupo colaborativo, además de la presentación de preguntas estratégicas, circulares y reflexivas con los debidos fundamentos teóricos, simultáneamente se trabajó el caso de las comunidades de Cacarica proponiendo estrategias de acompañamiento psicosocial desde el análisis y reflexión, para luego trabajar los aspectos en mención de manera colaborativa mejorando la calidad y pertenencia de los diversos conceptos. Se implementa el enfoque acción son daño ASD, el cual se construyen las estrategias de intervención desde una mirada ética, evitando el detrimento de la población y reforzando la autonomía. Durante las preguntas y estrategias de intervención se quiere orientar a las víctimas a empoderarse de su situación siendo ahora sobrevivientes de hechos violentos, haciendo hincapié en la resiliencia se ha definido como la capacidad de una Persona o grupo para seguir proyectándose en el futuro a pesar de acontecimientos desestabilizadores, de condiciones de vida difíciles y de traumas a veces graves (Manciaux, Vanistendael, Lecomte y Cyrulnik, 2001). Como complemento al documento se anexa un informe realizado en el paso 3 (Experiencia foto voz)This document shows the development of the collaborative activity during the national evaluation of accompanying psychosocial violence in violence and freedom at the National University Open and Distance UNAD presents a research material with focus on the theme of the year graduated, distributed in ten (10) units of study with the respective bibliographic references of reading and video. Computer material that includes information on the subject, information, orientation, focus, attention, information, information, information, information, results. the members of the collaborative group, in addition to presenting the strategic, circular and reflective questions with the proper theoretical foundations, become the case of the people of Cacarica proposing strategies of accompaniment for the analysis and reflection, to then work on the aspects in a collaborative way improving the quality and belonging of the different concepts. A report made in step 3 is attached as a supplement to the document

Diet and lifestyle changes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ibero-American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Spain

This study aimed to evaluate changes in dietary and lifestyle habits during the period of confinement due to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ibero-American countries. A cross-sectional investigation was conducted with 6,325 participants of both genders (68% women), over 18 years of age and from five countries: Brazil (N = 2,171), Argentina (N = 1,111), Peru (N = 1,174), Mexico (N = 686), and Spain (N = 1,183). Data were collected during the year 2020, between April 01 and June 30 in Spain and between July 13 and September 26, in the other countries studied using a self-administered online survey designed for the assessment of sociodemographic, employment, physical activity, health status, and dietary habits changes. Most participants (61.6%), mainly those from Spain, remained constant, without improving or worsening their pattern of food consumption. Among those who changed, a pattern of better eating choices prevailed (22.7%) in comparison with those who changed toward less healthy choices (15.7%). Argentina and Brazil showed the highest proportion of changes toward a healthier pattern of food consumption. Peruvians and Mexicans were less likely to make healthy changes in food consumption (OR: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.4–0.6 and OR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.4–0.8, respectively), when compared to Argentinians. Most respondents did not change their pattern of meal consumption, but those who did reduced their consumption of main meals and increased intake of small meals and snacks. Although most participants affirmed to be doing physical activity at home, about one-half reported perception of weight gain. Individuals with alterations in sleep pattern (either by increasing or decreasing sleep time) were more likely to change their diets to a healthier pattern. In contrast, individuals with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and those who reported feeling anxious were more likely to perform changes to a less healthy eating pattern (OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.2–2.3 and OR: 1.21; 95% CI: 1.1–1.4, respectively). In conclusion, although most participants remained constant in their eating habits, lifestyle changes and anxiety feelings were reported. Among those who changed patterns of food consumption, healthier choices prevailed, with differences between countries. However, there were alterations in the distribution of meals, with higher consumption of snacks and small meals. These results can be used to guide policies to prevent deleterious consequences that may affect the incidence of chronic diseasesWe acknowledge the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) which provided MCBM a productivity fellowship and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) which granted OE-M a Ph.D. scholarship. The project developed in Spain was supported by the Program of R&D activities between research groups of the Community of Madrid in Social Sciences and Humanities, co-financed with the European Social Fund (H2019/HUM-5802

URBAN MICROCLIMATE IN VEGETATED AND NON-VEGETATED AREAS IN RAINY AND SUNNY CONDITIONS

Cuiabá city is nationally known as "green city" because of to its large afforestation, has experienced progressive urban expansion for years, with deforestation possibly causing a rise in temperature and the development of heat islands In this context the afforestation can be an alternative for the improvement of the thermal comfort of the residents of this city. So the study objective was to analyze the microclimate differences of vegetated and non-vegetated urban areas in rainy and sunny conditions, analyzing also the heat index and the thermal discomfort index. The sampling took place at a public place and great flow of pedestrians. Data on the air temperature (Tair), soil temperature (Ts), and relative air humidity (Rh) were recorded using two linear transects, starting at 7 am and ending at 7 pm, in two-hour intervals. Due to the seasonality of the city's climate, measurements were taken in the dry and humid period of the year. There was a statistical difference for soil temperature between the sites (p-value < 0.001) and an increase of approximately 10°C in both periods in non-vegetated areas. There was no statistically significant difference for the heat index and thermal discomfort index among the analyzed transects, especially in the wet season, periods of discomfort occurred. Was verified that for open sites vegetation decreased air and soil temperature, increased relative humidity, but it was not enough to have thermal comfort at all times of the day