Question order and context effects on multi-items scales questions

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de InformaçãoThis study examines question order effects, in particular context effect, on multiple-item scales questions and the impact that these effects can have in validity and reliability of measurement. For this purpose, it was performed a survey research with two versions of ECSI questionnaire, in which the position of the indicators of two constructs was changed. In the two groups of items studied, only one of them presented differences when they are grouped or separated in the questionnaire. Although even in this group of questions the effect is diminished, the results suggest that context effects are not necessarily negative for marketing research, since grouping related questions together can result in a higher correlation between them and, consequently, lead to a decrease of variation and an increase of reliability. However, the emergence of context effect seems to be closely related with question content and the level of similarity between the items. Future research should examine the generalization of these results across other service industries and with other question content

Fronteira entre a vida e a morte

The marginal presence of Dionysus in the Homeric Poems offered a large faction of investigators, the basis for believing in the foreign origin of the god, a native of Thrace, belatedly admitted to the Olympic pantheon. This conviction, underlined by Herodotus' testimony, was revalidated by the ambiguity of the mythical versions, has however never been unanimously subscribed nor in ancient times, nor recently. As son of Semele and Zeus, linked with the wildest and most uncontrolled facets of nature, Dionysos was for centuries the god of vegetation, wine, and natural, disordered and liberating pleasures. But not all the mythical narratives and ritual interpretations associated with him boil down to festivals of unreasonable joy; many are related to death and atonement. The remarkable recurrence of the theme of violent death, which multiply in the framework of some of the versions of the myth seems to indicate poetic treatment, corresponding to a ritual phase of human sacrifice, that is not historically documented in the Greek religion. Closer than any of the Olympians, Dionysos shares with the unfortunate mortals his perishable nature. As the vine that represents it, he is capable of being reborn from its own painful severed finitude. His contradictory nature embodies duality and dissolves into a disturbing coexistence the boundaries. After being worshiped in the Ancient World as a god, through a cult of exceptional projection, Dionysos became an irreducible symbol of a human state of mind: that of antithesis, latent opposition, of rebellion against all mechanisms of oppression and all tyrannies, and against prejudice of all kinds in all times. With his contradictory, enigmatic, and fascinating nature, he further evokes, in the innermost recesses of our unconscious, our unavoidable desire to defy the frontiers of death, and inscribe ourselves into eternity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Equity Research : Heineken N.V.

The objective of this master thesis is to provide a valuation for the ordinary shares of Heineken N.V. After conducting a proper research on academics, on how to conduct a proper valuation, as well as on industry and in company, to understand how the company’s business will behave, it was possible to arrive into some assumptions. These assumptions were applied to conduct the valuation of the company. The valuation, had a result of 84.70€, meaning a potential upside of 13.49%. This potential upside on the share price, translates into a final buy recommendation.O objetivo desta dissertação de mestrado é proceder a uma possível avaliação do preço das ações da empresa Heineken N.V. Após uma pesquisa académica, a nível de como se deve proceder à avaliação, e da indústria como da empresa, foi possível retirar algumas conclusões acerca do comportamento futuro da empresa. Depois de aplicados os métodos de avaliação, foi possível chegar à conclusão que os valores atuais das ações no mercado, de dita empresa, encontram-se subavaliadas em 13.49%, visto que o resultado de dita avaliação resultou num valor de 84.70€. Esta diferença apresenta-se como uma recomendação de compra, das ações

A fusão de dois mundos: convergência do mundo real e digital nas acções de marketing na rede

No passado, as acções publicitárias eram rotuladas como above the line e below the line, referindo-se à dicotomia de pontos de contacto com os públicos-alvo via Meios de Comunicação Social ou via Ponto de Venda. A esta dicotomia de meios e instrumentos, os anos 90 vieram trazer um terceiro ponto de contacto, crescentemente omnipresente e hegemónico, a world wide web ou rede, a que se acedia via computador. As acções de marketing e comunicação passaram então a rotular-se como online e offline, passando, não já a referir-se aos pontos de contacto, mas aos canais pelos quais circulavam as mensagens e acções das marcas. Desde o início deste século, o poder do digital veio crescendo, em software e hardware, em terminais e tecnologias, assistindo-se a uma transferência de esforços de comunicação, da esfera real para a esfera do digital. O deslumbramento pelo digital conquistou mesmo algumas marcas de dimensão mundial que hoje apostam integralmente o seu orçamento nesta forma de marketing, nas suas múltiplas facetas. Contudo, e porque se tem tornado óbvio que os públicos distribuem os seus favores por múltiplos touch points, para maximizar o impacto, assiste-se agora a um fenómeno único, potenciado por novas tecnologias que surgem todos os dias: em estratégias que se podem denominar de all-line, verifica-se a fusão entre dois mundos, mundo real e mundo digital, em múltiplas actividades de marketing que fazem convergir estas duas realidades em plataformas que vão do computador ao tablet, do smartphone à vending machine interactiva, do facebook ao Google maps, da imprensa tradicional ao pinterest. É esta convergência mundo real - mundo digital que abre agora novas oportunidades à comunicação publicitária, potenciando os ingredientes das marcas de sucesso no futuro: sensações (estímulo dos sentidos), intimidade e mistério, num cocktail suportado por uma nova criatividade.ABSTRACT: In the past, advertising campaigns were labeled as above the line and below the line activities, referring to the dichotomy of targets’ touch points, conveyed through Mass Media or the Point of Sale. In the 90’, this dichotomy of means and instruments was changed through the adding of a third touch point, increasingly ubiquitous and hegemonic, the World Wide Web or Net, acceded via computer. The marketing and communication campaigns were then split between online and offline, not referring to the touch points anymore, but to the channels through which circulated brands’ messages and actions. Since the beginning of this century, we all watched the growing power of digital in hardware and software innovations, terminals and technologies, and at the same measure a transfer of communication efforts from the real world activities to digital ones. The dazzling for digital even reached some global brands that today apply their full budget in this type of marketing, in its multiple aspects.However, because it has become obvious that targets distribute their attentions by multiple touch points, we are witnessing now a unique phenomenon intending to maximize impact and powered by new technologies that appear every day. In strategies that may now be called all-line, there is a blend between two worlds, the real world and digital world, in multiple marketing activities that make these two realities converge on platforms such as the PC or the tablet, the smartphone or the interactive vending machine, the facebook or the Google maps, the traditional press or the Pinterest. It is this convergence real world/digital world that now opens new opportunities for advertising, leveraging the ingredients of successful brands in the future: sensations (stimulation of the senses), intimacy and mystery, in a cocktail supported by new forms of creativity

Preliminary Study of Contact Modelling the Interface between User Skin and Wearable Equipment

Com o apoio RAADRI.For a suitable development of wearable equipment, it is important to take in consideration comfort issues, and the simulation of the contact between is the adequate tool. To simulate the contact a preliminary study an empirical models were developed using non-linear fitting. The data was collected using compression and decompression tests using different indenter’s diameters in one subject

Anxiety, depression, traumatic stress and quality of life in colorectal cancer after different treatments: A study with Portuguese patients and their partners

Purpose: This study examines the impact of different modes of treatment on depression, anxiety, traumatic stress and quality of life in colorectal cancer patients and their partners. Methods: The sample was comprised of 114 oncology patients and 67 partners. All patients were diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Participants were recruited from an Oncology Hospital in the North of Portugal and had been submitted to three modes of treatment: surgery, surgery plus chemotherapy or surgery followed by radiotherapy. Results: The results showed that patients who received only surgery, as treatment, had lower levels of depression, anxiety and traumatic stress symptoms when compared with patients who received surgery and chemotherapy or surgery plus radiotherapy. Partners of surgical patients presented lower levels of state anxiety and traumatic stress symptoms when compared with the other two groups. Patients with more depression had partners also more depressed. No relationship was found between anxiety and traumatic stress symptoms in patients and partners. Patients who received a diagnosis longer than 12 months had more traumatic stress, intrusion and hypervigilance. Patients with illness recurrence showed more traumatic symptoms. Anxiety and depression were the main predictors of patient’s quality of life. Traumatic stress was a predictor of symptom distress - pain/bowel pattern. Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of providing psychological interventions for cancer patients and their partners. Chemotherapy patients and those diagnosed over a year, as well as their partners, are more at risk

Aplicação dos modelos lineares generalizados às telecomunicações móveis: caracterização dos clientes que desactivam os seus serviços

Tese de mestrado, Probabilidades e Estatística, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2009O mercado de telecomunicações e actualmente caracterizado por forte concorrência entre os vários operadores em actividade e por um elevado nível de saturação, sendo cada vez mais difícil a angariação de novos clientes, havendo por isso uma forte aposta na retenção e fidelização dos existentes. Por este motivo é cada vez mais importante o conhecimento do perfil do cliente, a identificação dos factores que influenciam a sua satisfação e das variáveis que o influenciam realmente na decisão de mudar de prestador de serviço ou de se manter com o actual. Com o objectivo de caracterizar os clientes que desactivam os seus serviços recolheu-se informação relativa a um segmento específico: clientes residenciais pós-pagos. A formulação de um (ou vários) modelo(s) de regressão logística - para variável resposta do tipo binário, activo ou desactivo – servirá para identificar quais são os factores que estes clientes mais valorizam e têm real impacto na sua satisfação, bem como, em oposição, identificar claramente quais os podem levar à decisão de mudar de operador, ou seja, encontrar os factores que diferenciam os clientes activos dos desactivos. Os modelos de regressão logística são um caso particular de um vasto conjunto de modelos de utilização muito ampla: os modelos lineares generalizados. Estes caracterizam-se pelo facto de poderem ter variável resposta não normal, desde que esta satisfaça a condição de ser bem ajustada por uma distribuição pertencente à familia exponencial. A ligação entre a variável resposta e o vector de covariáveis pode ser estabelecida através de uma função monótona diferenciável chamada função de ligação. É apresentado neste estudo um método de estimaçao dos parâmetros para este tipo de modelos. Sao descritas várias estratégias de modelação e comparados os resultados respectivos, sendo também descritos alguns problemas numéricos surgidos durante o processo (comuns para dados deste tipo), algumas possíveis causas e soluções.Telecomunications business is presently marked by fierce competition amongst operators and high saturation level, therefore leading to growing difficulties to acquire new customers. Due to this situation market players are increasingly focusing on retention and loyalty programs to maintain current ones. Strong knowledge of customer profile is gaining great importance, since knowing what are the factors that influence customers’ satisfaction and can make one decide to change service provider (or keep the present one) can be of great help to design retention programs and focus on decisive / really important variables. With the goal of characterizing deactivated customer profile, all available information related with a specific segment – post-paid residentials – has been gathered. Regression models – for binary dependent variables, active or deactivated – were formulated based on this data. These models are aimed to help identify which factors are valued and have a real impact on customers, and to find out which can lead them to the decision of changing to another provider. The purpose is therefore to identify the factors which differentiate active customers form deactivated ones. Logistic regression models are a particular case of a much wider class of models vastly used: generalized linear models. These can have a non linear response variable, as long as it is well approximated by any distribution belonging to the exponential family. The relationship between the dependent variable and the independent ones can be established through a differentiable and monotone function called the link function. An estimation method for the model parameters is presented in this paper. Distinct modeling strategies are described and compared in this study. Some numerical problems (common for this type of data) arisen during the modeling process are also detailed, as well as their possible causes and some solutions

Towards Understanding Political Interactions on Instagram

Online Social Networks (OSNs) allow personalities and companies to communicate directly with the public, bypassing filters of traditional medias. As people rely on OSNs to stay up-to-date, the political debate has moved online too. We witness the sudden explosion of harsh political debates and the dissemination of rumours in OSNs. Identifying such behaviour requires a deep understanding on how people interact via OSNs during political debates. We present a preliminary study of interactions in a popular OSN, namely Instagram. We take Italy as a case study in the period before the 2019 European Elections. We observe the activity of top Italian Instagram profiles in different categories: politics, music, sport and show. We record their posts for more than two months, tracking "likes" and comments from users. Results suggest that profiles of politicians attract markedly different interactions than other categories. People tend to comment more, with longer comments, debating for longer time, with a large number of replies, most of which are not explicitly solicited. Moreover, comments tend to come from a small group of very active users. Finally, we witness substantial differences when comparing profiles of different parties.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figure

Cancro Colo-rectal: Impacto Psicológico no doente e no cônjuge

O presente estudo analisa o impacto dos tratamentos de cirurgia, cirurgia/quimioterapia e cirurgia/radioterapia em doentes com cancro colo-rectal e respectivos cônjuges, ao nível da depressão, ansiedade e stress pós-traumático. Os dados foram recolhidos no Instituto Português de Oncologia, sendo a amostra constituída por 114 doentes com o diagnóstico de cancro colo-rectal e 67 cônjuges. Verificou-se neste estudo a existência de uma correlação positiva entre a depressão do doente e a depressão do cônjuge. Também ficou demonstrado que a presença de uma ostomia de eliminação traduz ganhos físicos para o indivíduo doente. No entanto, a nível psicológico provoca um aumento significativo dos níveis de depressão, ansiedade e stress pós-traumático

Dois é melhor que um

Esta pesquisa tem o objetivo de averiguar a aplicabilidade da Guarda Compartilhada (Lei nº 13.058/2014, a nova lei da guarda compartilhada) à luz do Princípio do Melhor Interesse da Criança e do Adolescente nos casos de disputas judiciais. Para tanto, procede-se, primeiramente, à busca pelo significado e compreensão jurídica desse princípio. Em seguida, analisa-se o poder familiar do qual decorre a guarda parental. Por último, foca-se no estudo histórico, conceitual e característico da guarda compartilhada, que só veio a surgir expressamente no direito brasileiro com a Lei nº 11.698/2008. Desse modo, verificar-se-á que o desentendimento parental não é causa excludente e imediata para a afastabilidade da guarda compartilhada, que visa, primordialmente, ao bem-estar de seus descendentes