From an agrarian society to a knowledge economy: Portugal, 1950-2010

This paper surveys the main features of Portuguese economic growth in the last half century, with a particular emphasis on the period after the return to democracy in 1974. It shows that significant structural change and capital deepening were the chief sources of growth in the Portuguese economy until the mid 1970s. From then onwards, human capital accumulation and productivity growth were the main reasons behind Portugal’s economic fortunes. Growth declined between these two phases, as in the rest of Europe. In Portugal, it slowed further after 1990. After surveying the main causes of the slowdown of the Portuguese economy in the last decade, Portugal’s main human capital indicators are compared to other European and OECD economies. While Portugal has made a remarkable transition from an agrarian society to an industry- and service-based economy, the country still has not been able to successfully move on to a knowledge-based economy. Such a transition, however, is instrumental to spur economic growth on and to improve productivity.Economic policies, Economic growth, Human Capital, Portugal

¿Afecta el tipo de modelo sanitario al rendimiento hospitalario? Un análisis de eficiencia para países de la OCDE

ABSTRACT: During the last years, most of developed countries are facing budget cuts in health spending, which stresses the need of hospitals to use their resources efficiently, so the quality of the care provided to patients is not compromised. The need for efficient hospitals has grown in importance with the pandemics situation the world is involved in since March of 2020 due to covid-19. Within this framework, this paper assesses hospital efficiency across 19 OECD countries for the period 2005 – 2015, and then explores the determinants that affect hospitals’ performance. A two-stage approach was followed in order to perform this efficiency analysis. In the first stage, we obtained efficiency scores for each country using data envelopment analysis (DEA). In the second stage, Panel Tobit Analysis was employed to spot the environment variables that affect the efficiency scores calculated previously. Special attention was paid to the variable discerning if the country presents a Beveridge or Bismarck healthcare model. Based on the results from DEA, it was found that the efficiency levels followed an increasing overall trend during the period considered, excluding an important drop during the financial crisis, reaching its lowest levels in 2010. In the second stage, due to the censored nature of the dependent variable calculated previously through DEA, Panel Data Analysis was proposed in order to obtain unbiased and consistent estimators. The results of the estimation showed that the type of healthcare model was not statistically significant when explaining hospitals’ efficiency, although the estimated effect might suggest that countries with Beveridge healthcare model would perform better than those with Bismarck model. Regarding the environment non-discretionary factors that secondarily affect hospital´s efficiency, the level of education was found to have a positive impact on the efficiency of hospitals, while life expectancy affects negatively healthcare performance. RESUMEN:Durante los últimos años, la mayoría de los países desarrollados se están enfrentando a recortes en el gasto en sanidad, lo que enfatiza la necesidad de que los hospitales utilicen sus recursos eficientemente, de modo que la calidad de los cuidados proporcionados a los pacientes no se vea comprometida. La necesidad de hospitales eficientes ha adquirido mayor relevancia dada la actual situación de pandemia en la que el mundo está inmerso desde marzo de 2020 a causa del covid-19. En este contexto, el presente trabajo estudia la eficiencia de hospitales a lo largo de 19 países de la OCDE durante el periodo 2005 – 2015, para después determinar los factores que afectan el rendimiento de dichos hospitales. En la primera etapa del enfoque en dos etapas utilizado en el análisis de eficiencia, obtenemos las puntuaciones de eficiencia para cada país a través del método DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis). En la segunda etapa, se utiliza Panel Tobit Analysis para identificar las variables de entorno que afectan las puntuaciones de eficiencia calculadas en la primera etapa del análisis. Se le presta especial atención a la variable que determina si el país presenta un modelo sanitario Beveridge o Bismarck. Atendiendo a los resultados obtenidos a través del DEA, se observa que los niveles de eficiencia siguieron una tendencia general al alza durante el periodo considerado, a excepción de una importante caída de los mismos durante la crisis financiera, alcanzando sus niveles más bajos en 2010. En la segunda etapa, debido a la naturaleza censurada de la variable dependiente calculada previamente usando DEA, se propone Panel Tobit Analysis con el fin de obtener estimadores insesgados y consistentes. Los resultados de la estimación mostraron que el tipo de modelo sanitario no es estadísticamente significativo a la hora de explicar la eficiencia hospitalaria, aunque el efecto estimado podría sugerir que países con el modelo sanitario Beveridge funcionarían más eficientemente que aquellos con el modelo Bismarck. Respecto a los factores no discrecionales de entorno que afectan de manera indirecta el rendimiento de los sistemas sanitarios, se encontró que el nivel de educación de la población tiene un impacto positivo en la eficiencia de los hospitales, mientras que la esperanza de vida se relaciona negativamente con estos niveles de eficiencia.Grado en Economí

Update of the treatment of cicatricial keratoconjunctivitis

Cicatricial keratoconjunctivitis is a group of diseases that induces six different types of ocular disorders: dry eye; eyelid blinking disturbances; destruction of limbal stem cells; destruction of basement membrane; inflammation; and neuroanatomic disintegration. These disorders cause corneal epithelial instability, neovascularization and chronic inflammation which result in loss of corneal transparency and decreased visual acuity. The author describes the six types of disorders and reviews the latest therapeutic approaches for each of them.As ceratoconjuntivites cicatriciais (CCC) representam um grupo de doenças que induz seis tipos principais de alterações oculares: olho seco; alterações palpebrais; destruição do limbo e células germinativas corneais; destruição da membrana basal; processo inflamatório; alteração na integração neuroanatômica da superfície ocular. Essas alterações acabam causando instabilidade epitelial corneal, vascularização e inflamação crônica. O resultado final é a perda de transparência da córnea e diminuição da acuidade visual. O autor descreve os seis tipos de alterações e faz uma revisão atualizada do tratamento de cada um deles.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP) Setor de Doenças Externas e CórneaUNIFESP, Setor de Doenças Externas e CórneaSciEL

From an agrarian society to a knowledge economy : Portugal, 1950-2010

This paper surveys the main features of Portuguese economic growth in the last half century, with a particular emphasis on the period after the return to democracy in 1974. It shows that significant structural change and capital deepening were the chief sources of growth in the Portuguese economy until the mid 1970s. From then onwards, human capital accumulation and productivity growth were the main reasons behind Portugal’s economic fortunes. Growth declined between these two phases, as in the rest of Europe. In Portugal, it slowed further after 1990. After surveying the main causes of the slowdown of the Portuguese economy in the last decade, Portugal’s main human capital indicators are compared to other European and OECD economies. While Portugal has made a remarkable transition from an agrarian society to an industry- and service-based economy, the country still has not been able to successfully move on to a knowledge-based economy. Such a transition, however, is instrumental to spur economic growth on and to improve productivity

ETD’17 - 6º Ergotrip Design, Aveiro: livro de resumos

A edição 2017 da Conferência Internacional Ergotrip Design, está de volta aos ovos moles, às temperaturas mais frescas e à terra dos moliceiros, isto é, a cidade de Aveiro. Com enfoque nas áreas de Design, Ergonomia & Interação Humano-Computador, atravessa novamente o Atlântico sediando-se em Portugal entre os dias 29 e 30 de novembro. O evento de origem brasileira, tem como intuito promover e alargar a cooperação e aproximar estes dois países que tanto tem de comum. Este ano, que também é de comemorações dos 20 anos de formação graduada em design na Universidade de Aveiro, contará com um evento paralelo organizado pelo ID+ Desis Lab e ETD17 + Design [In, And, For] Democracy, que contará com a presença de Ezio Manzini, Virginia Tassinari, Mark Andersson, Michelangelo Secchi, José Carlos Mota, para além dos palestrantes Nelson Zagalo, Álvaro Sousa, Teresa Franqueira e Lígia Lopes. Assim, a Universidade de Aveiro acolhe a 6ª edição do evento, ficando a organização a cargo do Departamento de Comunicação e Arte (DeCA) e da unidade de investigação associada ID+. Instituto de Investigação em Design, Media e Cultura. Com esta iniciativa, pretende-se continuar a desenvolver um espaço aberto à comunidade académica, para discutir, disseminar e incentivar a cultura de projeto, desenvolvimento e investigação. Com a realização do Ergotrip Design – Aveiro 2017 pretende-se criar um ambiente favorável à partilha, diálogo, cruzamento de ideias e de conceitos, potenciando os trabalhos académicos e fortalecendo as redes de contactos transatlânticos, reunindo diferentes domínios de investigação desde Design, Ergonomia e Interação Humano-Computador

Using Dimensional Aware Genetic Programming to find interpretable Dispatching Rules for the Job Shop Scheduling Problem

Dispatching Rules (DRs) have been used in several applications in manufacturing systems. They assign priority to jobs in a queue choosing the next job to be executed. As they are challenging to design, genetic programming (GP) is being used to find better performative DRs. In GP, several different DRs are evolved, and due to some operations and selection processes inspired in nature, the DRs improve. However, little research has been done in trying to reach small and interpretable DRs. Usually, these generated expressions tend to become extremely large, with a couple of hundred terms or more. This work will innovate by using CFG (context-free grammars) methods, particularly CFG-GP and GE (Grammar Evolution), for reaching DRs which are dimensional aware. These methods will be compared as they have several distinct characteristics and were never used for this problem. The objective is that by forcing the syntax of the DRs to be correct, it will be possible to reach smaller and more interpretable DRs. Furthermore, an enumerator was made that found the best possible expression for a small DRs size, which will serve as a baseline to evaluate how well the different algorithms can explore these spaces and give the best possible DRs for a specific size. The results show a significant performance improvement in using DAGP methods for this problem. Moreover, GP/GE and CFG-GP can explore the small DRs optimally or close to optimally, managing to find the best small DRs

Corporate Governance Practices in Listed Banks-Impact on Risk Management and Resulting Financial Performance

This research aims to analyze the relation between the quality of corporate governance practices and the financial performance of international listed banks. In order to meet this goal the variables related to company returns- IL/GL; NL/TA; ROA; ROE and Tier 1- were associated with the following standards of corporate governance: independence of the board of directors(INBD); indepence of the president of the board of director (INDPR); size of the board of directors (SZBD);voting power concentration (VPC) an the company's shareholder indepence indicator (BvDep.). For the composition of the sample we selected listed banks in severeal European, American, and Japanese stock markets from the period between 2006 and 2009 . Results show a significant relation between best corporate governance practices and financial performance of studied banks. This research confirms results attained in previous work but also provides evidence on previously unexplored relations namely between BvDep and IL/GL and NL/TA variables

Digital social media: An interactive technology incorporated as a competitive advantage for business

In a more transparent and dynamic world, in which consumers trust other consumers more for advice and recommendations on products and services, the continuity of organizations appears to be associated with socialization, the sharing of interests and the interaction with the audience. This is associated with the incorporation of digital technologies to business, specifically the use of social media. Consequently, it is timely and interesting to explore the phenomenon of virtual socialization, although it is a littlestudied field and what is needed is an innovative and theoretical approach based upon theories of marketing and communication. Expertise in these areas is present in all organizations and their performance is important for appropriate development of them. This work is a qualitative analysis about the behavior, reactions and attitudes of individuals to organizations, in order to understand the social factors that contribute to sustainable competitive advantages of organizations which can support strategic and future actions. We conclude that relevant factors associated with the tacit knowledge of the organization, specifically to learning and social interaction of the organization and their knowledge of virtual communities. The higher the coexistence of factors, the more difficult is the replication and greater will be the hypothesis of sustainable competitive advantage

Seeking for health care: issues of gender and race among black contributors from a university

Objective: Analyze the issues of gender and race involved in seeking for health care among black contributors from a university. Method: this is a qualitative study conducted by means of semi-structured interviews, whose subjects were 10 employees and outsourced workers from a university located in Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil. Results: in general, men do not seek health care the same way as women. Fears with regard to bringing his masculinity into question, due to undergoing exams, and to the risk of job loss, due to time off from work, suggest to a man that seeking for health care implies a conjuncture of unemployment, economic deprivation, and powerlessness to provide his family with a living. Conclusion: we identified influence of the categories race and gender and interference of social constructs related to them in seeking for health care among black men who are active in the labor market