Manifold-Marketing:a new marketing archetype for the information age, applied to the adoption of oral contraceptives and other drugs by end-users

Taking into account the new communication paradigm of Social Media this paper proposes an original marketing archetype for the information age named by the authors as “ManifoldMarketing”. The conducted study explores the contribution of participating in social networks on the Internet for the adoption process of oral contraceptives (OCs) and other drugs by their end users. Empirical data for this research was collected from a sample of 1162 respondents of a target population formed by Portuguese women, current or potential users of OCs who had reached a level of college education. The results obtained after applying a package of statistical techniques involving descriptive statistics, nonparametric tests and multivariate analysis show that the use of the Internet as well as the participation in the social network Facebook can contribute to the adoption process of OCs. Market segments which are relevant to pharmaceutical marketing were identified based on criteria that associate the information and communication technologies (ICT) with the adoption process of OCs carried out by the consumers themselves. This study also demonstrates that the adoption model and segmentation proposed can be generalized to other markets in the health sector. Considering the obtained results and the proposed "Manifold Marketing", innovative pharmaceutical marketing guidelines are presented.N/

Serial correlation in dynamic panel data models with weakly exogenous regressor and fixed effects

Our paper wants to present and compare two estimation methodologies for dynamic panel data models in the presence of serially correlated errors and weakly exogenous regressors. The ¯rst is the ¯rst di®erence GMM estimator as proposed by Arellano and Bond (1991) and the second is the transformed Maximum Likelihood Estimator as proposed by Hsiao, Pesaran, and Tahmiscioglu (2002). Thereby, we consider the ¯xed e®ects case and weakly exogenous regressors. The ¯nite sample properties of both estimation methodologies are analysed within a simulation experiment. Furthermore, we will present an empirical example to consider the performance of both estimators with real data. JEL Classification: C23, J6

Contributos para a compreensão e enquadramento actual.

Numa sociedade cada vez mais global, as questões de segurança e desenvolvimento aparecem no topo das agendas político-diplomáticas. Em simultâneo, e com a presença de novos actores não-estatais, os Estados perderam a hegemonia na condução da guerra, obrigando estes últimos a combater “novas” ameaças. Estes Estados, por vezes integrados no seio de organizações internacionais, recorrem aos seus instrumentos do poder para combater tais ameaças, quer sejam levados pela prossecução dos seus interesses, quer sejam pressionados pela comunidade internacional. A guerra convencional, na qual se pretende subjugar as vontades dos outros às nossas, através da conquista do terreno e da destruição do inimigo, têm dado recentemente lugar a guerras não convencionais1, onde o fenómeno subversivo2 assume um papel de destaque. Actualmente este fenómeno tem sido dado a conhecer ao mundo com uma nova designação, a de “insurgency”, obrigando os Estados a envolver as suas Forças Armadas numa tipologia de guerra diferente daquela para as quais estavam preparadas, especialmente no período da Guerra-Fria. Estas mudanças súbitas no modo de condução da guerra obrigaram os Estados, e em especial as suas Forças Armadas, a revisitar o passado. Aos “velhos” manuais doutrinários sobre subversão foi-lhe retirado o pó acumulado durante anos, para serem de novo lidos por políticos, estrategas e comandantes militares. Neste revisitar do passado, seja ele conceptual e/ou doutrinário, os chefes militares viram-se obrigados a reorganizar as Forças Armadas, dotando-as de treino e equipamento específico, de modo a ser possível desenhar as operações militares onde a conquista da população (mentes e corações) passa a ser o centro de gravidade. No complexo ambiente operacional misturam-se conceitos relacionados com a condução da guerra irregular. Assim, é neste contexto que surge este trabalho de investigação, no qual se pretende dar a conhecer novos e velhos conceitos, de modo a compreende-los, nomeadamente os conceitos de Subversão e “Insurgência”. “Porém, tal só será possível com uma análise detalhada de diferentes ambientes operacionais, de modo a se obter um enquadramento actual destes conceitos. Contudo, este trabalho ficaria incompleto se apenas se cingisse à compreensão e enquadramento actual destes conceitos. Uma mais valia a que se propõe este trabalho vai de encontro ao modo como a doutrina portuguesa de contra-subversão poderá contribuir para a doutrina NATO de “Counter- Insurgency Operations”, que se encontra numa fase de estudo e elaboração. Como resultado da investigação foi possível verificar que não é possível comparar directamente os conceitos de “Subversão” e “Insurgência”, pelo facto deste último não existir no léxico nacional. Porém, propusemo-nos substituir este pelo conceito de guerra insurreccional, que consideramos ser semelhante ao de “insurgency”, destacando ainda o facto deste poder fazer uso da subversão para atingir os seus objectivos. Analisados os diferentes ambientes operacionais em estudo e estabelecida uma relação entre os conceitos, conclui-se que a doutrina nacional sobre contra-subversão poderá constituir-se numa mais valia para a elaboração futura da doutrina NATO, embora necessite de algumas actualizações ao nível conceptual e doutrinário. Abstract: In an increasing global society, matters of security and development are at the top of political and diplomatic agendas. Simultaneously, due to the relevance achieved by nonstate actors, states have lost their hegemony in the conduct of the war, forcing them to fight "new" emerging threats. These states, often integrated in international organizations, use their instruments of power to fight these threats, whether driven by the pursuit of their interests, whether under pressure from the international community. Conventional war, which seeks to subjugate the will of others to our own through the conquest of the land and the destruction of the enemy, has recently given rise to nonconventional wars, where the phenomenon of the subversive role has gained prominence. Today this phenomenon has been known to the world with a new name, the insurgency, requiring states to involve the armed forces on a different kind of war other than the one that they’ve been prepared for, especially in the period of the Cold War. These sudden changes in the way of conducting the war forced the States, and in particular their armies, to revisit the past. "Old" doctrinal manuals on subversion were removed the dust accumulated for years, to be read by politicians, strategists and military commanders again. Revisiting the past, whether in a conceptual and / or doctrinaire way, military commanders have been forced to reorganize the armed forces, providing them with training and specific equipment to be possible to design military operations where the center of gravity is the population, by conquering of their minds and hearts. In this complex operational environment concepts related to the conduct of irregular warfare mix up. Thus, it appears in this context that this research work, which aims to discover new and old concepts in order to understand them, particularly the ones of insurgency and subversion. But this will only be possible with a detailed analysis of different operational environments in order to obtain a framework of current concepts. However, this work would be incomplete if it only leaned on the current framework of understanding these concepts. The value of this work will lie on the way that Portuguese doctrine of counter-subversion can contribute to NATO’s doctrine of counter-insurgency operations, which is on a phase of study and preparation. As an outcome of the investigation we were able to verify that you may not directly compare the concepts of subversion and insurgency because the latter does not exist in the Portuguese lexicon. However, we propose to replace this by the concept of “guerra insurreccional”, that we consider being similar to the one of insurgency, highlighting the fact that this still makes use of subversion to achieve their objectives. Once the different operational environments are studied and a relationship between concepts is established, it is concluded that the Portuguese counter-subversion doctrine would add value to NATO’s future doctrine development, even if it shows the need of minor conceptual and doctrinal level updates

Draft Genome Sequences of Strains TAV3 and TAV4 (Verrucomicrobia: Opitutaceae), Isolated from a Wood-Feeding Termite, and In Silico Analysis of Their Polysaccharide-Degrading Enzymes.

Here, we report the high-quality draft genome sequences of Opitutaceae sp. strains TAV3 and TAV4, which were isolated from the hindgut of the wood-feeding termite Reticulitermes flavipes Using a combination of Illumina and PacBio sequencing, we constructed nearly complete assemblies totaling 5.84 and 5.91 Mbp in length for strains TAV3 and TAV4, respectively. In addition, we report an in silico analysis of potential lignocellulose-digesting enzymes present in these strains

Desigualdades de oportunidades no acesso ao ensino superior no Brasil

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade, Departamento de Economia, Mestrado Profissional em Gestão Econômica de Finanças Públicas, 2015.Esta dissertação tem como objetivo efetuar uma revisão da literatura acerca das contribuições existentes sobre as questões relacionadas às desigualdades de oportunidades em educação. Realizou-se uma investigação que compreende o período de 1986 a 2015 e procurou-se avaliar o comportamento das desigualdades educacionais, as principais variáveis que promovem ou contribuem para a existência (ou não) das disparidades aqui relatadas. Verifica-se que as variáveis relacionadas as circunstâncias existentes na vida de uma pessoa, tais como sexo, escolaridade dos pais ou renda familiar desempenham importante grau de participação nos indicadores de desigualdade educacionais.This dissertation aims at performing a literature review on the contributions with respect to issues related to inequality of educational opportunities. An investigation was conducted by covering a period of time that comprehends the years of 1995 to 2015 and it intended to evaluate the behave of educational inequalities, its main variables responsible for its promotion or that contributes to the existence (or not) of disparities herein reported. It is noticed that variables related to circumstances in one’s life, such as gender, parent’s education or family income play a major role in determining the degree of inequality of educational opportunities indicators

A Journey Inside Ourselves and What We Found When We Arrived

UIDB/00693/2020 UIDP/00693/2020This article analyses and reflects upon a community music project that occurred in 2016 in Portugal. It involved a community of people with disabilities and a group of artists from different fields. The project’s promotors aimed to create a space in which differences were abated, social well-being was nourished and individual desires were fostered. This article endeavours to understand how artistic performance may provide opportunities for empowering less advantaged people and how it might have been achieved during this project. The reflections present in this article are based on the current literature on community music and are informed by other similar analysis of these kinds of projects. The article starts with a brief description of the project and then elaborates on the term ‘community music’ and its relationship to this project. The project made use of a mix between an art installation and an experimental instrument called Pianoscópio. This article describes this instrument in detail and analyses how it enabled the participants to express themselves to their fullest abilities. A characterisation of the participating community members follows, focusing on the core tenets of the association they were part of. After that, the article examines how the workshops took place and what transpired in the final performance, focusing specifically on the steps taken to accommodate the different disabilities of the participants. The article ends with a reflection upon these kinds of projects and the impact this one project might have had on its participants.publishersversionpublishe

Opportunity assessment - LX village business case

Nowadays, seniors and foreigners are two growing market targets with a clear focus of attention. However, there is a gap when it comes to the existence of specific services for the combination of both, i.e. senior foreigners. Retired foreigners wishing to live in a country such as Portugal, where they can enjoy life pleasurably, become a target which analysis should be taken in consideration. In order to fill this market gap and simultaneously seize this market opportunity, a business case of a village, the Lx Village, for retired foreigners who aim living in Portugal will be presented