How would tourists use Green Spaces? Case Studies in Lisbon

EntretextosThis report provides in a relative condensed format the results of small-scale study undertaken in Lisbon during the Meeting of the CyberParks Project (www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/tud/Actions/TU1306). CyberParks is a COST Action coordinated by the Universidade Lusófona at the CeiED - Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Education and Development. The Project aims at creating a research platform on the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the production of public open spaces, and their relevance to sustainable urban development. The impacts of this relationship are being explored from social, ecological, urban design and technological perspectives. Based on the supposition that the participants of the Meeting are tourists visiting Lisbon, a survey was carried out on the topic how people actually use and how they would use public spaces. This survey is also the first approach to the case study areas chosen in Lisbon: Parque Quinta das Conchas and Jardim da Estrela. Both green spaces will be subject of further studies in the forthcoming years. This study employed (1) a questionnaire for measuring the user’s experience and preferences, and (2) two different tracking devices that utilise GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems), in our case the GPS for satellite positioning technologies. It also presents the results of a study on the relevance of wi-fi in Lisbon’s public spaces. Even considering that the surveys in Lisbon’s green spaces are a first exercise within the work programme of CyberParks they show important outcomes. On the one hand, regarding the technologies used and their potential for research and on the other hand the findings about Lisbon’s green spaces. It should be noted that the conducted surveys and the gathered data are statistically not representative, but can be characterised as an empirical case and as a showcase, as how tourists tend to use a green space. The results shows that surveys benefit from multiple research methods and from combining insights.Este relatório apresenta, em formato condensado, os resultados de um estudo de pequena escala realizado em Lisboa durante o Seminário do Projeto CyberParks. CyberParks é uma Ação COST coordenada pela Universidade Lusófona/CeiED - Centro de Estudos Interdisciplinares em Educação e Desenvolvimento. O projeto visa a criação de uma plataforma de debate sobre a relação entre as Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC) e a produção de espaços públicos, e da sua relevância para o desenvolvimento urbano sustentável. Os impactos dessa relação estão a ser explorados a partir de perspetivas sociais, ecológicas, tecnológicas e de desenho urbano. Na sua etapa exploratória, este estudo assenta na suposição de que os participantes do Seminário são turistas de visita a Lisboa. A partir dos dados recolhidos pelos investigadores envolvidos na ação COST, foi realizada uma análise à forma como diferentes indivíduos usam, e como poderão usar, diferentes espaços públicos verdes. Este estudo apresenta, portanto, a primeira abordagem às áreas de estudos selecionadas em Lisboa. São elas o Parque Quinta das Conchas e o Jardim da Estrela. Ambos os espaços verdes serão objeto de novos estudos nos próximos anos. Neste primeiro estudo exploratório foram empregues: (1) um questionário, para aferir a experiência de um potencial utilizador e as suas preferências, e (2) dois dispositivos diferentes de rastreamento que utilizam tecnologia GNSS (Sistemas de Navegação Global por Satélite) e, no nosso caso, o GPS para as tecnologias de posicionamento por satélite. Ele também apresenta os resultados de um estudo realizado sobre a relevância do wi-fi em espaços públicos na cidade de Lisboa. Mesmo considerando que os estudos realizados nos espaços verdes representam um primeiro exercício no âmbito do programa de trabalho do CyberParks em Lisboa, são aqui revelados resultados importantes. Por um lado, o recurso às tecnologias utilizadas e seu potencial para a investigação e, por outro lado, os resultados sobre a vivência dos espaços verdes. Deve-se notar que os dados recolhidos não são estatisticamente representativos, mas evidenciam um caso empírico de como turistas tendem a usar um espaço verde urbano. A combinação do questionário com novos métodos digitais resultou num grande ganho de conhecimento, recobrindo as áreas de estudo sob a perspetiva de um turista, para além de maiores informações sobre as potencialidades e limites da tecnologia digital como ferramenta de investigação. Os resultados mostram que a investigação no campo social pode se beneficiar da combinação de vários métodos e técnicas

Exploring the barriers and enablers of Online Education programmes : the specific case of Gender and Geographic Mobility in MBA programmes

Education is one of the corner-stones of modern society, representing a propelling motor of our most needed knowledge accumulation. Yet, interestingly enough, the education industry has demonstrated to be one of the least capable to answer to our increasingly innovative and competitive times. As so, the current education business model has been showing growing offer and demand side pressures, thus creating market gaps to be potentially filled by disruptive innovations, more capable to respond to such market dynamics. This thesis focuses in how the online capabilities are enabling the educational business model to break from some of its strains, as well as allowing it to tackle highly valuable market segments like women and international students, considering the significantly representative USA’s MBA reality. The results found that online education is successfully addressing female learners, vis-à-vis the male-built traditional educational system, due to the flexibility it brings and the use of increasingly user-friendly platforms. By contrast, online MBA’s have not been effectively addressing international students thus tuning down the time-and-space asynchrony benefits of such programmes. Consequently, Massive Open Online Courses, as an emerging and disruptive technology, are grasping this market gap and tackling this growing international demand. Higher Education providers need now to fully rationalize the market dynamics in which they are in and understand the role they want to have in the global arena in order to keep being relevant

The Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence in Predictive Medicine

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Artificial Intelligence and Biotechnologyʼs Use in Health : In Need of a Common Cure in Europe

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Forecasting banking crises in developing countries: a dynamic probit approach

Banking crises have afflicted economies in developing countries at least as much as they have in developed ones. In this paper, we discuss possible indicators that allow an effective forecast of banking crises based on an historical analysis of past crises, and develop several probit models, using yearly data from 1960 to 2014 for 33 developing countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia-Pacific. We find that a dynamic probit model which incorporates exuberance dummy variables gives the best forecasting results. Data on exports, inflation, broad money and birth rate provide the best indicators across the different models tested

Obesidade e saúde oral em crianças e adolescentes

Objetivo: Este estudo procura, através de uma revisão bibliográfica, debater e expor a relação entre a obesidade e a saúde oral em crianças e adolescentes, com especial foco para as duas principais causas de perda dentária: a cárie dentária e a doença periodontal. Metodologia: Foram utilizadas bases de pesquisa, nomeadamente: Scielo Brasil, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Elsevier, ReasearchGate e Wiley Online Library. As palavras-chave utilizadas para a pesquisa foram: “Obesity”, “Oral Health”, “Children”, “Adolescents”, “Periodontal Disease”. Foram ainda estipulados fatores de inclusão e de exclusão para a seleção das publicações, tendo-se totalizado 25 artigos científicos. Descrição: A obesidade é considerada uma doença crónica, tendo sido classificada como a “epidemia global do seculo XXI”. Devido à sua causa multifatorial, suspeita-se que possa estar relacionada com o desenvolvimento de certas patologias orais. A associação entre a obesidade e carie dentária é pouco clara. Porém, os processos inflamatórios desencadeados pela primeira poderão estar na origem e/ou exacerbar o desenvolvimento de doenças periodontais em crianças e adolescentes.Objective: This study aims, through a bibliographical review, to discuss and expose a relationship between obesity and oral health in children and adolescents with a special focus on two main causes of tooth loss: dental caries and periodontal disease. Methodology: There were used some search databases, namely: Scielo Brasil, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Elsevier, ReasearchGate and Wiley Online Library. The keywords used were: "Obesity", "Oral Health", "Children", “Adolescents”, "Periodontal Disease". Inclusion and exclusion factors were used for the selection of publications, which have totalized 25 scientific articles. Description: Obesity is considered a chronic disease, having been classified as the "global epidemic of the 21st century". Because of its multifactorial cause, it is suspected that it may be related to the development of certain oral pathologies. The association between obesity and dental caries is unclear. However, inflammatory processes triggered by the former may be at the origin and/or exacerbate the development of periodontal diseases in children and adolescents

Paradeduction in Axiomatic Formal Systems

The concept of paradeduction is presented in order to justify that we can overlook contradictory information taking into account only what is consistent. Besides that, paradeduction is used to show that there is a way to transform any logic, introduced as an axiomatic formal system, into a paraconsistent one