Attributes of information systems design leading to user satisfaction – a banking case study

With the growing, pervasive use of information systems (IS) by most organizations, particularly companies in technology-intensive businesses such as banking, questions arise as to the effective success of those systems, how to measure it and, most of all, what influences it. User satisfaction, even if not an end goal of IS organizations, is frequently used as a measure of that success and it has been empirically shown to correlate with other more direct measures. Several research lines, then, look at what influences user satisfaction, particularly what characteristics of information systems and their development processes tend to result in higher user satisfaction. The research reported here looks at the specific case study of a Portuguese bank, for which a comprehensive survey is undertaken yearly to record the satisfaction of its thousands of IS users’ regarding its numerous information systems. Additional primary data was collected to characterize the information systems and their development processes, which, once structured and standardized alongside the user satisfaction survey results provided the basis for a quantitative analysis of the relationships between IS success, measured by user satisfaction, and its antecedents, using correlation and multiple linear regression techniques. The significant relationships are analyzed and the conceptual model’s results discussed in light of prior theory on the subject. Several implications for the practice and research communities are finally identified

Analysis of the tourists behavior in Lisbon using data from a mobile operator

This Dissertation aims to provide all entities involved in tourism in Lisbon with a geospatial, statistical, and longitudinal analysis tool based on data provided by a mobile operator, which allows obtaining knowledge about the behaviours and habits of tourists and visitors of the city. from Lisbon. The main intention is to provide information that allows decision-makers to base their choices on real data and facts. Through the work developed during this dissertation it was possible to create knowledge in relation to the following topics: a) the nationalities that most visit Lisbon - Germany, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Brazil; b) the most visited parishes in Lisbon - Santa Maria Maior, Misericórdia, and São Vicente; c) the popular areas of the City: Castelo, Alfama, Baixa Pombalina and São Vicente de Fora; d) the way an event like the web summit changes the movements of tourists/visitors and the places visited; e) during the early morning and night there is a decrease in tourists/visitors from Europe. Based on the developed analyses, the Tourism management entities now have the possibility to promote and take actions that allow to enhance the less visited places and to better manage the places of greater affluence, avoiding agglomerations whose management can become problematic and that can translate into a less pleasant experience for visitors. The work is based on a dataset provided through an agreement between the Municipality of Lisbon and a mobile operator, consisting of events generated in a completely anonymized way through the signaling exchanged between the mobile network and the user's terminal, each of the metrics associated with the date/time and the location where it was collected, and from here to typify the behavior of tourists and visitors to the City of Lisbon. The development of the research focused on three phases: 1) creating knowledge about the tourism business and understanding the available data in order to understand whether or not they would be able to answer our research questions; 2) the data was worked on in order to be prepared and adapted to our needs - the data given to us had information regarding both mobile phones belonging to Portuguese users and foreigners and taking into account that our focus was on the second group , a part of the information was discarded; 3) the visualization and analysis work was developed and it was in this phase that we were able to extract the value of our work and were able to provide this analysis to the decision makers. From the point of view of deliverables, in addition to this document, the work developed also consists of a set of analyses, dashboards and visualizations developed in the Microsoft Power BI tool. The analyses and information provided were duly validated by specialists from the Lisbon Municipal Council, through presentations and questionnaires to decision-makers and users of the developed solution.Esta dissertação, tem como objetivo fornecer a todas as entidades envolvidas no turismo em Lisboa, uma ferramenta de análise geoespacial, estatistica e longitudinal baseada em dados fornecidos por um operador móvel, que permita obter conhecimento sobre os comportamentos e hábitos dos turistas e vistantes da Cidade de Lisboa. A principal intenção é a de fornecer informação que permita aos decisores basearem as suas escolhas em dados e factos reais e não em conhecimento empirico. Através do trabalho desenvolvido no decorrer desta dissertação foi possível criar conhecimento em relação aos seguintes tópicos: a) as naacionalidades que mais visitam Lisboa - Alemanha, Espanha, França, Reino Unido, Itália e Brasil; b) as reguesias mais visitadas de Lisboa - Santa Maria Maior, Misericórdia, e São Vicente; c) as áreas populares da Cidade: Castelo, Alfama, Baixa Pombalina e São Vicente de Fora; d) a forma um evento como a web summit altera as movimentações dos turistas/visitantes e os locais visitados; e) durante a madrugada e a noite existe um decréscimo de turistas/visitantes originários da Europa. Tendo por base as análises desenvolvidas, as entidades gestoras do Turismo, passam a ter a possibilidade de promover de tomar ações que permitam potenciar os locais menos visitados e fazer uma melhor gestão dos locais de maior afluência, evitando aglomerados cuja gestão pode tornar-se problemática e que podem traduzir-se numa experiência menos agradável para os visitantes. O trabalho baseia-se num conjunto de dados fornecido através de um acordo entre a Câmara Municipal de Lisboa e um operador móvel, consistindop em eventos gerados de forma completamente anonimizada através da sinalização trocada entre a rede móvel e o terminal dos utilizadores, estando cada uma das métricas associada à data/hora e à localização em que foi coletada, sendo a partir daqui tipificar o comportamento dos turistas e visitantes da Cidade de Lisboa. O desenvolvimento da investigação incidu em três fases: 1) criar conhecimento sobre o negócio do turismo e compreensão dos dados disponíveis no sentido de perceber se estariam ou não aptos a dar resposta às nossas questões de investigação; 2) os dados foram trabalhados no sentido de serem preparados e adaptados às nossas necessidades - os dados que nos foram entregues tinham informação relativa tanto a telefones móveis pertencentes a utilizadores Portugueses, como a estrangeiros e tendo em conta que o nosso foco foi no segundo grupo, uma parte da informação foi descartada; 3) foi desenvolvido o trabalho de visualização e análise e foi nesta fase que conseguimos extrair o valor do nosso trabalho e conseguimos fornecer esta análise aos tomadores da decisão. Do ponto de vista de entregáveis, além do presente documento, o trabalho desenvolvido consiste igualmente de um conjunto de análises, dashboards e visualizações desenvolvidas na ferramenta Microsoft Power BI. As análises e as informações fornecidas foram devidamente validadas por especialistas da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, através de apresentações e questionários aos decisores e utilizadores da solução desenvolvida

Description of the third instar larva and pupa of Macraspis morio Burmeister, 1844 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Rutelinae) from Southern Brazil

The third instar larva and pupa of Macraspis morio Burmeister, 1844 (Rutelinae: Rutelini: Anticheirina), collected in Paraná, Brazil, is described and illustrations and comments are given. The larva differs from other Macraspis larvae by the head with 6 posterofrontal setae and mandibles with a blunt second left incisor tooth. The pupa is similar to that of M. festiva Burmeister, 1844

Activity schedule and foraging in Protopolybia sedula (Hymenoptera, Vespidae)

Protopolybia sedula is a social swarming wasp, widely spread throughout many countries in the Americas, including most of Brazil. Despite its distribution, studies of its behavioral ecology are scarce. This study aimed to describe its foraging activity and relation to climatic variables in the city of Juiz de Fora in southeastern Brazil. Three colonies were under observation between 07:00 and 18:00 during April 2012, January 2013, and March 2013. Every 30 minutes, the number of foragers leaving and returning to the colony was registered along with air temperature and relative humidity. Activity began around 07:30¸ increased between 10:30 and 14:30, and ended around 18:30. A mean of 52.7 exits and 54 returns were measured every 30 minutes. The daily mean values were 1,107 ± 510.6 exits and 1,135 ± 854.8 returns. Only one colony showed a significant correlation between forager exits and temperature (rs = 0.8055; P \u3c 0.0001) and between exits and relative humidity (rs = -0.7441; P = 0.0001). This paper shows that climatic variables are likely to have little control on the foraging rhythm of P. sedula when compared to other species, suggesting the interaction of other external and internal factors as stimuli of species foraging behavio

Near Real Time Business Intelligence Framework using R Shiny

Modern industry deals with large amounts of data, which is often difficult for humans to process and use for decision making. Industry 4.0 proposes the automation of different procedures in enterprises, aiming to reduce human errors, operation time and costs. That includes analysis of different operation parameters in near real time, in order to facilitate management to make the right decisions at the right time. That requires the use of tools that are simple and fast to use and provide the necessary information. The present paper describes an architecture of a Business Intelligence system proposed for a Telecommunications software company. The system draws information from a proprietary ERP and is all developed using free open source software. The architecture proposed uses the power of R for statistical computing, data mining and artificial intelligence. Financial information is shown in a dashboard in near real time

Effects of using four baskets during simulated youth basketball games

© 2019 Mateus et al. This study aimed to identify how playing basketball with two additional baskets influences the players\u27 technical, physiological, physical and especially, positional performance. Fourteen youth players performed eight 5vs.5 simulated basketball games, four with the two official baskets and four with two-extra official baskets, each one placed in the court restricted area. The variables collected were technical (field-goals made and missed, offensive and defensive rebounds, steals, passes, dribble-drive, give-and-go and ball possessions), physiological (heart rate monotony and sample entropy), workload (total distance covered and distance covered at different velocities) and positioning-related (distance to the nearest opponent, distance to the nearest teammate, stretch-index and distance between centroids). The results showed that the four-baskets games favoured the emergence of individual behaviours, increasing the game\u27 physical demands and promoting a collective dispersion, which might impair team playing. Conversely, when playing with two-baskets, there was less distance between teammates. In conclusion, this study has clear implications for practice as it emphasizes that coaches can manipulate the number of baskets to modulate training workload and promote different individual and team behaviours

Reforço sísmico de pilares de betão armado por encamisamento no contexto do EC8

O objetivo principal deste trabalho foi a realização de um estudo da viabilidade do reforço sísmico por intermédio do encamisamento das secções dos pilares de uma estrutura de betão armado, dimensionada de acordo com o RSAEP e o REBAP para o Algarve, de modo a ser atingido o nível de segurança previsto na regulamentação atual, neste caso, na NP EN 1998-1:2010, com os níveis de ductilidade previstos para as estruturas de ductilidade média (DCM), visando a caracterização das relações custo/benefícios dessas práticas de reforço. Foram revistos os procedimentos adequados para o reforço sísmico de estruturas de betão armado por encamisamento, sendo que neste trabalho foram visadas duas possíveis soluções, são elas, o aumento das secções (encamisamento) e o acréscimo de paredes resistentes de betão armado. Efetuou-se também um estudo comparativo dos custos/benefícios para as soluções de reforço preconizadas, no contexto do agravamento da ação que consta na NP EN 1998-1:2010 para o Algarve; ### ABSTRACT: The aim of this project is to investigate the viability of seismic reinforcement of concrete columns by using reinforced concrete jacketing designed according to the RSAEP and the REBAP. The Algarve region was chosen for this study with the objective of ensuring that all levels of safety regulations from the NP EN 1998-1:2010 could be met and the correct level of ductility provided for a concrete structure of medium ductility (DCM), whilst also aiming to characterize the cost/benefits for this type of structural reinforcement. After reviewing various procedures for seismic reinforcement, two possible solutions were targeted in this project. The first being the column reinforcement by concrete jacketing and the second the addition of reinforced concrete shear walls. A cost/benefit anaylsis was also carried out regarding the two possible solutions mentioned, in context with the aggravation of seismic action according with the NP EN 1998-1:2010 for the region of Algarve