Social construction of information technology supporting work

In the beginning of 1999, the CIO of a Portuguese company in the automobile industry was debating with himself whether to abandon or to continue supporting the MIS his company had been using for years. This MIS had been supporting the company’s production processes and the procurement of resources for these processes. However, in spite of the fact that the MIS system had been deployed under the CIO’s tight control, the CIO felt strong opposition to the use of this MIS system, opposition that was preventing the MIS system from being used to its full potential. Moreover, the CIO was at lost as to how to ensure greater compliance to his control and fuller use of the MIS system. Therefore, the CIO decided that he needed someone external to the company to help him understand the fundamental reasons, technical, social, or cultural, for the opposition to the MIS system

Specification of requirements models

The main aim of this chapter is to present and discuss a set of modeling and specification techniques, in what concerns their ontology and support in the requirements representation of computer-based systems. A systematic classification of meta-models, also called models of computation, is presented. This topic is highly relevant since it supports the definition of sound specification methodologies in relation to the semantic definition of the modeling views to adopt for a given system. The usage and applicability of Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams is also related to their corresponding meta-models. A set of desirable characteristics for the specification methodologies is presented and justified to allow system designers and requirements engineers to more consciously define or choose a particular specification methodology. A heuristic-based approach to support the transformation of user into system requirements is suggested, with some graphical examples in UML notation.(undefined

The behavior of academic investigators using an institutional repository

Institutional repositories (IRs) are a new strategy for universities to expedite changes in scientific communication. They are digital collections that store, preserve, and make available the intellectual output of one or more universities. Housing this production in an IR can solve problems such as the high acquisition and maintenance costs of collections, and the publication of gray literature, reports and post-prints. However, the IR brings new questions about copyright that are still in discussion. It can also improve the situation of the universities that are responsible for producing 70% of the scientific papers, buying from commercial editors about 90% of the articles they consume, compromising part of the budget in the acquisition of periodicals that bring back the results of their own work. The use of open archives by IRs should stimulate self-archiving, since it assures a more efficient dissemination of digital documents. However, self-archiving is a new task, sometimes perceived as an additional burden in overcrowded schedules, not yet part of the habits and routines of researchers and academic staff. This work is justified in a socio-cultural context, especially in understanding the behavior of investigators from different knowledge areas and cultures in their acceptance and use of IRs, being possible to know important factors in its adoption. This way, we intend to provide the academic managers guidelines that help them to promote a culture of sharing and disseminating the scientific information produced by their institutions, increasing the investigation’s excellence

Landscape Ecology dialogue: facing societal and environmental challenges in Southern Europe

A Universidade de Évora aprovou, em 2013, o Mestrado em Ecologia da Paisagem, o 1º em Portugal, cuja 1ª edição vai ter lugar no próximo ao letivo. A presente conferência tem como objetivo dar a conhecer e divulgar o referido mestrado aos potenciais interessados, trazendo para o diálogo os desafios que atualmente se colocam em Ecologia da Paisagem, nomeadamente os sociais e ambientais, num contexto transdisciplinar que lhe é inerente. Serão abordados temas dentro de um vasto leque de realidades, questões e escalas de análise, desde o ensino à investigação e à sua aplicação prática, para o que se convidaram especialistas e investigadores de diferentes países, com diferentes competências e formações. Pretende-se identificar as questões mais atuais e os desafios a considerar no futuro, articulando ensino e investigação e equacionado de que forma a Ecologia da Paisagem contribui para dar resposta às rápidas transformações e dinâmicas territoriais e ambientais. As apresentações da conferência podem ser solicitadas à organização por correio electrónico

Study of the slow batch pyrolysis of mixtures of plastics, tyres and forestry biomass wastes. Effect of experimental conditions in the liguid compounds

In this work was studied the effect of experimental conditions in the production of liquid compounds from slow batch pyrolysis of mixtures of plastics, tires and pines wastes. The major compounds formed were toluene, ethylbenzene, and linear alkanes from C5 to C10 (each reaching yields around 5% w/w of the initial waste mixture). The pyrolysis reaction time and temperature improved the production of those species, while decreasing heavier alkanes formation. An increase of plastics content in waste mixture seemed to favour the production of lighter alkanes, although this effect was not as notorious as the ones just mentioned. The styrene production decreased regularly with the decrease of tyres content in the mixture. Autoclave initial pressure variation did not seem to affect significantly the formation of the major compounds

Recovery of wastes by pyrolysis: effect of experimental conditions

This work aimed to study the recovery of three types of waste by the process of pyrolysis: biomass, plastics and used tyres. The effects of experimental conditions in products yield and composition were studied. The increase of reaction time increased alkane content both in gas phase from 53% to 70% v/v and in liquid fraction from 48% to 60% w/w. The rise of reaction temperature led to a decrease of liquid yield (from 82% to 73% w/w), which was followed by the increase of solids and gases. The increase of reaction temperature also allowed the increase of the alkane content in gas phase from 39% to 70% v/v. The increase of initial pressure did not lead to appreciable variations in product yields or composition. The parameter that most affected products yield and composition was plastics content on the wastes initial mixture. The enhancement of this parameter increased liquids yield from 33% to 92% w/w, at the expenses of solids and gases contents and also decreased aromatics contents from 52% to 28% w/w

The indirect effect of contextual factors on the emotional distress of infertile couples

Few studies were dedicated to study the role of contextual factors, such as the socioeconomic status and urban rural residence in emotional distress of infertile couples. This study aimed to explore the impact of contextual factors on emotional distress, either directly or by affecting the importance of parenthood in one’s life which in turn affects emotional distress. In this cross-sectional study, 70 couples recruited during hormonal stimulation phase prior to IVF completed clinical and sociodemographic forms and self-report questionnaires assessing representations about the importance of parenthood and emotional distress. Path analysis using structural equation modelling was used to examine direct and indirect effects among variables. Results indicated that social economic status and Urban-Rural residence had an impact in emotional distress by affecting the representations about the importance of parenthood in one’s life. Gender differences were found regarding model paths, suggesting that the social context may contribute more to women’s emotional distress than to their partners’ distress. When delineating psychological interventions, health care providers should consider that cultural values about children and parenthood contribute to shape the infertility experienc

Buona fede e art. 41 Cost.: alla ricerca di un diritto contrattuale "giusto"

Tale contributo tenta di analizzare la problematica della libertà di iniziativa economica privata come limite e fondamento della libertà contrattuale dei privati concentrando l’attenzione sul rapporto contratto-giudice-mercato