Análise dunha experiencia APS na Facultade de Ciencias

[Resumo] Para provocar un cambio no xeito que ten o alumnado de aproximarse aos contidos da materia Fanerogamia, troncal do 3º do Grao en Bioloxía, considerada excesivamente teórica e de pouco interese na sociedade actual, planteouse no curso 2016-2017 aplicar a metodoloxía APS (Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Astin et al. 2000). A proposta consistiu en contactar con dúas ONG ambientalistas as cales plantexaron unha serie de proxectos que foron consensuados cos profesores da materia. Así mesmo, explicouse ós alumnos a posibilidade de participar nesta metodoloxía e pedíronse voluntarios. Esta actividade sería paralela a outros traballos de investigación teórica que realizan o resto dos estudantes mais coa mesma carga de créditos e peso na cualificación final. Os estudantes escolleron o proxecto no que desexaban traballar e realizárono en grupos. Representantes das ONG explicaron a cada grupo de alumnos o seu proxecto, para que os estudantes percibisen a problemática social que había detrás do traballo que se lles pedía, a importancia de aplicar os coñecementos adquiridos con rigor e a responsabilidade que asumían á hora de desenvolver o proxecto. Por outra banda, os estudantes terían que organizar o traballo en grupo e, finalmente, presentar os resultados aos membros das ONG. Para avaliar o proxecto APS deseñáronse enquisas como un cuestionario con escala tipo Likert e unha rúbrica para os profesores (Campo 2015). Como resultado, é salientable a gran aceptación e a melloría na percepción da materia por parte dos estudantes, aumentando a súa comprensión e interese polos contidos. Entre os problemas o volume de traballo e a organización temporal. Por parte das ONG perciben a necesidade de implicarse máis no desenvolvemento dos traballos e clarificar mellor o proceso de avaliación. No profesorado, os problemas xurdiron pola escasa flexibilidade das guías docentes e o volume de traballo xerad

Living wages in Portugal : in search of dignity in a highly polarized labour market

Living Wage (LW) is a concept that goes beyond that of National Minimum Wage (NMW), since it implies income adequacy to the wage earners and to his/her family members. The implementation of LW in Portugal then implies a mix of variables, including the minimum wage (that imply labour costs, and a change of earnings distribution), but also variables that imply fiscal costs (social benefits and tax deductions). It is then expected to reach household income adequacy, and to be feasible regarding the labour and fiscal costs, and socially acceptable regarding the change of earnings distribution. The relevance of such trade‐offs is of high relevance for the Portuguese economy where average and median wages are low, the NMW is generous, when related to the median wage, and wage income distribution has high inequality, namely at the top, evidencing high polarization. This article analyses such issues centred on the worker (as a wage earner, as a household member and as a citizen with social rights and fiscal duties) and using EU‐SILC data to quantify some of these trade‐offs by the simulation of different values for core action variables aiming to reach LW, supported on an adequate normative estimation of a Minimum Income Standard (MIS) for Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social resilience and welfare systems under COVID-19: A European comparative perspective

COVID-19 and the corresponding economic lockdown and income loss for large segments of population was something unexpected for all European countries, and their welfare systems were not prepared to protect their citizens from such threats. Social resilience is becoming used in disaster risk analysis, and preferred to that of vulnerability, to refer the ability of the social entities to respond to such challenges, enabling them to cope and adjust to adverse events. It has been more recently used in the context of the European Union (EU) about COVID-19, regarding the creation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, intended to mitigate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The global nature of this pandemic makes possible and relevant a deeper understanding of social resilience at different levels of analysis: international, national, local and individual/household levels. This article aims to contribute to this by proposing a set of indicators of social resilience in face of COVID-19, supported in a theoretical framework developed herein, and comparing the performance of a selection of EU countries with distinct welfare system configurations, with different roles played by the government, the market, the social organizations and the families. Using comparable statistical data at macro level and data concerning the responses of government to the economic and social effects of the pandemic, we produce a synthetic index of social resilience, combining resilience on coping and resilience on adapting. We relate the differences found in coping and adapting with the welfare system configurations of these countries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Percentile residual life orders

In this paper we study a family of stochastic orders of random variables defined via the comparison of their percentile residual life functions. Some interpretations of these stochastic orders are given, and various properties of them are derived. The relationships to other stochastic orders are also studied. Finally, some applications in reliability theory and finance are described

A competitividade regional externa das NUTS II de Portugal e Espanha

Purpose: O artigo procura dar uma abordagem sobre a evolução da competitividade regional externa das regiões de Portugal e Espanha, com base na análise da orientação exportadora das Unidades Territoriais de nível II para fins Estatísticos (NUTS II), colocando em evidência o triângulo de dinamismo económico constituído pela produtividade, inovação e capital humano, com o objetivo de avaliar o progresso dos índices de competitividade internacional e respetiva eficiência setorial. Design/methodology/approach: O estudo empírico é realizado com base na análise de dados recolhidos para o período compreendido entre 2000 e 2014, sendo construído um sistema de equações econométricas que procuram refletir a influência das diferenças setoriais e de desenvolvimento regional, sobretudo ao nível da produtividade e capital intangível, sobre o nível de procura externa em função da riqueza gerada por cada região. Findings: O resultado das estimações aponta para diferentes conclusões na explicação da variabilidade da orientação exportadora, consoante a estrutura produtiva e dotação de fatores das NUTS II, demonstrando-se que as assimetrias regionais condicionam o cumprimento de alguns pressupostos teóricos observados na generalidade da literatura científica. As variáveis afetas à produtividade, Valor Acrescentado Bruto (VAB), emprego e capital intangível tendem a ter comportamentos diferentes em função da estrutura económica setorial, considerando-se apenas os setores secundário e terciário. Originality/value: O estudo da competitividade encontra-se normalmente focado no lado da oferta, sendo a variável preferencialmente caracterizadora deste conceito a produtividade. Neste estudo pretendemos analisar o lado da procura externa, perspetiva de estudo ainda pouco explorada no contexto da Península Ibérica.Este trabalho foi parcialmente financiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) através da Unidade de Investigação Aplicada em Gestão (UNIAG) no âmbito do projeto nº UID/GES/4752/2016.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Um olhar sobre a diferenciação territorial da pobreza em Portugal à luz da abordagem das capacidades de Amartya Sen

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effects of drought and water pulses on microbial functionality and the role of Cyanoprokaryota in the rhizospheres of gypsophytes

In the rhizospheres of three gypsophytes and in non-rhizospheric soil, two samplings were carried out - the first during a summer drought and the second during spring - to detect the responses to the availability of water in the soil. Urease and protease showed higher values after the drought whereas β-glucosidase was highest in the spring. This pattern was the same for all the rhizospheres tested. However, the arylsulfatase and alkaline phosphatase did not change. Surprising results were obtained when water retention and water loss were studied, with the highest values being obtained for the dry season due to the association of Cyanoprokaryota with the rhizospheres. The results are also explained by two water pulses that occurred before the samplings. Several parameters, whose values changed markedly due to the microbiological activation just after the drought and water pulses, are proposed as indicators of this activation: microbial biomass carbon and basal respiration rate, together with urease and protease. However, it was the dehydrogenase activity in spring that best reflected the microbiology associated with the carbon cycle, together with β-glucosidase. The interrelationships between carbon and nitrogen were shown through the indices: water soluble nitrogen and water soluble carbon. We propose three functional adaptation mechanisms of these plants associated with the Cyanoprokaryota in their rhizospheres and related to the water availability as determined by drought and water pulse effects. Herniaria fruticosa is a pioneer with the greatest diversity of Cyanoprokaryota, in both summer and spring (10 species and 11 species, respectively), and with high-medium abundance (5–30%). Teucrium balthazaris exhibits an intermediate strategy, with greater diversity of Cyanoprokaryota in spring (7 species) and predominance of high-medium abundance (5–30%). Finally, Helianthemum squamatum has lower diversity, with one species in summer (with low abundance, <5%) and no species in spring

Functional clustering via multivariate clustering

Clustering techniques applied to multivariate data are a very useful tool in Statistics and have been fully studied in the literature. Nevertheless, these clustering methodologies are less well known when dealing with functional data. Our proposal consists of introducing a clustering procedure for functional data using the very well known techniques for clustering multivariate data. The idea is to reduce a functional data problem to a multivariate data problem by applying the epigraph and the hypograph indexes to the original data and to its first and second derivatives. All the information given by the functional data is therefore transformed to the multivariate context, being sufficiently informative for the usual multivariate clustering techniques to be efficient. The performance of this new methodology is evaluated through a simulation study and it is also illustrated through real data sets