Abstract
This paper presents a counting system project for the Naturtejo Global Geopark, which is structured in two phases. The objective of the first phase was to develop, install and test an electronic system able to remotely count the number of visitors on the Naturtejo Geopark walking routes and touristic sites. The data is reported through a web interface. A Pilot test is currently installed on Trail PR3 – “Fossil’s Route”, near the village of Penha Garcia. Since May 2015, more than 6000 tourists where monitored. The second phase of the project aims to track tourists based on the detection of Wi-Fi signals generated by their smartphones. Thanks to data mining algorithms, useful insights can be extracted that helps to understand the behaviour of tourists when they travel around the large territory of the Geopark.

Abstract
Current information and communication technologies, including the internet and its services (web 2.0, email, conferences at a distance, etc.) have opened new perspectives in the field of education, by promoting communication and interaction between all participants at a distance. It is not the technology itself that will define the quality of teaching and learning in distance education, but the methodological approach that supports it. This paper aims to propose a methodological framework to implement in distance education modules supported by online pedagogy elements linked to innovative teaching methodologies. Its goal is to bring some contributions to those who are in charge of course design, providing a useful framework to improve active and technology enhanced collaborative learning in similar environments.

Abstract
Forecasting future sales is one of the most important issues that is beyond all strategic and planning decisions in effective operations of retail supply chains. For profitable retail businesses, accurate sales forecasting is crucial in organizing and planning purchasing, production, transportation and labor force. Retail sales series belong to a special type of time series that typically contain strong trend and seasonal patterns, presenting challenges in developing effective forecasting models. This paper compares the forecasting performance of state space models and ARIMA models. The forecasting performance is demonstrated through a case study of retail sales of five different categories of women footwear: Boots, Booties, Flats, Sandals and Shoes. An approach based on cross-validation is used to identify automatically appropriate state space and ARIMA models. The forecasting performance of these models is also compared by examining the out-of-sample forecasts. The results indicate that the overall out-of-sample forecasting performance of ARIMA models evaluated via RMSE, MAE and MAPE is better than state space models. The performance of both forecasting methodologies in producing forecast intervals was also evaluated and the results indicate that ARIMA produces slightly better coverage probabilities than state space models for the nominal 95% forecast intervals. For the nominal 80% forecast intervals the performance of state space models is slightly better.

Abstract
The empirical literature focusing mainly on the USA suggests that class absenteeism undermines students' academic performance and that an enforced mandatory attendance policy may be beneficial. Based on a different cultural and economic context, and using data on 146 second-year management students enrolled in a macroeconomics course at an elite economics school in Portugal, it is shown that even when controlling for potential endogenous factors associated with attendance and academic performance, absenteeism considerably lowers the students' final grade (about 2 points in a 0-20-point grading scheme). In addition, it is established that a compulsory, though flexible, attendance policy contributes to improving students' academic performance.

Abstract

Abstract
There is no doubt that nowadays internationalization is increasingly attractive for companies that want to become more competitive. However, many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) still are resourceconstrained, lacking adequate information and facing problems to establish and manage relationships to operate in a sustainable way in international markets. Despite receiving some support from governments and from other institutional entities, these difficulties faced by SMEs call for a stronger support, which can be played by industrial enterprises associations (IEAs). This chapter brings the perspective of five different companies that are associated with IEAs. The main objective is to have their opinion about the role of IEAs as information managers and promoters of collaborations, mainly for internationalization processes. Another objective is to understand the acceptance by these companies regarding the use of collaborative platforms, managed by IEAs, for supporting their information and collaboration management activities. © 2017, IGI Global.