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Publications

2022

Sustainability performance assessment of the transport sector in European countries

Authors
Gruetzmacher, SB; Vaz, CB; Ferreira, AP;

Publication
REVISTA FACULTAD DE INGENIERIA-UNIVERSIDAD DE ANTIOQUIA

Abstract
The transport sector plays a fundamental role in the European Union economy and its efficiency is fundamental to strengthen the region's environmental and economic performance. Unfortunately, the sector still remains heavily dependent on oil resources and is responsible for a large part of the air pollution. The European Union has been promoting various initiatives towards sustainable transport development by setting targets in the sector such as the ones proposed in the 2011 White Paper on transport. Under this context, this study aims at evaluating the environmental performance of the transport sector in 28 European Union countries, from 2015 to 2018, towards the policy agenda established in the strategic documents. The assessment of the transport environmental performance is made through the aggregation of seven sub-indicators into a composite indicator using a Data Envelopment Analysis technique. A variant of the Benefit of the Doubt model is used to determine the weights to aggregate the sub-indicators. The results obtained indicate that the European Union countries have been improving their transport environmental performance in the last two years of the time span under analysis, i.e., 2017 and 2018. Regarding the inefficient countries, results suggest they should improve the transport sustainability mainly by drastically reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-based propulsion, increasing the share of freight transport using rail and inland waterways and also the share of transport energy from renewable sources.

2022

The Contribution of CoVID-19 Innovative Projects for Sustainable Development: The Portuguese Context

Authors
Almeida, F;

Publication
International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development

Abstract
COVID-19 has brought new challenges to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals as proposed by the United Nations in the 2030 Agenda. However, innovative projects developed by governments, private sector, and civil society present themselves as an opportunity to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on sustainable development. This study uses the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation promoted by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development to explore how innovative projects address the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The Portuguese context is used to qualitatively characterize this phenomenon. The findings reveal that these projects also offer relevant contributions in areas such as public infrastructure support, health promotion, quality of education, and reduced inequalities. Copyright © 2022, IGI Global.

2022

Graded epistemic logic with public announcement

Authors
Benevides, M; Madeira, A; Martins, MA;

Publication
JOURNAL OF LOGICAL AND ALGEBRAIC METHODS IN PROGRAMMING

Abstract
This work introduces a new fuzzy epistemic logic with public announcement with fuzzyness on both transitions and propositions. The interpretation of the connectives is done over the Godel algebra and the interpretation of public announcements in this logic generalises the traditional update one. The core idea is that, the effect of a public announcement is reflected on the transitions degrees of the models. The update takes in account not only the truth degree of the announcement, at a target state, but also the degree of the transitions reaching that state. We prove the soundness of all axioms of the multi-agent epistemic logic with public announcements with respect to this graded semantics. Finally, we introduce the notion of bisimulation and prove the modal invariance property for our logic.

2022

An Algorithm Adaptation Method for Multi-Label Stream Classification using Self-Organizing Maps

Authors
Cerri, R; Faria, ER; Gama, J;

Publication
2022 21ST IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MACHINE LEARNING AND APPLICATIONS, ICMLA

Abstract
Multi-label stream classification is the task of classifying instances in two or more classes simultaneously, with instances flowing continuously in high speed. This task imposes difficult challenges, such as the detection of concept drifts, where the distributions of the instances in the stream change with time, and infinitely delayed labels, when the ground truth labels of the instances are never available to help updating the classifiers. To solve such task, the methods from the literature use the problem transformation approach, which divides the multi-label problem into different sub-problems, associating one classification model for each class. In this paper, we propose a method based on self-organizing maps that, different from the literature, uses only one model to deal with all classes simultaneously. By using the algorithm adaptation approach, our proposal better considers label dependencies, improving the results over its counterparts. Experiments using different synthetic and real-world datasets showed that our proposal obtained the overall best performance when compared to different methods from the literature.

2022

Technology and Innovation in Learning, Teaching and Education - Third International Conference, TECH-EDU 2022, Lisbon, Portugal, August 31 - September 2, 2022, Revised Selected Papers

Authors
Reis, A; Barroso, J; Martins, P; Jimoyiannis, A; Min Huang, RY; Henriques, R;

Publication
TECH-EDU

Abstract

2022

Fintech Services and the Drivers of Their Implementation in Small and Medium Enterprises

Authors
Moreira Santos, D; Au Yong Oliveira, M; Palma Moreira, A;

Publication
INFORMATION

Abstract
Fintech has been one of the biggest agents of change in the financial sector worldwide, deserving an in-depth analysis as the aim of this study (including factors leading to its adoption, consequences, etc.). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial area and Fintech services allied to technology has increased efficiency, convenience, and security. To better understand this type of service, the research follows a quantitative methodology. The quantitative method included a questionnaire survey of companies that are Fintech customers, totaling 49 valid responses from firms (collected over a three-month period and which involved sending over a thousand emails to numerous companies). The response rate was low due to both the pandemic and the conjuncture with major war, which are generating uncertainty in business. The analysis was based on descriptive statistics, an assessment of the metric qualities of the scales, reliability and an Exploratory Factor Analysis, Pearson correlations and Hypothesis testing. The positive and significant effect of the technological context (perceived convenience, usefulness and effectiveness and perceived safety and trust) and the organizational context (ecological footprint reduction and internal cost reduction) on Fintech service adoption intention was confirmed. Hypothesis Three was partially confirmed since only consumer trends and reputation perception have a positive and significant effect on the intention to adopt Fintech by SMEs. The moderating effect of the environmental context in the relationship between the technological context and the intention to adopt Fintech by SMEs was partially proven, but the same was not verified in the relationship between the organizational context and the intention to adopt Fintech by SMEs. Portugal seems to be on the same adoption path as the rest of the western world, and Fintech services will undoubtedly increase, in a kind of revolution in which the strongest and those able to adapt to the markets and their needs will survive.

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