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Publications

2018

The case of an entrepreneurial university and its competitive advantage in academia

Authors
Loio, D; Sousa, D; Geraldo, S; Au Yong Oliveira, M;

Publication
Proceedings of the European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, ECIE

Abstract
This study followed a mixed methodology - five semi-structured interviews were performed, and transcribed in full, with four senior lecturers and one administrative employee at the university; and a survey with 124 valid responses, answered by students of the university, was also conducted. The research question was the following: how does the University of Aveiro achieve its competitive advantage, in view of its competition in Porto, Coimbra and Lisbon, which are the three main geographical areas nearby? The University of Aveiro may also be seen, however, to be competing with other international universities, as the University of Aveiro is highly placed in the international rankings for young universities (the University of Aveiro was, in 2017, ranked 81st in the Times Higher Education Young University Rankings, for universities aged under fifty years). The resources, capabilities and key competences of the University of Aveiro, founded in 1973, were analysed. The results of the study indicate that 76% of the respondents of the survey chose the University of Aveiro as their first choice in their applications, which means that these students are following their first choice for their careers. The University has constructed its attractiveness around value innovation: its low price (not only for its annual fees, but also concerning the cost of living in the Aveiro area - in central Portugal), coupled to its superior and highly recognized teaching practices, its highly recognized research around its 18 research centres, its start-up incubator, its creative science park, its cooperation and knowledge transfer to society (via its many partnerships with different organizations), its multicultural environment (the University of Aveiro is a favourite of Erasmus students), its award-winning campus (in architectural terms), and its organizational culture geared towards the satisfaction of its students, as well as its organizational structure in a matrix format whereby the university is built around different and unique departments (for different functional areas of study) with each having a degree of autonomy, though being managed centrally by the university rectorate. The University of Aveiro is thus seen to be very entrepreneurial as it has remained flexible, dynamic, and principally open to new teaching methods.

2018

Overview of IUI2018 workshop: User interfaces for spatial and temporal data analysis (UISTDA2018)

Authors
Wakamiya, S; Jatowt, A; Kawai, Y; Akiyama, T; Campos, R; Yonezawa, T;

Publication
CEUR Workshop Proceedings

Abstract
Nowadays, humanity generates and contributes to form large and complex datasets, going from documents published on media outlets, posts on social media or location-based information. The generated information tends to be complex, heterogeneous (texts, images, videos, etc.) and is growing at an incredible pace, with much of this data having a strong spatial and temporal focus. This steady increase in the availability of such a volume of information, forces the development of more effective user interfaces that would assist users in efficient visualization, analysis and exploration of the data. This half-day workshop on User Interfaces for Spatial and Temporal Data Analysis (UISTDA) held in conjunction with the IUI2018 conference on March 11th, aimed at sharing the latest progress and developments, current challenges and potential applications for exploiting large amounts of spatial and temporal data. In this paper we provide an overview of the workshop goals together with its main contributions. © 2018 Copyright for the individual papers remains with the authors.

2018

Cross-Validation for Imbalanced Datasets: Avoiding Overoptimistic and Overfitting Approaches

Authors
Santos, MS; Soares, JP; Abreu, PH; Araújo, H; Santos, J;

Publication
IEEE COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE

Abstract
Although cross-validation is a standard procedure for performance evaluation, its joint application with oversampling remains an open question for researchers farther from the imbalanced data topic. A frequent experimental flaw is the application of oversampling algorithms to the entire dataset, resulting in biased models and overly-optimistic estimates. We emphasize and distinguish overoptimism from overfitting, showing that the former is associated with the cross-validation procedure, while the latter is influenced by the chosen oversampling algorithm. Furthermore, we perform a thorough empirical comparison of well-established oversampling algorithms, supported by a data complexity analysis. The best oversampling techniques seem to possess three key characteristics: use of cleaning procedures, cluster-based example synthetization and adaptive weighting of minority examples, where Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique coupled with Tomek Links and Majority Weighted Minority Oversampling Technique stand out, being capable of increasing the discriminative power of data.

2018

PID Posicast Control for Uncertain Oscillatory Systems: A Practical Experiment

Authors
Oliveira, J; Oliveira, PM; Pinho, TM; Cunha, JB;

Publication
IFAC PAPERSONLINE

Abstract
Half-cycle Posicast Control is currently used in a vast range of applications. Although the proved benefits of this technique, one of its major disadvantages concerns model uncertainties. This has motivated the development and integration of robust methods to overcome this issue. In this paper, a practical experiment for auto-tuning of a two degrees of freedom control configuration using a Half-Cycle Posicast pre-filter (or input-shaping), and a PID controller under parametric variations is presented. The proposed method requires using an oscillatory system model in an auto-tuning control structure. The error derivative among the model and system output is used to trigger both the identification and retuning procedure. The proposed method is flexible for choosing identification plus optimization methods. Practical results obtained for electronic filter plants suggest improved performance for the considered cases. © 2018

2018

SClinico: Usability Study

Authors
Pavão, J; Bastardo, R; Covêlo, M; Pereira, LT; Oliveira, P; Pedrosa, C; Silva, AG; Costa, V; Martins, AI; Queirós, A; da Rocha, NP;

Publication
HEALTHINF

Abstract
The use of electronic health records (EHR) to support clinical practices is widespread worldwide, due to the need to optimize health care delivery. Therefore, the usability assessment of EHR systems is crucial. The objective of this study was to perform a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the usability of SClinico, the most used EHR system within the Portuguese National Health Service. This observational study to assess SClinico usability took place in several clinical services of the Centro Hospitalar de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. The results show that SClinico has some usability issues that influence the clinical practice and, therefore, need to be improved.

2018

Are public hospitals reforming efficiently in West Bank?

Authors
Sultan, WIM; Crispim, J;

Publication
CONFLICT AND HEALTH

Abstract
BackgroundThe structure, function, and capacity of the health care system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) had been largely shaped by the complex political history of the country. Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, the reform efforts were subsidized much by the international aids to rebuild the country's institutional capacity. No previous studies have provided a realistic evaluation of Palestinian achievements in the conduct of public healthcare, we examine the relative productive efficiency of public hospitals (their managers' success in the usage of resources) during 2010-2015 within West Bank and Jordan. Then, we estimate the efficiency of policies within which managers operate (the program efficiency) across the two countries.MethodsWe employ the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models to distinguish between within-country managerial efficiencies and public policy program efficiencies across the two countries. The study follows two key steps, the first step evaluates managerial efficiencies and explores trends in performance within each country. Then, we examine the program efficiencies across the two countries.ResultsPublic hospitals improved their year-specific overall efficiency from 75 to 80% in the West Bank and from 78 to 86% in Jordan in 2010 and 2015 respectively. Changes in efficiency are driven by scale effects in West Bank and by managerial enhancements in Jordan. Program efficiency in West Bank outperformed Jordan during 2010-2012, there was no significant difference in mean program efficiencies between the two countries during 2013-2015.ConclusionsThis work addresses a gap in the DEA literature by empirically investigating the efficiency of public hospitals as distinct from program efficiency in a developing country, namely, Palestine. Findings stimulate hospital managers to enhance potential improvements, policymakers to allocate resources, and international donors to focus on the right adoption of new technology to get better benefits from their considerable investments in public hospitals.

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