Science (Universidade Europeia)
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“Happiness under construction”: A project in opposition to the problem of obligatory happiness
No full textHappiness is the ultimate goal of living well and it is, at the same time, the principle of motivation that guides many people’s daily choices. However, there is currently an urgent need to be happy and, by taking advantage of this fragility, some companies and institutions have devalued the responsible exploration of this issue, and have made it a tradable and consumable asset. All of this has contributed to the evolution of happiness towards becoming a condition of belonging, giving rise to a way of living where this feeling must be mandatory and self-evident. It is in order to respond to this trend, and understanding that it is directly related to the lack of knowledge and deeper understanding of the theme, that the project “Happiness under Construction” emerged. It arose within the scope of an applied investigation, consisting of an interactive narrative in the form of a website, which presents itself as a proposal to act in opposition to the current model of obligatory happiness. The development of this project had two major methodological moments; one about the definition of the target audience, and another about the creation of the website—both of which got the collaboration of real people in order to support the project in a constructive way. Its result revealed that, through the intersection of the disciplines of positive psychology and positive design, the developed project contributed significantly to people’s wellbeing
The Views of Stakeholders on Mandatory or Voluntary Use of a Simplified Standard on Non-Financial Information for SMEs in the European Union
No full textThis paper investigates the variables that may explain the views of stakeholders regarding the need for a simplified non-financial reporting (NFR) standard for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the European Union (EU) and whether this standard should be mandatory or voluntary. This paper uses, as a source, 588 answers provided by different groups of stakeholders within the process of public consultation conducted by the EU, from February to June 2020, concerning possible revisions to the provisions of the Directive on NFR. The findings showed that the most consensual attribute that probably explains the views of stakeholders on this matter is the importance attributed by them to the concepts of comparability, reliability, and relevance. From the stakeholders’ perspective, this topic may also be explained by the users’ needs. Notwithstanding, its importance may differ, depending on the type of user. These findings are relevant within the process of developing an NFR model applicable to SMEs based on a mandatory standard, providing evidence that regulators and standard-setters should consider the qualitative characteristics of non-financial information as well as the needs of various stakeholders within this process
A novel deep learning approach using contextual embeddings for toponym resolution
No full textThis article describes a novel approach for toponym resolution with deep neural networks. The proposed approach does not involve matching references in the text against entries in a gazetteer, instead directly predicting geo-spatial coordinates. Multiple inputs are considered in the neural network architecture (e.g., the surrounding words are considered in combination with the toponym to disambiguate), using pre-trained contextual word embeddings (i.e., ELMo or BERT) as well as bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory units, which are both regularly used for modeling textual data. The intermediate representations are then used to predict a probability distribution over possible geo-spatial regions, and finally to predict the coordinates for the input toponym. The proposed model was tested on three datasets used on previous toponym resolution studies, specifically the (i) War of the Rebellion, (ii) Local–Global Lexicon, and (iii) SpatialML corpora. Moreover, we evaluated the effect of using (i) geophysical terrain properties as external information, including information on elevation or terrain development, among others, and (ii) additional data collected from Wikipedia articles, to further help with the training of the model. The obtained results show improvements using the proposed method, when compared to previous approaches, and specifically when BERT embeddings and additional data are involved
Perceived success of hybrid microorganizations in a contested category
No full textThe organizational literature privileges objective performance indicators often selected by researchers. There is scarce research focusing on legitimacy-challenged hybrid and microorganizations and on perceived success under exigent conditions. To address this scarcity, this study, conducted among complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) microorganizations, explores success as a subjective measure originating from managers’ perceptions. For the purpose, it integrates cognitive mapping and multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA)—a methodological contribution to construct a subjective-success
framework that can be helpful for contested hybrid microorganizations. Seven factors emerged, of which human capital is recognized as critical, while external factors are considered unimportant
Brands at the nexus of organizations and markets: How organizational structures and technology shape marketing practice
No full textRecent research suggests that marketing has been losing influence on some company’s strategic decision-making and has been increasingly employed at a tactical level. Additionally, technological advancements in media and communications have been pointed out as being drivers of this “tactification” of marketing. Within this phenomena, we are particularly interested in understanding how brand management is being regarded in large organizations. Thus, we set as purpose for our research to explore how brand management is currently being practiced in large organizations, with a particular concern for understanding their strategic role in these companies. To this end, we have developed a qualitative study, where data were mainly collected through in-depth interviews to top managers. We have studied how three large organizations structure the marketing function and what roles brands assume within their strategic endeavours. Our findings unveil important insights on the role of brands in the practice of marketing at both strategic and tactical levels, laying ground for future research
Worldviews about the self mediate the impact of immature and mature defense styles on posttraumatic symptoms in bereaved parents
No full textThe present study analyzed the mediating role of assumptive worldviews on the effect of defense mechanisms on post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS) in bereaved parents. Sample included a convenience sample of 153 bereaved parents and a control group of 157 nonbereaved parents. Structural equation modeling was conducted to examine our hypotheses. Bereaved parents presented higher levels of PTS and more negative assumptions compared to nonbereaved participants. Worthiness of the self mediated the effect of both immature and mature defense styles on PTS levels, and neurotic defense style directly predicted PTS levels
Telework and Mental Health during COVID-19
No full textCOVID-19 has come to change societal organization. Due to lockdowns, work typologies have been rethought and telework has gained strength. However, the impact of the constant use of information and communication technologies on the mental health of workers needs to be considered. We aimed to investigate the impact of different work conditions on mental health, to which end we disseminated an online questionnaire during lockdowns to assess imagined surveillance, mobile maintenance expectation, communication overload, feelings of entrapment, depression, anxiety, stress, and flourishing in four groups (employed in telework, employed on-site, employed in layoff, and unemployed). We computed mean comparisons and serial mediations. We show that depression and anxiety were more prevalent in women; parents flourished more than people without children; and people with a higher level of education feel more entrapment. Crucially, we show that telework was associated with imagined surveillance and communication overload, which mediated the association with mobile maintenance expectations and entrapment (which was exacerbated by parenthood), impacting mental health and the quality of life. However, this was also partially observed in the remaining work conditions. Finally, flourishing worked as a protector against mental health issues in all work conditions. We discuss this given the massification of digital migration
Procedural generation of branching quests for games
No full textThe production of high-quality digital games usually requires a few hundred individuals, including designers, artists, and story writers. Currently, development teams are increasingly applying procedural content generation techniques to reduce their work overload. However, there is a lack of methods to handle the procedural generation of branching quests that can support the richness of the digital games’ mutable and highly interactive virtual worlds. The challenges to maintaining a rich and coherent game narrative are enormous. In this work, we present a novel procedural quest generation method that can produce coherent quests with branching storylines for dynamic and interactive game worlds. By combining automated planning with a genetic algorithm guided by story arcs, the proposed method can generate coherent branching quests based on a narrative structure. Preliminary results show that the branching quests created with our approach are nearly at par with those made by professional game designers
Protein intake and muscle mass maintenance in patients with cancer types with high prevalence of sarcopenia: A systematic review
No full textRationale Cancer is associated with muscle wasting. However, optimal protein intake has not been determined, limiting the
efficacy of nutritional interventions. This systematic review aims to assess the effect of protein intake on muscle mass of
patients with cancer types with high prevalence of sarcopenia during treatment, in longitudinal studies.
Methods MEDLINE, CINAHL, and Scopus databases were searched following PRISMA guidelines. Longitudinal studies
written in English, including adults with high sarcopenia prevalence cancer diagnosis, submitted to (chemo)radiotherapy, with
assessment of protein intake and muscle changes during treatment, published until 4 October 2020 were included. Studies
including supplementation with substances, such as n-3 fatty acids, specific amino acids, or proteins, were excluded. Study
appraisal was independently conducted by two reviewers, and a qualitative research synthesis was performed.
Results Overall, 575 records were identified, of which, eight studies were included (one randomized clinical trial and seven
uncontrolled before and after studies). Patients with head and neck (n = 5), lung (n = 2), and esophageal cancer (n = 1) were
included, comprising a total of 554 participants. The studies presented heterogeneous methodologies, objectives, and methods
to assess body composition. Overall, participant groups with a mean protein intake below 1.2 g/kg presented muscle wasting,
with one exception, while those reporting a mean intake above 1.4 g/kg, maintained muscle during treatment.
Conclusions Our findings show that protein intakes below 1.2 g/kg, even when within the recommendations, have been associated
with muscle wasting during treatment. Only intakes above 1.4 g/kg have been associated with muscle maintenance.
High-quality research is needed to establish an optimal dose response