Search results

Domestic violence is a global social and public health problem for which several awareness campaigns have been conducted. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the impact of these campaigns on the population and the process of perception of the messages. In this context, this study aims to analyze the attitudes of individuals toward domestic violence campaigns.

Conducted in Brazil, this research adopted a quantitative approach, using a questionnaire survey with a convenience sample. The conceptual model incorporated three dimensions, namely, the perceived efficacy of the subjects regarding the campaigns, the adopted behavior as a consequence of exposure to the messages and finally, the word of mouth, the recommendation of conduct advised in the campaigns to family and friends. These dimensions were translated into a set of items that integrated the data collection instrument. In the questionnaire, it was intended that the interviewees answered the questions having in mind the campaigns addressed to the Brazilian population with the purpose of prevention for domestic violence, recently released in Brazil.

In a first descriptive analysis, all dimensions obtained positive values. The conceptual model was analyzed, and the hypotheses under study were tested using the partial least squares method. As for convergent and discriminant validity, it was found that each dimension presented adequate internal consistency and, simultaneously, was distinct from the others. The structural model explained 69.2% of the variance of “word of mouth” and 28.5% of the variance of “adopted behavior.” H1 was confirmed, showing a positive influence between perceived efficacy and adopted behavior. H2 was also accepted, and a positive impact of adopted behavior and the intention to recommend to others (word of mouth) was verified.

As a practical contribution, this research allows outlining recommendations for social marketing and communication professionals responsible for awareness campaigns. The results can alert professionals responsible for these campaigns to give visibility to the campaign itself, broadcasting it through mass media, if possible, but also through digital media, such as social networks. In terms of message content, the campaigns should seek behavioral change, leading, on the one hand, the recipients to adopt new behaviors and, on the other hand, to recommend these same behaviors to family and friends, thus multiplying the effect and effectiveness of the campaign.

This study makes an academic contribution, as it directly explores the impact of domestic violence prevention campaigns on the population and can be adapted to campaigns for other social causes. In addition, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies on domestic violence campaigns in Brazil, one of the main countries affected by this problem. As a practical contribution, this research allows outlining recommendations for social marketing and communication professionals responsible for awareness campaigns.

Developing interventions in challenging contexts should imply proper discussion from its theoretical framework to implementation details. The purpose of this paper is to examine health promotion in prison settings as a mean of improving inmates’ rights concerning physical/emotional well-being, empowering inmates both to reclusion and re-entry challenges.

The development of a health promotion program, implemented in a prison setting with an initial group of 11 inmates, is described. The program design followed professionals’ and inmates’ inputs and previous similar interventions taking a peer education, community-based and participative approach.

Although some prison settings present major constraints to interventions’ development, the authors were able to perform the program and reinforced the idea that prisons can and should be health-promoting contexts. The authors found several specific needs that must be addressed when people are under custody, if we want imprisonment to be developmental instead of detrimental experiences.

As a single-year-funded program, its replication and valid evaluation were enabled. Being external to the system also complicated the process agility, and conditioned inmates’ selection and compliance.

This paper promotes a best-practices forum in this issue; it addresses prison health agents’ training, who may assume an institutional essential role; it concerns inmates’ rehabilitation and ultimately, community health and safety.

The use of a peer education approach in these contexts is an innovative feature, since it has been developed in other institutional contexts and social groups. Nevertheless, the authors maintain the strong adequacy of this methodology to work with inmates and inside prison settings.

The purpose of this paper is to understand workers’ resistance toward change from a semi-continuous (SCW) to a continuous shift work system (CW), especially focusing the perspective of change and its impact on workers’ personal lives.

A case study was conducted at a Portuguese steel plant. A questionnaire was administered to 98 shift workers of the two systems, three focus groups (FG) each with ten CW workers, and three interviews with their managers.

The results of the FG and the interviews indicate the loss of days off during weekends as the main drawback of this change, leading to work schedule dissatisfaction. The consequences of the change focused on social and family life. For the CW workers, the conciliation between working hours and life outside the company were the only predictors of satisfaction with work schedule.

The cross-sectional design is one of the main limitations, as well the use of only one organization in the study suggests future replication. Organizations need to consider the aspects of family and social life in the management of working hours.

Globally, this case study highlights the importance of family and social aspects in the adjustment process to working hours, especially when these involve performing work on the weekends, such as shift work.

The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology to represent the uncertainty generated in performance measures (PMs) during the operational step or “use step” of the performance measurement process (PMP). The different steps of the methodology are described and exemplified through an application example.

An index that reflects the level of uncertainty originated by the factors and the strength of their inter-relationships is developed through the use of graph theory. A graph is developed considering all sources or factors of uncertainty that may be present in this process. Based on the graph, the methodology includes the use of a matrix and the determination of the associated permanent function which is used for determining the uncertainty index.

During the development of the methodology, it was found that the use of a scale that includes zero for assigning values of the elements of the matrix is not appropriate when using graph theory and permanent function calculation, since in this case the permanent function is insensible to changes in some matrix elements.

This paper identifies all the sources that can affect the quality of performance measurement values during the operational step of the PMP and proposes a method to characterize the strength of this uncertainty. Beyond alerting decision makers to the level of uncertainty associated with a PM, it also allows defining appropriate actions to improve PMs’ quality.

This study aims to estimate the overall SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and evaluate the accuracy of an antibody rapid test compared to a reference serological assay during a COVID-19 outbreak in a prison complex housing over 13,000 prisoners in Brasília.

The authors obtained a randomized, stratified representative sample of each prison unit and conducted a repeated serosurvey among prisoners between June and July 2020, using a lateral-flow immunochromatographic assay (LFIA). Samples were also retested using a chemiluminescence enzyme immunoassay (CLIA) to compare SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and 21-days incidence, as well as to estimate the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) and determine the diagnostic accuracy of the LFIA test.

This study identified 485 eligible individuals and enrolled 460 participants. Baseline and 21-days follow-up seroprevalence were estimated at 52.0% (95% CI 44.9–59.0) and 56.7% (95% CI 48.2–65.3) with LFIA; and 80.7% (95% CI 74.1–87.3) and 81.1% (95% CI 74.4–87.8) with CLIA, with an overall IFR of 0.02%. There were 78.2% (95% CI 66.7–89.7) symptomatic individuals among the positive cases. Sensitivity and specificity of LFIA were estimated at 43.4% and 83.3% for IgM; 46.5% and 91.5% for IgG; and 59.1% and 77.3% for combined tests.

The authors found high seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies within the prison complex. The occurrence of asymptomatic infection highlights the importance of periodic mass testing in addition to case-finding of symptomatic individuals; however, the field performance of LFIA tests should be validated. This study recommends that vaccination strategies consider the inclusion of prisoners and prison staff in priority groups.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the case of the Valorbio research project, in which students of different high-level programs were involved in the experimental work and in the dissemination of results in collaboration with the research team.

The inclusion in higher education curricula of content related to the sustainable development should be a preferred mechanism for the dissemination of good practices of sustainability. Another equally important way to achieve this is to involve students in research projects that seek solutions to the societal challenges related to sustainable growth. The Valorbio project aims to meet the needs for treating and reusing wastewater and solid waste. Its main goal was the development of modular systems for wastewater treatment based on constructed wetlands, exploring the possibility of the treatment systems being composed of solid waste and by-products from significant industrial sectors.

The students’ contribution to the research work was relevant and simultaneously allowed them to acquire skills on sustainable development. Additionally, the students contributed to the dissemination of the results. The Valorbio project can thus be considered a successful application of the concept of project-based learning (PBL), as a way to include sustainability issues content in the higher education curricula.

The applied experimental work had an original approach regarding the equipment design, the waste materials valuation, as well as the integration of waste treatment processes in the circular economy paradigm. This paper is the first reported PBL experience involving students of short-cycle technical–professional programs in partnership with first and second-level students and a research team.

The application of condition-based maintenance on selected equipment can allow online monitoring using fixed, half-fixed or portable sensors. The collected data not always allow a straightforward interpretation and many false alarms can happen. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Statistical techniques can be used to perform early failure detection. With the application of Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) Modified Charts and the Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) Charts, special causes of variation can be detected online and during the equipment functioning. Before applying these methods, it is important to check data for independence. When the independence condition is not verified, data should be modeled with an ARIMA (p, d, q) model. Parameters estimation is obtained using the Shewhart Traditional Charts.

With data monitoring and statistical methods, it is possible to detect any system or equipment failure trend, so that we can act at the right time to avoid catastrophic failures.

In this work, an electro pump condition is monitored. Through this process, an anomaly and four stages of aggravation are forced, and the CUSUM and EWMA modified control charts are applied to test an online equipment monitoring. When the detection occurs, the methodology will have rules to define the degree of intervention.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of a Brazilian steelmaking company’s reheating process of the hot rolling mill.

The research method is a quantitative modeling. The main research techniques are data envelopment analysis, TOBIT regression and simulation supported by artificial neural networks. The model’s input and output variables consist of the average billet weight, number of billets processed in a batch, gas consumption, thermal efficiency, backlog and production yield within a specific period. The analysis spans 20 months.

The key findings include an average current efficiency of 81%, identification of influential variables (average billet weight, billet count and gas consumption) and simulated analysis. Among the simulated scenarios, the most promising achieved an average efficiency of 95% through increased equipment availability and billet size.

Additional favorable simulated scenarios entail the utilization of higher pre-reheating temperatures for cold billets, representing a large amount of savings in gas consumption and a reduction in CO2 emissions.

This study’s primary innovation lies in providing steelmaking practitioners with a systematic approach to evaluating and enhancing the efficiency of reheating processes.

Uncertainty and unpredictability in the lives and livelihoods of informal microentrepreneurs in Quito, Ecuador, increase their vulnerability and make the challenges of life at the social and economic margins of society more difficult to overcome. Through their small informal microenterprises, they work to maintain their everyday survival and sustain their hopes for a better future. Some turn to microfinance to support their microenterprises. Worldwide, microfinance is promoted as a powerful instrument for social and cultural change, creating a narrative of microfinance that contains promises of transformative effects. Over 16 months of research, interviews with 120 informal sector microentrepreneurs revealed these promises and the limitations of microfinance in their lives and the individualization of social problems present within the narrative of microfinance. The strength and flexibility of this narrative of microfinance has been built, interpreted, and reinterpreted in ways that allows it to be applied, and accepted, in various global social and political contexts. Informal microenterprises and microfinance are ways that people cope with economic uncertainty and social instability in Quito. Although people turn to microfinance in an effort to cope with their vulnerability, microfinance can increase their everyday vulnerabilities and place the responsibility for overcoming social problems upon the individuals who suffer them the most. Microfinance, therefore, becomes well-intentioned debt, creating new subjects and selfhoods that shift the social problems of poverty and inequality to individual problems that should be overcome by self-reliance.

Football is deployed into various segments and consists of a complex value chain, with interrelationships and circularities. It is relevant in various segments and therefore it is important to understand the structure. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to present a model of a football value chain and the managerial implications inherent to this chain.

This research used a field study as its methodology, developing a semi-structured questionnaire containing open-ended questions about the representativeness of the football value chain. In-depth interviews with specialists in football were performed to collect data.

The results of the interviews indicated that the theoretical model is representative. Furthermore, through validation, the relevance and representativeness of the football value chain was shown, as well as its interrelationships with the other commodity and service segments. In addition, it was found that this segment is relevant and influential in the national and international market, and can be considered a factor of economic and social development.

This paper provides a view of the actors who make up the football value chain, and also supplies a complementary view to the models of chains presented in the theoretical review, enabling the provision of evidence on the axis with greater added value as a new step. The limitation of this research involves the context approached, because as identified throughout the investigation, this context is complex and dynamic. In this way, the linear approach used to construct this chain led to a reduced view of reality and of present relationships.

The model shows the presence of the main actors and the structure for the transformation of raw material into a final product, and is useful to understand the existing relationships and the layers of added value.

The evaluation of the conceptual model of football value chain confirms that this is a professionalized chain, which generates a significant number of direct and indirect jobs.

The authors propose a model of a football value chain which is complementary to the theoretical review developed, exposing a linkage of the players present in this chain and at what stage they are present, and supplies the managerial implications inherent to this.