Jorge Pedro Lopes, Rui Alexandre Oliveira and Maria Isabel Abreu
The purpose of this paper is to present the estimates of the value of the built environment stock in Cape Verde, a Sub-Saharan African country that is scattered through ten…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the estimates of the value of the built environment stock in Cape Verde, a Sub-Saharan African country that is scattered through ten relatively small islands.
Design/methodology/approach
It applies the perpetual inventory method in a long series of construction investment data at 1980 and 2007 constant prices published by the Cape Verde’s National Statistics Office.
Findings
The results show that the capital-output ratio is similar to those in the advanced industrial countries. The high value of this indicator suggests that the country should shift its focus from building new investment projects to managing the considerable amount of built stock.
Originality/value
The main originality of the paper comes from the use of different data sets from the National Statistical Office to construct the indicators of the construction industry activity in a comprehensive way.
Details
Keywords
Isabel Maria Abreu Rodrigues Fragoeiro
Learning to be someone in today’s world requires training, knowledge, adaptive skills, differentiated skills, and mastery of instrumental and advanced technological tools to…
Abstract
Learning to be someone in today’s world requires training, knowledge, adaptive skills, differentiated skills, and mastery of instrumental and advanced technological tools to manage complex, new, and crucial problems that societies face. Citizens need to satisfy their basic needs, and they want to feel fulfilled. These are determinants of mental health/health, essential goods for the growth and evolution of humanity, and for the survival of the planet that shelters it.
The objectives of this chapter are: (1) reflect on the influence of mental health/health in high-level training processes, which require the student to mobilize physical and mental capabilities and functions; (2) realize to what extent the use of digital technology is an essential tool for learning and developing skills for higher education students; (3) addressing the question: Are higher education institutions (HEIs) and professors prepared for the challenges they face today? And, at the confluence of the previous three: (4) analyze the health/mental health interconnections, the use of digital technologies and training paths, as pillars of human development and the progress of societies.
In HEIs, there is evidence of the intersection of students’ learning abilities with the contexts that are favourable to them, namely, due to the possibility of finding space to create, develop potentials, acquire high-level knowledge and skills, present themselves to society as reliable, credible, and promising professionals for success in the organizations they form part of.
For the preparation of this exploratory and reflective chapter, the collaboration of some higher education teachers in the Autonomous Region of Madeira (RAM) was requested, also basing it on their own experience and knowledge acquired as a teacher, researcher, and expert in the field of mental health.
The perspective presented for reflection and analysis is limited by the look and the way we interrogate and interpret the realities where we operate, for these same reasons, imbued with subjectivity.
Details
Keywords
This chapter examines the locker room practices of Brazil's first transexual (their term) men's amateur soccer team, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB), or Soccer Star Boys. Drawing…
Abstract
This chapter examines the locker room practices of Brazil's first transexual (their term) men's amateur soccer team, the Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB), or Soccer Star Boys. Drawing on a photo shoot with the MBB inside the locker room, and on conversations with photographer Isabel Abreu as well as members of the team, this chapter explores the debates surrounding queer and trans body politics amidst the rise of the right in Brazil and the Americas. Taken in 2017 and released in 2018, the photo series capture a moment of political transition in Brazil; the images are taken after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and her socialist Workers’ Party and before the election of ultra-rightwing candidate Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro rose to power, in part, by positioning himself against so-called ‘gender ideology’ and attacking marginalized populations, including LGBTQIA+ people. Bolsonarismo and its followers are politically fascist; they believe changing gender norms are linked to Brazil's perceived decline; they claim these shifting norms are humiliating, and respond with nationalism and violence. In this climate, the MBB have shifted their approach to trans politics by becoming more discerning about the teams' visibility and representation. Analysing both the images and their context, this chapter suggests that the Meninos' experiences highlight the connections between political fascism and what queer sport theorist Brian Pronger refers to as Body Fascism. The MBB contest such forms of repression through strategic uses of nudity and through representational choices that insist on the player's humanity and beauty. By asserting that their bodies on the pitch and in the locker room is ‘art, activism and resistance’ (the team's tagline), the MBB fight for trans justice in and through futebol.
Details
Keywords
Barbara de Lima Voss, David Bernard Carter and Bruno Meirelles Salotti
We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in…
Abstract
We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.
Details
Keywords
Dolores Romero López and José Luis Bueren Gómez-Acebo
Studies of Spanish literature during the late nineteenth century and the first one-third of the twentieth century are evolving from research on canonical writers to the study of…
Abstract
Purpose
Studies of Spanish literature during the late nineteenth century and the first one-third of the twentieth century are evolving from research on canonical writers to the study of “odd and forgotten” authors, themes and genres during what is now called the Other Silver Age. This paper aims to focus on the work undertaken in the field of literary translation by the women writers of this period.
Design/methodology/approach
Mnemosyne is an open-access digital library that allows data modeling for specific collections (women translators, science fiction, etc.) in support of research and teaching on Silver Age Spain. The first version of the library is stored on the server at the Universidad Complutense Library, and it is linked to the collections of the digital library HathiTrust and Biblioteca Nacional de España. Behind the scenes of Mnemosyne’s public presence online, the project is developing with the aid of the tool Clavy which is a rich internet application that is able to import, preserve and edit information from big data collections of digital objects so as to build bridges between institutional and digital repositories and create collections of enriched digital content. See:http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/mnemosine/queesmnemosine.php
Findings
The Collection Women Translators in Spain (1868-1936) inside Mnemosyne selects, categorizes and makes visible in digital format women translators and literary translations that belong to a forgotten repertoire to allow the historical review of the period. The digital collection of Spanish Women Translators pretends to be a field of international experimentation for the creation of interoperable semantic networks through which a large group of scholars could generate innovative research and theoretical reading models for literary texts. See:http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/mnemosine/colecciones.php
Research limitations/implications
Clavy also provides a basic system of data visualization, edition and navigation. There are plans to integrate @Note, a collaborative annotation application, into Clavy. These two computational tools were developed by the software languages research group ILSA[1] at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Practical implications
Its been followed NEWW Women Writers’ categories concerning biographical categories as successful standard for ensuring interoperability in the near future: children, marital status, social class, religion, profession and other activities, financial aspects, memberships. See:http://repositorios.fdi.ucm.es/mnemosine/ver_documento.php?documento=208369
Social implications
These women also showed their interest in the writings of contemporary women by translating their works into Spanish or glossing foreign ideas about how the modern woman should be, think or behave. This digital collection shows the first steps of the intellectual women in the South of Europe.
Originality/value
To incorporate specially tailored metadata for the women translators’ collection into Mnemosyne, it will be necessary to use of Clavy’s extensibility to account for the particularities of the women translators’ collection. This is where prior knowledge of this literature’s historical and cultural context proves indispensable. In particular, the specific metadata model for the women translators’ collection incorporates elements that reflect the literary, historical and cultural characteristics of the collections.
Details
Keywords
Josefa Salete Barbosa Cavalcanti, Mónica Isabel Bendini, Dalva Maria da Mota and Norma Graciela Steimbreger
This chapter probes the issue of capital mobility and its implications in the context of the globalization of the fresh fruit sector. In particular, it explores the relationship…
Abstract
This chapter probes the issue of capital mobility and its implications in the context of the globalization of the fresh fruit sector. In particular, it explores the relationship between productive capital and labor in two different Latin American regions: the Northeast of Brazil and Patagonia in Argentina. Employing a comparative approach, it studies the impact that the insertion of local production into global circuits has on local firms and labor. These relatively culturally and geographically distant locations are affected by similar phenomena created by the globalization of agrifood. Relevant among then are the marginalization of labor and a weak labor structure. While there has been the growth of local firms, this growth has not erased important weaknesses.
Fernando Augusto Gouvea-Reis, Danniely Carolinne Soares da Silva, Lairton Souza Borja, Patrícia de Oliveira Dias, Jadher Percio, Cassio Peterka, Janaína de Oliveira, Giselle Sodré, Claudia Mendes Feres, Wallace Dos Santos, Fábio Souza, Ana Izabel Passarella Teixeira, Daiani Cristina Cilião-Alves, Gustavo Adolfo Sierra Romero, Elza Ferreira Noronha, Julio Croda, Rodrigo Haddad, Walter Massa Ramalho, Camile de Moraes and Wildo Navegantes de Araújo
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
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.
Details
Keywords
Rafael Robina-Ramirez, José Carlos da Silva Mendes, Osvaldo Dias Lopes Silva and Maria Teresa Pires de Medeiros
According to the theory of push and pull factors, the current work aims to present two objectives: (1) to detect what attributes drive senior tourists to travel to the Azores…
Abstract
Purpose
According to the theory of push and pull factors, the current work aims to present two objectives: (1) to detect what attributes drive senior tourists to travel to the Azores islands, the role played by lecturing activities (LA) as push factors and their influence on the island's offer (pull factors) are analysed; and (2) to understand the personal and contextual barriers of tourists to provide information to the agents who form part of the tourism supply process on the island.
Design/methodology/approach
The data has been processed using the statistical package SmartPLS version 26. Using an exploratory methodology based on structural equation modeling (SEM) structural equations applied to small sample sizes, a tentative model has been generated to define the drivers of tourism for elderly people who visit the islands.
Findings
The research study reveals that LA are the key factor in completing the offering of tourist destinations in the Azores. Educational packages should be made available to senior tourists. Likewise, several tourism barriers, such as flight times, cost of the trip, concern about the safety of destinations, type of accommodation, language difficulties and medical and health care should also be revised by tourism authorities and flight stakeholders with regard to the Azores Islands.
Research limitations/implications
The reduced sample has made the results impossible to show greater predictive power.
Practical implications
The role played by push factors, such as lecturing or educational activities, and pull factors, such as the tourism offering by the island, allows us to envisage educational packages based on the preferences of senior tourists, such as attending lectures on the history of the Azores, gastronomy (traditional food), active ageing flora, and interesting facts and legends of the islands.
Social implications
As a push factor, social interaction has become the main motivation among senior tourists. Such tourists have conveyed not only their desire to meet other tourists but also their interest in socialising in tourist activities, relaxing and visiting other new places.
Originality/value
Even though LA are relatively common among university students and those with bachelor's degrees, educational packages for senior tourism are now gaining in popularity. Better socio-economic conditions worldwide and easier access to education for mature people have allowed them to expand their knowledge by travelling to exotic destinations such as the Azores. This paper links that interest with barriers to travel as well as to the Azores' rich touristic offering.
Details
Keywords
Gabriel Caldas Montes and Gabriel Oliveira Lins
Due to the high levels of crime in Rio de Janeiro, the purpose of this paper is twofold. The first one is to analyze the effects of deterrence variables (such as the adoption of…
Abstract
Purpose
Due to the high levels of crime in Rio de Janeiro, the purpose of this paper is twofold. The first one is to analyze the effects of deterrence variables (such as the adoption of Pacifying Police Units (UPPs) and incarcerations) on violence in the municipalities of the State of Rio de Janeiro, as well as to verify the existence of “revenge effect.” The second is to analyze the effects of socio-economic development on violence, using development indicators.
Design/methodology/approach
Besides usual OLS method for panel data analysis, the study makes use of dynamic panel data framework through D-GMM and S-GMM. The estimates are based on a sample of 82 municipalities of Rio de Janeiro, and the period runs from 2003 to 2013. As dependent variables, the estimates use violent deaths (i.e. aggregation of intentional homicides and armed robberies followed by death) and homicides resulting from opposition to police intervention (i.e. civilians killed as a result of police actions against criminals – “opposition deaths”).
Findings
The estimates indicate that incarceration presents marginal capacity to reduce violence. Regarding the findings for the adoption of UPPs, the evidence suggests that this project increased violence and, therefore, the possibility of displacement of violence to other regions of the State. With respect to the effect of police deaths over violence, the results are unprecedented and suggest the existence of a “revenge effect.” Besides, the study points to the importance of socio-economic development to reduce violence.
Originality/value
Once the study analyzes the effects of incarceration and UPPs, it contributes to the literature by providing new evidence on the ability of anti-crime policies of reducing (or not) violence. In addition, when considering the death of policemen in the estimates, the study shows an unprecedented way, the effect that these deaths cause over violence (the so-called “revenge effect”). Moreover, the study considers the impacts of the development of employment and income, health and education on violence. When analyzing these development indicators, the study contributes with the literature that looks for non-police alternatives to control crime.