Universidade Aberta

The increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into journalism is reshaping professional routines while raising ethical, organisational, and normative challenges. Despite the growing presence of AI tools in newsrooms, empirical knowledge of how journalists perceive and negotiate their use remains limited, particularly in specific national contexts such as Portugal. This study explores how Portuguese journalists use and perceive AI in their professional practice, examining motivations for adoption, perceived benefits and risks, and the negotiation between human judgment and AI-generated content. Drawing on uses and gratifications theory (UGT) and the communicative AI paradigm, the study adopts a qualitative method based on semi-structured online interviews with 19 journalists from diverse media sectors, roles, age groups, and career stages. Data were analysed using framework analysis. Findings indicate that journalists primarily frame AI as a technical support tool that enhances efficiency and facilitates routine tasks such as transcription, translation, and information processing. At the same time, strong concerns emerge regarding transparency, algorithmic bias, professional autonomy, credibility, and editorial responsibility. Although AI is widely perceived as inevitable, its legitimacy is seen as dependent on ethical frameworks, organisational regulation, and sustained human oversight. The study contributes to research on AI and journalism by integrating motivational and normative perspectives, highlighting how instrumental uses of AI coexist with deeper reconfigurations of professional authority and journalistic values. It further recommends the development of ethical guidelines, transparency mechanisms, organisational policies, and targeted training to support responsible and informed AI adoption in journalism.

This research is focused on women entrepreneurship across various geographies with distinct economic, institutional, and cultural contexts, including Portugal, a developed European country, and a group of emerging African nations characterized by turbulent political and sociocultural environments. For both men and women, the opportunity to start a business and the necessity of supporting oneself and one’s family are significant motivations for engaging in entrepreneurship, and their motivations are influenced by personal and family characteristics that can enhance the business’s viability and survival. However, women face specific challenges that can be analyzed through the lens of social role theory, which provides a framework for understanding how gender affects entrepreneurship. A fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis was employed to analyze individual-level entrepreneurial data and to identify how different combinations of conditions lead to entrepreneurial decisions and business expansion through market and activity diversification.

This study investigates nonintrusive reduced-order models (NIROMs) for parametric linear cross-diffusion systems. The full-order model (FOM) is constructed via discontinuous Galerkin spatial discretization and Kahan’s method for temporal integration. Reduced bases are generated through a two-level approach, where randomized singular value decomposition (rSVD) is applied to space-time snapshot matrices derived from a finite parameter sample set. Nonintrusive approximations for arbitrary parameter values are obtained using a parameter-dependent reduced basis that encodes coefficient dependencies. Radial basis functions (RBFs) are employed to compute reduced coefficients for parameter instances. Numerical experiments on two-dimensional Schnakenberg cross-diffusion equations demonstrate the method’s efficiency, with ROMs accurately predicting spatiotemporal patterns and achieving computational speed-up factors approximately.

O presente artigo analisa a trajetória normativa que possibilitou a incorporação da Educação a Distância (EaD) nos cursos presenciais de ensino superior no Brasil, evidenciando como o modelo híbrido tornou-se estrutural diante das exigências legais e das transformações provocadas pela pandemia da Covid-19. A pesquisa se baseia em uma análise documental das portarias do MEC, desde a Portaria nº 2.253/2001 até a Portaria nº 2.117/2019, destacando a evolução conceitual de “método não presencial” para “modalidade híbrida” e seus impactos na matriz curricular das Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES). Inclui-se também um estudo de caso do Centro de Tecnologia da Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), cuja experiência com o Ensino Remoto Emergencial revelou desafios estruturais, resistências pedagógicas e demandas por novos fluxos institucionais nas pró-reitorias. Os resultados indicam que a legislação pós-2018 inaugurou uma inflexão regulatória decisiva: a consolidação de até 40% de carga horária em EaD como horizonte legal e político para reconfiguração do ensino superior. Conclui-se que o ensino híbrido, longe de ser um recurso emergencial, constitui uma estratégia viável — e possivelmente irreversível — para a modernização dos currículos, flexibilização das práticas pedagógicas e expansão do acesso à formação superior, especialmente em contextos marcados por desigualdade social e limitação de infraestrutura tecnológica.

IntroductionThe interfaces between the fields of communication, education and health have been indicated by international institutions such as the WHO and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. However, hegemonic scientific practices supersede dialogue between the three fields, isolating their practices. This fragmenting tendency is observed in scientific literature, which has created gaps in the dialogue and articulation between communication, education and health. Although health promotion requires both communicative and educational practices, the epistemological, historical, political, cultural and socioeconomic aspects have also engendered tensions between the fields. Communication is often seen as a mere instrument for other practices, rather than a phenomenon that (re)produces meanings and power dynamics. In opposing the reductionist and instrumentalising perspectives of knowledge fields, the primary objective of the scoping review is to map the scientific evidence on the interfaces between communication and education in health to indicate a conceptual framework that articulates communication and education practices within the context of health.Methods and analysisA transdisciplinary team developed this protocol based on the 2024 Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis. The procedures required to conduct the review were guided by the frameworks proposed by Arksey and O'Malley, Levac et al and Peters et al. The study eligibility criteria were established based on the Problem, Concept and Context outlined in the research questions. Primary and secondary studies will be retrieved from nine sources, covering both conventional and grey literature. These sources include Embase, ERIC, LILACS, PubMed/MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, and the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. A categorised form will be used for data collection and subsequent analysis. The reporting of the review findings will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews.Ethics and disseminationThe nature of the research and the use of secondary data sources do not require informed consent forms or approval from ethics committees in Brazil. The scientific findings from the review will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences and other scientific communication channels.Study registrationThe protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework (OSF) and is available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Z3CX7.

Purpose The primary objective of this study is twofold: (1) to analyse how users' perceived privacy on opinion platforms in the foodservice sector influences their willingness to use/create electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) content, as well as to examine the relationship between such content and perceived relationship quality; and (2) to assess whether there are significant differences in the means of the variables perceived privacy, e-WOM and perceived relationship quality between foodservice sector users of Google Maps and TripAdvisor platforms. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from a diverse group of nationals in the Iberian Peninsula during June and July, 2025. A structured survey was designed to measure the key variables of the study. The collected responses were subsequently analysed using variance-based structural equation modelling (SEM), with partial least squares (PLS) employed as the statistical method for data analysis. Findings The study's results reveal significant differences between Google Maps and TripAdvisor regarding privacy perceptions related to the generation of e-WOM content related to perceived relationship quality in the foodservice sector. Furthermore, it has been found that a greater sense of privacy perceived by users is associated with greater participation in e-WOM activities. Originality/value This work makes a significant contribution to academic literature by addressing a gap in the comparative analysis of the most widely used opinion platforms. Moreover, the findings offer practical implications for the management of the restaurants, providing valuable recommendations on how to improve the user experience and foster trust in digital environments for the foodservice sector companies.

This article discusses public transport fare evasion from the point of view of the relations between inspection actions and detected evasion, with the aim of improving the efficacy of the former. By applying spatial statistics methods to a large dataset from Lisbon, Portugal, namely, entropy-based local bivariate relationships (LBR) and geographically weighted regression (GWR), it is shown that the two variables are associated in a widespread manner throughout the city, mostly in a linear way. Mapping out marginal gains from inspection actions then shows where they detect the most evaders, allowing transport companies to relocate their inspector teams in a more effective manner. Results for Lisbon show that gains in effectiveness of circa 50% can be obtained, mostly by moving some inspector teams from the centre of the city to the periphery during daytime. The methodology requires only inspection/detection databases, which transport companies usually have, making it a valuable, practical tool to combat fare evasion.

K-12 digital learning is increasingly shaped by emerging technologies layered onto existing digital infrastructures. In practice, the technologies that dominate attention, especially generative and assistive AI, arrive bundled with new assessment tensions, data flows, acquisition constraints, and inequities in access and support. This article proposes a practitioner-oriented framework for understanding emerging technologies as sociotechnical-immersive systems rather than standalone tools. The framework connects three lenses: (1) a macro sociotechnical circle that foregrounds policy, markets, equity, and governance; (2) a meso environment-design circle that analyzes how learning experiences are configured through system, narrative, and agency; and (3) a micro educational-approaches circle that focuses on the instructional activities educators enact within those environments, using the Immersive Learning Brain (ILB) as a map of practice and strategies. We developed this framework through practitioner sensemaking grounded in practitioner focus group data and aligned it with recent research syntheses on emerging technologies. We illustrate the framework through one worked example and two comparative mini-cases. We conclude with an agenda for researchers and practitioners focused on assessment, equitable infrastructure and support, data stewardship, and environment-design descriptions that move beyond technocentric labels.

Abstract Purpose It is essential for professionals to stay informed about the revolution we are witnessing and understand the related technical concepts in today’s rapidly evolving society. In addition to exploring how Industry 4.0 technologies—such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and blockchain—are transforming the healthcare sector, this literature review aims to address a crucial question: How can new technologies improve operational and environmental sustainability in healthcare while maintaining accessibility , safety , and equity? Methods A comprehensive literature study was conducted to analyze current research and discussions around the integration of Industry 4.0 technology in healthcare. This paper covers the various aspects of automation, data processing, system interconnection, ethical, financial, and infrastructure issues. Among the main topics discussed is data integration, which helps to enhance resource management, predictive analytics, and decision-making. Results Through international case studies (Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Manifal Hospital, University College London Hospitals, Charité Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra) this review shows how these technologies improve patient outcomes, healthcare efficiency, and the environment. Significant problems should be warned about, including ethical issues about patient data security and privacy, unequal access to technological developments, the necessity of guaranteeing health information system interoperability, and economic viability concerns, particularly in countries or regions with limited resources. Conclusions Healthcare 4.0 has enormous potential for global justice and sustainability, but its ethical integrity, data security, and broad accessibility must be monitored. Although the healthcare sector will benefit much from the 4th industrial revolution, this analysis cautions about the related social and economic issues and inequalities. Encouraging ethical innovation will rely much on public policies to support this technological transition being implemented in a sustainable manner in the healthcare sector. Graphical abstract This review introduces Industry 4.0 concepts to healthcare professionals and emphasizes the increasing importance of preparing for the future of sustainable healthcare.