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On shadowing and hyperbolicity for geodesic flows on surfaces

Publication . Bessa, Mario; Dias, João Lopes; Torres, Maria Joana

We prove that the geodesic flow on closed surfaces displays a hyperbolic set if the shadowing property holds C2-robustly on the metric. Similar results are obtained when considering even feeble properties like the weak shadowing and the specification properties. Despite the Hamiltonian nature of the geodesic flow, the arguments in the present paper differ completely from those used in Bessa et al. (2013) for Hamiltonian systems.

2017Journal article

Restricted access

Multilevel modeling of persistence in higher education

Publication . Ferrão, Maria Eugénia; Almeida, Leandro S.

The dropout or evasion rates in higher education are now a social and institutional concern, justifying the implementation of public policies to prevent this phenomenon. These policies need studies on the most determinant variables of the risk of dropout. The main objective of this study is to analyze the student’s persistence in undergraduate courses, and the relationship with the student’s previous school trajectory and with the conditions of entrance into higher education, controlling for students’ sociodemographic characteristics, such as gender and age. We applied multilevel logistic regression models to data of 2.697 freshmen enrolled in a Portuguese public university in the academic year 2015/16. The results suggest that failure in basic education (ISCED 2) has a long-term effect. According to the estimates obtained, students who declare not having failed in basic education have odds ratio of persistence 2.7 times higher than students who declare having failed in basic education. The conditions of student’s admission to the course he/she attends are relevant variables to persistence in Higher Education, for example, whether s/he was admitted to her/his first option course and the student’s university entrance score. The results also show that older and male students have lower probability of persistence.

2018Journal article

Open access

Web application for the analysis of assessment tests

Publication . Prata, Paula; Duarte, Luís; Ferrão, Maria Eugénia

Introduction: An assessment test enables the evaluation of an individual’s competence or ability. Such tests are important for both teaching and professional training institutions, as well as for the recruiting of human resources in the enterprise. Objectives: The present paper introduces the “Evaluate” web application, for the analysis of assessment tests. Methods: The design and implementation of the application is described, which allows the management of assessment items, used to constitute evaluation tests, upon which results the main descriptive statistic values used under the classical test theory in the analysis of assessment tests are calculated. The application was developed in Python, within the Django framework, and tested with real assessment tests. Results: Scores are assigned to each assessment item, and various statistics — such as difficulty and discrimination index, point-biserial correlation, test internal consistency coefficient — can be obtained upon the answers of the subjects, as well as a graphic analysis of the performance of each subject on each assessment item, as well as on the test as a whole. Conclusion: The “Evaluate” application makes a meaningful contribution to a better knowledge of assessment tools used in competence evaluation, by allowing the detection of inconsistencies and the consequent improvement in the process.

2018-09-27Journal article

Open access