"We want to hug a friend”: the covid-19 pandemic among low-income adolescents

OBJECTIVE To examine the perceptions of adolescent students from a public school, of both sexes, living in a peripheral region of the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in relation to the covid-19 pandemic, with a special focus on their experiences regarding education and sociability. METHODS This study is part of the Global Early Adolescent Study. Seven face-to-face focus groups were conducted with adolescents between 13 and 16 years old (19 girls and 15 boys) in 2021. RESULTS The experience of remote teaching was frustrating for the adolescents, without the daily and personalized monitoring of the teacher(s). In addition to the difficult or impossible access to devices and the lack of support from schools, there is also the domestic environment, which made the schooling process more difficult, especially for girls, who were forced to take on more household and family care tasks. The closed school blocked an important space for socialization and forced family interaction, generating conflicts and stress in the home environment. The abrupt rupture brought feelings of fear, uncertainty, anguish and loneliness. The iterative evocation of the words "stuck”, "alone” and "loneliness” and the phrase "there was no one to talk to” shows how most of the adolescents experienced the period of distancing. The pandemic aggravated the objective and subjective conditions of preexisting feelings, such as "not knowing the future” and the prospects of a life project. CONCLUSION It has been documented how pandemic control measures implemented in a fragmented way and without support for the most impoverished families have negative effects on other spheres of life, in particular for poor young people. The school is a privileged territory to propose/construct actions that help adolescents to deal with problems aggravated in/by the pandemic.

Predicting and explaining absenteeism risk in hospital patients before and during COVID-19.

In order to address one of the most challenging problems in hospital management - patients' absenteeism without prior notice - this study analyses the risk factors associated with this event. To this end, through real data from a hospital located in the North of Portugal, a prediction model previously validated in the literature is used to infer absenteeism risk factors, and an explainable model is proposed, based on a modified CART algorithm. The latter intends to generate a human-interpretable explanation for patient absenteeism, and its implementation is described in detail. Furthermore, given the significant impact, the COVID-19 pandemic had on hospital management, a comparison between patients' profiles upon absenteeism before and during the COVID-19 pandemic situation is performed. Results obtained differ between hospital specialities and time periods meaning that patient profiles on absenteeism change during pandemic periods and within specialities.

How Can Gamified Applications Drive Engagement and Brand Attitude? The Case of Nike Run Club Application

This research aims to analyze the feasibility of gamified applications as a tool to promote engagement and brand attitude. To accomplish this, this research was developed using a quantitative methodology. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed and the model hypotheses were tested by a structural equation modeling (SEM). A questionnaire was applied to Portuguese consumers who use the “Nike Run Club” application, from which 203 valid responses were received. The results confirm the influence of social circles and their impact on the intention to interact with the brand. For theoretical contributions, this research contributes to the existing literature and academic knowledge in the areas of marketing and gamification, providing a suggestion for the TAM model to be used in this type of research. It also contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between gamification and marketing, demonstrating that the use of gamified applications as engagement tools can have a positive impact on the brand attitude. On the practical side, it contributes as a consultation tool for brands, application designers, and marketers when defining engagement strategies, allowing a better understanding of the factors that may or may not influence the public’s relationship with the brands and what dynamics they should use in the development of new Gamified marketing solutions.

Green Co-Creation Process in Music Festivals: The Case of NOS Primavera Sound

The co-creation process in tourism reflects the way the visitors interact with the product or service, to achieve the desired value. In this participated and active interaction, where a close contact with the reality in question is promoted, the tourist is an actor and a creative agent of his own experience. Touristic activities and, in particular, events, have answered to the appeal of the United Nations Environment Program, concerning developing strategies in order to anticipate possible negative impacts. The objective of this study is to analyse the perceptions of the participants in the NOS Primavera Sound festival regarding the environmental and sustainable proposals and initiatives of the organizers during the event. The data were collected in the event area (Parque da Cidade do Porto) during the three days of the festival, using non-probabilistic sampling technique for convenience. The questionnaires were applied directly and personally by the researchers. The sample analysis (n = 977) was studied using descriptive and inferential statistics, using a non-parametric test to define the characterization of the public's profile concerning the degree of importance attributed to the event's environmental practices. The results suggest that the main reasons for participating in the event (assessed on a scale of 1 to 5) were the festival's reputation (4.25), fun / socializing (4.13), previous experience (4.08) and promoted environmental practices (4.01). About environmental sustainability, the participants had an average value of 4.27 points, showing that the label of the green festival is acknowledged by the public. As a limitation to be overcome in future research, the environmental practices and the relevance / evaluation attributed to each one were not identified. The results obtained in the present study are very relevant for the preparation of this event's future editions. The knowledge of the motivations, expectations and perspectives of the public of music festivals allows an adaptation, namely, in the communication and differentiation strategies of the event itself.