Papers by Margarida Cardoso
Intelligent Data Analysis, 2009
Clustering quality or validation indices allow the evaluation of the quality of clustering in ord... more Clustering quality or validation indices allow the evaluation of the quality of clustering in order to support the selection of a specific partition or clustering structure in its natural unsupervised environment, where the real solution is unknown or not available. In this paper, we investigate the use of quality indices mostly based on the concepts of clusters' compactness and separation, for the evaluation of clustering results (partitions in particular). This work intends to offer a general perspective regarding the appropriate use of quality indices for the purpose of clustering evaluation. After presenting some commonly used indices, as well as indices recently proposed in the literature, key issues regarding the practical use of quality indices are addressed. A general methodological approach is presented which considers the identification of appropriate indices thresholds. This general approach is compared with the simple use of quality indices for evaluating a clustering solution.
Research Policy, 2011
This paper provides a new and systematic characterization of 488 universities, from 11 European c... more This paper provides a new and systematic characterization of 488 universities, from 11 European countries: Finland,
International Journal of Market Research, 2010
Although there are several methods to assess the relative importance of the attributes in decisio... more Although there are several methods to assess the relative importance of the attributes in decision making, the mainstream approach has been the direct method (DM). However, this method that rates attributes directly has been criticized, mainly because it does not take into account the heterogeneity in the answers. This paper aims at presenting the heterogeneous best-worst choice method (HBW) as an alternative to the direct method. We illustrate this approach with an application in educational marketing, focusing on the most relevant attributes for undergraduate students to choose a Business School. The main conclusion is that the HBW allows for more heterogeneity in the answering patterns, while proving results similar to the DM.
Proceedings of the 3rd IPLeiria’s International Health Congress
BMC Health Services Research, 2016
P125 Breast cancer survivors: subjects and resources for information. A qualitative systematic re... more P125 Breast cancer survivors: subjects and resources for information. A qualitative systematic review
The world's agricultural system has become globalized, income distribution asymmetrical, and poor... more The world's agricultural system has become globalized, income distribution asymmetrical, and poorer and small-scale households in rural areas turned into net buyers of food, which has heightened the threat to food security and livelihoods, especially for the poorest people in developing countries. Yet, controversy still surrounds the extent to which agricultural market liberalization has impacted on small-holder farmers, especially in developing countries of the global South. The mainstream assumption is that liberalization has benefited small-scale farmers through cooperatives and farmers' associations, better infrastructure, credit facilities and other capacity-building activities. Using a descriptive qualitative approach and focusing on the west African rice farmers, this paper argues that contrary to mainstream assumptions, agricultural trade liberalization has retrogressed small-holder rice farmers' development in west Africa through biased policies such as domestic subsidies, dirty tariffication, 1 commodity standardization, bilateral trade agreements and other policies that favor rich and industrialized farmers in developed countries over poor agro-ecological small-holder farmers in developing countries, and also through the stripping of public support from the farmers. *
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Papers by Margarida Cardoso