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The prediction of student attrition is critical to facilitate retention mechanisms. This study aims to focus on implementing a method to predict student attrition in the upper years of a physiotherapy program.

Machine learning is a computer tool that can recognize patterns and generate predictive models. Using a quantitative research methodology, a database of 336 university students in their upper-year courses was accessed. The participant's data were collected from the Financial Academic Management and Administration System and a platform of Universidad Autónoma de Chile. Five quantitative and 11 qualitative variables were chosen, associated with university student attrition. With this database, 23 classifiers were tested based on supervised machine learning.

About 23.58% of males and 17.39% of females were among the attrition student group. The mean accuracy of the classifiers increased based on the number of variables used for the training. The best accuracy level was obtained using the “Subspace KNN” algorithm (86.3%). The classifier “RUSboosted trees” yielded the lowest number of false negatives and the higher sensitivity of the algorithms used (78%) as well as a specificity of 86%.

This predictive method identifies attrition students in the university program and could be used to improve student retention in higher grades.

The study has developed a novel predictive model of student attrition from upper-year courses, useful for unbalanced databases with a lower number of attrition students.

This study aims to assess Brazilian adult consumers’ behavior, aged 18–70, when purchasing ready-to-eat food during the first months of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Participants answered an online questionnaire about behaviors related to the purchase of ready-to-eat food from food services: changes in usage frequency during the pandemic, reasons for altering purchase habits, types of food and beverages bought before and during the pandemic and the frequency of on-site (consumption in food services) and off-site (delivery, take-away and drive-through) service utilization at lunch and dinner.

Out of 970 individuals who participated in the study, during the pandemic, 38% of participants reduced their food service usage, whereas 18% stopped using it. The main reasons given by participants who reduced and stopped food service usage were cooking at home (52% and 59%, respectively) and feeling afraid of contracting COVID-19 (26% and 22%, respectively). The reduction was more frequent among divorced/widowed/single individuals (p = 0.001) and in total social distancing, that is, all day long (p = 0.03). A significant reduction in on-site consumption frequency occurred for lunch and dinner (p < 0.001), whereas an increase in the off-site consumption frequency service for lunch (p = 0.016) and a reduction for dinner (p = 0.01) occurred compared to pre-COVID-19. However, 48% of participants used these services at least once a week in both periods. Most consumed foods and drinks before and during the pandemic were pasta/pizza (74% and 64%, respectively), snack/burgers (66% and 59%, respectively), soft drinks (41% and 37%, respectively) and alcoholic beverages (37% and 25%, respectively).

Knowledge about food choices away from home during the pandemic is scarce. High consumption of food away from home has been associated with a greater risk of developing chronic non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and others. Eating behavior is influenced by the cultural, social, economic and personal characteristics of each individual. Understanding the main changes related to the consumption of ready-to-eat food and what the affected consumers profile in a time of unprecedented crisis, it is important to provide scientific knowledge that allows one to anticipate the implications for the future of individuals’ health and food systems and, consequently, to develop public policy or awareness and promotion actions of public health that encourage adopting healthier and balanced eating habits.

The aim of this paper is to understand the importance of endomarketing in organizations and whether internal strategies are essential in the management of human capital. Especially, it is intended to understand what kind of policies is adopted in the organizations the authors are dealing with, and also the perception that employees have about them.

The methodology adopted combines a quantitative and qualitative approach, based on documents analysis, and the survey and semi-structured interviews with questions alluding to endomarketing. The study was carried out in the (Portuguese) cities belonging to the Minho Quadrilateral, being Braga, Barcelos, Guimarães and Vila Nova de Famalicão, in which a total of five organizations are held.

The results seem to show that endomarketing has an essential role in human capital management, in particular, to obtain both individual and organizational results, where there is a mutual relationship. Of the 158 respondents that make up the sample, it was concluded that 78.5% considered the intrinsic factors related to well-being and happiness as important as the extrinsic factors related to monetary rewards.

The manuscript presents insights for internal marketing and human resource management (i.e. motivation and human capital). Based on the rapid and profound technological changes of the early 21st century, the concept of endomarketing emerged stimulated by globalization and by the greater concern to adopt strategies that were able to differentiate organizations in the markets.

This is an interdisciplinary theme, with contributions to both internal marketing and human resource management, bearing in mind to enhancing the value and well-being of organizational human capital. This study aims to contribute to the development of scientific knowledge in this area that is so relevant for growth and differentiation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the daily rhythms of eating, namely, the times at which food intake occurs during a day-long period, in Santiago, Chile.

The data used in this research come from a first time-use survey applied in Santiago in 2007 and 2008, which works with a retrospective activity journal to document the amount of time dedicated to different activities during the 24 hours of the previous day. Descriptive analysis and multinomial regressions were performed on a sample size of 2,282 cases, corresponding to those individuals over the age of 12 who responded to the daily activity prompt in full.

This study shows that people in Santiago tend to eat according to the same timetables (morning, midday and evening) and that socio-demographic variables have limited influence on the synchronization of this intake between Monday and Friday.

The data did not allow for the exploration of the duration of food intake, commensality and its variation over time.

These data reveal that, for Santiago residents, eating is far from becoming de-structured towards a mode of constant grazing throughout the day, contradicting the thesis of alimentary modernity.

These results yield evidence that calls into question the applicability of the thesis of alimentary modernity within a Latin American context, which has not before been subject to investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the success and failure of microfinance institutions in generating economic growth over the past 30 years and propose a dual criterion of evaluation.

It surveys the empirical literature on microfinance and finds that while there has been small and localized success in various countries in improving access to credit, at the same time there has been a broader failure to generate economic growth. The authors argue that this broader failure should be viewed from the viewpoint of institutional failure or the lack of supporting institutions such as private property rights and stable rule of law within developing countries.

Using Baumol’s (1968) theory of entrepreneurship, the authors argue that the broader failure of microfinance is a case of poor institutional quality leading to unproductive or even destructive entrepreneurship rather than productive entrepreneurship. The paper also suggests a link between the literature criticizing foreign aid and this view on microfinance.

The paper provides a survey of the empirical literature on micro finance as well as a novel framework that aids in understanding both the localized small-scale success as well as broader failure to generate economic growth.

A quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA) was developed to estimate the probability of getting listeriosis as a consequence of chicken and beef consumption in Chile. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

As a first step a deterministic retail-to-home model was constructed for the Chilean susceptible population, including storage, cross-contamination and cooking. Next, two probabilistic models were developed, including variability and/or the uncertainty of some of the parameters. The probabilistic models were analyzed by Monte Carlo simulations with 100,000 iterations.

Of the total susceptible population used in the model (2.81 million people), the deterministic model estimated 11 and two listeriosis cases because of beef and poultry consumption, respectively and the variability model estimated a mean of 322 and 7,546 cases for beef and poultry consumption, respectively. The uncertainty analysis showed large ranges, with realistic estimates made with an initial concentration of Listeria monocytogenes of 0.04-1 CFU/g and a dose-response parameter r ranging from 10-14 to 10-10.

The lack of information was the major limitation of the model, so the generation of it has to be a priority in Chile for developing less uncertain risk assessments in the future.

Raw animal products can be the cause of listeriosis cases if they are not stored, cooked and/or handled properly. Consumer education seems to be an essential factor for disease prevention.

This is the first QMRA made in Chile, and also the first study of listeriosis in non-processed meat.

Recent discussions of how members of the middle classes define themselves have focused on cultural patterns, following Bourdieu's (1984) influential work on how occupational, educational, and cultural fields combine to configure classes. Researchers have extended this approach to studies of the emerging middle classes in the global South, adapting these concepts to the specific circumstances of postcolonial settings in a globalizing world. This chapter explores these processes among urban middle-class Chileans. I show how members of the middle classes seek meaningful identities while engaging in symbolic combat with other groups in a society historically marked by an aristocratic elite, a recent military dictatorship, and free market policies that have reconfigured the possibilities for upward and downward mobility while integrating Chile more firmly within global commodity and image circuits. The principal foci of conflict are cultural consumption, childrearing and education, as well as electronic media use. Members of Chile's middle classes are locked in an unresolved conflict over who they are, who they should be, and where they fit in the global cultural economy.