Estudo empírico de antecedentes do sucesso de sistemas de informação: análise de um sistema de apoio à decisão em uma universidade pública

Universities are institutions that generate and manipulate large amounts of data as a result of the multiple functions they perform, of the amount of involved professionals and students they attend. Information gathered from these data is used, for example, for operational activities and to support decision-making by managers. To assist managers in accomplishing their tasks, the Information Systems (IS) are presented as tools that offer features aiming to improve the performance of its users, assist with routine tasks and provide support to decision-making. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the influence of the users features and of the task in the success of IS. The study is of a descriptive-exploratory nature, therefore, the constructs used to define the conceptual model of the research are known and previously validated. However, individual features of users and of the task are IS success antecedents. In order to test the influence of these antecedents, it was developed a decision support IS that uses the Multicriteria Decision Aid Constructivist (MCDA-C) methodology with the participation and involvement of users. The sample consisted of managers and former managers of UTFPR Campus Pato Branco who work or have worked in teaching activities, research, extension and management. For data collection an experiment was conducted in the computer lab of the Campus Pato Branco in order to verify the hypotheses of the research. The experiment consisted of performing a distribution task of teaching positions between the academic departments using the IS developed. The task involved decision-making related to management activities. The data that fed the system used were real, from the Campus itself. A questionnaire was answered by the participants of the experiment in order to obtain data to verify the research hypotheses. The results obtained from the data analysis partially confirmed the influence of the individual features in IS success and fully confirmed the influence of task features. The data collected failed to support significant ratio between the individual features and the individual impact. For many of the participants the first contact with the IS was during the experiment, which indicates the lack of experience with the system. Regarding the success of IS, the data revealed that there is no significance in the relationship between Information Quality (IQ) and Individual Impact (II). It is noteworthy that the IS used in the experiment is to support decision-making and the information provided by this system are strictly quantitative, which may have caused some conflict in the analysis of the criteria involved in the decision-making process. This is because the criteria of teaching, research, extension and management are interconnected such that one reflects on another. Thus, the opinion of the managers does not depend exclusively on quantitative data, but also of knowledge and value judgment that each manager has about the problem to be solved.

Indicadores energéticos: instrumentos de apoio ao desenvolvimento sustentável

Energy indicators are tools to support decision-making on energy. The growing debate on sustainable development, contributed to the energy indicators began to incorporate, besides the traditional economic, social and environmental information. Therefore, taking sustainable development into account, it is important to know contributions and limitations of these tools. The overall goal of this study is to analyze the contributions and limitations of the energy indicators as assets to support sustainable development.This study can be classified as descriptive because it relies on bibliographical and documental material. As a result of documental analysis, 55 energy indicators for sustainable development (EISD) were selected. The selection took place by identification of those indicators through the institutions International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Helio International and World Energy Council (WEC), among 19 institutions involved in research on energy identified in the survey. The study stresses that most of the selected indicators focuses on the economic dimension, 19 EISDs (34.54%), followed by 10 EISDs (18.18%) focused on the environmental dimension, 9 EISDs (16.36%) focused on the social issues, 7 EISDs (12.45%) are classified as resilience, 4 EISDs (7.27%) is about governance, 3 EISDs (5.45%) focused on vulnerability and 3 EISDs (5.45%) is about policy. Despite the inclusion of indicators associated with other dimensions than economy, information provided by those indicators emerges as their own limitation. Because, recently, indicators’ information were used to promote sustainable development as well as the opposite. Additionally, the study identified EISDs whose components were not specified. They may enable generation of information far from the real scenario, if components dissociated EISD would be taking into consideration or even the non-consideration of relevant components. Despite limitations, EISDs assisting decision-makers contributes to the pursuit of sustainable development. But they may be improved through information about environmental issues, such as emission of atmospheric pollutants, soil and water, resulting from energy sources, helps identifying which sources are more or less harmful for sustainable development. However, difficulty in collecting data, identifying the components for calculation of each indicator and even interpretation of this, as analyzed, may not only fail to contribute to sustainable development, as can delay taking corrective or preventive decisions.

Influência do uso e ocupação do solo na qualidade da água e no processo erosivo da bacia de captação do Rio Barro Preto, Coronel Vivida-PR

This study was developed in objecting to investigate the use and occupation of land in 1999, 2005, 2011 e 2015 and estimate soil degradation by laminar erosion and the relation with water quality in 2015 in the catchment basin of the Barro Preto river, Coronel Vivida – PR. For multitemporal analysis of use and occupation of land in the basin used in the Landsat 5, 7 and 8 images and Geographic Information System. The laminar erosion was estimated by the Universal Soil Loss Equation through the systematization of calculations of the factors that compose the equation in SPRING/INPE. The water quality of the studied river section was evaluated according to the Water Quality Idex and the Resolution CONAMA n. 357/2005. The multitemporal analysis of the use and occupation of land has demonstrated that basin is predominantly agricultural in all years studied, as well as the permanent preservation area presents it not regularized during the period in accordance with the Brazilian Forest Code in force. In relation the quantification of laminar soil erosion in the study period, the rainfall and runoff factor was estimated considering the rainfall data from 1986 to 2014 and resulted in a value of 11.573,47 MJ/ha.mm/a. The Dystrophic Red Latosol, Dystrophic Red Nitisol, Fluvisol and Leptosol soil erodibility factor were 0,0138, 0,0137, 0,0207, 0,0196 t.ha.h/ha.MJ.mm/a, respectively. The topographical factor has demonstrated that the catchment basin has the rough terrain because the moderate and moderate strong classes are dominant in the study area. The cover and management and support practice factors were estimated according to the multitemporal analysis of the use and occupation of land in the basin and the values ranged from 0,0006 to 0,0688. The soil losses by laminar erosion were simulated with agriculture areas with corn and soybeans in no-till. The soil losses with maize crop in no-till in 1999, 2005, 2011 and 2015 were 9.782,75, 10.592,71, 9.636,61 e 11.058,26 t/year, respectively, and soybeans crops in no-till were 15.140,01, 16.645,20, 14.662,14 e 17.049,85 t/year, respectively. In relation with water quality of the section studied river, the average of Water Quality Index during the season were 55,47, 53,09 and 49,72, for the first, second and third sample point, respectively. Indication a decrease in water quality since the source to the last sample point. It is concluded that the use and occupation of land in the catchment basin interferes in the water quality, as well as in soil degradation.