Information-dependent processes in incubated and graduated technology-based companies: a comparative case study

Nowadays, competitiveness introduces new behaviors and leads companies to a discomforting situation and often to non adaptation to environmental requirements. A growing number of challenges associated with control of information in organizations with engineering activities can be seen, particularly, the growing amount of information subject to continuous changes. The innovative performance of an organization is directly proportional to its ability to manage information. Thus, the importance of information management is recognized by the search for more competent ways to face current demands. The purpose of this article was to analyze informationdependent processes in technology-based companies, through the four major stages of information management. The comparative method of cases and qualitative research were used. The research was conducted in nine technology-based companies which were incubated or recently went through the incubating process at the Technological Park of Sao Carlos, in the state of Sao Paulo. Among the main results, it was found that in graduated companies information management and its procedures were identified as more conscious and structured in contrast to those of the incubated companies.

SOCIAL POLICY AS REGIONAL POLICY: MARKET AND NONMARKET FACTORS DETERMINING REGIONAL INEQUALITY

We decompose the recent changes in regional inequality in Brazil into its components, highlighting the role of spatially blind social programs. We aggregate personal income micro data to the state level, differentiating nine income sources, and assess the role of these components in the observed changes in regional inequality indicators. The main results indicate that the largest part of the recent reduction in regional inequality is related to the dynamics of the market-related labor income, with manufacturing and services favoring deconcentration. Labor income in agriculture, retirement and pensions, and property rents and other sources favored concentration. The social programs Bolsa Familia and Beneficios de Prestacao Continuada are responsible for more than 24 percent of the reduction in inequality, although they account for less than 1.7 percent of the disposable household income. Such positive impact on regional concentration is impressive, since the goals of the programs are clearly nonspatial.

Computational and experimental characterization of a low-cost piezoelectric valveless diaphragm pump

Flow pumps act as important devices in areas such as Bioengineering, Medicine, and Pharmacy, among other areas of Engineering, mainly for delivering liquids or gases at small-scale and precision flow rate quantities. Principles for pumping fluids based on piezoelectric actuators have been widely studied, since they allow the construction of pump systems for displacement of small fluid volumes with low power consumption. This work studies valveless piezoelectric diaphragm pumps for flow generation, which uses a piezoelectric ceramic (PZT) as actuator to move a membrane (diaphragm) up and down as a piston. The direction of the flow is guaranteed by valveless configuration based on a nozzle-diffuser system that privileges the flow in just one pumping direction. Most research efforts on development of valveless flow pump deal either with computational simulations based on simplified models or with simplified physical approaches based on analytical models. The main objective of this work is the study of a methodology to develop a low-cost valveless piezoelectric diaphragm flow pump using computational simulations, parametric study, prototype manufacturing, and experimental characterization. The parametric study has shown that the eccentricity of PZT layer and metal layer plays a key role in the performance of the pump.