Information overload, choice deferral, and moderating role of need for cognition: Empirical evidence

ABSTRACT Choice deferral due to information overload is an undesirable result of competitive environments. The neoclassical maximization models predict that choice avoidance will not increase as more information is offered to consumers. The theories developed in the consumer behavior field predict that some properties of the environment may lead to behavioral effects and an increase in choice avoidance due to information overload. Based on stimuli generated experimentally and tested among 1,000 consumers, this empirical research provides evidence for the presence of behavioral effects due to information overload and reveals the different effects of increasing the number of options or the number of attributes. This study also finds that the need for cognition moderates these behavioral effects, and it proposes psychological processes that may trigger the effects observed.

Application of the finite element method in cold forging processes

The demand for more efficient manufacturing processes has been increasing in the last few years. The cold forging process is presented as a possible solution, because it allows the production of parts with a good surface finish and with good mechanical properties. Nevertheless, the cold forming sequence design is very empirical and it is based on the designer experience. The computational modeling of each forming process stage by the finite element method can make the sequence design faster and more efficient, decreasing the use of conventional "trial and error" methods. In this study, the application of a commercial general finite element software - ANSYS - has been applied to model a forming operation. Models have been developed to simulate the ring compression test and to simulate a basic forming operation (upsetting) that is applied in most of the cold forging parts sequences. The simulated upsetting operation is one stage of the automotive starter parts manufacturing process. Experiments have been done to obtain the stress-strain material curve, the material flow during the simulated stage, and the required forming force. These experiments provided results used as numerical model input data and as validation of model results. The comparison between experiments and numerical results confirms the developed methodology potential on die filling prediction.

Climate governance in an international system under conservative hegemony: the role of major powers

In the last five years, climate change has been established as a central civilizational driver of our time. As a result of this development, the most diversified social processes - as well as the fields of science which study them - have had their dynamics altered. In International Relations, this double challenge could be explained as follows: 1) in empirical terms, climate change imposes a deepening of cooperation levels on the international community, considering the global common character of the atmosphere; and 2) to International Relations as a discipline, climate change demands from the scientific community a conceptual review of the categories designed to approach the development of global climate governance. The goal of this article is to discuss in both conceptual and empirical terms the structure of global climate change governance, through an exploratory research, aiming at identifying the key elements that allow understanding its dynamics. To do so, we rely on the concept of climate powers. This discussion is grounded in the following framework: we now live in an international system under conservative hegemony that is unable to properly respond to the problems of interdependence, among which - and mainly -, the climate issue.

Yield and nutrition of sunflower fertilized with sewage sludge stabilized by different processes

The different methods of sewage sludge stabilization modify their physical chemical and biological properties, altering its efficiency when applied in agriculture. The objective of this study was to evaluate the nutrient levels in soil and the yield of sunflower fertilized with sewage sludge stabilized by different processes. The experiment was conducted in Cambisol, with the treatments: control (without fertilization), fertilization with sewage sludge solarized, composted, vermicomposted, limed and chemical fertilizer recommended for sunflower crop. The experimental design a randomized block with four replications. The different methods of sewage sludge treatment did not affect the yield; however, the application of sewage sludge, regardless the stabilization process adopted, was more effective than chemical fertilizer and the control treatment. Overall, fertilization with limed sewage sludge provided higher soil nutrients concentrations, while treatments with composted and vermicomposted sewage sludge showed higher levels of nutrients in the plant.

How middle managers contribute to strategy formation process: connection of strategy processes and strategy practices

The role of middle management is essential when managing integrative and emergent strategy formation processes. We stand out the importance of its role connecting micro and macro organizational level offering a very important contribution when examining the strategy-as-practice perspective and integrative strategy formation process. The main goal of this research is to analyse the relationship between the integrative strategy formation process and the roles of middle management under the strategy-as-practice perspective. To check it out we adopted a qualitative methodology droving a case analysis in a Spanish University. Data was collected by means of personal interviews with members of different levels of the Institution, documents analysis and direct observation. In advance of some results we find out that the University develops an integrative strategy formation process and confers to middle management an important role extended all over the organization.

Transaction costs: an empirical analysis of their relationship with investment and foreign direct investment

As stated by the New Institutional Economics theory, transaction costs play a relevant role in economics and, according to the extent of such costs, agents make investment decisions. Actually, transaction costs may represent a disincentive to entrepreneurship. This work aims to verify whether transaction costs are related to investment rate and foreign direct investment rate (FDI) in different business environments. The results suggest that foreign investors do not have precise information about other countries as domestic investors do; as it is observed, only the relation between transaction costs and investment rate is significant. Furthermore, there is evidence that the business environments of BRIC countries are less developed when compared to business environments of other countries in the study

Lysotypes and plasmidial profile of Salmonella Serovar Typhimurium isolated from children with enteric processes in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, RJ, and Salvador, BA - Brazil

The lysotypes, plasmidial profiles, and profiles of resistance to antimicrobial agents were determined in 111 Salmonella Typhimurium strains isolated from feces and blood of children treated in Rio de Janeiro and in Salvador. Six distinct lysotypes (19, 41, 97, 105, 120 and 193) were recognized, with a predominance of lysotype 193 (59.7%) in Rio de Janeiro and of phage type 105 (38.4) in Salvador. Approximately 86.7% of the lysotype 193 strains presented multiple resistance to more than six antimicrobial agents, whereas 93% of lysotype 105 strains were fully susceptible. More than 90% of the strains presented plasmids distributed into 36 different profiles in Rio de Janeiro and into 10 profiles in Salvador. A 40 MDa plasmid was the most frequent (47%) in the strains from Rio de Janeiro, whereas a 61 MDa plasmid predominated (14.5%) in Salvador. Combined analysis of plasmid profile and classification into lysotypes (especially those belonging to types 105 and 103, proved to be more discriminatory than the other methods applied).

Cognitive processes affect the gait of subjects with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease in dual tasks

Objective To investigate the relation between gait parameters and cognitive impairments in subjects with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) during the performance of dual tasks. Methods This was a cross-sectional study involving 126 subjects divided into three groups: Parkinson group (n = 43), Alzheimer group (n = 38), and control group (n = 45). The subjects were evaluated using the Timed Up and Go test administered with motor and cognitive distracters. Gait analyses consisted of cadence and speed measurements, with cognitive functions being assessed by the Brief Cognitive Screening Battery and the Clock Drawing Test. Statistical procedures included mixed-design analyses of variance to observe the gait patterns between groups and tasks and the linear regression model to investigate the influence of cognitive functions in this process. A 5% significant level was adopted. Results Regarding the subjects’ speed, the data show a significant difference between group vs task interaction (p = 0.009), with worse performance of subjects with PD in motor dual task and of subjects with AD in cognitive dual task. With respect to cadence, no statistical differences was seen between group vs task interaction (p = 0.105), showing low interference of the clinical conditions on such parameter. The linear regression model showed that up to 45.79%, of the variance in gait can be explained by the interference of cognitive processes. Conclusion Dual task activities affect gait pattern in subjects with PD and AD. Differences between groups reflect peculiarities of each disease and show a direct interference of cognitive processes on complex tasks.

Nitric oxide as a regulator of inflammatory processes

Nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in mediating many aspects of inflammatory responses. NO is an effector molecule of cellular injury, and can act as an anti-oxidant. It can modulate the release of various inflammatory mediators from a wide range of cells participating in inflammatory responses (e.g., leukocytes, macrophages, mast cells, endothelial cells, and platelets). It can modulate blood flow, adhesion of leukocytes to the vascular endothelium and the activity of numerous enzymes, all of which can have an impact on inflammatory responses. In recent years, NO-releasing drugs have been developed, usually as derivatives of other drugs, which exhibit very powerful anti-inflammatory effects.

Portraying innovation in the public service of Brazil: Frameworks, systematization and characterization

ABSTRACT Innovation is essential for improving organizational performance in both the private and public sectors. This article describes and analyzes the 323 innovation experiences of the Brazilian federal public service that received prizes during the 16 annual competitions (from 1995 to 2012) of the Award for Innovation in Federal Public Management held by the Brazilian National School of Public Administration (ENAP). It is a qualitative and quantitative study in which were employed as categories for analysis the four types of innovation defined in the Copenhagen Manual: product, process, organizational and communication. The survey results allow us to affirm that there is innovation in the public sector, in spite of the skepticism of some researchers and the incipient state of theoretical research on the subject. It was possible to observe that organizational innovation was the one with the highest number of award- -winning experience, followed respectively by process, communication and product innovation, with citizen services and improvement of work processes being the main highlights. The results showed that, although the high incidence of innovation occurs at the national level, a significant number of innovations also occur at the local level, probably because many organizations of the federal government have their actions spread only at this level of government. Concerning the innovative area, health and education predominate, with almost 33% of initiatives, which can be explained by capillarity of these areas and the fact that both maintain a strong interaction with the user. The contributions of this work include the use of theoretical model of innovation analysis in the public sector in Brazil still upcoming, and the systematization of knowledge in empirical basis for this innovation. In this sense, it also contributes to the development of the theory with the presentation of evidence that the characteristics, determinants and consequences of innovation in the public sector differ not only from innovation in the industry, but also from innovation in services in the private sector.

Participation of nurses in the execution of clinical research protocol about technological innovation

AbstractOBJECTIVETo report the nurse's experience of inclusion in interdisciplinary clinical study about technological innovation, involving people with spinal cord injury.METHODDescriptive experience report. The empirical support was based on notes about perspectives and practice of clinical research, with a multi-professional nursing, physical education, physiotherapy and engineering staff.RESULTThe qualification includes the elaboration of the document for the Ethics Committee, familiarization among the members of staff and with the studied topic, and also an immersion into English. The nurse's knowledge gave support to the uptake of participants and time adequacy for data collection, preparation and assistance of the participants during the intervention and after collection. Nursing theories and processes have contributed to reveal risky diagnoses and the plan of care. It was the nurse's role to monitor the risk of overlapping methodological strictness to the human aspect. The skills for the clinical research must be the object of learning, including students in multidisciplinary researches.CONCLUSIONTo qualify the nurse for clinical research and to potentialize its caregiver essence, some changes are needed in the educational system, professional behavior, attitude and educational assistance.

Revisiting the S-index for soil physical quality and its use in Brazil

The S-index was introduced in 2004 in a publication by A.R. Dexter. S was proposed as an indicator of soil physical quality. A critical value delimiting soils with rich and poor physical quality was proposed. At present, Brazil is world leader in citations of Dexter's publication. In this publication the S-theory is mathematically revisited and extended. It is shown that S is mathematically correlated to bulk density and total porosity. As an absolute indicator, the value of S alone has proven to be incapable of predicting soil physical quality. The critical value does not always hold under boundary conditions described in the literature. This is to be expected because S is a static parameter, therefore implicitly unable to describe dynamic processes. As a relative indicator of soil physical quality, the S-index has no additional value over bulk density or total porosity. Therefore, in the opinion of the author, the fact that bulk density or total porosity are much more easily determined than the water retention curve for obtaining S disqualifies S as an advantageous indicator of relative soil physical quality. Among the several equations available for the fitting of water retention curves, the Groenevelt-Grant equation is preferable for use with S since one of its parameters and S are linearly correlated. Since efforts in soil physics research have the purpose of describing dynamic processes, it is the author's opinion that these efforts should shift towards mechanistic soil physics as opposed to the search for empirical correlations like S which, at present, represents far more than its reasonable share of soil physics in Brazil.

Hydrological processes obtained on the plot scale under four simulated rainfall tests during the cycle of different crop systems

The cropping system influences the interception of water by plants, water storage in depressions on the soil surface, water infiltration into the soil and runoff. The aim of this study was to quantify some hydrological processes under no tillage cropping systems at the edge of a slope, in 2009 and 2010, in a Humic Dystrudept soil, with the following treatments: corn, soybeans, and common beans alone; and intercropped corn and common bean. Treatments consisted of four simulated rainfall tests at different times, with a planned intensity of 64 mm h-1 and 90 min duration. The first test was applied 18 days after sowing, and the others at 39, 75 and 120 days after the first test. Different times of the simulated rainfall and stages of the crop cycle affected soil water content prior to the rain, and the time runoff began and its peak flow and, thus, the surface hydrological processes. The depth of the runoff and the depth of the water intercepted by the crop + soil infiltration + soil surface storage were affected by the crop systems and the rainfall applied at different times. The corn crop was the most effective treatment for controlling runoff, with a water loss ratio of 0.38, equivalent to 75 % of the water loss ratio exhibited by common bean (0.51), the least effective treatment in relation to the others. Total water loss by runoff decreased linearly with an increase in the time that runoff began, regardless of the treatment; however, soil water content on the gravimetric basis increased linearly from the beginning to the end of the rainfall.

Assessment of pedotransfer functions for estimating soil water retention curves for the amazon region

Knowledge of the soil water retention curve (SWRC) is essential for understanding and modeling hydraulic processes in the soil. However, direct determination of the SWRC is time consuming and costly. In addition, it requires a large number of samples, due to the high spatial and temporal variability of soil hydraulic properties. An alternative is the use of models, called pedotransfer functions (PTFs), which estimate the SWRC from easy-to-measure properties. The aim of this paper was to test the accuracy of 16 point or parametric PTFs reported in the literature on different soils from the south and southeast of the State of Pará, Brazil. The PTFs tested were proposed by Pidgeon (1972), Lal (1979), Aina & Periaswamy (1985), Arruda et al. (1987), Dijkerman (1988), Vereecken et al. (1989), Batjes (1996), van den Berg et al. (1997), Tomasella et al. (2000), Hodnett & Tomasella (2002), Oliveira et al. (2002), and Barros (2010). We used a database that includes soil texture (sand, silt, and clay), bulk density, soil organic carbon, soil pH, cation exchange capacity, and the SWRC. Most of the PTFs tested did not show good performance in estimating the SWRC. The parametric PTFs, however, performed better than the point PTFs in assessing the SWRC in the tested region. Among the parametric PTFs, those proposed by Tomasella et al. (2000) achieved the best accuracy in estimating the empirical parameters of the van Genuchten (1980) model, especially when tested in the top soil layer.