Consumers' perceived risk: Sources versus consequences

In this study, we examine an important factor that affects consumers' acceptance of business-to-commerce (B2C) electronic commerce - perceived risk. The objective of this paper is to examine the definition of perceived risk in the context of B2C electronic commerce. The paper highlights the importance of perceived risk and the interwoven relation between perceived risk and trust. It discusses the problem of defining perceived risk in prior B2C research. This study proposes a new classification of consumers' perceived risk based on sources. It highlights the importance of identifying the sources of consumer's risk perceptions in addition to the consequences dimensions. Two focus group discussion sessions were conducted to verify the proposed classification. Results indicate that Internet consumers perceive three sources of risk in B2C electronic commerce: technology, vendor, and product. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A comparison of model laws as a starting point for the development of an enforceable international consumer protection regime

This article is concerned primarily with an examination and comparison of select aspects of the model international consumer protection laws proposed by the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), using the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Australia) as a basis for examination and comparison. As a secondary consideration, it also broadly examines the content of, and differences between, the model laws. The motive for this article is that any future enforceable international consumer protection regime (possibly in the form of an international treaty or convention) would need to take into account the UN, EU and OECD guidelines. A cross-comparison of those model laws, and a comparison of them with the consumer protection provisions of a well established national consumer protection law, should provide a useful starting point for the development of such a regime. The 'select aspects' of the model laws in question are the various provisions of those laws which could relate to situations involving the wrong delivery or non-delivery of goods.

The uniqueness of solutions to discrete, victor, two-point boundary value problems

Difference equations which may arise as discrete approximations to two-point boundary value problems for systems of second-order, ordinary differential equations are investigated and conditions are formulated under which solutions to the discrete problem are unique. Some existence, uniqueness implies existence, and convergence theorems for solutions to the discrete problem are also presented.

Dos movimentos sociais para o Estado : um estudo das carreiras dos ativistas ambientais no Espírito Santo

A dissertação problematiza as relações entre movimentos sociais e Estado no Brasil contemporâneo, dando enfoque à entrada de lideranças de movimentos para órgãos públicos, por meio da ocupação de cargos de confiança e comissionados. Esta mudança no local de atuação, que pode ser compreendida como “trânsito” (da sociedade civil para o Estado) ou do ponto de vista da transformação de papéis (de desafiantes a membros da polity), repercute sobre o campo do ativismo em questão, sobre as decisões e políticas dos órgãos públicos envolvidos, assim como sobre o próprio ativista. Tendo em vista essa discussão, estabelecemos como objeto de atenção os impactos promovidos no nível individual, tendo como objetivo investigar e analisar as transformações processadas nas dimensões objetivas e subjetivas de carreiras de lideranças ativistas que adentraram o Estado por meio da ocupação de cargos. Assim, foi realizado um estudo das carreiras ativistas de seis lideranças reconhecidas por terem atuado em um campo específico de militância no Espírito Santo – o campo ambiental – e que ocuparam cargos em órgãos públicos. A metodologia utilizada foi qualitativa, e os dados foram coletados em entrevistas semiestruturadas e em profundidade com as lideranças e em pesquisa em outras fontes, como páginas de internet e materiais cedidos pelos próprios entrevistados. As análises foram instrumentalizadas teoricamente pela sociologia das carreiras militantes, por meio da qual buscamos reconstruir itinerários objetivos e aspectos subjetivos da atuação política das lideranças. Os resultados revelam que, na maioria dos casos estudados, a entrada para o Estado não foi acompanhada do desengajamento em relação ao ativismo desenvolvido em organizações e lutas ambientalistas; e que é recorrente a conciliação (e por vezes a articulação) de ambos. Todavia, a dupla atuação no movimento e no Estado foi permeada por tensões, levando algumas vezes a conflitos e rupturas. O trabalho permite concluir que, mesmo para os que se mantiveram ativistas em movimentos ambientais, houve impactos decorrentes da atuação em órgãos públicos sobre suas carreiras objetivas e subjetivas, sendo notável uma mudança na visão e na relação com o Estado, compreendido como lugar onde é possível “gerar contribuições”.

Estudo da Influencia de antioxidantes na avaliacao da estabilidade oxidativa de biodiesel pelo metodo petroOXY

O uso do biodiesel como um substituto total ou parcial do diesel de petróleo é significativo, entretanto a sua baixa estabilidade oxidativa é um ponto desfavorável. Portanto o uso de antioxidantes é viável desde que diminuam a velocidade de degradação promovido pela oxidação. Mas a ação de um antioxidante está relacionada com a composição química do biodiesel ao qual é adicionado. Considerando a importância e o crescimento da indústria de biodiesel, a necessidade de utilização de antioxidantes, e a busca por novas fontes como matérias primas, faz-se necessário estudar a eficiência de antioxidantes para o aumento da vida útil do biodiesel, além de avaliar novas culturas com potencial de produção como o pinhão manso (Jatropha curcas L.) e nabo forrageiro (Raphanus sativus L.). O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar os antioxidantes BHT (butilhidroxitolueno), PA (ácido pirogálico) e PG (galato de propila), em concentrações de 50, 200, 500, 1000 e 2000 mg/kg, nos biodiesel de pinhão manso, nabo forrageiro e soja, empregando a metodologia PetroOXY, ensaio acelerado de oxidação, para a determinação do seu período de indução. Os biodieseis foram obtidos através de reações de transesterificação, utilizando rota metílica, com rendimentos superiores a 80% e foram caracterizados através de alguns parâmetros físico-químicos. Foi observada a eficiência do uso de antioxidantes no aumento da vida útil do biodiesel. E com o aumento da concentração houve um aumento do período de indução. A eficiência do BHT foi sempre crescente com o aumento da concentração para todos os biodieseis enquanto que para o PG e PA houve uma diminuição da eficiência na maior concentração. A metodologia usada para avaliação da estabilidade oxidativa, PetroOXY, mostrou-se eficaz, de boa repetibilidade e reprodutibilidade, além de ser mais rápida e completa que o método Rancimat. Na concentração mais elevada, 2000 mg/kg, o melhor desempenho foi para o BHT, nas concentrações inferiores a 2000 mg/kg, a melhor eficiência foi para o PA ~ PG, nos três biodieseis estudados, soja, nabo forrageiro e pinhão manso.

Sources of Brazil's Counter-Hegemony

There have been two key initiatives taken in the last two decades in Brazil to create a counter-hegemonic project for the country. One initiative resulted from Brazil's business community and high-level State bureaucracy and aimed at forming a regional economic and political bloc that would guarantee and enlarge a relative independence from the hegemonic powers. The other resulted from the emergence of the new unionist movement in São Paulo and from the formation of Partido dos Trabalhadores and aimed at promoting radical democratization and reducing social exclusion. Both initiatives have created policies and changes that have converged to enhance Brazil's counter-hegemonic position as a regional and emerging power.

Productivity of irrigated beans due to sources of stabilized nitrogen fertilizer and controlled release

ABSTRACT New nitrogen fertilizers are available in the market actually, however, does not have results on the efficiency of the Cerrado conditions. With that objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of urea including stabilized and controlled release urea on yield of irrigated common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L) in no-tillage system. The experiment was conducted in the winter crop, at Embrapa Arroz e Feijão, in Santo Antônio de Goiás, State of Goiás, Brazil. The experimental design was randomized blocks, with five replicates. Treatments consisted of five N sources (urea, urea + NBPT, urea + polymer, ammonium sulphate, and ammonium nitrate) and a control (without N) being applied 20 kg ha-1 of N at sowing and 80 kg ha-1 onf N in topdressing. We evaluated the chlorophyll content in leaves of common beans, the leaf N content and dry mass weight (MSPA) in the flowering of common beans, the number of pods per plant, number of grains per pod, mass of 100 grains, grain yield and final stand of the common beans. The sources of nitrogen fertilizer did not influence, leaf N content, the mass of MSPA and the relative chlorophyll index of common beans. The use of polymerized urea and urea with urease inhibitor, did not produce increases in the number of grains per pod, number of pods per plant, mass of 100 grains and common beans yield compared to traditional sources of N, urea, ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate.

Grid structure impact in sparse point representation of derivatives

In the Sparse Point Representation (SPR) method the principle is to retain the function data indicated by significant interpolatory wavelet coefficients, which are defined as interpolation errors by means of an interpolating subdivision scheme. Typically, a SPR grid is coarse in smooth regions, and refined close to irregularities. Furthermore, the computation of partial derivatives of a function from the information of its SPR content is performed in two steps. The first one is a refinement procedure to extend the SPR by the inclusion of new interpolated point values in a security zone. Then, for points in the refined grid, such derivatives are approximated by uniform finite differences, using a step size proportional to each point local scale. If required neighboring stencils are not present in the grid, the corresponding missing point values are approximated from coarser scales using the interpolating subdivision scheme. Using the cubic interpolation subdivision scheme, we demonstrate that such adaptive finite differences can be formulated in terms of a collocation scheme based on the wavelet expansion associated to the SPR. For this purpose, we prove some results concerning the local behavior of such wavelet reconstruction operators, which stand for SPR grids having appropriate structures. This statement implies that the adaptive finite difference scheme and the one using the step size of the finest level produce the same result at SPR grid points. Consequently, in addition to the refinement strategy, our analysis indicates that some care must be taken concerning the grid structure, in order to keep the truncation error under a certain accuracy limit. Illustrating results are presented for 2D Maxwell's equation numerical solutions.

Learning dependent sources using mixtures of Dirichlet: applications on hyperspectral unmixing

This paper is an elaboration of the DECA algorithm [1] to blindly unmix hyperspectral data. The underlying mixing model is linear, meaning that each pixel is a linear mixture of the endmembers signatures weighted by the correspondent abundance fractions. The proposed method, as DECA, is tailored to highly mixed mixtures in which the geometric based approaches fail to identify the simplex of minimum volume enclosing the observed spectral vectors. We resort then to a statitistical framework, where the abundance fractions are modeled as mixtures of Dirichlet densities, thus enforcing the constraints on abundance fractions imposed by the acquisition process, namely non-negativity and constant sum. With respect to DECA, we introduce two improvements: 1) the number of Dirichlet modes are inferred based on the minimum description length (MDL) principle; 2) The generalized expectation maximization (GEM) algorithm we adopt to infer the model parameters is improved by using alternating minimization and augmented Lagrangian methods to compute the mixing matrix. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is illustrated with simulated and read data.

Mobi-system: assistente pessoal de viagem

Este trabalho sugere uma solução de integração de dados em tempo real no contexto dos transportes públicos. Com o aumento das alternativas oferecidas aos utilizadores dos transportes públicos é importante que estes conheçam todas as alternativas com base em informação em tempo real para que realizem a escolha que melhor se enquadre às suas necessidades. Por outro lado, os operadores de transportes públicos deverão ser capazes de disponibilizar toda a informação pretendida com o mínimo de esforço ou de alterações ao sistema que têm implementado. Neste trabalho serão utilizadas ferramentas que permitem fornecer uma visão homogénea das várias fontes de dados heterogéneas, sendo essa homogeneidade o ponto de integração de todas as fontes de dados com as aplicações cliente.

Redução das emissões de CO2 em redes ópticas

Num mundo em que as redes de telecomunicações estão em constante evolução e crescimento, o consumo energético destas também aumenta. Com a evolução tanto por parte das redes como dos seus equipamentos, o custo de implementação de uma rede tem-se reduzido até ao ponto em que o maior obstáculo para o crescimento das redes é já o seu custo de manutenção e funcionamento. Nas últimas décadas têm sido criados esforços para tornar as redes cada fez mais eficientes ao nível energético, reduzindo-se assim os seus custos operacionais, como também a redução dos problemas relacionados com as fontes de energia que alimentam estas redes. Neste sentido, este trabalho tem como objectivo principal o estudo do consumo energético de redes IP sobre WDM, designadamente o estudo de métodos de encaminhamento que sejam eficientes do ponto de vista energético. Neste trabalho formalizámos um modelo de optimização que foi avaliado usando diferentes topologias de rede. O resultado da análise mostrou que na maioria dos casos é possível obter uma redução do consumo na ordem dos 25%.

Eastwards / westwards: which direction for gender studies in the 21st century?

Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? is a collection of essays which focus on themes and methods that characterize current research into gender in Asian countries in general. In this collection, ideas derived from Gender Studies elsewhere in the world have been subjected to scrutiny for their utility in helping to describe and understand regional phenomena. But the concepts of Local and Global – with their discoursive productions – have not functioned as a binary opposition: localism and globalism are mutually constitutive and researchers have interrogated those spaces of interaction between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, bearing in mind their own embeddedness in social and cultural structures and their own historical memory. Contributors to this collection provided a critical transnational perspective on some of the complex effects of the dynamics of cultural globalization, by exploring the relation between gender and development, language, historiography, education and culture. We have also given attention to the ideological and rhetorical processes through which gender identity is constructed, by comparing textual grids and patterns of expectation. Likewise, we have discussed the role of ethnography, anthropology, historiography, sociology, fiction, popular culture and colonial and post-colonial sources in (re)inventing old/new male/female identities, their conversion into concepts and circulation through time and space. This multicultural and trans-disciplinary selection of essays is totally written in English, fully edited and revised, therefore, it has a good potential for an immediate international circulation. This project may trace new paths and issues for discussion on what concerns the life, practices and narratives by and about women in Asia, as well as elsewhere in the present day global experience. Academic readership: Researchers, scholars, educators, graduate and post-graduate students, doctoral students and general non-fiction readers, with a special interest in Gender Studies, Asia, Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, History, Historiography, Politics, Race, Feminism, Language, Linguistics, Power, Political and Feminist Agendas, Popular Culture, Education, Women’s Writing, Religion, Multiculturalism, Globalisation, Migration. Chapter summary: 1. “Social Gender Stereotypes and their Implication in Hindi”, Anjali Pande, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. This essay looks at the subtle ways in which gender identities are constructed and reinforced in India through social norms of language use. Language itself becomes a medium for perpetuating gender stereotypes, forcing its speakers to confirm to socially defined gender roles. Using examples from a classroom discussion about a film, this essay will highlight the underlying rigid male-female stereotypes in Indian society with their more obvious expressions in language. For the urban woman in India globalisation meant increased economic equality and exposure to changed lifestyles. On an individual level it also meant redefining gender relations and changing the hierarchy in man-­woman relationships. With the economic independence there is a heightened sense of liberation in all spheres of social life, a confidence to fuzz the rigid boundaries of gender roles. With the new films and media celebrating this liberated woman, who is ready to assert her sexual needs, who is ready to explode those long held notions of morality, one would expect that the changes are not just superficial. But as it soon became obvious in the course of a classroom discussion about relationships and stereotypes related to age, the surface changes can not become part of the common vocabulary, for the obvious reason that there is still a vast gap between the screen image of this new woman and the ground reality. Social considerations define the limits of this assertiveness of women, whereas men are happy to be liberal within the larger frame of social sanctions. The educated urban woman in India speaks in favour of change and the educated urban male supports her, but one just needs to scratch the surface to see the time tested formulae of gender roles firmly in place. The way the urban woman happily balances this emerging promise of independence with her gendered social identity, makes it necessary to rethink some aspects of looking at gender in a gradually changing, traditional society like India. 2. “The Linguistic Dimension of Gender Equality”, Alissa Tolstokorova, Kiev Centre for Gender Information and Education, Ukraine. The subject-matter of this essay is gender justice in language which, as I argue, may be achieved through the development of a gender-related approach to linguistic human rights. The last decades of the 20th century, globally marked by a “gender shift” in attitudes to language policy, gave impetus to the social movement for promoting linguistic gender equality. It was initiated in Western Europe and nowadays is moving eastwards, as ideas of gender democracy progress into developing countries. But, while in western societies gender discrimination through language, or linguistic sexism, was an issue of concern for over three decades, in developing countries efforts to promote gender justice in language are only in their infancy. My argument is that to promote gender justice in language internationally it is necessary to acknowledge the rights of women and men to equal representation of their gender in language and speech and, therefore, raise a question of linguistic rights of the sexes. My understanding is that the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights in 1996 provided this opportunity to address the problem of gender justice in language as a human rights issue, specifically as a gender dimension of linguistic human rights. 3. “The Rebirth of an Old Language: Issues of Gender Equality in Kazakhstan”, Maria Helena Guimarães, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. The existing language situation in Kazakhstan, while peaceful, is not without some tension. We propose to analyze here some questions we consider relevant in the frame of cultural globalization and gender equality, such as: free from Russian imperialism, could Kazakhstan become an easy prey of Turkey’s “imperialist dream”? Could these traditionally Muslim people be soon facing the end of religious tolerance and gender equality, becoming this new old language an easy instrument for the infiltration in the country of fundamentalism (it has already crossed the boarders of Uzbekistan), leading to a gradual deterioration of its rich multicultural relations? The present structure of the language is still very fragile: there are three main dialects and many academics defend the re-introduction of the Latin alphabet, thus enlarging the possibility of cultural “contamination” by making the transmission of fundamentalist ideas still easier through neighbour countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (their languages belong to the same sub-group of Common Turkic), where the Latin alphabet is already in use, and where the ground for such ideas shown itself very fruitful. 4. “Construction of Womanhood in the Bengali Language of Bangladesh”, Raasheed Mahmood; University of New South Wales, Sydney. The present essay attempts to explore the role of gender-based language differences and of certain markers that reveal the status accorded to women in Bangladesh. Discrimination against women, in its various forms, is endemic in communities and countries around the world, cutting across class, race, age, and religious and national boundaries. One cannot understand the problems of gender discrimination solely by referring to the relationship of power or authority between men and women. Rather one needs to consider the problem by relating it to the specific social formation in which the image of masculinity and femininity is constructed and reconstructed. Following such line of reasoning this essay will examine the nature of gender bias in the Bengali language of Bangladesh, holding the conviction that as a product of social reality language reflects the socio-cultural behaviour of the community who speaks it. This essay will also attempt to shed some light on the processes through which gender based language differences produce actual consequences for women, who become exposed to low self-esteem, depression and systematic exclusion from public discourse. 5. “Marriage in China as an expression of a changing society”, Elisabetta Rosado David, University of Porto, Portugal, and Università Ca’Foscari, Venezia, Italy. In 29 April 2001, the new Marriage Law was promulgated in China. The first law on marriage was proclaimed in 1950 with the objective of freeing women from the feudal matrimonial system. With the second law, in 1981, values and conditions that had been distorted by the Cultural Revolution were recovered. Twenty years later, a new reform was started, intending to update marriage in the view of the social and cultural changes that occurred with Deng Xiaoping’s “open policy”. But the legal reform is only the starting point for this case-study. The rituals that are followed in the wedding ceremony are often hard to understand and very difficult to standardize, especially because China is a vast country, densely populated and characterized by several ethnic minorities. Two key words emerge from this issue: syncretism and continuity. On this basis, we can understand tradition in a better way, and analyse whether or not marriage, as every social manifestation, has evolved in harmony with Chinese culture. 6. “The Other Woman in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Case of Portuguese India”, Maria de Deus Manso, University of Évora, Portugal. This essay researches the social, cultural and symbolic history of local women in the Portuguese Indian colonial enclaves. The normative Portuguese overseas history has not paid any attention to the “indigenous” female populations in colonial Portuguese territories, albeit the large social importance of these social segments largely used in matrimonial and even catholic missionary strategies. The first attempt to open fresh windows in the history of this new field was the publication of Charles Boxer’s referential study about Women in lberian Overseas Expansion, edited in Portugal only after the Revolution of 1975. After this research we can only quote some other fragmentary efforts. In fact, research about the social, cultural, religious, political and symbolic situation of women in the Portuguese colonial territories, from the XVI to the XX century, is still a minor historiographic field. In this essay we discuss this problem and we study colonial representations of women in the Portuguese Indian enclaves, mainly in the territory of Goa, using case studies methodologies. 7. “Heading East this Time: Critical Readings on Gender in Southeast Asia”, Clara Sarmento, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. This essay intends to discuss some critical readings of fictional and theoretical texts on gender condition in Southeast Asian countries. Nowadays, many texts about women in Southeast Asia apply concepts of power in unusual areas. Traditional forms of gender hegemony have been replaced by other powerful, if somewhat more covert, forms. We will discuss some universal values concerning conventional female roles as well as the strategies used to recognize women in political fields traditionally characterized by male dominance. Female empowerment will mean different things at different times in history, as a result of culture, local geography and individual circumstances. Empowerment needs to be perceived as an individual attitude, but it also has to be facilitated at the macro­level by society and the State. Gender is very much at the heart of all these dynamics, strongly related to specificities of historical, cultural, ethnic and class situatedness, requiring an interdisciplinary transnational approach.