Beyond species loss: the extinction of ecological interactions in a changing world

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Understanding the genesis of green supply chain management: lessons from leading Brazilian companies

This work discusses the internal structuring processes of leading companies when adopting green supply chain management (GSCM) practices. A multiple case study approach was adopted as the research methodology, with four large Brazilian companies that are leaders in their market segments. The introduction of green products is a key step towards initiating concern for the environment among suppliers and customers. This study's results show the importance of having green teams, a dedicated functional area, and/or green jobs that support the discussion of environmental management among a business and beyond. The practical results of this study offer new insights into the behavior of companies that are adopting GSCM practices, thereby generating new evidence for the extension of GSCM theory. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Superfícies projetadas: uma simbiose dos processos criativo e executivo

This study aims to recognize the Surface Design as specialty hybrid and clarify the relationship between surface and design through projetual creative act and technical. The study shows that there projetual hybridity in the design of the Surface Design and the same occurs in two distinct stages: the creative phase , where the inherent design specialties together for their training , and executive process in which the diversity of technical information and construction procedures to assist the integration of design with other productive areas . Identify the products presented its projected surface condition , based on concepts checked the state of the art Surface Design was an action that enabled the verification of functional, aesthetic and symbolic object concepts . To evaluate this condition are presented six case studies to verify the levels of cooperation and implementation of the specialties of Design in objects that are highlighted by presenting different surfaces. Among the products are: DKR chair, bench Pai João, bench R540, Híbridos table, Facetas table and bench Xique-xique.

Malignant epitheliod hemangioendothelioma of the thyroid: a case report

Primary malignant epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (MEH) of the thyroid is a rare neoplasia with only a few cases reported in the literature. We report a 75 year old man, who presented with a substernal goiter and compressive symptoms. Ultrasonographic evaluation revealed a hypoechogenic nodule in the left lobe, measuring 4.1 cm in maximum diameter, and associated gross calcifications. Fine needle aspiration yielded hemorrhagic material. A left thyroid lobectomy and isthmusectomy was performed. The surgical specimen contained a malignant epithelioid hemangioendothelioma measuring 6 x 4 x 3 cm that had infiltrated about 50% of the thyroidal parenchyma, and surrounded a necrotic nodule. Immunohistochemistry results corroborated the histopathological findings; staining was positive for AE1/AE3, CD31, CD34, factor VIII-related antigen, and Ki-67 expression. Because of the patient’s comorbidities, surgical complementation was not undertaken and he has been undergoing conservative treatment.

Capacidade funcional de idosos dependentes cadastrados na estratégia saúde da família do município de Londrina,PR

Pós-graduação em Saúde Coletiva - FMB

Literacy Research: Issues of Authority, Ownership, and Representation

With the “social turn” of language in the past decade within English studies, ethnographic and teacher research methods increasingly have acquired legitimacy as a means of studying student literacy. And with this legitimacy, graduate students specializing in literacy and composition studies increasingly are being encouraged to use ethnographic and teacher research methods to study student literacy within classrooms. Yet few of the narratives produced from these studies discuss the problems that frequently arise when participant observers enter the classroom. Recently, some researchers have begun to interrogate the extent to which ethnographic and teacher research methods are able to construct and disseminate knowledge in empowering ways (Anderson & Irvine, 1993; Bishop, 1993; Fine, 1994; Fleischer. 1994; McLaren, 1992). While ethnographic and teacher research methods have oftentimes been touted as being more democratic and nonhierarchical than quantitative methods—-which oftentimes erase individuals lived experiences with numbers and statistical formulas—-researchers are just beginning to probe the ways that ethnographic and teacher research models can also be silencing, unreflective, and oppressive. Those who have begun to question the ethics of conducting, writing about, and disseminating knowledge in education have coined the term “critical” research, a rather vague and loose term that proposes a position of reflexivity and self-critique for all research methods, not just ethnography or teacher research. Drawing upon theories of feminist consciousness-raising, liberatory praxis, and community-action research, theories of critical research aim to involve researchers and participants in a highly participatory framework for constructing knowledge, an inquiry that seeks to question, disrupt, or intervene in the conditions under study for some socially transformative end. While critical research methods are always contingent upon the context being studied, in general they are undergirded by principles of non-hierarchical relations, participatory collaboration, problem-posing, dialogic inquiry, and multiple and multi-voiced interpretations. In distinguishing between critical and traditional ethnographic processes, for instance, Peter McLaren says that critical ethnography asks questions such as “[u]nder what conditions and to what ends do we. as educational researchers, enter into relations of cooperation. mutuality, and reciprocity with those who we research?” (p. 78) and “what social effects do you want your evaluations and understandings to have?” (p. 83). In»the same vein, Michelle Fine suggests that critical researchers must move beyond notions of the etic/emic dichotomy of researcher positionality in order to “probe how we are in relation with the contexts we study and with our informants, understanding that we are all multiple in those relations” (p. 72). Researchers in composition and literacy stud¬ies who endorse critical research methods, then, aim to enact some sort of positive transformative change in keeping with the needs and interests of the participants with whom they work.

Capacidade funcional de idosos dependentes cadastrados na estratégia saúde da família do município de Londrina,PR

Pós-graduação em Saúde Coletiva - FMB

Ricerca di criteri analitico-progettuali per la riqualificazione paesaggistica di strutture e infrastrutture in aziende agricole multifunzionali.

Obiettivo generale dello studio è rivolto alla definizione di linee d’indirizzo volte alla riqualificazione paesaggistica, per l’integrazione ed il recupero delle corti e degli edifici moderni dei centri aziendali agricoli a carattere multifunzionale in territorio rurale, attraverso soluzioni appropriate sia sul piano tecnologico-formale che su quello economico-funzionale. Con riferimento ad un’area studio sovracomunale della provincia di Bologna (Regione Emilia-Romagna), si è determinato, quale obiettivo specifico, l’individuazione delle possibili soluzioni di riqualificazione, da realizzarsi in economia, cioè primariamente attraverso i mezzi e le competenze normalmente disponibili in un’azienda agricola di questo tipo. A seguito del riconoscimento dei caratteri specifici e dei tipi edilizi degli edifici rurali tradizionali nella pianura emiliano romagnola, dell’identificazione delle metodologie d’indagine dei caratteri degli edifici rurali in letteratura, nonché dell’analisi della normativa di riferimento in materia di aziende multifunzionali, sono state definite le aziende studio, appartenenti ad aree geografiche differenti. La metodologia d’indagine individuata è stata condotta per la determinazione delle tipologie costruttive, dei materiali utilizzati e dei requisiti delle aziende, in relazione alle diverse specificità, alla definizione funzionale degli spazi costruiti, degli spazi aperti e delle differenti relazioni fra essi e l’identificazione ed analisi dei percorsi delle diverse tipologie di fruitori. L’identificazione delle criticità dei caratteri architettonici riscontrate, sia negli edifici agricoli sia nella corte, ha condotto al riconoscimento degli ambiti di intervento per la progettazione delle soluzioni di riqualificazione funzionale e paesaggistica, attraverso lo studio delle possibili soluzioni per la schermatura o rivalorizzazione sia degli edifici moderni di servizio all’agricoltura (analizzando le potenzialità progettuali offerte dalle pareti verdi, dai brise soleil, dalle facciate ventilate o da intonaci e tinteggiature), sia per la riqualificazione dei percorsi e degli aspetti paesaggistici (intervenendo sulla proposta di materiali da pavimentazione, e delle essenze da utilizzare), da realizzarsi in economia, ma comparati con alternative proposte di tipo commerciale.

From core rigidities to dynamic capabilities: the role of external knowledge. A multiple case study

This study focuses on the processes of change that firms undertake to overcome conditions of organizational rigidity and develop new dynamic capabilities, thanks to the contribution of external knowledge. When external contingencies highlight firms’ core rigidities, external actors can intervene in change projects, providing new competences to firms’ managers. Knowledge transfer and organizational learning processes can lead to the development of new dynamic capabilities. Existing literature does not completely explain how these processes develop and how external knowledge providers, as management consultants, influence them. Dynamic capabilities literature has become very rich in the last years; however, the models that explain how dynamic capabilities evolve are not particularly investigated. Adopting a qualitative approach, this research proposes four relevant case studies in which external actors introduce new knowledge within organizations, activating processes of change. Each case study consists of a management consulting project. Data are collected through in-depth interviews with consultants and managers. A large amount of documents supports evidences from interviews. A narrative approach is adopted to account for change processes and a synthetic approach is proposed to compare case studies along relevant dimensions. This study presents a model of capabilities evolution, supported by empirical evidence, to explain how external knowledge intervenes in capabilities evolution processes: first, external actors solve gaps between environmental demands and firms’ capabilities, changing organizational structures and routines; second, a knowledge transfer between consultants and managers leads to the creation of new ordinary capabilities; third, managers can develop new dynamic capabilities through a deliberate learning process that internalizes new tacit knowledge from consultants. After the end of the consulting project, two elements can influence the deliberate learning process: new external contingencies and changes in the perceptions about external actors.

Comparison between analytical and numerical methods for the assessment of masonry arch bridges: Case study of Clemente Bridge on Savio river

This research has focused on the study of the behavior and of the collapse of masonry arch bridges. The latest decades have seen an increasing interest in this structural type, that is still present and in use, despite the passage of time and the variation of the transport means. Several strategies have been developed during the time to simulate the response of this type of structures, although even today there is no generally accepted standard one for assessment of masonry arch bridges. The aim of this thesis is to compare the principal analytical and numerical methods existing in literature on case studies, trying to highlight values and weaknesses. The methods taken in exam are mainly three: i) the Thrust Line Analysis Method; ii) the Mechanism Method; iii) the Finite Element Methods. The Thrust Line Analysis Method and the Mechanism Method are analytical methods and derived from two of the fundamental theorems of the Plastic Analysis, while the Finite Element Method is a numerical method, that uses different strategies of discretization to analyze the structure. Every method is applied to the case study through computer-based representations, that allow a friendly-use application of the principles explained. A particular closed-form approach based on an elasto-plastic material model and developed by some Belgian researchers is also studied. To compare the three methods, two different case study have been analyzed: i) a generic masonry arch bridge with a single span; ii) a real masonry arch bridge, the Clemente Bridge, built on Savio River in Cesena. In the analyses performed, all the models are two-dimensional in order to have results comparable between the different methods taken in exam. The different methods have been compared with each other in terms of collapse load and of hinge positions.

Operating System Contribution to Composable Timing Behaviour in High-Integrity Real-Time Systems

The development of High-Integrity Real-Time Systems has a high footprint in terms of human, material and schedule costs. Factoring functional, reusable logic in the application favors incremental development and contains costs. Yet, achieving incrementality in the timing behavior is a much harder problem. Complex features at all levels of the execution stack, aimed to boost average-case performance, exhibit timing behavior highly dependent on execution history, which wrecks time composability and incrementaility with it. Our goal here is to restitute time composability to the execution stack, working bottom up across it. We first characterize time composability without making assumptions on the system architecture or the software deployment to it. Later, we focus on the role played by the real-time operating system in our pursuit. Initially we consider single-core processors and, becoming less permissive on the admissible hardware features, we devise solutions that restore a convincing degree of time composability. To show what can be done for real, we developed TiCOS, an ARINC-compliant kernel, and re-designed ORK+, a kernel for Ada Ravenscar runtimes. In that work, we added support for limited-preemption to ORK+, an absolute premiere in the landscape of real-word kernels. Our implementation allows resource sharing to co-exist with limited-preemptive scheduling, which extends state of the art. We then turn our attention to multicore architectures, first considering partitioned systems, for which we achieve results close to those obtained for single-core processors. Subsequently, we shy away from the over-provision of those systems and consider less restrictive uses of homogeneous multiprocessors, where the scheduling algorithm is key to high schedulable utilization. To that end we single out RUN, a promising baseline, and extend it to SPRINT, which supports sporadic task sets, hence matches real-world industrial needs better. To corroborate our results we present findings from real-world case studies from avionic industry.

Charge generation and recombination in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells

Diese Doktorarbeit befasst sich mit Ladungsgeneration und – rekombination in Feststoff-Farbstoffsolarzellen, die spiro-OMeTAD als Lochleiter verwenden. Die vorliegende Arbeit ist in drei Fallstudien unterteilt: i.) Kern-erweiterte Rylen-Farbstoffe, ii.) ein Perylenmonoimid-Farbstoff und iii.) Donor-π verbrückte (Cyclopentadithiophen)-Akzeptor-Farbstoffe. Trotz ihres hohen molaren Extinktionskoeffizienten und der hohen Absorbanz der sensibilisierten Filme, zeigen einige dieser Farbstoffmoleküle nur geringe photovoltaischen Effizienzen. Um den Ursprung des geringen Wirkungsgrades herauszufinden, wurde breitbandige, ultraschnelle transiente Absorptionsspektroskopie an Solarzellen durchgeführt.rnInsbesondere die Auswirkungen verschiedender Ankergruppen, Dipolmomente, Photolumineszenzlebenszeiten, Lithium-Kationensensitivität und Ladungsträgerdynamik, die alle einen großen Einfluss auf den Wirkungsgrad der Solarzelle besitzen, wurden untersucht. In der ersten Fallstudie zeigte ein kurzer Rylen-Farbstoff aufgrund deutlich verlängerter Lebenszeiten die beste Effizienz im Vergleich zu größeren Kern-erweiterten Rylen-Farbstoffen. Die Lebenszeit wurde weiter reduziert, wenn Maleinsäure als Ankergruppe unter einer Ringöffnungsreaktion an die mesoporöse Oberfläche des Metalloxid-Halbleiters adsorbierte. Dies konnte mit Hilfe von Berechnungen mittels der Dichtefunktionaltheorie (DFT, B3LYP) auf die Differenz des Dipolmoments zwischen Grundzustand und angeregtem Zustand zurückgeführt werden. Die Berechnungen bekräftigen die unvorteilhafte Injektion von Ladungen durch die Änderung der Richtung des Dipolmoments, wenn eine Ringöffnung der Anhydridgruppe stattfindet. In der zweiten Studie zeigte das Perylenmonoimid-Derivat ID889 einen Wirkungsgrad von 4.5% in Feststoff-Farbstoffsolarzellen, wobei ID889 sogar ohne Zuhilfenahme eines Additivs in der Lage ist langlebige Farbstoffkationen zu bilden. Die Verwendung von Lithium-Kationen stabilisiert jedoch sowohl den Prozess der Ladungsgeneration als auch den der Ladungsregeneration. Des Weiteren wurde in ID889-sensitivierten Bauteilen kein reduktives Löschen beobachtet. Dabei wurde die Dynamik der Exzitonen mittels einer soft-modelling Methode Kurvenanalyse aus den Daten der transienten Absorptionsspektroskopie gewonnen. Zuletzt wurden Strukturen mit Cyclopentadithiophen(CPDT)-Baustein untersucht, die eine typische D-π-A Molekülstruktur bilden. FPH224 und 233 zeigten dabei eine bessere Effizienz als FPH231 und 303 aufgrund einer großen Injektionseffizienz (IE) und längerer Lebenszeit der angeregten Zustände. Dies kann auf reduktives Löschen in FPH231 und 303 zurückgeführt werden, wohingegen FPH224 und 233 einen moderaten Zerfall des Spirokationensignals zeigten.

Multimembership and Identity in Writing Centers and in Industry: Examining the Work of Reconciliation in the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and at Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Writing center scholarship and practice have approached how issues of identity influence communication but have not fully considered ways of making identity a key feature of writing center research or practice. This dissertation suggests a new way to view identity -- through an experience of "multimembership" or the consideration that each identity is constructed based on the numerous community memberships that make up that identity. Etienne Wenger (1998) proposes that a fully formed identity is ultimately impossible, but it is through the work of reconciling memberships that important individual and community transformations can occur. Since Wenger also argues that reconciliation "is the most significant challenge" for those moving into new communities of practice (or, "engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor" (4)), yet this challenge often remains tacit, this dissertation examines and makes explicit how this important work is done at two different research sites - a university writing center (the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center) and at a multinational corporation (Kimberly-Clark Corporation). Drawing extensively on qualitative ethnographic methods including interview transcriptions, observations, and case studies, as well as work from scholars in writing center studies (Grimm, Denney, Severino), literacy studies (New London Group, Street, Gee), composition (Horner and Trimbur, Canagarajah, Lu), rhetoric (Crowley), and identity studies (Anzaldua, Pratt), I argue that, based on evidence from the two sites, writing centers need to educate tutors to not only take identity into consideration, but to also make individuals' reconciliation work more visible, as it will continue once students and tutors leave the university. Further, as my research at the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and Kimberly-Clark will show, communities can (and should) change their practices in ways that account for reconciliation work as identity, communication, and learning are inextricably bound up with one another.

The Role of Science in Controlling Invasive Species: A Case Study on Wild Pigs

Presentation by Dr. Stephen Ditchkoff.

Social-Software-Portfolios im Einsatz

Die Dissertationsschrift widmet sich der Erforschung des Online-Lernens mittels Weblogs unter Anwendung der E-Portfolio Methode als einer seit mehreren Jahren verstärkt aufkommenden Lern- und Präsentationsform im Bildungskontext. Über mehrere Lehrveranstaltungen des Studiengangs "Angewandte Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft" an der Technischen Universität Ilmenau hinweg wurden drei Fallstudien gebildet. Innerhalb dieser wurde das Führen von eigenen E-Portfolio Blogs durch Studierende über einen Zeitraum von etwa drei Jahren evaluiert. Als Evaluationsziel wurde anhand spezifischer Fragestellungen ermittelt, wie das damit einhergehende selbstgesteuert-konnektive Lernen zu entsprechendem Erfolg führen kann. Hierbei wurde insbesondere die Teildimension Medienkompetenz im Spannungsfeld von Lernaktivität, Wissenserwerb und Informations-/Wissensmanagement betrachtet sowie weitere intervenierende Variablen, wie zum Beispiel Aufwand oder Akzeptanz, berücksichtigt. Inhaltlich wurden zunächst begriffliche Grundlagen dargestellt, die Nutzung von E-Portfolios in Theorie und Praxis beschrieben, Medienkompetenz-Ansätze detailliert aufgezeigt sowie in den Kontext von E-Portfolios gebracht und schließlich eine umfangreiche Analyse des Forschungsstandes aufbereitet. Diese gingen mit Erkenntnissen aus einer qualitativen Vorstudie in Form von fünf leitfadengestützten Experteninterviews einher. Die darauf aufbauende Hauptstudie widmete sich anschließend der Erhebung und Auswertung quantitativer Daten anhand von Online-Befragungen mit den Studierenden zu fünf Zeitpunkten aus intra- und interindividueller Perspektive. Als markanteste empirische Erkenntnis der Arbeit kann festgehalten werden, dass es durch das selbstgesteuert-konnektive Lernen mit E-Portfolio Blogs zu einer nachhaltigen Förderung der Medienkompetenz kommt, die sich auch in signifikanten Zusammenhängen mit den anderen Teildimensionen und intervenierenden Variablen widerspiegelt. Darüber hinaus bieten sich aber auch Potenziale für eine steigende Lernaktivität, einen ansteigenden Wissenserwerb und ein verbessertes Informations-/Wissensmanagement, die es aber noch weiterführend zu erforschen gilt. Demgegenüber können allerdings der entstehende und kontinuierlich hohe Aufwand sowie die erforderliche (Eigen-) Motivation als entscheidende Herausforderungen dieser Lernmethode identifiziert werden.