Relationship of Coca-Cola Brazil and the communities participant of the social projects: (im) possibilities

Five years ago, Coca-Cola Brasil launched a program named “Coletivo Project”, with the purpose to enjoy an opportunity of increase on the potential consumption power of the low-income pyramid population that lived on the “favelas”. At the same time, it had the objective to offer to them a social and financial impact, which is a trust on the future, the first job for the young adults’ participant of this program and an increase on their family source of revenues, through salaries. This was possible because through Coletivo Project, Coca-Cola identified the assets they have through its value chain, focusing on its competencies, such as retail, merchandising and logistics to apply them on courses to teach the young people of the communities and, as a result, form them to be able to find their new jobs. Internal indicators followed in a monthly basis by Coca-Cola demonstrated that the communities that had the presence of Coletivos, in comparison to those without Coletivos, had social and financial impacts. The social was the fact that the young formed started to have more confidence on their future and felt with a higher self-stem to apply for and obtain their first job. On the financial aspect, they were benefit through the increasing of their revenues and also their families and Coca-Cola had an increase on sales, when compared to a community without a Coletivo Project installed. This dissertation seeks to identify the current relationship between Coca-Cola and the communities, through the Coletivo Project classes performed on the NGOs located at this places, in order to identify opportunities for improvement the benefits and the impacts (financial and social) on the NGOs, communities and all stakeholders of this project. This dissertation examines this relationship, through presence interviews performed on four NGOs selected, and located on four of the twenty communities, that are participants of the Coletivo Project on Rio de Janeiro city. These interviews performed with the students, representatives and educators of these NGOs. The covered period of the interviews ranges from April 2014 to August 2014. This dissertation draws on first-hand qualitative empirical evidence gathered through extensive fieldwork. The main findings among possibilities for improvement by Coca-Cola are: • Implement new courses, beyond those existent at Coca-Cola (Retail, Logistics, etc.). • Increase the content of the employment module of Coletivo classes, focusing on improving educational, cultural, economic, political, social and professional life. • Increase the scale, through the quantity of positions on the Retail Coletivo classes. • Develop cultural and sports events with the communities. • Support the points of sales, participant of the practical classes of the Coletivo Retail, with refrigerators and furniture with the Coca-Cola logo. • Provide coffee breaks and meals during the Coletivo classes, using Coca-Cola beverages and partners for food items, developing the nutrition platform of the company and filling a need of the students. • Perform a research with all stakeholders related to this Project, including those students and mothers that are not participant of the Coletivo, in order to listen to them, understand their needs, and offer solutions to fulfill these gaps. and on the side of the • Perform partnerships with educational institutions to make viable other type of courses, more technical, but that have a relation with the core business of Coca-Cola Brasil, such as marketing. • Implement the Coca-Cola University, already existed at the Company. • Create courses or activities focused on the children. Regarding the impossibilities, the findings are: • Improve the basic sanitation of the communities. • Improve the safety on the communities. • Provide a home to those do not have. • Implement courses that have no relationship with Coca-Cola business and expertise, such as gastronomy. However, Coca-Cola can influence stakeholders on that. The results suggest to executives of Coca-Cola that a deep and a qualitative research on the communities of Brazil, in order to listen young people, educators, mothers, partners that offer jobs, from Coletivo and out of the project, is mandatory, to understand their needs, dreams, complains and offer valuable solutions to all.

Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in Brazil through private equity and venture capital public policies

It is well documented the positive impact of the Private Equity and Venture Capital (PE/VC) industry on the creation and development of highly successful innovative companies in a few countries, mainly in the United States. PE/VC firms provide not only capital to startups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that usually have financing gap, especially in emerging markets, but also strategic resources that enable these enterprises to commercialize innovation. As consequence, government incentive and nurture of local PE/VC industries would be expected in emerging economies due to innovation‟s importance to economic growth. This paper aims to identify if the Brazilian government has supported local PE/VC industry throughout the years in order to foster favorable conditions to creating and developing successful innovative businesses. It also analyzes Brazil‟s main public policies towards PE/VC and if they encompass all the three stages of its cycle – fundraising, investing and exiting. I conducted an empirical research which collected primary data from a sample of 127 PE/VC firms (90% of the population) operating in Brazil as of June, 2008. All firms answered a webbased questionnaire that collected quantitative data regarding their investment vehicles, portfolio companies, investments and exits. I compared the data obtained from the survey with the main local governmental PE/VC support programs. First, I confirmed the hypothesis that the Brazilian government has been using the PE/VC industry as a public policy towards entrepreneurship and innovation. Second, I identified that although PE/VC public policies in Brazil are mostly concentrated in fundraising phase, they have been able to positively impact the whole cycle. Third, it became clear that the Brazilian government became more concerned about Seed and Venture Capital (VC) Early stages due to their importance to the entire PE/VC value chain. As consequence, I conclude that those public policies have been very important to build a dynamic and strong local PE/VC industry, whose committed capital grew 50% per year between 2005 and 2008 to achieve US$27 billion, which invested US$ 11 billion, which employs 1,400 professionals (75% with postgraduate degrees) and maintains 482 portfolio companies, mostly SMEs. In addition, PE/VCbacked companies represented one third of the Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) that occurred in Brazil between 2004 and 2008 (approximately US$15 billion).

Brazil’s 35 years-old quasi-stagnation: facts and theory

Brazil is growing around 1% per capita a year from 1981; this means for a country that is supposed to catch up, quasi-stagnation. Four historical new facts explain why growth was so low after the Real Plan: the reduction of public savings, and three facts that reduce private investments: the end of the unlimited supply of labor, a very high interest rate, and the 1990 dismantling of the mechanism that neutralized the Dutch disease, which represented a major competitive disadvantage for the manufacturing industry. New-developmental theory offers an explanation and two solutions for the problem, but does not underestimate the political economy problems involved

The BRICS: some historical experiences, growth challenges and opportunities

The acronym BRICS was a fad among the media and global investors. Now, the acronym sounds passé. However, the group of countries remains important, from both political and economic reasons. They have a large aggregate size, 28% of the global GDP and 42% of the world’s population, high growth potential due to the current significant misallocation of resources and relatively low stock of human capital, structural transformation is in progress and one of them, China, is taking steps to become a global power and a challenger to the US dominance. This paper provides a brief overview of the five economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. We focus on some aspects of their history, the Chinese initiatives in international finance and geopolitical strategic moves, their growth experience and structural transformation over the last 35 years, trade and investment integration into the global economy and among themselves, the growth challenges faced by their economies and the potential gains to the Brazilian economy from a stronger integration with the other BRICS. In association with its efforts to be a global power, China aims to become a major player in global finance and to achieve the status of global currency for the renminbi, which would be the first currency of an emerging economy to attain such position. Despite the similarities, the BRICS encompass very diverse economies. In the recent decades, China and India showed stellar growth rates. On the other hand, Brazil, Russia and South Africa have expanded just in line with global output growth with the Russian economy exhibiting high volatility. China is by far the largest economy, and South Africa the smallest, the only BRICS economy with a GDP lower than US$ 1 trillion. Russia abandoned communism almost 25 years ago, but reversed many of the privatizations of 90’s. China is still ruled by communism, but has a vibrant private sector and recently has officially declared market forces to play a dominant role in its economy. Brazil, Russia and South Africa are global natural resources powerhouses and commodity exporters while China and India are large commodity importers. Brazil is relatively closed to international trade of goods and services, in marked contrast to the other four economies. Brazil, India and South Africa are dependent on external capital flows whereas China and Russia are capital exporters. India and South Africa have younger populations and a large portion living below the poverty line. Despite its extraordinary growth experience that lifted many millions from poverty, China still has 28% of its population classified as poor. Russia and China have much older populations and one of their challenges is to deal with the effects of a declining labor force in the near future. India, China and South Africa face a long way to urbanization, while Brazil and Russia are already urbanized countries. China is an industrial economy but its primary sector still absorbs a large pool of workers. India is not, but the primary sector employs also a large share of the labor force. China’s aggregate demand structure is biased towards investment that has been driving its expansion. Brazil and South Africa have an aggregate demand structure similar to the developed economies, with private consumption accounting for approximately 70%. The same similarity applies to the supply side, as in both economies the share of services nears 70%. The development problem is a productivity problem, so microeconomic reforms are badly needed to foster long-term growth of the BRICS economies since they have lost steam due a variety of factors, but fundamentally due to slower total factor productivity growth. China and India are implementing ambitious reform programs, while Brazil is dealing with macroeconomic disequilibria. Russia and South Africa remain mute about structural reforms. There are some potential benefits to Brazil to be extracted from a greater economic integration with the BRICS, particularly in natural resources intensive industries and services. Necessary conditions to the materialization of those gains are the removal of the several sources of resource misallocation and strong investment in human capital.

Development of a new analytical approach based on cellulose membrane and chelator for differentiation of labile and inert metal species in aquatic systems

A new procedure was developed in this study, based on a system equipped with a cellulose membrane and a tetraethylenepentamine hexaacetate chelator (MD-TEPHA) for in situ characterization of the lability of metal species in aquatic systems. To this end, the DM-TEPHA system was prepared by adding TEPHA chelator to cellulose bags pre-purified with 1.0 mol L-1 of HCl and NaOH solutions. After the MD-TEPHA system was sealed, it was examined in the laboratory to evaluate the influence of complexation time (0-24 h), pH (3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0), metal ions (Cu, Cd, Fe, Mn and Ni) and concentration of organic matter (15, 30 and 60 mg L-1) on the relative lability of metal species by TEPHA chelator. The results showed that Fe and Cu metals were complexed more slowly by TEPHA chelator in the MD-TEPHA system than were Cd, Ni and Mn in all pH used. It was also found that the pH strongly influences the process of metal complexation by the MD-TEPHA system. At all the pH levels, Cd, Mn and Ni showed greater complexation with TEPHA chelator (recovery of about 95-75%) than did Cu and Fe metals. Time also affects the lability of metal species complexed by aquatic humic substances (AHS); while Cd, Ni and Mn showed a faster kinetics, reaching equilibrium after about 100 min, and Cu and Fe approached equilibrium after 400 min. Increasing the AHS concentration decreases the lability of metal species by shifting the equilibrium to AHS-metal complexes. Our results indicate that the system under study offers an interesting alternative that can be applied to in situ experiments for differentiation of labile and inert metal species in aquatic systems. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ultrastructural morphology and morphometry of the normal corneal endothelium of adult crossbred pig

O endotélio corneal é uma monocamada de células poligonais. A integridade e saúde dessa camada são essenciais para a manutenção da transparência corneal normal. Este estudo reportou pela primeira vez, de forma detalhada, a morfologia ultra-estrutural e a morfometria do endotélio corneal de suínos adultos mestiços à microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV). A superfície endothelial corneal apresentou um padrão regular de células poligonais, com predomínio da forma hexagonal e de bordas celulares nítidas. O núcleo foi observado como protuberância arredondada no centro da célula. Também foram observados os cílios (2-4) em apenas algumas células da região periférica da córnea, as aberturas das vesículas pinocitóticas na proximidade dos cílios, as microvilosidades, as varas da borda e as bordas celulares em formato de zigzag. A área celular média foi significativamente maior (P<0,05) no centro da córnea do que na periferia, com um coeficiente de variação menor no centro da córnea. A densidade celular média foi significativamente maior na periferia (P<0,05) e 43,9% maior que os dados reportados por outros autores na microscopia especular, o que demonstra o efeito da retração celular durante o processamento das amostras. O valor médio do número de lados das células (pleomorfismo) foi de 5,9, o que evidencia um predomínio do formato hexagonal. A percentagem de células hexagonais foi significativamente maior no centro (P<0,001). Os parâmetros obtidos nesta pesquisa servirão de base para estudos futuros sobre o efeito de medicamentos, cirurgias intracamerulares ou soluções para armazenamento de córneas para transplantes no endotélio corneal do suíno.

Avaliação da dor pós-operatória: análise em pacientes submetidos a cirurgias abdominais em um hospital universitário de Natal/RN

It is an exploratory and descriptive study made by a quantitative approach, developed among February and May 2010, aiming to assess the pain of patients underwent abdominal surgeries in a University Hospital, in Natal/RN; to identify the local and intensity of the pain based on Numerical Estimative Scale; to analyze the pain related to the sensorial-discriminative, motivational-affective and cognitive-assessment dimensions, using the McGill Questionnaire pain; to establish a relation between the pain process and age, gender, religion, and king of surgery; to identify the medicines efficiency used to control postoperative pain. The sample was composed by 253 patients underwent abdominal surgeries. The results showed a total of 63.63% females between 38 and 47 years of age (21.34%); illiterates (21.73%); married (64.03%), living in Natal and surroundings (67.97%) and Catholics (74.30%). In their first assessment, 84.19% showed postoperative pain; the pain was considered light in 18.97% of them, moderate in 21.74% and severe in 43.48%. The mean number of descriptors chosen through the McGill Questionnaire Pain was 10.78 (DP= 6.09) and pain rating 23.65 (DP= 15.93). The descriptors selected with higher frequency were: sickening pain (69.01%), tired (65.25%), thin (62.44%), bored (58.69%), ardor (46.48%), pointed (38.50%) and colic (35.21%). In their second assessment, 57.71% of patients didn t relate any postoperative pain and 42.29% were still complaining about the pain. After taking analgesic medication, just 41.90% of patients who had complete pain relief. The Pharmacological groups most used were: simple analgesic (37.86%), weak opioids (32.98%), AINES (19.85%) and strong opioid (9.31%). It was not found a significant postoperative pain variation related to the sexes, religion and kind of surgery. It was concluded there were a high level in the number of patients with postoperative pain, mainly in a severe scale. Less than half of patients had the pain relief. Then, it was observed there was not coherence between the pain intensity and the analgesic it was used. To solve or relieve this kind of problems is necessary a permanent education to the health professionals who works in this area

Net melon resistance to Didymella bryoniae according to grafting and potassium levels

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Perylene derivatives with large two-photon-absorption cross-sections for application in optical limiting and upconversion lasing

Perylene tetracarboxylic derivatives (PTCDs) display exceptionally high two-photon absorption (2PA) cross-sections (6, see Figure). In addition, the 2PA saturation behavior and strong two-photon-pumped fluorescence suggest that PTCD compounds may be attractive candidates for applications in optical limiting and two-photon-pumped upconversion lasing.

Isolation, solubility and in vitro hydrolysis of chickpea vicilin-like protein

The chickpea vicilin-like globulin was isolated and chromatographed on Sepharose CL-6B and Sephacryl S-300. The native globulin with a molecular weight of 140 kDa was resolved in Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) in seven polypeptide bands in the range of 12.4-67 kDa. The solubility profile of the protein in water and NaCl solutions was typical of a legume globulin. The purified vicilin-like globulin, native and heated, was hydrolyzed by pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin. The hydrolysis patterns indicated that the native vicilin-like protein was only partially degraded by the enzymes in comparison with casein. Heating increased its susceptibility to hydrolysis relative to the native form, for all the enzymes. However, the results obtained by the pH-drop method revealed that the in vitro digestibility of the vicilin-like protein was not altered by heating, while 11 S-like and total globulins suffered a small increase, indicating that the structural characteristics of storage globulins may be important factors limiting the protein digestion. (c) 2007 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Assessment of estrogenic, mutagenic and antimutagenic activity of nemorosone

Currently, a wide range of research involving natural products is focused on the discovery of new drugs in many different therapeutic areas. A great number of the synthetic compounds on the market were derived from natural products, especially plants. Nemorosone is the major constituent of the floral resin of Clusia rosea Jacq., Clusiaceae, and in Cuban propolis. In vitro studies have shown cytotoxic activity in this substance against various tumor cell lines, including those resistant to various cytotoxic drugs, whereas it has low cytotoxicity to non-tumoral cells. Therefore, in order to characterize the biological activity of nemorosone, a substance with potential antitumor activity, and in view of preclinical testing of the toxicity of drug candidate compounds, the main aim of this study was to determine the mutagenic and antimutagenic activity of nemorosone by the Ames test, using the strains TA97a, TA98, TA100 and TA102 of Salmonella typhimurium. Secondly, to characterize the estrogenic activity in an experimental recombinant yeast model (Recombinant Yeast Assay) mutagenic activity was observed at in any of the concentrations in any of the test strains. To evaluate the antimutagenic potential, direct and indirect mutagenic agents were used: 4 nitro-o-phenylenediamine (NPD), mitomycin C (MMC) and aflatoxin B1 (AFL). Nemorosone showed moderate antimutagenic activity (inhibition level 31%), in strain TA100 in the presence of AFL, and strong antimutagenic activity in TA102 against MMC (inhibition level 53%). Estrogenic activity was observed, with an EEq of 0.41±0.16 nM at various tested concentrations.

Modeling a system of phosphated cross-linked high amylose for controlled drug release. Part 1: Synthesis and polymer characterization

High amylose was cross-linked with sodium trimetaphosphate (STMP) using 2% and 4% solutions of NaOH at room temperature with reaction contact times of 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 h. The different polymers obtained were analyzed by FT IR, C-13 and P-31 solid state NMR, SEM and C, H and P elemental analysis. The results were used to propose a two-stage mechanism for phosphate incorporation, the first being kinetically controlled. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fraturas e caminhos ótimos na rede de Barabasi-Albert

Following the study of Andrade et al. (2009) on regular square lattices, here we investigate the problem of optimal path cracks (OPC) in Complex Networks. In this problem we associate to each site a determined energy. The optimum path is defined as the one among all possible paths that crosses the system which has the minimum cost, namely the sum of the energies along the path. Once the optimum path is determined, at each step, one blocks its site with highest energy, and then a new optimal path is calculated. This procedure is repeated until there is a set of blocked sites forming a macroscopic fracture which connects the opposite sides of the system. The method is applied to a lattice of size L and the density of removed sites is computed. As observed in the work by Andrade et al. (2009), the fractured system studied here also presents different behaviors depending on the level of disorder, namely weak, moderated and strong disorder intensities. In the regime of weak and moderated disorder, while the density of removed sites in the system does not depend of the size L in the case of regular lattices, in the regime of high disorder the density becomes substantially dependent on L. We did the same type of study for Complex Networks. In this case, each new site is connected with m previous ones. As in the previous work, we observe that the density of removed sites presents a similar behavior. Moreover, a new result is obtained, i.e., we analyze the dependency of the disorder with the attachment parameter m

A modified Primal-Dual Logarithmic-Barrier Method for solving the Optimal Power Flow problem with discrete and continuous control variables

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Relação da imunoexpressão da bmp-2, bmpr-ia e bmpr-ii com o perfil clínico-patológico em carcinoma epidermóide de lábio inferior

Currently, bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) have effective participation in the growth of malignancies. Knowing that there are few studies involving BMPs and oral squamous cell carcinoma, this work constitutes an immunohistochemical study of BMP-2, BMPR IA and BMPR II in squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) of the lower lip relating to the clinical and pathological aspects of this lesion. The sample consisted of 40 cases of SCC of the lower lip, being 20 cases of SCC of the lower lip with regional metastasis and 20 cases without metastasis. We evaluated the intensity of expression (score 1 to mark absent / weak, score 2 for high ) and was found the percentage of labeled cells, where the score was 1 cases with 0 to 50% of positive cells, score 2 with 51 to 75% of positive cells, and score 3 more than 75% of positive cells. The sample comprised 72.5% of men with a mean age of 65.8 years, there was a predominance of stage II and 52.5% of the carcinomas were classified as low grade, being carcinoma with metastasis presenting most cases (70%) as carcinomas of high malignancy grade (p = 0.004). The largest number of cases of SCC of the lower lip that were in stages I / II (61, 9%) were classified as carcinomas of low grade malignancy and carcinomas in stages III / IV were classified as high-grade tumors (p = 0, 024). The BMP-2 showed strong intensity of immunostaining in 82.5%, BMPR-IA showed 55% of cases with an intensity of immunostaining absent / weak and BMPR-II showed 85% of cases with an intensity of immunostaining absent / weak. Only the protein BMPR-IA were significantly associated with all clinic-pathological parameters studied, metastasis (p <0.001), TNM (p <0.001) and histological grade of malignancy with (p = 0.028). The percentage of positive cells, all markers showed the highest number of cases with more than 75% of positive cells (score 3) and only BMPR-II showed statistical difference when related to the presence and absence of metastasis (p = 0.049 ). We conclude that there is disturbance in the BMP signaling pathway in EC-mediated lower lip and that high expression of BMP-2 associated with the expression of BMPR-IA and BMPR-II are associated with metastasis in carcinoma