Cobrança pelo uso da água e o setor de saneamento no Estado de São Paulo

A partir dos objetivos propostos pelas políticas nacionais de saúde, ambientais e de saneamento básico buscou-se analisar os efeitos da cobrança pelo uso da água no setor de saneamento básico, visando identificar possíveis variações causadas por este instrumento econômico no acesso à água, na qualidade do produto ofertado e na qualidade do serviço prestado. Ainda, por se tratar de um serviço público, analisamos a performance técnica das empresas paulistas do setor de saneamento básico na prestação deste serviço por meio da metodologia Data Envelopment Analysis. Esta ferramenta resulta em um indicador de desempenho, com base na melhor relação input/output, ao estabelecer um ranking de eficiência médio a partir das práticas mais eficientes de cada unidade produtiva.

Economic landscapes, what are they? an application to the Brazilian economy and to the sugar cane complex

In assessing the economic impact of a sector or group of sectors on a single or multiregional economy, input-output analysis has proven to be a popular method. . However, there has a problem in displaying all the information that can be obtained from this analytical approach. In this paper, we have tried to set new directions in the use of input-output analysis by presenting an improved way of looking at the economic landscapes. While this is not a new concept, a new meaning is explored in this paper; essentially, it will now be possible to visualize, in a simple picture, all the relations in the economy as well as being able to view how one sector is related to the other sectors/regions in the economy. These relations can be measured in terms of structural changes, production, value added, employment, imports, etc. While all the possibilities cannot be explored in this paper, the basic idea is given here and the smart reader can uncover all the various possibilities. To illustrate the power of analysis provided by the economic landscapes, an application is made to the sugar cane complex using an interregional inputoutput system for the Brazilian economy, constructed for 2 regions (Northeast and Rest of Brazil), for the years of 1985, 1992, and 1995.

Factors affecting the technical efficiency of production of the Brazilian banking system : a comparison of four statistical models in the context of data envelopment analysis

This paper uses an output oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) measure of technical efficiency to assess the technical efficiencies of the Brazilian banking system. Four approaches to estimation are compared in order to assess the significance of factors affecting inefficiency. These are nonparametric Analysis of Covariance, maximum likelihood using a family of exponential distributions, maximum likelihood using a family of truncated normal distributions, and the normal Tobit model. The sole focus of the paper is on a combined measure of output and the data analyzed refers to the year 2001. The factors of interest in the analysis and likely to affect efficiency are bank nature (multiple and commercial), bank type (credit, business, bursary and retail), bank size (large, medium, small and micro), bank control (private and public), bank origin (domestic and foreign), and non-performing loans. The latter is a measure of bank risk. All quantitative variables, including non-performing loans, are measured on a per employee basis. The best fits to the data are provided by the exponential family and the nonparametric Analysis of Covariance. The significance of a factor however varies according to the model fit although it can be said that there is some agreements between the best models. A highly significant association in all models fitted is observed only for nonperforming loans. The nonparametric Analysis of Covariance is more consistent with the inefficiency median responses observed for the qualitative factors. The findings of the analysis reinforce the significant association of the level of bank inefficiency, measured by DEA residuals, with the risk of bank failure.

Geração de renda e ocupações na cadeia agroindustrial de castanha de caju no Rio Grande do Norte: o caso do sertão de Apodi

This work is part of the research group studying agribusiness chains, by characterizing agroindustrial chain of cashew nuts in Rio Grande do Norte, with special emphasis on Sertão de Apodi Citizenship Territory, showing their different flows and linkages and analyzes generating jobs and income in the production of this good, from the experience of COOPAPI, using as a methodology for analyzing the input-output matrix. And this is justified by the fact that Brazil is in the context as the world's fifth largest producer of cashew nuts and the production of this product focus in the Northeast, especially the Rio Grande do Norte, which is the second largest producer of region, behind only the state of Ceará, which is the largest producer in the country. Moreover, in recent years the state has increased its insertion in international markets this product, particularly the Mossoró-Assu Territory, which constitutes the largest producer in the state, particularly the municipality of Serra do Mel, which has an arrangement different yield, based on the model of integrated rural development, embodied in family farming. Nevertheless, the Sertão de Apodi Citizenship appear as the fourth among the Citizenship territories of Rio Grande do Norte in the ranking of the production of cashew nuts, but the prevailing model of Cooperatives in the Territory, based on the Solidarity Economy, i,e, different from the old cooperative, which is based on the precepts as patronage, with cooperative owners, favor, etc.., encourages scientific research. In this, after a careful analysis of data from field research, it was noticed that among the links in the chain, the production link is what generates the most jobs, while the processing link commands to generate income, but a portion meaningful occupations and income are generated outside the territory, especially out of state RN, denouncing the gap in supply of some specific demands within the chain

Controle de estoques de sal: uma inovação da quantificação e no gerenciamento dos recursos naturais da indústria mineral

The strengthening of the domestic industry in Brazil required the modernization, mechanization and expansion of salt production. Thereafter the production of sea salt started to be made in a process of continuous flow, where the product is constantly stored in yards, with daily movements in and out of salt. Thus far, the major bottleneck found in this production process is the control of production, because due to the large amount produced and variety of losses existing in the various stages of production there are not a regulated and safe way to control inventories with accuracy and speed demanded. In a typical case with a salt marsh company of Rio Grande do Norte state, salt produced is stored in two open courtyards and inventory control of salt made by carrying input / output relationship of salt in each storage yard. This work developed a conceptual model of inventory control, based on topography, adopting surveys into one of the courtyards of the company. There were 25 biweekly survey measurements over a year book to generate digital models representing the stock. For each measurement, results were compared with the values of inventory accounting provided by the salt marsh in order to identify existing losses and mark out the sales department on the actual stock available at each measurement date. Inventories calculated by the model indicated losses of 6,349 tonnes for the period of one year book and 3,279 tonnes for the period between harvests, when compared to the accounting control

Automatic detection of thermal damage in grinding process by artificial neural network

Esse trabalho tem por objetivo o desenvolvimento de um sistema inteligente para detecção da queima no processo de retificação tangencial plana através da utilização de uma rede neural perceptron multi camadas, treinada para generalizar o processo e, conseqüentemente, obter o limiar de queima. em geral, a ocorrência da queima no processo de retificação pode ser detectada pelos parâmetros DPO e FKS. Porém esses parâmetros não são eficientes nas condições de usinagem usadas nesse trabalho. Os sinais de emissão acústica e potência elétrica do motor de acionamento do rebolo são variáveis de entrada e a variável de saída é a ocorrência da queima. No trabalho experimental, foram empregados um tipo de aço (ABNT 1045 temperado) e um tipo de rebolo denominado TARGA, modelo ART 3TG80.3 NVHB.

Proposal of an alternative transmission line model for symmetrical and asymmetrical configurations

This article shows a transmission line model for simulation of fast and slow transients, applied to symmetrical or asymmetrical configurations. A transmission line model is developed based on lumped elements representation and state-space techniques. The proposed methodology represents a practical procedure to model three-phase transmission lines directly in time domain, without the explicit or implicit use of inverse transforms. In three-phase representation, analysis modal techniques are applied to decouple the phases in their respective propagation modes, using a correction procedure to set a real and constant matrix for untransposed lines with or without vertical symmetry plane. The proposed methodology takes into account the frequency-dependent parameters of the line and in order to include this effect in the state matrices, a fitting procedure is applied. To verify the accuracy of the proposed state-space model in frequency domain, a simple methodology is described based on line distributed parameters and transfer function associated with input/output signals of the lumped parameters representation. In addition, this article proposes the use of a fast and robust integration procedure to solve the state equations, enabling transient and steady-state simulations. The results obtained by the proposed methodology are compared with several established transmission line models in EMTP, taking into account an asymmetrical three-phase transmission line. The principal contribution of the proposed methodology is to handle a steady fundamental signal mixed with fast and slow transients, including impulsive and oscillatory behavior, by a practical procedure applied directly in time domain for symmetrical or asymmetrical representations. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Structural Health Monitoring in Smart Structures Through Time Series Analysis

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

Projeto de Sistemas Integrados de Propósito Geral Baseados em Redes em Chip Expandindo as Funcionalidades dos Roteadores para Execução de Operações: A plataforma IPNoSys

It bet on the next generation of computers as architecture with multiple processors and/or multicore processors. In this sense there are challenges related to features interconnection, operating frequency, the area on chip, power dissipation, performance and programmability. The mechanism of interconnection and communication it was considered ideal for this type of architecture are the networks-on-chip, due its scalability, reusability and intrinsic parallelism. The networks-on-chip communication is accomplished by transmitting packets that carry data and instructions that represent requests and responses between the processing elements interconnected by the network. The transmission of packets is accomplished as in a pipeline between the routers in the network, from source to destination of the communication, even allowing simultaneous communications between pairs of different sources and destinations. From this fact, it is proposed to transform the entire infrastructure communication of network-on-chip, using the routing mechanisms, arbitration and storage, in a parallel processing system for high performance. In this proposal, the packages are formed by instructions and data that represent the applications, which are executed on routers as well as they are transmitted, using the pipeline and parallel communication transmissions. In contrast, traditional processors are not used, but only single cores that control the access to memory. An implementation of this idea is called IPNoSys (Integrated Processing NoC System), which has an own programming model and a routing algorithm that guarantees the execution of all instructions in the packets, preventing situations of deadlock, livelock and starvation. This architecture provides mechanisms for input and output, interruption and operating system support. As proof of concept was developed a programming environment and a simulator for this architecture in SystemC, which allows configuration of various parameters and to obtain several results to evaluate it

Algoritmos e Arquiteturas VLSI para Detectores MIMO com Decisão Suave

The use of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems has permitted the recent evolution of wireless communication standards. The Spatial Multiplexing MIMO technique, in particular, provides a linear gain at the transmission capacity with the minimum between the numbers of transmit and receive antennas. To obtain a near capacity performance in SM-MIMO systems a soft decision Maximum A Posteriori Probability MIMO detector is necessary. However, such detector is too complex for practical solutions. Hence, the goal of a MIMO detector algorithm aimed for implementation is to get a good approximation of the ideal detector while keeping an acceptable complexity. Moreover, the algorithm needs to be mapped to a VLSI architecture with small area and high data rate. Since Spatial Multiplexing is a recent technique, it is argued that there is still much room for development of related algorithms and architectures. Therefore, this thesis focused on the study of sub optimum algorithms and VLSI architectures for broadband MIMO detector with soft decision. As a result, novel algorithms have been developed starting from proposals of optimizations for already established algorithms. Based on these results, new MIMO detector architectures with configurable modulation and competitive area, performance and data rate parameters are here proposed. The developed algorithms have been extensively simulated and the architectures were synthesized so that the results can serve as a reference for other works in the area

Autoclaved, previously used intravaginal progesterone devices induces estrus and ovulation in anestrous Toggenburg goats

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Reproductive development and function of female rats exposed to di-eta-butyl-phthalate (DBP) in utero and during lactation

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

Association between hypervolemia and ventricular hypertrophy in hemodialysis patients

Background: Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a well-known predictor of cardiovascular mortality in patients who have end-stage renal disease and are maintained on hemodialysis (HD), and LVH is not always correlated with the severity of hypertension in these patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of other factors contributing to LVH.Methods: A total of 50 patients with HD were classified in three groups according to whether their LV mass index (LVMI) was higher than (n = 15), equal to (n = 20), or lower than (n = 15) that predicted by a formula based on their ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM).Results: Subjects with higher LVMI than predicted had significantly greater inter-HD weight gain (3.4 +/- 0.8 v 2.7 +/- 0.8 and 2.6 +/- 05 kg, respectively, in the other two groups, P < .05), and subjects with lower LVMI than predicted had a tendency toward a more pronounced nocturnal dipping pattern of BP (P = .07 v the other two groups), although daytime and night-time average BP levels did not differ between groups. All other clinical and laboratory parameters were similar among the three groups except higher cardiac output and various indices of LVH, which were more pronounced in the group with higher LVMI by ABPM. This group had also the lowest survival rate over the 2 to 3 years of follow-up, with five deaths versus two in each of the other two groups.Conclusions: the data suggest that correct management of inter-HD weight gain by nutritional counseling and shorter inter-HD intervals may prevent LVH and improve survival independently of BP control. (C) 2004 American Journal of Hypertension, Ltd.

Accuracy of Mechanical Torque Devices for Implants Used in Brazilian Dental Offices

The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of mechanical torque devices in delivering target torque values in dental offices in Salvador, Brazil. A team of researchers visited 16 dental offices, and the clinicians applied torque values (20 and 32 Ncm) to electronic torque controllers. Five repetitions were completed at each torque value and data were collected. When 20 Ncm of torque was used, 62.5% of measured values were accurate (within 10% of the target value). For 32 Ncm, however, only 37.5% of these values were achieved. Several of the tested mechanical torque devices were inaccurate. Int J Prosthodont 2011;24:38-39.

A Family of Autoconnected Transformers for 12-and 18-Pulse Converters-Generalization for Delta and Wye Topologies

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)