Using irregularly spaced returns to estimate multi-factor models : application to Brazilian equity data

Multi-factor models constitute a use fui tool to explain cross-sectional covariance in equities retums. We propose in this paper the use of irregularly spaced returns in the multi-factor model estimation and provide an empirical example with the 389 most liquid equities in the Brazilian Market. The market index shows itself significant to explain equity returns while the US$/Brazilian Real exchange rate and the Brazilian standard interest rate does not. This example shows the usefulness of the estimation method in further using the model to fill in missing values and to provide intervaI forecasts.

A Informatização da saúde no Brasil: uma análise multi-paper inspirada na teoria ator-rede

As tecnologias da informação e comunicação (TIC) estão presentes nas mais diversas áreas e atividades cotidianas, mas, em que pesem as ações de governos e instituições privadas, a informatização da saúde ainda é um desafio em aberto no Brasil. A situação atual leva a um questionamento sobre as dificuldades associadas à informatização das práticas em saúde, assim como, quais efeitos tais dificuldades têm causado à sociedade Brasileira. Com objetivo de discutir as questões acima citadas, esta tese apresenta quatro artigos sobre processo de informação da saúde no Brasil. O primeiro artigo revisa a literatura sobre TIC em saúde e baseado em duas perspectivas teóricas – estudos Europeus acerca dos Sistemas de Informação em Saúde (SIS) nos Países em Desenvolvimento e estudos sobre Informação e Informática em Saúde, no âmbito do Movimento da Reforma Sanitária –, formula um modelo integrado que combina dimensões de análise e fatores contextuais para a compreensão dos SIS no Brasil. Já o segundo artigo apresenta os conceitos e teóricos e metodológicos da Teoria Ator-Rede (ANT), uma abordagem para o estudo de controvérsias associadas às descobertas científicas e inovações tecnológicas, por meio das redes de atores envolvidos em tais ações. Tal abordagem tem embasado estudos de SI desde 1990 e inspirou as análises dois artigos empíricos desta tese. Os dois últimos artigos foram redigidos a partir da análise da implantação de um SIS em um hospital público no Brasil ocorrida entre os anos de 2010 e 2012. Para a análise do caso, seguiram-se os atores envolvidos nas controvérsias que surgiram durante a implantação do SIS. O terceiro artigo se debruçou sobre as atividades dos analistas de sistema e usuários envolvidos na implantação do SIS. As mudanças observadas durante a implantação do sistema revelam que o sucesso do SIS não foi alcançado pela estrita e técnica execução das atividades incialmente planejadas. Pelo contrário, o sucesso foi construído coletivamente, por meio da negociação entre os atores e de dispositivos de interessamento introduzidos durante o projeto. O quarto artigo, baseado no conceito das Infraestruturas de Informação, discutiu como o sistema CATMAT foi incorporado ao E-Hosp. A análise revelou como a base instalada do CATMAT foi uma condição relevante para a sua escolha durante a implantação do E-Hosp. Além disso, descrevem-se negociações e operações heterogêneas que aconteceram durante a incorporação do CATMAT no sistema E-Hosp. Assim, esta tese argumenta que a implantação de um SIS é um empreendimento de construção coletiva, envolvendo analistas de sistema, profissionais de saúde, políticos e artefatos técnicos. Ademais, evidenciou-se como os SIS inscrevem definições e acordos, influenciando as preferências dos atores na área de saúde.

Sustainability indexes: why join in? A study of the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) in Brazil

In the past decade, indicators have been created to assess the sustainability performance of companies listed in stock exchange markets. Academics and practitioners expect companies to benefit from being listed in such indexes, but evidence of value creation is still scarce. Since virtually all studies about the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) of the S~ ao Paulo Stock Exchange (Brazil) e the object of the present study e focused on the value of shares, we initially looked for answers in the finance theory. We collected secondary data about the financial and economic performance of companies forming the ISE's ‘theoretical portfolio’, as these kinds of indexes are also known. In a second stage, we sought additional motivations for companies to make efforts to be listed in the index. We collected additional data and interviewed representatives of key companies listed in the ISE, as well as industry leaders who chose not to participate in the selection process. The results support the main propositions of the institutional theory, as well as the ‘pays to be green’ literature e that the intangible value created by voluntary environmental initiatives, such as access to knowledge, new capabilities and reputational gain, better explain the efforts companies make to be listed in the ISE index

Comparação de previsões para a produção industrial brasileira considerando efeitos calendário e modelos agregados e desagregados

O trabalho tem como objetivo verificar a existência e a relevância dos Efeitos Calendário em indicadores industriais. São explorados modelos univariados lineares para o indicador mensal da produção industrial brasileira e alguns de seus componentes. Inicialmente é realizada uma análise dentro da amostra valendo-se de modelos estruturais de espaço-estado e do algoritmo de seleção Autometrics, a qual aponta efeito significante da maioria das variáveis relacionadas ao calendário. Em seguida, através do procedimento de Diebold-Mariano (1995) e do Model Confidence Set, proposto por Hansen, Lunde e Nason (2011), são realizadas comparações de previsões de modelos derivados do Autometrics com um dispositivo simples de Dupla Diferença para um horizonte de até 24 meses à frente. Em geral, os modelos Autometrics que consideram as variáveis de calendário se mostram superiores nas projeções de 1 a 2 meses adiante e superam o modelo simples em todos os horizontes. Quando se agrega os componentes de categoria de uso para formar o índice industrial total, há evidências de ganhos nas projeções de prazo mais curto.

Coordenação e governança no Programa Territórios da Cidadania: uma análise multi-level a partir do Vale do Ribeira-SP

Poverty in Brazil has been gradually reduced. Among the main reasons, there are public policies for universalization of rights. On the other hand, the municipalities' Human Development Index indicates scenarios of growing inequality. In other words, some regions, basically of rural character, were left behind in that process of development. In 2008, the “Territórios da Cidadania” (Territories of Citizenship) Program was launched by the federal government, under high expectations. It was proposed to develop those regions and to prioritize the arrival of ongoing federal public policies where they were most demanded. The program has shown an innovative arrangement which included dozens of ministries and other federal agencies, state governments, municipalities and collegialities to the palliative management and control of the territory. In this structure, both new and existing jurisdictions came to support the program coordination. This arrangement was classified as an example of multi-level governance, whose theory has been an efficient instrument to understand the intra- and intergovernmental relations under which the program took place. The program lasted only three years. In Vale do Ribeira Territory – SP, few community leaderships acknowledge it, although not having further information about its actions and effects. Against this background, the approach of this research aims to study the program coordination and governance structure (from Vale Territory, considered as the most local level, until the federal government), based on the hypothesis that, beyond the local contingencies in Vale do Ribeira, the layout and implementation of the Territories of Citizenship Program as they were formulated possess fundamental structural issues that hinder its goals of reducing poverty and inequality through promoting the development of the territory. Complementing the research, its specific goal was to raise the program layout and background in order to understand how the relations, predicted or not in its structure, were formulated and how they were developed, with special attention to Vale do Ribeira-SP. Generally speaking, it was concluded that the coordination and governance arrangement of the Territories of Citizenship Program failed for not having developed qualified solutions to deal with the challenges of the federalist Brazilian structure, party politics, sectorized public actions, or even the territory contingencies and specificities. The complexity of the program, the poverty problem proposed to be faced, and the territorial strategy of development charged a high cost of coordination, which was not accomplished by the proposal of centralization in the federal government with internal decentralization of the coordination. As the presidency changed in 2011, the program could not present results that were able to justify the arguments for its continuation, therefore it was paralyzed, lost its priority status, and the resources previously invested were redirected.

Remote presence: supporting deictic gestures through a handheld multi-touch device

This thesis argues on the possibility of supporting deictic gestures through handheld multi-touch devices in remote presentation scenarios. In [1], Clark distinguishes indicative techniques of placing-for and directing-to, where placing-for refers to placing a referent into the addressee’s attention, and directing-to refers to directing the addressee’s attention towards a referent. Keynote, PowerPoint, FuzeMeeting and others support placing-for efficiently with slide transitions, and animations, but support limited to none directing-to. The traditional “pointing feature” present in some presentation tools comes as a virtual laser pointer or mouse cursor. [12, 13] have shown that the mouse cursor and laser pointer offer very little informational expressiveness and do not do justice to human communicative gestures. In this project, a prototype application was implemented for the iPad in order to explore, develop, and test the concept of pointing in remote presentations. The prototype offers visualizing and navigating the slides as well as “pointing” and zooming. To further investigate the problem and possible solutions, a theoretical framework was designed representing the relationships between the presenter’s intention and gesture and the resulting visual effect (cursor) that enables the audience members to interpret the meaning of the effect and the presenter’s intention. Two studies were performed to investigate people’s appreciation of different ways of presenting remotely. An initial qualitative study was performed at The Hague, followed by an online quantitative user experiment. The results indicate that subjects found pointing to be helpful in understanding and concentrating, while the detached video feed of the presenter was considered to be distracting. The positive qualities of having the video feed were the emotion and social presence that it adds to the presentations. For a number of subjects, pointing displayed some of the same social and personal qualities [2] that video affords, while less intensified. The combination of pointing and video proved to be successful with 10-out-of-19 subjects scoring it the highest while pointing example came at a close 8-out-of-19. Video was the least preferred with only one subject preferring it. We suggest that the research performed here could provide a basis for future research and possibly be applied in a variety of distributed collaborative settings.

The Effect of Residence Time on the Tensile Properties of Superelastic and Thermal Activated Ni-Ti Orthodontic Wires

Since the 1980s, different devices based on superelastic alloys have been developed to fulfill orthodontic applications. Particularly in the last decades several researches have been carried out to evaluate the mechanical behavior of Ni-Ti alloys, including their tensile, torsion and fatigue properties. However, studies regarding the dependence of elastic properties on residence time of Ni-Ti wires in the oral cavity are scarce. Such approach is essential since metallic alloys are submitted to mechanical stresses during orthodontic treatment as well as pH and temperature fluctuations. The goal of the present contribution is to provide elastic stress-strain results to guide the orthodontic choice between martensitic thermal activated and austenitic superelastic Ni-Ti alloys. From the point of view of an orthodontist, the selection of appropriate materials and the correct maintenance of the orthodontic apparatus are essential needs during clinical treatment. The present work evaluated the elastic behavior of Ni-Ti alloy wires with diameters varying from 0.014 to 0.020 inches, submitted to hysteresis tensile tests with 8% strain. Tensile tests were performed after periods of use of 1, 2 and 3 months in the oral cavity of patients submitted to orthodontic treatment. The results from the hysteresis tests allowed to exam the strain range covered by isostress lines upon loading and unloading, as well as the residual strain after unloading for both superelastic and thermal activated Ni-Ti wires. Superelastic Ni-Ti wires exhibited higher load isostress values compared to thermal activated wires. It was found that such differences in the load isostress values can increase with increasing residence time.

Effect of poultry viscera meal inclusion in broiler diets in different rearing periods on performance, carcass and parts yields

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Effect of environmental variables on buffaloes physiology

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of environmental variables on dairy buffaloes physiology in two different places after milking, shaded plus artificial ventilation and another one non-shaded, in Ribeira Valley, São Paulo State, Brazil. Data on the respiratory rate (RR) and the surface temperature (ST) at udder, neckmiddle, forehead, back middle and rump were collected in 12 dairy buffaloes at autumn. In the same way, it were recorded the black globe temperature in the sun (GTS) and in the shade (GTNS), air temperature and wind speed at padronized height of 1.60 meters. All data were collected at 10:30am and 1:30pm. The results showed statistical difference among black globe temperature, wind speed, RR and ST (P<0.01) in two treatments.The results showed the necessity of protection against the solar radiation in the buffaloes, even in periods of warm climates.

Are the preference and selection patterns of hermit crabs for gastropod shells species- or site-specific?

Experimental analyses of hermit crabs and their preferences for shells are essential to understand the intrinsic relationship of the crabs' dependence on shells, and may be useful to explain their shell use pattern in nature. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of crab species and site on the pattern of shell use, selection, and preference in the south-western Atlantic hermit crabs Pagurus brevidactylus and Pagurus criniticornis, comparing sympatric and allopatric populations. Differently from the traditional approach to evaluate shell preference by simply determining the shell selection pattern (i.e., the number of shells of each type selected), preference was defined (according to [Liszka, D., Underwood, AJ., 1990. An experimental design to determine preferences for gastropod shells by a hermit-crab. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol., 137(1), 47-62]) by the comparison of the number of crabs changing for a particular shell type when three options were given (Cerithium atratum, Morula nodulosa, and Tegula viridula) with the number of crabs changing for this same type when only this type was offered. The effect of crab species was tested at Cabelo Gordo Beach, where P. brevidacrylus was found occupying shells of C. atratum, M. nodulosa, and T viridula in similar frequencies, whereas P. criniticornis occupied predominantly shells of C atratum. In laboratory experiments the selection patterns of the two hermit-crab species for these three gastropods were different, with P criniticornis selecting mainly shells of C atratum, and R brevidactylus selecting more shells of M. nodulosa. The shell preference was also dependent on crab species, with P. criniticornis showing a clear preference for shells of C atratum, whereas P. brevidactylus did not show a preference for any of the tested shells. The effect of site was tested for the two species comparing data from Cabelo Gordo to Preta (P brevidactylus) and Araca beaches (P. criniticornis). The pattern of shell use, selection, and preference was demonstrated to be dependent on site only for P. brevidactylus. The results also showed that the shell use pattern of P criniticornis can be explained by its preference at both sites, whereas for P. brevidactylus it occurred only at Cabelo Gordo, where the absence of preference was correlated with the similar use of the three gastropod species studied. Finally, the results showed that the shell selection pattern cannot be considered as a measure of shell preference, since it overestimates crab selectivity. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.