A COMUNICAÇÃO MERCADOLÓGICA NA OFERTA DE MICROCRÉDITO: UM ESTUDO DE CASO DO BANCO ITAÚ NA PERIFERIA DE SÃO PAULO.

Por um lado, o mundo do Século XXI com ferramentas que possibilitam cada vez mais estarmos conectados e dependentes das tecnologias de comunicação, em que a internet prevalece como meio principal para as pessoas se relacionarem, interagirem, consumirem, se divertirem e se informarem. Do outro lado, quase que uma ilha à parte dessa tendência tecnológica, um espaço em que a comunicação oral, a confiança, o valor da palavra, o conhecer o vizinho do bairro e a comunidade são o que prevalece. Trata-se de mais um fenômeno decorrente do crescimento da Classe C no Brasil, posterior ao lançamento do Plano Real, por Fernando Henrique Cardoso no governo do ex-presidente Itamar Franco, e da implantação de medidas sociais nos anos seguintes, durante o governo de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. O segmento que representa 54% da população brasileira e desperta a atenção das empresas como uma nova frente de geração de riquezas e negócios. Por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica e análise documental para análise de conteúdo, este estudo de caso único investigará como o Banco Itaú se comunica com esse público para oferecer o microcrédito na periferia da cidade de São Paulo. Num mundo em que se pensa quanto mais rápidas e sensoriais serão as tecnologias de informação no futuro, o bom e velho bate-papo pode levar a conhecimentos importantes quando queremos nos comunicar com as camadas populares da população.

Designing self sustaining support for micro-enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa : a pilot

Small and micro-enterprises play a significant part in most economies. However, in developing countries these enterprises have often been planned and implemented from a poverty alleviation perspective, rather than as entrepreneurial activities and growing businesses (Mead & Liedholm 1998, Toye 1993). This paper explores a model for sustainable support to micro-enterprises in a developing country context. Sustainability is critical if micro-enterprises are to grow. The traditional philanthropic model for funding micro-enterprises leaves local communities dependent on the priorities of donors which may not always be consistent with those of the community. Long term sustainability requires a move to a model that broadens the base of both economic and intellectual resources, that builds capacity as well as providing ‘start-up’ funding through mechanism such as micro-credit (Elkington & Hartigan 2008). Designing for sustainable enterprise development includes responding to the community’s priorities, investigating individual problems and solutions, encouraging agency and active involvement in goal setting, with on-going consultation and co-development of solutions. Recognising the importance of experimentation we have moved beyond existing forms to prototype new ways of working which provide continuity of financial and intellectual support for local initiatives. The paper reviews existing micro finance and microcredit practices and suggests a new approach to establish and support enterprises with financial and knowledge resources for sustainable business practices. Principles underlying such a program and the initial steps are described.

Lyprinol : is it a useful anti-inflammatory agent?

The New Zealand green lipped mussel preparation Lyprinol is available without a prescription from a supermarket, pharmacy or Web. The Food and Drug Administration have recently warned Lyprinol USA about their extravagant anti-inflammatory claims for Lyprinol appearing on the web. These claims are put to thorough review. Lyprinol does have anti-inflammatory mechanisms, and has anti-inflammatory effects in some animal models of inflammation. Lyprinol may have benefits in dogs with arthritis. There are design problems with the clinical trials of Lyprinol in humans as an anti-inflammatory agent in osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, making it difficult to give a definite answer to how effective Lyprinol is in these conditions, but any benefit is small. Lyprinol also has a small benefit in atopic allergy. As anti-inflammatory agents, there is little to choose between Lyprinol and fish oil. No adverse effects have been reported with Lyprinol. Thus, although it is difficult to conclude whether Lyprinol does much good, it can be concluded that Lyprinol probably does no major harm.

Load–frequency control : a GA-based multi-agent reinforcement learning

The load–frequency control (LFC) problem has been one of the major subjects in a power system. In practice, LFC systems use proportional–integral (PI) controllers. However since these controllers are designed using a linear model, the non-linearities of the system are not accounted for and they are incapable of gaining good dynamical performance for a wide range of operating conditions in a multi-area power system. A strategy for solving this problem because of the distributed nature of a multi-area power system is presented by using a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) approach. It consists of two agents in each power area; the estimator agent provides the area control error (ACE) signal based on the frequency bias estimation and the controller agent uses reinforcement learning to control the power system in which genetic algorithm optimisation is used to tune its parameters. This method does not depend on any knowledge of the system and it admits considerable flexibility in defining the control objective. Also, by finding the ACE signal based on the frequency bias estimation the LFC performance is improved and by using the MARL parallel, computation is realised, leading to a high degree of scalability. Here, to illustrate the accuracy of the proposed approach, a three-area power system example is given with two scenarios.