On the truck dispatching problem

Historically, management theory has ignored the constraints imposed by the biophysical (natural) environment. Building upon resource-based theory, this article attempts to fill this void by proposing a natural-resource-based view of the firm—a theory of competitive advantage based upon the firm's relationship to the natural environment. It is composed of three interconnected strategies: pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development. Propositions are advanced for each of these strategies regarding key resource requirements and their contributions to sustained competitive advantage.

A natural resource-based view of the firm

Functional Grammar describes grammar in functional terms in which a language is interpreted as a system of meanings. The language system consists of three macro-functions known as meta-functional components: the interpersonal function, the ideational function, and the textual function, all of which make a contribution to the structure of a text. The concepts discussed in Functional Grammar aims at giving contribution to the understanding of a text and evaluation of a text, which can be applied for text analysis. Using the concepts in Functional Grammar, English teachers may help the students learn how various grammatical features and grammatical systems are used in written texts so that they can read and write better.

A Functional Grammar

The Traveling Salesman Problem A Computational Study

Abstract Bullying is a social phenomenon. About 30% of school children are involved in bullying as victims, bullies, or bully/victims. The victims of bullying suffer multiple negative consequences, including poor social and academic adjustment, depression, and anxiety. This paper extends Farrington and Ttofi's (2009) meta-analysis of controlled trials of 44 bullying interventions, which suggests that bullying programs are effective in decreasing bullying and victimization. We review controlled trials of bullying interventions published from June, 2009 through April, 2013, focusing on substantive results across 32 studies that examined 24 bullying interventions. Of the 32 articles, 17 assess both bullying and victimization, 10 assess victimization only, and 5 assess bullying only. Of the 22 studies examining bullying perpetration, 11 (50%) observed significant effects; of the 27 studies examining bullying victimization, 18 (67%) reported significant effects. Although the overall findings are mixed, the data suggest that interventions implemented outside of the United States with homogeneous samples are more successful than programs implemented in the United States, where samples tend to be more heterogeneous. Few studies have measured bullying with sufficient precision to have construct validity. Finding strong measures to assess the complex construct of bullying remains a major challenge for the field.

The Effectiveness of School-Based Bullying Prevention Programs: A Systematic Review

Case studies of performance evaluation of cryptographic algorithms for an embedded system and a general purpose computer

Stomata are cells mostly found in plant leaves, stems and other organs. They are responsible for controlling the gas exchange process, i.e. the plant absorbs air and water vapor is released through transpiration. Therefore, stomata characteristics such as size and shape are important parameters to be taken into account. In this paper, we present a method (aiming at improved efficiency) to detect and count stomata based on the analysis of the multi-scale properties of the Wavelet, including a spot detection task working in the CIELab colorspace. We also segmented stomata images using the Watershed Transform, assigning each spot initially detected as a marker. Experiments with real and high-quality images were conducted and divided in two phases. In the first, the results were compared to both manual enumeration and another recent method existing in the literature, considering the same dataset. In the second, the segmented results were compared to a gold standard provided by a specialist using the F-Measure. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method results in better effectiveness for both stomata detection and segmentation.

Segmenting High-quality Digital Images of Stomata using the Wavelet Spot Detection and the Watershed Transform.

O texto traz uma reflexao sobre o papel das incubadoras de empresas no apoio a praticas ambientais por micro e pequenas empresas. Reconhecendo as debilidades estruturais das empresas de pequeno porte e as dificuldades para a realizacao de investimentos ambientais, defende o uso de incubadoras como instrumento de politica publica para estimular investimentos ambientais. Identifica um numero restrito de incubadoras de tecnologias ambientais, em plano internacional. Relata os resultados de uma pesquisa que avaliou a aplicabilidade de um indicador para apurar o desempenho ambiental de incubadoras. Destacaram-se dois resultados: a) a baixa importância atribuida, pelas incubadoras (e pelas empresas abrigadas) ao desempenho ambiental; e b) a ausencia de estimulos, pelas incubadoras, aos investimentos ambientais. Desse ultimo resultado deriva importante conclusao: a de que, uma vez apurados os padroes insatisfatorios de desempenho ambiental, de incubadoras e empresas assistidas, ficariam criadas as condicoes para a formulacao e a implementacao de medidas indutoras de novas posturas.

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Gestão ambiental: uma súplica do planeta, um desafio para políticas públicas, incubadoras e pequenas empresas

Natural language is often used to write software systems requirements. However, it may be prone to misunderstandings due to its ambiguities. Moreover, it is not easy to modularize these requirements and then find all related ones. In order to find out the impact of requirements in one another, it is necessary to look at every requirement rather than just a group of related requirements. When presented in large numbers, the understanding, organization and sequencing of requirements requires substantial time and effort. In this work, we introduce an approach based both on the clustering of textual requirements and on a data dictionary to organize them, as well as suggest a sequence for their implementation. A case study based on User Stories from Agile processes is introduced to illustrate the approach.

An Approach to Clustering and Sequencing of Textual Requirements

The distinction between usability and accessibility becomes convoluted as we focus our analysis in the field of HCI. They were originally conceived as separate concepts and there is no clear comparison between them in the literature. Some authors advocate that these are complementary definitions, while others classify accessibility as a sub-class of usability. Such lack of distinction may pose a challenge to many areas that attempt to implement such concepts such as requirements engineering, possibly leading to redundant implementations or incomplete efforts. Therefore, this work attempts at bridging this gap in the research literature by mapping Nielsen's usability heuristics to the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We conclude that there is a strong relationship between them and that it is possible to establish a mapping so that all heuristics are represented by at least one principle and vice versa. Furthermore, we notice that the mapping distribution is non-homogeneous as it focus mainly on three heuristics.

Paulo S. Martins

Papers

Case studies of performance evaluation of cryptographic algorithms for an embedded system and a general purpose computer

Segmenting High-quality Digital Images of Stomata using the Wavelet Spot Detection and the Watershed Transform.

Gestão ambiental: uma súplica do planeta, um desafio para políticas públicas, incubadoras e pequenas empresas

An Approach to Clustering and Sequencing of Textual Requirements

Usability heuristics and accessibility guidelines: a comparison of heuristic evaluation and WCAG