O consumo, em sua visão mais simplista, representa a busca pelo conforto, prazer e segurança. As marcas são atores fundamentais neste processo, pois assumem o papel de identificação e diferenciação de produtos, auxiliando o consumidor no momento da decisão de compra, ajudando-o a escolher e reduzindo-se a insegurança gerada no momento de se optar por uma marca em detrimento de outra. Portanto, a gestão de marcas, ou branding, possui importância inquestionável no marketing das organizações, desde a concepção e o desenvolvimento de um produto até as estratégias de comunicação deste. Após a globalização, o mundo passou a sofrer um processo de perda de fronteiras geográficas e, em certo sentido, culturais, o que implicou em novos rumos para praticamente todos os negócios. Como resultado, um dos principais desafios da globalização para as empresas envolve a decisão sobre o posicionamento de suas marcas em mercados externos, atendendo, ao mesmo tempo, as diferenças culturais inerentes a cada região, sem, no entanto, descaracterizar a identidade essencial da marca. Portanto, o presente trabalho objetiva analisar o posicionamento internacional de marcas de serviços sob o enfoque das divergências culturais locais. Para o alcance do objetivo proposto realizou-se a revisão da literatura relativa ao tema de gestão de marcas, posicionamento internacional e cultura. Como esta revisão não foi suficiente para responder ao problema da tese, fez-se necessária a realização de uma pesquisa de campo, de natureza exploratória e qualitativa, com utilização do método do estudo de caso. O setor bancário foi escolhido para a pesquisa de campo, feita por meio da realização de dois estudos de caso relativos aos bancos Itaú e Santander. Objetivou-se conhecer como um banco brasileiro (Itaú) procedeu em seu processo de internacionalização da marca em países estrangeiros, e, por outro lado, compreender também como um banco estrangeiro (Santander) implementou suas operações no Brasil, com enfoque na gestão de sua marca à luz dos aspectos culturais brasileiros. A análise dos resultados foi feita primeiramente de forma individual para cada caso e, posteriormente, de forma comparativa, à luz do embasamento teórico previamente realizado. Os resultados da tese indicam que é possível, para as organizações, internacionalizarem suas marcas de maneira adaptativa ao ambiente cultural distinto sem, no entanto, descaracterizarem suas essências e identidades nucleares. / Consumption, concisely, represents the pursuit of comfort, pleasure and security. Brands act as essential clues in this process, through the identification and differentiation of products, helping the consumer choose throughout the buying decision process, and making it more comfortable for them, decreasing the insecurity sensation that results from the option for a brand to the detriment of others. Therefore, the brand management, or branding, has unquestionable importance in the context of marketing in organizations, from the conception and development of a product to its communication strategies. After globalization, the world has faced a process of losing its geographic and, to a certain extent, cultural boundaries, implying new ways of making business in almost every market segment. As a result, one of the main globalization challenges for the companies involve all the decisions about positioning of brands in foreign markets, simultaneously corresponding to cultural differences intrinsic to each country, without losing the essential identity of the brand. Therefore, the present thesis aimed to analyze the international positioning of service brands within the context of local cultural divergences. For such a purpose, a theoretical review was carried out, referred to the subject of brand management, international positioning and culture. Once this review was not sufficient to answer the problem of the thesis, a field work was necessary, through an exploratory and qualitative research, using the method of case study. The banking segment was chosen for the investigation, through studying the cases of Itaú Bank and Santander Bank. This phase of the work aimed to understand how a Brazilian bank (Itaú) developed its process of brand internationalization in foreign countries and, on the other side, how a foreign bank (Santander) developed its operations in Brazil, managing its brand in the Brazilian cultural context. The results of the field research were first analyzed individually for each case and, subsequently, in a comparative way, in the light of the theoretical reference. The results of this study indicate that it is possible, for companies, to internationalize their brands, suiting them to the new cultural context without losing their essences and core brand identities.

Esta dissertação aborda a caracterização mecânica de um robô manipulador paralelo de 3 graus de liberdade. A topologia do manipulador corresponde a um mecanismo de estrutura cinemática paralela, cujo efetuador é capaz de realizar 3 deslocamentos lineares no espaço tridimensional. A tecnologia associada ao controle de robôs de estrutura cinemática serial encontra-se bastante madura. No entanto, o mesmo não se dá nos robôs paralelos. Para que se avance no domínio do controle de trajetória destes robôs é necessária a sua caracterização mecânica, a qual fornecerá os subsídios para identificação paramétrica, calibração de modelos, ajuste de ganhos dos controladores, etc. Especificamente, a caracterização mecânica neste trabalho teve por objetivo o levantamento experimental dos erros de posicionamento do efetuador com relação a exatidão e repetibilidade, sua rigidez sob a ação de cargas externas, bem como das frequências naturais do sistema. Os ensaios realizados foram executados no robô Laila, que é um protótipo físico de um robô manipulador, desenvolvido pelo Departamento de Engenharia Mecatrônica e Sistemas Mecânicos da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo. A dissertação apresenta como resultados os mapeamentos dos erros de posicionamento do efetuador, a rigidez sob a ação de cargas externas, bem como suas frequências naturais, ao longo do espaço de medição. A seguir, apresenta-se uma discussão da consistência dos valores obtidos para estas propriedades. Por fim, é feita uma análise sobre a influência das folgas mecânicas sobre os índices de desempenho do robô. / This dissertation deals with the mechanical characterization of a parallel manipulator robot of 3 degrees of freedom. The topology of the manipulator corresponds to a mechanism of parallel kinematic structure, whose effector is capable of performing 3 linear displacements in the three-dimensional space. The technology associated with the control of robots of serial kinematic structure is quite mature. However, the same is not true of parallel robots. In order to advance in the field of control of trajectory of these robots it is necessary to characterize them mechanically, which will provide the subsidies for parametric identification, calibration of models, adjustment of gains of the controllers, etc. Specifically, the mechanical characterization in this work had as objective the experimental study of the positioning errors of the effector in relation to the accuracy and repeatability, its rigidity under the action of external loads, as well as the natural frequencies of the system. The tests were performed in the Laila robot, which is a physical prototype of a manipulator robot, developed by the Department of Mechatronics Engineering and Mechanical Systems of the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo. The dissertation presents as results the mappings of the positioning errors of the effector, the rigidity under the action of external loads, as well as their natural frequencies, along the measurement space. The following is a discussion of the consistency of the values obtained for these properties. Finally, an analysis is made on the influence of the mechanical gaps on the performance indexes of the robot.

São inúmeras as atividades que fazem uso do sistema Global Navigation Satellite System - GNSS, sendo o Global Positioning System - GPS, desenvolvido pelos Estados Unidos, o mais utilizado. Na área de agricultura de precisão há a necessidade de posicionamento estático e cinemático com demandas de distintos níveis de acurácia e precisão para diferentes aplicações. A deficiência de informações técnicas dos fabricantes causa incertezas nos usuários, quanto à classe de receptor a ser utilizado para determinadas atividades agrícolas. Por esses motivos os objetivos deste trabalho foram: avaliar o uso de correções diferenciais através de ensaio estático, testar o uso do receptor GPS RTK como referência para avaliar o desempenho de receptores de baixo custo em condição cinemática e desenvolver uma plataforma instrumentada para avaliar os receptores de GPS sob condição cinemática representativa para operações agrícolas. No primeiro caso foram realizados ensaios com oito receptores, sobre uma torre livre de impedimentos físicos, na qual foi montada uma plataforma em formato de cruz e nos receptores foram ativadas e desativadas as correções diferenciais WAAS, EGNOS, SF1 e SF2 e também testadas as várias intensidades de filtragem disponíveis em alguns dos receptores. No ensaio cinemático utilizando um receptor GPS RTK como referência foram utilizados dois receptores de navegação, fixados sobre a cabine de um trator e foram coletados dados com diferentes freqüências. Para ensaios cinemáticos foi construída uma plataforma móvel instrumentada com um detector óptico de pulsos (encoder), um sensor foto elétrico e dois coletores de dados responsáveis por realizar o sincronismo entre os pulsos do encoder e as atualizações da sentença do GPS e armazenamento dos dados. Assim foi possível determinar as coordenadas de referência para o cálculo dos erros de precisão e acurácia do receptor GPS submetido à avaliação. Na avaliação dos receptores em ensaio estático os resultados mostraram que as correções WAAS e EGNOS não adicionam qualidade ao posicionamento na região de Piracicaba, SP. Com a ativação dessas correções os erros de precisão e de acurácia aumentaram. As correções diferencias SF1 e SF2 via satélite demonstraram ser mais acuradas que os demais sistemas ensaiados. O ensaio sob condição cinemática, com GPS RTK de referência, permitiu o cálculo de erros somente no sentido perpendicular ao percurso. A plataforma instrumentada funcionou, cumprindo as expectativas e permitindo o cálculo dos erros de precisão e acurácia, porém demonstrou problemas de robustez nos coletores de dados, necessitando de pequenas melhorias. / The activities that use the Global Navigation Satellite System - GNSS, are countless, and the Global Positioning System - GPS, developed by the United States is the most used today. In precision agriculture there is a need of static and cinematic positioning with demands of distinct levels of accuracy and precision for different applications. Technical information deficiencies from the manufacturers causes uncertainties to the users, as the receiver class to be used for certain agricultural activities. For these reasons the objectives of this work were: evaluate the use of differential corrections through static test, to test the use of RTK GPS as reference to evaluate the performance of low cost receivers under cinematic condition and develop an instrumented platform to evaluate GPS receivers under cinematic condition that represents agricultural operations. In the first case were realized tests with eight receivers, in the top of a tower free of physical obstacles, where it was mounted a platform with cross shape. The differential corrections WAAS, EGNOS, SF1 and SF2 were tested and also some intensities of filtering available in some of the receivers. In one of the cinematic tests, using a RTK GPS as reference, we used two navigation receivers, fixed over a tractor cabin and the data were collected with different frequencies. For the second cinematic test it was built a moving platform instrumented with a pulse optical detector (encoder), a photoelectric sensor and two data loggers, responsible for the synchronization between the encoder pulses and the GPS strings, and also log the data. With that it was possible to determine the reference coordinates to calculate the errors of precision and accuracy of the GPS receiver submitted to evaluation. The evaluation in static way showed that the corrections WAAS and EGNOS do not work in the region of Piracicaba, SP. Activating these corrections the precision and accuracy errors increased. The data collected with the satellite differential corrections SF1 and SF2 got closer to the real coordinate than the other evaluated systems. The test under cinematic condition, with the RTK GPS as reference, allowed the errors calculation only in the perpendicular direction of the course. The instrumented platform worked, accomplishing the expectation and allowing the errors calculation of precision and accuracy, however, showed problems of robustness in the data loggers, needing some improvement.

This report is the result of a master thesis made by two students at Linköping University. The aim was to find an image registration method for visual and infrared images and to find an error measure for grading the registration performance. In practice this could be used for position determination by registering the infrared image taken at the current position to a set of visual images with known positions and determining which visual image matches the best. Two methods were tried, using different image feature extractors and different ways to match the features. The first method used phase information in the images to generate soft features and then minimised the square error of the optical flow equation to estimate the transformation between the visual and infrared image. The second method used the Canny edge detector to extract hard features from the images and Chamfer distance as an error measure. Both methods were evaluated for registration as well as position determination and yielded promising results. However, the performance of both methods was image dependent. The soft edge method proved to be more robust and precise and worked better than the hard edge method for both registration and position determination.

Personal information nowadays have become valuable for many stakeholders. We want to find out how much information someone can gather from our daily devices such as a smartphone, using some budget devices together with some programming knowledge. Can we gather enough information to be able to determine a location to a target device? The main objectives of our bachelor thesis is to determine the accuracy of positioning for nearby personal devices using trilateration of short-distance communications (Wi-Fi vs Bluetooth). But also, how much and what information our devices leak without us knowing with respect to personal integrity. We collected Wi-Fi and Bluetooth data in total from four target devices. Two different experiments were executed, calibration experiment and visualization experiment. The data were collected by capturing the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Received Signal Strength Indication(RSSI) transmitted wirelessly from target devices. We then apply a method called trilateration to be able to pinpoint a target to a location. In theory, Bluetooth signals are twice as accurate as Wi-Fi signals. In practise, we were able to locate a target device with an accuracy of 5 - 10 meters. Bluetooth signals are stable but have long response time while Wi-Fi signals have short response time but high fluctuation in the RSSI values. The idea itself, being able to determine a handheld device position is not impossible, as can be seen from our results. It may though require more powerful hardware to secure an acceptable accuracy. On the other hand, achieving this kind of results from such a cheap hardware as Raspberry Pi:s are truly amazing.

Esta dissertação aborda a caracterização mecânica de um robô manipulador paralelo de 3 graus de liberdade. A topologia do manipulador corresponde a um mecanismo de estrutura cinemática paralela, cujo efetuador é capaz de realizar 3 deslocamentos lineares no espaço tridimensional. A tecnologia associada ao controle de robôs de estrutura cinemática serial encontra-se bastante madura. No entanto, o mesmo não se dá nos robôs paralelos. Para que se avance no domínio do controle de trajetória destes robôs é necessária a sua caracterização mecânica, a qual fornecerá os subsídios para identificação paramétrica, calibração de modelos, ajuste de ganhos dos controladores, etc. Especificamente, a caracterização mecânica neste trabalho teve por objetivo o levantamento experimental dos erros de posicionamento do efetuador com relação a exatidão e repetibilidade, sua rigidez sob a ação de cargas externas, bem como das frequências naturais do sistema. Os ensaios realizados foram executados no robô Laila, que é um protótipo físico de um robô manipulador, desenvolvido pelo Departamento de Engenharia Mecatrônica e Sistemas Mecânicos da Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo. A dissertação apresenta como resultados os mapeamentos dos erros de posicionamento do efetuador, a rigidez sob a ação de cargas externas, bem como suas frequências naturais, ao longo do espaço de medição. A seguir, apresenta-se uma discussão da consistência dos valores obtidos para estas propriedades. Por fim, é feita uma análise sobre a influência das folgas mecânicas sobre os índices de desempenho do robô. / This dissertation deals with the mechanical characterization of a parallel manipulator robot of 3 degrees of freedom. The topology of the manipulator corresponds to a mechanism of parallel kinematic structure, whose effector is capable of performing 3 linear displacements in the three-dimensional space. The technology associated with the control of robots of serial kinematic structure is quite mature. However, the same is not true of parallel robots. In order to advance in the field of control of trajectory of these robots it is necessary to characterize them mechanically, which will provide the subsidies for parametric identification, calibration of models, adjustment of gains of the controllers, etc. Specifically, the mechanical characterization in this work had as objective the experimental study of the positioning errors of the effector in relation to the accuracy and repeatability, its rigidity under the action of external loads, as well as the natural frequencies of the system. The tests were performed in the Laila robot, which is a physical prototype of a manipulator robot, developed by the Department of Mechatronics Engineering and Mechanical Systems of the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo. The dissertation presents as results the mappings of the positioning errors of the effector, the rigidity under the action of external loads, as well as their natural frequencies, along the measurement space. The following is a discussion of the consistency of the values obtained for these properties. Finally, an analysis is made on the influence of the mechanical gaps on the performance indexes of the robot.

Previously, the rich customers bought expensive luxury goods, the impoverished customers bought cheap low quality merchandise and the middle class customers stayed true and loyal to the middle market. However, today there has been a change in the customer shopping behaviour, especially among the middle class customers who no longer want to be stuck in mediocrity. Either the customers “trade up”, which means that they buy goods with higher price and quality; or they “trade down”, which means that they buy cheaper low quality goods. This has created a change, which means that around the world, premium and no-frills products are squeezing middle-of-the-road products and services. Sales in the middle market are pressed while sales on both the top end and the bottom end of the market are rapidly growing. The market conditions are changing and this thesis is written with the purpose to analyse the given market situation - giving companies, primarily in the fashion industry, an opportunity to overview the possibilities for positioning on a market where the gap between discount and premium brands is getting bigger. Obviously, the phenomenon of market polarization will continue and the pressure on the companies to change will increase. This thesis discus therefore how a company can position and reposition itself in the emerging and ever changing environment. Three companies have been researched – Helly Hansen, Pennyblack and Nova Star. The choice of the companies have been made on the basis of all being active on the Scandinavian middle market practicing in three different parts of the fashion industry, which gives this study a broader approach. The study is qualitative and based on interviews with representatives from each company. After conducting the interviews and analysing the empirical framework, the conclusions suggest that the most beneficial way for a company to position itself on the current saturated market is by differentiating themselves, providing something that the competitors cannot offer. Nevertheless, the differentiation has nowadays become more complex and convoluted. This happened since the saturation has made attributes that previously have been seen as unique - such as for example, superior quality and design, to be mainly common. The saturated market leads to more and more tough competition between the companies. The study shows that this actually is the reason making the companies to try to make profit everywhere, attempting to reach people that should not fall within their targeted segment. On the contrary, it is more beneficial to target as narrowly as possible, specifically aiming at the consumers that would actually benefit form the products a company offers. Lastly, the results indicate that the International brands attempting to enter the Scandinavian market should be prepared to adjust their strategies, since the Scandinavian market seems to be different from the rest of the world. / Program: Master in Fashion Management with specialisation in Fashion Marketing and Retailing

Diplomová práce je zaměřena na problematiku segmentace trhu. Teoretická část popisuje pravidla segmentace trhu, její proces, výhody a omezení. Rozlišuje segmentační faktory na základě typu trhu, jde-li o trhy spotřebitelské nebo trhy průmyslové. Praktická část navazuje nastavením diferencovaného přístupu k zákazníkům firmy TDS. Zhodnocuje situaci ve společnosti TDS. Tento strategický manuál může být pro firmu nápovědou, která poukazuje na stěžejní oblasti v přístupu k zákazníkům, na které se firma může zaměřit k upevnění vztahů se zákazníky.

Diabetes Mellitus is a group of diseases, prevalence and incidence of which is on the rise not only in the Czech Republic, but also worldwide. This diploma work aims to analyze market situation and opportunities for modern oral anti-diabetic drugs. This work also designs suitable positioning for new OADs of Novartis -- Galvus and Eucreas.

Under BeBe Brumík, which is in its category a strong growing brand, an innovation BeBe Brumík Breakfast focusing with its positioning on new consumption occasion was launched in 2011. The target of my work is to verify setting and perception of BeBe Brumík Breakfast's positioning after few months after launch and to give recommendations for product support and positioning in the future. The theoretical part is devoted to strategic and tactical brand management and applied marketing research. The practical part is devoted to the context in which the innovation was launched i.e. category, consumer and brand. I introduce the new product, its positioning and marketing mix. And in my own qualitative research I verify perception of positioning and setting of the marketing mix, which is also followed by my recommendations for further marketing support in 2012.