Este estudo teve como principal objetivo verificar se as instituições de microcrédito brasileiras são operacionalmente sustentáveis no longo prazo. A sustentabilidade operacional de uma Instituição Financeira de Microcrédito (IFM) é importante para que os beneficiários tenham acesso a serviços financeiros ao longo do tempo, pois IFM que não são sustentáveis acabam diminuindo seu impacto social. O microcrédito ganhou notoriedade desde as iniciativas de Yunus com a criação do Graamen Bank, sendo que sua missão é facilitar o acesso aos serviços financeiros para os pobres e todos os excluídos do sistema financeiro clássico, melhorando suas condições de geração de renda e atuando na redução da pobreza. Para avaliar o desempenho financeiro das instituições de microcrédito brasileiras utilizou-se como metodologia o cálculo de indicadores financeiros, de risco e produtividade. Estes indicadores permitem a verificação da sustentabilidade operacional e fatores que corroborem para explicar seu desempenho. Os dados foram coletados do MIX Market, que é a maior plataforma de dados e pesquisas sobre instituições de microcrédito no mundo. Como resultado, verificou-se que a maioria das instituições de microcrédito brasileiras analisadas são operacionalmente sustentáveis. Os indicadores de sustentabilidade do Brasil apresentaram desempenho melhor do que a média das instituições do mundo desde o ano de 2009. As instituições maiores em patrimônio líquido, mais maduras e com baixos indicadores de portfolio at risk apresentaram notoriamente melhores resultados de sustentabilidade operacional. Além disso, a carteira de microcrédito cresceu a taxas maiores do que a carteira total de crédito, principalmente devido às políticas públicas dos últimos anos. Salienta-se ainda que quase todas as IFMs têm alguma parceria com instituições governamentais principalmente para captação de funding a custos mais baixos que o mercado. Dessa forma, pode-se evidenciar o impacto do PNMPO nas instituições brasileiras nos últimos anos. / This study verifies the operational sustainability of Brazilian microfinance institutions over the long term. The Microcredit Financial Institutions have a crucial role in microcredit structure, as they provide access to credit for entrepreneurs in poor populations. Microcredit gained notoriety since Yanus initiatives as Graamen Bank creation and its mission to provide access to financial services for poor and excluded from classical financial system, improving their conditions, creating income and reducing poverty. In order to evaluate the financial performance of Brazilian microfinance institutions indicators were used to measure risk and productivity. Data source is mainly from MIX Market, which is the largest platform for data and research on microfinance institutions in the world. Results indicate that most of Brazilian microcredit institutions are operationally sustainable. Sustainability indicators in Brazil showed better performance than the average of the institutions of the world since the year 2009. Largest institutions, more mature and with low portfolio at risk indicators showed noticeably better operational sustainability. Moreover, the microcredit portfolio grew at a higher rate than the total credit portfolio, mainly due to public policies of recent years. It\'s worth mentioning that almost all MFIs have some partnership with governmental institutions primarily for raising funding at lower costs. Therefore, we can show the impact of the National Program of Oriented Productive Microcredit in Brazilian institutions in recent years.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-09-21T13:43:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Octaviano Sidnei Furtado_.pdf: 707346 bytes, checksum: 4fa86c70509969f0a2789a9bf73c5057 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-21T13:43:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Octaviano Sidnei Furtado_.pdf: 707346 bytes, checksum: 4fa86c70509969f0a2789a9bf73c5057 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-07-18 / Nenhuma / A necessidade de produzir energia para manter os níveis de consumo dos sistemas produtivos tem forçado os governos e as sociedades a buscar novas alternativas para sua geração, associando fatores econômicos como a redução da importação de derivados de petróleo, fator ambiental, reduzindo as emissões de gases de efeito estufa e fator social com a inclusão de agricultores familiares na cadeia de produção do biodiesel visando o desenvolvimento regional. Esses fatores, além de outros, levaram o Brasil à introdução desse biocombustível na matriz energética nacional lançando em 2004 o Programa Nacional de Produção de Biodiesel (PNPB). O programa previa a estruturação da cadeia produtiva no âmbito local de produção do biodiesel, assentado na Mamona e Dendê como matéria-prima principal, no semiárido e Norte. Na região Sul, a cadeia de produção da soja, construída anteriormente à produção de biodiesel é a base de fornecimento de matéria-prima. A adição de biodiesel ao diesel mineral passou a ser obrigatória de 2% a partir de 2008, hoje a adição obrigatória é de 7% e será de 10% a partir de março de 2019. Este trabalho teve por objetivo analisar os elementos alavancadores e as barreiras na cadeia produtiva do biodiesel no Tocantins, tendo por base a soja como matéria-prima, e qual sua contribuição no desenvolvimento regional e a inclusão social dos agricultores familiares que a fornecem nos limites dos municípios que compõem os polos de produção de Biodiesel. Os resultados mostram que existem dentre os diversos constructos, aqueles incentivadores, como: acesso a condições de financiamentos favoráveis para agricultores e processadores, desoneração tributária, garantia de venda da produção e, constructos dificultadores ou barreiras, como: excesso de burocracia, limites de faturamento bruto, inexistência de entidade associativa ou cooperativa para auxiliar os agricultores e dentre os constructos operacionais o da não diversificação de matéria-prima para o biodiesel. Por fim, não criou-se uma cadeia para a produção de biodiesel, apenas incorporou-se a cadeia de produção de soja já existente, não agregou os agricultores familiares a essa cadeia e indica a presença de mecanismos de obter incentivos, que a alavancagem do programa parece não se sustenta com o atual modelo de incentivo à inserção da agricultura familiar, baseado na produção de soja como matéria-prima principal, necessitando implantar uma estrutura de governança para o programa no Tocantins. / The need to produce energy to maintain the consumption levels of the productive systems has forced governments and society to seek new alternatives for generating energy. This has been done by associating economic factors like the reduction of oil by-product importation, reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and the social inclusion of family farmers aiming the regional development. These factors, among others, led Brazil to introduce the biodiesel in its national energetic matrix, launching the Biodiesel Production National Program (BPNP) in 2004. The addition of the biodiesel to the mineral diesel started being mandatory of 2% from 2008; nowadays, the compulsory addition is of 7% and starting on March 2019, the percentage will be 10%. This research aimed to analyze the leverage factors and the obstacles in the biodiesel productive chain in Tocantins, having as baseline the soybean as raw material. This work also investigates what is the PNPB contribution to the regional development and the social inclusion of the family farmers who provide it in the outskirts of the towns that make up the biodiesel production poles. The results demonstrate that the main leverage factors refer to the access to favorable financing conditions for farmers and processors, tributary exemption and production sales assurance. The foremost hindering elements are related to bureaucracy excess, gross earnings limits, lack of an associative organization or cooperative, in order to help the farmers. It is also observed the non - diversification of the raw material to biodiesel, what may be a potential risk factor. The study that was carried out suggests that a specific chain for the biodiesel was not planned nor created, but it was only subsumed to the already existing soybean production. Such action did not aggregated the family farmers to that chain and indicates the presence of mechanisms to obtain incentives, that the leverage of the program seems not to support itself with the current model of incentive to the insertion of the family farming, based on the soybean production as the main starting material. Thus, there is a demand of a governance structure implementation for the program in Tocantins.

How do teachers talk about the productiveness of teacher's in-the-moment responses to student mathematical thinking? This is a question current research does not fully answer as most research on teacher moves is focused on what teacher moves researchers have noticed teachers do rather than on what teachers think about these teacher moves. To fill the gap in the research and to answer the question, a group of 13 teachers were given ten classroom situations to compare and contrast for productivity. I analyzed (a) the content of the teachers' discussions by drawing on Teacher Response Coding (TRC) language, and (b) the extent to which the teachers' discussions align with theorized productive responses to student mathematical thinking, or building. From the teachers' group conversations, I articulated principles of productivity— articulations of the main ideas and conclusions of the teachers' conversations with regards to productivity. Focusing on the principles of productivity, I highlighted what teacher moves the teachers said were productive or not productive with respect to teacher's in-the-moment responses to student mathematical thinking. In analyzing the list of unique principles of productivity, I noticed three main themes that the principles were focused around: student mathematics, teacher moves, and mathematics, which reflected some of the ideas in research for productive teacher moves. Additionally, I analyzed the principles for alignment with the practice of building, which led to the conclusion that the ideas of orchestrating discussion and making explicit are the most salient of the sub-practices of building to the teachers. These results based on teachers' discussions around the productivity of teacher moves can help inform teacher education and professional development.

Orientador: Gener Tadeu Pereira / Resumo: A cana-de-açúcar é uma das culturas mais expressivas do mercado agrícola nacional. Visando um aumento de produtividade e qualidade da matéria prima, técnicas como a de manejo localizado, que já vem sendo adotada há muitos anos pelas usinas, porém, ainda de forma manual. O objetivo desse trabalho é determinar ambientes de manejo de cana-de-açúcar utilizando quantidade reduzida de variáveis de baixo custo, por meio de técnica de aprendizagem de máquina. Para atingir a máxima eficiência na predição, os dados foram submetidos à estatística descritiva, em seguida, à seleção de regressão “stepwise” para determinar quais variáveis seriam úteis ao modelo. Em seguida foi aplicado teste de multicolinearidade e, por fim, a árvore de decisão classificatória. Para avaliar a eficiência do modelo foi preparada uma matriz de confusão. Foi detectado que as variáveis ligadas às características de formação do solo foram as escolhidas para determinar os ambientes de produção, dando destaque a variável areia. A técnica de regressão “stepwise” mostrou-se eficiente na seleção de variáveis e a árvore de decisão mostrou eficiência na determinação dos ambientes, obtendo a satisfatória acurácia de 75%, além de ter gerado ambientes de manejo mais contínuos na área de cultivo. / Abstract: Sugar cane is one of the most significant crops in the national agricultural market. Aiming to increase the quality and quality of the raw material, techniques such as localized management, which has been adopted for many years by the plants, but still manually. The objective of this work is to determine the sugarcane management environments, using the reduced number of low-cost variables, through the machine learning technique. To achieve maximum prediction efficiency, the data were subjected to descriptive statistics, followed by stepwise regression selection to determine useful variable variables useful in the model. Then, the multicollinearity test was applied and, finally, a classification decision tree. To evaluate the efficiency of the model, a confusion matrix was prepared. It was detected that the variables selected to the soil characteristics were chosen to determine the production environments, highlighting a sand variable. A stepwise regression technique was efficient in the selection of variables and a reduced decision tree in the determination of environments, obtaining a satisfactory satisfaction of 75%, besides showing more continuous management environments in the cultivation area. / Mestre

Work and its effect on women’s empowerment and gender equality has been a long, on-going debate since the middle of the 20th century – not at least in development contexts, where women have been recognized to play a crucial role. The discussion has moved from only emphasizing women’s participation in the labor market, to also stress the need to recognize and value the unpaid, domestic work that women perform every day. Many feminist scholars have witnessed how the neglecting of housework and childcare has left women with a double burden, since men’s responsibility in the family and household has been rather stagnant. Therefore, by interviewing 17 married, self-employed women in Kampala, Uganda, this study explores women’s reasons and experiences of organizing reproductive and productive labor, and their solutions for balancing the two working domains. Many scholars draw upon norms, attitudes and traditions, when explaining the gendered division of labor. This study shall argue too that it is indeed gender stereotypical perceptions that maintain the gendered patterns of reproductive labor. However, the results also point to a material, income-related dimension of gender equality – in a context where income is often a determinant of the woman’s workload within the household.

This research seeks to analyse the phenomenon of ethnic business creation amongst the ethnic community in Australia. The main emphasis is on finding the reasons for the process of ethnic business creation over time, focusing on the ethnic resources that the intending ethnic business operators bring to such activities through links to their country of origin. This is a resource-based study, which looks at ethnic resources as a means of sustained competitive advantage and as strategy for success in ethnic business operations in Australia. It attempts to gauge the extent of interactive processes between business operations and the relevant ethnic resources, some of which have a great influence in determining ethnic business people’s success. Policies aimed directly at facilitating, encouraging and strengthening these processes would be a valuable development. This research also examines the theories of small business development and identifies their applicability and relevance to the development of ethnic small business in Australia. The findings of this study enabled the development of a new theory and model for ethnic business creation that links the creation and success of ethnic small businesses to the use of productive diversity principles. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

L'objet d'étude de notre thèse correspond au groupe professionnel des ingénieurs brésiliens face aux transformations politiques et économiques menées au Brésil dans les années 1990 et 2000, notamment l'introduction des politiques néolibérales et de la restructuration productive. La thèse analyse comment les différentes fractions du groupe professionnel ont été touchées par ces transformations et comment ses distinctes organisations d'intérêt ont agit dans la conjoncture politique. D'un coté, la thèse montre comment la combinatoires des politiques d'ouverture commerciale, de déréglementation financière, de privatisations et de reforme de l'État sont liées à l'augmentation de la participation du secteur privé dans l'économie et à la croissante dépendance financière, technologique et patrimoniale du pays envers l'extérieur. D'autre par, la thèse suggère que les politiques de déréglementation du marche de travail, de reforme du système de retraites et de focalisations des dépenses sociales de l'État ont eu un effet sur le groupe professionnel : il y a une croissante tendance d'individualisation de la gestion de la carrière et du bien-être. A partir d'une étude quantitative avec des ingénieurs et qualitative entre ceux et leurs organisations d'intérêt, notre thèse est ciblée sur l'analyse de l'évolution historique et politique du groupe professionnel. Elle part, dans un premier moment, de la description de la littérature que porte sur les organisations d'intérêt des ingénieurs dans les années 1970 et 1980 et analyse, dans un deuxième moment, la façon dont ces organisations ont agit dans la conjoncture politique des années 1990 et 2000. La thèse fait également une analyse exploratoire des profils politiques des ingénieurs des entreprises étatiques, en spéciale la Petrobras, en les comparant directement avec les transformations dans leurs rapports de travail. D'une manière plus générale, notre thèse soutient que la dynamique des luttes macrosociales a d'influence considérable sur le positionnement politique des différentes fractions du groupe professionnel et de ses organisations d'intérêt.

<p><strong><p>Purpose</p>– The purpose of this paper is to review the literatures on Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and to present an overview of TPM implementation practices initiated in a ‘connecter’ manufacturer in China. It also examines the need to develop, practice and implement such maintenance campaign, which not only reduce unscheduled and scheduled failures in process but also decrease operation and maintenance costs. <strong><p>Design/methodology/approach</p>– A case-based approach in combination with scientific theory and standard tools, techniques and practices is used to discuss various issues related with TPM implementation in industry. <strong><p>Findings</p>– The findings indicate that TPM not only leads to increase in efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing equipments measured in terms of OEE index by reducing the failure, time loss, and defects but also helps organization to improve morale of people and working environment significantly. The contributions of strategic TPM programs towards improving manufacturing competencies of the organizations have also been highlighted here. <strong><p>Originality/value</p>– The paper contains a comprehensive literature on the field of equipment maintenance and also presents an interesting investigation of TPM implementation issues which may be useful to researchers, maintenance professionals and other practitioners concerned with maintenance to understand the significance of TPM. </strong></strong></strong></strong></p>

<p><em>Purpose</em>: this thesis study aims to provide an analysis and an assessment of the current operations’ performance effectiveness at Nobel Biocare’s production plant in Karlskoga, Sweden and to describe the potential for improvement. It intends to clarify the importance of performance measurement and explain Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) metrics in particular.Furthermore, it strives to identify causes for inefficiency in production and suggest recommendations to minimize losses.</p><p><em>Methodology:</em> the study is using both qualitative and quantitative approaches in parallel as measurements are implemented to discover effectiveness rates and detect causes for production losses while assessments are made using different models, such as the Capability Maturity Model(CMM) and OEE assessments, in order to evaluate the current development level and the potential for improvement.</p><p><em>Findings:</em> the research finds that major losses are closely related to frequency of changeovers in machining processes, where average effectiveness rates were 68%. In surface treatment and packaging equipment inspected, the values were found to be between 46% and 59% as the major common cause was the absence of work due to unstable flow of orders. Assessing process orientation and maturity levels, the findings indicate on high levels in general. However, areas of weakness were identified in the different processes in which the potential for improvement is embedded. In those areas, lower OEE values were registered; low levels of maturity and process orientation were found, as low development of losses improvement were assessed. The study finally suggests that the areas of weakness suffer from lack of learning orientation that is ought to be improved and at the same time, a variety of specific recommendations are provided.</p>

<p>Purpose:this thesis study aims to provide an analysis and an assessment of the current operations’ performance effectiveness at Nobel Biocare’s production plant in Karlskoga, Sweden and to describe the potential for improvement. It intends to clarify the importance of performance measurement and explain Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) metrics in particular. Furthermore, it strives to identify causes for inefficiency in production and suggest recommendations to minimize losses.</p><p>Methodology: the study is using both qualitative and quantitative approaches in parallel as measurements are implemented to discover effectiveness rates and detect causes for production losses while assessments are made using different models, such as the Capability Maturity Model(CMM) and OEE assessments, in order to evaluate the current development level and the potential for improvement.</p><p>Findings: the research finds that major losses are closely related to frequency of changeovers in machining processes, where average effectiveness rates were 68%. In surface treatment and packaging equipment inspected, the values were found to be between 46% and 59% as the major common cause was the absence of work due to unstable flow of orders. Assessing process orientation and maturity levels, the findings indicate on high levels in general. However, areas of weakness were identified in the different processes in which the potential for improvement is embedded. In those areas, lower OEE values were registered; low levels of maturity and process orientation were found, as low development of losses improvement were assessed. The study finally suggests that the areas of weakness suffer from lack of learning orientation that is ought to be improved and at the same time, a variety of specific recommendations are provided.</p>