Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Water presence is one of the major causes of pathological manifestations in mortar coatings. Such problem endangers the material durability, and the protection ability of these coatings, thus allowing early degradation of materials and structures. On the other hand, the use of waterproofing treatment promises to solve this issue, creating a barrier to water penetration. However, few non-commercial studies are found on this matter, even rarer are the researches that focus on ready-to-use mortars. Therefore, the present study sought to analyze 36h and 72h ready-to-use mortars produced in the city of Santa Maria with and without the application of crystallizing treatment to evaluate these mortars performance. The methods consisted in evaluating the fresh and hardened characteristics of these materials. At the end of the experiments, it was concluded that the 36h mortar showed superior performance in comparison to the 72h mortar and although the application of crystallizing treatments did not waterproof the mortars, it did contributed to reduce their water absorption, abrasion resistance and improve vapor permeability. / A presença da água é uma das principais causas para o aparecimento e disseminação de manifestações patológicas em revestimentos argamassados. Tal problema põe em risco a capacidade de proteção desses revestimentos e, em consequência, a durabilidade, permitindo assim a degradação precoce de materiais e estruturas. Por outro lado, a utilização de aditivos impermeabilizantes promete solucionar essa questão, criando uma barreira à penetração de água. No entanto, poucos estudos - não comerciais - são encontrados sobre a utilização de agentes cristalizantes em materiais cimentícios, mais raro ainda pesquisas de sua utilização em argamassas comuns ou estabilizadas. Diante disso, a presente pesquisa analisou argamassas estabilizadas de 36h e 72h produzidas em Santa Maria com e sem a adição de tratamentos cristalizantes para verificar seu desempenho. Os métodos empregados consistiram na avaliação das características no estado fresco e endurecido desses materiais. Ao fim da bateria de ensaios, se pode concluir que as argamassas de 36h apresentaram desempenho superior ao das argamassas de 72h e a aplicação dos tratamentos cristalizantes, apesar de não tornarem as argamassas impermeáveis, contribuíram para a redução de absorção de água, a resistência ao desgaste e a permeabilidade ao vapor.

L’analyse des processus de création de l’écrivain américain William Burroughs et de l’artiste brésilien Cildo Meireles construit deux figures exemplaires de l’artiste en tant que sujet politique. Les choix faits par ces deux artistes pendant le processus de réalisation de leurs œuvres déclarent en effet leur position face à la littérature, à l’art et à la réalité. Ils les construisent en tant que sujets-artistes et produisent des rencontres qui (re) configurent l’espace artistique. Ils renouvellent les pratiques de création. Nous étudions ces processus avec pour outils différentes notions théoriques. Outre celle de la politique, qui, selon Jacques Rancière, est le processus de l’égalité ; celle du sujet, définie par Alain Badiou, comme une construction qui se produit quand un événement arrive ; et celle de choix qui, selon Slavoj Zizek, ne laisse pas intacte la subjectivité du sujet. Nous essayons ainsi de définir le caractère politique des choix faits par ces deux artistes et de mettre en évidence l’idée de l’art et de la politique que leurs œuvres mobilisent.Nous étudions le processus de création de Burroughs, de son premier roman jusqu’à la découverte du cut-up et l’écriture de son texte Last Words. Nous analysons le processus de création des œuvres de Meireles : Insertions dans les circuits idéologiques, œuvre qui se constitue dans un processus en marche ; et Le sermon sur la montagne : Fiat lux. Construction d’une situation : transformation d’un espace en une bombe potentielle.Malgré leurs différences, ces œuvres ont une procédure de réalisation similaire, une sorte de travail tabulaire, de collage d’éléments hétérogènes. / The analysis of the creation process of both Americain writer Willam Burroughs and Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles construct two exemplary figures of the artist as political subject. The choices made by these artistes during the process of realization of their works declare indeed their position on literature, art and reality. Their choices construct them as artists-subjects and produce encounters that (re) configure the art space. They renew the creative practices. We study these processes with some theoretical tools: such as the notion of politics which according to Jacques Rancière, is the process of equality; the notion of subject, defined by Alain Badiou as a construction that is produced when an event happens; and the notions of choice which, according to Slavoj Zizek, does not leave intact the subjectivity of the subject. Thus we try to define the political nature of the choices made by these artists and to highlight the idea of art and politics that their works mobilize. We study the process of creation of Burroughs, from his first novel until his discovery of cut-up technique and the writing of his text Last Words. We analyze the process of creation of Meireles’s works: Insertions into Ideological Circuits, a work that is established as a running process and The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux that is the construction of a situation. It is the transformation of a space into a potential bomb. Despite their differences these works have a similar implementations procedures a kind of a tabular work, a collage of heterogeneous elements.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what effect COVID-19 has had on the buyer-supplier relationship (BSR) in the ready-made garment (RMG) supply chain (SC) - focusing mainly on the Bangladeshi supplier point of view, but with a complementary perspective of the buyer. As the area is new and relatively unexplored, there is a gap in previous literature and research. It has not previously been studied how COVID-19 affected the relationship between buyer and supplier in the RMG SC. This study aims to narrow this gap. In this study, a qualitative research strategy was adopted, emphasizing words rather than quantification in the data collection and analysis. An inductive approach was used, starting from collecting data, where theories and literature are proposed towards the end of the research process as a result of interviews. A narrative state of the art review of literature was conducted to provide a comprehensive and unbiased review. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with Bangladeshi supplier managers were conducted over Zoom or Teams. The empirical data were coded in first-order concepts, second-order concepts, and aggregate level through the qualitative research program Nvivo. Four main second-order concepts could be identified from the interviews with the supplier side. The codes and empirical data were then analyzed through a developed analysis model based on the Conceptual Model of Social Capital. The effects that COVID-19 has had on BSR from a Bangladeshi supplier perspective are discussed and presented.

This master’s thesis deals with an influence of physical properties and machining technology at adjustment to the basic composition granules and production of technical ceramics. Selected series of experiments have been applied to the different phases of production. Composition of the granules vary according to the used plasticizer and ranks to RTP (ready-to-press) materials. The goal of this thesis is recomendation to the production of RTP granules and next experiments.

No description available.

This study explores employee welfare and working conditions in relation to ethical HRM practices from the employees’ perspective in the Bangladeshi Ready-Made Garment (RMG) sector. This research is inspired by the need to understand the challenges that employees face in their practical work settings and the unfair Human Resource Management (HRM) process that they experience in their work. The interpretivist philosophical approach and the qualitative research approach have been adopted in this research study, while the semi-structured interview method has been applied for primary-data collection. A total of 25 semi-structured interviews with General Employees, Informal Representative Leaders, Employees, Middle and Senior Managers have been undertaken in this process. Five focus-group discussions have also been applied to corroborate the data generated from the 25 semi-structured interviews. The case-study strategy has also been implemented as a research strategy and thematic analysis has been applied to the data-analysis process. The findings of this research study show the need for deeper understanding and application of ethical HRM practices in particular national and sectoral contexts, specifically in the Bangladeshi RMG sector. These ethical HRM practices include, but are not limited to, the initiation of rights-based understanding and respect-based perception, the inclusion of welfare facilities, the implementation of a fair payment policy, the equitable recruitment and selection policy, and the initiation and equality of training and development facilities. These new ethical understandings contribute to the field of ethical HRM in the context of the development of employee welfare and decent working conditions in this sector.

Listeriosis caused by Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) has been of public concern since the 1980s. Among all the RTE food, deli meats are the major carrier for this pathogen. Eliminating or lowering the initial level of L. monocytogenes in RTE meat and poultry product in the plants is an important practice in reducing the risk of L. monocytogenes to the public due to the growth potential of L. monocytogenes in the RTE food product during storage. Research identifying the contamination at plants provided information for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to establish the Interim Final Rule, requiring the food processing plants that produce post-lethality exposed RTE meat and poultry product choose one of the three alternative plans to ensure good sanitation conditions during food processing or suppress the growth of L. monocytogenes during storage: post-processing treatment and use of growth inhibitor (Alternative1), post-processing alone (Alternative 2a) or use of growth inhibitor and sanitation program (Alternative 2b), and sanitation program alone (Alternative 3). This research developed a comprehensive model that simulated the entire processes of RTE food production, taking into account potential transfer and growth of L. monocytogenes in RTE meat and poultry products. This plant-to-consumption model analyzed the effectiveness of the three alternative processes on reducing the L. monocytogenes in the RTE food products and also investigated the optimal sampling and sanitizing program. Results showed that formulation of food products with growth inhibitor has the greatest impact on reducing the risk of L. monocytogenes, followed by the post-processing treatment and sanitation intervention. Risk can also be reduced depending on alternatives. For example, 70% reduction if all are switched to alternative 2b and 91% reduction if all are switched to Alternative 1, compared with the current alternative selection by food establishments. This study investigated several important factors in the sanitation program, analyzed the sensitivities of these factors, and proposed the reasonable improvement of the hold-and-test strategies by the plant-to-consumer mathematic model. Holding all the lots during the food contact surface (FCS) testing period instead of holding lots after finding the positive FCS would increase the detection rate of positive lots by three "times. These results may help the food establishments under Alternative 3 choosing the proper sampling and sanitation program or switching to Alternative 1 or 2. / Ph. D.

Dispossession has been playing a central role in capitalist accumulation over the last four-hundred-year history of modern capitalism. This dissertation theorizes how dispossession contributes to producing and reproducing the capitalist mode of production in Bangladesh. To do so, the dissertation empirically examines three interrelated aspects of dispossession in its three analytical chapters. First, it explores how the state and the market work in tandem to organize and control dispossession while grabbing land and expelling peasants from their places. Next, it investigates how dispossession contributes to providing 'potential capitals,' such as grabbed land and dispossessed peasants, to the production sites to be converted into 'constant capital' and 'variable capital' and to creating antagonistic class relations. Finally, it explores how market and non-market actors control those dispossessed peasants-turned-workers inside and outside factories to produce surplus values in order to reproduce the capitalist system locally and globally. These three interactive components of dispossession show three successive phases of capitalist accumulation: land-grabbing by divorcing independent producers from their livelihoods (the initial phase), converting land into capital, peasants into wage workers, and non-capitalists into capitalists (the intermediate phase), and controlling and exploiting those wage workers to produce surpluses or a cycle of new capital (the final phase). This dissertation accordingly advances a full-scale theory of dispossession in its concluding chapter by examining how the starting, intermediate, and ending points of dispossession contribute to capitalist accumulation. The dissertation draws on a wide range of empirical evidence collected from Panthapath, Dhaka, Bangladesh. These include 77 life histories, 50 interviews, a land-use survey of 1,007 structures, and a short survey of 147 slums. It also uses various historical records and archival documents. The three major findings of this dissertation are as follows. First, the dissertation shows that the state acts as a class to organize land grabs, often working in tandem with the private sector, but also in direct competition with the market. Not only does the state monopolize extra-economic means to grab land, but the market also often gains access to extra-economic means. Next, the dissertation shows that dispossession works to privatize the commons, proletarianize subsistence labor, create antagonistic class relations, and redistribute wealth upward. Finally, the dissertation identifies a new regime of labor control, called social despotism, that dominates and exploits workers in factories to produce surpluses. I conclude this study with policy recommendations designed to address the various dimensions of structural injustice described in this dissertation. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation theorizes how dispossession contributes to producing and reproducing the capitalist mode of production in Bangladesh. In its three analytical chapters, the dissertation empirically examines three interrelated aspects of dispossession. First, it explores how the state and the market work in tandem to organize and control dispossession while grabbing land and expelling peasants from their places. Next, it investigates how dispossession contributes to providing grabbed land and dispossessed peasants to the production sites and to creating various class hierarchies. Finally, it explores how market and non-market actors control peasants-turned-workers inside and outside factories to produce surplus values in order to reproduce the capitalist system. These three interactive components of dispossession show three successive phases of capitalist accumulation: land-grabbing by evicting peasants from their places (phase 1), converting land into capital, peasants into wage workers, and non-capitalists into capitalists (phase 2), and exploiting wage workers to produce surpluses (phase 3). This dissertation accordingly advances a full-scale theory of dispossession in its concluding chapter by examining how the starting, intermediate, and ending points of dispossession contribute to capitalist accumulation. The dissertation draws on a wide range of empirical evidence collected from Panthapath, Dhaka, Bangladesh. These include 77 life histories, 50 interviews, a land-use survey of 1,007 structures, and a short survey of 147 slums. It also uses various historical records and archival documents. Some of the major findings of this dissertation are as follows. First, the dissertation shows that the state acts as a class to organize land grabs, often working in tandem with the private sector, but also in direct competition with the market. Not only does the state monopolize extra-economic means to grab land, but the market also often gains access to extra-economic means. Next, the dissertation shows that dispossession works to privatize the commons, proletarianize subsistence labor, create exploitative class relations, and redistribute wealth upward. Finally, the dissertation identifies a new regime of labor control, called social despotism, that oppresses and exploits workers in factories to produce surpluses.

<p dir="ltr"> Nowadays, inkjet printers are widely used all around the world. But how do they transfer the digital image to a map that can control nozzle firing? In this preliminary report, we briefly illustrate that part of the printing pipeline that starts from a halftone image and ends with Hardware Ready Bits (HRBs). We also describe the implementation of the multi-pass printing method with a designed print mask. HRBs are used to read an input halftone CMY image and output a binary map of each color to decide whether or not to eject the corresponding coloranr drop at each pixel position. In general, for an inkjet printer, each row of the image corresponds to one specific nozzle in each swath so that each swath will be the height of the printhead \cite{torpey1997multipass}. To avoid visible white streaks due to clogged or burned out color nozzles, the method called multi-pass printing is implemented. Subsequently, the print mask is introduced so that we can decide during which pass each pixel should be printed. Once we figure out how to transfer the digital image to our printing signals. We start to think about improving the color performance for the inkjet printer. In one of our previous papers \cite{wang2020developing}, we described the color management pipeline that was applied to our nail inkjet printer, which is used to map the source gamut to the destination printer gamut. However, the resulting prints are not as vivid as we would like to have, since those prints are not well saturated. To obtain more saturated prints, we propose a saturation enhancement method based on image segmentation and hue angle. This method will not necessarily give us the closest representation of the colors within the input image but could give us more saturated prints. The main idea of our saturation enhancement method is to keep the lightness and hue constant, while stretching the chroma component.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr"> In one of our previous papers \cite{hu2021improving}, we mostly focused on the color saturation problem in our inkjet printer. However, our partner reported that there are some boundary noise pixels on the background, which are quite visible when the background is white. By checking the pipeline of our printing procedure, we realized that the noise stray dots are generated during the halftoning procedure. This part of the dissertation is dedicated to separating the white background from the foreground, which enables us to constrain the error diffusion process inside the white background. The main idea is to apply image segmentation, which could help us to precisely extract the background.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr"> Lastly, inspired by the paper \cite{smith2023chiral}, we decided to design an aperiodic clustered-dot screen, which may have better performance compared to the current DBS screen. This screen generation method is offline, so the time cost is not our main consideration. The output halftone result is what we concentrate on. This screen is generated based on a polygon shape, which is called tile(1,1) defined by the paper \cite{smith2023chiral}. We keep extending this single polygon shape to obtain the combination aperiodic shape that is called a supertile. After obtaining the final supertile, we assigned each tile(1,1) shape to either a dot or a hole based on the complementary symmetry property. Finally, based on some interpolation methods, we generate the threshold matrix. </p>

Dados mundiais apontam haver uma associação entre o aumento do comércio de vegetais minimamente processados prontos para o consumo (VPC) e o aumento da ocorrência de surtos de enfermidades transmitidas por alimentos. Durante o processamento industrial de VPC, a desinfecção é a principal etapa de inativação de micro-organismos patogênicos presentes, mas nessa etapa também pode ocorrer contaminação cruzada, com transferência de contaminantes de produtos contaminados para não-contaminados. Neste trabalho, foram coletadas informações sobre as práticas empregadas na etapa de desinfecção em dez importantes indústrias produtoras de VPC no Estado de São Paulo, avaliando-se, em seguida, a influência dessas práticas na qualidade microbiológica dos produtos e na inativação de Salmonella Typhimurium, bem como na ocorrência de contaminação cruzada por este patógeno. Um modelo de avaliação quantitativa de risco microbiológico foi elaborado para estimar o impacto da contaminação cruzada durante a etapa de desinfecção no risco de infecção por Salmonella devido ao consumo de VPC. Observou-se que, em todas as indústrias visitadas, a desinfecção dos vegetais era feita com produtos à base de cloro em concentrações de 50 a 240 mg/L, que resultava em redução de até 1,2 log na carga microbiana dos vegetais que entravam na linha de processamento. Ao avaliar a influência das características da água de processamento (pH, temperatura, concentração de matéria orgânica e concentração de dicloroisocianurato de sódio) e do tempo de contato entre a água clorada e os vegetais na redução de Salmonella, observou-se que a concentração do produto à base de cloro foi o parâmetro que apresentou maior influência (p<0.05). Concentrações de dicloroisocianurato de sódio acima de 10 mg/L foram necessárias para controle da contaminação cruzada durante a etapa de lavagem. O modelo de avaliação de risco construído indicou quantitativamente haver uma relação entre a concentração de dicloroisocianurato de sódio na água de desinfecção e o risco de ocorrência de surtos causados por Salmonella em VPC. Cenários simulando uso de dicloroisocianurato de sódio em concentrações abaixo de 5 mg/L indicaram que mais de 96% dos casos preditos de infecção por Salmonella poderiam ser atribuídos à ocorrência de contaminação cruzada, enquanto que em cenários com concentrações acima de 50 mg/L, casos de infecção devidos à contaminação cruzada não foram preditos. Estes resultados mostram que o controle da qualidade da água e o monitoramento da concentração de sanitizante na etapa de desinfecção são essenciais para evitar a ocorrência de contaminação cruzada e garantir a produção de VPC seguros para o consumo. / Surveillance data in several countries show an association between consumption of minimally processed ready-to-eat (RTE) vegetables and increased occurrence of foodborne diseases outbreaks. During RTE vegetables processing, washing-disinfection is the main step aiming to ensure inactivation of pathogenic microorganisms, but also is the step in which cross-contamination may occur, with transfer of contaminants from contaminated to non-contaminated products. In this study, we collected information on the practices employed during the washing-disinfection step in ten RTE vegetables processing plants located in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and evaluated the influence of these washing practices on the microbial quality of the products and inactivation of Salmonella Typhimurium, as well as on the occurrence of cross-contamination by this pathogen. A quantitative microbial risk assessment model was built in order to estimate the impact of cross-contamination during the washing step on the risk of infection by Salmonella due to the consumption of RTE vegetables. In all visited processing plants, the disinfection step was done using chlorine-based products, in concentrations ranging from 50 to 240 mg/L, achieving a reduction of up to 1.2 log in the microbial load of vegetables entering the processing line. When the influence of washing water parameters (pH, temperature, organic load and sodium dichloroisocyanurate concentration) and time of contact between chlorinated water and vegetables on reduction of Salmonella were evaluated, sodium dichloroisocyanurate concentration influenced the most (p<0.05). Concentrations above 10 mg/L were necessary for avoiding cross-contamination during washing step. The risk assessment model indicated quantitatively a relationship between sodium dichloroisocyanurate concentration and the risk of illness caused by Salmonella in RTE vegetables. When simulation was done with less than 5 mg/L of sodium dichloroisocyanurate, most (>96%) of the illnesses arose from cross-contamination. However, when the concentration was 50 mg/L or higher, no illnesses arising from cross-contamination were predicted. These results show that controlling the quality of the water and monitoring the concentration of the sanitizer in the disinfection step are essential to avoid occurrence of cross contamination and ensure production of RTE vegetables that are safe for consumption.