Background: Even though the fashion industry has grown to become one of the most digitized and consumed industries in the world, it seems to be an issue for physical fashion companies to break through within ecommerce. This is due to the lack of ability for physical companies to adapt to the digital development and the changing customer behavior prevailing on the internet. E-commerce has gone from selling goods and comparing prices online, to provide valuecreating experiences for customers. As a result, the competition has drastically increased, which makes the customer able to easily move and choose between a variety of e-commerce platforms. As an increased understanding of customer experience in e-commerce can provide profit-sharing competitive advantages, it is important for physical fashion companies to take customer preferences into account. Purpose: The aim of this study is to generate an understanding of valuecreating activities in e-commerce and what customers value on ecommerce platforms. Methodology: This thesis is based on a qualitative research strategy with an abductive research approach. The empirical material has been collected by means of semi-structured interviews and observations with seven respondents in the ages between 19 and 40 years. Conclusion: Based on the results of the study, it is necessary for fashion companies to maintain an utilitarian and hedonic approach to generate value-creating activities. The conclusions indicate that the utilitarian activities should be designed in a standardized manner, while the hedonic activities rather should keep an unique and distinctive approach.

O crescente aumento do volume de tráfego, o excesso de cargas e a carência de manutenção têm contribuído cada vez mais para a degradação prematura dos pavimentos asfálticos. Na procura por materiais de elevado desempenho, uma alternativa que vem ganhando destaque é a incorporação de cal hidratada a concretos asfálticos. Nesta dissertação apresentam-se e analisam-se os resultados de uma investigação sobre a influência de dois tipos de cal (calcítica e dolomítica) em misturas asfálticas formuladas com ligante convencional e polimerizado. Os resultados demonstraram que a melhoria das propriedades de concretos asfálticos depende significativamente da qualidade da cal e do teor utilizado, sendo que não se observaram benefícios adicionais ao aumentar-se o teor de 1% para 2%. A cal calcítica mostrou-se mais eficiente na melhoria das propriedades das misturas asfálticas, proporcionando aumentos significativos de módulo de resiliência e resistência à tração. Além disso, nas misturas com cal ocorreram menores reduções de resistência e de módulo com a elevação da temperatura de ensaio e após processo de condicionamento para simular os efeitos deletérios da água e envelhecimento. De forma geral, a influência da cal foi mais efetiva em misturas com ligante convencional, onde sua incorporação promoveu comportamento semelhante, ou em alguns casos até superior, ao das misturas elaboradas com ligante modificado. Amostras sem cal acumularam deformações permanentes superiores no ensaio de creep dinâmico às registradas em amostras com cal hidratada, sem observarem-se comportamentos significativamente diferentes com ligantes convencional ou modificado. Ao analisar-se a influência de cal no envelhecimento de ligantes (RTFOT), observaram-se menores variações de viscosidade (menor enrijecimento) em amostras de ligante convencional com cal calcítica, seguindo tendência constatada em trabalhos internacionais, que relatam redução na taxa de envelhecimento em misturas asfálticas devido à incorporação de cal. A análise global dos resultados de ensaios realizados nesta pesquisa aponta que é possível produzir misturas asfálticas de elevado desempenho e durabilidade através da incorporação de cal hidratada, mas que a magnitude dos benefícios obtidos depende significativamente da qualidade da cal (porcentagem de óxido de cálcio) e do tipo de ligante utilizados em sua formulação. / The increasing growth of traffic volume and overloading and the lack of maintenance have growingly contributed for asphalt pavements early distress. In the search for high performance materials, the incorporation of hydrated lime to asphalt concretes has been gaining relevance. In this dissertation the results of a research on the influence of two kinds of lime (calcitic and dolomitic) in asphalt concretes (AC) with conventional and polymer binders are presented and analyzed. Laboratory tests results show that the improvement of AC properties highly depend on lime quality and content, no additional benefits being observed when lime content increases from 1% to 2%. Calcitic lime showed to be more efficient improving AC properties, especially regarding resilient modulus and split tensile strength, which significantly increased. Besides, adding lime made asphalt mixes strength and modulus less sensitive to temperature increase and also to hardening and to water deleterious effects. All in all, lime benefits were stronger when added to AC with conventional binder. In fact, asphalt mixtures with conventional binder and calcitic lime performed even better than mixtures with polymermodified binder. In dynamic creep tests, specimens of AC without lime accumulated higher permanent deformations than AC specimens with hydrated lime, regardless the type of binder. Regarding the influence of lime in binders aging (RTFOT), viscosity variations of lesser magnitude were observed in samples of conventional binder and calcitic lime, following the pattern described in international works, which report the decrease of aging rate of asphalt mixtures due to lime incorporation. Globally, tests results point out that asphalt mixtures with high modulus and resistance to permanent deformation may be obtained by adding hydrated lime. However, the extent of benefits highly depends on lime quality (calcium oxide content) and type of asphalt binder used.

This master’s thesis project consists of two parts. Part I of the project compares modeling of historical resource production and forecasting of future production trends using the logit/probit transform advocated by Rutledge (2011) with conventional Hubbert curve fitting, using global coal production as a case study. The conventional Hubbert/Gaussian method fits a curve to historical production data whereas a logit/probit transform uses a linear fit to a subset of transformed production data. Within the errors and limitations inherent in this type of statistical modeling, these methods provide comparable results. That is, despite that apparent goodness-of-fit achievable using the Logit/Probit methodology, neither approach provides a significant advantage over the other in either explaining the observed data or in making future projections. For mature production regions, those that have already substantially passed peak production, results obtained by either method are closely comparable and reasonable, and estimates of ultimately recoverable resources obtained by either method are consistent with geologically estimated reserves. In contrast, for immature regions, estimates of ultimately recoverable resources generated by either of these alternative methods are unstable and thus, need to be used with caution. Although the logit/probit transform generates high quality-of-fit correspondence with historical production data, this approach provides no new information compared to conventional Gaussian or Hubbert-type models and may have the effect of masking the noise and/or instability in the data and the derived fits. In particular, production forecasts for immature or marginally mature production systems based on either method need to be regarded with considerable caution. Part II of the project investigates the utility of a novel alternative method for multicyclic Hubbert modeling tentatively termed “cycle-jumping” wherein overlap of multiple cycles is limited. The model is designed in a way that each cycle is described by the same three parameters as conventional multicyclic Hubbert model and every two cycles are connected with a transition width. Transition width indicates the shift from one cycle to the next and is described as weighted coaddition of neighboring two cycles. It is determined by three parameters: transition year, transition width, and γ parameter for weighting. The cycle-jumping method provides superior model compared to the conventional multicyclic Hubbert model and reflects historical production behavior more reasonably and practically, by better modeling of the effects of technological transitions and socioeconomic factors that affect historical resource production behavior by explicitly considering the form of the transitions between production cycles.

A produção do agronegócio brasileiro se faz competitiva em escala. No mercado mundial vendemos commodities e compramos produtos processados de maior valor agregado, despendendo recursos naturais e verba pública para gerar pouca riqueza para o país. É sabido que, nos últimos anos vem ocorrendo incremento da atividade aquícola nacional, mas apesar disso, a produção de pescado ainda apresenta cadeias produtivas pouco organizadas. Neste trabalho sugere-se o pirarucu como espécie de pescado apta a apresentar cadeia produtiva de produtos competitivos no mercado nacional de pescado de maior valor agregado. Foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas em 22 atores da cadeia produtiva do pirarucu cultivado, resultando em mais de 13 horas de diálogo para compreensão de quem são os atores, quais são os gargalos e quais são as potencialidades de um produto de alto valor agregado à base de pirarucu. Objetivando responder se partes nobres do peixe podem ser competitivas enquanto produto premium, as respostas foram categorizadas em: atores da cadeia produtiva, gargalos na produção, gargalos no mercado, potencialidades intrínsecas e potencialidades extrínsecas do produto. A conclusão alcançada foi que produtos de pirarucu (como filé e lombo congelados e embalados em pequenas porções) são produtos nobres e podem se tornar competitivos no nicho de mercado de pescado premium, caso seus gargalos sejam superados, uma vez que apresentam potencialidades intrínsecas e extrínsecas de grande valor para o consumidor. / Brazilian agribusiness is competitive in scale. We sell commodities and buy processed value added products, spending natural resources and public money doing this. In recent years there has a increase in the national aquaculture activity, but despite this, fish production still presents disorganized supply chain. In this work suggested that pirarucu is a fish capable to have competitive products in the national premium fish market. Were conducted semi-structured interviews in 22 players of the cultivated pirarucu supply chain production, resulting in more than 13 hours of dialogue to understand who the players are, what the constraints are, and what the potentialities are. In order to answer the question of whether the premium fish can be competitive as a product, the answers were categorized as: players, constraints in the production, constraints in the market, intrinsic potentialities and extrinsic potentialities. The conclusion reached was that pirarucu products (such as frozen fillet and loin) are premium products and can become competitive in the niche market of value-added fish, if their constraints are overcome, since they have intrinsic potentialities and extrinsic values to the consumer.

The most common type of confirmatory trial is a randomised trial comparing the experimental treatment of interest to a control treatment. Confirmatory trials are expensive and take a lot of time in the planning, set up and recruitment of patients. Efficient methodology in clinical trial design is critical to save both time and money and allow treatments to become available to patients quickly. Often there are data available on the control treatment from a previous trial. These historical data are often used to design new trials, forming the basis of sample size calculations, but are not used in the analysis of the new trial. Incorporating historical control data into the design and analysis could potentially lead to more efficient trials. When the historical and current control data agree, incorporating historical control data could reduce the number of control patients required in the current trial and therefore the duration of the trial, or increase the precision of parameter estimates. However, when the historical and current data are inconsistent, there is a potential for biased treatment effect estimates, inflated type I error and reduced power. We propose two novel weights to assess agreement between the current and historical control data: a probability weight based on tail area probabilities; and a weight based on the equivalence of the historical and current control data parameters. For binary outcome data, agreement is assessed using the posterior distributions of the response probability in the historical and current control data. For normally distributed outcome data, agreement is assessed using the marginal posterior distributions of the difference in means and the ratio of the variances of the current and historical control data. We consider an adaptive design with an interim analysis. At the interim, the agreement between the historical and current control data is assessed using the probability or equivalence probability weight approach. The allocation ratio is adapted to randomise fewer patients to control when there is agreement and revert back to a standard trial design when there is disagreement. The final analysis is Bayesian utilising the analysis approach of the power prior with a fixed weight. The operating characteristics of the proposed design are explored and we show how the equivalence bounds can be chosen at the design stage of the current study to control the maximum inflation in type I error. We then consider a design where a treatment arm is added to an ongoing clinical trial. For many disease areas, there are often treatments in different stages of the development process. We consider the design of a two-arm parallel group trial where it is planned to add a new treatment arm during the trial. This could potentially save money, patients, time and resources. The addition of a treatment arm creates a multiple comparison problem. Dunnett (1955) proposed a design that controls the family-wise error rate when comparing multiple experimental treatments to control and determined the optimal allocation ratio. We have calculated the correlation between test statistics for the method proposed by Dunnett when a treatment arm is added during the trial and only concurrent controls are used for each treatment comparison. We propose an adaptive design where the sample size of all treatment arms are increased to control the family-wise error rate. We explore adapting the allocation ratio once the new treatment arm is added to maximise the overall power of the trial.

Aggregate demand is influenced by the functional income distribution of an economy and that of its trading partners. This relationship between income distribution and output is analyzed in a short-run two-country Neo-Kaleckian model. The effects of devaluation and redistribution are discussed in detail. Trade and redistribution within one country interact and output increases or decreases with changes in either depending on the specific distributional and exchange rate movements. The Marshall-Lerner condition is shown to be equivalent to the assumption of expansionary devaluation. If devaluation increases output, national redistribution policy toward wage earners is also more likely to be expansionary. (author's abstract) / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

A produção do agronegócio brasileiro se faz competitiva em escala. No mercado mundial vendemos commodities e compramos produtos processados de maior valor agregado, despendendo recursos naturais e verba pública para gerar pouca riqueza para o país. É sabido que, nos últimos anos vem ocorrendo incremento da atividade aquícola nacional, mas apesar disso, a produção de pescado ainda apresenta cadeias produtivas pouco organizadas. Neste trabalho sugere-se o pirarucu como espécie de pescado apta a apresentar cadeia produtiva de produtos competitivos no mercado nacional de pescado de maior valor agregado. Foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas em 22 atores da cadeia produtiva do pirarucu cultivado, resultando em mais de 13 horas de diálogo para compreensão de quem são os atores, quais são os gargalos e quais são as potencialidades de um produto de alto valor agregado à base de pirarucu. Objetivando responder se partes nobres do peixe podem ser competitivas enquanto produto premium, as respostas foram categorizadas em: atores da cadeia produtiva, gargalos na produção, gargalos no mercado, potencialidades intrínsecas e potencialidades extrínsecas do produto. A conclusão alcançada foi que produtos de pirarucu (como filé e lombo congelados e embalados em pequenas porções) são produtos nobres e podem se tornar competitivos no nicho de mercado de pescado premium, caso seus gargalos sejam superados, uma vez que apresentam potencialidades intrínsecas e extrínsecas de grande valor para o consumidor. / Brazilian agribusiness is competitive in scale. We sell commodities and buy processed value added products, spending natural resources and public money doing this. In recent years there has a increase in the national aquaculture activity, but despite this, fish production still presents disorganized supply chain. In this work suggested that pirarucu is a fish capable to have competitive products in the national premium fish market. Were conducted semi-structured interviews in 22 players of the cultivated pirarucu supply chain production, resulting in more than 13 hours of dialogue to understand who the players are, what the constraints are, and what the potentialities are. In order to answer the question of whether the premium fish can be competitive as a product, the answers were categorized as: players, constraints in the production, constraints in the market, intrinsic potentialities and extrinsic potentialities. The conclusion reached was that pirarucu products (such as frozen fillet and loin) are premium products and can become competitive in the niche market of value-added fish, if their constraints are overcome, since they have intrinsic potentialities and extrinsic values to the consumer.

O crescente aumento do volume de tráfego, o excesso de cargas e a carência de manutenção têm contribuído cada vez mais para a degradação prematura dos pavimentos asfálticos. Na procura por materiais de elevado desempenho, uma alternativa que vem ganhando destaque é a incorporação de cal hidratada a concretos asfálticos. Nesta dissertação apresentam-se e analisam-se os resultados de uma investigação sobre a influência de dois tipos de cal (calcítica e dolomítica) em misturas asfálticas formuladas com ligante convencional e polimerizado. Os resultados demonstraram que a melhoria das propriedades de concretos asfálticos depende significativamente da qualidade da cal e do teor utilizado, sendo que não se observaram benefícios adicionais ao aumentar-se o teor de 1% para 2%. A cal calcítica mostrou-se mais eficiente na melhoria das propriedades das misturas asfálticas, proporcionando aumentos significativos de módulo de resiliência e resistência à tração. Além disso, nas misturas com cal ocorreram menores reduções de resistência e de módulo com a elevação da temperatura de ensaio e após processo de condicionamento para simular os efeitos deletérios da água e envelhecimento. De forma geral, a influência da cal foi mais efetiva em misturas com ligante convencional, onde sua incorporação promoveu comportamento semelhante, ou em alguns casos até superior, ao das misturas elaboradas com ligante modificado. Amostras sem cal acumularam deformações permanentes superiores no ensaio de creep dinâmico às registradas em amostras com cal hidratada, sem observarem-se comportamentos significativamente diferentes com ligantes convencional ou modificado. Ao analisar-se a influência de cal no envelhecimento de ligantes (RTFOT), observaram-se menores variações de viscosidade (menor enrijecimento) em amostras de ligante convencional com cal calcítica, seguindo tendência constatada em trabalhos internacionais, que relatam redução na taxa de envelhecimento em misturas asfálticas devido à incorporação de cal. A análise global dos resultados de ensaios realizados nesta pesquisa aponta que é possível produzir misturas asfálticas de elevado desempenho e durabilidade através da incorporação de cal hidratada, mas que a magnitude dos benefícios obtidos depende significativamente da qualidade da cal (porcentagem de óxido de cálcio) e do tipo de ligante utilizados em sua formulação. / The increasing growth of traffic volume and overloading and the lack of maintenance have growingly contributed for asphalt pavements early distress. In the search for high performance materials, the incorporation of hydrated lime to asphalt concretes has been gaining relevance. In this dissertation the results of a research on the influence of two kinds of lime (calcitic and dolomitic) in asphalt concretes (AC) with conventional and polymer binders are presented and analyzed. Laboratory tests results show that the improvement of AC properties highly depend on lime quality and content, no additional benefits being observed when lime content increases from 1% to 2%. Calcitic lime showed to be more efficient improving AC properties, especially regarding resilient modulus and split tensile strength, which significantly increased. Besides, adding lime made asphalt mixes strength and modulus less sensitive to temperature increase and also to hardening and to water deleterious effects. All in all, lime benefits were stronger when added to AC with conventional binder. In fact, asphalt mixtures with conventional binder and calcitic lime performed even better than mixtures with polymermodified binder. In dynamic creep tests, specimens of AC without lime accumulated higher permanent deformations than AC specimens with hydrated lime, regardless the type of binder. Regarding the influence of lime in binders aging (RTFOT), viscosity variations of lesser magnitude were observed in samples of conventional binder and calcitic lime, following the pattern described in international works, which report the decrease of aging rate of asphalt mixtures due to lime incorporation. Globally, tests results point out that asphalt mixtures with high modulus and resistance to permanent deformation may be obtained by adding hydrated lime. However, the extent of benefits highly depends on lime quality (calcium oxide content) and type of asphalt binder used.

O crescente aumento do volume de tráfego, o excesso de cargas e a carência de manutenção têm contribuído cada vez mais para a degradação prematura dos pavimentos asfálticos. Na procura por materiais de elevado desempenho, uma alternativa que vem ganhando destaque é a incorporação de cal hidratada a concretos asfálticos. Nesta dissertação apresentam-se e analisam-se os resultados de uma investigação sobre a influência de dois tipos de cal (calcítica e dolomítica) em misturas asfálticas formuladas com ligante convencional e polimerizado. Os resultados demonstraram que a melhoria das propriedades de concretos asfálticos depende significativamente da qualidade da cal e do teor utilizado, sendo que não se observaram benefícios adicionais ao aumentar-se o teor de 1% para 2%. A cal calcítica mostrou-se mais eficiente na melhoria das propriedades das misturas asfálticas, proporcionando aumentos significativos de módulo de resiliência e resistência à tração. Além disso, nas misturas com cal ocorreram menores reduções de resistência e de módulo com a elevação da temperatura de ensaio e após processo de condicionamento para simular os efeitos deletérios da água e envelhecimento. De forma geral, a influência da cal foi mais efetiva em misturas com ligante convencional, onde sua incorporação promoveu comportamento semelhante, ou em alguns casos até superior, ao das misturas elaboradas com ligante modificado. Amostras sem cal acumularam deformações permanentes superiores no ensaio de creep dinâmico às registradas em amostras com cal hidratada, sem observarem-se comportamentos significativamente diferentes com ligantes convencional ou modificado. Ao analisar-se a influência de cal no envelhecimento de ligantes (RTFOT), observaram-se menores variações de viscosidade (menor enrijecimento) em amostras de ligante convencional com cal calcítica, seguindo tendência constatada em trabalhos internacionais, que relatam redução na taxa de envelhecimento em misturas asfálticas devido à incorporação de cal. A análise global dos resultados de ensaios realizados nesta pesquisa aponta que é possível produzir misturas asfálticas de elevado desempenho e durabilidade através da incorporação de cal hidratada, mas que a magnitude dos benefícios obtidos depende significativamente da qualidade da cal (porcentagem de óxido de cálcio) e do tipo de ligante utilizados em sua formulação. / The increasing growth of traffic volume and overloading and the lack of maintenance have growingly contributed for asphalt pavements early distress. In the search for high performance materials, the incorporation of hydrated lime to asphalt concretes has been gaining relevance. In this dissertation the results of a research on the influence of two kinds of lime (calcitic and dolomitic) in asphalt concretes (AC) with conventional and polymer binders are presented and analyzed. Laboratory tests results show that the improvement of AC properties highly depend on lime quality and content, no additional benefits being observed when lime content increases from 1% to 2%. Calcitic lime showed to be more efficient improving AC properties, especially regarding resilient modulus and split tensile strength, which significantly increased. Besides, adding lime made asphalt mixes strength and modulus less sensitive to temperature increase and also to hardening and to water deleterious effects. All in all, lime benefits were stronger when added to AC with conventional binder. In fact, asphalt mixtures with conventional binder and calcitic lime performed even better than mixtures with polymermodified binder. In dynamic creep tests, specimens of AC without lime accumulated higher permanent deformations than AC specimens with hydrated lime, regardless the type of binder. Regarding the influence of lime in binders aging (RTFOT), viscosity variations of lesser magnitude were observed in samples of conventional binder and calcitic lime, following the pattern described in international works, which report the decrease of aging rate of asphalt mixtures due to lime incorporation. Globally, tests results point out that asphalt mixtures with high modulus and resistance to permanent deformation may be obtained by adding hydrated lime. However, the extent of benefits highly depends on lime quality (calcium oxide content) and type of asphalt binder used.

A logística tem se revelado um elemento estratégico, possibilitando a diferenciação no atendimento às necessidades dos clientes. Assim sendo, a terceirização das atividades logísticas se tornou uma realidade, e isto tem levado as organizações a se focarem mais em suas competências essenciais. Em função disso, surgem os operadores logísticos, que contribuem para a competitividade das empresas parceiras mediante a prestação de serviços especializados. Por conseguinte, o estudo analisou a estruturação, o desenvolvimento e a evolução da transformação de uma transportadora tradicional em um operador logístico. A metodologia de pesquisa utilizada pode ser considerada como sendo qualitativo exploratória, implementada por meio de um estudo de caso único. Para a coleta de dados, foram realizadas entrevistas individuais em profundidade, com uma abordagem semiestruturada, a partir da aplicação de roteiros básicos de questões. Além disso, foram utilizados dados provenientes da pesquisa documental. As técnicas utilizadas para análise dos resultados são compreendidas pela análise de conteúdo. Percebeu-se, após a concretização do estudo, que a organização, ao agregar serviços, procurando relacionamentos de longo prazo com seus clientes, aumentou sua competitividade. Verificou-se, ainda, que tal mudança oportunizou vantagens como a otimização dos recursos disponíveis e a melhoria na qualidade dos serviços prestados. A transformação da empresa em um operador logístico repercutiu em maior credibilidade e na ampliação do seu mix de serviços, resultando no aumento de seu faturamento e da sua lucratividade e em um diferencial perante a concorrência. / The logistic has been revealed an strategic element, making possible the differentiation on assistance to customers necessities. So, logistics operation outsourcing turns real, and it gets the organizations to focus on theirs essential competences. Due to that, logistic operators appear, who contribute for the competitiveness of partner companies by specialized services provided. Therefore, the study analyzed organization, development and evolution of the transformation of a traditional transporter in a logistic operator. The methodology used on this research can be considered as being qualitative-exploratory, implemented by a study of one only case. To collect dates, individual interviews were done in depth, with a structured way approached, from the application of basic routes of issues. In addition, data were used from documental research. The techniques used to analyze the results are understood by content analysis. It was realized, after the study complete, the organization increased competitiveness, aggregating services and looking for long relationships with the customers. It was found that such change developed advantages as available resources optimization and improvement in the quality of services provided. The company transformation into a logistic operator reflected in greater credibility and expansion of the services offered, resulting in turnover and profitability increase and a differential against the competitors.