This diploma thesis aims at assessing stock market efficiency using seventeen shares and stock index S&P 500 which represents whole market. Selected shares were traded using several tools from technical analysis from 2012 to 2016. Trading is based on buy / sell signals. These signals were generated by 38 automatic trading strategies, created from crossing rates and sliding averages, by crossing two different sliding averages and based on technical indicators MACD, RSD and Momentum. Theoretical part of this work is dedicated to capital market, stock market efficiency assessment, shares and different types of analysis, mainly to technical. Results of stock market efficiency assessment of finances when trading all tested strategies can be found in the practical part. Random movements of rates were proven, this implies that market is slightly effective. Best trading strategy cannot be determined, because there are too many factors influencing results. Passive strategy achieved better profit. According to complete average results, MACD a 50+200EMA has highest success rate. Least appropriate strategies were MACD+SL and RSI_30+70_2. The worst shares for active trading were EBS and MRK, best LCI, ABC and VRX.

Submitted by NATALIA FARIA SILVA null (nat.faria@yahoo.com.br) on 2016-03-31T00:47:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Natalia_Faria_Silva.pdf: 1944888 bytes, checksum: 21a22978fa637122ed688721e097feb8 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Juliano Benedito Ferreira (julianoferreira@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-03-31T12:35:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_nf_me_guara.pdf: 1944888 bytes, checksum: 21a22978fa637122ed688721e097feb8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-31T12:35:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_nf_me_guara.pdf: 1944888 bytes, checksum: 21a22978fa637122ed688721e097feb8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Neste trabalho é proposto um modelo metodológico que permite melhorar o desempenho energético através da implementação de medidas de eficiência energética. O modelo é fundamentado em quatro níveis de atuação e foi desenvolvido mediante uma revisão do estado da arte no Brasil e no mundo de aspectos referentes a eficiência energética. A estrutura da metodologia, denominada pirâmide de conservação de energia, foi desenvolvida sob o conceito de melhoria contínua e está baseado nas melhores práticas para alcançar a excelência energética adotado em países desenvolvidos como Estados Unidos, Canadá e Alemanha. Um estudo de caso em uma indústria de laticínio foi realizado para mostrar a aplicabilidade e eficácia do método proposto. O estudo detalhou as diversas possibilidades para reduzir as irreversibilidades dos sistemas energéticos dessa indústria e apresentou propostas técnicas e economicamente viáveis de melhoria da eficiência no uso da energia. Os resultados apresentados mostram que a adoção de medidas de eficiência energética reduz os custos, melhora as condições operacionais e tem impacto positivamente sobre o meio ambiente. / This work proposes a methodological model which improves the energy performance by implementing energy efficiency measures. The model is based on four levels of action and was developed through a review of the state of the art in Brazil and in the world of aspects related to energy efficiency. The structure of the methodology, called energy conservation pyramid was developed under the concept of continuous improvement and is based on best practices to achieve energy excellence adopted in developed countries like United States, Canada and Germany. A case study in a dairy industry was carried out to show the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method. The study detailed the various possibilities to reduce the irreversibility of energy systems of the industry and presented technical proposals and cost-effective improvement of efficiency in energy use. The results presented show that the adoption of energy efficiency measures reduce costs, improve operating conditions and impacts positively on the environment.

abstract: As a result of growing populations and uncertain resource availability, urban areas are facing pressure from federal and state agencies, as well as residents, to promote conservation programs that provide services for people and mitigate environmental harm. Current strategies in US cities aim to reduce the impact of municipal and household resource use, including programs to promote water conservation. One common conservation program incentivizes the replacement of water-intensive turfgrass lawns with landscapes that use less water consisting of interspersed drought-tolerant shrubs and trees with rock or mulch groundcover (e.g. xeriscapes, rain gardens, water-wise landscapes). A handful of previous studies in experimental landscapes have shown that converting a turfgrass yard to a shrub-dominated landscape has the potential to increase rates of nitrate (NO3-) leaching. However, no studies have examined the drivers or patterns across diverse management practices. In this research, I compared soil nutrient retention and cycling in turfgrass and lawn-alternative xeriscaped yards along a chronosequence of time since land cover change in Tempe, Arizona, in the semi-arid US Southwest. Soil inorganic extractable nitrogen (N) pools were greater in xeriscapes compared to turfgrass lawns. On average xeriscapes contained 2.5±0.4 g NO3--N/m2 in the first 45 cm of soil, compared to 0.6±0.7 g NO3--N/m2 in lawns. Soil NO3--N pools in xeriscaped yards also varied significantly with time: pools were largest 9-13 years after cover change and declined to levels comparable to turfgrass at 18-21 years. Variation in soil extractable NO3--N with landscape age was strongly influenced by management practices that control soil water availability, including shrub cover, the presence of sub-surface plastic sheeting, and the frequency of irrigation. This research is the first to explore the ecological outcomes and temporal dynamics of an increasingly common, ‘sustainable’ land use practice that is universally promoted in US cities. Our findings show that transitioning from turfgrass to water-efficient residential landscaping can lead to an accumulation of NO3--N that may be lost from the soil rooting zone over time, through leaching following irrigation or rainfall. These results have implications for best management practices to optimize the benefits of water-conserving residential yards. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Biology 2015

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is made of tiny sensor nodes usually deployed in high density within a targeted area to monitor a phenomenon of interest such as temperature, vibration or humidity. The WSNs can be employed in various applications (e.g., Structural monitoring, agriculture, environment monitoring, machine health monitoring, military, and health). For each application area there are different technical issues and remedies. Various challenges need to be considered while setting up a WSN, including limited computing, memory and energy resources, wireless channel errors and network scalability. One way of addressing these problems is by implementing a routing protocol that efficiently uses these limited resources and hence reduces errors, improves scalability and increases the network lifetime. The topology of any network is important and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are no exception. In order to effectively model an energy-efficient routing algorithm, the topology of the WSN must be factored in. However, little work has been done on routing for WSNs with regular patterned topologies, except for the shortest path first (SPF) routing algorithms. The issue with the SPF algorithm is that it requires global location information of the nodes from the sensor network, which proves to be a drain on the network resources. In this thesis a novel algorithm namely, BRALB (Biased Random Algorithm for Load Balancing) is proposed to overcome the issues faced in routing data within WSNs with regular topologies such as square-base topology and triangle-based topology. It is based on random walk and probability. The proposed algorithm uses probability theory to build a repository of information containing the estimate of energy resources in each node, in order to route packets based on the energy resources in each node and thus does not require any global information from the network. It is shown in this thesis by statistical analysis and simulations that BRALB uses the same energy as the shortest path first routing as long as the data packets are comparable in size to the inquiry packets used between neighbours. It is also shown to balance the load (i.e. the packets to be sent) efficiently among the nodes in the network. In most of the WSN applications the messages sent to the base station are very small in size. Therefore BRALB is viable and can be used in sensor networks employed in such applications. However, one of the constraints of BRALB is that it is not very scalable; this is a genuine concern as most WSNs deployment is large scale. In order to remedy this problem, C-BRALB (Clustered Biased Random Algorithm for Load Balancing) has been proposed as an extension of BRALB with clustering mechanism. The same clustering technique used in Improved Directed Diffusion (IDD) has been adopted for C-BRALB. The routing mechanism in C-BRALB is based on energy biased random walk. This algorithm also does not require any global information apart from the initial flooding initiated by the sink to create the clusters. It uses probability theory to acquire all the information it needs to route packets based on energy resources in each cluster head node. It is shown in this thesis by using both simulations and statistical analysis that C-BRALB is an efficient routing algorithm in applications where the message to be sent is comparable to the inquiry message among the neighbours. It is also shown to balance the load (i.e. the packets to be sent) among the neighbouring cluster head nodes.

The name of my dissertation is ``The efficiency of primary prevention of drug addictions from the view of drug addicts as well as the drug experts in the Region of South Bohemia.{\crqq} The dissertation aims to provide an insight into the issue of perceiving the efficiency of drug addictions{\crq} primary prevention by individual target groups of the research. A method of qualitative research was chosen to reach the objective. Two research questions were specified as follows: 1.How is the efficiency of drug addictions{\crq} primary prevention perceived by individual target groups? 2. Is the primary prevention of drug addictions applied systematically, timely and to a sufficient extent? To obtain the data, a non-standardised questionnaire with rather open questions was used. The research sample contained at the end 40 addicts, possibly abstaining and 31 experts working in the field of drug problems. Using graphic charts as well as commentary description, the findings part shows the elicited situation regarding the issue. Most of the experts consider primary prevention rather effective. If expressed in percentage, 30% efficiency of drug addictions{\crq} primary prevention was the most frequent choice of answers. On the other hand, the addicts evaluated the prevention as rather inefficient; however, in the percentage expression they shared the number with the experts - 30% efficiency was the most frequent choice. What the experts considered the weakest point of the current situation was the lack of funds into the primary prevention and a strong anti-drug lobby as well as the absence or inappropriate evaluation of the efficiency of primary prevention. The addicts saw the weakest points of the primary prevention in the lack of information on the consequences, as the information on effects prevailed over the after-effects. The dissertation confirmed some of the presumptive facts (insufficient/inappropriate evaluation of the efficiency of primary prevention) and indicated the propriety of similar research with a more extended view. Such research should be systematic and long-term with a broad platform of cooperating experts and media.

abstract: Stream processing has emerged as an important model of computation especially in the context of multimedia and communication sub-systems of embedded System-on-Chip (SoC) architectures. The dataflow nature of streaming applications allows them to be most naturally expressed as a set of kernels iteratively operating on continuous streams of data. The kernels are computationally intensive and are mainly characterized by real-time constraints that demand high throughput and data bandwidth with limited global data reuse. Conventional architectures fail to meet these demands due to their poorly matched execution models and the overheads associated with instruction and data movements. This work presents StreamWorks, a multi-core embedded architecture for energy-efficient stream computing. The basic processing element in the StreamWorks architecture is the StreamEngine (SE) which is responsible for iteratively executing a stream kernel. SE introduces an instruction locking mechanism that exploits the iterative nature of the kernels and enables fine-grain instruction reuse. Each instruction in a SE is locked to a Reservation Station (RS) and revitalizes itself after execution; thus never retiring from the RS. The entire kernel is hosted in RS Banks (RSBs) close to functional units for energy-efficient instruction delivery. The dataflow semantics of stream kernels are captured by a context-aware dataflow execution mode that efficiently exploits the Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP) and Data-level parallelism (DLP) within stream kernels. Multiple SEs are grouped together to form a StreamCluster (SC) that communicate via a local interconnect. A novel software FIFO virtualization technique with split-join functionality is proposed for efficient and scalable stream communication across SEs. The proposed communication mechanism exploits the Task-level parallelism (TLP) of the stream application. The performance and scalability of the communication mechanism is evaluated against the existing data movement schemes for scratchpad based multi-core architectures. Further, overlay schemes and architectural support are proposed that allow hosting any number of kernels on the StreamWorks architecture. The proposed oevrlay schemes for code management supports kernel(context) switching for the most common use cases and can be adapted for any multi-core architecture that use software managed local memories. The performance and energy-efficiency of the StreamWorks architecture is evaluated for stream kernel and application benchmarks by implementing the architecture in 45nm TSMC and comparison with a low power RISC core and a contemporary accelerator. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Science 2014

Um dos fundamentos das Finanças, a partir da segunda metade do século 20, é a hipótese de eficiência de mercado. Num Mercado Eficiente, as informações sobre o ativo são transferidas para os preços de modo que o preço do ativo reflete toda informação disponível. Assim, o retorno desse ativo está baseado no nível de risco associado. Esse estudo examina carteiras de ações formadas com base em diferentes critérios e acompanha o retorno produzido no período, verificando as estratégias de investimento que provocam os melhores resultados, ou seja, quais as estratégias vencedoras tomando-se como base uma determinada variável fundamentalista. O resultado obtido poderá confirmar a hipótese de racionalidade do mercado. O trabalho é baseado no retorno apresentado pelas ações no mercado brasileiro no período de 1993 até 2003. / Modern Finance is established based in Market Efficiency Hyphotesis, an important concept widely accepted since1950´s. A market in which prices at any time refect all information available is considered efficient. In the present study we built portfolio as per some estrategies for selecting stocks based in past return just to verify winners strategies that can confirm the market efficiency hyphotesis. We followed the return based in stocks from 1993 to 2003 in São Paulo Stock Exchange.

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / Nesse trabalho, propÃe-se um esquema de seleÃÃo eficiente e de baixa complexidade para redes cooperativas multiusuÃrio multi-relay compostas de um nà fonte, L nÃs destinos e N nÃs relays. O esquema proposto primeiro seleciona o melhor destino baseado na qualidade de canal dos links diretos e entÃo seleciona o melhor relay que provà o melhor caminho da fonte para o destino selecionado. Considerando-se os protocolos de cooperaÃÃo decodifica-e-encaminha e amplifica-e-encaminha, o desempenho do sistema à investigado. ExpressÃes em forma fechada para a probabilidade de bloqueio sÃo obtidas e validadas por simulaÃÃes de Monte Carlo. ComparaÃÃes com o esquema de seleÃÃo Ãtimo sÃo realizadas e demonstram que o desempenho do esquema de seleÃÃo proposto à bem prÃximo ao do esquema Ãtimo, com a vantagem de o primeiro possuir uma complexidade menor que o Ãltimo. AlÃm disso, em nossa anÃlise, a fonte pode ser equipada com uma Ãnica antena ou com M mÃltiplas antenas. Uma anÃlise assintÃtica à realizada e revela que, independentemente da estratÃgia de cooperaÃÃo empregada, a ordem de diversidade à de L+N para o caso da fonte com uma Ãnica antena, enquanto que para o caso multiantena a diversidade à igual a ML+N. Os efeitos do nÃmero de nÃs relays e destinos no desempenho do sistema e sua influÃncia na posiÃÃo Ãtima do relay sÃo examinados. AlÃm disso, um compromisso entre desempenho e eficiÃncia espectral à observado para o caso em que mÃltiplas antenas sÃo empregadas. / On this work, it is proposed an efficient low-complexity selection scheme for multiuser multi-relay downlink cooperative networks comprised of one source node, L destination nodes, and N relay nodes. The proposed scheme first selects the best destination node based on the channel quality of the direct links and then selects the best relay that yields the best path from the source to the selected destination. Assuming both decode-and-forward and amplify-and-forward relaying strategies, the performance of the considered system is investigated. Closed-form expressions for the outage probability are obtained and validated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Comparisons with the optimal selection scheme are performed and shows that the performance of the proposed scheme is very close to that of the optimal selection scheme, with the proposed scheme having the advantage of lower complexity than the optimal scheme. Furthermore, in our analysis, the source node may be equipped with either a single antenna or M multiple antennas. An asymptotic analysis is carried out, and it reveals that, regardless of the relaying strategy employed, the diversity order reduces to L+N for the single-antenna source case, whereas it is equal to ML+N for the multiple-antenna source case. The effects of the number of relay and destination nodes on the system performance and its influence on the best relay position are examined. In addition, a trade-off concerning the system performance and spectral efficiency is observed when multiple antennas are employed at the source node.

A sinalização, formação e descoberta de preços agrícolas são adequadas se refletem rapidamente todas as informações recebidas pelos seus participantes. Então, quando o mercado é eficiente, possibilita eficiência alocativa, redução de imprecisão nas decisões dos agentes e dos custos informacionais. Entretanto, os agentes do agronegócio podem tomar decisões errôneas de produção, comercialização e estocagem, sujeitas ao conjunto de informações incompletas contidas nos preços passados, se os mercados forem não eficientes. Nesse contexto, o objetivo geral foi analisar a eficiência dos mercados futuros de commodities. Para atingi-lo, estruturou-se esta pesquisa em três ensaios. No primeiro, objetivou-se testar a hipótese de passeio aleatório a contratos futuros agropecuários negociados na BM&FBOVESPA. Refutá-la significa possível previsibilidade e, por conseguinte, os mercados não seriam fracamente eficientes. Correlações seriais e testes de razão de variância foram utilizados para verificá-las. Os resultados deram suporte à hipótese de passeio aleatório nos mercados futuros de café e da soja, eficientes na forma fraca, e evidências contrárias foram encontradas nos mercados do boi gordo, milho e etanol. No segundo, o objetivo foi investigar a eficiência e formações de clusters nos contratos futuros do complexo soja (soja, farelo de soja e óleo de soja) negociados nas bolsas de commodities: argentina, brasileira, chinesa, indiana, japonesa, norte-americana e sul-africana. Com base na métrica obtida por distância euclidiana de razões de variância, evidenciaram-se dependências similares dos mercados, as quais podem ser interpretadas como efeito espraiamento da eficiência informacional. Os agentes devem, portanto, manter percepções em relação aos diversos mercados devido às sinalizações interdependentes dos preços. No terceiro, objetivou-se analisar a eficiência dos mercados futuros agropecuários brasileiros, sob a hipótese adaptativa de mercado. Utilizando propostas recentes à não linearidade e razão de variância, encontrou-se que as elevadas rejeições à hipótese de diferença martingal se encontram nos mercados em que as intervenções governamentais se fazem presentes: milho e etanol. Nos mercados de café, boi gordo e soja ocorreram menores rejeições à hipótese martingal e, portanto, houve maior eficiência informacional. Essas evidências--consistentes com a hipótese adaptativa dos mercados--justificam operações de hedge dinâmicas, bem como a gerência de carteiras de investimentos de forma ativa. / Agricultural prices\' formation, discovery and signalling only are accurate when they can rapidly reflect all new information faced by its market agents. Thereby, when a given market is efficient, it allows for allocative efficiency, reducing inefficiencies both in decision-making process and in informational costs. On the other hand, when markets are said not to be efficient, agribusinesses\' agents can make mistaken production, marketing and storage decisions, once such decisions are due to incomplete information contained in past prices. In this context, the main purpose of this study is to analyze the efficiency in future markets of commodities. In order to achieve its final goal, the study has been structured in three essays. In the first essay, the random walk hypothesis has been tested for agricultural future contracts from Brazilian Securities, Commodities and Futures Exchange (BMF&BOVESPA). Refusing the hypothesis for a given commodity implies some degree of predictability, therefore inconsistent even with a weak notion of efficiency. These tests were carried out using serial correlations and variance ratios. The results show the presence of random walks in coffee and soybean future markets, and contrary evidences (absence of random walks) in live cattle, corn and ethanol future markets. In the second essay, it has been analyzed the efficiency and the presence of clusters in the soybean complex future contracts (soybean, soybean meal and soybean oil) traded in the following future markets: Argentina (MTB), Brazil (BVMF), China (DCE), India (NCD), Japan (TKT), US (CBT) and South-Africa (SAF). Based on the metrics obtained by Euclidian distances of variance ratios, similar dependencies have been found for all markets, which suggest informational efficiency spreading. Agents, therefore, shall maintain perceptions over several international markets, given the interdependence found for prices in distinct future markets. In the third one, the adaptive market hypothesis has been tested for agricultural future markets in Brazil. Applying more recent approaches to Nonlinearity and Variance Ratio tests, high rejections to martingale difference hypothesis took place in agricultural markets which governmental interference is highly persistent, i.e., corn and ethanol. In coffee, live cattle and soybeans markets, weaker rejections to the martingale hypothesis hint higher informational efficiency. These evidences, consistent with the adaptive market hypothesis, justify dynamic hedge operations, as well as an active management of investment portfolios in such markets.

Esse estudo tem como objetivo investigar o comportamento da oferta de trabalho dos cônjuges brasileiros e verificar o grau de adequação desse em relação a um modelo específico dentro da abordagem coletiva (\'collective models\'). O modelo coletivo de oferta de trabalho com fatores distributivos oferece uma estrutura teórica para interpretar o processo decisório intra-familiar e seus resultados, as alocações de consumo e oferta de trabalho das famílias, que são Pareto eficientes por hipótese. Fatores distributivos são variáveis que afetam a decisão sobre oferta de trabalho, mas não tem impactos sobre as preferências nem a restrição orçamentária das famílias. As informações relativas à amostra de famílias brasileiras foram obtidas a partir da PNAD e da Estatística de Registros Civis, ambas para o ano de 2004. Os resultados não rejeitam as restrições derivadas do modelo coletivo, tanto em sua forma geral quanto na versão restrita pela imposição de preferências egoístas. Além disso, as variáveis adotadas como fatores distributivos, sex-ratio e \'participação em divórcios\', influenciam, de forma significativa e condizente com a teoria, a oferta de trabalho de maridos e esposas. / This paper has as objective to investigate the Brazilian spouses\' labor supply behavior and to empirically check the adequacy of a specific collective model. The collective labor supply model with distribution factors offers a theoretical structure to interpret the intra-household decision process and its results, the families\' choices of consumption and labor supply, who are Pareto efficient. Distribution factors are variables that affect the labor supply decision, but do not have impacts on the preference relations nor the budget constraint of the families. The sample of Brazilian families had been gotten from the \"PNAD\" and \"Estatística de Registros Civis\", for the year of 2004. The results do not reject the restrictions derived from the collective model, neither in its general form nor in the egoisti preferences form. Moreover, distribution factors, sex-ratio and \'participação em divórcios\', are found to affect labor supply of husbands and wives in the directions predicted by the theory and to be statistically significant.