Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T11:52:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-04-16Bitstream added on 2015-03-03T12:06:47Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000805852.pdf: 3831624 bytes, checksum: 00fd51e6b8f45f3e4b178ce8e32153d6 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Iniciativas de políticas educacionais e socioambientais têm se ocupado da importância de a educação escolar respeitar o contexto no qual a escola está inserida, bem como os modos de vida dos estudantes. Neste sentido, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa em Educação, de tipo etnográfico, na Reserva Extrativista (RESEX) do Lago do Cuniã, localizada no estado de Rondônia – Amazônia brasileira. O objetivo principal foi o de aprofundar conhecimentos sobre a cultura tradicional da comunidade residente na RESEX do Lago do Cuniã e sobre as formas de apropriação da cultura tradicional pela escola local. Toda a investigação é permeada por análises pautadas nos conceitos de cultura em Geertz, e ideologia em Marx e Engels, os quais associados a reflexões da Educação Popular formam a base do referencial teórico analítico. Foram desenvolvidas pesquisas de campo com duração de 55 dias no total. A primeira ida a campo se configurou como um estudo da escola sob uma perspectiva dialética, tendo sido dirigido a espaços exteriores ao da instituição escolar, e realizada no mês de julho de 2012. Nesta etapa foram feitas observações diretas do cotidiano, com registro em diário de campo; além de realização de sete entrevistas com moradores locais (três adultos e quatro jovens) sobre a temática da educação escolar. Os dados foram sistematizados em Temas Geradores que contribuíram para uma melhor compreensão da realidade, sendo esses: “trabalho”, “relações de gênero”, “crenças e identidade”, “meio ambiente”, “saúde”, e, por fim, “a escola desde fora”. A escola desde fora é verbalizada como a porta de entrada ao mundo do trabalho assalariado – o qual se apresenta ideologicamente como única possibilidade para uma “vida melhor”, para que seja possível “ser alguém na vida”. Os demais Temas Geradores também trazem elementos para uma discussão educacional. Evidenciam-se as ambiguidades... / Initiatives in educational and environmental policies have been worrying about the importance of schooling respect the context in which they are located, as well as the students’ ways of life. In this sense, a qualitative – ethnographic – research in Education, was held in the Extractive Reserve (RESEX) Lake Cuniã, located in the State of Rondônia - Brazilian Amazon. The main goal was to enhance the knowledge about the community’s traditional culture and the forms that the local school appropriated of it. All research is permeated by the concepts of culture in Geertz, and ideology in Marx and Engels, which, associated with reflections of Popular Education, form the basis of the analytical theoretical framework. Field researches were carried out during 55 days in total. The first part of the field research was configured as a school study under a dialectical perspective, having been directed to the exterior spaces of the school, and held in the month of July 2012. At this stage, direct observations of daily life of local residents were made and registered in a field diary, in addition to seven interviews conducted with locals (three adults and four youngsters) on the theme of school education. Data were organized by Generating Themes, these being: labour, gender relations, beliefs and identity, environment, health, and finally the school from outside. The school from outside is verbalized as the gateway to the world of paid work – which is presented ideologically as the only possibility for a better life, thus you can be someone in life. The remaining Generating Themes also bring elements to an educational discussion. Besides, it is evident the ambiguities surrounding the understanding and meaning attributed to the alternating model adopted, which is designed as a strategy to deal with a historical teacher shortage in the community. The second field research was develope... / FAPESP: 2012/18926-4

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:23:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T13:57:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 00244.pdf: 1374515 bytes, checksum: 89190bdb9ad405254de3a0d4e02786a6 (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IEA/D / Instituto de Química - Universidade de São Paulo - IQ/USP

Increasing longevity in Western society means that older adults will spend more of their later lives as retirees, or as older workers. In this respect, what it means to live as an older adult represents a shifting landscape, where the health and well-being of older adults are guided by the socio-cultural narrative of decline (being aged passively), and ageing in the era of the Third Age (actively growing old). As such, there is a need for research to examine how older adults can age well as retirees, or as older workers. To date, research in this field has seldom considered the role of the natural environment in this respect, despite a burgeoning body of research that indicates the beneficial impact of natural environments upon health and well-being. The aim of this research, therefore, was to examine the role of natural environments in the lives of older adults during the retirement process, and in the lives of older workers, and the potential implications for ageing well. Pluralistic methods were utilised within a longitudinal design in order to generate narrative data. Specifically, 7 retirees and 3 older workers were interviewed in 3 stages, over a time period of 2 years. Narrative analysis revealed that, initially, pre-retirees’ stories were guided by notions of being aged passively, facilitated by a relational narrative and often illustrated by dys-appearing body-self relationships. In contrast, older workers’ stories were driven by notions of actively growing old, facilitated by an individualistic narrative. In the later stages of data collection, retirees’ stories developed to also be guided by actively growing old, where embodied decline was overshadowed by aspects of being such as spirituality, intellectual stimulation, and mindfulness. Such stories were complemented by a developed sense of self, highlighting the importance of self-awareness in later life. Natural environments played a role by providing a multi-dimensional platform from which to age well. For example, on a physical level, spending time in natural environments often involved being active in a non-prescriptive way coupled with a sense of autonomy, calmness and relief from stress. On an emotional level, pleasurable memories from childhood were re-ignited when in natural environments, which participants found invigorating. On a cognitive level, whilst in natural environments, participants were able to engage in a spiritual and intellectual process of negotiation whereby selves were re-discovered from the past, contemplated in the present, and constructed for the future. Implications of these findings for policy and practice, and the original contribution to knowledge made by this research, are discussed within.

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This thesis explores the creation and resolution of environmental conflicts in modern Sweden from a narrative ethics perspective. By problematising the concept of Swedish exceptionalism in environmental questions, it allows for a multi-disciplinary reappraisal of Sweden’s international reputation as a nominally ‘green’ nation. This emphasises the dissonance between perceptions of a self-identifying green nation and idea of a sustainable modern green state which is structured in a sustainable way. In so doing, the thesis asserts the pluralistic approach to the ethics and moral identities of modernity pioneered by the Scottish political and moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre as a means of understanding the diverse and often contradictory nature of Sweden’s environmental performance. The main source material for this investigation is a corpus of circa 1000 texts in four major newspapers, taken from debates surrounding three environmental conflicts between 1970 and 2010. These conflicts are the 1970 campaign to save the Vindel River from development, the 1980 referendum on nuclear energy in Sweden and the role played by the proposed Stockholm Bypass road project in the 2010 municipal and national elections. Chosen to cover variation in location, size and time period, they yield a substantial sample in relation to the discussion and resolution of environmental conflict. These texts are listed in full in Appendix II. Utilising the theory of textual selves presented in the analytical discourse methodology of Norman Fairclough and the reflexive nature of self-identity within modern narrative, these entries are then coded. This coding uses the concept of a textual ethos developed within Fairclough’s Text Oriented Discourse Analysis (TODA) methodology. From this large corpus, thirteen specific examples reflecting these quantitative labels are more closely analysed using TODA. This pays attention to both their composition and to the wider context of the debates from which they are taken. In the detailed analyses that follow, the conflicts and their characteristics are viewed through the concept of modern non-rational doxa. This entails argumentation being based on temporally specific contexts and narratives over epistemologically coherent rationalism. Parallels are drawn between larger societal meta-narratives and values and the argumentation for specific choices about the future made by individual authors, and it is argued that the continued fragmentation of Swedish politics has implications for understanding the concept of norms and the hegemony of ideologies or ethical standpoints. Discussing the impact of such a situation on Sweden’s future development and the potential for export of Swedish environmental practice, this study ultimately posits that any attempt to replicate Swedish environmental practice must come to terms with the narrative context in which action is to take place. Finally, it speculates on the challenges of writing and arguing for truly sustainable eco-modernities.

Research to date analyzing socioeconomic, social and environmental implications emanating from hydropower development in China has focused disproportionally on macro-scale projects, specifically large dams. The very size of these projects should not, but largely have, obscured other developments of significance; small hydropower operations. Small dams and diversion stations with an operating capacity of 50 Megawatts or less represent approximately a third of installed hydroelectric capacity in China. Recently, the proliferation of small hydropower has rapidly increased, particularly in Yunnan province. A belief that small hydropower operations are an environmentally sound alternative to burning coal, which contributes to China’s much publicized air quality issues and global climate challenges drives current development. However, despite the significance of small-scale projects, research to date has largely neglected their role. As a result of this ‘tunnel vision’, an integral component of China’s hydropower assemblage has received inadequate attention, remaining little known and less understood. This dissertation is the result of research that investigates small hydropower development in a rural and remote corner of China’s Nu river valley, located in the far northwest of Yunnan province. Objectives of the research were evaluating the effectiveness of small operations to promote socioeconomic development in rural and remote communities while contributing to China’s broader energy security demands. In addition, the research evaluated the ways hydropower development and the supply of electricity shaped the social circumstances in village communities of the upper Nu river valley. Finally, this research analyzed a range of environmental implications resulting from small operations that were both evident on local landscapes and in spaces far removed. / 10000-01-01

Given the growth and outreach of new information, communication, computing and electronic technologies in various dimensions, the amount of data has explosively increased in the recent years. Centralised systems suffer some limitations to dealing with this issue due to all data is stored in central data centres. Thus, decentralised systems are getting more attention and increasing in popularity. Moreover, efficient service discovery mechanisms have naturally become an essential component in both large-scale and small-scale decentralised systems and. This research study is aimed at modelling a novel efficient indexing and searching model for service discovery in decentralised environments comprising numerous repositories with massive stored services. The main contributions of this research study can be summarised in three components: a novel distributed multilevel indexing model, an optimised searching algorithm and a new simulation environment. Indexing model has been widely used for efficient service discovery. For instance; the inverted index is one of the popular indexing models used for service retrieval in consistent repositories. However, redundancies are inevitable in the inverted index which is significantly time-consuming in the service discovery and retrieval process. This theeis proposes a novel distributed multilevel indexing model (DM-index), which offers an efficient solution for service discovery and retrieval in distributed service repositories comprising massive stored services. The architecture of the proposed indexing model encompasses four hierarchical levels to eliminate redundancy information in service repositories, to narrow the searching space and to reduce the number of traversed services whilst discovering services. Distributed Hash Tables have been widely used to provide data lookup services with logarithmic message costs which only require maintenance of limited amounts of routing states. This thesis develops an optimised searching algorithm, named Double-layer No-redundancy Enhanced Bi-direction Chord (DNEB-Chord), to handle retrieval requests in distributed destination repositories efficiently. This DNEB-Chord algorithm achieves faster routing performances with the double-layer routing mechanism and optimal routing index. The efficiency of the developed indexing and searching model is evaluated through theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation in a newly developed simulation environment, named Distributed Multilevel Bi-direction Simulator (DMBSim), which can be used as cost efficient tool for exploring various service configurations, user retrieval requirements and other parameter settings. Both the theoretical validation and experimental evaluations demonstrate that the service discovery efficiency of the DM-index outperforms the sequential index and inverted index configurations. Furthermore, the experimental evaluation results demostrate that the DNEB-Chord algorithm performs better than the Chord in terms of reducing the incurred hop counts. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed indexing and searching model can achieve better service discovery performances in large-scale decentralised environments comprising numerous repositories with massive stored services.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T11:52:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-06-26Bitstream added on 2015-03-03T12:06:32Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000805671.pdf: 2249549 bytes, checksum: 1a5f0a6641283317e3d69fa32fddd3bf (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar como a adoção de práticas Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) afeta o desempenho ambiental e operacional da organização. Para isso, foi realizado um estudo de múltiplos casos tendo como objetivo de pesquisa três organizações brasileiras. Para tanto, elaborou-se uma fundamentação teórica que compreendesse os conceitos e práticas de GSCM bem como uma varredura na literatura para o levantamento dos indicadores de desempenho ambiental e operacional mais utilizados. Por fim, são relacionadas as influências e as relações entre as práticas de GSCM e os indicadores de desempenho ambiental e operacional. Os resultados encontrados retratam relações positivas entre as práticas de GSCM e os indicadores de Desempenho Ambiental (DA) em empresas consideradas focais em sua cadeia de suprimentos. As relações encontradas entre estas práticas e os indicadores ambientais convergem com os resultados referenciados na literatura abordada. Quanto às relações entre as práticas de GSCM e os indicadores operacionais, resultados relevantes foram alcançados. A pesquisa encontrou relações significativas e pertinentes entre estas práticas e os indicadores de Desempenho Operacional (DO) das organizações como influência nos custos, na qualidade e flexibilidade. No entanto, estudos mais aprofundados entre os indicadores operacionais e as práticas de GSCM são necessários. Além do preenchimento das lacunas existentes sobre o tema, a pesquisa contribuiu com implicações práticas, como informações gerenciais ao mercado no intuito de auxiliar a redução das barreiras existentes à implementação e medição de práticas de GSCM. Algumas limitações foram encontradas nesta pesquisa, como a necessidade de adaptação no modelo de análise dos dados e a dificuldade das organizações em relacionar as práticas de GSCM com os indicadores ambientais e, principalmente, operacionais por ineditismo ou... / The objective of this research is to analyze how the adoption of Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) practices affect environmental and operational performance of organizations. For this a study of multiple cases where the object of research was three Brazilian organization. Therefore, it was necessary to establish a theoretical basis to understand the concepts and practices of GSCM and scan the literature for the analysis of most used indicators environmental and operating performance. Finally, it was relate the influences and relationships between GSCM practices and indicators of environment and operational performance. The results found positive relationship between GSCM practices and environmental performance indicators in companies considered focus on SC. The relationships found between these practices and environmental indicators converge with the results discussed in the referenced literature. Regarding the relationships between GSCM practices and operational indicators, significant results were achieved. The search found meaningful and relevant relationships between these practices and operational performance indicators of organizations such as influence on costs, quality and flexibility. However, further studies among operational indicators and GSCM practices are needed. In addition to filling the gaps on the topic, the research helped with practical managerial implications such as market information in order to help reduce barriers implementation and measurement GSCM practices Some limitations were found in this study as the necessity of adaptation in the data analysis model and the difficulty of organizations relate GSCM practices with environmental indicators and, especially, operational by novelty or the existence of other programs

abstract: Individuals in urban low-income areas often do not have easy access to large grocery stores and supermarkets, and regularly shop at nearby small/corner stores. These stores stock an abundance of processed, energy-dense, nutrient poor foods, combined with few nutrient-dense products. A high concentration of small/corner stores is associated with poor diets by nearby residents. Interventions that target small food stores for increasing the availability and sale of healthy foods have been launched in many communities, and validated survey instruments have been developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions. However, in-store surveys can take up to thirty minutes to conduct and require individual visits from investigators. Many projects assess the food environment in a large number of stores spread across broad geographical areas, making in-person evaluations infeasible and resource-prohibitive. The purpose of this study was to develop a valid and feasible short survey that could be used in-store or over the phone to capture the healthfulness of corner stores. An adapted version of the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Corner Stores (NEMS-CS) was used to conduct store audits of 230 corner stores in four New Jersey cities. Audit results were used in exploratory factor analysis and item response theory to develop a seven-item survey. The short survey was highly correlated with the full survey (r=0.79), and the short survey's classification of stores as healthy (top 20% of scores) versus unhealthy (bottom 80% of stores) matched NEMS-CS categorizations in 88% of cases. A second round of audits was conducted in 100 corner stores to confirm the validity of the seven-item survey and to test its feasibility as a phone audit tool. Complete phone responses were obtained from 86% of stores. Response matches indicated that store owners did not distinguish between 2% and low-fat milk, and tended to round up the fruit and vegetable count to five if they had fewer varieties. The seven-item short survey discriminates between healthy and unhealthy stores and is feasible for use as a phone audit tool. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Physical Activity, Nutrition and Wellness 2015

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-08-20Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:30:56Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 miguel_kg_me_bauru.pdf: 16054325 bytes, checksum: 6e7f5f5226e2e61d46400744154ec095 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Ao longo dos séculos a relação homem e natureza e a questão da preservação e da sustentabilidade ambiental foram interpretadas das mais diversas formas nas sociedades. O tema ambiental é hoje freqüente na agenda política e pública, sendo pauta constante dos veículos de comunicação, reproduzindo visões ora românticas, ora racionalistas ou, ainda, antropocêntricas. A presente dissertação busca identificar a construção de paradigmas na cobertura midiática sobre os temas diretamente relacionados com a política ambiental do Brasil, a partir da Análise de conteúdo de matérias veiculadas no jornal O Estado de S. Paulo durante o ano de 2007, embasada pelo resgate histórico do pensamento ambiental. Justamente para enteder de que forma a visão ambiental esteve presente nas expressões comunicativas desde a época primitiva, a pesquisa revisita os principais paradigmas científicos e identifica as manifestações artísticas, literárias, teatrais e midiáticas para avaliar as reminiscências de paradigmas que permearam os séculos e resistem até hoje na abordagem midiática. Foram selecionadas e qualificadas todas as matérias no período de fevereiro a novembro de 2007 e analisadas qualitativamente 12 publicações, a partir dos temas-eixo: Biodiversidade, Biocombustíveis, Aquecimento global/Mudanças climáticas e Geração de Energia. Assim, foi possível identificar características da construção jornalística nesta cobertura e os principais paradigmas que podem influenciar a visão do leitor e, conseqüentemente, comprometer políticas públicas. / Over the centuries the relation between mankind and nature and the issue of preservation and environmental sustainability have been interpreted under several perspectives/ forms in different societies. The environmental matter is frequent in political and public agenda nowadays, and it has been a constant guideline in communication vehicles, reproducing views sometimes romantic, somentimes rationalists or, even, anthropocentric ones. The present dissertation seeks to identify the construction of paradigms in media coverage on issues directly related to Brazil's environmental policy, through Content Analysis of news published in the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo during the year 2007, based on the historical ransom of environmental thought. Precisely to understand how the environmental view has currently been in the communicative expressions since the primitive age, this search revisits the main scientific paradigms and identifies artistic, literacy, theatrical and media displays to appraise the reminiscences of paradigms which traversed the centuries and that endure until these days in the media approach. All the news published in the period from February to November 2007 were selected and quantified, as well as 12 publications were qualitatively analyzed from the axis themes: Biodiversity, Biofuels, Global Warming/ Climate Changes and Eletric Energy. Thereby, it was possible to identify characteristics of journalistic constructions in this coverage and the main paradigms that may influence the reader's view and, consequently, undermine public politics.