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To describe water absorption by the rice grains over time, diffusion and empirical models were used. Also, an optimization software was developed in this study to determine parameters and their uncertainties for the diffusion models (LS Optimizer, for partial differential equations). Parameters (and their uncertainties) for empirical models were determined by LAB Fit Curve Fitting Software.

Heat and mass diffusion phenomena are found in various processes of technological interest, including pasteurization, drying and water immersion of agricultural products, among others. The objective of this work was to study the process of water absorption by rice grains with and without husk, using diffusion and empirical models to describe the absorption kinetics. Rice grains were immersed (approximately 10 g for each experiment) in drinking water maintained at constant temperatures of 28, 40 and 50 C. In the experiments, the water contents absorbed by rice grains over time were obtained by the gravimetric method.

Among empirical models, Peleg was the most satisfactory to describe the kinetics of water absorption by rice without husk, while the Silva et alii model had the best statistical indicators for rice with husk. It was also verified that a diffusion model with boundary condition of the first kind showed the best (or equivalent) results in the description of all processes of kinetics of water absorption by rice grains, with and without husk. For grains without husk, the effective mass diffusivities were (1.186 ± 0.045) × 10⁻⁹, (1.312 ± 0.024) × 10⁻⁹ and (2.133 ± 0.028) × 10⁻⁹ m² min⁻¹, for the immersion temperatures of 28, 40 and 50C, respectively. For grains with husk, diffusivities were (0.675 ± 0.011) × 10⁻⁹ and (1.269 ± 0.017) × 10⁻⁹ m² min⁻¹, for temperatures of 28 and 50 C, respectively.

This work developed a solver for the diffusion equation in cylindrical geometry and presented the LS Optimizer software developed to determine differential equation parameters through experimental data sets.

People often face constraints such as a lack of time or information in taking decisions, which leads them to use heuristics. In these situations, fast and frugal rules may be useful for making adaptive decisions with fewer resources, even if it leads to suboptimal choices. When applied to financial markets, the recognition heuristic predicts that investors acquire the stocks that they are aware of, thereby inflating the price of the most recognized stocks. This paper aims to study the profitability against the market of the most recognized stocks in Europe.

In this paper, the authors perform a survey and use Google Trends to study the profitability against the market of the most recognized stocks in Europe.

The authors conclude that a recognition heuristic portfolio yields poorer returns than a market portfolio. In contrast, from the data collected on Google Trends, weak evidence was found that strong increases in companies monthly search volumes may lead to abnormal returns in the following month.

The applied investment strategy does not account for transaction costs, which may jeopardize its profitability given the fact that it is necessary to revise the portfolio on a monthly basis. Despite the results obtained, they are useful to understanding the performance of recognition heuristic strategies over a comprehensive time horizon, and it would be interesting to depict its viability during different market conditions. This analysis could provide additional information about a preferable scenario for employing our strategies and, ultimately, enhance the profitability of recognition heuristic strategies.

Through the exhaustive analysis performed here on the recognition heuristic in the European stock market, it is possible to conclude that no evidence was found for the viability of exploring this type of strategy. In fact, the investors would always gain better returns when adopting a passive investment strategy. Therefore, it would be wise to assume that the European market presents at least a degree of efficiency where no investment would yield abnormal returns following the recognition heuristic.

The main objective of this paper is to study the performance of the recognition heuristic in the financial markets and to contribute to the knowledge in this field. Although many authors have already studied this heuristic when applied to financial markets, there is a lack of consensus in the literature.

The past few decades have produced a number of investigations into the correlation between project managers’ competencies and project success. As a result, competencies lists have become extensive “shopping lists.” The purpose of this paper is to define the most important competencies to project success and investigate their correlations.

The authors surveyed project managers on the importance of 28 project manager competencies to project success. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate procedures.

Data show that communication, commitment and leadership appear as the three most relevant aspects. Multivariate analysis identified seven groups of competencies: leadership, self-management, interpersonal, communication, technical, productivity and managerial.

The results confirm a growing trend toward soft skills and reinforce the need for an update on project management education to fill the gap between theory and practice.

Project manager competencies lists have become too extensive, and the field is in constant change; therefore, this study updates the discussion and downsizes the number of competencies to fewer, more relevant items.

This study compares the performance of two types of clustering methods, time-based and non-time-based clustering, in the identification of river discharge patterns at the Johor River basin during the northeast monsoon season. Time-based clustering is represented by employing dynamic time warping (DTW) dissimilarity measure, whereas non-time-based clustering is represented by employing Euclidean dissimilarity measure in analysing the Johor River discharge data. In addition, we combine each of these clustering methods with a frequency domain representation of the discharge data using Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) to see if such transformation affects the clustering results. The clustering quality from the hierarchical data structures of the identified river discharge patterns for each of the methods is measured by the Cophenetic Correlation Coefficient (CPCC). The results from the time-based clustering using DTW based on DFT transformation show a higher CPCC value as compared to that of non-time-based clustering methods.

This chapter examines the professional identities of Brazilian journalists. It does so through an analysis of the growing professional autonomy of journalism from 1950 to 1990 through the life stories of 10 intellectual-journalists, individuals whose journalistic activities have crossed over into other intellectual fields.

This study applies a symbolic interactionist framework to understand how these actors managed their reputations and careers within the intellectual world. The narratives were taken from qualitative semi-structured interviews, and supported by additional research such as interviews, biographies, and articles which have been published about their lives.

The life stories were compared to the extensive structural changes affecting the world of journalism and the world of intellectuals in Brazil. This comparison revealed gaps between these two spheres of practice, within which the ambivalent form of journalists’ identities have been constructed.

This chapter offers two contributions to the study of Brazilian journalists. From a theoretical and methodological viewpoint, it advances beyond other studies that focus more on the prevailing representations of journalists’ professional identities and their role in society. From an empirical standpoint, it describes the complex negotiations between the worlds of journalism, culture and politics. This chapter also reexamines the current dominant explanation for the changes in Brazilian journalism. It shows that building careers and new levels of interpersonal cooperation for intellectuals and journalists has been a slow process. Ultimately, this development has left some behind, especially those actors stretched between multiple professional identities such as those who self-identify as intellectual-journalists.

There is a growing urgent concern in involving higher education institutions (HEIs) towards an international effort in implementing a more suitable role as conductors of sustainable development. This paper/study aims to present the application of light emiting diode (LED) technology in an HEI assuming technology innovation as part of a larger institutional innovation management strategy addressing multiple dimensions in sustainability.

Investments in LED technology are analyzed for their impact on consumption results and quantitative comparisons between 2008 and 2022 are impaired with detailed information on the types of luminaires and the amount of installed energy.

The collected data shows a clear economic advantage of using LED technology, and the results subsidize institutional planning, considering not only ongoing technological innovation, but also educational components and community involvement in the organization sustainability strategy.

The study is limited to a specific HEI and further comparative research should be carried out.

A holistic approach on sustainability objectives encourages further investment in environmental-friendly technology, example to other HEIs.

The strategic vision of innovation is confirmed with the involvement of the community, at various levels, such as the academic community, local community, scientific international community.

This study addresses the lack of examples in the literature of structural planning and management systems that see sustainability as a strategy built in HEIs. The elaboration of an environmental sustainability plan places environmental sustainability at the confluence of themes such as education, investigation, use of natural resources, waste separation. For each topic are listed measures, actions, environment improvements, institution improvements and their results.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize that the choice of the most appropriate maintenance model and policies is the best way to reduce significantly the maintenance costs as well as to optimize the useful Key Performance Indicators – failure rates, reliability, mean time between failures, mean time to repair, and equipment availabilities.

In order to implement the Asset Effectiveness Optimization AEO as well as the Overall Equipment Effectiveness OEE, improving productivity in a complex food‐products plant, the paper presents a theoretical and experimental study related to the maintenance costs directly associated with the equipment used in production tasks.

The developed tool is an efficient method of calculating the maintenance costs and allows one by means of computational simulation to define the most advisable maintenance policy. On the other hand, the proposed relationships are universal and could be used as an economic evaluation indicator for other industries and equipment.

Further research should include the application of the proposed methodology to the similar equipment of other food‐products plants as well as to other different equipment in order to create benchmarking procedures. This generator of technical information is the most appropriate method of optimizing maintenance key performance indicators.

As is well known, equipment availability must be as close to 100 per cent as possible, in order to avoid non‐planned breakdowns with the consequent production losses. Then it is important to adopt the most advisable maintenance policies and practices, the proposed methodology being an efficient tool for evaluating the maintenance performance and, in addition, for optimizing procedures.

The proposed methodology represents an efficient way to evaluate the maintenance performance as well as to choose better maintenance policies and practices in order to reduce costs and increase maintenance key performance indicators.

This paper analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the 1995 administrative reform proposal announced by the Brazilian government. The reform proposal, described in the Directive Plan on the Reform of the Governmental Apparatus – a document publicly released by the Brazilian authorities – argues that the need for reform springs from a “crisis of the state”, involving three aspects: a fiscal crisis resulting from the incapacity of the government to face current public services costs; the collapse of interventionist governments within a global economy; and the failure of the bureaucratic model in the delivery of public services. Adopting the theoretical reform strategy framework developed by Matus in 1996, this paper focuses on eight aspects of the reform in discussing strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the paper discusses the similarities of the reform proposal to the administrative reform undertaken by the Brazilian government in 1967, the effects of the current political environment on the reform proposal and the role of administrative reform in governmental policies. The overall conclusion is that, in addition to the lack of a clear implementation strategy, the administrative reform proposal over‐emphasizes the solving of the fiscal crisis and ignores the role of reform in addressing problems of inequality. Consequently, the reform may lack purpose if it is not strategically connected to wider and encompassing policies aimed at ameliorating acute social problems.

Diversified trading networks have recently drawn a great deal of attention. In the process, the importance of diversity has perhaps been overemphasized. Using the trade in port wine from Portugal to Britain as an example, this essay attempts to show how a market once dominated by general, diversified traders was taken over by dedicated specialists whose success might almost be measured by the degree to which they rejected diversification to form a dedicated “commodity chain.” The essay suggests that this strategy was better able to handle matters of quality and the specialized knowledge that port wine required. The essay also highlights the question of power in such a chain. Endemic commodity-chain struggles are clearest in the vertical brand war that broke out in the nineteenth century, which, by concentrating power, marked the final stage in the transformation of the trade from network to vertical integration.