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In this paper, improvements in reducing transmitted accelerations in a full vehicle are obtained by optimizing the gain parameters of an active control in a roughness road profile.

For a classically designed linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control, the vibration attenuation performance will depend on weighting matrices Q and R. A methodology is proposed in this work to determine the optimal elements of these matrices by using a genetic algorithm method to get enhanced controller performance. The active control is implemented in an eight degrees of freedom (8-DOF) vehicle suspension model, subjected to a standard ISO road profile. The control performance is compared against a controlled system with few Q and R parameters, an active system without optimized gain matrices, and an optimized passive system.

The control with 12 optimized parameters for Q and R provided the best vibration attenuation, reducing significantly the Root Mean Square (RMS) accelerations at the driver’s seat and car body.

The research has positive implications in a wide class of active control systems, especially those based on a LQR, which was verified by the multibody dynamic systems tested in the paper.

Better active control gains can be devised to improve performance in vibration attenuation.

The main contribution proposed in this work is the improvement of the Q and R parameters simultaneously, in a full 8-DOF vehicle model, which minimizes the driver’s seat acceleration and, at the same time, guarantees vehicle safety.

Despite the increasing interests in supply chain management (SCM) within academy and industrial environment, there is still a lack of academic literature concerning topics such as methodologies to guide and support supply chain integration. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This article presents the application of a diagnosis method in a Brazilian company from the sugar and ethanol industry to identify the level of supply chain integration. The diagnosis method is based on Cooper, Lambert and Pagh reference model for SCM. The method involves nine referential axes established from the eighth key business processes of the reference model.

It was pre-tested and supplemented with findings from interviews with academics and practitioners. Additionally, an illustration application was conducted in three relevant companies.

The application results were useful for refining the method that can be considered as a diagnosis instrument to permit companies to evaluate its supply chain integration.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the optimum design of a quarter car passive suspension system using a particle swarm optimization algorithm in order to minimize the applied loads and vibrations.

The road excitation is assumed as zero-mean random field and modeled by single-sided power spectral density (PSD) based on international standard ISO 8608. The variance of sprung mass displacements and variance of dynamic applied load are evaluated by PSD functions and used as cost function for the optimization.

The advantages in using this methodology are emphasized by an example of the multi-objective optimization design of suspension parameters and the results are compared with values reported in the literature and other gradient based and heuristic algorithms. The paper shows that the algorithm effectively leads to reliable results for suspension parameters with low computational effort.

The procedure is applied to a quarter car passive suspension design.

The proposed procedure implies substantial time savings due to frequency domain analysis.

The paper proposes a procedure that allows complex optimization designs to be feasible and cost effective.

The design optimization is performed in the frequency domain taking into account standard defined road profiles PSD without the need to simulate in the time domain.

From an interdisciplinary position, I discuss the historical and epistemological roots of the objectification and commodification of nature, which emerged from the hegemony of instrumental rationality. This rationality—synthetically, a technological, political, social, ethical, and esthetical universe of thought and action—has created both wealth and environmental destruction due to the progressive domination of nature through science and technology. The objectification of nature and nonhuman animals is associated with the legacy of René Descartes based on some excerpts of his famous Discourse on the Method in which the idea of animals as machines established a powerful and pervasive metaphor that remains today. Speciesism, which involves forms of discrimination practiced by humans against other animal species, also dominates Western perspectives. However, studies reveal that nonhuman animal sentience and conscience is a scientific fact. While there is no ethical or scientific ground to support speciesism, the colossal number of animals commodified in a myriad of contexts, especially in animal agriculture, proves that our society is very far from overcoming this issue. A possible path to change is education. Nevertheless, profound transformations are mandatory as formal education—even “environmental education”—carries in its philosophical foundations the Cartesian, instrumental paradigm that favors the objectification and commodification of nature. I present how the concept of instrumental rationality, especially as proposed by Herbert Marcuse, establishes as a unifying and solid ground to address the roots of the objectification and commodification of nature (including nonhuman animals), as well as to confront the epistemological bedrock of our speciesist nonenvironmental, traditional education.

No matter how much human beings strive to make strictly rational choices, they are incapable of doing so because human knowledge is limited and suffers the influence of psychological aspects. This paper aims to demonstrate how the use of foresight methods has contributed to minimize problems inherent to human rationality through a qualitative descriptive study of the case of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation – Embrapa.

This paper collected primary and secondary data through document analysis and interviews with managers of the Embrapa’s strategic intelligence system (SIS), Agropensa (a recognized success case of strategic intelligence (SI)/futures studies in Brazilian public administration).

The results show that it was possible to strengthen corporate behavior in the long term, minimize biases inherent to the decision-making process and bring relevant information into the management of the organization. Foresight methods and tools have made it possible to mitigate problems arising from bounded rationality (BR) in the Embrapa’s decision-making processes. The change in company’s culture potentiated long-term views and access to future-bearing information. Embrapa’s SIS contributes to mitigate difficulties inherent to human nature by bringing uncertainty into managerial discussions.

Taking in consideration all the advances in the future studies/SI approach, this paper realizes that this particular practical case can contribute to scientific community deepening the understanding of how a structure dedicated to run future studies/SI can diminish BR impacts on the company’s decision-making process.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors of the dyadic alignment in the supply chain of capital goods companies.

A survey was conducted among 159 respondents (53 supplier companies, 53 manufacturers and 53 clients).

Using structural equation modelling, no evidence of alignment between suppliers and manufacturers was identified. However, for the manufacturers, there is a partial mediation effect of the operational capabilities in the relationship between supply chain management and business performance.

This research investigates whether there is a dyadic alignment among supplier–manufacturer, manufacturer–customer and supplier–customer from the capital goods manufacturers’ perspective.

This study aims at redefining bounded rationality on the basis of a more socialized view of the individual. In doing so, it introduces “inquisitiveness” as a key disposition that some team members use to assemble and integrate knowledge when solving problems.

Using an agent-based computational simulation, this research models different simulated employees working together in “ad hoc” teams to solve problems.

Results show that inquisitiveness may work as an efficiency “driver” that, when present, economizes on the knowledge needed by team members to solve problems. In addition to that, results also show that environments with many problems are more suitable for inquisitive individuals to be effective.

Following the late Herbert Simon, the paper takes the stance that rationality should be redefined as a socially oriented process and introduces inquisitiveness as one – although probably not the only one – of the characteristics that help individuals and teams to make rational decisions.

This paper analyzes managerial practices currently used for outsourced logistics activities in mechanized cutting, loading and transportation (CLT) of sugarcane in a Brazilian company using performance-based logistics contracts (PBL) as reference.

The methodology draws on literature review, design of an analysis model, small group meetings with academics/industry professionals and practical application through a case study. The model is based on PBL and its construction involved choosing the analysis axes, defining evaluation items and respective measurement scale and the means and sources of data collection.

When comparing the evaluation results with PBL recommendations, it is possible to see that there are still many improvement opportunities. In contracting axis, decision-making process was poor-rated due to the absence of strategic considerations to support outsourcing decision. Procurement, contract and implementation are in intermediate level. Performance management is the most mature axis. However, quality analysis showed intermediate level. In relationship axis, the most relevant gap is the lack of expectations alignment. Remaining items showed intermediate levels of compliance but still need focusing on communication, establishing a structured relationship management development.

This study contributes first to develop an analysis model based on PBL to evaluate the level of relationship integration between company and logistics service provider, and second, to apply the model to an empirical case in a CLT company operation. As a result, the analysis model presents guidelines for the company, not to just contract/rent equipment and manpower but hire results.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.