VRIO: Static or dynamic?

During the 1980s, the principal concern of theorists in what regarded strategic management was linked to the analysis of the external environment. However, many researchers defend that considering the turbulence of today’s business environment with the technology’ advancement, the ever-changing industries and with an ever continuingly-increasing reduction in the time-frame of competitive advantage, a resource-based view has been gaining its own space regarding strategic formulation. Despite of the model’s capability, the theory has received diverse criticism during the last years, which we believe that some of these criticisms deserve to be analyzed. Therefore, the present article intends to illustrate a new theoretical basis for the analysis of the resources and capabilities in order to explain the advantages of applying a conceptual model that articulates the VRIO framework, initially developed by Barney (1991) with a new conceptual model that allow companies to perceive the dynamism of the company’s competitive advantage through the inclusion of the values, dynamic capabilities and governance concepts from the VDS acronym. The article is subdivided into six parts, the first part is referent to the theoretical exploitation of the RBV dematerialized in the creation of the VRIO model. The second part presents the main criticisms existent in the literature regarding the model and its limitations. The third, fourth and fifth parts refer to the approach in order to achieve the articulation between the VRIO model and the three additional parameters. In the sixth part, the new model will be presented and lastly, some considerations will be presented regarding this subject.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Garantia de qualidade do processo de Catalogação de Recursos de Informação na Árvore do Conhecimento Agroenergia: ajustes dos apontamentos da auditoria.

A Agência de Informação Embrapa é um website responsável pela organização e disseminação da informação tecnológica (EMBRAPA, 2012). Por meio dele, o conhecimento gerado pela Embrapa e instituições de pesquisa parceiras ficam disponíveis para a sociedade brasileira. A organização dessas informações são dispostas hierarquicamente, da mais genérica para as mais específicas. Estas divisões possibilitam a aproximação com a estrutura de uma árvore, e por isso recebe o nome de Árvore do Conhecimento (AC) (ALVES et al., 2008). Cada Árvore do Conhecimento organiza informações de um produto ou tema e é composta por diversos ?nós?, local de descrição dos itens da hierarquia e associação de recursos de informação. Estes recursos de informação possuem diferentes tipos (texto, som, imagem, website, software, etc) e formatos (como doc, odt e pdf para textos), tornando-os fundamentais para suprir a necessidade de informação de cada usuário. Para garantir a qualidade e precisão na recuperação desses recursos, adotou-se padrões internacionais e recomendações específicas de seus usos para a descrição dos mesmos (também conhecida como catalogação), conforme o manual de descrição elaborado por Alves et al. (2008). Além disso, neste manual encontram-se definidas as etapas do macroprocesso de organização de informação tecnológica da Agência. Dentre elas, a pré-publicação do conteúdo e, na sequência, a auditoria de qualidade da catalogação dos recursos desse conteúdo. A AC Agroenergia é o estudo de caso relatado neste trabalho porque teve o seu conteúdo organizado pela Embrapa Informática Agropecuária e encontrava-se na etapa Auditoria de Catalogação. Esta árvore oferece informações sobre formas de obtenção de energia proveniente da agricultura, dividida em quatro grandes temas: Álcool, Biodiesel, Florestas, Resíduos (dejetos agropecuários da agricultura), além do acesso a recursos de informação na íntegra. Neste contexto, as atividades desenvolvidas para ajustes dos apontamentos da auditoria serão discutidas neste trabalho

Implications of macrophyte abundance on algal growth management: The case of three natural swimming pools with distinct macrophyte abundance

Natural swimming pools are small constructed lakes for recreational proposes. They are composed by a swimming area merging with an area planted with emergent and submerged macrophytes, which function as biological filters. Fish are absent, however a wide diversity of phytoplankton, zooplankton and macroinvertebrate species colonize these pools. Therefore, pools can be regarded as the ideal systems to extrapolate the implications of macrophyte abundance management on algal growth control. The present study was taken in three pools (A, B and C) located in Minho Region (Northern Portugal) In early summer the macrophyte area had a 30% of cover in Pool A, in B 40% and in C 60%. Phytoplankton, zooplankton and filamentous algae abundance as well as conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, hardness, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, phosphates were recorded in February, April and June. The lowest densities of phytoplankton were observed in pool C. Besides, filamentous algae were abundant in the pool A, whereas in B and C they were recorded only in summer. In Pool A, zooplankton assemblage was always dominated specialists on small particle feeding, which food preference are detritus and bacteria. Conversely, in the Pool C herbivorous zooplankton was predominant. The low algal densities observed in the Pool C are explained by the presence of a well established macrophyte assemblage. These plants contribute to the reduction of algal densities by (1) creating of areas of shade; (2) removing nutrients from water column and (3) provide refuges for herbivorous zooplankton. Therefore, the present study stresses the pertinence of take in account the key role of aquatic macrophytes when management practices for algal growth control are developed

The basic perspectives of consultant-client relationships in management consulting

A historical overview, although the existing literature default the management consulting as a extraordinary and a unique phenomenon in the corporate context, in truth these statements do not come accompanied by a number of academic studies that emphasize the importance of effective work of management consultants. To combat the lack of studies in this emerging area, this article aims to understand whether it may be in fact the importance of knowledge produced in this sector is associated with the type of relationships that are built between the parties and, noting that the successful relationships are the basis of the knowledgeproduced in the sector who will then be responsible for the balance of powers and who should take control of projects. The results of the empirical analysis in the form of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires applied to management consultants and managers of SME in Portugal show that you cannot translate the control relationship between consultants and clients across the board, not least because the projects are not all equal, and there are various characteristics thatdistinguish them and that validate assumptions of control that can differ considerably between each oneinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effect of high pressure on surfactin production by Bacillus subtilis: implications for its application by the oil industry

Surfactin, a lipopeptide biosurfactant produced by Bacillus subtilis strains, exhibits extraordinary surface active properties, as well as stability at a wide range of temperatures and salinities, making it useful to replace the chemical surfactants in many industrial applications. The oil industry can take advantage of its application to increase the productivity of oil reservoirs, through a technology known as microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR). However, in order to make this technology advantageous from an economic point of view, the surfactin-producing strains must be able of growing and producing the biosurfactant inside the oil reservoirs. In this work, B. subtilis #573, isolated from an oil reservoir, was evaluated regarding its ability of producing surfactin under oxygen limited conditions at high pressure. A central composite design (CCD) was used to model the effect of pressure (3.8-46.2 bar) and temperature (35.3-46.7°C) on surfactin production. The results obtained demonstrated that pressure (in the range studied) did not exhibit a negative effect on surfactin production by this isolate, whereas temperatures higher than 45°C reduced its production. For most of the different combinations of pressure and temperature assayed, surfactin production was observed after 24 h, and the surface tension was reduced to values bellow 26.5 mN/m. At 41°C and 47 bar, B. subtilis #573 produced 31 ± 2 mg of surfactin per liter after 24 h, reducing the surface tension to 25.6 ±0.6 mN/m. These results were similar to those achieved at the same temperature at atmospheric pressure (26.0 ± 0.3 mN/m and 27 ± 3 mg surfactin/L). The surfactin produced in both cases exhibited a critical micelle concentration value around 15 mg/L, and the chemical characterization (through UHPLC-MS) demonstrated the production of similar percentages of the different surfactin isoforms (C12-, C13-, C14-, C15- and C16-surfactin) in both conditions. Finally, the applicability of B. subtilis #573 in MEOR was studied in sand-pack columns. In assays performed at 41°C and 47 bar, additional oil recoveries around 14% were obtained after 14 days in in situ assays. These results demonstrate the applicability of B. subtilis #573 in in situ oil recovery processes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Rhamnolipids inhibit aflatoxins production in Aspergillus flavus by causing structural damages in the fungal hyphae and down-regulating the expression of their biosynthetic genes

Aflatoxins are hepatotoxic and carcinogenic fungal secondary metabolites that usually contaminate crops and represent a serious health hazard for humans and animals worldwide. In this work, the effect of rhamnolipids (RLs) produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa #112 on the growth and aflatoxins production by Aspergillus flavus MUM 17.14 was studied in vitro. At concentrations between 45 and 1500 mg/L, RLs reduced the mycelial growth of A. flavus by 2340% and the production of aflatoxins by 93.999.5%. Purified mono-RLs and di-RLs exhibited a similar inhibitory activity on fungal growth. However, the RL mixture had a stronger inhibitory effect on aflatoxins production at concentrations up to 190 mg/L, probably due to a synergistic effect resulting from the combination of both congeners. Using transmission electron microscopy, it was demonstrated that RLs damaged the cell wall and the cytoplasmic membrane of the fungus, leading to the loss of intracellular content. This disruptive phenomenon explains the growth inhibition observed. Furthermore, RLs down-regulated the expression of genes aflC, aflE, aflP and aflQ involved in the aflatoxins biosynthetic pathway (6.4, 44.3, 38.1 and 2.0-fold, respectively), which is in agreement with the almost complete inhibition of aflatoxins production. Overall, the results herein gathered demonstrate for the first time that RLs could be used against aflatoxigenic fungi to attenuate the production of aflatoxins, and unraveled some of their mechanisms of action.This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UIDB/04469/2020 unit and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER 000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. The authors also acknowledge the support of the i3S Scientific Platform Histology and Electron Microscopy (HEMS), member of the PPBI (PPBI POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022122). A.I. Rodrigues and L. Abrunhosa acknowledge FCT for the grant SFRH/BD/111600/2015 and the Assistant Research contract CEECIND/00728/2017, respectively.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Gd(III) chelates as NMR probes of protein-protein interactions. Case study: rubredoxin and cytochrome c3

Inorganic Chemistry 50(21):10600-7Two cyclen-derived Gd probes, [Gd-DOTAM](3+) and [Gd-DOTP](5-) (DOTAM = 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetamide; DOTP = 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetrakis(methylenephosphonate)), were assessed as paramagnetic relaxation enhancement (PRE)-inducing probes for characterization of protein-protein interactions. Two proteins, Desulfovibrio gigas rubredoxin and Desulfovibrio gigas cytochrome c(3), were used as model partners. In a (1)H NMR titration it was shown that [Gd-DOTP](5-) binds to cytochrome c(3) near heme IV, causing pronounced PREs, characterized by line width broadenings of the heme methyl resonances at ratios as low as 0.08. A K(d) of 23 ± 1 μM was calculated based on chemical shift perturbation of selected heme methyl resonances belonging to three different heme groups, caused by allosteric effects upon [Gd-DOTP](5-) binding to cytochrome c(3) at a molar ratio of 2. The other probe, [Gd-DOTAM](3+), caused PREs on a well-defined patch near the metal center of rubredoxin (especially the patch constituted by residues D19-G23 and W37-S45, which broaden beyond detection). This effect was partially reversed for some resonances (C6-Y11, in particular) when cytochrome c(3) was added to this system. Both probes were successful in causing reversible PREs at the partner binding site, thus showing to be good probes to identify partners' binding sites and since the interaction is reversible to structurally characterize protein complexes by better defining the complex interface