Evolution of COVID19 new cases in 16 countries and Scenarios for Brazil using metaphorical analysis of Board, Inverted Pyramid and Papyri

Since the end of 2019, the world has become aware of a new virus that has emerged in China, which in February 2020 was called by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2019) as Coronavirus disease (COVID19). Due to its fast transmission, at 18:32 (GMT) on March 29, 2020, the world has officially accounted for about 710,950 new confirmed cases with 33,553 deaths and 150,734 recovered cases (Worldometers, 2020). The pandemic has become the newest challenge for several nations, especially the USA, Italy, China, Spain, Germany, Iran, for being the most affected, and since Brazil is a continental country with disabilities in its Unified Health System, it could be in the next two months among the five most affected. Thus, the main objective of the research is analyze the evolution of new cases of COVID19 in 16 countries to present short-term scenarios and recommendations for Brazil to face the pandemic. The research is applied, as its results and recommendations can be applied with adaptation by government authorities, business managers and citizens. The research is descriptive, with a qualitative and quantitative approach, based on bibliographic and documentary research, involving the study of articles, reports, manuals and other technical documents related to the subject. For the creation of scenarios, data collection focused on the number of new cases registered in 16 countries, including Brazil, as well as in the development of an approach using metaphorical analysis of the Board, the Inverted Pyramid and Papyri. The main conclusion is that even though no country is prepared to face epidemics and pandemics (NTI, JHU and EIU, 2019), among the 16 countries investigated, Thailand, Finland, Australia, South Korea, Denmark and Sweden are benchmarks that Brazil could study in order not to repeat the scenarios of China, USA, Italy and Spain. At the end, ten recommendations are made for future research and also to public and private managers

How Vietnam is saving lives against Covid-19?

It complements Silva (2020b) research, which showed that among 108 well-evaluated countries, the top benchmark nations against Covid-19 are Vietnam, Taiwan, and Thailand. For example, on April 16, 2021 around 3,011,574 lives were officially lost by Covid-19, while Taiwan, Vietnam, and Thailand reported respectively only 11, 35, and 97 fatal cases (WORLDOMETERS, 2021). So, this article main aim is to investigate the Vietnam performance and the management practices used to save lives against Covid19. The research uses an online questionnaire, is descriptive with documentary and bibliographic approaches to identify management practices, including Non Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) adopted against a pandemic. Also the Fatality Total Index (SILVA, 2020b p. 563) was used to compare Vietnam\u27s performance with 43 semifinalist countries. Some results are: 1) 200 NPIs were identified across the world against coronavirus; 2) Among the 44 countries, Vietnam showed the second best performance, after Taiwan; 3) among 107 respondents living in Vietnam, only 5.61% don´t believe that cultural practices are decisive for the low rate of Covid-19 death, while most (94.39%) believe in that. From the group that believe, the most decisive cultural practices were: wear a mask, wash hands, not shake hands, not hug in public and few religious assembly; 4) for 106 respondents living in Vietnam, the ten main policy measures adopted by the National Government that saved lives against the virus are: international travel control, public information campaigns, schools closures, public event cancellations, integration with mass media, restriction on internal movement, effective public-private collaboration, increase the medical and personal equipment capacity, public transport reduction and combat fake news. At the final, ten golden lessons are provided, from 340 policies, measures, programs, projects, innovative products/services identified, with the majority led by the Public Sector (73.5%), followed by Corporations (8.5%), Others (6.5%), Start ups (6.2%), and Universities (5.3%)

Thailand Performance and Best Management Practices that saved lives against Covid-19: a comparison against ten critical countries

After 265 days, since the first reported case of Covid-19, the world has reported the lost of almost one million (969.018) precious lives (WORLDOMETERS, 2020). The pandemic is a challenge for all countries, most of them eager to learn from nations that are successful against the virus. In addition, an international survey, published on April/20, by Silva (2020, p. 600), concluded that although no country is prepared to face epidemics and pandemics (NTI, JHU, and EIU, 2019), among the 16 countries investigated, Thailand, Finland, Australia, South Korea, Denmark, and Sweden are cases that Brazil could study so as not to repeat the scenarios of China, USA, Italy, and Spain. Thus, this study investigates the performance and the best management practices adopted in Thailand to save lives against Covid-19, during the first 180 days facing the pandemic. The research is useful for academy, government policymakers and authorities. It is descriptive, with the application of an online questionnaire, bibliographic and documentary research, involving the study of official sites, articles, reports, manuals, and other technical documents. A new indicator was developed (Fatality Total Index), which allowed to identify that among 20 nations with the highest number of fatal cases, the ten most critical are 1st) Mexico; 2nd) Peru; 3rd) Italy; 4th) Ecuador; 5th) Iran; 6th) Chile; 7th) UK; 8th) Belgium; 9th) Colombia; and 10th) Brazil. Some conclusions are: first) Thailand`s FTI180 is the very low, indicating that this country has learned from the lessons of the past, reason by which is the best at saving lives against the Covid-19; Third) for 86 respondents living in Thailand, wear mask, not shake hands, not hug in public, wash hands, and not wearing shoes in the house, were the five most decisive cultural practices that saved lives; Fourth) For 96 respondents living in Thailand, the ten main policy measures adopted by Thailand Government that saved lives against the Covid-19 are: first) international travel control; 2nd) public event cancellations; 3rd) schools closures; 4th) restriction on internal movement; 5th) workplaces closures; 6th) public information campaigns; 7th) effective public-private collaboration; 8th) increase the medical and personal equipment capacity; 9th) support the expansion of testing system, and 10th) wage subsidies for workers; Fifth) to save lives against Covid-19, 28 innovative products or services were identified in Thailand, with majority led by Corporations, Universities, followed by Public Sector, Start Ups, and Others

600 days of Battle: New Zealand (NZ) performance and practices that saved lives against Covid-19

According to Silva (2020b), among 108 well–evaluated countries, NZ was the eighth best nation during 180 days of battle against Covid-19, and one year after that publication, on 29th October, 2021, about 5,004,0026 lives were officially lost by Covid–19, while NZ only reported 28 deaths (WORLDOMETERS, 2021). To complement Gomes da Silva (2020) and Silva (2020a; 2020b; 2021a; 2021b) researches, the main aim of this article is to investigate the NZ performance and management practices used to save lives against Covid-19. It uses an online questionnaire with descriptive, bibliographic and documentary approaches to identify management practices, including cultural practices and Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) adopted during the pandemic. The main performance is found by using the Fatality Total Index and Resilience Index to compare NZ\u27s performance with 43 countries during 600 days of battle. As a result: 1) among the 44 countries, NZ was the most resilient and the second (FTI600=0.0165) best-best performer, after China (0.0066); 2) among 131 respondents living in NZ, 34.35% don´t believe that cultural practices are decisive for the low rate of Covid–19 death, while 65.65% believe in that. From those that believe, the most decisive cultural practices were wash hands, not hug in public, and not shake hands; 3) for 131 respondents, the ten main policy measures adopted by the National Government that saved lives against the virus are international travel control, public event cancellations, restriction on internal movement, public information campaigns, schools closures, support the expansion of testing system, wage subsidies for workers, workplace closures, increase the medical and personal equipment capacity, and effective public-private collaboration. At the final, lessons are provided from 360 policies, measures, programs, projects, acts/regulations, innovative products/services identified, with the majority led by the Public Sector (66.7%), followed by Corporations (11.4%), Universities (8.9%), Others (8.3%), and Startups (4.7%)

Participative approach to graduate students evaluate FT/UFAM Services

It has a participatory approach to continuously evaluate the level of satisfaction of Industrial Engineering students with the main services provided at the Faculty of Technology of the Federal University of Amazonas (FT/UFAM). To this end, studies were conducted to learn about existing services at the Faculty and to identify methodologies to assess customer satisfaction, resulting in the creation of a seven-step methodology that allowed veteran students of the Quality Management discipline to develop a questionnaire model with seven requirements and forty-nine items, which was applied to 122 students of the Industrial Engineering Course in June 2010. After the analysis of the results, conclusions and recommendations were generated, among them, it can be stated that the methodology and its data collection model can serve as evaluation tools to contribute to the process of continuous improvement of the services provided at FT/UFAM. Moreover, the methodology proved to be efficient in its application and also to motivate the students, once they felt valued and could understand the importance of participative management in the planning of any organization

Ten golden lessons from Republic of China (Taiwan), the best country to save lives during 300 days battle against Covid-19

Almost 1.81 million lives were officially lost by Covid-19 (WORLDOMETERS, 2020) until last 31thDecember 2020. It was one year with intense global battle against the pandemic, with most countries eagle to learn from benchmark nations able to save lives. A new methodology developed by Silva (2020b), with fifteen phases, showed that among 108 well-evaluated countries, the top six benchmark countries are from Asia with emphasis on Vietnam, Taiwan and Thailand. To complement Silva (2020b) study, this article aims to investigate the performance and the best management practices adopted in Taiwan to save lives, during the first 300 days facing the pandemic. The research is descriptive, uses an online questionnaire with bibliographic and documentary approaches. The Fatality Total Index (FTI) developed by Silva (2020b p. 563) was used to compare Taiwan performance against 43 finalist countries. Some results are: 1) Taiwan`s FTI300 is the lowest (0,0020), confirming that the National Government has learned from the past, and is able to integrate and support main actors of the nation to prevent, prepare and fight against the Covid-19; 2) for 109 respondents living in Taiwan, the ten main policy measures adopted by the National Government that saved lives against the virus are: international travel control (78%), effective public-private collaboration (61%), public information campaigns (52%), integration with mass media (51%), increase the medical and personal equipment capacity (49%), combat fake news (47%), public event cancellations (45%), improve intensive care unit structure (28%), support the expansion of the testing system (20%), and schools closures (16%). At the final, ten golden lessons are described, most of them from the 225 policies, measures, programs, projects, strategies, and innovative products or services identified in Taiwan, with the majority led by Public Sector (56%), Corporations (29%), followed by Others (6%), Start Up (4%) and Universities (4%)

How to evaluate the "Bolsa Universidade" Program in Manaus

The research evaluates the satisfaction level of the services provided by the Manaus Municipal Public Service School and Socio-Educational Inclusion (ESPI) to the scholarship holders of the Bolsa Universidade Program. To this end, an online questionnaire adapted from the SERVPERF model was applied, using five quality dimensions: tangible, reliability, effectiveness, assurance and empathy. It has 20 items distributed among the dimensions, where the respondent indicated their level of satisfaction through a 10-point Likert scale. It was available for eight days and had 442 respondents. After data collection, the Cronbach\u27s alpha reliability test was performed. Then, the data were analyzed using the average and standard deviation of dimensions and items. It was observed that the best dimention was reliability, and the item with the best performance was the “reliable documentation management”. On the other hand, the dimension that needs improvement is effectiveness, and the item that needs urgent improvement is “waiting in line for documentation delivery”. After analyzing the data, the main conclusion was that the level of satisfaction was considered Good. In the end, suggestions for improvement were made for the critical items. For future studies, it is suggested to evaluate the level of satisfaction after applying the improvement actions

Causes of Non-Treatment of Nonconformities in a PIM Company X

To remain competitive, organizations have been adopting quality management systems to continually improve their performance and ensure the quality of products and services. However, many companies have shown some difficulty in the effectiveness of the corrective action process for nonconformities identified in external audits, internal assessments, and legal compliance assessments. This study aims to identify the causes that lead to the effective non-treatment of nonconformities in a company X of the Manaus Industrial Pole (PIM). The methodological approach used was the case study research, whose data collection was through brainstorming, Ishikawa diagram and meetings with managers and workforce in 2014. The compilation and analysis of the data allowed to conclude that the main faults detected were in the labor category, which showed that the teams did not have the knowledge and skills needed to handle nonconformities

How to evaluate Industrial Engineering undergraduate teachers?

In Brazil, teacher evaluation is required by the National Higher System Evaluation System (INEP, 2011). At UFAM, it is done through the student portal, which is considered ineffective, compromising the process of continuous improvement of teaching and learning. The article evaluates the students\u27 level of satisfaction with the quality of the services provided by the teachers who taught discipline for the FT/UFAM Industrial Engineering course, to propose suggestions for improvements. To this end, the UFAM evaluation portal was studied, then a review of performance evaluation articles allowed the development of a questionnaire (Appendix 1) that was applied in 2011 to 112 (70%) students enrolled in the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th periods of this course. After analyzing the data, it was concluded that: a) the UFAM website to evaluate teachers was considered negative by more than 1/3 of the respondents, and the obligation to answer, the excessive amount of questions, the lack of feedback and improvement actions discourage students from responding; b) On the other hand, the application of the questionnaire revealed that the best-evaluated subjects were Special Topics of Industrial Engineering I and II, Management of Technological Innovation, Sanitation Applied to Production, Calculus II, Linear Algebra, Transport Phenomena, and Digital Electronics, most of which were taught by teachers of 2nd and 4th period. For improvement, it is recommended to identify the good teaching and learning practices of these teachers to apply seminars and disseminate them through FT/UFAM

Variability reduction in Manaus` beer process production

Defined as the favorite drink to celebrate good times, beer has been making the drink market one of the most competitive in the Brazilian industry. Given this scenario, brewery industries need to maintain quality standards to gain consumer preference. In the company under study, located in Manaus Industrial Pole, it was found that in the beer production process, the brewhouse stage was not satisfying the brewery wort manufacturing time requirements, which is why it became the focus of this study. This paper aims to investigate and standardize a method to reduce the variability of beer time production in the brewhouse area. The data were collected from the monitoring of the wort production process, raising each time of the equipment of that stage, both before and after the application of the method. After data collection and analysis, it was concluded that it is possible to significantly reduce the variability in the wort production process by treating critical brewhouse equipment