Models of Quality Management applied to organizations seeking to Innovation Management.

The Total Quality Management seeks constant improvement and a gradual introduction of new processes both as existing in order to achieve greater excellence in quality organizations as a whole. The intensity of global competition has required companies to rethink their strategies in order to increase competitiveness, profitability and at the same time, thrive on the market that work. To have a management development it is necessary to supplement with quality tools, and management tools, which help in the overview of the organization and also the processes and services. This paper uses the Excellence Management Model (MEG) as a tool to analysis of quality, innovation, productivity and competitiveness in a micro services company located in the central region of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The paper will analyze how the company works with the criteria of the tool used focusing the process of innovation and competitiveness. The study is quantitative and descriptive character type. The bibliographic search is used to build the base of analysis and data collection was accomplished by using a questionnaire with open questions

Towards Explaining Variation in Entrainment

Entrainment refers to the tendency of human speakers to adapt to their interlocutors to become more similar to them. This affects various dimensions and occurs in many contexts, allowing for rich applications in human-computer interaction. However, it is not exhibited by every speaker in every conversation but varies widely across features, speakers, and contexts, hindering broad application. This variation, whose guiding principles are poorly understood even after decades of entrainment research, is the subject of this thesis. We begin with a comprehensive literature review that serves as the foundation of our own work and provides a reference to guide future research. Then we demonstrate the extent of variation in entrainment through analyses of several corpora, including the first broad investigation of entrainment in Hebrew. Our results challenge the assumption, implicitly made by theoretical accounts of entrainment, that it is a single behavior or structured collection of behaviors. They also show that differences cannot consistently be attributed to gender or native language. In a second part, we present a newly designed, implemented, and partially collected corpus for the purpose of studying variation in the entrainment behavior of the same subjects towards different partners in both task-oriented and free conversations. Preliminary analyses indicate limited generalizability of the impact of personality and suggest the intriguing possibility that speaker states might have greater impact on entrainment than speaker traits. Lastly, we present original, neural entrainment measures which aim to address shortcomings of existing approaches and yield promising preliminary results

Buchbesprechungen aus Botanik und Naturschutz in Hessen Bd. 20

Folgende Publikationen werden rezensiert: Garve & al.: Verbreitungsatlas Niedersachsen, Hölzel & al.: Stromtalwiesen, Lübcke & Frede: Naturschutzgebiete in Hessen Band 4, Notizbuch 68 der Kasseler Schule, Riecken & al.: Rote Liste Biotoptypen, Schulz & Dengler: Verbreitungsatlas Moose Schleswig-Holstein, Szabo: Wandern – Erkennen – Heile

FATORES DA ESCOLHA DE ALUNOS DE DUAS ESCOLAS PÚBLICAS DE ENSINO MÉDIO CATARINENSE PELO CURSO DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO DA UFSC

Os cursos de administração foram, por décadas, tratados como ideal a filhos de empresários ou aqueles que possuíssem elevado poder aquisitivo. Este viés mudou. O empreendedorismo está ganhando espaço na mente de jovens que almejam fazer um curso superior. Por esta razão, resolveu-se averiguar as expectativas de alunos de duas escolas públicas estaduais do ensino médio catarinense que prestarão concurso vestibular para o Curso de Administração da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (CAD-UFSC). Todos entrevistados estão no último ano do ensino médio no Colégio Irmã Maria Tereza do Município de Palhoça e na Escola de Educação Básica Altamiro Guimarães do Município de Antonio Carlos. O objetivo geral do estudo foi averiguar as expectativas destes vestibulandos sobre a atuação dos administradores no mercado de trabalho, bem como entender as razões que os endereçaram por esta opção. A pesquisa caracteriza-se como multicasos, sem a confrontação dos resultados. O delineamento adotado foi o de levantamento, dentro de um enfoque qualitativo e abordagem descritiva. O instrumento de coleta de dados foi um questionário semi-estruturado aplicado, na segunda quinzena de setembro deste ano, aos alunos do último ano do ensino médio das escolas estudadas. Os resultados apontaram que: a opção pelo vestibular na UFSC está associada à distância e facilidade de acesso a Cidade de Florianópolis e às condições econômicas dos entrevistados, pois a UFSC é pública e gratuita, de excelente qualidade e reconhecimento internacional. A opção por Curso de Administração deu-se pela popularidade e as variadas alternativas para o exercício desta profissão, que pode ser na administração rural, concurso público, empreendedorismo, executivo na indústria, comércio ou serviços, principalmente, pelo recente crescimento econômico brasileiro

TENDÊNCIAS PEDAGÓGICAS DOS CURSOS DE GRADUAÇÃO EM ADMINISTRAÇÃO DAS INSTITUIÇÕES FEDERAIS DE ENSINO SUPERIOR

The business landscape was significantly changed with the age of the Industrial Revolution, and in the late twentieth century driven by the impacts of Information Technology (IT) and the advent of globalization started a new transformation: the Knowledge Age, where this becomes a valuable resource and often essential, in company management in order to ensure success and even stay in the same market. Educational institutions represent a key role in this process, being responsible for transmitting and or construction of knowledge in this sense is necessary to know the pedagogical trends that guide the teaching-learning process. This work through an exploratory qualitative research aims to identify the pedagogical trends of undergraduate courses in administration in Federal Institutions of Higher Education - IFES, which received the highest rating in the National Higher Education Examination - ENADE. It is used for analysis purposes and the objectives or profile of graduates from each institution. The results show that 54% of the institutions surveyed have progressive pedagogical trends.O cenário dos negócios foi profundamente alterado com a Era da Revolução Industrial, e no final do século XX impulsionado pelos impactos provocados pelas Tecnologias de Informação (TI) e o advento da globalização iniciou-se uma nova transformação: a Era do Conhecimento, onde este passa a ser um recurso valioso e muitas vezes essencial, na gestão das empresas, a fim de garantir o sucesso e até mesmo a permanência da mesma no mercado. As instituições de ensino representam um papel fundamental neste processo, sendo responsáveis pela transmissão e ou construção do conhecimento, neste sentido é indispensável conhecer as tendências pedagógicas que orientam o processo de ensino-aprendizagem. O presente trabalho através de uma pesquisa qualitativa de caráter exploratório tem como objetivo identificar as tendências pedagógicas dos cursos de graduação em administração nas Instituições Federais de Ensino Superior - IFES, que obtiveram nota máxima na avaliação do Exame Nacional de Ensino Superior – ENADE. Utiliza-se para fins de análise os objetivos e ou perfil do egresso de cada instituição. Os resultados demonstram que 54% das instituições pesquisadas possuem tendências pedagógicas progressistas

Coupling Phenomena in Magnetocaloric Materials

Strong coupling effects in magnetocaloric materials are the key factor to achieve a large magnetic entropy change. Combining insights from experiments and ab initio calculations, we review relevant coupling phenomena, including atomic coupling, stress coupling, and magnetostatic coupling. For the investigations on atomic coupling, we have used Heusler compounds as a flexible model system. Stress coupling occurs in first-order magnetocaloric materials, which exhibit a structural transformation or volume change together with the magnetic transition. Magnetostatic coupling has been experimentally demonstrated in magnetocaloric particles and fragment ensembles. Based on the achieved insights, we have demonstrated that the materials properties can be tailored to achieve optimized magnetocaloric performance for cooling applications

Fusion to GFP blocks intercellular trafficking of the sucrose transporter SUT1 leading to accumulation in companion cells

BACKGROUND: Plant phloem consists of an interdependent cell pair, the sieve element / companion cell complex. Sucrose transporters are localized to enucleate sieve elements (SE), despite being transcribed in companion cells (CC). Due to the high turnover of SUT1, sucrose transporter mRNA or protein must traffic from CC to SE via the plasmodesmata. Localization of SUT mRNA at plasmodesmatal orifices connecting CC and SE suggests RNA transport, potentially mediated by RNA binding proteins. In many organisms, polar RNA transport is mediated through RNA binding proteins interacting with the 3'-UTR and controlling localized protein synthesis. To study mechanisms for trafficking of SUT1, GFP-fusions with and without 3'-UTR were expressed in transgenic plants. RESULTS: In contrast to plants expressing GFP from the strong SUC2 promoter, in RolC-controlled expression GFP is retained in companion cells. The 3'-UTR of SUT1 affected intracellular distribution of GFP but was insufficient for trafficking of SUT1, GFP or their fusions to SEs. Fusion of GFP to SUT1 did however lead to accumulation of SUT1-GFP in the CC, indicating that trafficking was blocked while translational inhibition of SUT1 mRNA was released in CCs. CONCLUSION: A fusion with GFP prevents targeting of the sucrose transporter SUT1 to the SE while leading to accumulation in the CC. The 3'-UTR of SUT1 is insufficient for mobilization of either the fusion or GFP alone. It is conceivable that SUT1-GFP protein transport through PD to SE was blocked due to the presence of GFP, resulting in retention in CC particles. Alternatively, SUT1 mRNA transport through the PD could have been blocked due to insertion of GFP between the SUT1 coding sequence and 3'-UTR