On Phase Transitions for PP-Adic Potts Model with Competing Interactions on a Cayley Tree

In the paper we considere three state $p$-adic Potts model with competing interactions on a Cayley tree of order two. We reduce a problem of describing of the $p$-adic Gibbs measures to the solution of certain recursive equation, and using it we will prove that a phase transition occurs if and only if $p=3$ for any value (non zero) of interactions. As well, we completely solve the uniqueness problem for the considered model in a $p$-adic context. Namely, if $p\neq 3$ then there is only a unique Gibbs measure the model.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of the '2nd International Conference on p-Adic Mathematical Physics' (Belgrade, 15-21 September 2005) published by AIP Conference Proceeding

An Emergent-Based Approach for Deriving Business/IT Alignment Models and Measures through IS Enactment

Business/IT Alignment is an information systems research field with a long existence and a high number of researchers and represents a central thinking direction over the entanglement between business and information systems. It aims to achieve a paradigm, on which there is a high degree of visibility and availability of information about the information systems sociomateriality. Complex-networks constitute an approach to the study of the emergent properties of complex-systems that strongly focuses and relies on models and measures, through which the system interdependence is built. Several characteristics of complex-networks are: structural or functional topology; domain independent; quantification of elements’ relationships; visibility and capture of emergent properties. We introduce a set of models and measures through the dimensions of a profiling framework illustrated with an exploratory case

Cooperação brasileira para o desenvolvimento internacional (COBRADI): O brasil e os fundos multilaterais de desenvolvimento

According to the survey by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) in collaboration with the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation (ABC), Brazil contributed during the period of 2005-2009, with funds for International Development in the order of R $3.2 billion. Of the total budget for Brazilian Cooperation for International Development (COBRADI), R$ 929.7 million, almost 30%, corresponded to contributions to multilateral development funds such as the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, the Fund for Special Operations (FSO) of the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Fund (ADF) of the African Development Bank. This paper seeks to describe the role of these institutions, their priorities, funding conditions and the Brazilian contribution throughout their participation as shareholders. Likewise, it seeks to launch for discussion a few elements present in the current debate on the quality of aid offered by those institutions that provide resources for the development of the poorest countries in the world, within highly concessional terms and to which Brazil has allocated a significant portion of their contributions during the period

The establishment of the time interval between inspections for a cold standby system with component repair

The time interval between inspections of cold standby systems is a crucial decision to ensure the appropriated system reliability and the lowest costs possible. This paper presents a model developed to establish the optimal time interval between inspections for a two-unit cold standby system with component repair and subject to periodic inspection, considering reliability and costs. A Markov chain is used to define possible states, their transition probabilities and the mean time to system failure, as a function of the time interval between inspections. Given the mean time to system failure, the steady state availability is determined. Finally, the costs related to the system maintenance are established and a cost function is developed and optimized for the time interval between inspections. Numerical examples are presented and results for different system parameters are compared. Besides optimizing the time interval between inspections, the analyses also reveal the effect of repair time on system availability and mean time to system failure

Montado’s Ecosystem Services

Although the concept of ecosystem services is well defined and centred on human use of natural systems, it is not yet consensual. The ecosystem services connect ecology and economy; they allow to integrate ecology into policies and to bring a monetary value. Even if the authors do not entirely agree with the idea of giving a monetary value to all elements, living and not living, they consider that the concept of ecosystem services can be improved in the sense of a holistic landscape ecological approach. Montado is a high valuated cultural landscape typical from the Southwest of Iberian Peninsula. It concerns a human-shaped ecosystem composed by a mosaic of scattered cork oaks, holm oaks or mix oaks, with a high grazing diversity. The most important products of Montado are cork and other non-timber products. Nevertheless its highly value is on the ecosystem functions it can provide, namely water cycle regulation, carbon sequestration and conservation of biodiversity, soil and cultural landscape values. These ecosystem services are highly interconnected, and have a lot of dependences in a complex structure. So, the first goal of this paper is to identify the main Montado ecosystem services that must be valued in sustainable management and policies, in order to prevent biodiversity losses and other types of ecosystem and landscape degradation. It is therefore of the utmost importance enhance Montados ecosystems services knowledge.CIMAC,ICAAM,DPAO e CIDEHUS (UID/HIS/00057/2013 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007702) project

Effects of Segregation on Granulated NPK Sieving – a case study/ Efeitos da segregação na peneiração granulada de NPK - um estudo de caso

Particle segregation is a common, but often neglected problem in bulk solids handling. It is induced by mechanical stresses suffered by a bed of material when vibrated, allowed to freely fall or transfer, provoking particles to reaccommodate size-biased. This phenomenon triggers a series of upsets in production lines. In fertilizer granulation plants, some quality issues of final product and overall process control disturbances can be explained by excess of segregated material being fed to process screening machines. This paper is a case study of sieving inefficiency troubleshooting that took place in an NPK granulation plant in India, where the lack of proper transition between product bucket elevator and a conveyor belt caused material to suffer trajectory segregation. As a result, the granulometry distribution profile on belt was increasingly coarser along its width moving away from elevator’s discharge. When that conveyor fed a pair of screening machines through a stream splitter, one was receiving an excess of undersized particles whereas the other an excess of oversized ones. Even though same flow was being achieved on both machines, a more segregated and homogenous mixture fed to them decreased overall screening efficiency. Poor sieving results in excess of feed to oversize grinders and reduced recycle back to granulator, destabilizing recycle control system and overall granulation process. Given the impossibility of revamping or replacing the existing transition, in this case an inclined chute, palliative measures showed necessary and enough to reduce segregation, increasing screening efficiency to as high as 96% and stabilizing recycle control