Book review: Kevin Lane Keller and Vanitha Swaminathan (2020). Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, 5th edition, Pearson Education Limited, ISBN 978-0-13-489249-8

What are brands? Brands are intangible assets that are invaluable for an organization. Though, creating and bringing up strong brands over a while against immense competition is a hard task and a challenge for managers. Creating and nurturing a huge brand doesn’t happen overnight. Sound plans for the brand are essential in nurturing a strong brand and it consumes a considerable period. Just planning to build strong brands is not sufficient to generate yield on the investment. But powerful strategies are a must to endure strong brands over the huge competition in the digital era. Thus, all-powerful marketing thinking should be directed at strengthening the brand to generate yield on investment. It has been implied that a comprehensive and cohesive system is fundamental to fostering an outstanding brand

Emergence of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) Technique as a Strategy towards Sustainable Development: A Sri Lankan Experience

In this millennium all the development activities are mostly focused on sustainable development, i.e. the development which fulfils the requirements of the present without disturbing the utilization of future generation. Basically, the sustainable development deals with environmental, social, and economical initiations. In relation to these three objectives, community participation plays a key role as an effective strategy for sustainable development. Among the numerous types of participation, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique is the most relevant effective method to receive the participation. Because, it has been strengthen by bottom up approach, well defined objectives, practicable solutions, and remedies. Hence, the out come of such an event is most productive rather than a top bottom approach techniques. In fact, a PRA was practiced to develop a strategic plan for tsunami affected village – Bambaranda east, in southern province of Sri Lanka. PRA sessions were carried out during February, 2007 by the Department of Agric. Economics of Ruhuna University, Sri Lanka in collaboration with Japanese Green Resource Agency, Japan.Participatory mapping, venn diagram, matrix ranking, preference ranking, and pair - wise ranking were demonstrated to gather information from the community. The tsunami affected area, including the paddy fields, four irrigation canals were shown by the group with the help of the participatory map. Preference ranking was resulted the reconstruction of irrigation canals as the most important rehabilitation activity to recover the livelihood of villagers. Intrusion of sea water into the paddy fields was the main limitation revealed by the pair - wise ranking. The second limitation marked as unavailability of enough fertilizer and the dilapidated irrigation canals was the third that has to be solved. Matrix ranking was employed to identify the most facilitated sectors by the government and other institutes in order to detect the areas which need to pay further attention. By that, the community realized that the rehabilitation of irrigation canal is the least benefited area where any development activity should be addressed in order to up grade their livelihood. Finally, a venn diagram was executed to identify the service providing entities in the community. It explored the Agrarian Service Center (ASC) as the most important service providing institute which keeps a close relationship with the community. The second and third places were acquired by Sanasa and Samurdhi office. Therefore, the most appropriate institute to launch any sort of development activity is ASC, Sanasa, or Samurdhi office.With the light of these exercises, now the funding agency is activating in Bambaranda village by constructing the irrigation canals and also the estuary. Moreover, the implementation was carried out under the supervision of ASC with efficient participation of villagers. In fact, the PRA has given the correct path that would direct towards sustainable development with community participation

Emergence of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) Technique as a Strategy towards Sustainable Development: A Sri Lankan Experience

In this millennium all the development activities are mostly focused on sustainable development, i.e. the development which fulfils the requirements of the present without disturbing the utilization of future generation. Basically, the sustainable development deals with environmental, social, and economical initiations. In relation to these three objectives, community participation plays a key role as an effective strategy for sustainable development. Among the numerous types of participation, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique is the most relevant effective method to receive the participation. Because, it has been strengthen by bottom up approach, well defined objectives, practicable solutions, and remedies. Hence, the out come of such an event is most productive rather than a top bottom approach techniques. In fact, a PRA was practiced to develop a strategic plan for tsunami affected village – Bambaranda east, in southern province of Sri Lanka. PRA sessions were carried out during February, 2007 by the Department of Agric. Economics of Ruhuna University, Sri Lanka in collaboration with Japanese Green Resource Agency, Japan. Participatory mapping, venn diagram, matrix ranking, preference ranking, and pair - wise ranking were demonstrated to gather information from the community. The tsunami affected area, including the paddy fields, four irrigation canals were shown by the group with the help of the participatory map. Preference ranking was resulted the reconstruction of irrigation canals as the most important rehabilitation activity to recover the livelihood of villagers. Intrusion of sea water into the paddy fields was the main limitation revealed by the pair - wise ranking. The second limitation marked as unavailability of enough fertilizer and the dilapidated irrigation canals was the third that has to be solved. Matrix ranking was employed to identify the most facilitated sectors by the government and other institutes in order to detect the areas which need to pay further attention. By that, the community realized that the rehabilitation of irrigation canal is the least benefited area where any development activity should be addressed in order to up grade their livelihood. Finally, a venn diagram was executed to identify the service providing entities in the community. It explored the Agrarian Service Center (ASC) as the most important service providing institute which keeps a close relationship with the community. The second and third places were acquired by Sanasa and Samurdhi office. Therefore, the most appropriate institute to launch any sort of development activity is ASC, Sanasa, or Samurdhi office. With the light of these exercises, now the funding agency is activating in Bambaranda village by constructing the irrigation canals and also the estuary. Moreover, the implementation was carried out under the supervision of ASC with efficient participation of villagers. In fact, the PRA has given the correct path that would direct towards sustainable development with community participation

Ocorrência de gafanhotos em áreas de cerrados de Mazagão, Amapá.

bitstream/item/11861/1/ComuTec_2006_120.pd

Estimativa do nível crítico de cobre para a soja, em solos do cerrado brasileiro.

A prática da monocultura de soja no Brasil, com o passar do tempo, pode diminuir o teor de matéria orgânica dos solos, sendo esse problema mais sério em solos arenosos. Isso tem aumentado a deficiência de certos micronutrientes, em especial o cobre (Cu). Além disso, a aplicação de adubos, muitas vezes em demasia e sem critério técnico, pode provocar problemas nutricionais de toxicidade ou deficiência desse micronutriente. Com a expansão da soja nas regiões de solos de Cerrado, passou-se para o cultivo em solos de textura média a arenosa, com teores de argila inferiores a 200 g.kg-1, CTC baixa e, originalmente, com baixo teor de Cu. Foram instalados experimentos, com a cultura da soja, em três solos do Cerrado: Latossolo Vermelho Amarelo (LVA) com 260 g.kg-1 de argila, no município de Tasso Fragoso, Latossolo Vermelho (LV) com 450 g.kg-1 de argila, no município de São Raimundo das Mangabeiras, ambos no sul do Estado do Maranhão e em Latossolo Vermelho (LV) com 550 g.kg-1 de argila, no município de Pedra Preta, sudeste do Estado do Mato Grosso, com seis doses de Cu (0; 1,25; 2,5; 5,0; 10 e 20 kg/ha), da fonte sulfato de cobre (30% de Cu) e seis níveis de saturação de bases (V%=30, 40, 50, 60, 70 e 80), com quatro repetições. Os valores estimados, acima dos quais não é esperada resposta à aplicação de cobre, são de 0,74 mg.dm-3 e 0,34 mg.dm-3 de Cu2+, pelos métodos Mehlich e DTPA, respectivamente. Portanto, as faixas de Cu no solo em mg.dm-3, para interpretação dos níveis do nutriente no solo são: para o Método Mehlich-1; Baixo 0,74. Para o Método DTPA; Baixo 0,34

Critical Point and Percolation Probability in a Long Range Site Percolation Model on Zd\Z^d

Consider an independent site percolation model with parameter $p \in (0,1)$ on $\Z^d,\ d\geq 2$ where there are only nearest neighbor bonds and long range bonds of length $k$ parallel to each coordinate axis. We show that the percolation threshold of such model converges to $p_c(\Z^{2d})$ when $k$ goes to infinity, the percolation threshold for ordinary (nearest neighbour) percolation on $\Z^{2d}$. We also generalize this result for models whose long range bonds have several lengths.Comment: 5 pages; Acepted in Stochastic Processes and their Applications 201

Primeiro registro de Anastrepha Fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae) no Estado do Pará.

Resumo 1496-2