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Publicações

2018

Biodiesel and social inclusion: An analysis of institutional pressures between biodiesel plants and family farmers in southern Brazil

Autores
Barros Ribeiro, ECB; Moreira, AC; Ferreira, LMDF; Cesar, AD;

Publicação
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION

Abstract
The objective of this study is to identify, through motivating, inhibiting and facilitating factors, responses to institutional pressures on the relationship between biodiesel plants and family farming cooperatives via the Social Fuel Seal (SFS) in the South region of Brazil. This region is characterized by well-endowed family farming cooperatives. This paper adopts as theoretical lens the institutional theory. It is based on case studies involving qualitative research drawing results from four biodiesel plants with SFS certification and eight family farming cooperatives. The results indicate that the institutional biodiesel framework influenced the SFS-based relationships. This coercion mechanism led the plants to comply with the promotion of family farming via cooperatives. The plants seek legal legitimacy and opt to accept institutional pressures, primarily due to the guaranteed sale of all biodiesel produced via government sponsored auctions. Cooperatives are attracted by the receipt of the social bonus, seen as a prime motivating factor, which can be interpreted as an informal coercive pressure. Considering the context in which the plants and cooperatives are inserted, the SFS promoted changes in the sale of raw materials. It was also found that cooperatives facilitating factors are inversely related with plants inhibiting factors.

2018

COORDINATION MECHANISMS OF COLLABORATIVE R&D PROJECTS IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Autores
Baggio, D; Wegner, D; Dalmarco, G;

Publicação
RAM. Revista de Administração Mackenzie

Abstract
ABSTRACT Purpose: To analyze how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) coordinate collaborative research and development (R&D) projects through an open innovation strategy. Originality/value: This research was motivated by a theoretical gap in the management of collaborative R&D projects in open innovation strategies. The originality of the paper is to advance the understanding of coordination mechanisms that SMEs can use to manage open innovation and obtain more effective results. Design/methodology/approach: The research followed a qualitative approach, through three case studies of collaborative projects. Data were collected by means of in-depth interviews with eleven managers directly involved in collaborative R&D projects. Findings: Results demonstrate that the use of coordination mechanisms depends on the applicability of each project’s results, i.e., the higher the chances of a certain R&D project becoming a real product, the higher the importance given to the coordination mechanisms. On the cases observed, the coordination mechanisms were defined by the enterprise, not by external partners. In addition, it was observed that open innovation projects that the enterprise seeks for external knowledge to complement internal resources (outside-in) were considered more important than transferring internal knowledge to external partners (inside-out). The paper contributes to organizational theory by highlighting the relation between the characteristics of collaborative R&D projects and the coordination mechanisms used. Regarding the managerial contribution, results serve as a guide for entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs interested in coordinating collaborative projects based on open innovation processes.

2018

Advanced scoring method of eco-efficiency in European cities

Autores
Moutinho, V; Madaleno, M; Robaina, M; Villar, J;

Publicação
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH

Abstract
This paper analyzes a set of selected German and French cities' performance in terms of the relative behavior of their eco-efficiencies, computed as the ratio of their gross domestic product (GDP) over their CO2 emissions. For this analysis, eco-efficiency scores of the selected cities are computed using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique, taking the eco-efficiencies as outputs, and the inputs being the energy consumption, the population density, the labor productivity, the resource productivity, and the patents per inhabitant. Once DEA results are analyzed, the Malmquist productivity indexes (MPI) are used to assess the time evolution of the technical efficiency, technological efficiency, and productivity of the cities over the window periods 2000 to 2005 and 2005 to 2008. Some of the main conclusions are that (1) most of the analyzed cities seem to have suboptimal scales, being one of the causes of their inefficiency; (2) there is evidence that high GDP over CO2 emissions does not imply high eco-efficiency scores, meaning that DEA like approaches are useful to complement more simplistic ranking procedures, pointing out potential inefficiencies at the input levels; (3) efficiencies performed worse during the period 2000-2005 than during the period 2005-2008, suggesting the possibility of corrective actions taken during or at the end of the first period but impacting only on the second period, probably due to an increasing environmental awareness of policymakers and governors; and (4) MPI analysis shows a positive technological evolution of all cities, according to the general technological evolution of the reference cities, reflecting a generalized convergence of most cities to their technological frontier and therefore an evolution in the right direction.

2018

Falcon: A Practical Log-based Analysis Tool for Distributed Systems

Autores
Neves, F; Machado, N; Pereira, J;

Publicação
2018 48TH ANNUAL IEEE/IFIP INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DEPENDABLE SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS (DSN)

Abstract
Programmers and support engineers typically rely on log data to narrow down the root cause of unexpected behaviors in dependable distributed systems. Unfortunately, the inherently distributed nature and complexity of such distributed executions often leads to multiple independent logs, scattered across different physical machines, with thousands or millions entries poorly correlated in terms of event causality. This renders log-based debugging a tedious, time-consuming, and potentially inconclusive task. We present Falcon, a tool aimed at making log-based analysis of distributed systems practical and effective. Falcon's modular architecture, designed as an extensible pipeline, allows it to seamlessly combine several distinct logging sources and generate a coherent space-time diagram of distributed executions. To preserve event causality, even in the presence of logs collected from independent unsynchronized machines, Falcon introduces a novel happens-before symbolic formulation and relies on an off-the-shelf constraint solver to obtain a coherent event schedule. Our case study with the popular distributed coordination service Apache Zookeeper shows that Falcon eases the log-based analysis of complex distributed protocols and is helpful in bridging the gap between protocol design and implementation.

2018

Pedagogical and technological replanning: a successful case study on integration and transversal skills for engineering freshmen

Autores
Torres, MF; Sousa, AJ; Torres, RT;

Publicação
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN EDUCATION

Abstract
Replanning is often used to optimize results of an activity in an ever changing world. To address the challenge of preparing future engineers for success, a special course was created for all engineering freshmen of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, in Portugal. Presented as a case study, this special course underwent a careful replanning as a result of several years of experience in teaching practice alongside with a theoretical deepening in pedagogical and technological issues, under the aegis of the action-research methodology. Within the context of the case study course, the mentioned replanning was also based on a theoretical approach that clearly identifies teaching-learning-assessment methodologies that promote regulation from those that foster emancipation, using a specific instrument: a taxonomy of educational processes. The replanning was designed to globally boost results regarding the educational aims of the course such as furthering freshmen's integration into work environment and preparing them for success by fostering transversal skills (needed for study and work). Technology is seen as a mean of education enrichment as well as a productivity tool. The introduced innovations include fun-but-educational activities, several types of assessment over time and specific technological tools which were critical for the educational impact/achievement of this course. Success is demonstrated by encouraging feedback from the stakeholders, high students' classifications and a steady reduction in retention. It is advocated that large portions of the reasoning behind the replanning can be extrapolated to other courses.

2018

Dynamic Allocation of Serverless Functions in IoT Environments

Autores
Pinto, D; Dias, JP; Ferreira, HS;

Publicação
2018 IEEE 16TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EMBEDDED AND UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING (EUC 2018)

Abstract
The IoT area has grown significantly in the last few years and is expected to reach a gigantic amount of 50 billion devices by 2020. The appearance of serverless architectures, specifically highlighting FaaS, raises the question of the suitability of using them in IoT environments. Combining IoT with a serverless architectural design can be effective when trying to make use of the local processing power that exists in a local network of IoT devices and creating a fog layer that leverages computational capabilities that are closer to the end-user. In this approach, which is placed between the device and the serverless function, when a device requests for the execution of a serverless function will decide based on previous metrics of execution if the serverless function should be executed locally, in the fog layer of a local network of IoT devices, or if it should be executed remotely, in one of the available cloud servers. Therefore, this approach allows dynamically allocating functions to the most suitable layer.

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