Activity patterns and temporal niche partitioning of dogs and medium-sized wild mammals in urban parks of Xalapa,Mexico

Urban Ecosystems - Free-ranging domestic dogs are the world most common exotic carnivore species that could negatively interact with the native wildlife as predators, competitors, and disease...     

Ergonomics analysis of the productive environment of fashion clothing firm in Belo Horizonte-MG

A company making women's clothing, located in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais was studied in its ergonomic aspects with regard to the layout. With this study it was possible to establish the best positioning of machines and jobs of employees. The analysis criteria used were: frequency of use, functional grouping, sequence of use, flow and intensity of preferred connections. An ideal arrangement in the workplace provides improved manufacturing quality and employee performance and consequently higher production yields.     

Conceptual framework for measuring carbon footprint in supply chains

Over the last few years, the fight against climate change has become one of the main topics of international debate. Hence, consumer behaviour has begun to change as they have started to assess the environmental impacts of the products and services they buy. Although various methods exist for measuring environmental (e.g. carbon) impacts, there is no international consensus about the most appropriate one. In addition, calculations can also be affected by limited data availability and uncertainty surrounding the value of key variables. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for measuring and analysing the carbon footprint in supply chains. This research contributes to the knowledge and practice of green supply chain management, at the corporate level, by providing robustness. This aids the decision-making process by identifying strategies in order to reach the efficiency that can be achieved by reducing CO₂ emission over the supply network. The framework is validated using real data from a supply chain belonging to the agro-industrial sector. Finally, these results and experience is generalised in order to show the difficulties and challenges in the measuring task.     

Weights in Multidimensional Indices of Wellbeing: An Overview

Multidimensional indices are becoming increasingly important instruments to assess the wellbeing of societies. They move beyond the focus on a single indicator and yet they are easy to present and communicate. A crucial step in the construction of a multidimensional index of wellbeing is the selection of the relative weights for the different dimensions. The aim of this article is to study the role of these weights and to critically survey eight different approaches to set them. We categorize the approaches in three classes: data-driven, normative, and hybrid weighting, and compare their respective advantages and drawbacks.     

Interface design and contemporary: human creating new guidelines for high-tech products

Contemporary electronic industry offers a wide range of products. Usually touch sensitive and with few buttons and a lot of functions these products not always have a friendly interface. The human x design interface based on electronics' ergonomics is the focus of this research. An evolutionary analysis of the electronics industry design within a contemporary context clarifies this relation and proposes new guidelines for a more conscious design.     

On the impact of collaborative strategies for goods delivery in city logistics

Abstract

City logistics refers to the process of total optimisation of the logistics and transport activities in urban areas while considering economic, environmental, social and safety aspects. This paper considers a collaborative scenario for the urban goods transport planning and management as a way to reduce transport costs, congestion and environmental impact of this activity. An approach from the Operations Management field, using mathematical modelling, for tactical and operational decision-making is proposed to discuss and compare both collaborative and non-collaborative scenarios. This approach is validated using real data taken from the city of Bogotá, Colombia. Results put in evidence the quantitative benefits that can be achieved when collaborative logistics operations are implemented, represented in both transportation costs and environmental impacts. Although these results might not be surprising (like in the field of supply chain management), the contribution of this paper is centred in the fact that the impacts of collaboration in city logistics have not yet been quantified until now. This allows an ‘ex ante’ evaluation of the benefits of collaborative goods transport in cities.     

Public relations and tourism: Critical reflections and a research agenda

This article is based on the belief that research focused on PR tourism is of fundamental importance to understanding the role of PR in contemporary culture. Our analysis shows that tourism has not received much attention from PR researchers and that a critical perspective uncovers a host of key issues in promotional culture: power, politics and diplomacy in international communication; risk, ethics and social responsibility; globalisation and multiculturalism; and ‘media panics’ and ‘media events’.     

Poverty in the news media: Continuities,ruptures, and change in the reporting socioeconomic inequality

This work attempts to offer a reflexive account of the key ideas and scholarly contributions developed over the years that provide elements for a theoretical explanatory framework regarding news media and poverty. In so doing, the article presents a general assessment of some of the key works in this area, while assessing the main notions, concepts, and contributions in this regard. The author points out at the fact that there is broad agreement among most scholars in relation to these issues while suggesting, nevertheless, that there are still some important pieces of the puzzle missing in our understanding about how the media engages with poverty and inequality.     

Biodiversity of the urban homegardens of São Luís city,Northeastern Brazil

There is a widely held notion that the increasing trend of urbanization accelerates loss of biodiversity and displaces native species. This study assessed the validity of this notion in the city of São Luís the capital of the state of Maranhão in the northeastern Brazil. The specific objectives of the study were to (1) assess plant and animal diversity of urban homegardens, (2) compare the diversity of homegardens in terms of origin of these species (exotic or indigenous to Brazil). We conducted a biodiversity survey in 40 randomly selected ‘quintais’ (hereafter called homegardens) from ten locations in the city of São Luis. We evaluated the species richness and diversity of various use categories of plant and animal species indigenous to Brazil as well as exotic species. A total of 186 species of plants in 68 families were recorded in the sampled homegradens. A total of 63 fruit tree species representing 34% of all tree species were found. Of these species, those indigenous to Brazil accounted for 58% of the cases, and this was significantly higher than the exotic species. Most of the species (60%) were indigenous to Brazil (wild and semi-wild domesticates), while the rest (40%) were exotic. A total of 42 species of vertebrates (mainly reptiles, birds and mammals) were also found in the homegardens, of which 47% were indigenous to Brazil. Some of the plant and animal species found in the homegardens are endangered species in their native habitats, suggesting that homegardens could provide a unique opportunity for their conservation and sustainable use. These species continue to play a vital role in the socioeconomic and ecological landscape of the city.