Panorama estrutural, dinâmica de crescimento e estratégias tecnológicas da agroindústria canavieira paranaense [Structural panorama, growth dynamics and technological strategies in Paraná's sugar cane agro-industry]

The objective of this paper is to verify the structural panorama, the dynamics of growth and the technological strategies used in sugar cane agro-industry in the State of Parana. It was implemented the shift-share model, to quantify the sources of agricultural production growth from 1981 to 1998. Besides sugar cane, was also analyzed the following cultures: cotton, coffee, soy and corn. It was made a questionnaire to get information from Paraná's sugar cane factories and distilleries, about the harvest of 1997/1998. It can be inferred that this agro-industry left the condition of a small importance to assume a national prominence position. In Parana, the sugar cane was the one that had the greater growth of production, which was achieved by the increase of the cultivated area. It was motivated by its high productivity and the influence of PROÁLCOOL. The sample of the searched units showed the good use of the sugar cane by-products and the use of agricultural and mechanical advanced technologies. This has been reflected in high agricultural and industrial productivity, corroborating the technological development which has passed the sugar cane agro-industry of Paraná.agro-industry, sugar cane, Paraná, technology, PROALCOOL

Estudo da competitividade da produção de algodão entre Brasil e Estados Unidos - safra 2003/04

O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a competitividade da produção de algodão entre o Brasil e os Estados Unidos da América (EUA) com base nos custos de produção agrícola, tomando como referência a safra 2003/04. No Brasil, os dados foram coletados por meio de painéis com agentes do sistema produtivo, nas regiões de Campo Novo do Parecis (MT), Primavera do Leste (MT) e norte do Paraná. Os dados dos EUA são de fontes secundárias. Os resultados apontaram que, no Brasil, há maior competitividade, com alta produtividade, mas os custos considerados altos por hectare. O risco da cultura é elevado, devido às margens estreitas e aos sunk cost. Nos EUA, há menor produtividade, custos relativamente altos e margens negativas na maioria das regiões. Os dados indicam que a sustentabilidade do setor algodoeiro nos EUA é artificial, dependente de ajuda governamental.This study aims to analyze the competitivity of the cotton production in Brazil and United States of America (USA) in terms of production costs, taking into consideration the 2003/04 crop season. In Brazil, data were colleted in panel conferences in the state of Mato Grosso (Campo Novo do Parecis and Pimavera do Leste) and also in the north of the Parana state. USA's data came from secondary sources. The results showed that Brazil has a better competitivity, with good productivity, but high costs per hectare. The risk of the culture is high, given the short margins and the sunk costs. In USA, the average productivity is smaller than in Brazil; the costs are relatively high and the margins are negative in most regions. Results show that the sustainability of the cotton industry in USA is artificial, and dependent of government support

Non-Rigid Groupwise Registration for Motion Estimation and Compensation in Compressed Sensing Reconstruc- tion of Breath-Hold Cardiac Cine MRI

Purpose: Compressed sensing methods with motion estimation and compensation techniques have been proposed for the reconstruction of accelerated dynamic MRI. However, artifacts that naturally arise in compressed sensing reconstruction procedures hinder the estimation of motion from reconstructed images, especially at high acceleration factors. This work introduces a robust groupwise non-rigid motion estimation technique applied to the compressed sensing reconstruction of dynamic cardiac cine MRI sequences. Theory and Methods: A spatio-temporal regularized, groupwise, non-rigid registration method based on a B-splines deformation model and a least squares metric is used to estimate and to compensate the movement of the heart in breath-hold cine acquisitions and to obtain a quasi-static sequence with highly sparse representation in temporally transformed domains. Results: Short axis in vivo datasets are used for validation, both original multi-coil as well as DICOM data. Fully sampled data were retrospectively undersampled with various acceleration factors and reconstructions were compared with the two well-known methods k-t FOCUSS and MASTeR. The proposed method achieves higher signal to error ratio and structure similarity index for medium to high acceleration factors. Conclusions: Reconstruction methods based on groupwise registration show higher quality recon- structions for cardiac cine images than the pairwise counterparts tested

ANÁLISE DO FLUXO DE CAIXA DE PROPRIEDADES PRODUTORAS DE ALGODÃO E SOJA NO ESTADO DE GOIÁS

A análise do fluxo de caixa de uma propriedade tem por objetivo avaliar os períodos onde ocorrerão as maiores entradas de capital, bem como os meses de maior saída, propiciando um melhor planejamento ao longo do ano em relação à distribuição das vendas e dos pagamentos dos insumos agrícolas utilizados para o cultivo das culturas. Dessa forma, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a distribuição dos custos e receitas inerentes ao cultivo de soja e algodão no estado do Goiás na safra 2006/07. Os dados foram obtidos em reuniões com produtores agrícolas de três diferentes regiões do Estado. De maneira geral, foi possível verificar uma grande concentração de vencimentos de contratos em meses como março e abril, período referente ao pagamento dos defensivos agrícolas, e no mês de setembro, época onde são realizados os pagamentos de fertilizantes, levando a um déficit acentuando no caixa das propriedades nesses períodos específicos.-------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------Analyzing entries and payments of a farm has for objective to evaluate periods which will happen the highest cash entries and months where will have the bigger withdraws, allowing a better plan during the year of the commodities sales and payment of production costs. This work has for objective analyzes the distribution of the production costs during the year in three different regions in Goiás State during the 2006/07 season. All data were collected in meetings with farmers from these three regions of Goiás State. As a result, was possible to verify a great concentration of payments in months as March and April, referring to the period where agricultural defensives are paid, and in the month of September, month where the fertilizer are paid, leading to a high deficit in the farm cash flow.Fluxo de caixa, custo de produção agrícola, algodão, soja, Estado de Goiás, Cash flow, agricultural costs, cotton, soybean, Goiás, Agricultural Finance,

Estudo da competitividade da produção de algodão entre Brasil e Estados Unidos – safra 2003/04

This study aims to analyze the competitivity of the cotton production in Brazil and United States of America (USA) in terms of production costs, taking into consideration the 2003/04 crop season. In Brazil, data were colleted in “panel conferences†in the state of Mato Grosso (Campo Novo do Parecis and Pimavera do Leste) and also in the north of the Parana state. USA’s data came from secondary sources. The results showed that Brazil has a better competitivity, with good productivity, but high costs per hectare. The risk of the culture is high, given the short margins and the sunk costs. In USA, the average productivity is smaller than in Brazil; the costs are relatively high and the margins are negative in most regions. Results show that the sustainability of the cotton industry in USA is artificial, and dependent of government support.Cotton, production costs, Brazil, United States, Agribusiness, M11, O13, Q12,

Causalidade e transmissão entre os preços de mandioca, trigo, milho e seus derivados no Paraná

This study aims to analyze the relations of causality and price transmission of the cassava root, the cassava starch, the cassava flour, the wheat, the wheat flour and the corn, in the State of Parana. The used data goes from January 1995 to December 2005, with monthly regularity. It was applied the methodology of Granger causality to test the relations between the variables. The results showed long term relations between corn and cassava root prices, cassava starch and cassava flour prices, wheat and corn prices and wheat and wheat flour prices. It was emphasized the dependence of the cassava root prices in relation to corn, wheat, cassava starch and cassava flour prices and its little influence on these variables. It was also noted that cassava flour prices influenced the cassava starch prices, and the strong relation between the wheat prices and the wheat flour prices. The cassava flour and the wheat prices presented lesser dependence of the others variables. The paper concluded that there are important interrelations between the studied variables. The cassava root prices were the ones that depended most on the other variables in this study.Granger causality, Price transmission, Starch, Demand and Price Analysis,

What Secondary Teachers Need in Professional Development

Most dioceses do not have well-articulated, systematic approaches to the professional development of Catholic school teachers and administrators. This article summarizes current research on effective strategies for professional development and reports on a study of one Midwestern diocese regarding the needs, perceptions, and plans of teachers and principals at the high school level

Multi-Stencil Streamline Fast Marching: a general 3D Framework to determine Myocardial Thickness and Transmurality in Late Enhancement Images

We propose a fully three-dimensional methodology for the computation of myocardial non-viable tissue transmurality in contrast enhanced magnetic resonance images. The outcome is a continuous map defined within the myocardium where not only current state-of-the-art measures of transmurality can be calculated, but also information on the location of non-viable tissue is preserved. The computation is done by means of a partial differential equation framework we have called Multi- Stencil Streamline Fast Marching (MSSFM). Using it, the myocardial and scarred tissue thickness is simultaneously computed. Experimental results show that the proposed 3D method allows for the computation of transmurality in myocardial regions where current 2D methods are not able to as conceived, and it also provides more robust and accurate results in situations where the assumptions on which current 2D methods are based —i.e., there is a visible endocardial contour and its corresponding epicardial points lie on the same slice—, are not met

Multi-Oriented Windowed Harmonic Phase Reconstruction for Robust Cardiac Strain Imaging

The purpose of this work is to develop a method for direct estimation of the cardiac strain tensor by extending the harmonic phase reconstruction on tagged magnetic resonance images to obtain more precise and robust measurements. The extension relies on the reconstruction of the local phase of the image by means of the windowed Fourier transform and the acquisition of an overdetermined set of stripe orientations in order to avoid the phase interferences from structures outside the myocardium and the instabilities arising from the application of a gradient operator. Results have shown that increasing the number of acquired orientations provides a signi cant improvement in the reproducibility of the strain measurements and that the acquisition of an extended set of orientations also improves the reproducibility when compared with acquiring repeated samples from a smaller set of orientations. Additionally, biases in local phase estimation when using the original harmonic phase formulation are greatly diminished by the one here proposed. The ideas here presented allow the design of new methods for motion sensitive magnetic resonance imaging, which could simultaneously improve the resolution, robustness and accuracy of motion estimates