It has been suggested that impaired respiratory muscle function occurs in patients with PH (pulmonary hypertension); however, comprehensive investigations of respiratory muscle function, including the application of non-volitional tests, needed to verify impairment of respiratory muscle strength in patients with PH have not yet been performed. In the present study, respiratory muscle function was assessed in 31 patients with PH (20 females and 11 males; mean pulmonary artery pressure, 51+/-20 mmHg; median World Health Organization class 3.0+/-0.5; 25 patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension and six patients with chronic thromboembolic PH) and in 31 control subjects (20 females and 11 males) well-matched for gender, age and BMI (body mass index). A 6-min walking test was performed to determine exercise capacity. Volitionally assessed maximal inspiratory (7.5+/-2.1 compared with 6.2+/-2.8 kPa; P=0.04) and expiratory (13.3+/-4.2 compared with 9.9+/-3.4 kPa; P<0.001) mouth pressures, sniff nasal (8.3+/-1.9 compared with 6.6+/-2.2 kPa; P=0.002) and transdiaphragmatic (11.3+/-2.5 compared with 8.7+/-2.5 kPa; P<0.001) pressures, non-volitionally assessed twitch mouth (1.46+/-0.43 compared with 0.97+/-0.41 kPa; P<0.001) and transdiaphragmatic (2.08+/-0.55 compared with 1.47+/-0.72 kPa; P=0.001) pressures during bilateral anterior magnetic phrenic nerve stimulation were markedly lower in patients with PH compared with control subjects. Maximal inspiratory mouth (r=0.58, P<0.001) and sniff transdiaphragmatic (r=0.43, P=0.02) pressures were correlated with the 6-min walking distance in patients with PH. In conclusion, the present study provides strong evidence that respiratory muscle strength is reduced in patients with PH compared with well-matched control subjects. Furthermore, the 6-min walking distance is significantly linked to parameters assessing inspiratory muscle strength.

Agricultural cooperatives have the main goals of meeting the economic, social and cultural needs of their members. Although they do not seek profits, they must be competitive since they compete with other cooperatives and companies in the market. In this sense, the search for technical efficiency to give cooperatives a better market position contrasts with the difficulty these organizations face in obtaining foreign capital to enable greater investments. There is little empirical evidence, however, of the relationship between financial constraints and technical efficiency in these organizations. According to theoretical assumptions, this relationship could be positive or negative. Thus, this paper analyzes the impact of financial constraints on the technical efficiency of Brazilian agricultural cooperatives. For this, we used two metrics to measure financial constraint and analyzed panel data on 68 Brazilian agricultural cooperatives for the 2005-2014 period. Despite the theoretical predictions, our main results suggest there is no evidence that financial constraints affect technical efficiency. This result can be explained by the characteristics attributed to Brazilian cooperatives, that is, the fact they deal with different commodities (multi-purpose) and do not have strong demand for investments (technology). This paper contributes to the literature both by providing new empirical evidence regarding the relationship between technical efficiency and financial constraints and by introducing a new metric for analyzing financial constraint in the context of cooperatives.

O objetivo deste estudo é identificar os motivos que levam as cooperativas agropecuárias do Rio Grande do Sul a contratar serviços de auditoria independente, mesmo que legalmente estejam desobrigadas. Sob a ótica da teoria da agência, as respostas dos responsáveis pela governança, tais como presidentes, conselhos fiscais e contadores são utilizadas como determinantes para o estudo. Para atingir o objetivo proposto, utilizou-se um estudo de caso múltiplo, com abordagem qualitativa, por meio de pesquisa documental e entrevistas em quatro cooperativas. Os dados foram tratados por meio da análise de conteúdo com o estabelecimento de categorias por “acervo”, resultando em doze categorias iniciais que serviram de base para a interpretação. Os resultados encontrados demonstraram que as cooperativas estudadas contrataram auditoria independente principalmente para: detectar falhas humanas e erros contábeis, aumentar a qualificação técnico contábil, elevar o nível de segurança das informações contábeis aos usuários, detectar e prevenir fraudes, incrementar a transparência das transações, atender exigências de instituições financeiras, criar vantagem competitiva, motivar a equipe contábil e facilitar acesso ao crédito. Complementarmente, foi possível detectar que 68,75% dos presidentes e 45,83% dos conselhos fiscais apresentaram, em suas respostas, motivações relacionadas às relações de agência. Por fim, frente às descobertas da pesquisa, foi possível confirmar as preocupações dos responsáveis pela governança com assuntos ligados ao conflito de agência, contudo, ainda assim, verificaram-se lacunas que contrariam esta teoria, as quais poderão servir de estímulo para realização de outras pesquisas nesta área.

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