The balance between sustainability dimensions: ecological base familiar smallholders' case from Coagrosol/Brazil .

This report shows some initial results about the research project entitled GlobalOrg, on a Brazilian case study, investigating the sustainability of tropical fruit organic farming in a global food chains perspective. It was performed an analysis about the production strategies of certified units of a familiar smalholders cooperative from Itápolis-SP-Brazil. In this analysis it was verified the application of sustainability principles recommended by the ecological based agriculture, focused on the agrobiodiversity, material recycling and the social-economic aspects from the agroecology conversion process. The research occurs through the complementarities provided by a combination of sociological and agronomic research methods, it means, qualitative interviews and questionnaire application with semi-structured questions. What was concluded is that the establishment of an economic relationship between the cooperative and a fair-trade international entity stimulates an interesting growing in the production diversity and also stimulates the application of different principles of ecological based agriculture. It indicates an important balance between the sustainability dimensions and demonstrates a visible attitude change in the natural resource exploration in this region

Truncated states obtained by iteration

Quantum states of the electromagnetic field are of considerable importance, finding potential application in various areas of physics, as diverse as solid state physics, quantum communication and cosmology. In this paper we introduce the concept of truncated states obtained via iterative processes (TSI) and study its statistical features, making an analogy with dynamical systems theory (DST). As a specific example, we have studied TSI for the doubling and the logistic functions, which are standard functions in studying chaos. TSI for both the doubling and logistic functions exhibit certain similar patterns when their statistical features are compared from the point of view of DST. A general method to engineer TSI in the running-wave domain is employed, which includes the errors due to the nonidealities of detectors and photocounts.Comment: 10 pages, 22 figure

Energy efficiency for typical 2-floor buildings in Portugal

The purpose of this paper is to develop a relative evaluation, from the energetic point of view, of different building layouts. Buildings can be classified, according to their position within the lot, as perimeter yard buildings, rear yard buildings, and side yard buildings. This classification covers the layout solutions traditionally adopted by architects for 2-floor residential buildings. The thermal performance of each building layout was evaluated through the quantification of its energetic consumption (per square meter of built area), for the heating and cooling seasons, and according to the geographic orientation. The simulation tool used in this evaluation is based on the Transfer Function Method. The results obtained showed that the rear yard buildings have the better thermal performance, with an average energy consumption that is around 40% lower than in the other cases. In addition, for all building layouts studied, the North-South orientation requires the minimum energetic consumption to maintain comfortable indoor air temperature.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Modelagem da paisagem no Parque Estadual Carlos Botelho (SP) e entorno.

The aim of this study was to model landscape change in a nature conservation area located in the Atlantic Forest within São Paulo State, Brazil, called Carlos Botelho State Park ? CBSP, and also in its surroundings, both currently under anthropogenic pressure. A cellular automata stochastic simulation platform - Dinamica EGO ? was used, which embodies neighborhood-based transition algorithms and the weights of evidence method as a parameterization approach. Water bodies, forest, agriculture, and forestry (eucalyptus) were considered as land cover categories in this model. Variables like distance to roads and distance to existent types of land cover in the area were crucial to explain the observed landscape changes. The prevailing conversion of land-use/land-cover was agriculture to eucalyptus. There were no findings of significant increase of human pressure in CBSP, except in a small stretch in the northwest of the Park. There is evidence that the establishment of a nature conservation area in the eastern sector of CBSP might be feasible, since it would strengthen an ecological corridor towards the Jurupará Park. Fiscalization and routine monitoring should be strictly observed, considering that the CBSP may suffer greater pressure of the eucalyptus plantations that increasingly expand into surrounding the region analyzed. To improve this research, more variables should be investigated, for example, the role the role of distance to suppliers / markets and roads, soil categories, as well as socioeconomic factors through coupled models of dynamic systems

Quenched disorder and spin-glass correlations in XY nematics

We present a theoretical study of the equilibrium ordering in a 3D XY nematic system with quenched random disorder. Within this model, treated with the replica trick and Gaussian variational method, the correlation length is obtained as a function of the local nematic order parameter and the effective disorder strength. These results clarify what happens in the limiting cases of diminishing order parameter and disorder strength, that is near a phase transition of a pure system. In particular, it is found that quenched disorder is irrelevant as the order parameter tends to zero and hence does not change the character of the continuous XY nematic to isotropic phase transition. We discuss how these results compare with experiments and simulationsComment: 19 pages, 6 figures, corrected typo

A Search for Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem Violations in Spin-Glasses from Susceptibility Data

We propose an indirect way of studying the fluctuation-dissipation relation in spin-glasses that only uses available susceptibility data. It is based on a dynamic extension of the Parisi-Toulouse approximation and a Curie-Weiss treatment of the average magnetic couplings. We present the results of the analysis of several sets of experimental data obtained from various samples.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Efeitos da oscilação sul evidenciados no regime de precipitação pluvial em Santarém e Belterra.

Objetivou-se com este trabalho avaliar efeitos da Oscilação Sul no regime de precipitação pluvial nos municípios de Belterra e Santarém, PA. Utilizou-se dados disponibilizados pelo Centro Nacional de Previsão do Tempo-NCEP e Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia-INMET de estações meteorológicas localizadas nos municípios de Santarém e Belterra, PA, respectivamente Foram utilizados dados, correspondentes a série histórica do período de 1979 a 2009, em que realizou-se uma análise exploratória para extrair medidas de dispersão e identificar marcadores climáticos nesses 31 anos de informações pluviais. Calculou-se a média aritmética, o desvio padrão, a moda, a mediana e normalizou-se a série histórica para identificar anomalias positivas e negativas associadas aos efeitos da Oscilação Sul na Amazônia. Os resultados evidenciaram que nas duas localidades há dois períodos distintos, sendo o mais chuvoso de Dezembro a Maio e o menos chuvoso de Junho a Novembro. Observou-se que o ano de 1985 foi o de maior atividade pluvial, apontando anomalias positivas e indicando efeitos da fase fria da Oscilação Sul (La Niña), tanto em Santarém quanto Belterra. O ano de 1992 foi o menos chuvoso com anomalias negativas relacionadas a fase Quente da Oscilação Sul (El Niño). A maior anomalia positiva foi associada ao evento La Niña forte de 1985 e o valor mais negativo de anomalia foi no El Niño moderado de 1992. Os efeitos de Oscilação Sul influenciam o regime de precipitação pluvial na Amazônia.PIBIC-2011

Replica Symmetry Breaking in the Random Replicant Model

We study the statistical mechanics of a model describing the coevolution of species interacting in a random way. We find that at high competition replica symmetry is broken. We solve the model in the approximation of one step replica symmetry breaking and we compare our findings with accurate numerical simulations.Comment: 12 pages, TeX, 5 postscript figures are avalaible upon request, submitted to Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Genera