Um escorço da racionalidade limitada nas teorias evolucionista e dos custos de transação: pontos potenciais de convergência

Este artigo, além de levantar as questões fundamentais da Teoria Evolucionista (TE) e da Teoria dos Custos de Transação (TCT), procura identificar pontos potenciais de convergência entre elas. Dessa forma, constata-se que algumas possíveis ligações se dão através da racionalidade utilizada em ambas, dos mecanismos desenvolvidos para reduzir a incerteza, da diminuição dos custos de transação oriunda do desenvolvimento de competências e a partir do conceito de transformação fundamental da TCT, que pode abrir espaço para a inserção do aprendizado, como fonte de explicação da vantagem adquirida pela firma vencedora do processo licitatório. Além disto, o texto conclui, mais especificamente, que são duas as contribuições da racionalidade limitada, a compreensão do contrato como uma forma incompleta de informação e como um ato em que as partes têm que se precaver para que a outra cumpra o contratado

Análise dos Investimentos em Sistemas de Aproveitamento de Água Pluvial nas Cidades do Sertão Alagoano

The shortage of water resources drives the search by means of a water economy and a scarcity simultaneously. In view of this, the first study needs to be able to invest in three municipalities of the Alagoas system in systems for the utilization of rainwater. To do so, the measures for the abandonment of the level of water for the rains are located in no extreme west of Alagoas, after that, the system for the measurement of rain was budgeted and, finally, the State's Pluriannual Plan Light investment was analyzed of Alagoas. Results that have a historical potential for the use of rainwater over 50% in the budget architecture, with an investment of around 4.6 million reais when compared to public forecasts, this investment represents less than 1% of what was foreseen for the Plurianual Plan of the state, directed to works and alternatives of water supply. The implementation of this policy has benefits in various spheres of society, such as income generation, public health and economic growth.A escassez dos recursos hídricos impulsiona a busca por técnicas inovadoras capazes de motivar o aproveitamento de águas pluviais, viabilizando a economia de água potável e reduzindo a escassez, simultaneamente. Diante disso, o presente estudo busca estimar o valor necessário investido em três municípios do sertão alagoano em sistemas de aproveitamento de água pluvial. Para tal, foi mensurada neste trabalho a capacidade de aproveitamento de água de chuva para três municípios que estão localizados no extremo oeste de Alagoas, após isso, foi orçado o sistema necessário para condução de água da chuva e por fim, foi analisado o investimento à luz do Plano Plurianual do estado de Alagoas. Resultados apontam que as cidades possuem potencial de aproveitamento de água pluvial acima de 50%, na esfera orçamentária encontrou-se um investimento na ordem 4,6 milhões de reais que quando confrontando com as políticas públicas, mostrou-se que este investimento representa menos de 1% do que foi previsto para Plano Plurianual do estado, voltado para obras e alternativas de abastecimento de água. A efetivação desta política trará benefícios nas diversas esferas da sociedade, como geração de renda, saúde pública e crescimento econômico

Análise e teste para o desempenho dos alunos de engenharia de produção e engenharia civil na disciplina de engenharia econômica / Analysis and test for performance of production engineering and civil engineering students in the economic engineering discipline

A partir da evidência de que a média final dos alunos do curso de engenharia de civil é maior que a do curso de engenharia de produção, quando cursam a disciplina de engenharia econômica conjuntamente, aplicou-se um teste de hipóteses para duas médias com variâncias desconhecidas e distintas com o intuito de verificar a plausibilidade deste indício. Esta pesquisa possui natureza aplicada, do tipo descritiva e se caracteriza por ser uma abordagem quantitativa. Os dados foram coletados a partir dos registros das notas finais dos alunos matriculados na referida disciplina disponibilizados pelo professor da mesma, guardando sigilo sobre os nomes dos alunos. Realizou-se o teste de Komolgorov-Smirnov para atestar a normalidade da distribuição de probabilidade dos dados para poder aplicar o teste t de hipóteses para duas médias. Os resultados sugerem normalidade nos dados e indicam que a média final dos alunos de engenharia civil não é superior a dos alunos de produção na disciplina de engenharia econômica, com um nível de significância de 5%. 

Basin-wide variation in tree hydraulic safety margins predicts the carbon balance of Amazon forests

Funding: Data collection was largely funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) project TREMOR (NE/N004655/1) to D.G., E.G. and O.P., with further funds from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES, finance code 001) to J.V.T. and a University of Leeds Climate Research Bursary Fund to J.V.T. D.G., E.G. and O.P. acknowledge further support from a NERC-funded consortium award (ARBOLES, NE/S011811/1). This paper is an outcome of J.V.T.’s doctoral thesis, which was sponsored by CAPES (GDE 99999.001293/2015-00). J.V.T. was previously supported by the NERC-funded ARBOLES project (NE/S011811/1) and is supported at present by the Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet (grant no. 2019-03758 to R.M.). E.G., O.P. and D.G. acknowledge support from NERC-funded BIORED grant (NE/N012542/1). O.P. acknowledges support from an ERC Advanced Grant and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. R.S.O. was supported by a CNPq productivity scholarship, the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP-Microsoft 11/52072-0) and the US Department of Energy, project GoAmazon (FAPESP 2013/50531-2). M.M. acknowledges support from MINECO FUN2FUN (CGL2013-46808-R) and DRESS (CGL2017-89149-C2-1-R). C.S.-M., F.B.V. and P.R.L.B. were financed by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES, finance code 001). C.S.-M. received a scholarship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq 140353/2017-8) and CAPES (science without borders 88881.135316/2016-01). Y.M. acknowledges the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and ERC Advanced Investigator Grant (GEM-TRAITS, 321131) for supporting the Global Ecosystems Monitoring (GEM) network (gem.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk), within which some of the field sites (KEN, TAM and ALP) are nested. The authors thank Brazil–USA Collaborative Research GoAmazon DOE-FAPESP-FAPEAM (FAPESP 2013/50533-5 to L.A.) and National Science Foundation (award DEB-1753973 to L. Alves). They thank Serrapilheira Serra-1709-18983 (to M.H.) and CNPq-PELD/POPA-441443/2016-8 (to L.G.) (P.I. Albertina Lima). They thank all the colleagues and grants mentioned elsewhere [8,36] that established, identified and measured the Amazon forest plots in the RAINFOR network analysed here. The authors particularly thank J. Lyod, S. Almeida, F. Brown, B. Vicenti, N. Silva and L. Alves. This work is an outcome approved Research Project no. 19 from ForestPlots.net, a collaborative initiative developed at the University of Leeds that unites researchers and the monitoring of their permanent plots from the world’s tropical forests [61]. The authros thank A. Levesley, K. Melgaço Ladvocat and G. Pickavance for ForestPlots.net management. They thank Y. Wang and J. Baker, respectively, for their help with the map and with the climatic data. The authors acknowledge the invaluable help of M. Brum for kindly providing the comparison of vulnerability curves based on PAD and on PLC shown in this manuscript. They thank J. Martinez-Vilalta for his comments on an early version of this manuscript. The authors also thank V. Hilares and the Asociación para la Investigación y Desarrollo Integral (AIDER, Puerto Maldonado, Peru); V. Saldaña and Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana (IIAP) for local field campaign support in Peru; E. Chavez and Noel Kempff Natural History Museum for local field campaign support in Bolivia; ICMBio, INPA/NAPPA/LBA COOMFLONA (Cooperativa mista da Flona Tapajós) and T. I. Bragança-Marituba for the research support.Tropical forests face increasing climate risk1,2, yet our ability to predict their response to climate change is limited by poor understanding of their resistance to water stress. Although xylem embolism resistance thresholds (for example, Ψ50) and hydraulic safety margins (for example, HSM50) are important predictors of drought-induced mortality risk3-5, little is known about how these vary across Earth's largest tropical forest. Here, we present a pan-Amazon, fully standardized hydraulic traits dataset and use it to assess regional variation in drought sensitivity and hydraulic trait ability to predict species distributions and long-term forest biomass accumulation. Parameters Ψ50 and HSM50 vary markedly across the Amazon and are related to average long-term rainfall characteristics. Both Ψ50 and HSM50 influence the biogeographical distribution of Amazon tree species. However, HSM50 was the only significant predictor of observed decadal-scale changes in forest biomass. Old-growth forests with wide HSM50 are gaining more biomass than are low HSM50 forests. We propose that this may be associated with a growth-mortality trade-off whereby trees in forests consisting of fast-growing species take greater hydraulic risks and face greater mortality risk. Moreover, in regions of more pronounced climatic change, we find evidence that forests are losing biomass, suggesting that species in these regions may be operating beyond their hydraulic limits. Continued climate change is likely to further reduce HSM50 in the Amazon6,7, with strong implications for the Amazon carbon sink.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora

Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by forest type, as predictor, our spatial model, to the best of our knowledge, provides the most accurate map of tree diversity in Amazonia to date, explaining approximately 70% of the tree diversity and species-richness. Large soil-forest combinations determine a significant percentage of the variation in tree species-richness and tree alpha-diversity in Amazonian forest-plots. We suggest that the size and fragmentation of these systems drive their large-scale diversity patterns and hence local diversity. A model not using location but cumulative water deficit, tree density, and temperature seasonality explains 47% of the tree species-richness in the terra-firme forest in Amazonia. Over large areas across Amazonia, residuals of this relationship are small and poorly spatially structured, suggesting that much of the residual variation may be local. The Guyana Shield area has consistently negative residuals, showing that this area has lower tree species-richness than expected by our models. We provide extensive plot meta-data, including tree density, tree alpha-diversity and tree species-richness results and gridded maps at 0.1-degree resolution

NEOTROPICAL XENARTHRANS: a data set of occurrence of xenarthran species in the Neotropics

Xenarthrans – anteaters, sloths, and armadillos – have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with 24 domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across their full distribution ranges. The Neotropics harbor 21 species of armadillos, ten anteaters, and six sloths. Our dataset includes the families Chlamyphoridae (13), Dasypodidae (7), Myrmecophagidae (3), Bradypodidae (4), and Megalonychidae (2). We have no occurrence data on Dasypus pilosus (Dasypodidae). Regarding Cyclopedidae, until recently, only one species was recognized, but new genetic studies have revealed that the group is represented by seven species. In this data-paper, we compiled a total of 42,528 records of 31 species, represented by occurrence and quantitative data, totaling 24,847 unique georeferenced records. The geographic range is from the south of the USA, Mexico, and Caribbean countries at the northern portion of the Neotropics, to its austral distribution in Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay. Regarding anteaters, Myrmecophaga tridactyla has the most records (n=5,941), and Cyclopes sp. has the fewest (n=240). The armadillo species with the most data is Dasypus novemcinctus (n=11,588), and the least recorded for Calyptophractus retusus (n=33). With regards to sloth species, Bradypus variegatus has the most records (n=962), and Bradypus pygmaeus has the fewest (n=12). Our main objective with Neotropical Xenarthrans is to make occurrence and quantitative data available to facilitate more ecological research, particularly if we integrate the xenarthran data with other datasets of Neotropical Series which will become available very soon (i.e. Neotropical Carnivores, Neotropical Invasive Mammals, and Neotropical Hunters and Dogs). Therefore, studies on trophic cascades, hunting pressure, habitat loss, fragmentation effects, species invasion, and climate change effects will be possible with the Neotropical Xenarthrans dataset

Long-term thermal sensitivity of Earth’s tropical forests

The sensitivity of tropical forest carbon to climate is a key uncertainty in predicting global climate change. Although short-term drying and warming are known to affect forests, it is unknown if such effects translate into long-term responses. Here, we analyze 590 permanent plots measured across the tropics to derive the equilibrium climate controls on forest carbon. Maximum temperature is the most important predictor of aboveground biomass (−9.1 megagrams of carbon per hectare per degree Celsius), primarily by reducing woody productivity, and has a greater impact per °C in the hottest forests (>32.2°C). Our results nevertheless reveal greater thermal resilience than observations of short-term variation imply. To realize the long-term climate adaptation potential of tropical forests requires both protecting them and stabilizing Earth’s climate

Author correction: One sixth of Amazonian tree diversity is dependent on river floodplains

In the version of the article initially published, the affiliation of Edgardo Manuel Latrubesse was incorrect and has now been amended to Environmental Sciences Graduate Program-CIAMB, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil in the HTML and PDF versions of the article

Unraveling Amazon tree community assembly using Maximum Information Entropy: a quantitative analysis of tropical forest ecology

In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important constraints via predictions using least biased probability distributions. We apply it to over two thousand hectares of Amazonian tree inventories across seven forest types and thirteen functional traits, representing major global axes of plant strategies. Results show that constraints formed by regional relative abundances of genera explain eight times more of local relative abundances than constraints based on directional selection for specific functional traits, although the latter does show clear signals of environmental dependency. These results provide a quantitative insight by inference from large-scale data using cross-disciplinary methods, furthering our understanding of ecological dynamics