Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Avaliação da eficácia do Danceability do Echo Nest aplicado a músicas de forró

Forró is a typical musical style of the Northeast of Brazil, but it is spreading throughout the country, which leads to the expansion of the music market of the forró artists. Nowadays, much of the profits that these artists earn comes from shows, either by percentage of box office or by been an artist who get more people to buy tickets, thus raising the price of their shows. One factor that attracts more people to forró shows is how attractive to dancing are the songs played there. Echo Nest, an automatic evaluation tool for musical characteristics has created the danceability, metric that aims to inform how danceable a song is for any musical genre, not specifically to forró. This work aims to analyze the similarity between the values returned by the danceability and the opinions of consumers of forró, to determine if it could be used as a metric to indicate to artists and producers which songs they should play in a show or how to create more danceable songs that could attract more people to the shows and thus make more profit to their investors. The results showed that danceability fails to match the opinion of forró consumers about the attractiveness of songs to dance. According to literature, the degree of music’s syncopation is related to its attractiveness to dance, therefore, comparisons between various types of syncopation and consumer responses were also made to determine if there could exist any relationship between them regarding forró. The syncopation of bass, sung melody and tempo showed a positive correlation, and can be used as guidelines when composing new songs that are attractive to danc

Avaliação da eficácia do Danceability do Echo Nest aplicado a músicas de forró

O forró é o estilo musical característico da região Nordeste, mas está se difundindo por todo o país, o que leva à ampliação do mercado fonográfico dos artistas que trabalham com esse estilo. Hoje em dia, grande parte do lucro que esses artistas recebe advém de shows, seja por porcentagem de bilheteria ou disputa por artistas que levam mais pessoas a comprar ingressos, elevando, assim, os seus cachês. Um dos fatores que atraem mais pessoas a shows de forró é quão atrativas para a dança são as músicas tocadas. O Echo Nest, ferramenta de avaliação automática de características musicais, criou Danceability, métrica cuja finalidade é informar quão dançante é uma música de qualquer gênero musical, não especificamente do forró. Este trabalho se propôs a analisar a similaridade entre os valores retornados pelo danceability e as opiniões de consumidores de forró, para daí determinar se ele poderia ser utilizado como métrica para indicar aos artistas e produtores quais músicas devem tocar em um show ou como criar músicas mais convidativas à dança, atraindo mais pessoas aos shows, logo aumentando os lucros dos investidores. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que o danceability não consegue refletir bem a opinião dos consumidores de forró sobre a atratividade de músicas para dançar. De acordo com a literatura, o grau de sincopação da música tem relação com sua atratividade para dançar, logo, também foram feitas comparações entre vários tipos de sincopação e as respostas dos consumidores para determinar se haveria realmente alguma relação entre eles no tocante ao forró. A sincopação do contrabaixo, da melodia cantada e o andamento apresentaram correlação positiva, podendo ser utilizados como norte ao se compor novas músicas que sejam atrativas para a dança

A LEI DE INOVAÇÃO NO ESTADO DA BAHIA E AS ADEQUAÇÕES NECESSÁRIAS DIANTE DO ADVENTO DO NOVO MARCO NACIONAL DE CIÊNCIA, TECNOLOGIA E INOVAÇÃO

A criação de leis favoráveis à inovação constitui etapa fundamental para o desenvolvimento tecnológico do país. Em 2004, o Brasil estabeleceuseu primeiro grande marco legal, a Lei nº 10.973/04, conhecida como Lei da Inovação, a qual possibilitou a melhoria de indicadores, contribuiu para a interação entre Instituições Científicas e Tecnológicas (ICT) e o segmento produtivo, serviu como parâmetro para criação de Leis estaduais de inovação, como a Lei nº 11.174//2008, do Estado da Bahia. Todavia, percebeu-se que mesmo com estes avanços, havia pontos de entrave e falta de sincronismo com outras leis. Assim, surgiu em 2016 a Lei nº 13.243/16, intitulada Novo Marco de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (NMCT&I), objetivando suprir as necessidades da lei anterior, reformulando legislações e flexibilizando processos inovativos. Nesse contexto, este trabalho traça um paralelo entre o NMCT&I e a Lei de Inovação do Estado da Bahia, apresentando os principais itens que necessitam de adequação

Theoretical and experimental studies of the controlled release of tetracycline incorporated into bioactive glasses.

Several authors have studied the release profile of drugs incorporated in different devices. However, to the best of our knowledge, although many studies have been done on the release of tetracycline, in these release devices, no study has investigated if the released compound is actually the tetracycline, or, instead, a degraded product. This approach is exploited here. In this work, we analyse the influence of two drying methods on the tetracycline delivery behaviour of synthesised glasses using the sol-gel process. We compare the drying methods results using both theoretical models and practical essays, and analyse the chemical characteristic of the released product in order to verify if it remains tetracycline. Samples were freeze-dried or dried in an oven at 37?C and characterised by several methods such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), differential thermogravimetric analysis (DTG), differential thermal analyses (DTA) and gas adsorption analysis (BET). The released concentration of tetracycline hydrochloride was studied as a function of time, and it was measured by ultraviolet spectrophotometry in the tetracycline wavelength. The drug delivery profiles were reasonably consistent with a diffusion model analysis. In addition, we observed higher release rates for the freeze-dried compared to those dried in an oven at 37?C. This higher release can be attributed to larger pore size for the freeze-dried sample systems with tetracycline, which promoted more water penetration, improving the drug diffusion. The analysis of the solution obtained in the release tests using high-performance liquid chromatography- mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) confirmed that tetracycline was being released

Implementation of a Brazilian Cardioprotective Nutritional (BALANCE) Program for improvement on quality of diet and secondary prevention of cardiovascular events: A randomized, multicenter trial

Background: Appropriate dietary recommendations represent a key part of secondary prevention in cardiovascular disease (CVD). We evaluated the effectiveness of the implementation of a nutritional program on quality of diet, cardiovascular events, and death in patients with established CVD. Methods: In this open-label, multicenter trial conducted in 35 sites in Brazil, we randomly assigned (1:1) patients aged 45 years or older to receive either the BALANCE Program (experimental group) or conventional nutrition advice (control group). The BALANCE Program included a unique nutritional education strategy to implement recommendations from guidelines, adapted to the use of affordable and regional foods. Adherence to diet was evaluated by the modified Alternative Healthy Eating Index. The primary end point was a composite of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular death, cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, stroke, myocardial revascularization, amputation, or hospitalization for unstable angina. Secondary end points included biochemical and anthropometric data, and blood pressure levels. Results: From March 5, 2013, to Abril 7, 2015, a total of 2534 eligible patients were randomly assigned to either the BALANCE Program group (n = 1,266) or the control group (n = 1,268) and were followed up for a median of 3.5 years. In total, 235 (9.3%) participants had been lost to follow-up. After 3 years of follow-up, mean modified Alternative Healthy Eating Index (scale 0-70) was only slightly higher in the BALANCE group versus the control group (26.2 ± 8.4 vs 24.7 ± 8.6, P <.01), mainly due to a 0.5-serving/d greater intake of fruits and of vegetables in the BALANCE group. Primary end point events occurred in 236 participants (18.8%) in the BALANCE group and in 207 participants (16.4%) in the control group (hazard ratio, 1.15; 95% CI 0.95-1.38; P =.15). Secondary end points did not differ between groups after follow-up. Conclusions: The BALANCE Program only slightly improved adherence to a healthy diet in patients with established CVD and had no significant effect on the incidence of cardiovascular events or death. © 2019 The Author