Desempenho Social no Agronegócio Brasileiro: aplicando DEA no segmento de usinas de processamento de cana de açúcar

A importância das questões sócio-ambientais nas empresas advém da crescente demanda, por parte da sociedade, de informações a respeito dos impactos que as atividades empresariais exercem sobre os trabalhadores, a comunidade e o meio ambiente. Ou seja, a sociedade passa a cobrar das empresas uma consciência social corporativa, que representa o nível de compromisso com a busca de soluções para os problemas sócio-ambientais existentes. A partir daí as empresas começaram a ter que provar que o seu custo-benefício é positivo, porque agrega valor à economia e à sociedade, porque respeita os direitos humanos de seus colaboradores e, ainda, porque desenvolve todo o seu processo operacional sem agredir o meio ambiente. É neste contexto que se insere este trabalho, que tem por objetivo verificar, através da aplicação de Análise Envoltória de Dados (DEA), a relação entre capacidade de investimento e benefícios sócio-ambientais, de forma que quanto maiores forem os benefícios para uma menor capacidade de investimento, maior será a eficiência e, por conseguinte, o desempenho sócio-ambiental da empresa. Os resultados do estudo de dezenove usinas de processamento de cana de açúcar no Brasil mostram que a Agrovale (principal benchmark) é a melhor e a São José Estiva a de pior desempenho sócio-ambiental. Além disso, observou-se uma relação entre desempenho sócio-ambiental e tamanho (medido pela receita), onde as maiores empresas tinham desempenho melhores. Por fim, o investimento ambiental se mostrou como a variável que mais precisa de incrementos.------------------------------------------------------The importance of the social and environmental tags in companies come from the growing demand, by the society itself, of information concerning to the impacts that the business generate over the employees, the community and the environmental. It means that the society demands from the companies a corporate social consciousness, which is the commitment level with the search of solutions to the social and environmental dilemmas that exist. From this on the organizations began to have to prove that its cost-benefit is positive, because it adds value to the economy and to the society, because respects the employees´ human rights and, thus, because it developes all its operational process without damaging the environmental. Is in this context that this research is related, which has the main focus to verify, through the applying of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the relation between investment capacity and social and environmental benefits, in a way that the higher are the benefits to a lower investment capacity, higher will be the efficiency and, consequently, the social and environmental performance. The study results of nineteen sugar cane processing industries in Brazil show that the Agrovale (top benchmark) is the best one and São José Estiva is the worst in terms of social and environmental performance. Besides, it was observed a relation between social and environmental performance and the size (measured by the income), where the bigger companies had best performances. To sum with, the environmental investment were showed as the key point which needs more increases.Desempenho Sócio-ambiental, Agronegócio, DEA, Social and Environmental Performance, Agribusiness, Agribusiness, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Análise do desempenho organizacional sob as perspectivas socioambiental e de imagem corporativa: um estudo apoiado em DEA sobre os seis maiores bancos no Brasil

Data envelopment analysis of information from the social balance sheets and about corporate images of these six banks was made for characteristics related to performance in two respects. First was the use of the social and environmental investment capacity and second was the achievement of corporate image gains from this investment. The relationship between this investment capacity and results was studied and compared to identify the efficiency and performance of each bank. Results show that the "Caixa Economica Federal" and the "Banco do Brasil" were the best at converting investment capacity into social and environmental benefits, while "Santander-Banespa" and "Bradesco" were best in terms of the capacity of usage of social and environmental investments to achieve image benefits. Consolidating these aspects over time in a multi-dimensional analysis, "Banco do Brasil" stands out.Este trabalho tem como objetivo, através da aplicação da análise envoltória de dados às informações dos balanços sociais e sobre imagem corporativa dos bancos que fazem parte da amostra, expor características do desempenho destes sob duas óticas: primeiramente, a da utilização da capacidade de investimento socioambiental e, depois, a da obtenção de ganhos de imagem corporativa a partir desse investimento. A lógica do estudo é observar a relação entre capacidade de investimento e benefícios socioambientais. De acordo com essa lógica, quanto maiores forem os benefícios para uma menor capacidade de investimento, maior será a eficiência e, por conseguinte, o desempenho socioambiental da empresa. Além disso, pretende-se verificar, a partir da hipótese de que investimentos socioambientais geram benefícios de imagem, qual a eficiência de conversão desses investimentos em ganhos de imagem corporativa para cada instituição analisada. Os resultados mostram que a CEF e o BB são os destaques positivos na conversão de capacidade de investimento em benefícios socioambientais, enquanto o Santander-Banespa e o Bradesco são os melhores em capacidade de utilização de investimentos socioambientais na obtenção de benefícios de imagem. Na consolidação dos modelos, ao longo do período, em uma análise multidimensional, destaca-se o BB

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

Impact of clinical phenotypes on management and outcomes in European atrial fibrillation patients: a report from the ESC-EHRA EURObservational Research Programme in AF (EORP-AF) General Long-Term Registry

Background: Epidemiological studies in atrial fibrillation (AF) illustrate that clinical complexity increase the risk of major adverse outcomes. We aimed to describe European AF patients\u2019 clinical phenotypes and analyse the differential clinical course. Methods: We performed a hierarchical cluster analysis based on Ward\u2019s Method and Squared Euclidean Distance using 22 clinical binary variables, identifying the optimal number of clusters. We investigated differences in clinical management, use of healthcare resources and outcomes in a cohort of European AF patients from a Europe-wide observational registry. Results: A total of 9363 were available for this analysis. We identified three clusters: Cluster 1 (n = 3634; 38.8%) characterized by older patients and prevalent non-cardiac comorbidities; Cluster 2 (n = 2774; 29.6%) characterized by younger patients with low prevalence of comorbidities; Cluster 3 (n = 2955;31.6%) characterized by patients\u2019 prevalent cardiovascular risk factors/comorbidities. Over a mean follow-up of 22.5 months, Cluster 3 had the highest rate of cardiovascular events, all-cause death, and the composite outcome (combining the previous two) compared to Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 (all P <.001). An adjusted Cox regression showed that compared to Cluster 2, Cluster 3 (hazard ratio (HR) 2.87, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.27\u20133.62; HR 3.42, 95%CI 2.72\u20134.31; HR 2.79, 95%CI 2.32\u20133.35), and Cluster 1 (HR 1.88, 95%CI 1.48\u20132.38; HR 2.50, 95%CI 1.98\u20133.15; HR 2.09, 95%CI 1.74\u20132.51) reported a higher risk for the three outcomes respectively. Conclusions: In European AF patients, three main clusters were identified, differentiated by differential presence of comorbidities. Both non-cardiac and cardiac comorbidities clusters were found to be associated with an increased risk of major adverse outcomes

Sulforaphane induces oxidative stress and death by p53-independent mechanism: implication of impaired glutathione recycling

Sulforaphane (SFN) is a naturally-occurring isothiocyanate best known for its role as an indirect antioxidant. Notwithstanding, in different cancer cell lines, SFN may promote the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cause cell death e.g. by apoptosis. Osteosarcoma often becomes chemoresistant, and new molecular targets to prevent drug resistance are needed. Here, we aimed to determine the effect of SFN on ROS levels and to identify key biomarkers leading to ROS unbalance and apoptosis in the p53-null MG-63 osteosarcoma cell line. MG-63 cells were exposed to SFN for up to 48 h. At 10 μM concentration or higher, SFN decreased cell viability, increased the%early apoptotic cells and increased caspase 3 activity. At these higher doses, SFN increased ROS levels, which correlated with apoptotic endpoints and cell viability decline. In exposed cells, gene expression analysis revealed only partial induction of phase-2 detoxification genes. More importantly, SFN inhibited ROS-scavenging enzymes and impaired glutathione recycling, as evidenced by inhibition of glutathione reductase (GR) activity and combined inhibition of glutathione peroxidase (GPx) gene expression and enzyme activity. In conclusion, SFN induced oxidative stress and apoptosis via a p53-independent mechanism. GPx expression and activity were found associated with ROS accumulation in MG-63 cells and are potential biomarkers for the efficacy of ROS-inducing agents e.g. as co-adjuvant drugs in osteosarcoma

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

Desempenho Social no Agronegócio Brasileiro: aplicando DEA no segmento de usinas de processamento de cana de açúcar

A importância das questões sócio-ambientais nas empresas advém da crescente demanda, por parte da sociedade, de informações a respeito dos impactos que as atividades empresariais exercem sobre os trabalhadores, a comunidade e o meio ambiente. Ou seja, a sociedade passa a cobrar das empresas uma consciência social corporativa, que representa o nível de compromisso com a busca de soluções para os problemas sócio-ambientais existentes. A partir daí as empresas começaram a ter que provar que o seu custo-benefício é positivo, porque agrega valor à economia e à sociedade, porque respeita os direitos humanos de seus colaboradores e, ainda, porque desenvolve todo o seu processo operacional sem agredir o meio ambiente. É neste contexto que se insere este trabalho, que tem por objetivo verificar, através da aplicação de Análise Envoltória de Dados (DEA), a relação entre capacidade de investimento e benefícios sócio-ambientais, de forma que quanto maiores forem os benefícios para uma menor capacidade de investimento, maior será a eficiência e, por conseguinte, o desempenho sócio-ambiental da empresa. Os resultados do estudo de dezenove usinas de processamento de cana de açúcar no Brasil mostram que a Agrovale (principal benchmark) é a melhor e a São José Estiva a de pior desempenho sócio-ambiental. Além disso, observou-se uma relação entre desempenho sócio-ambiental e tamanho (medido pela receita), onde as maiores empresas tinham desempenho melhores. Por fim, o investimento ambiental se mostrou como a variável que mais precisa de incrementos.------------------------------------------------------The importance of the social and environmental tags in companies come from the growing demand, by the society itself, of information concerning to the impacts that the business generate over the employees, the community and the environmental. It means that the society demands from the companies a corporate social consciousness, which is the commitment level with the search of solutions to the social and environmental dilemmas that exist. From this on the organizations began to have to prove that its cost-benefit is positive, because it adds value to the economy and to the society, because respects the employees´ human rights and, thus, because it developes all its operational process without damaging the environmental. Is in this context that this research is related, which has the main focus to verify, through the applying of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the relation between investment capacity and social and environmental benefits, in a way that the higher are the benefits to a lower investment capacity, higher will be the efficiency and, consequently, the social and environmental performance. The study results of nineteen sugar cane processing industries in Brazil show that the Agrovale (top benchmark) is the best one and São José Estiva is the worst in terms of social and environmental performance. Besides, it was observed a relation between social and environmental performance and the size (measured by the income), where the bigger companies had best performances. To sum with, the environmental investment were showed as the key point which needs more increases

Desempenho social no agronegócio brasileiro: aplicando DEA no segmento de usinas de processamento de cana-de-açúcar

The importance of social and environmental tags in companies comes from increasing demand, by the society itself, of information concerning impacts that the business create over the employees, community and environment. Therefore, companies needed to prove that its cost-benefit is positive, because they add value to economy and to society, because they respect the employees human rights and, in addition, because they develop its operational process without damaging environment. This research has the main focus to verify, through the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the relation between investment capacity and social and environmental benefits, in a way that the higher are the benefits to a lower investment capacity, higher will be the efficiency and, as a result, the social and environmental performance. The study results of nineteen sugar cane mills in Brazil show that Agrovale (top benchmark) is the best one and São José Estiva is the smaller in terms of social and environmental performance. In addition, it was observed a relation between social and environmental practice and the size (measured by income), where bigger companies had best performances

Desempenho social no agronegócio brasileiro: aplicando DEA no segmento de usinas de processamento de cana-de-açúcar

The importance of social and environmental tags in companies comes from increasing demand, by the society itself, of information concerning impacts that the business create over the employees, community and environment. Therefore, companies needed to prove that its cost-benefit is positive, because they add value to economy and to society, because they respect the employees human rights and, in addition, because they develop its operational process without damaging environment. This research has the main focus to verify, through the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the relation between investment capacity and social and environmental benefits, in a way that the higher are the benefits to a lower investment capacity, higher will be the efficiency and, as a result, the social and environmental performance. The study results of nineteen sugar cane mills in Brazil show that Agrovale (top benchmark) is the best one and São José Estiva is the smaller in terms of social and environmental performance. In addition, it was observed a relation between social and environmental practice and the size (measured by income), where bigger companies had best performances