Social vulnerability assessment in Madeira Island

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Geographic Information Systems and ScienceSocial Vulnerability is an area of growing interest among researchers and decision makers. As disaster losses mount, it emerged the understanding that disasters are not just a product of Hazards characteristics and Exposure, but also a Social construct that creates differentiate levels of ability to cope with, resist to and recover from extreme events. The assessment of a multidimensional and intangible phenomenon like Social Vulnerability is extremely complex and over the years a number of indexes have emerged as an attempt to reduce the phenomenon to a simple metric, temporal and spatially comparable. Social Vulnerability Index (SOVI) is a particularly robust and widely used index. A recent version of this algorithm, the Social Vulnerability to Natural and Technological Hazards Index (SOVI_NTH) addressed the caveat of having in the same SOVI Components variables regarding the socioeconomic attributes that make people vulnerable and the support structures and facilities that help them to resist and recover. Both indexes were implemented using the Hazards-of-Place model, that combines Social Vulnerability and Hazards Susceptibility to pinpoint areas where both have high scores. In this research we compared the results and the statistical performance of both indexes to determine their consistency. Additionally, we analysed the sensitivity to data aggregation in order to determine whether it is possible to use very small spatial statistical units to highlight asymmetries and niches of particularly high Social Vulnerability

Ambientalismo: um estudo sobre as identidades das ONGs ambientalistas no BrasilEnvironmentalism: a study about the environmentalist NGOs identities in Brazil

A pesquisa foi realizada com aplicação de pesquisa estruturada enviada às 46 ONGs selecionadas; realização de pesquisas na Internet, com visitas aos sites dessas ONGs e ao banco da Associação Brasileira de Organizações Não-Governamentais (Abong); aplicação estatística sobre os dados levantados; e realização de entrevista semiestruturada com os diversos atores sociais ligados ao tema. Conclusões: a criação das ONGs está relacionada diretamente com o momento político em que elas estão inseridas; há preferência de localização de suas sedes em grandes centros econômicos e políticos do país; apesar de terem suas sedes nesses grandes centros, atuam em diversas outras regiões; o voluntariado é expressivo nos seus afazeres; a participação em conselhos e fóruns é uma estratégia de fortalecimento dessas organizações; a participação em rede adquire importância crescente como estratégia de fortalecimento; a cooperação internacional é a maior fonte de financiamento; os financiamentos oriundos dos governos, federal e estadual também exercem forte influência na composição orçamentária dessas organizações; configura-se estratégica a elaboração de relatórios para a sociedade; faz-se necessária a profissionalização das pessoas que trabalham nas ONGs ambientalistas; e faz-se necessária uma maior e melhor veiculação de informações sobre os trabalhos desenvolvidos com as diversas comunidades.AbstractThe research was accomplished by means of a structured survey that was sent to the 46 non-governmental organizations selected, as well as of InterNet visits to their sites and to the databank of the Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (ABONG). A statistical application on the collected data followed, and also a semi-structured interview with various social actors who are connected with the subject. Conclusions: the creation of NGOs is directly related to the political moment in which they are inserted; their headquarters are preferably located in large economical and political centers, although they work in various regions of the country; NGOs bring together an impressive amount of volunteers; the participation in councils and forums is a strategy to empower these organizations; the network participation also becomes increasingly important as an empowerment strategy; international cooperation is the greatest source of financing; the financial contribution from the federal and state governments also plays a major role in the budget composition of these organizations; the elaboration of reports for the society is strategic, too; people who work in environmentalist NGOs need professional training, and a greater and better dissemination of the information about the works developed with the several communities is needed

Automatic identification of charcoal origin based on deep learning

The differentiation between the charcoal produced from (Eucalyptus) plantations and native forests is essential to control, commercialization, and supervision of its production in Brazil. The main contribution of this study is to identify the charcoal origin using macroscopic images and Deep Learning Algorithm. We applied a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using VGG-16 architecture, with preprocessing based on contrast enhancement and data augmentation with rotation over the training set images. on the performance of the CNN with fine-tuning using 360 macroscopic charcoal images from the plantation and native forests. The results pointed out that our method provides new perspectives to identify the charcoal origin, achieving results upper 95 % of mean accuracy to classify charcoal from native forests for all compared preprocessing strategies

HIV Infection and Oral Manifestations: An Update

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes a complete depletion of the immune system; it has been a major health issue around the world since the 1980s, and due to the reduction of CD4+ T lymphocytes levels, it can trigger various opportunistic infections. Oral lesions are usually accurate indicators of immunosuppression because these oral manifestations may occur as a result of the compromised immune system caused by HIV infection; therefore, oral lesions might be initial and common clinical features in people living with HIV. So, it is necessary to evaluate and understand the mechanism, prevalence, and risk factors of oral lesions to avoid the increase morbidity among those with oral diseases

Principais causas e diagnósticos de epistaxes na pediatria

A epistaxe é definida como qualquer hemorragia originada nas narinas, e toda a área nasal, como fossas, seios ou nasofaringe, na pediatria em geral, é visto em caráter benigno, sendo idiopática, auto-limitada e raramente severa. Por vezes, pode ser um sinal de condições que não estão apresentadas de forma clara, como por exemplo, tumores, agressões ou até mesmo discrasias hemorrágicas. As epistaxes são um problema comum, considerados pela otorrinolaringologia como a segunda urgência mais frequente, tendo como um número estimado de 10% da população que sofre esse tipo de ocorrência. A classificação da epistaxe é anterior ou posterior, baseada na localização primária da hemorragia, no plexo de Kiesselbach, localizado  na porção ântero-inferior do septo nasal, contendo vários vasos que se anastomosam entre si, ou plexo de Woodruff que se localiza na região póster-inferior, que é formado pelas anastomoses das artérias esfenopalatinas e faríngea.  Em geral, os casos de epistaxes na pediatria, se devem à traumas digitais ou alta fragilidade vascular, podendo ser induzido por uma inflamação ou infecção nasal. Quanto aos exames em paciente acometidos epistaxe, incialmente cabe avaliar o estado geral das vias aéreas e sinais vitais, seguido de uma observação de cabeça e pescoço, focando nas fossas nasais. Quando se tratar de um epistaxe de associação traumática, é necessário excluir fraturas dos ossos nasais e hematomas, já que estes podem levar a uma destruição cartilagínea gerando uma deformidade a longe prazo. Agregado ao exame nasal, a avaliação de cabeça e pescoço podem apresentar pistas diagnósticas importantes. O tratamento a partir das diversas abordagens terapêuticas podem ser feitas por médicos generalistas em casos mais comuns, pois a grande maioria dos casos é tratado de forma fácil com medidas conservadoras ou por cauterização, em geral os casos tem origem idiopática

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

Geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes in Amazonia and their ecological correlates

Aim: To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser-availability hypothesis) and/or the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits (resource-availability hypothesis). Time period: Tree-inventory plots established between 1934 and 2019. Major taxa studied: Trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 9.55 cm. Location: Amazonia, here defined as the lowland rain forests of the Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield. Methods: We assigned dispersal modes to a total of 5433 species and morphospecies within 1877 tree-inventory plots across terra-firme, seasonally flooded, and permanently flooded forests. We investigated geographic patterns in the proportional abundance of dispersal modes. We performed an abundance-weighted mean pairwise distance (MPD) test and fit generalized linear models (GLMs) to explain the geographic distribution of dispersal modes. Results: Anemochory was significantly, positively associated with mean annual wind speed, and hydrochory was significantly higher in flooded forests. Dispersal modes did not consistently show significant associations with the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits. A lower dissimilarity in dispersal modes, resulting from a higher dominance of endozoochory, occurred in terra-firme forests (excluding podzols) compared to flooded forests. Main conclusions: The disperser-availability hypothesis was well supported for abiotic dispersal modes (anemochory and hydrochory). The availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits seems an unlikely explanation for the distribution of dispersal modes in Amazonia. The association between frugivores and the proportional abundance of zoochory requires further research, as tree recruitment not only depends on dispersal vectors but also on conditions that favour or limit seedling recruitment across forest types

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types. Location: Amazonia. Taxon: Angiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots). Methods: Data for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran\u27s eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny. Results: In the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R$^{2}$ = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R$^{2}$ = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types. Main Conclusion: Numerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions