Effective hospital response to covid-19: evidence from social healthcare organizations in Brazil and Portugal

This study analyzes the impact of effective knowledge management, organizational intelligence, and organizational performance on the effective hospital response and social health to covid-19. Data were collected through a research questionnaire sent to physicians and nurses who worked in hospitals in Brazil and Portugal. We sent the survey link using a professional social network and 101 valid responses were obtained. The PLS-SEM analysis technique was used to test hypotheses. The results showed that there is a positive relationship between the constructs of effective knowledge management and organizational performance, and effective response to covid-19. This study also indicates that effective knowledge management has a positive association with organizational intelligence and organizational performance, in addition to a positive relationship between organizational intelligence and organizational performance. As practical implications, our research reinforces the importance of effective knowledge management for pandemic management and validates the relationships between effective knowledge management, organizational intelligence, organizational performance, and hospital response effectiveness. From these results, hospitals and social health organizations will be able to improve their effectiveness in responding to new disease outbreaks. As originality, this work presents a model to manage the response of these health care and hospital institutions to pandemics

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

FEDERALISMO FISCAL, EQUALIZAÇÃO DE RENDA INSTITUCIONAL E A POLÍTICA NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO REGIONAL (PNDR): UMA ANÁLISE COM DADOS EM PAINEL

The paper proposes a reflection on the complexity involving the misallocation of institutional income in Brazil, through the analysis of imbalances of institutional income and fiscal management of subnational entities. The inter and intra-regional income disparity is high and equalization mechanisms are ineffective to equate the vertical gap and the horizontal gap, which shows the need for continuous improvement of the institutions responsible for relations and federal policies. The idea is that the vision of territorial planning ad opted by the National Policy for Regional Development (PNDR) to reduce regional disparities should consider addressing the gap sand weaknesses of fiscal federal entities. The results found may indicate a situation of heterogeneity between the groups, however, the focus of analysis followed for a finding of internal heterogeneity in each group. In this sense, the research allowed, above all, to highlight problems such as the precariousness of the Brazilian tax system and municipal fiscal policies, and can subsidize an agenda of policy-related proposals, such as a PNDR, of legislative and institutional changes in the regional theme.O artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre a complexidade que envolve a má distribuição de renda institucional no Brasil, através da análise dos desequilíbrios da renda institucional e da gestão fiscal dos entes subnacionais. A disparidade inter e intrarregional de renda é elevada e os mecanismos de equalização são pouco efetivos para equacionar o vertical gap e o horizontal gap, o que mostra a necessidade de aperfeiçoamento permanente das instituições responsáveis pelas relações e políticas federativas. A ideia é de que a visão de planejamento territorial adotada pela Política Nacional de Desenvolvimento regional (PNDR) para reduzir os desequilíbrios regionais deveria considerar o enfrentamento dos hiatos e das fragilidades fiscais dos entes federativos. Os resultados encontrados podem indicar uma possível existência de heterogeneidade entre os grupos, porém, o foco das análises seguiu para a constatação de uma heterogeneidade interna a cada grupo. Neste sentido, o trabalho permitiu, sobretudo, evidenciar os problemas e as precariedades do sistema fiscal brasileiro e das políticas fiscais municipais, podendo subsidiar uma agenda de propostas ligadas às políticas, como a PNDR, de mudanças legislativas e institucionais na temática regional

Brazilian Flora 2020: Leveraging the power of a collaborative scientific network

International audienceThe shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora