Disoriented time and social knowledge : the historical essay in Brazil, c. 1870–1940

This article analyzes the relationships between the writing of history and the experience of time in Brazil, c. 1870–1940. The focus of the analysis is the historical essay, arguing that this kind of essay was a privileged discursive modality for dealing with the problems of temporal order that featured that historical moment, characterized by a deep questioning about the paths taken by the Brazilian republic, by a distortion of the ideal of progress that defined, since the nineteenth century, the features of the modern concept of history, and, finally, by a desire to renew interpretations focused on the development of the nation

Use of different marker pre-selection methods based on single SNP regression in the estimation of Genomic-EBVs

Two methods of SNPs pre-selection based on single marker regression for the estimation of genomic breeding values (G-EBVs) were compared using simulated data provided by the XII QTL-MAS workshop: i) Bonferroni correction of the significance threshold and ii) Permutation test to obtain the reference distribution of the null hypothesis and identify significant markers at P<0.01 and P<0.001 significance thresholds. From the set of markers significant at P<0.001, random subsets of 50% and 25% markers were extracted, to evaluate the effect of further reducing the number of significant SNPs on G-EBV predictions. The Bonferroni correction method allowed the identification of 595 significant SNPs that gave the best G-EBV accuracies in prediction generations (82.80%). The permutation methods gave slightly lower G-EBV accuracies even if a larger number of SNPs resulted significant (2,053 and 1,352 for 0.01 and 0.001 significance thresholds, respectively). Interestingly, halving or dividing by four the number of SNPs significant at P<0.001 resulted in an only slightly decrease of G-EBV accuracies. The genetic structure of the simulated population with few QTL carrying large effects, might have favoured the Bonferroni method

O narrador e o viajante: notas sobre a retórica do olhar em Os sertões

The work brings a reflection on the writing strategies used by Euclides da Cunhawhen he wrote his Os sertões, specially on the discursive cut which opposes thenarrator, as the one who relates, from the observer, as the one who sees. Afteranalyzing the Euclides da Cunha’s “rhetoric of sight”, I suggest that one of themain aspects of the argumentation in Os sertões is the notion of distance, in thiscase, between the narrative and the observation.O artigo traça uma reflexão sobre as estratégias de escrita utilizadas por Euclides da Cunha na feitura de seu Os sertões, notadamente no recorte discursivo que separa as figuras do narrador, enquanto aquele que relata, e do viajante, enquantoaquele que observa. A partir da análise da “retórica do olhar” euclidiana, sugiro que um dos elementos constituidores da força argumentativa do livro reside na idéia de distância, no caso, a que cria o hiato entre narrativa e observação

Assessment of the value of international genetic evaluations for yield in predicting domestic breeding values for foreign Holstein bulls.

International genetic evaluations are a valuable source of information for decisions about the importation of (the semen of) foreign bulls. This study analyzed data from 6 countries (Australia, Canada, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and the United States) and compared international evaluations for production traits of foreign bulls (i.e., when no national daughter information was available) to their national breeding values in August 2009, which were based only on domestic daughters' data. A total of 821 bulls with highly reliable estimated breeding values (EBV) for milk, fat, and protein yield were analyzed. No evidence of systematic over- or underestimation was found in most of the countries analyzed. Observed correlations between national and international evaluations were close to 0.9 and, for most countries, generally close to their expected values (calculated from national and international EBV reliabilities). In Italy, however, higher differences between observed and expected correlations and significant mean differences between EBV for more than one trait were observed in bulls progeny-tested in the United States and in other European countries (with differences up to 33.1% of the genetic standard deviation). These results were probably induced by a relatively recent change in the model for national evaluation. The findings in this study reflect a conservative estimate of the real value of international evaluations, as changes in methodologies in either the national or the international evaluations decreased the ability of past international evaluations to predict current national evaluations. Nevertheless, our results indicate that international evaluations based on foreign information for Holstein bulls were reasonably accurate predictors of the future national breeding values based only upon domestic daughters

As virtudes do herege: ensaio, modernismo e escrita da história em Casa-grande & senzala

O intuito deste artigo é elaborar uma reflexão em torno da escrita da história em Casa-grande & Senzala, livro publicado em 1933 por Gilberto Freyre, notadamente dos aspectos ensaísticos que caracterizam a obra. Após uma discussão a partir de trabalhos que comentaram o ensaísmo de Gilberto Freyre, sugere-se que uma chave de leitura importante para a compreensão da sua escrita é considerá-lo em relação às tendências intelectuais do modernismo brasileiro

Short communication: Imputing genotypes using PedImpute fast algorithm combining pedigree and population information

Routine genomic evaluations frequently include a preliminary imputation step, requiring high accuracy and reduced computing time. A new algorithm, PedImpute (http://dekoppel.eu/pedimpute/), was developed and compared with findhap (http://aipl.arsusda.gov/software/findhap/) and BEAGLE (http://faculty.washington.edu/browning/beagle/beagle.html), using 19,904 Holstein genotypes from a 4-country international collaboration (United States, Canada, UK, and Italy). Different scenarios were evaluated on a sample subset that included only single nucleotide polymorphism from the Bovine low-density (LD) Illumina BeadChip (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA). Comparative criteria were computing time, percentage of missing alleles, percentage of wrongly imputed alleles, and the allelic squared correlation. Imputation accuracy on ungenotyped animals was also analyzed. The algorithm PedImpute was slightly more accurate and faster than findhap and BEAGLE when sire, dam, and maternal grandsire were genotyped at high density. On the other hand, BEAGLE performed better than both PedImpute and findhap for animals with at least one close relative not genotyped or genotyped at low density. However, computing time and resources using BEAGLE were incompatible with routine genomic evaluations in Italy. Error rate and allelic squared correlation attained by PedImpute ranged from 0.2 to 1.1% and from 96.6 to 99.3%, respectively. When complete genomic information on sire, dam, and maternal grandsire are available, as expected to be the case in the close future in (at least) dairy cattle, and considering accuracies obtained and computation time required, PedImpute represents a valuable choice in routine evaluations among the algorithms tested

O tempo do sertão, o sertão no tempo: antigos, modernos, selvagens. Leitura de Os sertões

This article presents a reading of the book of Euclides da Cunha, Os sertões (Rebellion in the backlands), considering the way in which the difference is represented within it. The central idea is that the work is constructed upon a notion of distance of times which separates the time of the backlands from the time of what the author calls civilization. In this sense, part of the discursive strategies used in the making of the book works on a comparison between ancients, moderns and savages so that the figure of otherness becomes assimilated there.Este artigo apresenta uma leitura do livro de Euclides da Cunha, Os sertões, considerando a forma pela qual a diferença é nele representada. Parte-se da ideia de que a obra é construída segundo uma noção de distância de tempos que separa o tempo do sertão da temporalidade daquilo que o autor define como civilização. Nesse sentido, parte das estratégias discursivas utilizadas na feitura do livro trabalha segundo uma comparação entre antigos, modernos e selvagens de forma que a figura da alteridade se torne ali assimilável

Apresentação

Apresentação do dossiê História e cultura histórica no alvorecer da época moderna (séculos XIV-XVII)