Análise da situação da ATEPA (Assistência Técnica e Extensão Pesqueira e Aquícola) no Tocantins: perspectivas e entraves.

O presente estudo tem como objetivo geral analisar a situação dos serviços de ATEPA (Assistência Técnica e Extensão Pesqueira e Aquícola) no Tocantins e, especificamente, mapear e caracterizar as empresas prestadoras de ATEPA; e caracterizar o perfil dos extensionistas que atuam no setor pesqueiro. O estudo tem caráter exploratório-descritivo utilizando-se de fontes primárias, com o apoio da técnica de entrevista semi-estruturada, além de fontes secundárias.Organizado por: Sílvio Ricardo Maurano; AQUACIÊNCIA 2012

Mexican Consumers\u27 Attitudes Toward Irradiated and Imported Apples

This study centers on analyzing Mexican consumers\u27 willingness to pay (WTP) for imported US fresh apples subjected to irradiation, contrasting it with the more prevalent postharvest chemical treatments. We collect data using a survey tool in Qualtrics designed to explore the impact of information dissemination through two distinct narrative styles: scientific and layman. The study uses a between-subjects approach and apply the propensity score matching to address potential confounding factors across respondents\u27 samples. We apply the generalized multinomial logit models in WTP space, taking into consideration respondent\u27s certainty when answering to the choice experiment questions. Our findings reveal that respondents are willing to pay less for apples treated with irradiation compared to untreated ones but more than apples treated with chemicals. The WTP for irradiation increases when respondents receive information about this technology from both the scientific and layperson narrative styles. Similar to findings in previous studies, WTP for irradiated food is affected by gender, age, income, family size, and level of education. This study contributes to the literature by identifying the key factors that strongly influence consumers\u27 decisions to opt for irradiation-treated fresh fruits. These influential factors encompass information provision, social and demographic aspects, as well as the presence of country-of-origin labels. EconLit citations: C250, D820, Q160, Q180

Balltracking: an highly efficient method for tracking flow fields

We present a method for tracking solar photospheric flows that is highly efficient, and demonstrate it using high resolution MDI continuum images. The method involves making a surface from the photospheric granulation data, and allowing many small floating tracers or balls to be moved around by the evolving granulation pattern. The results are tested against synthesised granulation with known flow fields and compared to the results produced by Local Correlation tracking (LCT). The results from this new method have similar accuracy to those produced by LCT. We also investigate the maximum spatial and temporal resolution of the velocity field that it is possible to extract, based on the statistical properties of the granulation data. We conclude that both methods produce results that are close to the maximum resolution possible from granulation data. The code runs very significantly faster than our similarly optimised LCT code, making real time applications on large data sets possible. The tracking method is not limited to photospheric flows, and will also work on any velocity field where there are visible moving features of known scale length

Análise custo/benefício da adoção de boas práticas de manejo em pesque-pague.

A piscicultura é um ramo da aqüicultura que vem crescendo muito nos últimos anos, impulsionada pela estagnação na pesca extrativa e pela crescente demanda por proteína animal de alta qualidade nutricional. Um dos mercados que se desenvolveu copiosamente no início da década de noventa e que comporta grande movimentação de compra e venda de pescados cultivados é o mercado de pesque-pague, movimentando não só a piscicultura do estado de São Paulo, como também de estados vizinhos como Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul e Minas Gerais. No entanto, assim como qualquer outra atividade humana, provoca impactos positivos e negativos. Sob esta perspectiva, este trabalho objetivou, através de uma avaliação de impactos ambientais em cinco pesque-pague da região de Araras, propor a adoção de boas práticas de manejo (BPM?s) e realizar uma análise de custo/benefício para verificar a viabilidade da adoção de tais práticas. As informações foram coletadas através de questionários pré-elaborados, análises de amostras de água e sedimento e a medição dos parâmetros de qualidade de água dos tanques de pesca em três momentos diferentes: antes durante e após o período chuvoso. As análises de água revelaram existência de excesso dos elementos chumbo e ferro, o primeiro devido à contaminação pré-existente na bacia do Mogi-Guaçu, e o último em decorrência do tipo de solo da região ? latossolo. Várias Boas Práticas de Manejo foram propostas e a análise de custo/benefício identificou apenas um estabelecimento considerado economicamente viável, pois a uma taxa de desconto de 9,5% ao ano e sob um horizonte temporal de 15 anos, mostrou-se rentável. Os estabelecimentos estudados apresentam sérios problemas no setor econômico, devendo com urgência melhorar suas estratégias administrativas e gerenciais a fim de melhor explorar as potencialidades da propriedade e das atividades que desenvolvem de forma sustentável.Dissertação (Mestrado em Agroecologia e Desenvolvimento Rural) - Centro de Ciências Agrárias, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Araras. Orientador: João Fernando Marques - Co-orientador: José Maria Gusman Ferra

Diversification, concentration and renewability of the energy supply in the European Union

Energy security assessment quantifies the energy supply to a population and the likelihood, or risk, of an energy disruption or shortage and represents an important aspect of national security, economic stability and prosperity. The quantification of the state of energy supply is context-dependent and involves multiple perspectives: infrastructural, technological, environmental, market, social and geopolitical. Among all the different and relevant aspects involved, diversity and dependence of the energy fuel mix are two of the main energy security dimensions. The present paper investigates the diversification of the energy supply in Europe, by analysing import dependence, market concentration and renewable energy resource deployment in the European Union over the last decade. The analysis utilises a set of indicators aimed at measuring the fuel mix diversity, market concentration, geopolitical stability, renewable energy share and stochasticity - both at single country and at aggregated European levels. Results show a stable evolution of the diversity of the fuel mix and a relatively low market concentration of the period examined. However, the import dependency reduces the energy security by approximately 30% due to the high proportion of imports from a limited number of countries. Moreover, an increasing trend in renewable electricity production share is evident over the last decade, albeit with differences between member states, as a result of the decarbonisation policies implemented by the European Union

Synchronisation schemes for two dimensional discrete systems

In this work we consider two models of two dimensional discrete systems subjected to three different types of coupling and analyse systematically the performance of each in realising synchronised states.We find that linear coupling effectively introduce control of chaos along with synchronisation,while synchronised chaotic states are possible with an additive parametric coupling scheme both being equally relevant for specific applications.The basin leading to synchronisationin the initial value plane and the choice of parameter values for synchronisation in the parameter plane are isolatedin each case.Comment: 17 pages 8 figures. submitted to physica script

Differential Growth of Francisella tularensis, Which Alters Expression of Virulence Factors, Dominant Antigens, and Surface-carbohydrate Synthases, Governs the Apparent Virulence of Ft Schus4 to Immunized Animals

The gram-negative bacterium Francisella tularensis (Ft) is both a potential biological weapon and a naturally occurring microbe that survives in arthropods, fresh water amoeba, and mammals with distinct phenotypes in various environments. Previously, we used a number of measurements to characterize Ft grown in Brain-Heart Infusion (BHI) broth as (1) more similar to infection-derived bacteria, and (2) slightly more virulent in naive animals, compared to Ft grown in Mueller Hinton Broth (MHB). In these studies we observed that the free amino acids in MHB repress expression of select Ft virulence factors by an unknown mechanism. Here, we tested the hypotheses that Ft grown in BHI (BHI-Ft) accurately displays a full protein composition more similar to that reported for infection-derived Ft and that this similarity would make BHI-Ft more susceptible to pre-existing, vaccine-induced immunity than MHB-Ft. We performed comprehensive proteomic analysis of Ft grown in MHB, BHI, and BHI supplemented with casamino acids (BCA) and compared our findings to published omics data derived from Ft grown in vivo. Based on the abundance of ~1,000 proteins, the fingerprint of BHI-Ft is one of nutrient-deprived bacteria that-through induction of a stringent-starvation-like response-have induced the FevR regulon for expression of the bacterium\u27s virulence factors, immuno-dominant antigens, and surface-carbohydrate synthases. To test the notion that increased abundance of dominant antigens expressed by BHI-Ft would render these bacteria more susceptible to pre-existing, vaccine-induced immunity, we employed a battery of LVS-vaccination and S4-challenge protocols using MHB- and BHI-grown Ft S4. Contrary to our hypothesis, these experiments reveal that LVS-immunization provides a barrier to infection that is significantly more effective against an MHB-S4 challenge than a BHI-S4 challenge. The differences in apparent virulence to immunized mice are profoundly greater than those observed with primary infection of naive mice. Our findings suggest that tularemia vaccination studies should be critically evaluated in regard to the growth conditions of the challenge agent

Sistem Pengaturan Lampu Lalu Lintas Berdasarkan Estimasi Panjang Antrian Menggunakan Pengolahan Citra

Saat  ini  salah  satu  penyebab  kemacetan  adalah  lampu  lalu  lintas  yang  menggunakan  waktu  yang  tetap sedangkan  volume  kendaraan  selalu  berubah-,  sehingga  lampu  lalu  lintas  menjadi  kurang  efektif.  Maka dibutuhkan  metode  untuk  menghitung  lama  lampu  lalu  lintas  menyala  dengan  waktu  sesuai  dengan  jumlah kendaraan. Sistem  ini  mengimplementasikan  4  kamera  pada  persimpangan.  Kamera  mengambil  gambar  saat  jalur sedang  kosong  sebagai  acuan,  dan  mengambil  gambar  setiap  sequence  sebagai  input.  Gambar  diproses menggunakan  pengolahan  citra,  dari  merubah  format  RGB  menjadi  grayscale,  dilakukan  proses  subtraction dengan gambar acuan, penambahan brightness, merubah format grayscale menjadi biner dengan Otsu‟s threshold dan menghitung jumlah objek sebagai input dari logika fuzzy tsukamoto yang menghasilkan lama lampu hijau menyala. Sedangkan lama lampu merah menyala dihitung dengan menjumlahkan lama lampu hijau menyala dari jalur lainnnya Penggunaan 4 buah input dimaksudkan agar sistem memperhatikan jumlah antrian dari setiap jalur dan  memperhatikan  sebaran  kepadatan,  Sehingga  hasil  lama  lampu  merah  dan  lampu  hijau  menyala  dapat berubah-ubah sesuai dengan sebaran kepadatan antrian. Semakin terang kondisi jalan, semakin tinggi tingkat akurasi yang didapatkan. Pada pagi hari, didapatkan nilai error 1.74%, pada siang hari  sebesar 9%, pada  malam  hari dengan penerangan  normal sebesar 21% dan pada malam hari dengan tambahan penerangan sebesar 15%