As Unidades de População Homogênea (UPHs) como Instrumento para Diagnóstico e Desenho de Políticas Públicas

The aim of this review is to present the advantages of adopting an alternative network of clusters rather than the municipal and others spatial networks currently available for diagnosis and social policies. Though it is common practice to generate indicators on a municipal level and, based on these, define social priorities to guide activities on a national level, including those of the federal government, this level of spatial breakdown presents various significant disadvantages analytically speaking. One such drawback is the diversity in population size of municipalities, which in the 2000 Census, varied from 795 inhabitants in Bor´a (S˜ao Paulo) to 10.3 million in the capital city of São Paulo. To offset the matter of unequal size of municipalities and other relevant aspects in the generation of statistically significant indicators, this text presents a new spatial network with nationwide coverage, made up of what we will herein call “Homogenous Population Units” - HPUs. These units have been shaped so as to conform to various desirable requisites for planning, which involve not only similarity in population size, but also statistical robustness in relation to the indicators obtained. The text explains the premises and procedures that have been adopted so as to construct this network made up of 1574 HPUs covering the entire national territory and presents some results derived from the Demographic Census in order to illustrate the operational advantages of this new spatial network.Divisão Geográfica, Espacialização, Indicadores Sociais, Política Social, Pobreza

What drives the allocation of motorways? Evidence from Portugal's fast-expanding network

This study investigates the factors that influenced the allocation of motorways across municipalities in mainland Portugal. Our analysis, based on Poisson Pseudo-maximum Likelihood models, suggests that population size and market potential in 1981 are important determinants of motorway density in 2020. Physical and geographical variables also help explain the spatial distribution of motorway investment, as terrain ruggedness and distance to the coast are negatively associated with motorway density. In addition, we consider the influence of the proximity to historical and pre-existing transport networks on the allocation of motorways; we find that municipalities that are closer to 1800's itineraries, the main roads of the 1945's National Road Plan, and 1981's train stations appear to have higher motorway densities in 2020, but this effect is concentrated in the vast and sparsely populated area of the country that excludes what we term the high-density Portuguese “blue banana”. Interestingly, it is also only in this low-density region that partisan alignment between the municipal and the national levels of government appears to affect the allocation of transport investment, which suggests that motorways are more of a political asset in more remote or less urbanised areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

What drives the allocation of motorways? Evidence from Portugal’s fast-expanding network

This study investigates the factors that influenced the allocation of motorways across municipalities in mainland Portugal over the period from 1981 to 2011. Our analysis, based on Poisson Pseudo-maximum Likelihood models, suggests that population size and market potential in 1981 are important determinants of motorway density in 2011. Likewise, physical and geographical variables also help explain the spatial distribution of motorway investment, as terrain ruggedness, distance to the coast, and distance to the border with Spain are negatively associated with motorway density. In addition, we consider the influence of the proximity to historical and pre-existing transport networks on the allocation of motorways; we find that municipalities that are closer to the 1800’s itineraries, the main roads of the 1945’s National Road Plan, and 1981’s train stations appear to have higher motorway densities in 2011, but this effect is concentrated in the vast and sparsely populated area of the country that excludes what we term the highdensity Portuguese “blue banana”. Interestingly, it is also only in this low-density region that partisan alignment between the municipal and the national levels of government appears to affect the allocation of transport investment, which suggests that motorways are more of a political asset in more remote or less urbanised areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Motorways, urban growth, and suburbanisation : evidence from three decades of motorway construction in Portugal

Portugal moved from having less than 200 km of motorways before joining the European Union in 1986 to having the fifth highest motorway density relative to population in the Union in 2017. This paper studies the relationship between the expansion of the Portuguese motorway network between 1981 and 2011 and the growth of population and employment in the 275 mainland municipalities of the country. We address the endogeneity of the geography of motorways using instrumental variables based on historical transport networks from 1800 and 1945. Our findings suggest that, on average, new motorways caused large increases in both population and employment. In line with existing evidence for other countries, we find that motorways contributed to suburbanisation, as the impact of motorways on population growth (but not on employment growth) is particularly strong in suburban municipalities. In addition, motorways also appear to have influenced urban agglomeration dynamics, as their effect on population growth depends positively on the municipality’s population size in 1970.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparing Soil Compaction under Different Grazing Systems with a Virgin Forest Soil to Determine Optimal Stocking Rates

The understanding of how soil physical properties respond to differing grazing practices may help explain the main causes of pasture degradation. Soil compaction has been shown to be a main degradation form of soil and the knowledge of techniques to quantify and rectify this are necessary to maintain optimal yields. This research aims to measure the rupture lines of red yellow latossol under differing pasture grazing practices compared to cropping and a natural forest. With this information it is aimed to calculate the correction factor for stocking rates and traffic of tillage tools. The differing soil management practices examined was, pasture grazed by sheep, and dairy cattle, a maize crop in no tillage cover-crop system and a natural forest. To quantify the soil physical changes, the direct shear test was used, which calculated the resultant force of a load. The resultant forces of the natural forest were compared against pasture systems and crop system, and a correction factor for stocking rates was calculated. The samples of Red yellow Latossol were equilibrated in the matrix potential (ψ): -6 kPa. In the shear test, the normal stress used was the 450kPa. The correction factor (CF) indicates whether the soil has structural degradation compared to natural forest. Values less than 1 indicated soil degradation. The pastures grazed by sheep and dairy cattle had values observed to be less than 1, excessive loads at high soil moisture may be attributed to this soil structural deformation. For these systems, grazing management and stocking rates should be corrected. The correction factor gives an indication of the magnitude of management change that is required (i.e. the stocking rate decreased). The crop area was found to have no soil strength issues, using the stress test

Chemistry of volcanic soils used for agriculture in Brava Island (Cape Verde) envisaging a sustainable management

In order to acquire a better knowledge of iron forms, clay minerals and the content and distribution of trace elements in soils mostly used for agriculture in the semi-arid Brava Island (Cape Verde), iron speciation, mineralogy and chemical contents in the clay-size fraction (<2 μm) of incipient soils developed on sediments and phonolitic pyroclasts was performed by Mössbauer spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and neutron activation analysis. In contrast with the whole samples in the clay-size fraction of all the studied soils only Fe(III) was detected. Iron and chromium are depleted suggesting their occurrence as ferromagnesian and oxide minerals present in coarser particles. Rare earth elements are concentrated in the clay-size fraction, and significant differences are found in their distribution which may be partially due to oxidation, since Ce anomalies were observed. Among the other chemical elements studied, high concentrations of arsenic, bromine, and particularly antimony were found in the clay-size fraction of soils where all the Fe oxides are nano-sized, confirming the predominant adsorption of these elements on the nano-particles surface. The existence of significant amounts of these elements as well as of vitreous phases in fine particles of these soils may contribute to their mobility and accumulation in groundwater and in plants, both by absorption and by dust deposition onto the plant leaves.publishe

DyNetVis: a system for visualization of dynamic networks

The concept of networks has been important in the study of complex systems. In networks, links connect pairs of nodes forming complex structures. Studies have shown that networks not only contain structure but may also evolve in time. The addition of the temporal dimension adds complexity on the analysis and requests the development of innovative methods for the visualization of real-life networks. In this paper we introduce the Dynamic Network Visualization System (DyNetVis), a software tool for visualization of dynamic networks. The system provides several tools for user interaction and offers two coordinated visual layouts, named structural and temporal. Structural refers to standard network drawing techniques, in which a single snapshot of nodes and links are placed in a plane, whereas the temporal layout allows for simultaneously visualization of several temporal snapshots of the dynamic network. In addition, we also investigate two approaches for temporal layout visualization: (i) Recurrent Neighbors, a node ordering strategy that highlights frequent connections in time, and (ii) Temporal Activity Map (TAM), a layout technique with focus on nodes activity. We illustrate the applicability of the layouts and interaction functionalities provided by the system in two visual analysis case studies, demonstrating their advantages to improve the overall user experience on visualization and exploratory data analysis on dynamic networks

UV-Vis and CIELAB based chemometric characterization of manihot esculenta carotenoid contents

Vitamin A deficiency is a prevalent health problem in many areas of the world, where cassava genotypes with high pro-vitamin A content have been identified as a strategy to address this issue. In this study, we found a positive correlation between the color of the root pulp and the total carotenoid contents and, importantly, showed how CIELAB color measurements can be used as a non-destructive and fast technique to quantify the amount of carotenoids in cassava root samples, as opposed to traditional methods. We trained several machine learning models using UV-visible spectrophotometry data, CIELAB data and a low-level data fusion of the two. Best performance models were obtained for the total carotenoids contents calculated using the UV-visible dataset as input, with R2 values above 90 %. Using CIELAB and fusion data, values around 60 % and above 90 % were found. Importantly, these results demonstrated how data fusion can lead to a better model performance for prediction when comparing to the use of a single data source. Considering all these findings, the use of colorimetric data associated with UV-visible and HPLC data through statistical and machine learning methods is a reliable way of predicting the content of total carotenoids in cassava root samples.To CNPq (National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development) for financial support (Process n 407323/2013-9), to CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), and EPAGRI(AgriculturalResearchandRuralExtensionCompanyofSantaCatarina).Theresearchfellowshipfrom CNPqonbehalfofM.Maraschinisacknowledged.TheworkispartiallyfundedbyProjectPropMine,funded bytheagreementbetweenPortugueseFCT(FoundationforScienceandTechnology)andBrazilianCNPq.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Downhill Running-based Overtraining Protocol Improves Hepatic Insulin Signaling Pathway Without Concomitant Decrease Of Inflammatory Proteins

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)The purpose of this study was to verify the effects of overtraining (OT) on insulin, inflammatory and gluconeogenesis signaling pathways in the livers of mice. Rodents were divided into control (CT), overtrained by downhill running (OTR/down), overtrained by uphill running (OTR/up) and overtrained by running without inclination (OTR). Rotarod, incremental load, exhaustive and grip force tests were used to evaluate performance. Thirty-six hours after a grip force test, the livers were extracted for subsequent protein analyses. The phosphorylation of insulin receptor beta (pIRbeta), glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (pGSK3beta) and forkhead box O1 (pFoxo1) increased in OTR/down versus CT. pGSK3beta was higher in OTR/up versus CT, and pFoxo1 was higher in OTR/up and OTR versus CT. Phosphorylation of protein kinase B (pAkt) and insulin receptor substrate 1 (pIRS-1) were higher in OTR/up versus CT and OTR/down. The phosphorylation of I kappa B kinase alpha and beta (pIK-Kalpha/beta) was higher in all OT protocols versus CT, and the phosphorylation of stress-activated protein kinases/Jun amino-terminal kinases (pSAPK-JNK) was higher in OTR/ down versus CT. Protein levels of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator 1alpha (PGC-1alpha) and hepatocyte nuclear factor 4alpha (HNF-4alpha) were higher in OTR versus CT. In summary, OTR/down improved the major proteins of insulin signaling pathway but up-regulated TRB3, an Akt inhibitor, and its association with Akt.1010Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)FAPESP [2013/20591-3, 2014/25459-9, 2013/22737-5, 2013/19985-7