Cost-Effective Platform for Particulate Matter Rapid Monitoring

Particles in the air with volume ≤ 2.5 μm3 have been classified as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, rapid monitoring systems are crucial to obtain information about particulate matter (PM) concentrations and make this information publicly available. Supported by WHO criteria, this text focuses on the development of a field-portable cost-effective platform for rapid monitoring, data acquisition of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and measurements of environmental variables (relative air humidity and temperature) at the micrometeorological level, in addition to providing access via the Internet of Thing (IoT). The platform was tested, as well as validating its results when compared to those made available at the National Meteorology Institute-INMET (Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia). Based on this technology, tests and measurements have been performed in the local presence of the population and vehicle traffic, in order to identify the concentrations of PM in public places. Between the results obtained, the device recorded higher temperature and low humidity, at 12 noon, and the average hourly reached 175.3 µg/m3 (PM10) and 164.2 µg/m3 (PM2.5), which means a warning sign. This computational platform would be useful for cost-effective and rapid quantification of PM density even in field and resource-poor settings

Prevalencia del uso de estupefacientes entre conductores de autobuses urbanos: una revisión sistemática

Objetivo: investigar a prevalência do consumo de substâncias psicotrópicas por motoristas de ônibus urbano através da revisão de estudos publicados sobre o consumo de drogas por essa população e identificar a associação entre esse consumo e as variáveis sociodemográficas e ocupacionais inerentes à profissão. Método: revisão sistemática de literatura utilizando as bases MEDLINE, LILACS, SciELO, EMBASE, PsycINFO e CAPES, utilizando-se os descritores: motoristas de ônibus, motoristas de ônibus urbano, uso de drogas e consumo de drogas, de julho a dezembro de 2015. Resultados: esses profissionais estão cotidianamente expostos a importantes fatores estressores ocupacionais e o consumo de drogas pode estar relacionado a uma estratégia negativa de enfrentamento do estresse. O uso de drogas entre esses profissionais é preocupante, bem como a evidente relação entre esse uso e a ocorrência de acidentes de trânsito. Conclusão: estressores inerentes à profissão e respostas pouco eficazes ao estresse podem levar tais profissionais ao uso de substâncias psicotrópicas. Faz-se necessária a realização de estudos sobre a prevalência do consumo de drogas em uma amostra significativa de motoristas de ônibus urbano.Objetivo: investigar la prevalencia del uso de sustancias psicotrópicas entre los conductores de autobuses urbanos mediante la revisión de los estudios publicados sobre el uso de drogas en esta población e identificar una asociación entre el consumo de dichas sustancias y las variables sociodemográficas y laborales inherentes a la profesión. Método: revisión sistemática de la literatura utilizando las bases de datos MEDLINE, LILACS, SciELO, EMBASE, PsycINFO y CAPES, utilizando los descriptores: conductores de autobuses, conductores de autobús urbano, uso de drogas y consumo de drogas, de julio a diciembre de 2015. Resultados: estos profesionales están expuestos diariamente a factores estresantes importantes en el ámbito laboral y el uso de drogas puede constituir una estrategia negativa para hacer frente al estrés. El uso de drogas entre estos profesionales es preocupante, así como el vínculo claro entre el uso de dichas sustancias y la incidencia de accidentes de tránsito. Conclusión: los estresores inherentes a la profesión y las respuestas ineficaces al estrés pueden llevar a estos profesionales a usar sustancias psicotrópicas. Por lo que se hace necesaria la realización de estudios sobre la prevalencia del consumo de drogas en una muestra significativa de conductores de autobuses urbanos.Objective: to investigate the prevalence of psychotropic substance use by urban bus drivers by reviewing studies addressing drug use among this population and identify potential associations between drug use and sociodemographic and occupational variables inherent to the profession. Method: systematic literature review searching the MEDLINE, LILACS, SciELO, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CAPES databases using the Portuguese equivalents of the following: bus drivers, urban bus drivers, and drug use from July to December 2015. Results: these professionals are exposed to important occupational stressors daily and the consumption of drugs may be related to negative coping strategies. Drug use among these workers is of concern, as well as the apparent relationship between drug use and traffic accidents. Conclusion: stressors inherent to the profession and inefficacious responses to stress may lead these professionals to use psychotropic substances. Thus, studies addressing the prevalence of drug use in a significant sample of urban bus drivers are necessary

Seasonality of Epigaeic Ant Communities in a Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest

In this study we assessed the leaf-litter ant community in the Cicuta Forest, a semi-deciduous forest located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil. Specifically, we tested the following hypotheses: (1) ant richness and diversity are higher in the rainy season, due to higher resource availability and better temperature and humidity conditions; and that (2) the structure of the ant community is influenced by climate seasonality. We collected 83 ant species of 35 genera and eight subfamilies. In total, 64 species were collected in the dry season and 73 species in the rainy season. Based on rarefaction curves with confidence intervals, we observed that species richness in the dry and rainy seasons did not differ significantly from each other. Diversity did not differ significantly (t = -1.20; P = 0.23) between the dry (3.43) and rainy seasons (3.52). Community structure did not differ between the dry and rainy seasons (NMDS followed by ANOSIM: r = 0.048, P < 0.001). We did not observe a significant effect of climate seasonality neither on ant species composition, richness, and diversity, nor on community structure. These results may be explained by the degree of isolation and degradation of this forest remnant. In short, our study contributes to knowledge on how seasonal variations affects ant communities

A aplicação de metodologias para o ensino da geomorfologia / The application of methodologies for the teaching of geomorphology

O objetivo deste trabalho é facilitar a compreensão acerca da geomorfologia, por meio de metodologias que ofereçam melhor fixação do conteúdo pelos alunos, para isso foram analisados conteúdos bibliográficos referentes as metodologias de ensino de geografia física no ambiente escolar. Este trabalho justifica-se pela necessidade de trazer novos métodos de ensino de Geografia Física para sala de aula, visto que é necessário inovar no ambiente escolar, para que os alunos tenham mais interesse no conteúdo e mais prazer pelo conhecimento

Mineração através do beneficiamento à seco em canaã dos Carajás-Pa: alternativa para a barragem de rejeitos / Mining through dry processing in canaã dos Carajás-Pa: alternative to the tailings dam

A atividade mineradora destaca-se como de suma importância para a economia e desenvolvimento do país, entretanto, junto com essas melhorias também estão os impactos ambientais e socais que podem surgir e, que se não forem bem administrados, podem resultar em desastres incalculáveis, principalmente se envolverem a morte de pessoas. Nessa perspectiva, este estudo é voltado para analisar uma alternativa para a barragem de rejeitos, estrutura que deve ser estudada e implantada com todo cuidado. A mineração à seco é uma das alternativas para essa problemática, porque se trata de um processo que diminui drasticamente o uso de água no beneficiamento do minério, dispensando a necessidade de existir barragem de rejeitos e, consequentemente, eliminando os desastres relacionados a elas. Tem-se, então, como objetivos, analisar os benefícios da mineração à seco, os possíveis entraves para a implantação desta, as melhorias socioambientais, vantagens e desvantagens desse processo de mineração. A metodologia utilizada foi a pesquisa exploratória em sites governamentais, da Vale S.A e periódicos relacionados ao tema. A Empresa Vale S.A foi escolhida nesta pesquisa pelo fato de desenvolver essa tecnologia em Minas Gerais e no Pará. No sudeste paraense, na cidade de Canaã dos Carajás, está localizado o maior complexo minerário da empresa, o Complexo S11D Eliezer Batista, empreendimento que utiliza o beneficiamento à seco juntamente com as minas de Carajás e Serra Leste. Ao final do estudo, foi notável o grande ganho socioambiental que pode ser proporcionado através do beneficiamento à umidade natural pois, a inexistência da barragem de rejeitos vai evitar que uma área maior ainda seja desmatada, diminui o consumo de água, de combustíveis fósseis, de energia elétrica. O beneficiamento é mais seguro e sustentável, emitindo, inclusive, menores quantidades de gases do efeito estufa e melhorias para a sociedade. 

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

ATLANTIC EPIPHYTES: a data set of vascular and non-vascular epiphyte plants and lichens from the Atlantic Forest

Epiphytes are hyper-diverse and one of the frequently undervalued life forms in plant surveys and biodiversity inventories. Epiphytes of the Atlantic Forest, one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world, have high endemism and radiated recently in the Pliocene. We aimed to (1) compile an extensive Atlantic Forest data set on vascular, non-vascular plants (including hemiepiphytes), and lichen epiphyte species occurrence and abundance; (2) describe the epiphyte distribution in the Atlantic Forest, in order to indicate future sampling efforts. Our work presents the first epiphyte data set with information on abundance and occurrence of epiphyte phorophyte species. All data compiled here come from three main sources provided by the authors: published sources (comprising peer-reviewed articles, books, and theses), unpublished data, and herbarium data. We compiled a data set composed of 2,095 species, from 89,270 holo/hemiepiphyte records, in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, recorded from 1824 to early 2018. Most of the records were from qualitative data (occurrence only, 88%), well distributed throughout the Atlantic Forest. For quantitative records, the most common sampling method was individual trees (71%), followed by plot sampling (19%), and transect sampling (10%). Angiosperms (81%) were the most frequently registered group, and Bromeliaceae and Orchidaceae were the families with the greatest number of records (27,272 and 21,945, respectively). Ferns and Lycophytes presented fewer records than Angiosperms, and Polypodiaceae were the most recorded family, and more concentrated in the Southern and Southeastern regions. Data on non-vascular plants and lichens were scarce, with a few disjunct records concentrated in the Northeastern region of the Atlantic Forest. For all non-vascular plant records, Lejeuneaceae, a family of liverworts, was the most recorded family. We hope that our effort to organize scattered epiphyte data help advance the knowledge of epiphyte ecology, as well as our understanding of macroecological and biogeographical patterns in the Atlantic Forest. No copyright restrictions are associated with the data set. Please cite this Ecology Data Paper if the data are used in publication and teaching events. © 2019 The Authors. Ecology © 2019 The Ecological Society of Americ