MULTIMÍDIA E JOGOS PARA SENSIBILIZAR CRIANÇAS E CAPACITAR AGENTES DE EDUCAÇÃO PARA O TRÂNSITO

O artigo tem como objetivo relatar as experiências vivenciadas pela equipe de criação e desenvolvimento de objetos educacionais da Assessoria de Educação para o Trânsito da EPTC – Empresa Pública de Transporte e Circulação, de Porto Alegre, para aprender a desenvolver e usar objetos educacionais na sua função. Pretende-se mostrar também como se deu o processo evolutivo dos integrantes da equipe, evidenciando quem a equipe, formada por agentes de fiscalização de trânsito e transportes (em Porto Alegre, capital do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, esses profissionais são chamados popularmente “Azuizinhos”, em função da cor de seu uniforme), responsáveis pela área educacional, aprendeu a compreender a linguagem, desenvolver e utilizar ferramentas tecnológicas e pedagógicas que serviram como base para o seu trabalho. A atividade ocorreu como parte de um projeto conjunto entre a EPTC e a Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, através do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Informática na Educação, implantado ao longo do ano de 2006. Também são apresentadas considerações a respeito dainfluência dos jogos na educação para o trânsito

Incidência e Estudo Morfológico de Pontes Miocárdicas no Estado do Ceará: Um Estudo Cadavérico

Resumo Fundamento As pontes miocárdicas (PM) são anomalias anatômicas com possíveis repercussões clínicas, e, portanto, seu entendimento merece atenção. Objetivo Para determinar a prevalência e caracterizar a PM em corações humanos do estado do Ceará. Métodos: Foram usados cinquenta corações de cadáveres humanos adultos da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Federal do Ceará, Brasil. Os corações foram dissecados para identificar PMs que passam sobre parte da artéria coronária. O segmento da artéria (proximal, médio e distal) com a ponte foi identificado. O diâmetro externo da artéria nos pontos proximal e distal da PM foi medido. O comprimento e a espessura da PM também foram medidos com um calibre eletrônico. O índice de massa muscular (IMM) da PM foi calculado como o produto do comprimento pela espessura expresso em milímetros. O nível de significância adotado para a análise estatística foi 5%. Resultados A PM foi confirmada em 40% da amostra. Aproximadamente um terço da amostra tinha apenas 1 PM. A PM foi encontrada mais frequentemente sobre o ramo interventricular anterior da artéria coronária esquerda (59,25%, p = 0,02), e sua prevalência em outros ramos foi muito mais baixa (22,23%). Os segmentos das artérias mais afetados foram o superior (44,44%) e o médio (40,74%). O diâmetro médio das artérias proximais em relação à PM foi de 2,38 ± 0,97 mm (intervalo = 0,78 - 5,15 mm), e o diâmetro distal da PM foi de 1,71 ± 0,75 mm (intervalo = 0,42 - 3,58 mm). O comprimento foi medido como média = 8,55 ± 5,27 mm, e a espessura média foi de 0,89 ± 0,33 mm. Conclusão A alta prevalência de PM tem mais probabilidade de afetar o sistema da artéria coronária esquerda com IMM maior do que outros ramos afetados

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors

Local hydrological conditions influence tree diversity and composition across the Amazon basin

Tree diversity and composition in Amazonia are known to be strongly determined by the water supplied by precipitation. Nevertheless, within the same climatic regime, water availability is modulated by local topography and soil characteristics (hereafter referred to as local hydrological conditions), varying from saturated and poorly drained to well-drained and potentially dry areas. While these conditions may be expected to influence species distribution, the impacts of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity and composition remain poorly understood at the whole Amazon basin scale. Using a dataset of 443 1-ha non-flooded forest plots distributed across the basin, we investigate how local hydrological conditions influence 1) tree alpha diversity, 2) the community-weighted wood density mean (CWM-wd) – a proxy for hydraulic resistance and 3) tree species composition. We find that the effect of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity depends on climate, being more evident in wetter forests, where diversity increases towards locations with well-drained soils. CWM-wd increased towards better drained soils in Southern and Western Amazonia. Tree species composition changed along local soil hydrological gradients in Central-Eastern, Western and Southern Amazonia, and those changes were correlated with changes in the mean wood density of plots. Our results suggest that local hydrological gradients filter species, influencing the diversity and composition of Amazonian forests. Overall, this study shows that the effect of local hydrological conditions is pervasive, extending over wide Amazonian regions, and reinforces the importance of accounting for local topography and hydrology to better understand the likely response and resilience of forests to increased frequency of extreme climate events and rising temperatures

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

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types. Location: Amazonia. Taxon: Angiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots). Methods: Data for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran\u27s eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny. Results: In the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R$^{2}$ = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R$^{2}$ = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types. Main Conclusion: Numerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

AimAmazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types.LocationAmazonia.TaxonAngiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots).MethodsData for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran's eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny.ResultsIn the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R2 = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R2 = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types.Main ConclusionNumerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions