Pattern and determinants of the brazilian microregions urban infrastructure

A better urban infrastructure is associated with better development indexes. In this perspective, this research tried to find the factors of urban development of the Brazilian micro-regions. For this, we used factor analysis to find patterns of development related to urban infrastructure. Then it built an index allowing to order the 558 Brazilian micro-regions and classify them into high, medium and low level of urban infrastructure. It was possible to extract five factors that explain 72,58% of the total variance of the data. Most micro-regions were classified as low level of urban infrastructure, while 14,69% of micro-regions were classified with high infrastructure, with most in the Southeast. The states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais led the ranking with the highest number of micro-regions with high urban infrastructure. The opposite was observed to the North, which got no micro-regions with high infrastructure

Evaluating the impact of social determinants, conditional cash transfers and primary health care on HIV/AIDS: Study protocol of a retrospective and forecasting approach based on the data integration with a cohort of 100 million Brazilians.

BACKGROUND: Despite the great progress made over the last decades, stronger structural interventions are needed to end the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). Brazil is one of the largest and data-richest LMIC, with rapidly changing socioeconomic characteristics and an important HIV/AIDS burden. Over the last two decades Brazil has also implemented the world's largest Conditional Cash Transfer programs, the Bolsa Familia Program (BFP), and one of the most consolidated Primary Health Care (PHC) interventions, the Family Health Strategy (FHS). OBJECTIVE: We will evaluate the effects of socioeconomic determinants, BFP exposure and FHS coverage on HIV/AIDS incidence, treatment adherence, hospitalizations, case fatality, and mortality using unprecedently large aggregate and individual-level longitudinal data. Moreover, we will integrate the retrospective datasets and estimated parameters with comprehensive forecasting models to project HIV/AIDS incidence, prevalence and mortality scenarios up to 2030 according to future socioeconomic conditions and alternative policy implementations. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will combine individual-level data from all national HIV/AIDS registries with large-scale databases, including the "100 Million Brazilian Cohort", over a 19-year period (2000-2018). Several approaches will be used for the retrospective quasi-experimental impact evaluations, such as Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), Random Administrative Delays (RAD) and Propensity Score Matching (PSM), combined with multivariable Poisson regressions for cohort analyses. Moreover, we will explore in depth lagged and long-term effects of changes in living conditions and in exposures to BFP and FHS. We will also investigate the effects of the interventions in a wide range of subpopulations. Finally, we will integrate such retrospective analyses with microsimulation, compartmental and agent-based models to forecast future HIV/AIDS scenarios. CONCLUSION: The unprecedented datasets, analyzed through state-of-the-art quasi-experimental methods and innovative mathematical models will provide essential evidences to the understanding and control of HIV/AIDS epidemic in LMICs such as Brazil

A INFLUÊNCIA DA DOPAMINA NOS TRANSTORNOS DE DEPRESSÃO: REVISÃO DE LITERATURA

A depressão é definida como um distúrbio que provoca alterações de ordem social, psicológica, fisiológica e biológica. Pessoas diagnosticadas como depressivas apresentam impactos no funcionamento psicossocial, saúde física, mortalidade e qualidade de vida. Por esta razão, este estudo teve como objetivo demonstrar os mecanismos fisiológicos envolvidos nos transtornos de depressão e sua relação com o neurotransmissor dopamina. Trata-se de uma revisão bibliográfica narrativa realizada no período de março a maio de 2023, através de pesquisas nas bases de dados Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), PubMed via Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (LILACS) e Google Scholar. Através desta revisão foi possível evidenciar a importância no conhecimento acerca dos mecanismos fisiopatológicos envolvidos nos transtornos de depressão, sendo essencial para o entendimento e aplicação em tratamentos de pacientes diagnosticados com este transtorno

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

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

Three essays on irrigated agriculture in Brazil

The Irrigation technology is an important tool capable of mitigating the adverse effects of climate change, ensuring the yields, raising agricultural productivity rates and increasing employment in rural areas, which generates income and raises food security. Despite its multiple benefits, irrigation adoption in Brazil is still low given the potential for incorporation of new arable land, making the effects of this technology on the production process underestimated and underexplored. The present thesis seeks to analyze the effect of irrigation adoption on important aspects of the Brazilian irrigated agriculture, such as the technical efficiency between irrigators and rain-fed producers; the effect of irrigation on grain supply and demand for productive factors; and added gross revenue from the adoption of irrigation technology. To achieve those goals, three chapters are developed: Irrigation, technical efficiency and farm size in Brazil; Irrigation effects on grain sector in the Brazilian Southeast: A short-run analysis; and The value of irrigation adoption in the Brazilian agriculture. The first chapter analyzes the effect of irrigation technology adoption on the technical efficiency of Brazilian agricultural establishments. The methodological approach combines the stochastic production frontier structure, taking into account the selection bias (Heckman's approach), with the entropy balancing technique. The results show that irrigation adoption contributes to increasing the technical efficiency of irrigators by 2.51 percentage points compared to rain-fed farmers, on average. The greatest effect is observed for the group of large farmers. In the second chapter, we analyze the effect of irrigation on the supply of grains and the demand for productive factors in the Southeast region of Brazil. A system of equations is estimated using the restricted quadratic profit function approach. The results point toward a positive effect on the supply of grains and demand for labor. In addition, irrigation contributes to a 2.1% increase (US$83.45 million) in the average revenue generated by the grains analyzed. The third and last chapter aims to obtain a measure of value of the irrigation adoption in terms of gross added revenue when land is irrigated, relative to a non- irrigated land, using the production function approach. The results show an additional gross revenue due to irrigation of US$ 1,492.15/ha, on average, and the estimated value of irrigation for Brazilian agriculture is US$2.96 billion. The overall results provide useful information to design public policies that aim to develop irrigated agriculture in Brazil, such as the need for policies toward small producers regarding the provision of specialized technical assistance and rural credit services, as well as those related to water resources and rural electrification within the farm. In addition, the results may provide useful information that can assist water charging policies used in irrigation. Finally, I conclude that irrigation technology plays an important role in the technical efficiency of producers, in expanding the outputs supplies, in generating rural employment and gross revenue added to the agricultural sector. Keywords: Irrigation. Technical efficiency. Farm size. Grain supply. Revenue. Irrigation value.A tecnologia de irrigação é uma importante ferramenta capaz de minimizar os efeitos adversos do clima, assegurar o montante produzido, elevar as taxas de produtividade agrícola e aumentar o emprego no meio rural, o que por sua vez gera renda e pode contribuir para a diminuição dos índices de insegurança alimentar no meio rural. Apesar dos múltiplos benefícios, a taxa de adoção de irrigação no Brasil ainda é muito baixa dada o potencial de incorporação de novas áreas, fazendo com que os efeitos dessa tecnologia sobre o processo produtivo sejam subestimados e pouco explorados. Nesse sentido, a presente tese buscou analisar o efeito da adoção da irrigação sobre aspectos importantes da agricultura irrigada brasileira, como a eficiência técnica entre irrigantes e produtores de sequeiro; o impacto da irrigação na oferta de grãos e demanda por fatores produtivos; e a receita bruta adicionada decorrente da adoção da tecnologia de irrigação. Para atingir tais objetivos, foram elaborados três capítulos: Irrigation, technical efficiency and farm size in Brazil; Irrigation effects on grain sector in the Brazilian Southeast: A short-run analysis; e The value of irrigation adoption in the Brazilian agriculture. No primeiro capítulo, analisou-se o efeito da adoção da tecnologia de irrigação sobre a eficiência técnica dos estabelecimentos agropecuários brasileiros. A abordagem utilizada combinou a estrutura de fronteira de produção estocástica, levando em conta o viés de seleção na adoção da irrigação (abordagem de Heckman) com a técnica de balanceamento por entropia. Os resultados mostraram que a irrigação contribui para o aumento da eficiência técnica dos irrigantes em 2,51 pontos percentuais em relação aos produtores de sequeiro, sendo este efeito maior para o grupo de grandes produtores. No segundo capítulo, analisou-se o efeito da irrigação sobre a oferta de grãos e demanda por fatores produtivos na região Sudeste do Brasil. Para tal, um sistema de equações foi estimado utilizando-se da abordagem da função de lucro quadrática restrita. Os resultados apontaram para um efeito positivo sobre a oferta de grãos e demanda por trabalho. Além disso, a irrigação contribuiu para um aumento de 2,1$ 83,45 milhões) na receita média gerada pelos produtos considerados. No terceiro e último capítulo, objetivou-se obter uma medida do valor da adoção de irrigação em termos de receita bruta adicionada quando a terra é irrigada, relativa àquela não irrigada, por meio da abordagem da função de produção. Os resultados mostraram uma receita bruta adicional em decorrência do uso de irrigação em US$1.492,15/ha, sendo o valor da irrigação para o Brasil estimado em US$ 2,96 bilhões. Os resultados trazem informações úteis ao delineamento de políticas voltadas ao desenvolvimento da agricultura irrigada no Brasil, como por exemplo, a necessidade de políticas voltadas aos pequenos produtores em relação ao fornecimento de serviços de assistência técnica especializada e de crédito rural, bem como aquelas voltadas à propriedade no que diz respeito à dotação de recursos hídricos e eletrificação rural. Além disso, os resultados podem fornecer informações que podem auxiliar na formatação de políticas de cobrança de água usada na irrigação. Por fim, conclui-se que a tecnologia de irrigação tem um importante papel na eficiência técnica dos produtores, na expansão da oferta de produtos, na geração de emprego rural e na geração de receita bruta adicionada ao setor agrícola. Palavras-chave: Irrigação. Eficiência Técnica. Tamanho de Estabelecimento. Oferta de grãos. Receita do produtor. Valor da irrigação.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológic