Tipologia socioambiental de cidades médias no Brasil: aportes para um desenvolvimento urbano sustentável

The global urbanization of the territories, which is an important ongoing human ecological phenomenon, and whose environmental impacts have local, regional and global levels, has the remarkable property of a sharp growth of small and intermediate cities, in which capacity of planning and management is usually negligible, when they are compared to large cities. This is what takes place in Brazil, where medium-sized cities, those with populations between 100,000 and 500,000 residents are growing faster than large cities from mid-1990. The article aims to chart a typology of medium Brazilian cities, through multivariate statistical analysis. The resulting typology identifies two types of cities, with different social, environmental and management demands. Some of these cities are located in biodiversity hotspots. In parallel, we have compiled statistics on environmental management in place in these cities. Our results demonstrate low effectiveness of environmental management actions in these municipalitiesA CAPES, y al Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente del gobierno español, por la financiación al Proyecto Ecología Urbana en Regiones Metropolitanas de Brasil: Paisaje, Calidad de Vida y Desarrollo Humano [Plan Nacional de I+D+i (CSO2009 12689)

The Beta Generalized Exponential Distribution

We introduce the beta generalized exponential distribution that includes the beta exponential and generalized exponential distributions as special cases. We provide a comprehensive mathematical treatment of this distribution. We derive the moment generating function and the $r$th moment thus generalizing some results in the literature. Expressions for the density, moment generating function and $r$th moment of the order statistics also are obtained. We discuss estimation of the parameters by maximum likelihood and provide the information matrix. We observe in one application to real data set that this model is quite flexible and can be used quite effectively in analyzing positive data in place of the beta exponential and generalized exponential distributions

Quantum vacuum fluctuations and dark energy

It is shown that the curvature of space-time induced by vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields should be proportional to the square of Newton's constant $G$. This offers a possible explanation for the success of the approximation $G m^6 c^2 h^{-4}$ for the dark energy density, with $m$ being a typical mass of elementary particles.Comment: Changed conten

A numerical-experimental method for damage location based on rotation fields spatial differentiation

This paper presents a structural damage location method that decreases the number of spatial differentiations needed to compute modal curvature fields. The method is numerically and experimentally applied to isotropic and laminated rectangular plates, respectively. A speckle shear interferometer is used to measure the rotation fields of the laminated plate, while the isotropic plate is analysed by finite elements. It was found that the Gaussian differentiation is the most suited technique to compute the curvature fields. It is also demonstrated the superior performance of the curvature method using measured rotation fields instead of measured displacement fields

A hybrid technique for damage detection on laminated plates

This work presents an experimental/numerical technique for delamination damage detection on thin laminated composite plates. The delamination is identified using a technique based on the curvature differences of the plate modes shapes measured before and after impact damage. The natural frequencies are extracted from Frequency Response Functions. A double pulse TV holography is used for no-contact and accurate measurement of the amplitude mode shapes. The curvature is obtained by applying an improved differentiation /smoothing technique to the experimental data. Finally, the curvatures of each mode are subtracted and the damage is located

Characterization of several hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) cultivars based in chemical, fatty acid and sterol composition

Nineteen cultivars of hazelnuts (Corylus avellana L.) collected during the 2001 crop, from Vila Real, Portugal, were analysed for chemical composition, including moisture, total oil content, crude protein, ash, carbohydrates and nutritional value. Fat was the predominant component, ranging from 59.3 to 69.0%. Total oil was extracted and analysed for fatty acid and sterol compositions and oxidative stability. Fatty acid and sterol compositions were determined by Gas–Liquid Chromatography coupled to a Flame Ionisation Detector (GLC/FID). Monounsaturated fatty acids, particularly oleic acid, were predominant (78.7–84.6%). Total phytosterol content ranged from 133.8 to 263.0 mg/100 g of oil. Among the nine sterols identified and quantified, β-sitosterol was the major one with a mean percentage of 83.6%, while Δ5-avenasterol and campesterol were the second and the third components of the group with mean values of 6.1 and 5.8%, respectively. Since hazelnut oil can be used in olive oil adulteration, the values obtained were compared with published mean values of olive oils from different geographical origins

Habitat structure and neighbor linear features influence more carabid functional diversity in olive groves than the farming system

The effects of land-use management and environmental features at different scales on carabid beetle diversity and trait structure were assessed across olive groves in northeastern Portugal. We selected organic and integrated olive groves that were distinct in terms of specific management practices, local linear features and landscape configurations. Besides the management intensification levels, differences in carabid diversity and community traits were mainly due to local habitat and ecological linear structures at a finer spatial scale. Carabid community traits related to disturbance, namely traits of body size and species dispersal ability, responded to land-use intensity and particular olive grove features were influencing diversity patterns. Within the olive grove patches, larger and brachypterous species were associated to plots with more dense vegetation cover while macropterous and small-sized species were more associated to open areas. Also, larger carabid species benefitted from higher patch size heterogeneity within the landscape mosaics. Our findings indicate that the effects of farming system is contingent on the specific management practices, local and linear features present in agroecosystems such as olive groves. Particularly, the influence of local features on carabid diversity patterns and community traits linked to dispersal and movement may be crucial in maintaining pest control at a landscape scale.The authors would like to thank all farmers who allowed our access to their olive groves. This work and the writing of this manuscript was funded by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the project PTDC/AGR-PRO/111123/2009 (The use of biological indicators as tools for assessing the impact of agricultural practices in sustainability of olive grove) and the project BiodivERsA/001/2014 (ECOSERVE − Sustainable provisioning of multiple ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes). P. Martins da Silva was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BPD/ 109511/2015). The authors are indebted to two anonymous reviewers who helped to improve a previous version of this study.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Charge-density waves in the Hubbard chain: evidence for 4k_F instability

Charge density waves in the Hubbard chain are studied by means of finite-temperature Quantum Monte Carlo simulations and Lanczos diagonalizations for the ground state. We present results both for the charge susceptibilities and for the charge structure factor at densities \rho=1/6 and 1/3; for \rho=1/2 (quarter filled) we only present results for the charge structure factor. The data are consistent with a 4k_F instability dominating over the 2k_F one, at least for sufficiently large values of the Coulomb repulsion, U. This can only be reconciled with the Luttinger liquid analyses if the amplitude of the 2k_F contribution vanishes above some U^*(\rho).Comment: RevTeX, 4 two-column pages with 7 colour figures embedded in tex