Enterprise Content Management with Information Architecture： Guidelines to Structure the Information Assets

CM （contelat management） is a strategic discipline that should support the information assets of a company. Although there are some technological instruments structuring this work, the methods that have been used must have improvement to a better use. In this sense, IA （information architecture）, as a process that helps users to manage and find information, can collaborate with the organization of this assets allowing the best identification and categorization of information, as well as providing improvements in the website navigation in Intranets and Internet. This article introduces part of a research that deals with the use of IA for developing and structuring the project of Dataprev about the content management for Brazilian social security system.     

Social construction of information systems in the banking sector

This article presents the results of a study conducted in order to understand under what circumstances the process of social construction of information systems (ISs) in the banking sector in Brazil takes place. It presents an analysis of the implementation, use and procedures for improvement of three systems, used in two of the country's largest banks. We started from the premise that technology is a socially constructed phenomenon, with a structure of use that is formed by its practical application. The data were collected through 46 semi-structured interviews, direct observation and documental analyses. A structural protocol has been used to interpret and analyse the data. This analysis revealed a process of social construction that generated four types of use of IS: total use, partial use, combination and adaptation. The characteristics and outcomes of each will be explained in this article. The assimilation of systems has been influenced by the confluence of individual and organisational objectives and the type of training applied. The main findings revealed practices that integrate the structure that underlies the process of social construction of the systems investigated.     

Brazilian Iron Ore and Production of Pellets

Brazil is the second-largest producer of iron ore in the world. Brazilian richer superficial deposits are composed of brittle material with fine texture and significant amounts of fines are generated during mining and transport. Another type of ore found in this country is the itabirites that have lower iron contents. Beneficiation and concentration steps are required to prepare these materials for the pelletizing process. A general view of Brazilian types of iron ores, mines, and mining companies is given in this work. Special attention is given to pelletizing and the influence of mineralogical characteristics of different ores on the production and final properties of iron ore pellets.     

Environmental impacts resulting from construction of a pisciculture installation in Juquiá and region,Brazil

Pisciculture (fish culture) stations are an economic development opportunity adopted in the region of Juquiá, Ribeira Valley (São Paulo, Brazil). This report examines the impact of these farms on the environment from the perspective of the constraints of local settings and the way in which the technology was applied. The characteristics of nine enterprises were compared with the features recommended in the literature and by legislation. The primary impacts identified were erosion, the depositing of silt, and the entry of exotic fish into natural waters. These impacts resulted from poorly built drainage conduits, unplanned and poorly controlled excavation, and poor design decisions.     

Agricultural and agro-industrial residues-to-energy: Techno-economic and environmental assessment in Brazil

This study aims to quantify the environmentally sustainable and economically feasible potentials of agricultural and agro-industrial residues to generate electricity via direct combustion in centralised power plants in Brazil. Further, the energy savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction potential of replacing natural gas-based electricity by bioenergy have been assessed. To this end, a methodology has been developed based on an integrated evaluation, incorporating statistical and geographical information system (GIS)-based analysis, and a life-cycle-assessment approach. Results reveal that the environmentally sustainable generation potential is nearly 141 TWh/year, mainly concentrated in the South, Southeast, and Midwest regions of the country. Sugarcane, soybean and maize crop residues are the major feedstocks for available bioenergy. On the other hand, the economic potential is far lower, accounting to 39 TWh/year. The total GHG mitigation is nearly 18 million tonne CO₂e and could reach 64 million tonne CO₂e yearly, if the technical potential is considered. The gap between technical and economic potentials implies that constraints to bioenergy are not related to a lack of resources, but rather associated to economic, logistical, regulatory and political barriers.     

Preliminary Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment for Staphylococcus enterotoxins in fresh Minas cheese,a popular food in Brazil

The main objective of this work was to assess the risk associated with staphylococcal enterotoxins (SE) intoxication after the consumption of fresh Minas cheese by the Brazilian population. Coagulase-positive staphylococci data from 350 samples were obtained from monitoring programs, and were used as a proxy for S. aureus contamination, considering that 73% of the strains were toxigenic. The Combined Database for Predictive Microbiology (ComBase) and the Pathogen Modeling Program (PMP) models were used to predict S. aureus growth rate and lag-phase in fresh Minas cheese at different pH, salt concentration and storage temperature in a household refrigerator, up to 7 days before consumption. Change in storage temperature had the largest impact on the growth rate and lag-phase obtained from both models. Cumulative probability of SE intake events equal to or higher than the toxigenic dose of 100 ng were calculated using Monte Carlo simulations performed by the @Risk software. The toxic dose was exceeded at the 99.95th percentile of exposure in the ComBase model (upper bound) for the adult population, the lowest percentile identified in the study. The S. aureus initial concentration was the parameter that most impacted the output obtained by @risk, indicating the importance of good manufacturing practices for fresh Minas cheese production, and proper storage conditions at the point of sale. This preliminary assessment indicated that the risk of staphylococcal intoxications from the consumption of fresh Minas cheese by the Brazilian population is probably low. The study identified many data gaps that needs to be addressed to improve the risk assessment.     

Inference of COVID-19 epidemiological distributions from Brazilian hospital data

Knowing COVID-19 epidemiological distributions, such as the time from patient admission to death, is directly relevant to effective primary and secondary care planning, and moreover, the mathematical modelling of the pandemic generally. We determine epidemiological distributions for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 using a large dataset (N = 21 000 − 157 000) from the Brazilian Sistema de Informação de Vigilância Epidemiológica da Gripe database. A joint Bayesian subnational model with partial pooling is used to simultaneously describe the 26 states and one federal district of Brazil, and shows significant variation in the mean of the symptom-onset-to-death time, with ranges between 11.2 and 17.8 days across the different states, and a mean of 15.2 days for Brazil. We find strong evidence in favour of specific probability density function choices: for example, the gamma distribution gives the best fit for onset-to-death and the generalized lognormal for onset-to-hospital-admission. Our results show that epidemiological distributions have considerable geographical variation, and provide the first estimates of these distributions in a low and middle-income setting. At the subnational level, variation in COVID-19 outcome timings are found to be correlated with poverty, deprivation and segregation levels, and weaker correlation is observed for mean age, wealth and urbanicity.     

Determinants of political behavior and the role of technology in the classroom: An empirical investigation in Brazil

University professors face numerous challenges, especially when teaching issues related to political behavior. Recent studies in Brazil have shown that technology, clarity of information and impartial debates in the classroom have led to the development of more frequent political behaviors among Brazilian students. However, this research subject remains poorly addressed in Brazil. We investigated the development of political attitudes and political behavior of undergraduate students in Brasília, Brazil. We applied questionnaires to students (N = 349) in undergraduate courses (social, exact and health sciences) of a public university in Brasília (Federal District), capital of Brazil. Principal Components Analysis was used and three dimensions of political attitudes were created: (i) Degree of political knowledge Factor (PK), (ii) Positive Feelings about Politics Factor (PFP) and (ii) Negative Feelings about Politics Factor (NFP). The results suggest that students from social sciences undergraduate courses have a higher PK average in comparison to other student groups. Moreover, a linear regression model was developed for PFP factor. For PFP and NFP, the students from the social sciences areas were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Based on the outcomes of this study, we argue that it is essential for teachers to be aware of the importance of introducing themes related to political behavior in the classroom, considering the influence that political attitudes have on political behavior. It is the professor's role to stimulate impartial debate, free of personal preferences while presenting arguments from the students' arguments, in order to promote the scientific understanding of these subjects.     

Phosphine resistance in Brazilian populations of Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

Phosphine resistance was assessed in adults of 22 Brazilian populations of Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). The concentration-mortality bioassays for the detection of phosphine resistance followed the FAO standard method. Twenty populations of S. zeamais were resistant to phosphine and the resistance ratios at the LC₅₀ ranged from 1.1- to 86.6-fold. This is the first report of phosphine resistance in populations of S. zeamais in Brazil, where previous surveys did not detect resistance in this species. There was significant variation in respiration rate (CO₂ production) among the populations (P < 0.05). Respiration rate was significantly inversely correlated with phosphine resistance for this species (P < 0.05). The populations with lower respiration rates showed higher levels of phosphine resistance, suggesting that the lower respiration rate is associated with the physiological basis of phosphine resistance due to reduced fumigant uptake.     

Applying the Brazil-nut approach to manufacture W-Cu-graded materials

W-Cu graded packings were produced under gravity and vertical vibration, from a granular medium (GM) formed by tungsten and copper agglomerates with agglomerate size distributions, which do not overlap. These bimodal packings were processed by powder metallurgy techniques to manufacture W-Cu graded pseudo-alloys with a variety of textures of the order of one millimeter. We present and discuss the temporal evolution of the W-Cu GM bed through photographs of two case- studies with frequencies of 600 and 900 Hz. Pre-sintered W-Cu-graded materials corresponding to vibration treatments of different duration are characterised by a SEM, and the tungsten concentration profiles are estimated by area analysis. Using a LASER dilatometer, we measured the temporal registers for the height of the GM bed for a wide range of frequencies and accelerations. Depending on the excitation level of the vibrated GM bed, three types of segregation regime were identified, as follows: segregation due to convection rolls, geometrical segregation aided by surface convection, and geometrical segregation. Only at low enough excitation, through geometrical segregation, does the GM bed reach a graded packing. This occurs due to the diffusive nature of this process, where the smaller agglomerates change their configurations through hopping in a potential energy gradient.We want to thank for the financial support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the program gradient materials under the project Mu 959/5. JF is very grateful to Prof. Manuel Cáceres and Prof. Shu San Hsiau and for stimulating discussions.