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Visceral leishmaniasis remains a serious public health issue, and Brazil was among the seven countries with the highest prevalence of this disease worldwide. The measures to control this disease are not easily developed, and the improvement of its diagnosis, surveillance, and control is still needed. This study aimed to carry out the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnosis of Leishmania infantum in vector samples in some municipalities of the State of São Paulo, which included two municipalities with human disease transmission and two with dog transmission only. Vectors were collected in traps with luminous bait. Next, they were killed at −4 °C and kept in 70% alcohol. Groups of ten female insects (pools) were mashed on cation exchange paper (fine cellulose phosphate with 18 µEq/cm² ionic exchange capacity) for DNA extraction. The PCR was carried out to identify the natural infection of the Leishmania genus in female Lutzomyia longipalpis (Lu. Longipalpis). Out of the 3,880 Lu. longipalpis phlebotomines, 1060 were female and 2820 were male (3:1). The method used to extract the DNA in pools of ten phlebotomines and the PCR resulted in sensitivity, specificity, practicality, and faster analyses when compared to the individual analysis method. The procedure described can be used on a large scale in the leishmaniasis epidemiological surveillance, enabling a higher number of analyses and the optimization of human resources because the traditional diagnostic method is carried out via desiccation of the insect digestive system and microscopic examination, which is time-demanding and there is the need of manual skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, agrarian reform areas have transformed urban and rural spaces across Brazil. Although these areas' creation reduced inequalities and environmental problems, their residents still experience several constraints and vulnerabilities associated with water, energy, and food provision. Drawing on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus' critical and territorial perspectives, this paper aims to better understand the agrarian reform areas' challenges in peri-urban interfaces towards social justice. We analyse a territory in the Northeast portion of the São Paulo State, where it is located the Sepé Tiaraju agrarian reform settlement in interface with two municipalities. We suggest that agrarian reform areas can activate a progressive and concrete environmental change at the local level where food is the key element to redefining the area's nexus. However, socio-political and spatial dynamics involving water and energy for the sugarcane sector, the municipal government, and tense relationships among residents around food also reproduce unequal access to resources. This paper contributes to the emerging critical literature and its efforts to politicize the nexus debate, giving more nuanced views to the complex and contradictory dynamics involving environmental problems and social justice struggles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growth of the organic food market in Brazil, these foods remain restricted to a minor part of the population. In this scenario, the short circuits are presented as an alternative to the predominant food distribution model, which is characterized by impersonality and long distances. This paper aims to analyze the motivation of the organic products consumers and this market in Sorocaba (in the state of São Paulo). For this purpose, two methodological procedures were used: an online survey (quantitative approach) and semi-structured interviews (qualitative approach). As results, the consumers habits revealed two different positions: an appreciation of practicality and a search for diversity, both in products and in ways of purchasing them. Because of these choices the consumers alternate between short and long circuits possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police and military officers have been migrating to institutional party politics since the democratization period in Brazil. Analyzes former officer's discourses at São Paulo's state parliament in different contexts. Drawing from document analysis, the so-called "bullet caucus" of the 18th legislature (2015-2019) was compared to the "security caucus" elected for the first time in the 11th legislature (1987-1991). Although these groups have shown similarities concerning public security, new negotiation strategies, and a dispute over human rights policy have been observed. The paper argues that the "bullet caucus" reorganizes conservatism in the political field by opening spaces of connection with diverse groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Atlantic Forest is the most fragmented and threatened domain in Brazil. The main remnants are in the coastal regions. This paper describes a study performed at a protected federal reserve in Brazil located in western of São Paulo state, which is a transition with the Savannah. A forestry survey was made for understanding the forest structure, diversity, and floristic composition of an inland Atlantic Forest area. A total of 3,181 individuals with a Diameter at Breast Height over 3.5 cm were sampled. The data sample was composed of 29 families and 64 species from 15 plots. Forty-seven percent of the species were classified as a pioneer, 42% as secondary, and 11% as climax. The species Eugenia uniflora presented the highest importance value index. The values of Shannon-Weaver diversity and Pielou equitability index indicate the area has less diversity than others in the same phytophysiognomy and was dominated by a few species with many individuals. Several anthropogenic disturbances altered the forest cover of the Ponte Branca Forest remnant, which is in the process of secondary succession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first decade of the 21st century, São Paulo's State Government, in Brazil, promoted the construction of a series of schools designed by different local architectural firms, using a system of prefabricated pieces that allowed adapting the projects to the sites and demands of each region, keeping the budget under control. This initiative allowed building dozens of buildings, relieving the school deficit of the most impoverished regions of the state and promoting the construction of public buildings with great social impact by a whole generation of architects. This paper presents the Prefabricated Schools Program guidelines, promoted by the Foundation for the Development of Education (FDE, in Portuguese) illustrating it with seven projects that showcase the architectural richness achieved by the firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, Chomsky & Herman's "propaganda model" was applied on the examination of the news coverage practiced by Brazilian mass media regarding the exclusion of candidates due to legal processes in the 2018 Brazilian and Venezuelan presidential elections. To this end, this research employs the chomskyan methodology of conducting a comparative study of the news content concerning the excluded candidates from each election produced by Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo between January 1st and May 31st of 2018. The analysis focused on: how the paper framed the matter in each case through representation techniques, the plurality of opinions presented, and how authors of opinion pieces positioned themselves. The results show that the newspaper's coverage corroborates claims of attacks on the freedom of candidacy in the Venezuelan election, whilst rejecting such claims in the Brazilian election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile geolocation data is a valuable asset in the assessment of movement patterns of a population. Once a highly contagious disease takes place in a location the movement patterns aid in predicting the potential spatial spreading of the disease, hence mobile data becomes a crucial tool to epidemic models. In this work, based on millions of anonymized mobile visits data in Brazil, we investigate the most probable spreading patterns of the COVID-19 within states of Brazil. The study is intended to help public administrators in action plans and resources allocation, whilst studying how mobile geolocation data may be employed as a measure of population mobility during an epidemic. This study focuses on the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during the period of March 2020, when the disease first started to spread in these states. Metapopulation models for the disease spread were simulated in order to evaluate the risk of infection of each city within the states, by ranking them according to the time the disease will take to infect each city. We observed that, although the high-risk regions are those closer to the capital cities, where the outbreak has started, there are also cities in the countryside with great risk. The mathematical framework developed in this paper is quite general and may be applied to locations around the world to evaluate the risk of infection by diseases, in special the COVID-19, when geolocation data is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing amount of global waste reflects the social, environmental, and economic trajectories of the local environment. This study addresses this multifaceted problem that requires a holistic view with an ecosystem-level perspective on waste. The research objective is to analyze how the waste business ecosystem enables value capture and creation. Thus, this study contributes to the literature by using a business ecosystem approach that acknowledges several stakeholders, value networks, and the social and environmental issues of the local environment. We qualitatively examine the structure and process of value capture in the waste business ecosystem in two different environments, Finland and Sao Paulo metropolitan area, Brazil. We identify the key stakeholders and their roles, as well as contrast the waste business ecosystem between a developing country and a developed country to unveil differences in value networks. The comparative qualitative case study described relies on the interview and observation of multiple stakeholders. Theoretically, this research builds on the business ecosystem literature, value capture and creation literature, and the extant literature on waste business management. As its key result, the study maps two different ecosystems and their value creation and value capture mechanisms. The findings show that notwithstanding the strong role of regulators in both local environments and their business ecosystems, some private companies engage in value capture. However, the process and structure of the value capture differ in the two case studies. We also found that the stakeholders and their roles in the value capture structure and process vary between these two local environments and with regard to collaboration for value creation. In Finland, ecosystem-level value creation is not rare, but in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area, business models are typically single-firm-centric in terms of value creation and capture. The results presented in this paper delineate and structure the waste business ecosystems in both local environments and provide implications for stakeholders by suggesting the value capture trajectories that can be reached. Finally, fruitful avenues for further research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lamb production in Brazil has the state of São Paulo as its largest consumer market, but due to competition for area with other agricultural activities, sheep farming in São Paulo underwent an intensification of the production system to achieve better economic profitability. This intensification can compromise the sustainability of the system. There is no research concerning about emergy evaluation on lamb production systems applied in Brazil, so this is the first paper to discuss the sustainability of lamb production systems using this method. Therefore, this article proposes to discuss the importance of considering environmental aspects in the economic analysis of production systems, aiming at the sustainable development of the sector. This study assessed the economic and emergy performance of three different sheep farms in Brazil managed under different levels of technology: Intensive, Semi-intensive, and Feedlot. Results show that from an economic perspective, the Feedlot system is more attractive (9,800 US$/yr for net profit) than Intensive and Semi-intensive ones, while emergy synthesis show that Semi-intensive system (30% for renewability) should be prioritized. On the other hand, when emergy is analyzed from an economic perspective based on Emdollars (Em$, with an 'm'), the economic advantage regarding the production cost of Feedlot on the Semi-intensive system becomes less evident. The Intensive system obtained the worst performance for economic, and emergy indicators. More than contributing to the discussions about the importance in considering a systemic perspective when quantifying the economic performance of production systems, this study also (i) establishes the most sustainable sheep farm system that could be supported in Brazil, and (ii) make available new unit emergy values that would enrich the existing emergy databases. • The synthesis emergy together with the economic assessment are performed for three sheep production systems with different levels of technology. • Intensive systems (Intensive and Feedlot) are economically profitable, but generate greater pressure on the environment. • Semi-intensive systems present less pressure on the environment, but are not economically viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the synchronization of price changes in the context of retail tire dealers in Sao Paulo-Brazil and selected items in supermarkets for cleaning supplies and food in Rio de Janeiro-Brazil. Results indicate similar and non-negligible synchronization for different brands, although magnitudes are distant from a perfect synchronization pattern. We find imeresting patterns in inter-firm competition, with similar magnitudes across different tire types. Intra-chain synchronization is substantial, indicating that a common price adjustment policy tends to he sustained for each chain across different products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retailers face a complex task in formulating prices strategies. While the goal of pricing is to lay down a general course of action, pricing methods are procedures which enable organizations to make their pricing decisions. The scope of this paper is to explore retail pricing goals along with the methods that are employed for pricing, and to investigate whether the methods employed succeed in achieving the objectives. It was found that the companies used in the sample are basically pursuing quantitative rather than qualitative objectives and that they lay emphasis on achieving sales and making profits by following market developments. Another significant factor was that, the firms in the sample seemed to attach less importance to customer-oriented methods and employ the traditional methods of costing, probably due to their simplicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous papers, faunistic and preliminary taxonomic data on the gastrotrich communities along the coastline of the Brazilian states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were reported; among the over 40 records, the occurrence of several species new to science was highlighted. One of such new taxa is described here based on observation carried out on living and SEM prepared specimens. Pseudostomella dolichopoda sp. n. (Gastrotricha: Thaumastodermatidae) is the only species in the genus that attains 420 µm in total length, is covered by pentancres and possesses, among others, caudal pedicles up to 45 µm in length. Additional differences with co-generic taxa characterized by a pentancrous covering are discussed. Furthermore, a key to the described Pseudostomella species of the world based on easily discernible traits, visible in both living and formalin-fixed specimens, is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of an activity being carried out in Rua da Palha community, located in the state of Sergipe, Brazil. This community is basically remnants of Quilombolas (group of people) engaged in fishing activities as a form of subsistence way of living over some generations. By snow ball technic, focusing on the local reality as the main object, 25 families were selected for interview considering: the socioeconomic relationships involved in fishing, the governmental supports to their necessities, their link to the environment and to how the same have survived over the last decades. Result demonstrated that the community is still living in a state of privation and poverty that makes many members to move out by the preference to live in the state capital or other cities. However, in order to minimize the negative influence, life improvement was observed in their living conditions, especially after the State and Federal Government supports against death occurrence of crabs and shellfish in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: in the last two decades teacher's voice has been the target of many researches due to the high incidence of voice disturbances in this professional class; therefore, the need for these professionals to take part in actions that ensure the vocal health has been reinforced. Few papers in the literature describe vocal health programs and their results. Procedures: describe a Vocal Health Program of Educators from public schools (kinder garden and elementary schools) from the countryside of São Paulo inland, developed from 2002 to 2005, that was made up by basic voice group to offer essential theoretical and practical knowledge about vocal care, including the participants' vocal screening; advanced voice group to reorganize the phonation process and the voice use in classroom. Results: the average of 56% of total enrolment participated in the actions; 62.9% of voice disturbance is the result of vocal screening, most of it with discreet vocal deviation; 100% of participants referred 3 or more voice symptoms at the beginning of advanced voice group, and after the group had finished, 45% still had 4 to 13 symptoms; data about vocal self-perception show low scores in vocal impact in professional activities. Conclusion: the description showed the need for constant regulation of the program in order to reach its goals. The low participation in actions might be related to the discreet impact of voice in professional activities, although this fact requires further investigation. The highest measured benefit of the participation in the advanced vocal groups was the reduction in the volume e of vocal symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper intends to consider the role of schools in prison. Its aim is not only to understand how students and teachers see it, but also try to find ways of improving the quality of life for those deprived of freedom. The nature of the study is qualitative. The subjects of the study are teachers and students in a penitentiary school in the State of São Paulo/Brazil. Methodological procedures used for data collection were observation, informal conversations, and interviews. Data analysis of the study conducted was based on authors working on this theme in Latin America. This study demonstrates that the school is an effective space for socialization, identity construction and learning, therefore fulfilling its most important role of knowledge, culture, and reality intermediation, offering possibilities of preserving the human rights of young people and adults deprived of their liberty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a cost-benefit analysis of a hypothetical project for converting urban diesel buses into compressed natural gas (CNG) in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (MRSP). Environmental valuation techniques were used to estimate the benefits of the air quality improvement due to fuel switch, due to the reduction of particulate matter (PM10) concentration. The costs of the project were calculated by the costs of converting diesel buses into CNG. The results show that the social benefits from the project largely exceed the conversion costs, thus indicating that it would contribute significantly to the welfare of the affected population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we compiled a fish list obtained from field collections performed between 1999 and 2005 in four tributaries of the Rio Mogi Guaçu, upper Rio Paraná basin, São Paulo State, Brazil. The collected fishes belong to six orders, 21 families, 60 genera and 82 species. The number of species represents 20 to 30% of the fish richness for the entire upper Rio Paraná basin according to recent estimates. A comparison to earlier published fish lists of the Rio Mogi Guaçu basin, chiefly from its main river channel, is also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the research master's, which seeks to understand the religious education in Colégio Progresso da cidade de Campinas of Campinas (SP) in the period 1900 to 1937. The religious education was a feature of this school since, when in its founding in 1900, was to offer a secular establishment for females. The College Progress was founded by the initiative of five influential Campineira in the city and have a proposal different from other women's schools, all outside the city of character and faith. The school's religious character of Catholic imprint, gained strength under the direction of Mrs. Emilia de Paiva Meira, the second director of the school, he held the post from 1902 to 1937, when he died. Besides investigating the religious spirit of the principal, which sought to inspire teachers and students with her example, this research seeks to understand the religious education as part of the culture of this school (JULIA, 2001), both as a disciplinary body, and as a set of practices and beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to increasing algae bloom occurrence and water degradation on a global scale, there is a demand for water quality monitoring systems based on remote sensing imagery. This paper describes the scientific, theoretical, and methodological background for creating a cloud-computing interface on Google Earth Engine (GEE) which allows end-users to access algae bloom related products with high spatial (30 m) and temporal (~5 day) resolution. The proposed methodology uses Sentinel-2 images corrected for atmospheric and sun-glint effects to generate an image collection of the Normalized Difference Chlorophyll-a Index (NDCI) for the entire time-series. NDCI is used to estimate both Chl-a concentration, based on a non-linear fitting model, and Trophic State Index (TSI), based on a tree-decision model classification into five classes. Once the Chl-a and TSI algorithms had been calibrated and validated they were implemented in GEE as an Earth Engine App, entitled Algae Bloom Monitoring Application (AlgaeMAp). AlgaeMAp is the first online platform built within the GEE platform that offers high spatial resolution of water quality parameters. The App benefits from the huge processing capability of GEE that allows any user with internet access to easily extract detailed spatial (30 m) and long temporal Chl-a and TSI information (from August 2015 and with images every 5 days) throughout the most important reservoirs in the State of São Paulo/Brazil. The application will be adapted to extend to other relevant areas in Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies, in different countries, have been investigating the relationship between diversification of businesses and corporate performance. Basically, three models have been tested to describe that relationship: the linear model, the curvilinear model ('inverted U'), and the intermediate model. This paper focuses on theme, using the Brazilian industrial companies as the empirical evidence. The study scrutinizes the performance of enterprises that were listed in the São Paulo Stock Exchange in the period 1997-2001, via a panel analysis through the methods of Fixed Effects and Random Effects. The data didn't show enough adherence to accept that a positive relationship exists between diversification strategies and performance, neither lineally nor exponentially. The model that showed a better adjustment degree was the curvilinear model (through the quadratic and cubic functional forms) that can be interpreted as an evidence about the existence of points in which the marginal costs of diversification overcomes the marginal benefits and vice-versa. However, the relationship was shown indefinite; it was unable to conclude if the real shape is similar to an 'U' of an 'inverted U'. The main results obtained in the research support some empirical evidences found in other emerging countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper uses the 1998 reform in the funding of fundamental education in Brazil (FUNDEF) to identify the effect of teachers’ wages on the proficiency of public school pupils. Wages are set by legislation at the local level and this reform established a floor on the share of expenditures on teacher wages out of total revenues in each Brazilian State and Municipality. The evidence using micro-data suggests that increases in relative wages within the public system brought about by the reform had a positive impact on the students’ proficiency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper is concerned with analysis of labour productivity -- both individual and agregate -- in companies that integrate the shoemaking industry cluster in Franca, State of São Paulo, Brazil. It was an exploratory research limited to a non-statistical sample composed of 16 companies, two of them were large companies, seven were medium sized companies, and seven were small companies. Descriptive statistics and statistical inference techniques were applied (bivariate correlation test). The results showed that there is no evidence of homogeneity in labour performance productivity among companies that integrate the cluster, once they are unequal, non simetrical, showing that the shoemaking industry in Franca is closer to an assembly of similar companies than a cluster. This shows that there is a need for investment in management training in order to allow for the development of a cluster, which would in turn result in colective and dynamic competitive advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labeling of samples is a recurrent and time-consuming task in data analysis and machine learning and yet generally overlooked in terms of visual analytics approaches to improve the process. As the number of tailored applications of learning models increases, it is crucial that more effective approaches to labeling are developed. In this paper, we report the development of a methodology and a framework to support labeling, with an application case as background. The methodology performs visual active learning and label propagation with 2D embeddings as layouts to achieve faster and interactive labeling of samples. The framework is realized through SoundscapeX, a tool to support labeling in soundscape ecology data. We have applied the framework to a set of audio recordings collected for a Long Term Ecological Research Project in the Cantareira-Mantiqueira Corridor (LTER CCM), localized in the transition between northeastern São Paulo state and southern Minas Gerais state in Brazil. We employed a pre-label data set of groups of animals to test the efficacy of the approach. The results showed the best accuracy at 94.58 % in the prediction of labeling for birds and insects; and 91.09 % for the prediction of the sound event as frogs and insects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

São Paulo is the most populous state in Brazil, home to around 22% of the country's population. The total number of Covid-19-infected people in São Paulo has reached more than 1 million, while its total death toll stands at 25% of all the country's fatalities. Joining the Brazilian academia efforts in the fight against Covid-19, in this paper we describe a unified framework for monitoring and forecasting the Covid-19 progress in the state of São Paulo. More specifically, a freely available, online platform to collect and exploit Covid-19 time-series data is presented, supporting decision-makers while still allowing the general public to interact with data from different regions of the state. Moreover, a novel forecasting data-driven method has also been proposed, by combining the so-called Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered-Deceased model with machine learning strategies to better fit the mathematical model's coefficients for predicting Infections, Recoveries, Deaths, and Viral Reproduction Numbers. We show that the obtained predictor is capable of dealing with badly conditioned data samples while still delivering accurate 10-day predictions. Our integrated computational system can be used for guiding government actions mainly in two basic aspects: real-time data assessment and dynamic predictions of Covid-19 curves for different regions of the state. We extend our analysis and investigation to inspect the virus spreading in Brazil in its regions. Finally, experiments involving the Covid-19 advance in other countries are also given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A semi-analytical model was proposed to retrieve Chl- a using satellite imagery. • The model was based on the inherent optical properties (IOPs). • Chl- a distribution was mapped in inland waters from oligo-to-hypereutrophic status. • The model error was higher for hypereutrophic waters. • The model can be used operationally for long-term monitoring of the trophic status. Previous studies have shown the challenges in using a single model to estimate chlorophyll- a concentration (Chl- a) in water bodies with widely differing characteristics. A single model based on remote sensing to map the Chl- a distribution across the entire Tietê River Cascade System (TRCS) serves as a cost and time-efficient alternative to the conventional monitoring by providing trophic status over space and time. The Tietê River contains one of the largest cascade reservoir systems in the world, which sustains important ecological and socio-economic activities in the São Paulo State, Brazil. Surplus nutrients in water draining its surrounding catchments have been the main cause of eutrophication in the reservoirs of the TRCS. To assess the trophic state of the reservoirs, Chl- a has been regularly monitored by sampling points. However, they are limited by operational costs and dependent on weather conditions. Moreover, the current sampling method only produces point-based measurements. In this paper, we calibrate remote sensing images based on the absorption coefficient to map the spatial distribution patterns of Chl- a levels in the reservoirs. Mapping is done by estimating the Chl- a concentration. The absorption coefficients were retrieved from OLI/Landsat images using the Quasi-Analytical Algorithm (QAA). The total absorption (a t) in 482 nm and 655 nm retrieved by QAA presented NRMSE of 17% and 18.5%, respectively. Both a t (482 and 655 nm) were used in the model calibration and presented a satisfactory result covering all data ranges, with R2 of 0.646 and NRMSE of 15.3%. The proposed model in this study to retrieve Chl- a maps with relatively high accuracy can be incorporated into the operational monitoring system of the TRCS at a low cost that can provide timely information for reservoir managers to carry out necessary actions. This may include mitigating environmental impacts caused by sudden algae blooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A proposal to organize the archives of professional photographer firms is presented, based in a case study of a firm specialized in photographing social events in the Estância Turística de Tupó, in the state of Sóo Paulo, Brazil, a city with a long tradition in the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]