Biodiversity, Species Interactions and Ecological Networks in a Fragmented World

Biodiversity is organised into complex ecological networks of interacting species in local ecosystems, but our knowledge about the effects of habitat fragmentation on such systems remains limited. We consider the effects of this key driver of both local and global change on both mutualistic and antagonistic systems at different levels of biological organisation and spatiotemporal scales.There is a complex interplay of patterns and processes related to the variation and influence of spatial, temporal and biotic drivers in ecological networks. Species traits (e.g. body size, dispersal ability) play an important role in determining how networks respond to fragment size and isolation, edge shape and permeability, and the quality of the surrounding landscape matrix. Furthermore, the perception of spatial scale (e.g. environmental grain) and temporal effects (time lags, extinction debts) can differ markedly among species, network modules and trophic levels, highlighting the need to develop a more integrated perspective that considers not just nodes, but the structural role and strength of species interactions (e.g. as hubs, spatial couplers and determinants of connectance, nestedness and modularity) in response to habitat fragmentation.Many challenges remain for improving our understanding: the likely importance of specialisation, functional redundancy and trait matching has been largely overlooked. The potentially critical effects of apex consumers, abundant species and supergeneralists on network changes and evolutionary dynamics also need to be addressed in future research. Ultimately, spatial and ecological networks need to be combined to explore the effects of dispersal, colonisation, extinction and habitat fragmentation on network structure and coevolutionary dynamics. Finally, we need to embed network approaches more explicitly within applied ecology in general, because they offer great potential for improving on the current species-based or habitat-centric approaches to our management and conservation of biodiversity in the face of environmental change.

Fluoridation of the public water supply and prevalence of dental fluorosis in a peripheral district of the municipality of Bauru, SP

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to assess the fluoride concentration in the public water supply and the prevalence of dental fluorosis in schoolchildren between 7 and 15 years old, living in a peripheral district of the municipality of Bauru. Material and Methods: For this, fifty two water samples were collected on three different days of one week. These samples were analyzed for fluoride by means of the ion-sensitive electrode method (Orion 9609) coupled to a potentiometer (Procyon, model 720). In this method, 1.0 mL of TISAB II (Orion) was added to 1.0 mL of the sample. For the epidemiological survey of fluorosis, 52 schoolchildren of both genders, aged between 7 and 15 were assessed, with prior authorization from their caretakers. Only one person examined the children, after supervised toothbrushing and drying with cotton wool rolls. The TF index was used. Results: The fluoride concentrations in the water samples ranged from 0.62 to 1.20 mg/L, with a mean of 0.9 mg/L. The prevalence of dental fluorosis was 33%, with severity ranging from TF1 to TF4 (Kappa of 0.73 and concordance of 83.33%). Conclusions: The results from the analysis of water samples indicated a fluoride concentration greater than recommended for Bauru. The fluorosis levels found were higher than expected for a peripheral district, in which water is one of the few sources of fluoride.

Usage of enterprise modeling processes and information systems design to forecast demand

Managing the great complexity of enterprise system, due to entities numbers, decision and process varieties involved to be controlled results in a very hard task because deals with the integration of its operations and its information systems. Moreover, the enterprises find themselves in a constant changing process, reacting in a dynamic and competitive environment where their business processes are constantly altered. The transformation of business processes into models allows to analyze and redefine them. Through computing tools usage it is possible to minimize the cost and risks of an enterprise integration design. This article claims for the necessity of modeling the processes in order to define more precisely the enterprise business requirements and the adequate usage of the modeling methodologies. Following these patterns, the paper concerns the process modeling relative to the domain of demand forecasting as a practical example. The domain of demand forecasting was built based on a theoretical review. The resulting models considered as reference model are transformed into information systems and have the aim to introduce a generic solution and be start point of better practical forecasting. The proposal is to promote the adequacy of the information system to the real needs of an enterprise in order to enable it to obtain and accompany better results, minimizing design errors, time, money and effort. The enterprise processes modeling are obtained with the usage of CIMOSA language and to the support information system it was used the UML language.

Estimation of electrical machine speed using sensorless technology and neural networks

The use of sensorless technologies is an increasing tendency on industrial drivers for electrical machines. The estimation of electrical and mechanical parameters involved with the electrical machine control is used very frequently in order to avoid measurement of all variables related to this process. The cost reduction may also be considered in industrial drivers, besides the increasing robustness of the system, as an advantage of the use of sensorless technologies. This work proposes the use of a recurrent artificial neural network to estimate the speed of induction motor for sensorless control schemes using one single current sensor. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the proposed approach. ©2008 IEEE.

Quantum entanglement and information: The effect of entropy revisited

In non-extensive statistical mechanics [14], it is a nonsense statement to say that the entropy of a system is extensive (or not), without mentioning a law of composition of its elements. In this theory quantum correlations might be perceived through quantum information process. This article, that is an extension of recent work [4], is a comparative study between the entropies of Von Neumann and of Tsallis, with some implementations of the effect of entropy in quantum entanglement, important as a process for transmission of quantum information. We consider two factorized (Fock number) states, which interact through a beam splitter bilinear Hamiltonian with two entries. This comparison showed us that the entropies of Tsallis and Von Neumann behave differently depending on the reflectance of the beam splitter. © 2011 Academic Publications.

Drinking water supply and sanitation services on the threshold of the XXI century

Includes bibliography

Agua potable y saneamiento ambiental en América Latina, 1981-1990 = Drinking water supply and sanitation in Latin America, 1981-1990

Incluye Bibliografía

Necesidades financieras del Decenio Internacional del Agua Potable y del Saneamiento Ambiental en América Latina = Financial demands of the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade in Latin America

Incluye Bibliografía

Decenio Internacional del Agua Potable y del Saneamiento Ambiental: la situación en América Latina al comenzar el Decenio y las perspectivas para el futuro = International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade: the situation in Latin America on the eve of the decade and the prospects for the future

Incluye Bibliografía

Self-financing water supply and sanitation services

Includes bibliography

The accumulation process and agrofood networks in Latin America

Includes bibliography

Application of MLP and Kohonen networks for recognition of wear patterns of single-point dressers

Grinding is a parts finishing process for advanced products and surfaces. However, continuous friction between the workpiece and the grinding wheel causes the latter to lose its sharpness, thus impairing the grinding results. This is when the dressing process is required, which consists of sharpening the worn grains of the grinding wheel. The dressing conditions strongly affect the performance of the grinding operation; hence, monitoring them throughout the process can increase its efficiency. The objective of this study was to estimate the wear of a single-point dresser using intelligent systems whose inputs were obtained by the digital processing of acoustic emission signals. Two intelligent systems, the multilayer perceptron and the Kohonen neural network, were compared in terms of their classifying ability. The harmonic content of the acoustic emission signal was found to be influenced by the condition of dresser, and when used to feed the neural networks it is possible to classify the condition of the tool under study.

Avances hacia el logro de los objetivos del Decenio Internacional del Agua Potable y del Saneamiento Ambiental, 1980-1983 = Progress towards achievement of the goals of the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (IDWSSD), 1980-1983

Incluye Bibliografía

Aprovechamiento de los recursos hídricos: progresos realizados en la aplicación del Plan de Acción de Mar del Plata y el Decenio Internacional del Agua Potable y del Saneamiento Ambiental en América Latina y el Caribe = Water resource development: progress in the implementation of the Mar del Plata Action Plan and the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade in Latin America and the Caribbean

Incluye Bibliografía

Abastecimiento de agua potable y saneamiento ambiental en América Latina y el Caribe con posterioridad a la Carta de Punta del Este = Drinking water supply and sanitation in Latin America and the Caribbean since Punta del Este

Incluye Bibliografía