Assessing the evolution of sustainability reporting in the mining sector

Since the 1990s several large companies have been publishing nonfinancial performance reports. Focusing initially on the physical environment, these reports evolved to consider social relations, as well as data on the firm`s economic performance. A few mining companies pioneered this trend, and in the last years some of them incorporated the three dimensions of sustainable development, publishing so-called sustainability reports. This article reviews 31 reports published between 2001 and 2006 by four major mining companies. A set of 62 assessment items organized in six categories (namely context and commitment, management, environmental, social and economic performance, and accessibility and assurance) were selected to guide the review. The items were derived from international literature and recommended best practices, including the Global Reporting Initiative G3 framework. A content analysis was performed using the report as a sampling unit, and using phrases, graphics, or tables containing certain information as data collection units. A basic rating scale (0 or 1) was used for noting the presence or absence of information and a final percentage score was obtained for each report. Results show that there is a clear evolution in report`s comprehensiveness and depth. Categories ""accessibility and assurance"" and ""economic performance"" featured the lowest scores and do not present a clear evolution trend in the period, whereas categories ""context and commitment"" and ""social performance"" presented the best results and regular improvement; the category ""environmental performance,"" despite it not reaching the biggest scores, also featured constant evolution. Description of data measurement techniques, besides more comprehensive third-party verification are the items most in need of improvement.

The Poisson-exponential lifetime distribution

In this paper we proposed a new two-parameters lifetime distribution with increasing failure rate. The new distribution arises on a latent complementary risk problem base. The properties of the proposed distribution are discussed, including a formal proof of its probability density function and explicit algebraic formulae for its reliability and failure rate functions, quantiles and moments, including the mean and variance. A simple EM-type algorithm for iteratively computing maximum likelihood estimates is presented. The Fisher information matrix is derived analytically in order to obtaining the asymptotic covariance matrix. The methodology is illustrated on a real data set. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Thermodynamic modelling of an Al(2)O(3)-MnO system using the ionic model

The thermodynamic assessment of an Al(2)O(3)-MnO pseudo-binary system has been carried out with the use of an ionic model. The use of the electro-neutrality principles in addition to the constitutive relations, between site fractions of the species on each sub-lattice, the thermodynamics descriptions of each solid phase has been determined to make possible the solubility description. Based on the thermodynamics descriptions of each phase in addition to thermo-chemical data obtained from the literature, the Gibbs energy functions were optimized for each phase of the Al(2)O(3)-MnO system with the support of PARROT(R) module from ThemoCalc(R) package. A thermodynamic database was obtained, in agreement with the thermo-chemical data extracted from the literature, to describe the Al(2)O(3)-MnO system including the solubility description of solid phases. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Emerging Threats and Opportunities for Large-Scale Ecological Restoration in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil

Over the past 150 years, Brazil has played a pioneering role in developing environmental policies and pursuing forest conservation and ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems. In particular, the Brazilian Forest Act, first drafted in 1934, has been fundamental in reducing deforestation and engaging private land owners in forest restoration initiatives. At the time of writing (December 2010), however, a proposal for major revision of the Brazilian Forest Act is under intense debate in the National Assembly, and we are deeply concerned about the outcome. On the basis of the analysis of detailed vegetation and hydrographic maps, we estimate that the proposed changes may reduce the total amount of potential areas for restoration in the Atlantic Forest by approximately 6 million hectares. As a radically different policy model, we present the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP), which is a group of more than 160 members that represents one of the most important and ambitious ecological restoration programs in the world. The AFRP aims to restore 15 million hectares of degraded lands in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biome by 2050 and increase the current forest cover of the biome from 17% to at least 30%. We argue that not only should Brazilian lawmakers refrain from revising the existing Forest Law, but also greatly step up investments in the science, business, and practice of ecological restoration throughout the country, including the Atlantic Forest. The AFRP provides a template that could be adapted to other forest biomes in Brazil and to other megadiversity countries around the world.

Novel sources of witches` broom resistance (causal agent Moniliophthora perniciosa) from natural populations of Theobroma cacao from the Brazilian Amazon

Witches` broom is a severe disease of Theobroma cacao L. (cacao), caused by the basidiomycete Moniliophthora perniciosa. The use of resistant cultivars is the ultimate method of control, but there are limited sources of resistance. Further, resistance from the most widely used source (`Scavina 6`) has been overcome after a few years of deployment. New sources of resistance have been intensively searched for in the Amazon basin. Here, we evaluated for witches` broom resistance, cacao accessions from various natural cacao populations originally collected in the Brazilian Amazon. Resistance of 43 families was evaluated under nursery and/or field conditions by artificial or natural infection, respectively, based on disease incidence. Screening for resistance by artificial inoculation under nursery conditions appeared to be efficient in identifying these novel resistance sources, confirmed by natural field evaluation over a nine-year period. The increase in natural field infection of `Scavina 6` was clearly demonstrated. Among the evaluated families with the least witches` broom incidence, there were accessions originally collected from distinct river basins, including the Jamari river (`CAB 0371`; `CAB 0388`; `CAB 0392`; and `CAB 0410`); Acre (`CAB 0169`); Javari (`CAB 0352`); Solimes (`CAB 0270`); and from the Purus river basin, the two most outstanding resistant accessions, `CAB 0208` and `CAB 0214`. The large genetic diversity found in cacao populations occurring at river basins from Acre and Amazonas states, Brazil, increased the chance that the selected resistant accessions would be genetically more dissimilar, and represent distinct sources of resistance to M. perniciosa from `Scavina 6`.

Impacts of land-use pattern on soil water-content variability on the Loess Plateau of China

Long-term vegetation restoration carried out on the slopes of the Loess Plateau of China employed different spatial and temporal land-use patterns but very little is known about the effects of these patterns on soil water-content variability. For this study the small Donggou catchment was selected to investigate soil water-content distributions for three spatial scales, including the entire catchment area, sampling transects, and land-use systems. Gravimetric soil water contents were determined incrementally to a soil depth of 1.20 m, on 10 occasions from April to October, 2007, at approximately 20-day intervals. Results indicated that soil water contents were affected by the six land-use types, resulting in four distinct patterns of vertical distribution of soil moisture (uniform, increasing, decreasing, and fluctuating with soil depth). The soil water content and its variation were also influenced in a complex manner by five land-use patterns distributed along transects following the gradients of five similar slopes. These patterns with contrasting hydrological responses in different components, such as forage land (alfalfa)-cropland-shrubland or shrubland-grassland (bunge needlegrass)-cropland-grassland, showed the highest soil water-content variability. Soil water at the catchment scale exhibited a moderate variability for each measurement date, and the variability of soil water content decreased exponentially with increasing soil water content. The minimum sample size for accurate data for use in a hydrological model for the catchment, for example, required many more samples for drier (69) than for wet (10) conditions. To enhance erosion and runoff control, this study suggested two strategies for land management: (i) to create a mosaic pattern by land-use arrangement that located units with higher infiltration capacities downslope from those with lower soil infiltrabilities; and (ii) raising the soil-infiltration capacity of units within the spatial mosaic pattern where possible.

Fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) and their associations with native host plants in a remnant area of the highly endangered Atlantic Rain Forest in the State of Espirito Santo, Brazil

The results presented in this paper refer to a host survey, lasting approximately three and a half years (February 2003-july 2006), undertaken in the Vale do Rio Doce Natural Reserve, a remnant area of the highly endangered Atlantic Rain Forest located in Linhares County, State of Espirito Santo, Brazil. A total of 330 fruit samples were collected from native plants, representing 248 species and 51 plant families. Myrtaceae was the most diverse family with 54 sampled species. Twenty-eight plant species, from ten families, are hosts of ten Anastrepha species and of Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann). Among 33 associations between host plants and fruit flies, 20 constitute new records, including the records of host plants for A. fumipennis Lima and A. nascimentoi Zucchi. The findings were discussed in the light of their implications for rain forest conservation efforts and the study of evolutionary relationships between fruit flies and their hosts.

Definition of priority areas for forest conservation through the ordered weighted averaging method

The general objective of this study was to evaluate the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) method, integrated to a geographic information systems (GIS), in the definition of priority areas for forest conservation in a Brazilian river basin, aiming at to increase the regional biodiversity. We demonstrated how one could obtain a range of alternatives by applying OWA, including the one obtained by the weighted linear combination method and, also the use of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to structure the decision problem and to assign the importance to each criterion. The criteria considered important to this study were: proximity to forest patches; proximity among forest patches with larger core area; proximity to surface water; distance from roads: distance from urban areas; and vulnerability to erosion. OWA requires two sets of criteria weights: the weights of relative criterion importance and the order weights. Thus, Participatory Technique was used to define the criteria set and the criterion importance (based in AHP). In order to obtain the second set of weights we considered the influence of each criterion, as well as the importance of each one, on this decision-making process. The sensitivity analysis indicated coherence among the criterion importance weights, the order weights, and the solution. According to this analysis, only the proximity to surface water criterion is not important to identify priority areas for forest conservation. Finally, we can highlight that the OWA method is flexible, easy to be implemented and, mainly, it facilitates a better understanding of the alternative land-use suitability patterns. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Physical and sensory characterization of coffee produced in the topoclimatic conditions at Jesuitas, Parana State (Brazil)

Climatic variations influence formation and maturation of coffee grains by altering their intrinsic characteristics, which call allow for several types of coffee qualities, including the potential for production of special coffee. This study was carried out to verify the effect of environmental conditions and crop cultivation on chemical composition and their consequences in cup quality of coffees from region of Jesuitas, Parana State. During the same crop season this study was accomplished (2002-2003), cup quality was evaluated among the producers in several coffee-growing municipalities in Parana State. It was observed that 86% of samples were classified simply as ""soft"" (smooth flavor) or ""hard"" (bolder flavor), and 14% were classified as rioysh/rio (strong unpleasant taste). The results concluded that the practices adopted by producers, who have collaborated with the study, reflected positively oil the final cup quality, when compared to the overall quality results in the State. The climatic conditions and practices of crop management and harvest ill the Jesuitas region made for bolder coffee with low acidity, comparable to high quality coffees produced in Brazil and abroad.

The use of glucan as immunostimulant in the treatment of a severe case of chromoblastomycosis

We report the case of an alternative treatment for a patient with a severe form of chromoblastomycosis that responded poorly to the traditional antifungal therapy. We hereby show, in this study, the improvement of lesions after treatment with itraconazole associated with an intramuscular administration of glucan. We observed that the regression of lesions was associated with an improvement of the cellular immune response. This favourable response that we observed suggests that the therapeutic regimen we used might be an option for the treatment of patients with a severe form of chromoblastomycosis.

The interaction between technologies and society: Lessons learnt from 160 evolutionary years of online news services

In mapping the evolutionary process of online news and the socio-cultural factors determining this development, this paper has a dual purpose. First, in reworking the definition of “online communication”, it argues that despite its seemingly sudden emergence in the 1990s, the history of online news started right in the early days of the telegraphs and spread throughout the development of the telephone and the fax machine before becoming computer-based in the 1980s and Web-based in the 1990s. Second, merging macro-perspectives on the dynamic of media evolution by DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach (1989) and Winston (1998), the paper consolidates a critical point for thinking about new media development: that something technically feasible does not always mean that it will be socially accepted and/or demanded. From a producer-centric perspective, the birth and development of pre-Web online news forms have been more or less generated by the traditional media’s sometimes excessive hype about the power of new technologies. However, placing such an emphasis on technological potentials at the expense of their social conditions not only can be misleading but also can be detrimental to the development of new media, including the potential of today’s online news.

The case for the ability-based model of emotional intelligence in organizational behavior

In this second counterpoint article, we refute the claims of Landy, Locke, and Conte, and make the more specific case for our perspective, which is that ability-based models of emotional intelligence have value to add in the domain of organizational psychology. In this article, we address remaining issues, such as general concerns about the tenor and tone of the debates on this topic, a tendency for detractors to collapse across emotional intelligence models when reviewing the evidence and making judgments, and subsequent penchant to thereby discount all models, including the ability-based one, as lacking validity. We specifically refute the following three claims from our critics with the most recent empirically based evidence: (1) emotional intelligence is dominated by opportunistic academics-turned-consultants who have amassed much fame and fortune based on a concept that is shabby science at best; (2) the measurement of emotional intelligence is grounded in unstable, psychometrically flawed instruments, which have not demonstrated appropriate discriminant and predictive validity to warrant/justify their use; and (3) there is weak empirical evidence that emotional intelligence is related to anything of importance in organizations. We thus end with an overview of the empirical evidence supporting the role of emotional intelligence in organizational and social behavior.

XSophe-Sophe-XeprView (R). A computer simulation software suite (v. 1.1.3) for the analysis of continuous wave EPR spectra

The XSophe-Sophe-XeprView((R)) computer simulation software suite enables scientists to easily determine spin Hamiltonian parameters from isotropic, randomly oriented and single crystal continuous wave electron paramagnetic resonance (CW EPR) spectra from radicals and isolated paramagnetic metal ion centers or clusters found in metalloproteins, chemical systems and materials science. XSophe provides an X-windows graphical user interface to the Sophe programme and allows: creation of multiple input files, local and remote execution of Sophe, the display of sophelog (output from Sophe) and input parameters/files. Sophe is a sophisticated computer simulation software programme employing a number of innovative technologies including; the Sydney OPera HousE (SOPHE) partition and interpolation schemes, a field segmentation algorithm, the mosaic misorientation linewidth model, parallelization and spectral optimisation. In conjunction with the SOPHE partition scheme and the field segmentation algorithm, the SOPHE interpolation scheme and the mosaic misorientation linewidth model greatly increase the speed of simulations for most spin systems. Employing brute force matrix diagonalization in the simulation of an EPR spectrum from a high spin Cr(III) complex with the spin Hamiltonian parameters g(e) = 2.00, D = 0.10 cm(-1), E/D = 0.25, A(x) = 120.0, A(y) = 120.0, A(z) = 240.0 x 10(-4) cm(-1) requires a SOPHE grid size of N = 400 (to produce a good signal to noise ratio) and takes 229.47 s. In contrast the use of either the SOPHE interpolation scheme or the mosaic misorientation linewidth model requires a SOPHE grid size of only N = 18 and takes 44.08 and 0.79 s, respectively. Results from Sophe are transferred via the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) to XSophe and subsequently to XeprView((R)) where the simulated CW EPR spectra (1D and 2D) can be compared to the experimental spectra. Energy level diagrams, transition roadmaps and transition surfaces aid the interpretation of complicated randomly oriented CW EPR spectra and can be viewed with a web browser and an OpenInventor scene graph viewer.

The kinetics of NO and N2O reduction over coal chars in fluidised-bed combustion

This paper presents a comprehensive and critical review of the mechanisms and kinetics of NO and N2O reduction reaction with coal chars under fluidised-bed combustion conditions (FBC). The heterogeneous reactions of NO and N2O with char/carbon surface have been well recognised as the most important processes in reducing both NOx and N2O in situ FBC. Compared to NO-carbon reactions in FBC, the reactions of N2O with chars have been relatively less understood and studied. Beginning with the overall reaction schemes for both NO and N2O reduction, the paper extensively discusses the reaction mechanisms including the effects of active surface sites. Generally, NO- and N2O-carbon reactions follow a series of step reactions. However, questions remain concerning the role of adsorbed phases of NO and N2O, and the behaviour of different surface sites. Important kinetics factors such as the rate expressions, kinetics parameters as well as the effects of surface area and pore structure are discussed in detail. The main factors influencing the reduction of NO and N2O in FBC conditions are the chemical and physical properties of chars, and the operating parameters of FBC such as temperature, presence of CO, O-2 and pressure. It is shown that under similar conditions, N2O is more readily reduced on the char surface than NO. Temperature was found to be a very important parameter in both NO and N2O reduction. It is generally agreed that both NO- and N2O-carbon reactions follow first-order reaction kinetics with respect to the NO and N2O concentrations. The kinetic parameters for NO and N2O reduction largely depend on the pore structure of chars. The correlation between the char surface area and the reactivities of NO/N2O-char reactions is considered to be of great importance to the determination of the reaction kinetics. The rate of NO reduction by chars is strongly enhanced by the presence of CO and O-2, but these species may not have significant effects on the rate of N2O reduction. However, the presence of these gases in FBC presents difficulties in the study of kinetics since CO cannot be easily eliminated from the carbon surface. In N2O reduction reactions, ash in chars is found to have significant catalytic effects, which must be accounted for in the kinetic models and data evaluation. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

Functional and structural characterization of isolated perfused stingray liver including effects of ischaemia/reperfusion

The morphological and functional characteristics of stingray liver were studied, including the effect of ischaemia/reperfusion. With an isolated perfused model, it was shown that the stingray liver was more resistant than the rat liver to ischaemia/reperfusion injury; this was consistent with the differing partial oxygen tensions usually present in the two species. This study confirmed that whereas stingray hepatocytes form tubules with central bile canaliculi as in other fish, the stingray liver has portal triads and a lobular architecture as in mammals. Apoptosis of hepatocytes, demonstrated in the normal liver, was only marginally enhanced by ischaemia/reperfusion. Resulting apoptotic bodies were phagocytized by macrophage-like cells in hepatocyte tubules. In contrast to rat liver, the stingray liver showed no necrosis after ischaemia-reperfusion. (C) 1998 W.B. Saunders Company Limited.