George Day Welsh nas relações entre a Madeira e os Estados Unidos da América (primeira metade do século XIX)

Tendo este trabalho como objecto de estudo a personalidade do cidadão americano George Day Welsh, radicado na Madeira no início do século XIX, pretende-se caracterizar, ao longo desta dissertação, os elementos fundamentais das relações entre a Ilha da Madeira e os Estados Unidos da América, aos níveis político, económico, social e cultural, e apenas no período relativo à primeira metade do século XIX. Organizado em quatro partes fundamentais (onde não se incluem nem a apresentação inicial que se segue, nem os apêndices finais de documentos e de gravuras antigas), este estudo começa por, na primeira parte, descrever as relações de Portugal com a Inglaterra e, em particular, com os Estados Unidos da América, país de origem de George Day Welsh, não deixando também de documentar a ida de marinheiros assim como a presença de madeirenses nos Estados Unidos da América. Na segunda parte, começando a traçar o percurso biográfico de George Day Welsh, descrevem-se os seus negócios e as suas acções em alguns dos concelhos da Madeira, dando igualmente uma especial atenção ao período da Guerra Civil, às relações concorrenciais entre aquele cidadão americano e John Marsh, assim como ao papel cultural de George Welsh na Madeira. As relações familiares de Welsh na Madeira são o assunto da terceira parte, onde se focam as questões relacionados com a sua chegada à Ilha, o seu casamento, a sua descendência, e a sua proximidade em relação a outros madeirenses ilustres, como é o caso do Conde de Carvalhal. Na conclusão final desta dissertação, referem-se não só as ideias principais deste percurso de investigação como algumas pistas para aperfeiçoá-lo e completá-lo.

Inovações institucionais na pesquisa agrícola na América Latina e no Caribe

PEDRO, Edilson da Silva; SALLES-FILHO, Sergio; MENDES, Paule Jeane. Inovações Institucionais na Pesquisa Agrícola na América Latina e no Caribe. In: SIMPOSIO DE GESTAO DA INOVAÇAO TECNOLOGICA, 24., 2006, Gramado. Anais...Gramado: ANPAD, 2006.

Padrões distintos de congruência climática em duas espécies invasoras de prosopis em zonas semi-áridas da América do Sul

Based on climate data and occurrence records, ecological niche models (ENM) are an important opportunity to identify areas at risk or vulnerable to biological invasion. These models are based on the assumption that there is a match between the climatic characteristic of native and invaded regions predicting the potential distribution of exotic species. Using new methods to measure niche overlap, we chose two exotic species fairly common in semi-arid regions of South America, Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) D.C. and Prosopis pallida (H. ; B. ex. Willd) HBK, to test the climate matching hypothesis. Our results indicate that both species occur with little niche overlap in the native region while the inverse pattern is observed in the invaded region on South America, where both species occur with high climatic overlap. Maybe some non-climate factor act limiting the spread of P. pallida on the native range. We believe that a founder effect can explain these similarities between species niche in the invaded region once the seeds planted in Brazil came from a small region on the Native range (Piura in Peru), where both species occur sympatric. Our hypothesis of a founder effect may be evident when we look at the differences between the predictions of the models built in the native and invaded ranges. Furthermore, our results indicate that P. juliflora shows high levels of climate matching between native and invaded ranges. However, conclusions about climate matching of P. pallida should be taken with caution. Our models based on climatic variables provide multiple locations suitable for occurrence of both species in regions where they still don t have occurrence records, including places of high interest for conservation.

Política de formação docente na América Latina :Argentina, Brasil e Chile

This work aims at studying the policies of teaching training and their impact in the actors and in the education systems of the countries in which these policies were implemented into the context of neoliberal reforms. We particularly studied these policies in three Latin America countries: Argentina, Brazil and Chile. The policies studied here are the ones implemented from the 90 s. However, the horizon of this study is at the beginning of the 80 s, period that starts one of the four intervention initiatives of education here studied: The Main Project of Education For Latin America and Caribbean (PROMEDLAC), which in 2002 goes into a new stage and it is called Regional Project of Education for Latin America and Caribbean (PRELAC), worked out by UNESCO as a request of government representatives of countries of the region, based on the suggestions of Declaration of Mexico , signed by them in 1979. These suggestions will be in the base of the other three initiatives: The Education For All (EPT); Ibero-American Conferences of Education (CIE) and The Hemisphere Action Plan of Education (PAHE), whose documents are the base to the production of an abundant legislation and normatization on education that created the parameters on which the policies of education reforms were worked out and implemented and the dynamism of our education systems from the last two decades of the twentieth century on. All these initiatives intend to work with objectives, projects and programs that, in some cases, in isolation or in groups, are under influence of their actions in a way that frequently it is difficult to identify which of them is the main responsible for some advances. It is important to stand out that not all of the suggestions produced by these initiatives were implemented as policies, and many of them to be implemented were changed in such a way that they were distorted, even they were a result of a multilateral deal, each country gave to them its own interpretation. Moreover, in all these processes the teaching entities had and keep having a fundamental role. The evidences, result of the evaluations of each initiative, show that education policies implemented produced advances in several aspects. They are still not the ideal ones, in truth, but they do exist. In relation to the teaching questions, there were and are still being implemented multiples and varied actions that did not have the expected impact in the education systems of the countries, objects of this study, but, many of them that go on, are promising and start to have a positive impact into the education systems. Even so, the teaching subject matter, even playing a central role in the agenda of all countries of the region, still represents one of the big challenges to the advance and improvement of our education systems