Originally published in Portuguese, this book is divided into three sections: the chemistry of aldehydes, ketones, nitriles, imines and derivatives; the chemistry of carboxylic and carbonic acids and derivatives; and the chemistry of alpha, beta-unsaturated carbonyls. The authors have merged aspects of valence bond and molecular orbital theories in order to discuss structural and physico-chemical properties and reactivity and stereochemical outcomes of the most relevant reactions for these functional groups. The book provides representative experimental procedures for key reactions; highlights to contextualize the concepts; properties (industrial applications, biochemical significance and catalytic developments in order to cope with the major tenets of the green chemistry approach) and includes some biographical notes for the scientists who contributed to this field. It will help advanced level undergraduate and graduate students to understand and become well acquainted with the reactions of carbonyl compounds and derivatives. The integrated approach is considered an attractive feature of this book since students receive relatively little exposure to molecular orbital theory at the undergraduate level. The juxtaposition of conventional valence bond theory with molecular orbital theory fills a largely unmet pedagogical niche.
Reconstruction is one of the most complex, overlooked, and misunderstood periods of American history. The thirteen essays in this volume address the multiple struggles to make good on President Abraham Lincoln’s promise of a “new birth of freedom” in the years following the Civil War, as well as the counter-efforts including historiographical ones—to undermine those struggles. The forms these struggles took varied enormously, extended geographically beyond the former Confederacy, influenced political and racial thought internationally, and remain open to contestation even today. The fight to establish and maintain meaningful freedoms for America’s Black population led to the apparently concrete and permanent legal form of the three key Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the revised state constitutions, but almost all of the latter were overturned by the end of the century, and even the former are not necessarily out of jeopardy. And it was not just the formerly enslaved who were gaining and losing freedoms. Struggles over freedom, citizenship, and rights can be seen in a variety of venues. At times, gaining one freedom might endanger another. How we remember Reconstruction and what we do with that memory continues to influence politics, especially the politics of race, in the contemporary United States. Offering analysis of educational and professional expansion, legal history, armed resistance, the fate of Black soldiers, international diplomacy post-1865 and much more, the essays collected here draw attention to some of the vital achievements of the Reconstruction period while reminding us that freedoms can be won, but they can also be lost.
Originally published in Portuguese, this book is divided into three sections which merge aspects of valence bond and molecular orbital theories in order to discuss structural and physico-chemical properties.
A biosensor is a detecting device that combines a transducer with a biologically sensitive and selective component. Biosensors can measure compounds present in the environment, chemical processes, food and human body at low cost if compared with traditional analytical techniques. This book covers a wide range of aspects and issues related to biosensor technology, bringing together researchers from 12 different countries. The book consists of 20 chapters written by 69 authors and divided in three sections: Biosensors Technology and Materials, Biosensors for Health and Biosensors for Environment and Biosecurity.
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) tools and techniques supply virtual environments that have key characteristics in common with our physical environment. Viewing and interacting with 3D objects is closer to reality than abstract mathematical and 2D approaches. Augmented Reality (AR) technology, a more expansive form of VR is emerging as a cutting-edge technology that integrates images of virtual objects into a real world. In that respect Virtual and Augmented reality can potentially serve two objectives: reflecting realism through a closer correspondence with real experience, and extending the power of computer-based technology to better reflect abstract experience. With the growing amount of digital data that can be stored and accessed there is a rising need to harness this data and transform it into an engine capable of developing our view and perception of the world and of boosting the economic activity across domain verticals. Graphs, pie charts and spreadsheet are not anymore the unique medium to convey the world. Advanced interactive patterns of visualization and representations are emerging as a viable alternative with the latest advances in emerging technologies such as AR and VR. And the potential and rewards are tremendous. This book discusses the opportunities and challenges facing the development of this technology.
The wave of liberalization that swept world markets in the 1980s and 90s altered the ways that governments manage their economies. Reinventing State Capitalism analyzes the rise of new species of state capitalism in which governments interact with private investors either as majority or minority shareholders in publicly-traded corporations or as financial backers of purely private firms (the so-called “national champions”). Focusing on a detailed quantitative assessment of Brazil’s economic performance from 1976 to 2009, Aldo Musacchio and Sergio Lazzarini examine how these models of state capitalism influence corporate investment and performance. According to one model, the state acts as a majority investor, granting the state-owned enterprise (SOE) financial autonomy and allowing professional management. This form, the authors argue, has reduced many agency problems commonly faced by state ownership. According to another hybrid model, the state uses sovereign wealth funds, holding companies, and development banks to acquire a small share of equity ownership in a corporation, thereby potentially alleviating capital constraints and leveraging latent capabilities. Both models have benefits and costs. Yet neither model has entirely eliminated the temptation of governments to intervene in the operation of natural resource industries and other large strategic enterprises. Nevertheless, the longstanding debate over whether private ownership is superior or inferior to state capitalism has become irrelevant, Musacchio and Lazzarini conclude. Private ownership is now mingled with state capital on a global scale.
A view from outside Brazil that seeks to understand how Brazilian society is responding to the processes of global integration. Also documents the plurality of ways that social actors and analysts interpret the transformations.
The second edition of A Concise History of Brazil features a new chapter that covers the critical time period from 1990 to the present, focusing on Brazil's increasing global economic importance as well as its continued democratic development.
This is the biography of one of the most colourful and dashing young monarchs who ever lived. His shortcomings—impulsiveness, quick temper, weakness for women—were offset by his truly generous nature. He became a surprising liberal, the only reigning monarch to defy and outwit Metternich, “the evil genius of the reaction,” and he was at one time offered the thrones of Spain and Greece. With a mad grandmother, a mother whose lovers and political intrigues were a court scandal, and a father who had little time to spare for his upbringing, Dom Pedro grew up in a dislocated family who had fled to the Portuguese colony of Brazil just before Napoleon’s armies overran the mother country. Formally uneducated, but brilliantly informed and acute, he separated the colony from Portugal and moulded it into a new nation, only to run counter to the still rising revolutionary tide and to abdicate his throne. Later he was to lead liberal-republican armies into Portugal itself and to secure the throne for his daughter, Maria da Gloria. This exciting story is told as only an artist in words could tell it, with an accuracy of detail and a wealth of colour and emotion that give the book a unique place among recent biographies. Throughout its pages, Brazilian history is related against a larger background in which England, Austria, Greece, Russia, the United States and Spain played important roles. Samuel Putnam, noted for his brilliant English version of Don Quixote, has translated the book into English.
Modern semiconductor devices have reached high current and voltage levels, and their power-handling limits can be extended if they are used in multilevel converter configurations. To create high-performance and reliable control designs, however, engineers need in-depth understanding of the characteristics and operation of these topologies. Multilevel Converters for Industrial Applications presents a thorough and comprehensive analysis of multilevel converters with a common DC voltage source. The book offers a novel perspective to help readers understand the principles of the operation of voltage-source multilevel converters as power processors, and their capabilities and limitations. The book begins with an overview of medium-voltage power converters and their applications. It then analyzes the topological characteristics of the diode-clamped multilevel converter, the flying capacitor multilevel converter, and the asymmetric cascaded multilevel converter. For each topology, the authors highlight particular control issues and design trade-offs. They also develop relevant modulation and control strategies. Numerous graphical representations aid in the analysis of the topologies and are useful for beginning the analysis of new multilevel converter topologies. The last two chapters of the book explore two case studies that analyze the behavior of the cascade asymmetric multilevel converter as a distribution static compensator and shunt active power filter, and the behavior of the diode-clamped topology configured as a back-to-back converter. These case studies demonstrate how to address the associated control problems with advanced control and modulation schemes. Examining recent advances, this book provides deep insight on the design of high-power multilevel converters and their applications. It is a valuable reference for anyone interested in medium-voltage power conversion, which is increasingly being used in industry and in renewable energy and distributed generation systems to improve efficiency and operation flexibility.
Some colleagues from the Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil – IAB (Brazilian Institute of Architects) and I spent some years organizing the 27th World Congress of Architects, initially planned to be held in July 2020 in Rio de Janeiro. However, the pandemic caught us along the way and we had to postpone the event until 2021. From March to July 2021, debates, conferences, lectures, exhibitions, films, and many other activities – almost all of them online – were carried out with hundreds of leading professionals and almost 100,000 participants from 195 countries. With such a diversity of prominent names, as we had intended, a unifying idea emerged: we are all together and it is up to us to contribute creating better, prettier, more climate-friendly, and less unequal cities. It did seem that the subject of the Congress (which was defined still in 2014, when Rio was elected as the host city) had been premonitory: "All the worlds. Just one world. Architecture 21". On the eve of his 100th birthday, French philosopher Edgar Morin drew attention to the possibility that the aftermath of the pandemic could give rise to new world-transforming forces, however fragile they might be. And that given this possibility, our path should be one of hope. This thought has inspired the World Congress of Architects and, somehow, also this book. I gathered a handful of texts and wrote a few others under the impact of the challenge to turn the 21st century into a more humane place. I state no thesis here, but rather a plea. I am very grateful to everyone who contributed to making this book a reality, starting from the initial (and continuous) motivation as offered to me by my dear Rosana Lanzelotte, from Musica Brasilis. I'd like to highlight the great performance of RioBooks' publisher Denise Corrêa, whom my colleague Verena Andreatta had recommended me, and the competence of a few others: architect Anita Di Marco's in the thematic review of this volume; Sylvia Cardim's in the sophisticated graphic design; my friend and colleague André Luiz Pinto's in selecting and treating the images presented here; my dearest old friend and great artist Thereza Miranda's inspiration for the presentation of the book; and finally Victor Burton's in conceiving the book cover. In part, some of the ideas stated here resulted from special contributions by dear friends such as Fabiana Izaga, André Luiz Pinto, Eucanaã Ferraz, and Graça Matias Ferraz. Some topics were discussed in the creative environment of the Graduate Program in Urbanism at FAU UFRJ. I thank my children Pedro, Tiago, and Aninha, who took care of me with tenderness and understood my effort to conclude these texts. I owe a special thanks to the Rio de Janeiro city government and its Culture Department for promoting this book using the ISS Incentive Law, as well as to the sponsoring companies Grupo Globo, Icatu, and STX Empreendimentos. Both the book and I were extremely honored by the references made by Ruy Castro, Zuenir Ventura, and Luiz Fernando Janot, whom I thank in the hope of living up to their expectations. However, I count on their generosity and yours, dear reader, in understanding that this is but a small amount of mortar to help build better cities. It is hope!
Human actions unfold over time, in pursuit of ends that are not fully specified in advance. Rational Powers in Action locates these features of the human condition at the heart of a new theory of instrumental rationality. Where many theories of rational agency focus on instantaneous choices between sharply defined outcomes, treating the temporally extended and partially open-ended character of action as an afterthought, this book argues that the deep structure of instrumental rationality can only be understood if we see how it governs the pursuit of long-term, indeterminate ends. These are ends that cannot be realized through a single momentary action, and whose content leaves partly open what counts as realizing the end. Sergio Tenenbaum argues that we need to focus on temporal duration and the indeterminacy of ends in intentional action, even to explain the rational governance of relatively simple actions. Theories of moment-by-moment preference maximization, or indeed any understanding of instrumental rationality on the basis of momentary mental items, cannot capture the fundamental structure of our instrumentally rational capacities. Tenenbaum provides a new theory of instrumental rationality as rationality in action.
This volume presents 10 reviews contributed by eminent researchers around the world on chitosan based materials. The introductory chapters present information on general characteristics of chitosan and various types of materials which are based on it such as nanofibers, nanoparticles, nanocapsules and other chemically modified chitosans. This is followed by an explanation of chitosan characterization and extraction techniques. Concluding chapters describe the applications of chitosan products in water treatment, drug delivery, edible films and pervaporation membranes. Readers will therefore gain an understanding about chitosan and materials derived from this polymer and their practical applications. The volume serves as a simple reference for chemical engineering students and professionals interested in the basic and applied chemistry of chitosan and chitosan-derived products.
This book focuses, in seven chapters, on the perspectives and solutions that different research groups offer to try to address problems related to SDG 14: Life Below Water. The different objectives developed in SDG 14 are treated independently, with an attempt to give a global vision of the issues. The mechanism used to select the book's content was through an Artificial Intelligence program, choosing articles related to the topics by means of keywords. The program selected those articles, and those that were not related to the topic or did not focus on SDG 14 were discarded by a subject matter expert. Obviously, the selection was partial and the entire subject is not covered, but the final product gives a very solid idea of how to orient ourselves to delve deeper into the topic of SDG 14 using published chapters and articles. The AI program itself selected the text of these contributions to show the progress in different topics related to SDG 14. This mode of operation will allow specialists (and non-specialists) to collect useful information for their specific research purposes in a short period of time. At a time when information is essential in order to move quickly by providing concrete answers to complex problems, this type of approach will become essential for researchers, especially for a subject as vast as SDG 14.
Brazil has a very peculiar tax collection power distribution and revenue sharing system, that splits three way the consumption tax, giving taxation powers over goods circulation to the States, over services to the Municipalities and over production to the Union. The Brazilian State circulation of goods tax, whose regulations require unanimity to incentives and benefits concessions, even though the 27 Brazilian States development state are disparate, generates a "fiscal war" / State competition that costs 30 billion Brazilian Reais (6 billion Swiss Francs) yearly and the attempts at settling State Competition are clearly failing, while Switzerland, which has a similar political organization, seems to have a reasonable and functional system. This dissertation, requirement for the obtaining the title of Doctor in International Tax law, takes a case study approach to compare these two systems, specifically taxable events, financial transfer mechanisms and their rules to avoid State / Canton tax competition to assess if the Swiss system for tax collection power distribution and revenue sharing is a feasible solution to reduce the adverse effects of State tax competition in Brazil.
In Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism: Preserving an Afro-Brazilian Tradition in a Globalized World, Sergio González Varela examines the mobility of capoeira leaders and practitioners. He analyzes their motivations and spirituality as well as their ability to reconfigure social practices. Varela draws on tourism mobilities, multisited ethnography, global networks, heritage, and the anthropology of ritual and religion in order to stress the commitment, dedication, and value that international practitioners bring to capoeira. For more information, check out A Conversation with Sergio González Varela.
Considering the concept of power in capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian ritual art form, Varela describes ethnographically the importance that capoeira leaders (mestres) have in the social configuration of a style called Angola in Bahia, Brazil. He analyzes how individual power is essential for an understanding of the modern history of capoeira, and for the themes of embodiment, play, cosmology, and ritual action. The book also emphasizes the great significance that creativity and aesthetic expression have for capoeira’s practice and performance.
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