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This paper studies the behaviour of the local linear (LL) estimator for regression with nonparametrically generated regressors under weak dependence conditions, effectively extending the main result of Mammen et al. (2012) to the case with strongly mixing (or α -mixing) data. Specifically, we establish that the convergence rate in their Theorem 1 carries over to the case with geometrically α -mixing data. In contrast, this convergence rate does not necessarily remain the same for polynomially α -mixing data. We then apply the obtained uniform stochastic expansion of the second-step LL estimator to derive normal approximations for the LL estimator of a nonparametric censored autoregressive model and the three-step nonparametric estimator of the risk–return regression in finance. A rule for bandwidth selection in nonparametric regressions with estimated covariates to obtain valid inference is also suggested. We then provide a simulation study and a real data application to illustrate the practical relevance of the proposed approach. Lastly, technically speaking, to establish a uniform bound for the upper tail probability of a summation involving polynomially strong-mixing empirical processes, we propose a new exponential inequality, which plays a pivotal role in the proof of the main theorem and is of independent interest. • This paper studies the behaviour of the local linear (LL) estimator for regression with nonparametrically generated regressors under weak dependence conditions. • Derivation of normal approximations for the LL estimator of a nonparametric censored autoregressive model and the three-step nonparametric estimator of the risk–return regression in finance. • A rule for bandwidth selection in nonparametric regressions with estimated covariates to obtain valid inference is also suggested. • A simulation study and a real data application are provided to illustrate the practical relevance of the proposed approach. • A new exponential inequality is also proposed to establish a uniform bound for the upper tail probability of a summation involving polynomially strong-mixing empirical processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ride-hailing services can expand access to opportunities in urban areas, but out-of-pocket costs may limit its benefits for low-income individuals. This paper examines how ride-hailing shapes spatial and socioeconomic differences in access to opportunities while accounting for the trade-off between travel time and monetary costs. Using one year of aggregate Uber trip data for Rio de Janeiro in 2019 and a new multi-objective routing algorithm, we analyze the potential for ride-hailing services to improve employment accessibility when used as a standalone transportation mode and in conjunction with transit as a first-mile connection. We find that, compared to transit, standalone ride-hailing can significantly expand accessibility as a standalone mode for short trips, and as a first-mile feeder to transit in trips longer than 30 min. However, the accessibility benefits of ride-hailing accrue mostly to high-income groups due to affordability barriers. These findings suggest that policy efforts to integrate rideshare with transit are likely not going to benefit low-income communities without some form of subsidized fare discounts to alleviate affordability barriers. The paper also highlights how accounting for trade-offs between travel-time and monetary costs can importantly influence the results of transportation accessibility and equity studies. • We examine how ride-hailing shapes access to opportunities as a standalone mode and when combined with transit as a first-mile feeder service • We use multi-objective optimization routing to calculate accessibility while accounting for the trade-off between travel time and monetary costs • Compared to transit, ride-hailing significantly expands accessibility as a standalone mode for shorter trips (up to 40 min.), and as a first-mile feeder to transit in trips longer than 30 min. • When we account for different affordability thresholds, the accessibility benefits of ride-hailing services accrue mostly to high-income groups • The study shows that accounting for trade-offs between travel-time and monetary costs can importantly influence the results of transportation accessibility and equity studies [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The accessibility impacts of transport projects ex-post implementation are generally evaluated using cumulative opportunity measures based on a single travel time threshold. Fewer studies have explored how accessibility appraisal of transport plans can be used to evaluate policy scenarios and their impacts for different social groups or examined whether the results of project appraisals are sensitive to the time threshold of choice. This paper analyzes how different scenarios of full and partial implementation of the TransBrasil BRT project in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) will likely impact the number of jobs accessible to the population of different income levels. The analysis is conducted under various travel time thresholds of 30, 60, 90 and 120 min to test whether the results are sensitive to the boundary effect of the modifiable temporal unit problem (MTUP). Compared to a partial operation scenario, the full implementation of TransBrasil that extends this corridor into the city center would lead to higher accessibility gains due to network effects of connecting this BRT to other transport modes. Nonetheless, the size of the accessibility impacts of the proposed BRT as well as its distribution across income classes would significantly change depending on the time threshold chosen for the accessibility analysis. Considering cut-off times of 30 or 60 min, both scenarios of TransBrasil would lead to higher accessibility impacts in general and particularly for low-income groups, moving Rio towards a more equitable transportation system. However, under longer thresholds of 90 and 120 min, an evaluation of this project would find much smaller accessibility gains more evenly distributed by income levels. The paper highlights how time threshold choice in cumulative opportunity measures can have important but overlooked implications for policy evaluation and it calls for further research on the MTUP in future transport and mobility studies. Highlights • The study estimates how the TransBrasil BRT project in Rio de Janeiro will likely impact employment accessibility for different income groups • The full implementation of the proposed BRT could benefit up to 58% of the city population, increasing job accessibility by 11% on average • This BRT project could substantially improve accessibility for lower-income groups and reduce inequalities in access to opportunities • The study shows that the conclusions of equity assessments of transport projects depend on the travel time threshold chosen for cumulative opportunity accessibility analysis [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Local governments increasingly justify the hosting of mega-events because of their legacy value, assuming that all local residents benefit from those events. Yet, little attention has been paid to the distributive question of who benefits from the transport legacy left by those events. This paper reflects on the delimitation of transport legacies and its social impacts in terms of how such developments can reshape urban accessibility to opportunities. It analyses the transformation in the transport system of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. That transformation involved substantial expansion in public transport infrastructure, followed by cuts in service levels and a reorganization of many bus lines to streamline the transport system. The paper examines whether those recent changes have increased the number of people from different income levels who could access Olympic sports venues and healthcare facilities by public transport within 15, 30, 60 and 90 min. The analysis uses a before-and-after comparison of Rio's transport network (2014–2017) and a quasi-counterfactual scenario to separate the effects of newly added infrastructure from the reorganization and cuts of transport services. The results show that the infrastructure expansion alone would have increased the number of people who could access the Olympic sports venues, but it would have only marginally improved people's access to healthcare facilities. Nonetheless, the findings indicate that the streamlined bus system have offset the benefits of infrastructure investments in a way that particularly penalizes the poor. The analysis of both the implemented changes to the public transport network and the counterfactual scenario show that the accessibility benefits from the recent cycle of investments and disinvestments in Rio generally accrued to middle- and higher-income groups, reinforcing existing patterns of urban inequality. Highlights • Mega-events have the potential to catalyze substantial changes to the transport system of host cities • The evaluation of transport legacies needs to consider whether their benefits and burdens are distributed equitably • Benefits of transport infrastructure expansion were offset by the reorganization of bus lines in a way that penalizes the poor • Mega-events have brought little improvement to the transport conditions of poor peripheral urban areas in Rio de Janeiro • Transport legacy of Rio’s mega-events involved the violation of basic rights of local communities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 20 years, extreme weather-related events like floods, landslides, droughts, and wildfires have caused the death of 1.23 million people and a loss of 2.97 trillion dollars. Studies show that low and lower-middle income countries are the most impacted ones given the lack of investment in disaster risk management. To reduce the impact of these events, weather researchers have been developing numerical weather models that inform public agencies about the impending extreme events in advance. Despite being powerful tools, these models can suffer from several sources of uncertainty, ranging from the approximation of micro-scale physical processes to the location-dependent calibration of parameters, which is especially critical in developing countries. To minimize uncertainty effects, researchers generate several different weather scenarios to compose an ensemble of simulations that typically are inspected using manual, laborious, and error-prone approaches. In this paper, we propose an interactive visual analytics system, called X-Weather , developed in close collaboration with weather researchers from Brazil. Our system contributes a set of statistics and probability-based visualizations that allows the assessment of extreme weather events by effortlessly navigating through and comparing ensemble members. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the system through two case studies analyzing tragic events that happened in the mountain region of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. [Display omitted] • Our visualizations help identify extreme weather scenarios in large simulation ensembles. • Our web-based system enables the investigation of individual weather ensemble members. • Two case studies highlight our system's utility by analyzing extreme weather events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Recurrent fire leads to degraded rainforest (DRf) and herbaceous-shrubby (HS). • Ksat and 6 years of rainfall-soil suction interactions are analyzed. • HS provide shallow soil saturation even during long dry periods. • Fire decreases Ksat in topsoil and it increases soil suction in depth at HS. • Post-fire soil changes tend to favor rapid suction loss in the unsatured zone. The role of fire in vegetation-soil–water interactions and its implications for soil stability and slope failures is poorly documented in humid tropical regions. This paper focuses on the relationships between vegetation change through recurrent fire and its effects on hydraulic conductivity and soil suction. Two monitoring sites were chosen on steep slopes in the mountainous domain of the Atlantic rainforest: the first is representative of degraded secondary rainforest (DRf) 25–30 years after slash and burn agriculture; the other represents herbaceous-shrubby vegetation (HS) resulting from wildfires in short-time intervals (<5 years). Two fires had previously occurred on the HS slope, one in December 2014 and the other in September 2019. Continuous records of rainfall and soil suction at depths of 10, 20, 50, 100, 150, and 220 cm provided a 6-year data collection from January 2015 to December 2020. Hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) field tests were conducted around the two monitoring sites before and after the September 2019 fire. The main results include: a) soil suction in the topsoil of both vegetation covers follow the rainfall inputs with high values of Ksat (DRf = 195 mm/h; HS = 203 mm/h); b) while quick rainfall-suction responses prevail within the DRf soil profile, soil suction at HS maintains a mean suction value around -27 kPa below 100 cm deep; c) field observations attest to the occurrence of hydrophobicity after the 2019 fire; d) Ksat tests just after this fire indicated a decreasing mean value from 203 mm/h to 46 mm/h; and e) by the end of the dry season after fire, there is a delayed increase in soil suction reaching -143 kPa at a depth of 100 cm and in smaller proportions at 220 cm deep. These results indicate that post-fire soil changes tend to favor the sudden loss of soil stability and slope failure during extreme rainfall events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents a comment on the paper "Spatio-temporal analysis of shoreline changes and future forecast using remote sensing, GIS and Kalman filter model: A case study of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil". Results obtained by Palanisamy et al. (2023) differ from other works on the coastline of Rio de Janeiro. Images from the Landsat 1–3 Multispectral Scanner (MSS) satellite and Landsat 5–9 images were inappropriately used in the detailing to delimit the shoreline variations. The lack of information about tides and waves at the time of image acquisition compromised the research results. Oceanographic - meteorological data relating to the month, day and time of the satellite's passage are fundamental in studies of this nature. These forcings are capable of temporarily modifying the morphology and position of coastline. The article proposed by Palanisamy et al. (2023) underestimated the rates of accretion and coastal erosion along the coastline of Rio de Janeiro city by neglecting the issues addressed here. • Results obtained by Palanisamy et al. (2023)on the shoreline variations in Rio de Janeiro city are questioned here. • Methodological procedures used to delimit the historical shoreline variations of Rio de Janeiro city presented inconsistencies. • Results obtained by Palanisamy et al. (2023) on the shoreline of Rio de Janeiro city are incompatibles with other work carried out in the study area. • Comments presented here aim to contribute to the evolution of knowledge about the coastal erosion process (geological hazard) on the shoreline of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An approach involving data on wave-induced sediment transport estimates is essential for managing coastal environments. Numerical models are powerful tools to understand and investigate many processes responsible for longshore sediment transport (LST) in a systematic way, since direct measurement of LST is a difficult task. This paper presents estimates of longshore sediment transport through numerical modeling of wave-induced sediment dispersion patterns in the Formosa Bay, State of Rio de Janeiro - Southeast Brazil. The analysis was conducted using the computational package Coastal Modeling System/SMC-Brazil and mathematical formulations proposed by Cerc (1984). The results suggest average residual solid discharge (Qsr avg) in the order of 131,442.745 m3/yr in northern sector, −151,908.32 m3/yr in central sector, and 71,987.69 m3/yr in southern sector of investigated area. In addition, it is important to highlight that minor variations in the wave incidence angle may cause changes in the longshore sediment drift, promoting the convergence and divergence zones throughout the investigated area. The results presented contribute to the advancement of knowledge on the topic addressed here and will be useful in future engineering projects related to beach nourishment and the management of coastal areas subject to erosion processes. • Data are presented on simulations of wave-induced longshore sediment transport rates in Baia Formosa Bay, southeastern Brazil. • The Coastal Modeling System SMC/Brazil were used. • Results suggest different solid outflow rates for each sector of investigated area. • The model may provide a basis for planning actions and environmental management in coastal zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the dialectic construction of city representation in Rio de Janeiro during the phase of preparing for global sport mega-events, such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. In particular, it describes event-based city branding as dialectic representational dynamics that occur when attempting to broadcast a ‘tailored’ image to the world. Official and counter branding, observed in this study through an Internet-based qualitative content analysis, construct an arena for confrontation. The use of urban space and physical transformations, economic development visions, cultural heritage and citizen involvement are key categories entangled in both the institutional/strategic (i.e. the official brand) and counter-hegemonic (i.e. the counter brand) city representations. The analysis showed the dialectic relationship between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic narratives. The analysis suggests not just the destruction of the ‘Olympic City’ master narrative by means of counter-hegemonic representation, but a (re)construction of a global narrative of ‘the city hosting mega-events’, enriched by local meanings and symbols. Future research perspectives and open inquiries are proposed in the final section of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rio de Janeiro is undergoing a makeover that is undeniably spectacular. Redevelopment schemes are dramatically rearranging the urban landscape, and crucially, this economic growth hinges on the production and circulation of images of the city. This paper explores a site of alterity and resistance where a favela youth collective has re-created Rio from its margins. This miniature world, known as Morrinho and built of bricks, mortar, and re-used materials, hosts a role-playing game featuring thousands of inch-tall avatars. This paper argues that re-visioning the world anew through play makes the society of the spectacle inhabitable and thus contestable. How does the society of the spectacle become a terrain for struggle in Rio? Locating spectacle production in nation-state formation and the urban process, the paper provides a genealogy of the spectacle beyond the modern North Atlantic metropole. Locating the favela within a Brazilian geographical imagination frames ethnographic data collected as an observer and participant in the Morrinho game. While the spectacle may hinge on the relationship between visuality and power, this essay observes how signs take on material lives through ludic re-appropriation. Play becomes a form of commentary, an alternative mode of knowledge about the city, and functions dually as both description of and participant in the social world in which it is embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the result of a study on the extent of cocaine contamination in Real banknotes in circulation in the state of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). A study of the percentage of contaminated banknotes was made, as well as a study on the contamination of banknotes based on different values, and a study of contamination depending on the region where the banknote was collected. The idea of this last study was to verify if the peculiar characteristics of the region of study (in particular, the city of Rio de Janeiro) influence the amount of cocaine in the banknotes. Some regions have higher consumption/drug trafficking of cocaine than others. Also, some contaminated banknotes confiscated directly from drug dealers and users were analyzed. Also, is showed in this paper all the optimization of the available analytical techniques for making the measurements possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of water resource management in Brazil, in particular the state of Rio de Janeiro, and in the European Union, with an emphasis on member country Portugal. The study examines the primary laws, governing bodies and water resource plans. The paper describes the concerns and interests of the scientific community and other sectors of society with regard to water resource management. The paper also draws attention to challenges and opportunities concerning the main objective of water resource management, which is to ensure the availability of water of high quality and sustainable quantity. Additionally, it also mentions good and poor management practices. Among the concerns highlighted are integrated water resource management and water resource monitoring. The objective of this study was to contribute to water resource management processes. The primary reasons for this study are the growing scarcity of freshwater in the world, recurrent problems in managing this resource and a desire to contribute to the improvement of the current situation. The study of water management in different contexts allows for a greater understanding of the subject, thereby assisting the decision-making of managers and society in general with regard to environmental quality and ecological and human health. There is an increasing interest in efficient water resource management, which creates a demand for information on the subject. Both Brazil and the European Union are facing problems related to quantity and quality of water. Problems like scarcity of freshwater, contamination, salinization, and floods. This makes the realities of them quite close, despite the physical distance between them. In general, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, the European Union and Portugal have similar water resource management requirements. If these regions are to supply a consistent quantity of high-quality water to present and future generations, then they need effective laws and plans, efficient managing agencies, political interest and economic resources. Investments in research and developing water resource management plans are inefficient measures if they are not implemented with special emphasis on monitoring and inspection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ocean economy is becoming more than ever a key to job creation, value addition, and sustainable development of countries and regions. Given the growth of the world population and the pressure on onshore resources, the demand for marine resource exploration and maritime activities is growing, leading to different policies around the world. In the case of Brazil, a country with an extensive coastline, there are still few public policies and official definitions/data capable of fostering the ocean economy. Hence, this paper aims to map the sectors of the ocean economy of the state of Rio de Janeiro (SRJ), highlighting its potential for recovery of the local economic dynamics. To this end, the methodology considers the economic sectors that present a direct influence from the sea, encompassing 89 economic activities that were divided into 6 sectors. The treatment, cleaning, graphics, and maps created from R 4.2.2 used the following packages: tidyverse, basedosdados, paletteer, ggthemes, systemfonts, ggtext, sf, geobr. 2021 is the base year for the data, which used two main official Brazilian bases: Annual Social Information Report (RAIS) and tax data from the Internal Revenue Service, compiled by Datalake Neoway. Among the main results, we highlight the relevance of the service sector, particularly those related to the oil and gas industry (P&G) and tourism. • The ocean economy should be taken as a vector of sustainable development in Brazil. • Promoting the ocean economy requires a reformulation of public policies. • There are many industries and stakeholders involved in SRJ's ocean economy. • Like other countries, the service sector stands out in SRJ's ocean economy. • Despite its informality, tourism generates more jobs in SRJ's ocean economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous studies have shown that the traits in the FFM are moderately heritable, it is important to examine whether earlier results hold across different contexts. To date, few studies from the Scandinavian context have estimated the heritability of the FFM. We remedy this shortcoming by making use of a large sample of Danish twins who completed a 60-item personality inventory. Our results confirm that previous findings regarding the heritability of personality traits hold in the Danish context. We find that there are differences in mean levels and heritability estimates of personality traits across gender, though the differences in heritability estimates are not statistically significant. We find a significant common environment component for several of the personality traits, which indicates that the rearing environment of Danish twins may influence the development of some personality traits. All scripts for the analyses in this paper will be made available on OSF upon publication. This study's design and its analysis were not pre-registered. We are not allowed to share or post the Danish Twin Registry data used in this paper. However, information on the requirements for getting access to data and how to apply for data can be located here: https://www.sdu.dk/en/om%5fsdu/institutter%5fcentre/ist%5fsundhedstjenesteforsk/centre/dtr/researcher/guidelines. We note that data used for this research was provided by the Danish Twin Registry, University of Southern Denmark. The findings, opinions and recommendations expressed therein are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of the Danish Twin Research Center. The Danish Twin Registry has been approved by SDU RIO (SDU Legal Services) and the Committee on Health Research Ethics. The participants were enrolled by informed consent. The Danish Twin Registry, SDU RIO notification no. 10.585. We have a conflict of interest with Pete Hatemi and Brad Verhulst because of this publication: Ludeke, S. G. & Rasmussen, S. H. R. (2016). Personality correlates of sociopolitical attitudes in the Big Five and Eysenckian models. Personality and Individual Differences, 98, 30–36. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents a few comments on the paper "Relative sea-level curve during the Holocene in Rio de Janeiro, Southeastern Brazil: A review of the indicators - RSL, altimetric and geochronological data". Surprisingly the authors omitted in this review a former discussion on the interpretation of paleo-sea level indicator and paleo-sea level reconstructions on the Rio de Janeiro coast that questions their results. Therefore, at this present work we resume the previous discussion. We conclude that although at the commented paper the altitudes of the paleo-sea level indicators were determined precisely, they did not consider the vertical distance between a given a paleo-sea level indicator and its current homologous one, and thus do not indicate paleo-sea levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying factors that lead students either not to graduate on time or drop out helps Higher Education Institutions improve retention and decrease attrition. This paper tackles this problem by introducing a novel approach to discovering such factors through pattern mining using association rules. The novelty of the method arises from introducing social network analysis inside the pattern mining process. The social networks metrics for each student and the degree of propagation of grade point average are computed and integrated with students' records for pattern mining serving as a proxy for the existing bond among students, which is a relevant factor for attrition and dropout analysis. This paper examines the Bachelor Program in Production Engineering at the Federal Center for Technological Education of Rio de Janeiro from 2011 to 2017. Our experiments indicate congruence with the literature: (i) lower school performance leading to delay; (ii) higher performance leading to graduation in optimal time. Besides, our new method sheds light on students with little participation in the social network who are more likely to delay or drop out. Our findings may aid managers in discovering students with patterns that can indicate imminent lateness or dropout. • A novel methodology can be automated and used to analyze the factors that influence graduation on time, delay, and dropouts. • The authors use association rules augmented by social network metrics to unveil students' academic and social relationships. • A novel methodology enables the course managers to concentrate on courses and students who need more attention. • A novel methodology intended to circumvent effects related to different ethnic, gender, social, or cultural backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport inequality analyses are often informed by accessibility estimates based solely on travel time impedance, ignoring other elements that might hinder access to activities, such as the monetary cost of a trip. This paper examines how and to what extent simultaneously incorporating both time and monetary costs into accessibility measures may impact transport inequality assessment. We calculate job accessibility by transit in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, using cumulative opportunity measures under distinct combinations of temporal and monetary thresholds, and compare how inequality levels vary across different scenarios. We find that the most common research practice of disregarding monetary costs tends to overestimate accessibility levels. However, stricter monetary constraints do not necessarily result in more unequal scenarios. How accessibility inequality is affected by monetary costs is highly dependent on what combinations of temporal and monetary cut-offs are considered in the analysis. In the case of Rio, opting for lower monetary thresholds when looking at shorter trips leads to inequality levels lower than those found in the no monetary threshold scenario, but results in higher inequality levels when allowing for longer trips. We find that the impact of monetary costs on transport inequality estimates depend on a complex interaction between fare policies, the spatial organization and operational characteristics of transit systems, and the spatial co-distribution of opportunities and residential locations. The paper thus highlights that conclusions and policy recommendations derived from transport inequality analyses can be affected in non-intuitive ways by the interplay between temporal and monetary constraints. Future research should investigate how different combinations of travel time and monetary costs thresholds affect inequality estimates in different contexts. • The study examines how incorporating monetary costs into accessibility measures may impact transport inequality assessment. • Disregarding monetary constraints do overestimate accessibility levels. • Stricter monetary constraints, however, do not necessarily lead to more unequal scenarios. • How inequality assessments are affected depend on the combinations of time and monetary costs considered. • Including monetary constraints on accessibility estimates may help diagnosing transport inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An approach is proposed to assess extreme rainfall-triggered landslides. • 3D unsaturated flow is coupled with the infinite slope method. • Extreme precipitation events are investigated using soil depth models. • 1-year spin up for moisture conditions has little impact on the safety factor. • Simple soil depth models are viable options for landslide susceptibility studies. The susceptibility to shallow landslides is affected by several factors. Rainfall intensity, soil thickness distribution, and antecedent moisture conditions are components that influence the spatio-temporal prediction of landslides at the watershed scale. Yet, the combined impact of these factors on the susceptibility to landslides has been overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to investigate landslides triggered by extreme precipitation in the Tijuca Massif, Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil. Our approach couples a 3D variably saturated flow solver with the infinite slope stability method to calculate the statistical distributions of the safety factor and the pore pressure at the soil–bedrock interface. Numerical simulations were performed for 6 scenarios considering 1-year spin-up time for soil moisture and different spatially distributed soil depths. The results show that during extreme precipitation events, soil depth and initial moisture conditions may not have much influence on the safety factor, as the intensity and duration of rainfall will be the triggering agents. Comparison of simulated unstable zones and field data from mapped landslide scars further supported this conclusion. We conclude that simple soil depth models are feasible options for regional studies of landslide susceptibility. Our findings are relevant to understanding shallow landslides induced by extreme rainfall in Rio de Janeiro and other regions with similar geological and climate settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To encourage the provision and use of more sustainable means of transportation, cities and companies are implementing a variety of measures, such as strengthening the use of public transportation infrastructure and services to alleviate traffic congestion and to democratize the urban space. In these cases, literature shows that the combined use of smaller vehicles and mobile depots is a practice to be explored more deeply. This paper focuses on the use of motorized cargo tricycles alongside conventional trucks in a mobile-depot-based procedure to accommodate the restrictions imposed on conventional freight vehicle access in densely populated areas. Therefore, a new method is proposed to identify the impact on service level, emissions footprint and delivery cost of this distribution strategy. Moreover, we assess the environmental benefits of this new distribution strategy by estimating the reduction in various pollutant emissions attributable to the adoption of smaller, more agile last-mile delivery vehicles. The analyses have shown that greenhouse gas emissions and local air quality pollutants can be significantly cut by the use of cargo tricycles and mobile depots in the last mile delivery. With respect to cost, we can show that the mobile-depot-based delivery setup yields slight cost advantages over the traditional setups for neighborhoods that are characterized by low average delivery drop sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results from Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of solid waste management are, in many cases, difficult to interpret because there is no entirely satisfying alternative. Therefore, most of the studies focus on a small number of environmental impact categories. While this might facilitate the interpretation of the results, it also creates a risk of excluding relevant aspects from the assessment. For instance, the limited impact-coverage of Carbon footprint calculations where exclusively climate change related greenhouse gas emissions are considered. On the other hand, the inclusion of a larger number of impact categories in the study creates a risk of conflicting results. Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a powerful approach for decision aiding, where highly diversified indicators can be analysed in the same framework helping to organise the available information and identify pros and cons in the decision process as well as its aggregation. This paper aims at improving decision making in solid waste management by combining LCA and MCDA techniques harmonically, using management of food waste from households in the city of Rio de Janeiro as a case study. Oriented to support decisions in choice problems, the software VIP-Analysis was used to choose the best food waste treatment option among the results of the LCA conducted. The VIP-Analysis is perfectly applicable in aggregating the LCA results due to its ability to handle problems with impreciseinformation, improving the decision making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental harm can be caused by improper disposal of waste cooking oil (WCO). When correctly doing so, besides promoting sustainability, WCO can be reused as raw material for the production of biodiesel. However, even though the prices of WCO are generally lower than those of virgin raw materials, the necessary supply chain for biodiesel plants may not exist or be available. One of the possible elements of such chain would be to have a collection company that processes the WCO and delivers it to the biodiesel producer. In this sense, this paper aims to develop a procedure to determine the activities and the costs related to the value chain of WCO, besides applying the procedures to a specific case in Brazil, as a means to verify whether a company that collects, processes and sells WCO to a biodiesel plant shows loss or profit. It is possible to say that the role of a collection company depends on its financial results, considering its private capital is not complemented by any support from public sector. After the application of the proposed procedures, based on Porter's (1985) theory, it was possible to identify the company's financial outcomes, in fifteen different situations, nine with profit and six with loss. It was also possible to confirm that in the cases of loss, in general there were two or more factors, such as decrease in the selling prices of processed WCO and increase of the distance between the collection company and the biodiesel plant that probably led to this undesirable result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, nine beads from excavations in the Valongo Wharf, located in the harbor area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that were utilized as ornaments by Africans and Afrodescendants during the 19th century were analyzed by Raman and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy. All samples in the analysis showed Raman spectra with two bands of maximum intensity around 1000 and 500 cm −1 related to the maximum stretching ( ν max ) and bending mode (δ), respectively, of the tetrahedral network of the SiO 4 present in the glass matrix. However, there is variation in the intensity and position of the bands that are directly associated with the burning process and the raw material utilized in the manufacture of the beads. Based on the polymerization index (I p = A 500 /A 1000 ), it is possible to relate these two parameters. By establishing a correlation among the I p and the ν max band, the beads were classified into groups. The results reveal that the beads’ base paste exhibits differences, allowing their classification into groups according to the manufacturing process. Based on the combination of the elemental characterization and Raman spectroscopy results, it was also possible to conclude that European and Asian countries are the possible origins of the beads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a multi-period dynamic emergency material distribution (EMD) model under uncertain demand by considering the disaster degree and demand of different affected areas to improve the reasonability of disaster relief material distribution in post-disaster emergencies. The objective is to minimize the unsatisfied demand, materials distribution cost, and the risk of choosing the path to distribute materials. The model also focuses on the heterogeneity of emergency materials, the dynamics of demand, and the diversity of transportation tools. In addition, the demands and transportation times are described by fuzzy numbers to better fit with the real situation. To solve the problem we propose a hybrid multi-objective salp swarm algorithm and sine cosine algorithm (HMSSA-SCA). Furthermore, numerical examples of different scenarios and scales are solved and compared with the multi-objective salp swarm algorithm (MSSA), multi-objective evolutionary decomposition algorithm for emergency resource scheduling (MOEA/D-mdERS), non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II), and strength pareto evolutionary algorithm 2 (SPEA2) to verify the performance of the HMSSA-SCA algorithm. Finally, the floods and landslides disaster event in 2011 in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil is used to verify the effectiveness and accuracy of the model and algorithm in the real case. • A multi-period dynamic emergency material distribution (EMD) model is proposed. • An improved multi-objective salp swarm algorithm (HMSSA-SCA) is presented. • Several new mechanisms are designed to propose HMSSA-SCA. • Numeric experiments are carried out to validate the effectiveness of HMSSA-SCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limiting commuting trips in major cities is important from the environmental, social and economic standpoints. In order to design policies that aim to change commuting practices it is, however, necessary to have acquired a good understanding of the trips in question and their determinants. However, these trips have been subjected to very little study in the cities of developing countries. This paper is concerned with the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area (RJMA), and sets out to test the influence of “classical” socioeconomic and spatial variables on the distance and duration of the commuting trips of the region's inhabitants, especially those with the lowest incomes. The main original feature of this research is that it includes jobs in the informal sector. The results show that, all other things being equal, commuting distances and times are shorter for the informal sector, and people walk more from their homes to their place of work because jobs in the informal sector are more dispersed than jobs in the formal sectors. The notable exception is personal and household services for which employees (who are mainly women) live a long way from the city center where wealthy families (and their jobs) are concentrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interference of thermal history in a person's thermal perception has been explored by several authors and this has been one of the pillars of the concept of adaptive comfort. Given that a general trend towards a more frequent usage and ownership of air-conditioning (AC) units or central systems is taking place worldwide, and considering the fact that AC-users show a diminished tolerance to heat stress when compared to more acclimatized persons, this paper discusses the consequences of AC-usage in climate-responsive urban design. Rio de Janeiro (22° 54′ 10″S, 43° 12′ 27″W) has a tropical climate with summer rains (Aw) and is characterized by frequent heat stress conditions. In such context, air conditioning is a common strategy to reduce indoor heat in buildings. The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of AC-usage in the thermal perception of a large group of urbanites as regards to Rio's outdoor thermal conditions. Thermal votes were assessed by means of standard questionnaires in several field monitoring campaigns. Meteorological variables, measured on site with a portable weather station were post-processed to UTCI values ( Universal Thermal Climate Index ). Field data showed significant differences among groups of respondents who reported having access to AC-units (or central systems) at home and/or at work in terms of thermal sensation votes. By applying the derived set point UTCI values for two subgroups (AC-users against non users) to Rio de Janeiro's TMY2 (typical meteorological year) data, a significant rise in the annual percentage of heat stress hours was found for AC-users, in magnitude even higher than expected changes in annual heat stress percentages due to climate-responsive urban planning and thus increasing the demands on heat stress mitigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling equity in the allocation of scarce resources is a fast-growing concern in the humanitarian logistics field. The Gini coefficient is one of the most widely recognized measures of inequity and it was originally characterized by means of the Lorenz curve, which is a mathematical function that links the cumulative share of income to rank-ordered groups in a population. So far, humanitarian logistics models that have approached equity using the Gini coefficient do not actually optimize its original formulation, but they use alternative definitions that do not necessarily replicate that original Gini measure. In this paper, we derive the original Gini coefficient via the Lorenz curve to optimize the effectiveness-equity trade-off in a humanitarian location-allocation problem. We also propose new valid inequalities based on a bounding Lorenz curve to tighten the linear relaxation of our model and develop a clustering-based construction of the Lorenz curve that requires fewer additional constraints and variables than the original one. The computational study, based on the floods and landslides in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, reveals that while alternative Gini definitions have interesting properties, they can generate vastly different decisions compared to the original Gini coefficient. In addition, viewed from the perspective of the original Gini coefficient, these decisions can be significantly less equitable. • We present a new formulation to optimize effectiveness-equity. • Gini is used to model equity based on the Lorenz curve. • Valid inequalities are derived. • A clustering-based approach is also presented. • The approach is validated through a real case-study based on Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an application of a model that mixes Soft Systems Methodology with Simple Additive Weighting in order to recommend a problem structuring method for a public organization of the Rio de Janeiro State. The aim of the recommendation originates from the perception that the public organization has shortcomings related to a lack of shared view and comprehension of wicked problems that disrupts decision-making and the carry out of action plans. It is proposed that the methodological approaches for the problem structuring interventions can be chosen by multi-criteria analysis in order to select the most adequate approaches for the organization's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an application of both the originalTODIM and the Choquet-extended TODIM methods. Both approaches are used here in order to rank suppliers of specified materials and goods quite relevant for a steel industry located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. One conceptual advantage from using the Choquet-extended TODIM method is that it can deal with interactions between evaluation criteria. Results from the application of these two methods practically lead to the same ranks. The non-parametric statistic sign test allows concluding that that both methods are indeed equivalent in terms of the final results for this particular application. As a conclusion it can be saidthat the importance of a formal procedure for ranking suppliers basically consists of contributing to greater clarity and a higher learning throughout the ranking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the angular effects causing spectral distortions in multi-angle remote sensing imagery. We study two WorldView-2 multispectral in-track sequences acquired over the cities of Atlanta, USA, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, consisting of 13 and 20 co-located images, respectively. The sequences possess off-nadir acquisition angles up to 47.5° and bear markedly different sun-satellite configurations with respect to each other. Both scenes comprise classic urban structures such as buildings of different size, road networks, and parks. First, we quantify the degree of distortion affecting the sequences by means of a non-linear measure of distance between probability distributions, the Maximum Mean Discrepancy. Second, we assess the ability of a classification model trained on an image acquired at a certain view angle to predict the land-cover of all the other images in the sequence. The portability across the sequence is investigated for supervised classifiers of different nature by analyzing the evolution of the classification accuracy with respect to the off-nadir look angle. For both datasets, the effectiveness of physically- and statistically-based normalization methods in obtaining angle-invariant data spaces is compared and synergies are discussed. The empirical results indicate that, after a suitable normalization (histogram matching, atmospheric compensation), the loss in classification accuracy when using a model trained on the near-nadir image to classify the most off-nadir acquisitions can be reduced to as little as 0.06 (Atlanta) or 0.03 (Rio de Janeiro) Kappa points when using a SVM classifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of violence, poverty, and inequality worldwide, teachers are increasingly working in high-risk situations. To support teacher development, education researchers can usefully study professionals in the field to understand their working environments. This paper presents theory, method, and findings to consider how teachers in the high-risk favelas of Rio de Janeiro understand risk. Based on narrative inquiry design and analysis, findings indicate that what appears to be avoiding reality, coping, or being resilient, comes into view as teachers’ ways of narrating to mediate professional and community circumstances. We conclude with a discussion for ongoing research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mining in Santo Antônio de Pádua, a city located in the underdeveloped northeast area of the Rio de Janeiro state, in Brazil, is currently the most important economic activity in the region. Unfortunately, companies lag behind technologically and use rudimentary production methods, which cause serious environmental problems, social implications and poor competitiveness. In order to seek sustainable solutions for the Padua mining region, local support organizations have created initiatives to develop endogenous cleaner production innovations to enhance the industry's sustainability performance. During this process, some barriers for mining companies to adopt these developed technologies have emerged. This research draws on the cleaner production, sustainability and innovation literature and uses a qualitative research with multiple sources of evidence to understand the dynamics behind the Padua mining region. More specifically, this research explores how initiatives to improve the sustainability performance led by local support organizations took place, analyzes their outcomes (i.e., cleaner production innovations), and identifies some of the barriers to technology adoption. This paper offers three key research contributions. First, we claim that cleaner production approaches alone cannot create sustainable mining regions in emerging and developing countries, but they are definitively a step in the right direction since they provide the base for expanding the scope towards sustainability. Second, we argue that technology cannot be understood as the panacea for sustainability because it will never represent the complete solution for companies' sustainability problems. Third, we claim that companies can face a “managerial trap” if they pursue enhanced sustainability performance solely through the adoption of cleaner production innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Spatial extent alters the assement of environmental justice. • In metropolitan areas and municipalities the most vulnerable to hazards are minority groups. • At the borough scale there are well-to-do white people exposed to hazards (especially flooding) • Elite self-exposure to risk is supported by spatially unjust distribution of infrastructures. Although environmental justice scholars have been addressing spatial scale for at least thirty years, one of its components remains largely overlooked, namely extent. In this paper, we investigate the effects of extent variation in environmental (in)justice patterns by analyzing the statistical associations between socio-economic marginality and environmental vulnerability at three different spatial scopes: metropolitan areas, municipalities, and boroughs. Using census and geospatial data, our case study focuses on the relations between income and color/race, on the one hand, and susceptibility to flooding and landslides, on the other, in Brazil's two largest cities (São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). We constructe an integrated, census tract-level database using areal weighting interpolation combining census with susceptibility data to perform k-means multivariate clustering analysis. Although our results show that the most vulnerable to landslides and flooding are non-white, low-income people – confirming common environmental justice claims – they also suggest that spatial extent impinges on statistical patterns. While the clusters are very similar in the metropolitan and municipal scales, pointing to a fractal-like structure, they differ significantly at the borough scale. This smaller scale reveals a different picture, one in which well-to-do white people are just as exposed to hazards (especially flooding) as non-white, middle- to lower-middle-class people. We argue this is a result of elite self-exposure to risk, which is supported by socio-spatially unjust distribution of risk-mitigation infrastructures. Policymakers should pay attention to such scale-dependent complexities in devising ways to cope with the increasing inequities brought about by climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We evaluate decarbonization of passenger transportation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. • Public transport and carpooled shared mobility rise system capacity and reduces CO 2. • Biofuels reduce CO 2 emissions at no increased system cost. • CO 2 price is the most effective decarbonization policy, but it is costlier. • Increased renewable electricity and electrification of the fleet reduce the most CO 2. This paper applies an energy systems model to evaluate how shared mobility (ride-hailing and shared autonomous vehicles), public buses, alternative energy sources (electricity and biofuels) and carbon pricing contribute to reduce passenger vehicles CO 2 emissions in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, from 2016 to 2050. Public buses and carpooled shared mobility increase system capacity, resulting in lower vehicle ownership, energy demand and CO 2 emissions, as well as savings per ton of CO 2 abated (from $3 to $4186). Biofuels reduce CO 2 emissions at no increased system cost, while carbon pricing is the most effective policy to reduce CO 2 emissions, but it is costlier than the alternatives and results in greater private vehicle use (up to 260%) if the expansion of zero-carbon public transportation remains limited due to technology adoption. The policy that reduces the most emissions (by 84%) combines the expansion of renewable electricity generation and implementation of a CO 2 price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research now demonstrates how social inequalities can drive HIV transmission, relatively little attention is given to the spatialized 'intersections' of race, class, and gender. Using this approach, this article considers an understudied phenomenon in Brazilian HIV discussions, the importance of the drug economy in shaping intimacy in favelas. Drawing on interviews with young women in Rio de Janeiro, it documents the intimate relations between young women and male drug workers to situate HIV vulnerability at the juncture of three social-spatial changes: (1) the rise of a drug economy that provides some racialized men, marginalized from mainstream society, with opportunities for work; (2) the precarious economic position of racialized women; and (3) the gendered dynamics including violence that can shape intimate relations. The paper shows how these relationships are contested by women who can cast their partners as living a 'wrong life.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that on-site upgrading is the "state-of-the-art" policy for squatter settlements and given that Favela Bairro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is one of the most celebrated of these upgrading programs, this article addresses these three questions: how well did the infrastructure improvements hold up a decade after they were completed?; What happened during those ten years that reversed some of the positive impacts found in an evaluation study right after the upgrading was completed?; and, What can we learn from that?. Specifically, this paper assesses the state of the infrastructure of the 88 informal neighborhoods (favelas) improved by the Favela-Bairro-II (FB2) program between 2000 and 2008. The assessment found that, after a decade, the condition of the infrastructure in the upgraded favelas was no better than the infrastructure in the non-upgraded favelas. Climate change and lack of social cohesion undermined the sustainability of the upgrading. The improvements which deteriorated the most were street pavement, street lighting, drainage, and sewerage systems. Greatest deterioration occurred in larger favelas, those located on steep slopes and those with higher levels of violence and crime. No correlation was found between population density and deterioration of infrastructure. • Our article is based on field inspections and focus groups of more than eighty upgraded informal neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro. • Rio de Janeiro neighborhood upgraded program is one of the most ambitious, long standing, slums upgrading programs in the world. • Our findings highlight the increasing relevance of community engagement and environmental impacts on the sustainability of urban upgrades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Death in the "microwave oven" has nothing to do with microwaves energy. It is the jargon name given to a criminal form of execution by carbonization that has been adopted by drug dealers in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The goal is to torture and intimidate victims, in an attempt of corpse occultation and to make identification harder or impossible. This paper brings to attention of the forensic international community an unusual and very cruel form of execution as a way to document these situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores police operations "pacifying" Rio de Janeiro's favelas to estimate if positive shocks of policing affect birth outcomes. Estimates show that pregnancies residing within official "pacification" borders had 0.07 standard deviation better birth outcomes than pregnancies on the same street but giving birth shortly before the police's arrival. Pacification effects concentrate in the third trimester of gestation and are followed by increases in the number of prenatal visits. No evidence of spillovers is found in areas immediately circumventing pacification borders. Hospital-level estimates indicate no impacts on the supply of health services, stress/anxiety among women, or abortions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]