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Major biogeographic and taxonomic biases are recurrent in biological surveys, including fragmentation studies. Detecting biases and subsequent gaps is crucial to steer future research and suitable conservation policies. We evaluated biogeographic and fragmentation-related biases on antbirds and non-flying small mammals in Brazil, two oversampled and vulnerable taxonomic groups, by surveying papers in the Scielo and the Web of Science. We found 566 articles published from 1945 to 2018, including 55 and 43 fragmentation studies for antbirds and small mammals, respectively. Considering the species richness for each group across the Brazilian biomes, the number of publications for small mammals tended to disproportionately increase while increasing richness. The Atlantic Forest, the most degraded and densely populated biome, contained the highest number of publications. However, the Amazon included a disproportionately high number of papers considering its low population density. Conversely, non-forest biomes such as the Caatinga, Pampa and Pantanal were mostly overlooked. Our results show that research effort for small mammals and antbirds in Brazil is biogeographically biased. We call future research to consider more studies across non-forest biomes and vast unexplored areas within forest biomes to overcome major knowledge gaps on diversity, distribution and ecology of antbirds and small mammals in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores illegal coca crop expansion in indigenous Amazonian communities in Peru. The ethnographic study sheds light on the historical development of these areas as frontier spaces, where the growth of illicit crops intertwines with socio-ecological transformations and gives rise to conflicts over new forms of land control, opportunities for capital accumulation, and political power dynamics. The paper argues that this expansion is shaped by dual processes: from 'below,' involving small-scale migrant farmers from the Andes, and from 'above,' primarily driven by state-led agrarian interventions. Consequently, communities experience significant tensions, as they adapt to the forces of market expansion to secure their livelihoods, while simultaneously facing risks of violence and insecurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competition between enterprises has become more fiercely as they have the possibility to easily move across national boundaries to exploit opportunities in other countries or markets. The turbulent market environment imposes enterprises, irrespective of their size, industry and geographical region, to permanently adapt to its everchanging conditions. This is why they have tried to identify and implement various techniques and methods in their activities and processes in order to attain high levels of competitiveness. One of them is branding, a powerful marketing tool and an important aspect of any business. The paper aims to briefly define the brand concept and present the evolution of ten world's most valuable brands in the period 2018-2023. In this respect, the author used a qualitative research method. The results of the paper concludes that the American brands have dominated the hierarchy. Amazon and Apple were the two main competitors for the global supremacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to elucidate the interrelationship between global meat consumption and deforestation in the Amazon region. To this end, empirical research is conducted to investigate land use changes in Rondônia and the expansion of pasture areas and beef production. Brazil is one of the largest beef producers in the world, with products destined for local and global markets. Based on bibliographical research, the paper analyzes maps of land use change between 1985 and 2021, using Landsat satellite imagery and the MapBiomas methodology for Landsat mosaic and classification. The research shows that beef from Rondônia is primarily purchased and consumed in Brazil, but it is also bought and sold on the international market. Landsat imagery analysis shows the predominance of forest conversion to pasture in Rondônia. The results show that deforestation in the Amazon is directly linked to the growth of cattle ranching. Land use change from native forest to pasture for beef cattle production is a reality in the Brazilian Amazon, especially in Rondônia. It suggests the urgent need for more conscious consumption and production practices as well as ethical and sustainable eating habits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elsewhere in this issue I state 'Chiropractic is the diagnosis and management of the neuromusculoskeletal system of the human body' and discuss the emergent problem of an increasing shrinkage of the constitutional framework of the discipline where current arguments continue to remove reference to subluxation from the profession's lexicon, even flagitiously mandating against teaching the idea within its natural context. In this editorial I give some examples of the good work being done to carry our profession to greatness, and balance that with some examples of wackiness from Canada and the United States of America, and once again from the usual dismal suspects in Europe. I am starting to think that Australia is one of the better places in the world to practice Conventional Chiropractic, yet offer caution that this may be about to change. Above all I hold that a Chiropractor carries spontaneous unspoken trust in what they see and feel, and conclude with a marvellous video of a Philosophy discussion about how strongly we can 'know things' from our patient's testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anthropologia Integra is the property of Masaryk University, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube are the most popular and fastest-growing streaming services globally. It is a matter of great interest for the streaming service providers to preview their service infrastructure and streaming strategy in order to provide new streaming services. Hence, the first part of the paper presents a detailed survey of the Content Distribution Network (CDN) and cloud infrastructure of these service providers. To understand the streaming strategy of these service providers, the second part of the paper deduces a common quality-of-service (QoS) model based on rebuffering time, bitrate, progressive download ratio, and standard deviation of the On-Off cycle. This model is then used to analyze and compare the streaming behaviors of these services. This study concluded that the streaming behaviors of all these services are similar as they all use Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) on top of TCP. However, the amount of data that they download in the buffering state and steady-state vary, resulting in different progressive download ratios, rebuffering levels, and bitrates. The characteristics of their On-Off cycle are also different resulting in different QoS. Hence a thorough adaptive bit rate (ABR) analysis is presented in this paper. The streaming behaviors of these services are tested on different access network bandwidths, ranging from 75 kbps to 30 Mbps. The survey results indicate that Netflix QoS and streaming behavior are significantly consistent followed by Amazon Prime and YouTube. Our approach can be used to compare and contrast the streaming services' strategies and finetune their ABR and flow control mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars often approach the Amazon to explain the materiality of resource extraction in mining, oil, and agribusinesses. This region has been less used for theorizing the different scales and dimensions of extractivism, and its relationship with mega-infrastructures. This paper contributes to this endeavor by reflecting on the IIRSA, an ambitious portfolio of mega-infrastructure projects aimed at facilitating international trade with little concern for biodiversity and indigenous rights. Based on the analysis of policy documents and interviews, this study explores how infrastructure development in the Amazon relates to extractive activities and contributes to a deeper understanding of extractivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of climate crisis governance for rural communities in the Amazon of Peru. It draws the attention to the shared political economy behind the resistance of diverse rural populations particularly, Indigenous and Colono communities. Based on an analysis of two local conservation interventions in the region of San Martín—one involving indigenous communities and the other peasant settlers—this study argues that narrow authorized knowledge obscures the wider historical and agrarian macro context of uneven institutional and ecological arrangements that lead to the reproduction of injustices related to the land, the underlying causes of deforestation, and the authoritarian relationships of these local communities with the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fires are one of the main sources of disturbance in fire-sensitive ecosystems such as the Amazon. Any attempt to characterize their impacts and establish actions aimed at combating these events presupposes the correct identification of the affected areas. However, accurate mapping of burned areas in humid tropical forest regions remains a challenging task. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of four operational BA products (MCD64A1, Fire_cci, GABAM and MapBiomas Fogo) on a regional scale in the southwestern Amazon and propose a new approach to BA mapping using fraction images extracted from data cubes of the Brazilian orbital sensors CBERS-4/WFI and CBERS-4A/WFI. The methodology for detecting burned areas consisted of applying the Linear Spectral Mixture Model to the images from the CBERS-4/WFI and CBERS-4A/WFI data cubes to generate shadow fraction images, which were then segmented and classified using the ISOSEG non-supervised algorithm. Regression and similarity analyses based on regular grid cells were carried out to compare the BA mappings. The results showed large discrepancies between the mappings in terms of total area burned, land use and land cover affected (forest and non-forest) and spatial location of the burned area. The global products MCD64A1, GABAM and Fire_cci tended to underestimate the area burned in the region, with Fire_cci underestimating BA by 88%, while the regional product MapBiomas Fogo was the closest to the reference, underestimating by only 7%. The burned area estimated by the method proposed in this work (337.5 km2) was 12% higher than the reference and showed a small difference in relation to the MapBiomas Fogo product (18% more BA). These differences can be explained by the different datasets and methods used to detect burned areas. The adoption of global products in regional studies can be critical in underestimating the total area burned in sensitive regions. Our study highlights the need to develop approaches aimed at improving the accuracy of current global products, and the development of regional burned area products may be more suitable for this purpose. Our proposed approach based on WFI data cubes has shown high potential for generating more accurate regional burned area maps, which can refine BA estimates in the Amazon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Maracanan is the property of Revista Maracanan and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Interdisciplinar Científica Aplicada is the property of Sociedade Educacional de Santa Catarina and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sustainability in Debate / Sustentabilidade em Debate is the property of University of Brasilia, Center for Sustainable Development and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the most used statistical techniques that include machine learning and data mining for predicting future outcomes with help of data that already exist is known as predictive algorithm. Predictive models are not stable, and they build assumption based on past and present actions. In the paper we are going to introduce Amazon online store and how algorithms know what we like, so they can recommend products to us by their own. One of the biggest innovations in online shopping - first introduced by Amazon - was automatic recommendation generation. The more accurate prediction algorithms are, the more online stores will sell their products. For that reason, prediction algorithms are of great significance for online stores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian Amazon faces three dominant governance challenges that have become increasingly interconnected over time and now affect each other: managing agricultural expansion, reducing deforestation, and mitigating urban floods. This region exemplifies that the governance of one social-ecological system (SES) in the Anthropocene can no longer be thought of in isolation of others because, together, they form a complex network of flows and spillovers to manage. Studying the interconnection of different decision-making areas, however, calls for an intertemporal examination of governance that integrates different methodological approaches. We use the Network of Adjacent Action Situations (NAS), Combined IAD-SES (CIS) framework, and the telecoupling framework to study these three interrelated processes in the Amazon. Employing mixed-methods research, including fieldwork covering each of these processes, we demonstrate how the governance of multiple SESs represents an intertemporal governance challenge. Our paper contributes to the SES governance and NAS literature by linking governance issues generally looked at separately and offering an understanding of the governance connections between telecoupled processes. Beyond its contribution to Brazilian Amazon governance, this paper offers an integrated framework that may be useful to study the interconnection of governance of NAS in other places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of MATRIZes is the property of Universidade de Sao Paulo, Programa de Pos Graduacao em Ciencias da Comunicacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, I analyse how the COVID-19 crisis crystalised and fuelled the vigorous role of Amazonian indigenous artists as, what I call, "agents of interface", enabling connectivity, translation, networking and bridging information, ontologies, claims, and aesthetics. With the pandemic's spatial restrictions and the reduction of global activity in the arts with a return to focusing on the local, I argue that it is important to look at interfaces as arenas from which to understand further reconfigurations, actions, and values in the arts. Based on the project and exhibition Ite!/Neno!/Here!: Responses to COVID-19 co-curated by the indigenous artist Rember Yahuarcani and me, and on other various initiatives, this paper explores how Amazonian indigenous artists became crucial agents of the interface in four main arenas providing first-hand, real-time information of the impact of COVID-19 at Amazonian urban and rural settings, channelling networks of aid and curation, connecting different agents and worlds, and engaging in curatorial collaborations. I argue that by acting at the interface, artists have reinforced their voices, while pushing for redefinitions of and positions in the art system and suggest that the COVID-19 crisis has introduced a new moment in the configuration of Peru's art scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature is an essential public resource that provides food, clean water, energy resources, minerals and shelter for human life. To face environmental changes and the exploitation of natural resources, it is crucial to understand and manage the ecosystem services (ES) that benefit humanity and preserve the natural processes that create them. In the Amazon region, the research area chosen for this study, rural communities have a way of life and social organization recognized as traditionally linked to nature; however, they do not benefit from ES due to several factors discussed in this paper. The contributions of ecosystems to human well-being are well accepted, but the services provided by geodiversity (abiotic) are often neglected in the classification systems of ES. This study identifies the importance of the relationship between geodiversity and ES, elucidating its role in the well-being of local populations. Three geological-environmental domains were identified and subdivided into five geoenvironmental units covering the geosystem services described in "Nature's Contributions to People (NCP)". The domains contained the following groups: regulatory, material and non-material. This research concludes that the ES provided by geodiversity plays a crucial role in supporting natural resources essential for local communities and that their conservation is vital for environmental sustainability and the quality of life of riparians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amazon is one of the largest e-commerce corporations in the world and has built a reputation for fast, low-cost service. To rapidly and efficiently move goods from production to consumption, however, Amazon relies on a logistics network that entails significant investments in infrastructure (physical and human) and these investments present a challenge for capital accumulation. In this paper, I examine the labour practices that Amazon employs within its distribution work spaces to address this challenge. The analysis is based on a case study of Amazon's distribution facilities (fulfilment centres and delivery stations) in Montreal, Quebec. It draws on ethnographic research as a community organizer and semi-structured interviews with workers (present and former), trade union representatives and public policy experts to identify Amazon's key strategies. Building on past studies on the platform economy, I illustrate how Amazon relies on 'digital Taylorism' (Staab & Nachtwey, 2016), involving the use of digital technologies to structure and control the labour process and surveil workers, as a key strategy. However, I further illustrate how Amazon seeks to balance the harmful effects of digital Taylorism with what I term 'corporate keynesianism' (i.e., social welfare benefits) to attain a 'labour fix', i.e., the steady supply of precarious, compliant labour needed to sustain the logistics machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithms in information technology influence changes in contemporary organizations. They monitor business processes, support decision-making, and help to increase efficiency. The literature has described extensively the applications of algorithmic technology in new models of organizations but few studies have addressed the relationship between algorithms and organizational culture. This paper fills that niche by concentrating on black boxing to address the technological transparency in the algorithmic workplace. This paper uses the case study of the Amazon POZ 1 warehouse near Poznań, Poland. The findings show that algorithmic culture has a profound effect on how employees interact, how they see themselves at work, and how they perform their job responsibilities. As we show, algorithmic transparency influences not only employees' worklife but also the general positionality of the workforce in the wider political economy. We conclude by arguing in favor of greater algorithmic regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Colloquium Agrariae is the property of Asociacao Prudentina de Educacao e Cultura (APEC) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the status of visuality in surveillance capitalism by considering its role in the management of Amazon's logistical operations. Whereas Amazon is often portrayed as being at the forefront of developments in surveillance associated with face recognition technologies, a focus on its logistical operations highlights the more mundane role of the barcode scan. The barcode is considered a calm image, central to the operation of capture in the warehouse and beyond. Logistics is here marked by invisualities, wherein visuality is operationalised to optimise logistical flows of data, things and people, rather than geared towards visual forms of surveillance. These invisualities mean that power is exercised primarily through the scan as capture, with power characterised as operational and environmental. Recent developments in logistics towards augmented video surveillance and its associated networked images must also be assessed in the context of this mode of power and its economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the media industry in the US by analyzing Big Tech's entrance into film and television production and the rise of streaming distribution technology. Through a case study of Prime Video, Amazon's prize streaming platform, this study explores how streaming technology has disrupted film and television from multiple perspectives, subjecting the industry to new logics of internet distribution, rooted in platforms, artificial intelligence, digital delivery systems, and big data. In the Big Tech worldview, disruption is an inherently progressive development. However, an analysis of Prime Video reveals how disruption is only the latest manifestation of conglomeration and convergence in the film and television industries. By uncovering the industry logics that govern the era of streaming, this paper analyzes the streaming industry of the present while taking into consideration the cable period in the past to account for the rapid technological development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]