Training Researchers in Ibero-America: Early Brazilian Chemists as Case Study

In this chapter we survey the beginnings of research practice and education in American countries that were former Spanish and Portuguese colonies, with a focus on chemistry and Brazil. While these countries are usually seen from abroad as a homogeneous block, i.e. the so-called Latin America, substantial social, political, and economic differences starting from the time of the European colonization allegedly led to divergences in the paths of institutionalization of research practice and education. We begin with an overview of the circumstances around the emergence of these new young nations, and the obstacles they met in their attempts at developing chemical research traditions until the middle of the twentieth century. Next we discuss in more detail the situation in Argentina and Mexico as the two largest countries representing poles of attraction of former Spanish viceroyalties. We conclude with a detailed study of the development of chemical research and the chemical research community in Brazil, especially of the formation of the earliest sustained university-based program of advanced training in the 1930s, an outcome of which was the emergence of the first generation of Brazilian professional chemical researchers.

Choice of Confounding in the 2k Factorial Design in 2b Blocks

In 2k complete factorial experiment, the experiment must be carried out in a completely randomized design. When the numbers of factors increase, the number of treatment combinations increase and it is not possible to accommodate all these treatment combinations in one homogeneous block. In this case, confounding in more than one incomplete block becomes necessary. In this paper, we considered the choice of confounding when k > 2. Our findings show that the choice of confounding depends on the number of factors, the number of blocks and their sizes. When two more interactions are to be confounded, their product module 2 should be considered and thereafter, a linear combination equation should be used in allocating the treatment effects in the principal block. Other contents in other blocks are generated by multiplication module 2 of the effects not in the principal block. Partial confounding is recommended for the interactions that cannot be confounded.

Para além da dicotomia homem-natureza: a perspectiva não-moderna de Bruno LatourBeyond man-nature dichotomy: the non-modern perspective of Bruno LatourPara más de la dicotomía homen-naturaleza: la perspectiva no moderna de Bruno Latour

Este artigo tem o objetivo de apresentar a teorização do filósofo Bruno Latour, em especial a noção de práticas de tradução como ferramenta de sua crítica ao modo moderno de interpretação da realidade, efetuada a partir da dicotomia Homem-Natureza. Busca-se explorar também como este autor tem utilizado o conceito de “Gaia” para problematizar a ideia de “Natureza” – tomada como um bloco unificado e homogêneo. O artigo conclui apontando potencialidades de sua perspectiva não-moderna para explorar de forma renovada as questões ambientais. This article aims to present the theorization of the philosopher Bruno Latour, especially the notion of translation practices as a tool of his critique of the modern way of interpreting reality based on the Man-Nature dichotomy. It also seeks to explore how this author use the concept of "Gaia" to problematize the notion of "Nature" – taken as a unified and homogeneous block. The article concludes by pointing to the potential of its non-modern perspective to explore environmental issues in a renewed way. Este artículo tiene como objetivo presentar la teorización del filósofo Bruno Latour, especialmente la noción de prácticas de traducción como una herramienta de su crítica de la forma moderna de interpretar la realidad basada en la dicotomía Hombre-Naturaleza. También busca explorar cómo este autor utiliza el concepto de "Gaia" para problematizar la noción de "Naturaleza", tomada como un bloque unificado y homogéneo. El artículo concluye señalando el potencial de su perspectiva no moderna para explorar temas ambientales de una manera renovada.

Hungarian ethnic minority higher education students in different countries of Central Europe

There are about 3 million Hungarians living as a minority outside Hungary in 7 countries of Central Europe. In some of those countries they still live in a nearly homogeneous block, whereas in others they live in diaspora. Their access to education in their mother tongue also differs. Our research covered the Hungarian institutions of higher education in the four countries with largest Hungarian minority groups, and we undertook a comparative study of their students. For our investigation we compared the families’ social status. We used data on 1739 students from 13 institutions. We concluded that indigenous Hungarian minority students did not produce homogeneous results in the categories that were examined, which led us to the discovery of important differences.

HETEROGENIOUS BLOCKED ALL-PAIRS SHORTEST PATHS ALGORITHM

The problem of finding the shortest paths between all pairs of vertices in a weighted directed graph is considered. The algorithms of Dijkstra and Floyd-Warshall, homogeneous block and parallel algorithms and other algorithms of solving this problem are known. A new heterogeneous block algorithm is proposed which considers various types of blocks and takes into account the shared hierarchical memory organization and multi-core processors for calculating each type of block. The proposed heterogeneous block computing algorithms are compared with the generally accepted homogeneous universal block calculation algorithm at theoretical and experimental levels. The main emphasis is on using the nature of the heterogeneity, the interaction of blocks during computation and the variation in block size, the size of the block matrix and the total number of blocks in order to identify the possibility of reducing the amount of computation performed during the calculation of the block, reducing the activity of the processor’s cache memory and determining the influence of the calculation time of each block type on the total execution time of the heterogeneous block algorithm. A recurrent resynchronized algorithm for calculating the diagonal block (D0) is proposed, which improves the use of the processor’s cache and reduces the number of iterations up to 3 times that are necessary to calculate the diagonal block, which implies the acceleration in calculating the diagonal block up to 60%. For more efficient work with the cache memory, variants of permutation of the basic loops k-i-j in the algorithms of calculating the blocks of the cross (C1 and C2) and the updated blocks (U3) are proposed. These permutations in combination with the proposed algorithm for calculating the diagonal block reduce the total runtime of the heterogeneous block algorithm to 13% on average against the homogeneous block algorithm.

Wrinkle surface instability of an inhomogeneous elastic block with graded stiffness

Surface instabilities have been studied extensively for both homogeneous materials and film/substrate structures but relatively less for materials with continuously varying properties. This paper studies wrinkle surface instability of a graded neo-Hookean block with exponentially varying modulus under plane strain by using the linear bifurcation analysis. We derive the first variation condition for minimizing the potential energy functional and solve the linearized equations of equilibrium to find the necessary conditions for surface instability. It is found that for a homogeneous block or an inhomogeneous block with increasing modulus from the surface, the critical stretch for surface instability is 0.544 (0.456 strain), which is independent of the geometry and the elastic modulus on the surface of the block. This critical stretch coincides with that reported by Biot (1963 Appl. Sci. Res. 12 , 168–182. ( doi:10.1007/BF03184638 )) 53 years ago for the onset of wrinkle instabilities in a half-space of homogeneous neo-Hookean materials. On the other hand, for an inhomogeneous block with decreasing modulus from the surface, the critical stretch for surface instability ranges from 0.544 to 1 (0–0.456 strain), depending on the modulus gradient, and the length and height of the block. This sheds light on the effects of the material inhomogeneity and structural geometry on surface instability.

Sovereignty and Territory: Stakes and Perspectives

Over the course of the last twenty years, two historiographical movements have challenged the notion of sovereignty, particularly that of the “natural” anchoring of an absolute, statal form of sovereignty in a uniform territory as its perfected model. On the one hand, the experience of globalization that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall—and which fed talk of the “end of nation-states”—led to a new examination of the political organization of the contemporary world, which in part “deterritorialized” the issue of political control. On the other hand, the extraordinary rise in studies of colonial empires has established that sovereignty, far from being the homogeneous block of the jurist’s refined concept, could be exercised in varying degrees and even be conceived as multiple and “layered.”