scholarly journals Amazon Biobank - A community-based genetic database

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo T. Kimura ◽  
Ewerton R. Andrade ◽  
Tereza C. Carvalho ◽  
Marcos A. Simplício Junior
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Data ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Amazon Region ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Monetary Incentives ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Genetic Database ◽  
Innovative Biotechnology

In regions like the Amazon Rainforest, there is much unexplored biodiversity data that could potentially be used to promote innovative biotechnology developments. Building a biobank with such genetic data is, however, a challenge. One reason is that existing repositories (e.g., NCBI) lack clear incentives for collaboration. Aiming to tackle this issue, and promote a biodiversity-based economy in the Amazon region, in this work we present a prototype for the Amazon Biobank, a community-based genetic database. Leveraging blockchain, smart contracts, and peer-to-peer technologies, we build a collaborative and highly scalable repository. It also enables monetary incentives for users who insert, store, process, validate and share DNA data.

Spatial Effect of Crime on Peer-to-Peer Lodging Performance

2021 ◽  
pp. 004728752110082
Author(s):  
Yu-Hua Xu ◽  
Lori Pennington-Gray ◽  
Jinwon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Spatial Effect ◽  
Econometric Models ◽  
Spatial Econometric ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Negatively Associated ◽  
Business Operations ◽  
Spatial Econometric Models ◽  
Crime Types ◽  
Social Uncertainty

Safety is a major factor impacting consumers’ participation in peer-to-peer (P2P) economies. Using spatial econometric models, this study examined crime effects on the performance (RevPAR) of P2P lodgings at three spatial ranges: property, community, and destination level. The performance of P2P lodgings is negatively associated with crime densities, while the degree of the association varies by crime types and room types. Crime can “spill over” to the neighborhood and have the strongest impact at the community level, followed by the destination level and the property level. The study provides a way to understand tourism risks using criminology theories and the concept of social uncertainty. Empirically, the study provides implications to the governance of community-based lodging business. We suggest that the effect of crime on P2P lodging performance was more conditioned by the safety environment in its neighborhood and the whole destination, rather than individual business operations.

Late-Holocene palaeoenvironmental reconstruction from a lake in the Amazon Rainforest-Tropical Savanna (Cerrado) boundary in Brazil using a multi-proxy approach

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110190
Author(s):  
Kury Milena Souza ◽  
Moreira Luciane Silva ◽  
Cordeiro Renato Campello ◽  
Sifeddine Abdelfettah ◽  
Turcq Bruno ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Amazon Region ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Oxbow Lake ◽  
Tropical Savanna ◽  
Sedimentary Process ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Depositional Processes ◽  
Lake Formation

As an ecotone, the region between the Amazon Rainforest and Tropical Savanna (Cerrado) biomes is, by definition, more susceptible to climate change. Therefore, understanding palaeoenvironmental dynamics is essential to address the future responses of such transition areas to climatic fluctuations. In this context, we present a new sediment record for the Late-Holocene retrieved from Barro-Preto, currently an oxbow lake located in an ecotone at the southern Brazilian Amazon border. Our multi-proxy data include carbon and nitrogen isotopes, as well as bulk TOC, chlorophyll derivatives, grain-size and microcharcoal analyses, all anchored on a radiocarbon-dated chronology. The sedimentary process recorded at the Barro-Preto Lake responded to both local and regional climate dynamics. It was influenced by river excursions associated to local responses to precipitation changes by the activation of the palaeochannel connecting the main-stem river and the Barro-Preto lake. This activation was evidenced by the presence of different colour lithology laminations accompanied by coarser sediments and also by climate conditions known to influence the Amazon region. Depositional processes linked to lake dynamics and different oxbow lake cycle stages were also important to explain the changes verified in the Barro-Preto record, endorsing the use of this lake formation for palaeoclimatic reconstructions. The record indicated a rising humidity trend, reflected by a progressive increase in lacustrine productivity, in accordance to other studies carried out in the Amazon region concerning the Late-Holocene, associated with a more southward displacement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Despite this rising humidity trend, dry episodic events during the Late-Holocene were evidenced by charcoal data, also coherent with regional Amazon studies, albeit exhibiting increased intensity, suggesting that the transitional nature of the environment might have influenced susceptibility to fires.

Furuncular Myiasis by Dermatobia hominis (Diptera: Oestridae) in Wild Jaguars in the Amazon Rainforest

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matheus Mickael Mota Soares ◽  
Luana Machado Barros ◽  
Daniela Aparecida Savariz Bôlla ◽  
Marlus Queiroz Almeida ◽  
Diego da Costa Souza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Amazon ◽  
First Record ◽  
Amazon Region ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Panthera Onca ◽  
Dermatobia Hominis ◽  
Furuncular Myiasis

Abstract Two individuals of the jaguar, Panthera onca (L.), were captured near the municipality of Presidente Figueiredo, Brazilian Amazon, during the years of 2017 and 2018. The jaguars presented furuncular myiasis caused by the human botfly Dermatobia hominis (L.) on the rear thighs and tail. This is the first record of infestation of D. hominis in P. onca in the Amazon region.

scholarly journals Blockchain Beyond Cryptocurrency: Non-Fungible Tokens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Sakız ◽  
Ayşen Hiç Gencer
Keyword(s):  
Business Models ◽  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Peer Network ◽  
Work Mechanism ◽  
Distributed Networking ◽  
Peer To Peer Network

Blockchain technology is a disruptive innovation with the potential to replace existing business models that rely on centralized systems and third parties for trust. Even if there are a lot of application areas, blockchain used primarily for cryptocurrencies. Satoshi Nakamoto implemented the first blockchain application and invented the world’s first digital currency which is named as Bitcoin in 2008. Fundementally Bitcoin relies on cryptographic “proof of work” mechanism, digital signatures, and peer to peer distributed networking layer in order to provide a distributed ledger holding transactions. In 2014, a second generation of blockchains allow to program and execute them over distributed networks such as Ethereum project. The code to program any asset stored in blockchain’s peer-to-peer network is called as "smart contract" and smart contracts gives a powerful tool to developers for decentralized applications. There are various types of tokens that anyone can built on top of Ethereum and by combining smart contracts and new tokens, this paved the way of possibility to build a wide range of decentralized projects. One of the disruptive blockchain based innovation impacting intellectual property is called non-fungible-tokens or NFTs firstly introcuced in late 2017 on Ethereum network. This research contends that blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which are cryptographically unique, scarce, non-replicable digital assets created through smart contracts and provably digital collectible assets. Our objective is to give NFT taxonomy, review NFT platforms and discuss technical challenges as well as recent advances in tackling the challenges. Moreover, this paper also aims to point out the future directions for NFT technology.

Ficção e fricção: imagens da Amazónia no cinema internacional

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana Wielewicki ◽  
Guy Amado
Keyword(s):  
Amazon Region ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
The Real ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
International Circulation ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Film Productions

Explored by foreign travellers in different periods, the Amazon rainforest has long dwelt in the imagery of western countries. This trend is naturally extended to its numerous representations in cinema, often in a stereotyped perspective, full of clichés that respond to entertainment demands or to superficial foreign curiosity. This paper proposes to analyse its presence in some feature films produced mostly (but not only) in Hollywood along the last five decades. It aims at investigating how, in mainstream cinema, the features and characteristics that are supposedly typical of the region are shown, along with the demands of the respective film narratives, and at pinpointing the inevitable mismatches that emerge when facing the complexity of the ‘continent’ that effectively constitutes the region. In genres that run from adventure to comedy, fantasy or horror, film productions have set their plots there – partially, at least, and artificially or effectively – with varying approaches and degrees of depth to the region’s peculiarities. The choice of productions with so-called commercial appeal is due to such films having greater reach and international circulation. Thus their features are interesting for their capacity of spreading such imaginary, often with a shallow or distorted bias. The present is not a precise, socio-anthropological comparison between the ‘real’ Amazon region and that which is shown on the screens as a lost tropical paradise or a ‘green inferno’, for instance, but rather to point out how the logics of entertaining may assimilate a complex and multifaceted imaginary and present it in a simplistic, schematic, one-dimensional way.

Using Blockchain for Smart Contracts

2021 ◽  
pp. 208-221
Author(s):  
Sara Jeza Alotaibi
Keyword(s):  
Current System ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Bank Management ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Modern Technologies

Today's era of globalization and digital transformation has produced many modern technologies that have influenced modern societies, blockchain being one. This chapter will set out definitions and criteria related to what blockchain is, its advantages and limitations, and its relation to the modern techniques used in the conclusion of smart contracts; and the impact of this technology on fighting administrative and financial corruption. Within this chapter, the central focus is on a new form of contracts founded as a result of the challenge of aligning the current system of the contract with the application of blockchain technology (i.e., to replace the idea of credit intermediation in dealing [notary, bank, management] with another thought based on a peer-to-peer system to increase contractual security and to establish the principle of self-implementation of the contract without the need to mediate with others).

Smart Contracts

2019 ◽  
pp. 311-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Brownsword
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
The Other ◽  
Smart Contracts ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Smart Contract ◽  
Regulatory Purpose ◽  
Business To Consumer ◽  
Covering Law ◽  
Business To Business

The main purpose of this chapter is to sketch two principal ways in which lawyers are likely to engage with new transactional technologies (such as smart contract applications of blockchain technologies), each form of engagement being characterized by its own questions and conversations. Whereas one form of engagement, ‘coherentism’, focuses on the fit between particular new technologies and the covering law of contract, the other, ‘regulatory-instrumentalism’, focuses on whether the law (relative to particular new technologies) is fit for regulatory purpose. The sketch is refined by drawing further distinctions between ‘transactionalist’ and ‘relationalist’ variants of ‘coherentism’ and ‘rule-based’ and ‘technocratic’ variants of regulatory-instrumentalism. With a view to decoding legal debates about emerging transactional technologies, this sketch is then applied to questions concerning smart contracts in, respectively, business-to-consumer, business-to-business, and peer-to-peer transactions.

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