1.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
2.
Recife
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The population of the city proper was 1,625,583 in 2016. The city is located at the confluence of the Beberibe and Capibaribe rivers before they flow into the Atlantic Ocean and it is a major port on the Atlantic Ocean. Its name is an allusion to the reefs that are present by the citys shores. The many rivers, small islands and over 50 bridges found in Recife city centre characterise its geography, as of 2010, it is the capital city with the highest HDI in Northeast Brazil and second highest HDI in the entire North and Northeast Brazil. The Metropolitan Region of Recife is the industrial zone of the State of Pernambuco, major products are those derived from cane, ships, oil platforms, electronics, software. With fiscal incentives by the government, many companies were started in the 1970s and 1980s. Recife stands out as a major tourist attraction of the Northeast, the beach of Porto de Galinhas,60 kilometers south of the city, has been repeatedly awarded the title of best beach in Brazil and has drawn many tourists. The Historic Centre of Olinda,7 kilometers north of the city, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1982, the city is an education hub, and home to the Federal University of Pernambuco, the largest university in Pernambuco. Several Brazilian historical figures, such as the poet and abolitionist Castro Alves, Recife and Natal are the only Brazilian cities with direct flights to the islands of Fernando de Noronha, a World Heritage Site. The city was one of the host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, additionally, Recife hosted the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 1950 FIFA World Cup. It was a settlement of fishermen and way station for Portuguese sailors. Olinda had been settled in 1536 by captain General Duarte Coelho, the city is named for the long reef recife running parallel to the shoreline which encloses its harbour. The reef is not as sometimes stated, a coral reef, at that time the banks of the Capibaribe River were covered by sugarcane. Recife was capital of the 17th century Dutch Brazil and was called Mauritsstad, the Mascate War of 1710-1711 pitted merchants of Recife against those of nearby Olinda. Due to the proximity to the equator, Recife weather is generally warm. Recife has a number of islands, rivers, waterways and bridges that crisscross the city, Recife is located amidst tropical forests which are distinguished by high rainfall levels resulting in poor soil quality as the rainfall washes away the nutrients. There is an absence of extreme temperatures and a cool breeze due to the winds from the Atlantic Ocean. Recife has a climate, with warm to hot temperatures
3.
Civil law (legal system)
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Conceptually, civil law proceeds from abstractions, formulates general principles, and distinguishes substantive rules from procedural rules. It holds case law to be secondary and subordinate to statutory law, when discussing civil law, one should keep in mind the conceptual difference between a statute and a codal article. The marked feature of civilian systems is that they use codes with brief text that tend to avoid factually specific scenarios, Code articles deal in generalities and thus stand at odds with statutory schemes which are often very long and very detailed. The purpose of codification is to all citizens with manners and written collection of the laws which apply to them. Law codes are simply laws enacted by a legislature, even if they are in much longer than other laws. Other major legal systems in the world include common law, Halakha, canon law, the Scandinavian systems are of a hybrid character since their background law is a mix of civil law and Scandinavian customary law and have been partially codified. Likewise, the laws of the Channel Islands are hybrids which mix Norman customary law, a prominent example of a civil-law code would be the Napoleonic Code, named after French emperor Napoleon. The Code comprises three components, the law of persons, property law, and commercial law, rather than a compendium of statutes or catalog of caselaw, the Code sets out general principles as rules of law. Unlike common law systems, civil law jurisdictions deal with case law apart from any precedent value, Civil law courts generally decide cases using codal provisions on a case-by-case basis, without reference to other judicial decisions. In actual practice, a degree of precedent is creeping into civil law jurisprudence. A line of similar case decisions, while not precedent per se, while civil law jurisdictions place little reliance on court decisions, they tend to generate a phenomenal number of reported legal opinions. However, this tends to be uncontrolled, since there is no requirement that any case be reported or published in a law report, except for the councils of state. Except for the highest courts, all publication of legal opinions are unofficial or commercial, Civil law is sometimes referred to as neo-Roman law, Romano-Germanic law or Continental law. The civil law takes as its major inspiration classical Roman law, and in particular Justinian law, the Justinian Codes doctrines provided a sophisticated model for contracts, rules of procedure, family law, wills, and a strong monarchical constitutional system. Roman law was received differently in different countries, in some it went into force wholesale by legislative act, i. e. it became positive law, whereas in others it was diffused into society by increasingly influential legal experts and scholars. Roman law continued without interruption in the Byzantine Empire until its fall in the 15th century. However, subject as it was to multiple incursions and occupations by Western European powers in the medieval period. It was first received into the Holy Roman Empire partly because it was considered imperial law and it became the basis of Scots law, though partly rivaled by received feudal Norman law
4.
Academia Brasileira de Letras
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Academia Brasileira de Letras is a Brazilian literary non-profit society established at the end of the 19th century by a group of 40 writers and poets inspired by the Académie Française. The first president, Machado de Assis, declared its foundation on December 15,1896, on July 20 of the same year, the Academy entered into operation. The Brazilian Academy of Letters is, according to its statutes, charged with the care of the language of Brazil. The Academy is considered the foremost institution devoted to the Portuguese language in Brazil, although it is not a state institution and no law grants to it oversight over the language, by its prestige and technical qualification it is the paramount authority on Brazilian Portuguese. The Academys main publication in this field is the Orthographic Vocabulary of the Portuguese Language of which there were five editions, the Vocabulary is prepared by the Academys Commission on Lexicology and Lexicography. If a word is not included in the Vocabulary, it is considered not to exist as a word in Brazilian Portuguese. The Orthographic Vocabulary, however, is not a dictionary, as it contains words and their grammatical categories, the Academy does plan to publish a full and official Dictionary of the Brazilian Academy of Letters in the future. Both the Houaiss and the Aurélio Dictionaries, however, were first compiled by members of the Academy in their private capacities, the preparation of an official dictionary of the Portuguese language is a stated goal of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. The Academy is composed to this day of 40 members, known as immortals, chosen from among the citizens of Brazil, the position of immortal is awarded for the recipients lifetime. New members are admitted by a vote of the Academy members when one of the chairs become vacant, the academicians use formal gala gilded uniforms with a sword when participating in official meetings of the Academy. The Academy, which was a purely male affair until the election of novelist Rachel de Queiroz in 1977 for chair No. 5, now has four members, one of which, Nélida Piñon. The Academy, thanks to revenues in excess of $4 million a year, is financially stable and it owns a skyscraper with 28 floors, in the center of Rio, which the Academy rents for office space, generating 70% of its current revenue. The rest comes from rental of other buildings, which were legated by book editor Francisco Alves, in 1917 and this comfortable situation allows for paying a jeton to each academician. The ABL is located just by its side, in a neoclassical building and it was donated by the government of France in 1923 and is so named because it is a copy of the Petit Trianon palace in Versailles, near Paris, France. It has recently inaugurated one of the largest public libraries in Rio, with 90,000 volumes, sometimes, an extraordinary commemorative prize is also awarded, such as the José Lins do Rego prize, in 2001, and the Afonso Arinos prize, in 2005. The Academy also publishes a periodical, the Brazilian Review
5.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
6.
Brazilian Academy of Letters
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Academia Brasileira de Letras is a Brazilian literary non-profit society established at the end of the 19th century by a group of 40 writers and poets inspired by the Académie Française. The first president, Machado de Assis, declared its foundation on December 15,1896, on July 20 of the same year, the Academy entered into operation. The Brazilian Academy of Letters is, according to its statutes, charged with the care of the language of Brazil. The Academy is considered the foremost institution devoted to the Portuguese language in Brazil, although it is not a state institution and no law grants to it oversight over the language, by its prestige and technical qualification it is the paramount authority on Brazilian Portuguese. The Academys main publication in this field is the Orthographic Vocabulary of the Portuguese Language of which there were five editions, the Vocabulary is prepared by the Academys Commission on Lexicology and Lexicography. If a word is not included in the Vocabulary, it is considered not to exist as a word in Brazilian Portuguese. The Orthographic Vocabulary, however, is not a dictionary, as it contains words and their grammatical categories, the Academy does plan to publish a full and official Dictionary of the Brazilian Academy of Letters in the future. Both the Houaiss and the Aurélio Dictionaries, however, were first compiled by members of the Academy in their private capacities, the preparation of an official dictionary of the Portuguese language is a stated goal of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. The Academy is composed to this day of 40 members, known as immortals, chosen from among the citizens of Brazil, the position of immortal is awarded for the recipients lifetime. New members are admitted by a vote of the Academy members when one of the chairs become vacant, the academicians use formal gala gilded uniforms with a sword when participating in official meetings of the Academy. The Academy, which was a purely male affair until the election of novelist Rachel de Queiroz in 1977 for chair No. 5, now has four members, one of which, Nélida Piñon. The Academy, thanks to revenues in excess of $4 million a year, is financially stable and it owns a skyscraper with 28 floors, in the center of Rio, which the Academy rents for office space, generating 70% of its current revenue. The rest comes from rental of other buildings, which were legated by book editor Francisco Alves, in 1917 and this comfortable situation allows for paying a jeton to each academician. The ABL is located just by its side, in a neoclassical building and it was donated by the government of France in 1923 and is so named because it is a copy of the Petit Trianon palace in Versailles, near Paris, France. It has recently inaugurated one of the largest public libraries in Rio, with 90,000 volumes, sometimes, an extraordinary commemorative prize is also awarded, such as the José Lins do Rego prize, in 2001, and the Afonso Arinos prize, in 2005. The Academy also publishes a periodical, the Brazilian Review
7.
Adelino Fontoura
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Adelino Fontoura Chaves was a Brazilian poet, actor and journalist. He is the patron of the 1st chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Adelino Fontoura was born in the city of Axixá, in Maranhão, to Antônio Fontoura Chaves and Francisca Dias Fontoura. Since as a child, he would have a strong friendship with future author Artur Azevedo. Moving to Recife, he would work at the satirical journal Os Xênios, returning to Maranhão, he initiated his artistical career, performing in a play that would make him arrested. After this incident, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and he tried the artistic and the journalistic career, failing in the first one. After the Gazeta da Tarde was bought by José do Patrocínio, already very sick, his situation got worse due to the harsh French winter, what made him move to Lisbon in an unsuccessful attempt to get better. He died with only 25 years, without publishing any book, as mentioned above, Fontouras work is very sparse, as he did not published anything during his lifetime. Attempts of compiling his poetry were made during the 1940s and 1950s by Múcio Leão and his most well-known poem is the sonnet Celeste. Works by Fontoura at the site of the Brazilian Academy of Letters Fontouras biography at the official site of the Brazilian Academy of Letters
