1.
States of Brazil
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The Federative Republic of Brazil is a union of 27 Federative Units,26 states and one federal district, where the federal capital, Brasília, is located. The states are based on historical, conventional borders which have developed over time. The Federal District is not formally a state, but shares some characteristics of a state as well as some of a municipality, the codes given below are defined in ISO 3166-2, BR. The first administrative divisions of Brazil were the hereditary captaincies, stretches of land granted by the Portuguese Crown to noblemen or merchants with a charter to colonize the land, as the map shows, these divisions generally followed lines of latitude. Each of the holders of these captaincies was referred to as a captain donatary and these captaincies were to be passed from father to son, but the Crown retained the power to revoke them, which the King indeed did in the 16th century. In 1549, the Portuguese Crown appointed Tomé de Sousa as the first governor-general of the vast Portuguese dominion in South America and this dominion overall became known as the State of Brazil. In several periods of history, the half of the dominion was detached from the State of Brazil. Unlike Spanish America, the territory remained united under a single governor-general. This arrangement later helped to keep Brazil as a unified nation-state, in 1759, the heritability of the captaincies was totally abolished by the government of the Marquis of Pombal, with all captains becoming appointed by the Crown. The captaincies were officially renamed provinces on 28 February 1821, with independence, in 1822, the former captaincies became provinces of the Empire of Brazil. Most internal boundaries were unchanged from the colonial period, generally following natural features such as rivers. Minor changes were made to domestic politics, as well as additions resulting from diplomatic settlement of territorial disputes by the end of the 19th century. When Brazil became a republic in 1889, all provinces immediately became states, after the war, the first four territories became states, with Rio Branco and Guaporé being renamed Roraima and Rondônia, respectively, whilst Ponta Porã and Iguaçu remained as territories. In 1960, the square-shaped Distrito Federal was carved out of Goiás in preparation for the new capital, Brasília. The previous federal district became Guanabara State, but in 1975 it was merged with Rio de Janeiro State, retaining its name, in 1977, Mato Grosso was split into two states. The northern area retained the name Mato Grosso while the area became the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The new Mato Grosso do Sul incorporated the territory of Ponta Porã, central Iguaçu went to Paraná, and southern Iguaçu went to Santa Catarina. In 1988, the portion of Goiás became the state of Tocantins
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
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
4.
Capital (political)
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A capital city is the municipality exercising primary status in a country, state, province, or other region, usually as its seat of government. A capital is typically a city that encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government. In some jurisdictions, including countries, the different branches of government are located in different settlements. In some cases, a distinction is made between the capital and the seat of government, which is in another place. The word capital derives from the Latin caput, meaning head, in several English-speaking states, the terms county town, county seat, and borough seat are also used in lower subdivisions. In unitary states, subnational capitals are known as administrative centres. The capital is often, but not necessarily, the largest city of its constituent, historically, the major economic centre of a state or region often becomes the focal point of political power, and becomes a capital through conquest or federation. Examples are Ancient Babylon, Abbasid Baghdad, Ancient Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Changan, Ancient Cusco, Madrid, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Vienna, and Berlin. Some of these cities are or were also religious centres, e. g. Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Ancient Babylon, Moscow, Belgrade, Paris, and Peking. A capital city that is also the economic, cultural. The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal, traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, e. g. Nanking by Shanghai, Quebec City by Montreal, and numerous US state capitals. The decline of a dynasty or culture could also mean the extinction of its city, as occurred at Babylon. Although many capitals are defined by constitution or legislation, many long-time capitals have no legal designation as such, for example Bern, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Paris, are located in or near them. In Canada, there is a capital, while the ten provinces. The states of such countries as Mexico, Brazil, and Australia all have capital cities, for example, the six state capitals of Australia are Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. In Australia, the capital cities is regularly used, to refer to the aforementioned state capitals plus the federal capital Canberra and Darwin. Abu Dhabi is the city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In unitary states which consist of multiple constituent countries, such as the United Kingdom or the Kingdom of Denmark, the national capitals of Germany and Russia, the Stadtstaat of Berlin and the Federal City of Moscow, are also constituent states of both countries in their own right
5.
Teresina
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Teresina is the capital and most populous municipality in the Brazilian state of Piauí. Being located in North-central Piauí366 km from the coast, it is the capital in the Brazilian Northeast that is not located on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. With 814,439 inhabitants, Teresina is the 19th largest city in Brazil, and the 15th largest state capital in the country. Together with Timon in the state of Maranhão, it forms a conurbation with a population of about 953,172 inhabitants. The only natural barrier that separates Teresina from Timon is the Parnaíba river, Teresina is the second capital with the best quality of life in the North-Northeast according to FIRJAN. According to IPEA it is the third safest capital of Brazil and its motto is the Latin phrase Omnia in Charitatis, which means, in English, All for charity. The city is the birthplace of, among the others, Torquato Neto and its Cathedral Catedral Metropolitana Nossa Senhora das Dores, dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, is the archiepiscopal see of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Teresina. Teresina was founded on August 16,1852 under the name of Vila Nova do Poty as the capital of the state of Piauí and it was the first planned city in the Brazil and the only northeast capital located out of the coast. The colonization of the place where Teresina is now located dates back to the 18th century, the chosen place was a small community of fishermen, in 1760, nearby Poty and Panaíba rivers. In the 19th century, it was initially called Vila Nova do Poty, but later the city was renamed Teresina, in honor of the Empress Teresa Cristina, Teresina is the hottest city in the country and the third city with the major incidence of lightning in the world. Nowadays, Teresina’s economy is based on manufacturing industries and trade. Parque Zoobotânico, a zoo with animals of the Brazilian fauna. Igreja de São Benedito, the main Catholic church of the city Museu do Piaui, with elements of the history of Teresina and of Piauí in general, including antiques, furniture. Teresina is located near the border with the state of Maranhão, on the western border, the city is separated from the city of Timon by the Parnaíba River. The town is situated between the Poti River and the Parnaíba River, in the northern city, the two rivers join and flow toward the Atlantic Ocean, an environmental park with gazebos is located nearby. Teresina is the largest capital in the territorial extension, with 1.755,698 km². In the region there are remnants of Teresina Atlantic Forest. Teresina has a wet and dry climate with two seasons with semi-humid characteristics, the rainy season and the dry season
6.
Workers' Party (Brazil)
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The Workers Party is a political party in Brazil. Launched in 1980, it is one of the largest left-wing movements of Latin America and it governed at the federal level in a coalition government with several other parties from January 1,2003 until August 2016. After the 2002 parliamentary election, PT became the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, Lula, the President with the highest approval rating in the history of the country, is PTs most prominent member. His successor, Dilma Rousseff, is also a member of PT, the partys symbols are the red flag with a white star in the center, the five-pointed red star, inscribed with the initials PT in the center, and the Workers Partys anthem. Workers Partys TSE Identification Number is 13, both parties generally prohibit any kind of coalition or official cooperation with each other. Dilma Rousseff herself was imprisoned and tortured by the dictatorship, the party was launched under a democratic socialism trend. It represented the confluence between unionism and anti-Stalinist intelligentsia and it was officially recognized as a party by the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court on February 11,1982. The first membership card belonged to art critic and former Trotskyst activist Mário Pedrosa, followed by literary scholar Antonio Candido, holandas daughter, Ana de Holanda, later became Minister of Culture in the Rousseff cabinet. This winning streak culminated with the victory of its candidate, Lula in 2002. PSDB, for its defense of economic liberalism, is the main electoral rival, as well as the Democrats, heir of the National Renewal Alliance Party. Along with the Socialist Peoples Party, a dissidence of the Brazilian Communist Party,1989 presidential elections In the 1989 general elections, Lula surprisingly went to the second round with Fernando Collor de Mello. 7%. 1994 and 1998 general elections Leading up to the 1994 general elections, as a result, centrist and right-wing parties openly united for Fernando Henrique Cardosos candidacy. Cardoso, as Minister of Economy, created the Real Plan, as a result, Cardoso won the election in the first round with 54% of the votes. However, it has noted that the elections were not a complete disaster for PT. Cardoso would be re-elected in 1998, however, Lulas record was surpassed by George W. Bush and Barack Obama. 2006 general elections On October 29,2006, the Workers Party won 83 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 11 seats in the Senate, Lula was re-elected with more than 60% of the votes, extending his position as President of Brazil until January 1,2011. The Workers Party is now the second largest party in the Chamber of Deputies, the fourth largest party in the Senate, however, it only gained control of one among the ten richest states. 2010 general elections In the 2010 general elections, held on October 3, PT gained control of 17. 15% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies, with 88 seats gained, it became the largest party in the lower chamber for the first time ever
7.
Federal Senate
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The Federal Senate is the upper house of the National Congress of Brazil. Created by the first Constitution of the Brazilian Empire in 1824, since the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 the Federal Senate has resembled the United States Senate. Currently, the Senate comprises 81 seats, three Senators from each of the 26 states and three Senators from the Federal District are elected on a majority basis to serve eight-year terms. Elections are staggered so that two-thirds of the house is up for election at one time. The candidate in each State and the Federal District who achieve the greatest plurality of votes are elected, the current president of the Brazilian Senate is Eunício Oliveira, from the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party of Ceará. He was elected in early 2017 for a two-year term, the Federal Senate of Brazil was established as the Senate of the Empire by the Constitution of 1824, first enacted after the Declaration of Independence. Following independence, in 1822, Emperor Pedro I ordered the convocation of a National Assembly to draft the countrys first Constitution, following several disagreements with the elected deputies, the Emperor dissolved the Assembly. In 1824, Pedro I implemented the first Constitution which established a Legislative branch with the Chamber of Deputies as the house. The first configuration of the Senate was a body to the Emperor. Membership was for life and it was a place of great prestige, members of the Senate were elected, but they had to be at least 40 years old and have an annual income of 800,000 contos-de-réis, which limited candidates to wealthy citizens. Voters also faced an income qualification, voting in an election for the Senate was limited to male citizens with an annual income of at least 200,000 contos-de-réis. Those who qualified for this did not vote directly for Senators, instead, to be a Senate elector required an annual income of 400,000 contos-de-réis. Once elected, these electors would vote for senator. The election itself would not result in a winner automatically, the three candidates receiving the most votes would make up what was called a triple list, from which the Emperor would select one individual that would be considered elected. The Emperor usually chose the candidate with the most votes, the unelected Princes of the Brazilian Imperial House were senators by right and would assume their seats in the Senate upon reaching age 25. The original Senate had 50 members, representing all of the Empires Provinces, following the adoption of the 1824 Constitution the first session of the Senate took place in May 1826. The Emperor had repeatedly delayed calling the first election, which had led to accusations that he would attempt to establish an absolutist government
8.
Demonym
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A demonym is a word that identifies residents or natives of a particular place, which is derived from the name of that particular place. It is a neologism, previously gentilic was recorded in English dictionaries, e. g. the Oxford English Dictionary, thus a Thai may be any resident or citizen of Thailand, of any ethnic group, or more narrowly a member of the Thai people. Conversely, some groups of people may be associated with multiple demonyms, for example, a native of the United Kingdom may be called a British person, a Brit, or a Briton. In some languages, when a parallel demonym does not exist, in English, demonyms are capitalized and are often the same as the adjectival form of the place, e. g. Egyptian, Japanese, or Greek. Significant exceptions exist, for instance the adjectival form of Spain is Spanish, English widely includes country-level demonyms such as Ethiopian or Guatemalan and more local demonyms such as Seoulite, Wisconsinite, Chicagoan, Michigander, Fluminense, and Paulista. Some places lack a commonly used and accepted demonym and this poses a particular challenge to those toponymists who research demonyms. The word gentilic comes from the Latin gentilis and the English suffix -ic, the word demonym was derived from the Greek word meaning populace with the suffix for name. National Geographic attributes the term demonym to Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson in a recent work from 1990 and it was subsequently popularized in this sense in 1997 by Dickson in his book Labels for Locals. However, in What Do You Call a Person From, a Dictionary of Resident Names attributed the term to George H. Scheetz, in his Names Names, A Descriptive and Prescriptive Onymicon, which is apparently where the term first appears. Several linguistic elements are used to create demonyms in the English language, the most common is to add a suffix to the end of the location name, slightly modified in some instances. Cairo → Cairene Cyrenaica → Cyrene Damascus → Damascene Greece → Greek Nazareth → Nazarene Slovenia → Slovene Often used for Middle Eastern locations and European locations. Kingston-upon-Hull → Hullensian Leeds → Leodensian Spain → Spaniard Savoy → Savoyard -ese is usually considered proper only as an adjective, thus, a Chinese person is used rather than a Chinese. Monaco → Monégasque Menton → Mentonasque Basque Country → Basque Often used for French locations, mostly they are from Africa and the Pacific, and are not generally known or used outside the country concerned. In much of East Africa, a person of an ethnic group will be denoted by a prefix. For example, a person of the Luba people would be a Muluba, the plural form Baluba, similar patterns with minor variations in the prefixes exist throughout on a tribal level. And Fijians who are indigenous Fijians are known as Kaiviti and these demonyms are usually more informal and colloquial. In the United States such informal demonyms frequently become associated with mascots of the sports teams of the state university system. In other countries the origins are often disputed and these will typically be formed using the standard models above
9.
Gross domestic product
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Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
10.
Human Development Index
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The Human Development Index is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. A country scores higher HDI when the lifespan is higher, the level is higher. The 2010 Human Development Report introduced an Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, while the simple HDI remains useful, it stated that the IHDI is the actual level of human development, and the HDI can be viewed as an index of potential human development. The origins of the HDI are found in the annual Human Development Reports produced by the Human Development Reports Office of the United Nations Development Programme, nobel laureate Amartya Sen, utilized Haqs work in his own work on human capabilities. The following three indices are used,1, Life Expectancy Index = LE −2085 −20 LEI is 1 when Life expectancy at birth is 85 and 0 when Life expectancy at birth is 20. Education Index = MYSI + EYSI22.1 Mean Years of Schooling Index = MYS15 Fifteen is the maximum of this indicator for 2025. 2.2 Expected Years of Schooling Index = EYS18 Eighteen is equivalent to achieving a degree in most countries. Income Index = ln − ln ln − ln II is 1 when GNI per capita is $75,000 and 0 when GNI per capita is $100. Finally, the HDI is the mean of the previous three normalized indices, HDI = LEI ⋅ EI ⋅ II3. Standard of living, as indicated by the logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. This methodology was used by the UNDP until their 2011 report, the formula defining the HDI is promulgated by the United Nations Development Programme. The 2016 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on March 21,2017, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2015 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. The rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data. Countries in the top quartile of HDI with a missing IHDI, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Brunei, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Andorra, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. The 2015 Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme was released on December 14,2015, below is the list of the very high human development countries, = increase. The number in brackets represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in the 2014 report, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is a measure of the average level of human development of people in a society once inequality is taken into account. Note, The green arrows, red arrows, and blue dashes represent changes in rank, the rankings are not relative to the HDI list above due to the exclusion of countries which are missing IHDI data
11.
Time in Brazil
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Time in Brazil is calculated using standard time, and the country is divided into four standard time zones, UTC−02,00, UTC−03,00, UTC−04,00 and UTC−05,00. Only part of the country observes daylight saving time, or summer time and these areas are the Southern, Southeast and Central-Western Brazilian states. This is the time zone only on a few small offshore Atlantic islands. The only such island with a permanent population is Fernando de Noronha, the other islands either are totally uninhabited or have small seasonally rotating Brazilian Navy garrisons or teams of scientists. This zone is at UTC−02,00 and it not use daylight saving time. The main time zone of Brazil corresponds to the time at the capital city. All the other zones are given as offsets to it. In addition to the Federal District, it comprises the states in the Southeast Region, the South Region, the small islands mentioned above are excepted. Almost 94% of the Brazilian population live in time zone. Outside of summer time, it corresponds to UTC−03,00, during summer time, it changes to UTC−02,00, but this change is not followed by Northern and Northeastern states. Outside of summer time, this time zone corresponds to UTC−04,00, during time, it changes to UTC−03,00. This time zone is used in the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rondônia, Roraima, although this time zone covers about 34% of the land area of Brazil, little more than 5% of the countrys population live there. Until 2008, the areas of the state of Pará west of the Xingu River and north of the Amazon River were also part of time zone. Although other changes to Brazilian time zones enacted at that time have since been reverted and this time zone was reinstated in 2013, after having been abolished for over five years. It is used in the tip of the country, which includes the entire state of Acre. These areas cover only about 6% of the Brazilian territory and have only about 0. 5% of the countrys population, on 24 June 2008, these areas advanced their clocks by an hour, so that they became part of the UTC−04,00 time zone. However, in a referendum held on 31 October 2010. On 30 October 2013, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff enacted Law 12876, since then, the state of Acre and 13 municipalities in the southwestern part of the state of Amazonas are again 5 hours behind UTC
12.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
13.
Northeast Region, Brazil
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The Northeast Region of Brazil is one of the five official and political regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. For the socio-geographic area see Nordeste, of Brazils twenty-six states, it comprises nine, Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, along with the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. Chiefly known as Nordeste in Brazil, this region was the first to be discovered and colonized by the Portuguese and other European peoples, Nordestes dialects and rich culture, including its folklore, cuisines, music and literature, became the most easily distinguishable across the country. To this day, Nordeste is widely recognized for its history and culture, Nordeste stretches from the Atlantic seaboard in the northeast and southeast, northwest and west to the Amazon Basin and south through the Espinhaço highlands in southern Bahia. It encloses the São Francisco River and drainage basin, which were instrumental in the exploration, settlement, the region lies entirely within the earths tropical zone and encompasses Caatinga, Atlantic Forest and part of the Cerrado ecoregions. The climate is hot and semi-arid, varying from xeric in Caatinga, to mesic in Cerrado and hydric in the Atlantic Forest. The Northeast Region represents 18% of Brazilian territory, has a population of 53.6 million people, 28% of the population of the country. Nearly three quarters of the live in urban areas clustered along the Atlantic coast and about 15 million people live in the hinterland. It is a region, 58% of the population lives in poverty. Nordeste has nine international airports, and the region has the second largest number of passengers in Brazil, the Zona da Mata comprises the rainsforest zones of Nordeste in the humid eastern coast, where the regions largest capital cities are also located. The forest area was larger before suffering from centuries of deforestation and exploration. For many years, sugar cultivation in this region was the mainstay of Brazils economy. The sugar cane is cultivated on large estates and the owners of these had, since the escarpment does not generate any further rainfall on its slopes from the lifting of the trade winds, annual rainfall decreases steadily inland. After a relatively short distance, there is no longer enough rainfall to tropical rainforest. This transitional zone is known as the agreste and because it is located on the escarpment, was not generally used whilst flatter land was abundant. In Portuguese, the word sertão first referred to the vast hinterlands of Asia, in Brazil, the geographical term referred to backlands away from the Atlantic coastal regions where the Portuguese first settled in South America in the early sixteenth century. Geographically, the Sertão consists mainly of low uplands that form part of the Brazilian Highlands, in the north, the Sertão extends to the northern coastal plains of Rio Grande do Norte state, whilst in the south it fades out in the northern fringe of Minas Gerais. Because the Sertão lies close to the equator, temperatures remain nearly uniform throughout the year and are typically tropical, however, the sertão is distinctive in its low rainfall compared to other areas of Brazil
14.
National park
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A national park is a park in use for conservation purposes. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns, although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea, the conservation of wild nature for posterity and as a symbol of national pride. An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, although Yellowstone was not officially termed a national park in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world. The first area to use national park in its legislation was the USs Mackinac Island. Australias Royal National Park, established in 1879, was the third official national park. In 1895 ownership of Mackinac Island was transferred to the State of Michigan as a state park, as a result, Australias Royal National Park is by some considerations the second oldest national park now in existence. The largest national park in the meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park. According to the IUCN,6,555 national parks worldwide met its criteria in 2006, IUCN is still discussing the parameters of defining a national park. National parks are almost always open to visitors, in 1971, these criteria were further expanded upon leading to more clear and defined benchmarks to evaluate a national park. In 1810, the English poet William Wordsworth described the Lake District as a sort of property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive. It was known as Hot Springs Reservation, but no authority was established. Federal control of the area was not clearly established until 1877, John Muir is today referred to as the Father of the National Parks due to his work in Yosemite. He published two articles in The Century Magazine, which formed the base for the subsequent legislation. President Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on July 1,1864, ceding the Yosemite Valley, according to this bill, private ownership of the land in this area was no longer possible. The state of California was designated to manage the park for use, resort. Leases were permitted for up to ten years and the proceeds were to be used for conservation, a public discussion followed this first legislation of its kind and there was a heated debate over whether the government had the right to create parks. The perceived mismanagement of Yosemite by the Californian state was the reason why Yellowstone at its establishment six years later was put under national control, in 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the United States first national park, being also the worlds first national park. In some European countries, however, national protection and nature reserves already existed, such as Drachenfels, Yellowstone was part of a federally governed territory
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Serra da Capivara National Park
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Serra da Capivara National Park is a national park in the Northeastern region of Brazil. The area has many prehistoric paintings and it is located in northeast state of Piauí, between latitudes 8°2650 and 8°5423 south and longitudes 42°1947 and 42°4551 west. It falls within the areas of São Raimundo Nonato, São João do Piauí, Coronel José Dias. It has an area of 1291.4 square kilometres, the Capivara-Confusões Ecological Corridor, created in 2006, links the park to the Serra das Confusões National Park. The park was created to protect the artifacts and paintings found there. It became a World Heritage Site in 1991 and its head archaeologist is Niède Guidon. Its best known site is Pedra Furada. This area has the largest concentration of sites in the Americas. Scientific studies confirm that the Capivara mountain range was densely populated in the pre-Columbian Era, a newer site is Toca da Tira Peia, where the stone tools found may date to as early as 22,000 years ago. The site has been dated through optically stimulated luminescence, other important archaeological sites in the area are Toca da Pena, Baxao da Esperanca, and Sitio do Meio. Lapa do Boquete site is located directly south, Sitio do Meio is the second most important rock shelter in the area after Pedra Furada. It features fully Pleistocene dates and artefacts, the stone artefacts are better preserved because of the absence of waterfalls here. At least 98 stone tools seem older than 12,500 BP and they belong to the Upper Pleistocenic phase of Pedra Furada 3. Niède Guidon Cavernas do Peruaçu Environmental Protection Area Eric Boëda, et al. Les Industries pléistocènes du Piaui
16.
UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
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Rock art
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In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural stone, it is largely synonymous with parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout history, although the majority of rock art that has been ethnographically recorded has been produced as a part of ritual. Such artworks are often divided into three forms, petroglyphs, which are carved into the surface, pictographs, which are painted onto the surface. The oldest known rock art dates from the Upper Palaeolithic period, having found in Europe, Australia, Asia. Archaeologists studying these artworks believe that they likely had magico-religious significance, Rock art continues to be of importance to indigenous peoples in various parts of the world, who view them as both sacred items and significant components of their cultural patrimony. Such archaeological sites are significant sources of cultural tourism, and have been utilised in popular culture for their aesthetic qualities. Normally found in cultures, a rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on solid or living rock such as a cliff. They are a category of art, and sometimes found in conjunction with rock-cut architecture. However, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, a few such works exploit the natural contours of the rock and use them to define an image, but they do not amount to man-made reliefs. Rock reliefs have been made in many cultures, and were important in the art of the Ancient Near East. Rock reliefs are generally large, as they need to be to make an impact in the open air. Most have figures that are over life-size, and in many the figures are multiples of life-size, the vertical relief is most common, but reliefs on essentially horizontal surfaces are also found. The term typically excludes relief carvings inside caves, whether natural or themselves man-made, natural rock formations made into statues or other sculpture in the round, most famously at the Great Sphinx of Giza, are also usually excluded. Reliefs on large boulders left in their location, like the Hittite İmamkullu relief, are likely to be included. The term rock art appears in the literature as early as the 1940s. It has also described as rock carvings, rock drawings, rock engravings, rock inscriptions, rock paintings, rock pictures. The defining characteristic of rock art is that it is placed on natural rock surfaces, as such, rock art is a form of landscape art, and includes designs that have been placed on boulder and cliff faces, cave walls and ceilings, and on the ground surface
18.
Canyon
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A canyon or gorge is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from the erosive activity of a river over geologic timescales. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps. Usually a river or stream and erosion carve out such splits between mountains, examples of mountain-type canyons are Provo Canyon in Utah or Yosemite National Park in Californias Sierra Nevada. Canyons within mountains, or gorges that have an opening on one side are called box canyons. Slot canyons are very narrow canyons, often with smooth walls, steep-sided valleys in the seabed of the continental slope underwater are referred to as submarine canyons. Unlike canyons on land, submarine canyons are thought to be formed by turbidity currents, the word canyon is Spanish in origin, with the same meaning. The word canyon is used in North America while the words gorge and ravine are used in Europe and Oceania, though gorge. In the United States, place names generally use canyon in the southwest and gorge in the northeast, in Canada, a gorge is usually narrow while a ravine is more open and often wooded. The military-derived word defile is occasionally used in the United Kingdom, most canyons were formed by a process of long-time erosion from a plateau or table-land level. The cliffs form because harder rock strata that are resistant to erosion, Canyons are much more common in arid than in wet areas because physical weathering has a more localized effect in arid zones. The wind and water from the combine to erode and cut away less resistant materials such as shales. The freezing and expansion of water also serves to help form canyons, water seeps into cracks between the rocks and freezes, pushing the rocks apart and eventually causing large chunks to break off the canyon walls, in a process known as frost wedging. Canyon walls are formed of resistant sandstones or granite. Sometimes large rivers run through canyons as the result of geological uplift. These are called entrenched rivers, because they are unable to alter their course. In the United States, the Colorado River in the Southwest, Canyons often form in areas of limestone rock. As limestone is soluble to an extent, cave systems form in the rock. When these collapse, a canyon is left, as in the Mendip Hills in Somerset and Yorkshire Dales in Yorkshire, England
19.
Caatinga
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Caatinga is a type of desert vegetation, and an ecoregion characterized by this vegetation in interior northeastern Brazil. The name Caatinga is a Tupi word meaning white forest or white vegetation, Caatinga is a xeric shrubland and thorn forest, which consists primarily of small, thorny trees that shed their leaves seasonally. Cacti, thick-stemmed plants, thorny brush, and arid-adapted grasses make up the ground layer, many annual plants grow, flower, and die during the brief rainy season. Caatinga falls entirely within earths Tropical zone and is one of 6 major ecoregions of Brazil, including the Amazon Basin, Pantanal, Cerrado, Caatinga, Atlantic Forest and it covers 850,000 km², nearly 10% of Brazils territory. It is home to 26 million people and more than 2000 species of plants, fishes, reptiles, amphibians, birds. Caatinga covers the portion of northeastern Brazil bordering the Atlantic seaboard. The Caatinga includes several enclaves of humid tropical forest, known as the Caatinga enclaves moist forests, the Caatinga comprises 850,000 km², about 10% of the surface area of Brazil. By comparison, it is nine times the surface area of Portugal, whence came its early European settlers. The Caatinga has only two distinguishable seasons and these are the winter, when it is very hot and dry, and the summer when it is hot and rainy. During the dry periods there is no foliage or undergrowth. The vegetation is dry and the roots begin to protrude through the surface of the stony soil. They do this in order to water before it is evaporated. All leaves fall off the trees to reduce transpiration, thus lessening the amount of water that is lost in the dry season, during the peak periods of drought the Caatingas soil can reach temperatures of up to 60 °C. With all the foliage and undergrowth dead during the periods and all the trees having no leaves the Caatinga has a yellow-grey. The Caatinga is very dry place in Brazil, with frequent droughts, the drought usually ends in December or January, when the rainy season starts. Immediately after the first rains, the grey, desert-like landscape starts to transform, small plants start growing in the now moist soil and trees grow back their leaves. At this time, the rivers that were dry during the past 6 or 7 months, start to fill up. The Caatinga is poorly represented in the Brazilian Conservation Area network, with only 1% in Integral Protection Conservation Areas, Caatinga harbors a unique biota, with thousands of endemic species
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Indigenous peoples in Brazil
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Unlike Christopher Columbus, who thought he had reached the East Indies, the Portuguese, most notably Vasco da Gama, had already reached India via the Indian Ocean route when they reached Brazil. At the time of European contact, some of the people were traditionally mostly semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering. The indigenous population was killed by European diseases, declining from a pre-Columbian high of millions to some 300,000. However, the number could be higher if the urban indigenous populations are counted in all the Brazilian cities today. A somewhat dated linguistic survey found 188 living indigenous languages with 155,000 total speakers, on January 18,2007, FUNAI reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. With this addition Brazil has now surpassed New Guinea as the country having the largest number of uncontacted people, in the last IBGE census,817,000 Brazilians classified themselves as indigenous. Questions about the settlement of the Americas has produced a number of hypothetical models. The origins of indigenous people are still a matter of dispute among archaeologists. A migrant wave would have some time after initial entry to reach present-day Brazil. An analysis of Amerindian Y-chromosome DNA indicates specific clustering of much of the South American population, according to an autosomal genetic study from 2012, Native Americans descend of at least three main migrant waves from East Asia. Most of it is traced back to an ancestral population. However, those who speak Inuit languages from the Arctic inherited almost half of their ancestry from a second East Asian migrant wave, and those who speak Na-dene, on the other hand, inherited a tenth of their ancestry from a third migrant wave. The initial settling of the Americas was followed by a rapid expansion southwards, by the coast, with gene flow later. One exception to this are the Chibcha speakers, whose ancestry comes from both North and South America, linguistic studies have backed up genetic studies, with ancient patterns having been found between the languages spoken in Siberia and those spoken in the Americas. Two 2015 autosomal DNA genetic studies confirmed the Siberian origins of the Natives of the Americas, however an ancient signal of shared ancestry with the Natives of Australia and Melanesia was detected among the Natives of the Amazon region. The migration coming out of Siberia would have happened 23000 years ago, following a rapid movement throughout the Americas, limited gene flow in South America resulted in a marked phylogeographic structure of populations, which persisted through time. All of the ancient mitochondrial lineages detected in this study were absent from modern data sets, to investigate this further, we applied a novel principal components multiple logistic regression test to Bayesian serial coalescent simulations. The analysis supported a scenario in which European colonization caused a loss of pre-Columbian lineages
21.
Domingos Jorge Velho
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Domingos Jorge Velho was one of the most fierce and effective Portuguese bandeirantes. He was born in Santana de Parnaíba, captaincy of São Paulo, to Francisco Jorge Velho and he was responsible for the repression of several indigenous nations in Bahia and especially Piauí, which he is reputed to have been the first colonist to explore. His greater fame, however, is due to his conquest of the Quilombo dos Palmares, in the hinterland of Alagoas, on behalf of João da Cunha Souto Maior, governor of Pernambuco. Velho accepted the assignment and, in 1694, with an army of Indians and mamelucos, European Native American offspring, overran the city of Macacos. According to the bishop of Olinda at the time, he did not speak Portuguese fluently but rather the língua geral, Velho is reputed to have had several Indian concubines, but only married in old age. He died in Piancó, captaincy of Paraíba and his uncle of the same name was married to Izabel Pires de Monteiro, the Captain Salvador Jorge Velho and Simão Jorge Velho were born out of this union. Franco, Francisco de Assis Carvalho, Dicionário de Bandeirantes e Sertanistas do Brasil, São Paulo University, São Paulo, Ed Itatiaia, Belo Horizonte
22.
Society of Jesus
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The Society of Jesus Latin, Societas Iesu, S. J. SJ or SI) is a religious congregation of the Catholic Church which originated in Spain. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents, Jesuits work in education, intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, and promote social justice, Ignatius of Loyola founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, ignatiuss plan of the orders organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by a bull containing the Formula of the Institute. Ignatius was a nobleman who had a background, and the members of the society were supposed to accept orders anywhere in the world. The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and, later, in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, the Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General. The Society of Jesus on October 3,2016 announced that Superior General Adolfo Nicolás resignation was officially accepted, on October 14, the 36th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus elected Father Arturo Sosa as its thirty-first Superior General. The headquarters of the society, its General Curia, is in Rome, the historic curia of St. Ignatius is now part of the Collegio del Gesù attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit Mother Church. In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first Jesuit Pope, the Jesuits today form the largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church. As of 1 January 2015, Jesuits numbered 16,740,11,986 clerics regular,2,733 scholastics,1,268 brothers and 753 novices. In 2012, Mark Raper S. J. wrote, Our numbers have been in decline for the last 40 years—from over 30,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 18,000 today. The steep declines in Europe and North America and consistent decline in Latin America have not been offset by the significant increase in South Asia, the Society is divided into 83 Provinces with six Independent Regions and ten Dependent Regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and their average age was 57.3 years,63.4 years for priests,29.9 years for scholastics, and 65.5 years for brothers. The current Superior General of the Jesuits is Arturo Sosa, the Society is characterized by its ministries in the fields of missionary work, human rights, social justice and, most notably, higher education. It operates colleges and universities in countries around the world and is particularly active in the Philippines. In the United States it maintains 28 colleges and universities and 58 high schools and he ensured that his formula was contained in two papal bulls signed by Pope Paul III in 1540 and by Pope Julius III in 1550. The formula expressed the nature, spirituality, community life and apostolate of the new religious order, the meeting is now commemorated in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, Montmartre
23.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
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The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas and their descendants. The term Amerindian is used in Quebec, the Guianas, Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans or American Indians, and Alaska Natives. Application of the term Indian originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for Asia, eventually, the Americas came to be known as the West Indies, a name still used to refer to the islands of the Caribbean Sea. This led to the blanket term Indies and Indians for the indigenous inhabitants, although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time, although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and empires. Many parts of the Americas are still populated by peoples, some countries have sizable populations, especially Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Guatemala, Mexico. At least a different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as the Quechuan languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many indigenous peoples have evolved to incorporate traditional aspects, some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples. The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are the subject of ongoing research. According to archaeological and genetic evidence, North and South America were the last continents in the world with human habitation. During the Wisconsin glaciation, 50–17,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move across the bridge of Beringia that joined Siberia to northwest North America. Alaska was a glacial refugium because it had low snowfall, allowing a small population to exist, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of North America, blocking nomadic inhabitants and confining them to Alaska for thousands of years. Indigenous genetic studies suggest that the first inhabitants of the Americas share a single population, one that developed in isolation. The isolation of these peoples in Beringia might have lasted 10–20,000 years, around 16,500 years ago, the glaciers began melting, allowing people to move south and east into Canada and beyond. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets. Another route proposed involves migration - either on foot or using primitive boats - along the Pacific Northwest coast to the south, archeological evidence of the latter would have been covered by the sea level rise of more than 120 meters since the last ice age
24.
Bahia
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Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the 4th-largest Brazilian state by population and the 5th-largest by area, Bahias capital is the city of Salvador, located on a spit of land separating the Bay of All Saints from the Atlantic. Once a monarchial stronghold dominated by agricultural, slaving, and ranching interests, the name of the state derives from the earlier captaincy of Bahia de Todos os Santos, named for Bay of All Saints, a major feature of its coastline. The bay itself was named by the explorer Amerigo Vespucci during his second voyage and he named it after his parish church in Florence, San Salvatore di Ognissanti. Over time, the bay became distinguished as the Bay of All Saints, the state as Bahia, Bahia is bordered on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, with its Bay of All Saints the largest in Brazil. In the north, it is now bordered by Sergipe, Alagoas, Pernambuco, in the northwest, it is bordered by Tocantins. In the southwest, it borders Goiás, and in the south it is bordered by Espírito Santo, the state is crossed from north to south by the Diamantina Tableland, which divides it into two distinct geographical zones. To the east, the soil is fertile and the rain falls regularly, the western area is more arid and its predominate vegetation the cerrado. The natural aridity was greatly worsened over the 19th century by the habit of starting wildfires each year to improve the quality of the grass. The Green Road, a road that connects Mangue Seco in the far north to Praia do Forte, for this reason, the route is sometimes more than 10 km from the beach. At Praia do Forte, the road meets the Coconut Road leading to Salvador, passing through spots, in this region is located Deputado Luís Eduardo Magalhães International Airport. The largest bay on the Brazilian coast, the Bay of All Saints has a number of islands with tropical beaches. It is the largest navigable bay in Brazil and one of the most favorite spots for sports, due to its regular breezes, medium annual temperature of 26 °C. Major popular events and sport activities occur throughout the year, beginning on January 1, the islands of the bay are a separate attraction. Some are privately owned, others were declared a state heritage, other islands are the patrimony of 12 municipalities located around the bay. Only a few are uninhabited and many have small communities where the live on fishing. All have common characteristics, such a sea, dense vegetation, especially coconuts. Of the 56 islands, the most important are Itaparica, Madre de Deus, Maré, Frades, Medo, the Dendê Coast, south of Salvador, is surrounded by verdant vegetation, clear waters, islands, bays, coral reefs and a very diversified fauna
25.
Carnauba wax
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It is known as queen of waxes and in its pure state, usually comes in the form of hard yellow-brown flakes. It is obtained from the leaves of the palm by collecting and drying them, beating them to loosen the wax. Carnauba consists mostly of aliphatic esters, diesters of 4-hydroxycinnamic acid, ω-hydroxycarboxylic acids, the compounds are predominantly derived from acids and alcohols in the C26-C30 range. Distinctive for carnauba wax is the content of diesters as well as methoxycinnamic acid. Carnauba wax is sold in several grades, labeled T1, T3, purification is accomplished by filtration, centrifugation, and bleaching. Use for paper coatings is the most common application in the United States and it was commonly used in its purest form as a coating on speedboat hulls in the early 1960s to enhance speed and aid in handling in salt water environments. It is also the ingredient in surfboard wax, combined with coconut oil. It is also used to make cutlers resin and it is the finish of choice for most briar tobacco or smoking pipes. It produces a high gloss finish when buffed on to wood and this finish dulls with time rather than flaking off. It is also used in the industry as a tablet-coating agent. Adding the carnauba wax aids in the swallowing of tablets for patients, a very small amount is sprinkled onto a batch of tablets after they have been sprayed and dried. The wax and tablets are then tumbled together for a few minutes before being discharged from the tablet-coating machine, in 1890, Charles Tainter patented the use of carnauba wax on phonograph cylinders as a replacement for a mixture of paraffin and beeswax. Carnauba wax may be used as a release agent for manufacture of fibre-reinforced plastics. An aerosol mold release agent is formed by dissolving carnauba wax in a solvent, unlike silicone or PTFE, carnauba is suitable for use with liquid epoxy, epoxy molding compounds, and some other plastic types and generally enhances their properties. Carnauba wax is not very soluble in chlorinated or aromatic hydrocarbons, Carnauba is used in melt/castable explosives to produce an insensitive explosive formula such as Composition B, which is a blend of RDX and TNT. In 2006, Brazil produced 22,409 tons of wax, of which 14% was solid wax. There are 20-25 exporters of carnauba wax in Brazil who buy the carnauba wax from middlemen or directly from farmers, the exporters refine the wax before exporting it to the rest of the world. The four largest exporters of carnauba wax are Pontes, Brasil Ceras, Foncepi, and Carnauba do Brasil, melting point, 82–86 °C, among the highest of natural waxes, higher than beeswax, 62–64C
26.
Paubrasilia
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Paubrasilia is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae. The sole species it contains, P. echinata, is a Brazilian timber tree commonly known as Brazilwood or Pernambuco tree and this plant has a dense, orange-red heartwood that takes a high shine, and it is the premier wood used for making bows for stringed instruments. The wood also yields a red dye called brazilin, which oxidizes to brazilein, the name pau-brasil was applied to other species of Caesalpinia in the medieval period, and transferred to P. echinata in the 16th century. The name of Brazil is shortened from Terra do Brasil land of brazilwood, the Middle Latin adjective brasilium is thought to be derived from an early Romance or Middle Latin brasa, loaned from a West Germanic word meaning ember, burning charcoal. The South American trees soon became the source of red dye. Brazilwood trees were such a part of the exports and economy of the land that the country which sprang up in that part of the world took its name from them and is now called Brazil. Botanically, several species are involved, all in the family Fabaceae. The term brazilwood is most often used to refer to the species Caesalpinia echinata, the tree is also known by other names, as ibirapitanga, Tupi for red wood, or pau de pernambuco, named after the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. In the bow-making business it is usual to refer to species other than Paubrasilia echinata as Brazilwood, examples include Pink Ipê, Massaranduba. The highly prized Paubrasilia echinata is usually called Pernambuco wood in this particular context, the brazilwood tree may reach up to 15 metres in height, and the dark brown bark flakes in large patches, revealing the lustrous blood-red heartwood underneath. The leaves are pinnate and each consists of between 9 and 19 small, leathery leaflets, which are oblong in shape. The flower stalk, or inflorescence, is also branched and contains between 15 and 40 yellow, strongly perfumed flowers, which may be pollinated by bees, the petals are usually yellow with a blood-red blotch. The fruits are oval-shaped woody seedpods, measuring up to 7.3 cm long and 2.6 cm across, they hang off the branches and after the seeds are expelled, the branches, leaves and fruit are covered with small thorns. There are some important differences between geographically distinct populations and it is thought that separate subspecies of the pau brasil may exist and this tree may have some medicinal properties and has been used as an astringent and antidiuretic by local people, extracts have been tested as possible cancer treatments. Starting in the 16th centuries, brazilwood became highly valued in Europe, a related wood Sappanwood coming from Asia was traded in powder form and used as a red dye in the manufacture of luxury textiles, such as velvet, in high demand during the Renaissance. When Portuguese navigators discovered present-day Brazil, on April 22,1500, they saw that brazilwood was extremely abundant along the coast and in its hinterland. In a few years, a hectic and very profitable operation for felling and shipping all the logs they could get was established. In addition, this plant is cited in Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius
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Mango
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Mangoes are juicy stone fruit from numerous species of tropical trees belonging to the flowering plant genus Mangifera, cultivated mostly for their edible fruit. The majority of species are found in nature as wild mangoes. The genus belongs to the cashew family Anacardiaceae, mangoes are native to South Asia, from where the common mango or Indian mango, Mangifera indica, has been distributed worldwide to become one of the most widely cultivated fruits in the tropics. Other Mangifera species are grown on a more localized basis. It is the fruit of India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Mango trees grow to 35–40 m tall, with a radius of 10 m. The trees are long-lived, as some specimens still fruit after 300 years, in deep soil, the taproot descends to a depth of 6 m, with profuse, wide-spreading feeder roots, the tree also sends down many anchor roots, which penetrate several feet of soil. The leaves are evergreen, alternate, simple, 15–35 cm long, and 6–16 cm broad, when the leaves are young they are orange-pink, rapidly changing to a dark, glossy red, then dark green as they mature. The flowers are produced in terminal panicles 10–40 cm long, each flower is small and white with five petals 5–10 mm long, with a mild, over 400 varieties of mangoes are known, many of which ripen in summer, while some give double crop. The fruit takes three to six months to ripen, the ripe fruit varies in size and color. Cultivars are variously yellow, orange, red, or green, and carry a single flat, oblong pit that can be fibrous or hairy on the surface, ripe, unpeeled mangoes give off a distinctive resinous, sweet smell. Inside the pit 1–2 mm thick is a thin lining covering a single seed, the seed contains the plant embryo. Mangoes have recalcitrant seeds, they do not survive freezing and drying, the English word mango originated from the Malayalam word māṅṅa via Portuguese during spice trade with Kerala in 1498. The origin of the -o ending in English is unclear, when mangoes were first imported to the American colonies in the 17th century, they had to be pickled because of lack of refrigeration. Other fruits were also pickled and came to be called mangoes, especially bell peppers, and by the 18th century, in Mandarin Chinese, mango is 芒果, or mángguǒ in Pinyin. This is most likely a loanword from English, mangoes have been cultivated in South Asia for thousands of years and reached Southeast Asia between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. By the 10th century CE, cultivation had begun in East Africa, the 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta reported it at Mogadishu. Cultivation came later to Brazil, Bermuda, the West Indies, and Mexico, the mango is now cultivated in most frost-free tropical and warmer subtropical climates, almost half of the worlds mangoes are cultivated in India alone, with the second-largest source being China
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Pernambuco
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Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. The state of Pernambuco also includes the archipelago Fernando de Noronha and its capital and largest city, Recife, is one of the most important economic and urban hubs in the country. As of 2013 estimates, Recifes metropolitan area is the fifth most populous in the country, in 1982 the city of Olinda, the second oldest city in Brazil, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Recife, the capital and Olinda have one of the most traditional Brazilian Carnivals. Both have architecture of Portugal, with centuries-old casarões and churches, kilometers of beaches, the proximity of the equator guarantees sunshine throughout the year, with average temperatures of 26 °C. Pernambuco comprises a narrow coastal zone, a high inland plateau. Ranges of these form the boundary lines with three states–the Serra dos Irmãos and Serra Vermelha with Piauí, the Serra do Araripe with Ceará. The coastal area is fertile, and was covered by the humid Pernambuco coastal forests. It is now place to extensive sugar cane plantations and it has a hot, humid climate, relieved to some extent by the south-east trade winds. The middle zone, called the region, has a drier climate and lighter vegetation, including the semi-deciduous Pernambuco interior forests. The inland region, called the sertão is high, stony, and dry, the climate is characterized by hot days and cool nights. There are two defined seasons, a rainy season from March to June, and a dry season for the remaining months. The interior of the state is covered mostly by the dry thorny scrub vegetation called caatinga, the Rio São Francisco is the main water source for this area. The climate is mild in the countryside of the state because of the Borborema Plateau. Some towns are located more than 1000 meters above sea level, the island of Fernando de Noronha in the Atlantic Ocean,535 km northeast of Recife, has been part of Pernambuco since 1988. The rivers of the include a number of small plateau streams flowing southward to the São Francisco River. The former are the Moxotó, Ema, Pajeú, Terra Nova, Brigida, Boa Vista and Pontai, a large tributary of the Uná, the Rio Jacuhipe, forms part of the boundary line with Alagoas. Originally inhabited by tribes of Tupi-Guarani speaking indigenous peoples, Pernambuco was first settled by the Portuguese in the 16th century
Brazil
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "article name needed". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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