Questões para Concursos

According to researchers in Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University, hummingbirds have extreme aerial agility and flight forms, which is why many drones and other aerial vehicles are designed to mimic hummingbird movement. Using a novel modeling method, Professor Bo Cheng and his team of researchers gained new insights into how hummingbirds produce wing movement, which could lead to design improvements in flying robots.
“We essentially reverse-engineered the inner working of the wing musculoskeletal system — how the muscles and skeleton work in hummingbirds to flap the wings,” said first author and Penn State mechanical engineering graduate student Suyash Agrawal. “The traditional methods have mostly focused on measuring activity of a bird or insect when they are in natural flight or in an artificial environment where flight-like conditions are simulated. But most insects and, among birds specifically, hummingbirds are very small. The data that we can get from those measurements are limited.”
Penn State researchers used muscle anatomy literature, computational fluid dynamics simulation data and wing-skeletal movement information captured using micro-CT and X-ray methods to inform their model. They also used an optimization algorithm based on evolutionary strategies, known as the genetic algorithm, to calibrate the parameters of the model. According to the researchers, their approach is the first to integrate these disparate parts for biological fliers.
With this model, the researchers uncovered previously unknown principles of hummingbird wing actuation. While Cheng emphasized that the results from the optimized model are predictions that will need validation, he said that it has implications for technological development of aerial vehicles.
Internet: (adapted).
Judge the following items according to the previous text.

Global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions rose less strongly in 2023 than the year before, even as total energy demand growth accelerated, with continued expansion of solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, nuclear power and electric cars helping the world avoid greater use of fossil fuels. Without clean energy technologies, the global increase in CO 2 emissions in the past five years would have been three times greater, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in one of its reports.
Emissions increased by 410-million tons, or 1.1%, in 2023, compared with a 490-million-tonne increase in 2022, taking emissions to a record level of 37.4-billion tons. Specifically, an exceptional shortfall in hydropower owing to extreme droughts in China, the US and several other economies resulted in more than 40% of the rise in emissions in 2023, as countries turned largely to fossil fuel alternatives to plug the gap.
“Had it not been for the unusually low hydropower output, global CO 2 emissions from electricity generation would have declined in 2023 and made the overall rise in energy-related emissions significantly smaller,” the report pointed out. Additionally, advanced economies saw a record fall in their CO 2 emissions in 2023 even as their gross domestic product (GDP) grew. Advanced economies’ emissions dropped to a 50-year low while coal demand fell back to levels not seen since the early 1900s. The decline in advanced economies’ emissions was driven by a combination of strong renewables deployment, coal-to-gas switching, energy efficiency improvements and softer industrial production.
Internet: (adapted).

According to the text, judge the following statements.

Text 3A4

_____ During the last century water infrastructure projects involving large dams played a major role in the socio-economic transformation of many countries. At the same time, in a significant number of cases the benefits were not shared equitably, and the negative impacts on the environmental and sociocultural structures were excessive. In some cases their economic performance was questionable. Diverging views have arisen on the merits and demerits of dams, the roles they play, and their alternatives in providing water and energy services. However, recognition that such roles are complementary rather than mutually exclusive has been growing as the dam debate has moved forward.
_____ It is envisaged that, as part of the global effort to improve water and energy supplies, more dams will be constructed, especially in developing countries, alongside other diverse alternatives. There will, consequently, be a need to enhance the benefits of dams and avoid many of their drawbacks by applying better decision-making processes within the overall framework of sustainability. There are complex issues around the planning and management of dams in the context of sustainable development which will need to be adequately considered and addressed to achieve sustainable outcomes.
_____ Dealing with the environmental and social challenges within the context of meeting water and energy needs is at the heart of the sustainability of projects involving dams. Dams are one of the options, structural or non-structural, available to meet specific water or energy needs. In many cases water and energy services are best provided through a mix of options. Each case is different. A decision to build a dam should emerge after a comprehensive assessment of the full range of available options, giving appropriate consideration to all aspects of sustainability.

United Nations Environmental Programme. Dams and Development: Relevant Practices for Improved Decision-making. Nairobi: The Secretariat of the Dams and Development Project, 2007. p. 10-1 (adapted).

Text CB1A2-I

Indigenous languages appear to be disappearing at a concerning rate around the world. Current data indicates that at least 43% of the world’s spoken languages are being forgotten, with indigenous languages making a significant part. According to ONIC (National Indigenous Organization of Colombia), there are 65 indigenous languages in the country. Nearly one-third of them are at a critical risk of disappearing — and only three of them, including Nasa Yuwe, are spoken by more than 50,000 people. This is the reality that Juan Pablo Camayo seeks to change.
Two years ago, in Caldono, Colombia, Juan Pablo and other neighbours started a communications network that enabled them to provide Internet access to remote rural areas and disseminate content in their mother tongue. That’s how Jxa’h Wejxia Casil — “Wind’s Net” in Nasa Yuwe — came to be.
Currently, Jxa’h Wejxia Casil has about 200 families subscribed to their Internet service and provides a tool that allows communities to preserve the use of their language. With support from other project partners, Juan Pablo leveraged this new communication tool to produce and disseminate original communication materials in Nasa Yuwe.

Internet: (adapted).

According to the text CB1A2-I, judge the following items.

Read the following cartoons to answer questions 6 to 8.

Adapted from: https://www.instagram.com/newyorkercartoons/. Access on: 10 nov. 2023.

Read the following article to answer questions 11 to 15.

Essen: Germany's 'ugly duckling' city success (by Norman Miller)

Thanks to an innovative approach, the Germany city has catapulted from an industrial wasteland to one of Europe’s greened cities.

Located in the heart of western Germany's long-time industrial Ruhr region, the city of Essen spent much of the past 150 years marred by pollution, tainted by filthy mines and belching factories and lined by poisoned waterways. In just one year in the 1960s, a study noted that some 1.5 million tons of toxic dust, ashes and soot rained down on Essen's inhabitants, along with four million tons of sulphur dioxide. But a remarkable transformation has seen Essen go from being Germany's ugly duckling to one of Europe's greenest cities.
"Green urban development has acted as a driving force in Essen over the last decade," explained Simone Raskob, who helped oversee Essen's transformation through a mix of so-called Blue Green solutions: "Blue" for water-focused initiatives, and "Green" for land-based projects. This two-pronged approach helped catapult Essen to be declared the European Green Capital for 2017.
Essen's most high-profile project is the transformation of the Zollverein industrial complex – once the world's largest coal and coke production facility – from toxin-spewing industrial blackspot to an inspiring eco-park granted Unesco World Heritage status. Inside its giant former coal washing building, the impressive Ruhr Museum enthrals visitors with displays on the site's history and transformation between towering old machinery. A short walk away, the Red Dot Design Museum showcases examples of innovative global design in a former boiler house building repurposed by renowned architect Norman Foster. Ever since mining at Zollverein and the surrounding region ended in the late 1980s, woodland has spread across the vast site, and its trail-laced expanses are now home to more than 800 animal and plant species.
Yet, Essen isn't resting on its green laurels and is continuing to add eco-friendly initiatives. A 100km cycling 'super-highway’ is slowly taking shape atop old industrial railways. A string of nature-walking trails have also been created in and around the city to help boost local engagement with – and appreciation of – natural habitats. All the trails are easily accessible by public transport.
Among the city's many transformations are the creation of lakes and ponds by harvesting rainwater. But perhaps the toughest of Essen's solutions involved restoring the River Emscher, considered a biologically dead "open sewer" since the end of the 19th Century, thanks to the dumping of mining and factory slurry and waste water. After a two-decade clean-up programme, trout once again returned to the rejuvenated river in 2015. A recent count found more than 1,000 fish and animal species living along the Emscher, including previously endangered lapwings, kingfishers and beavers.
Though humans aren't yet encouraged to join the trout in the Emscher, an arena for swimming and boating hums with activity at Lake Baldeney, a broad expanse of water created behind a 9m dam on the similarly cleaned-up Ruhr river. When swimmers splashed here back in 2017, it was the first time bathing had been officially allowed there for 46 years.
From German eyesore to proud green city, Essen's green-and-blue approach isn't just benefitting outdoor enthusiasts and the environment but is also providing a shining example of how other cities can look to their industrial past to embrace a cleaner future.

Adapted from: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231106-essen-germanys-ugly-duckling-city-success. Access on: 13 nov. 2023.

Text 1A2-II

I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would—that is to say, who could—detail, step by step, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say—but, perhaps, the authorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers—poets in especial—prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy—an ecstatic intuition—and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought—at the true purposes seized only at the last moment—at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view—at the fully-matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable—at the cautious selections and rejections—at the painful erasures and interpolations—in a word, at the wheels and pinions—the tackle for scene-shifting—the step-ladders, and demon-traps—the cock’s feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.
I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pell-mell are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.
For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions, and, since the interest of an analysis or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analysed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together. I select The Raven as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition—that the work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.

Edgar Allan Poe. The Philosophy of Composition, 1846 (adapted).

Text 1A2-II

I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would—that is to say, who could—detail, step by step, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say—but, perhaps, the authorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers—poets in especial—prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy—an ecstatic intuition—and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought—at the true purposes seized only at the last moment—at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view—at the fully-matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable—at the cautious selections and rejections—at the painful erasures and interpolations—in a word, at the wheels and pinions—the tackle for scene-shifting—the step-ladders, and demon-traps—the cock’s feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.
I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pell-mell are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner.
For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions, and, since the interest of an analysis or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analysed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together. I select The Raven as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition—that the work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem.

Edgar Allan Poe. The Philosophy of Composition, 1846 (adapted).

In the quest for technological advancements that can revolutionize our world, the scientific community has always been captivated by the elusive phenomenon of superconductivity. For decades, researchers have strived to unlock its full potential, seeking to discover materials that can exhibit superconducting properties at room temperature. And now, the wait might finally be over! Enter LK-99, a groundbreaking potential room-temperature superconductor that has sent shockwaves through the scientific world, spearheaded by a team of brilliant minds from Korea University, led by esteemed researchers Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim.
Superconductors are materials that can conduct electricity with zero resistance, leading to unprecedented energy efficiency and technological advancements. In summary, LK-99 represents an exciting prospect as a potential room-temperature superconductor, but its superconducting properties have yet to be confirmed and independently verified.
Room temperature superconductors could revolutionize the energy sector by enabling lossless power transmission over long distances. With reduced energy dissipation during transmission, electricity could be distributed more efficiently, lowering carbon footprints and electricity costs.
Internet: (adapted).
According to the preceding text, judge the following items.

Text CG2A2

A new study on physical activity that involved more than half a million participants over age 40 found that modest exercise increases life expectancy regardless of weight.
Contrary to most of the attention given to obesity as the crucial risk factor for health, the study found that an active lifestyle increased life expectancy to a greater extent than a lower body mass index (BMI), in general. In fact, participants who were active but class 1 obese lived an average of 3.1 years longer than those who were at a normal weight but didn’t engage in physical activity. This is in-line with reports from earlier this year that excessive sitting is unhealthy and that reducing excessive sitting to less than 3 hours a day alone can improve longevity by 2.0 years.
The article states low level of physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity would confer a 1.8-year gain in life expectancy after age 40, compared with no activity. A low level of physical activity is defined as up to 75 minutes of fast walking per week.
A consequence of this study is that it calls into question the reliance on BMI to assess fitness. That isn’t to suggest that BMI isn’t a factor, but that what we’ve heard for years in the media that being overweight is “bad” for you while exercise is “good” is a flawed message. A better message would be: Regular exercise is essential to longevity and a lower BMI helps too — do the first and the other will likely follow.

Internet: (adapted).

Concerning grammar and semantics in text CG2A2, judge the following items.