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The purpose of this study is to formulate an algorithm designed to discern the optimal routes for efficient municipal solid waste (MSW) collection.

The research method is simulation. The proposed algorithm combines heuristics derived from the constructive genetic algorithm (CGA) and tabu search (TS). The algorithm is applied in a municipality located at Southern Brazil, with 40,000 inhabitants, circa.

The implementation achieved a remarkable 25.44% reduction in daily mileage of the vehicles, resulting in savings of 150.80 km/month and 1,809.60 km/year. Additionally, it reduced greenhouse gas emissions (including fossil CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, total CO₂e and biogenic CO₂) by an average of 26.15%. Moreover, it saved 39 min of daily working time.

Further research should thoroughly analyze the feasibility of decision-making regarding planning, scheduling and scaling municipal services using digital technology.

The municipality now has a tool to improve public management, mainly related with municipal solid waste. The municipality reduced the cost of public management of municipal solid waste, redirecting funds to other priorities, such as public health and education.

The study integrates MSW collection service with an online platform based on Google MapsTM. The advantages of employing geographical information systems are agility, low cost, adaptation to changes and accuracy.

This paper presents a reflection on the effectiveness of using drones in the technical inspection of building facades, as a practical alternative to more expensive and heavier conventional means. In order to verify this assumption qualitatively, a number of field tests are presented and discussed.

The first stage consisted of a literature review. The analysis initially investigated drone technology. Then, an insight into some general applications in Civil Engineering was compiled, focusing in particular on the Construction Industry (CI), as well as the scope of building envelope inspections. In the second stage, field tests with drones were performed and the resulting data was appraised in order to get facade pathologies diagnosis as accurate as possible.

Through this study, the adaptability and versatility of using drones were checked. Thus, it has been confirmed that drone technology is an effective and promising alternative methodology to support technical inspection and diagnosis of building envelope pathologies. In fact, drones seem to be a worthwhile tool for supporting certain Civil Engineering activities–particularly when displaying a multirotor configuration, loading high-definition (HD) cameras, for both stills photography and video.

As the main goal of this approach was simply a qualitative assessment of evidence on the advantages of using drones compared with conventional means, other kinds of comparative analysis were not discussed in depth. However, this and other potential restrictive issues may represent an opportunity to push more developments. A deeper knowledge of data handling and clear procedures for the use of drones could be very valuable for the CI and for building envelope inspections.

In investigating this subject, this research can offer valuable input to enable a greater awareness of the use of drones in the technical inspection of buildings, particularly in hard-to-reach locations, to the detriment of conventional means. In these circumstances, this methodology can bring great benefits, particularly from an environmental impact point of view, since the resources used are much lower. In addition, a very reliable diagnosis can be achieved more quickly, and at a much lower cost.

The introduction of a standard for drone inspection practice is still at an early stage, with initial steps being taken in an apparently well-focused effort to achieve consolidation. Research studies of this kind may have an important role to play in drawing the stakeholders' attention to the benefits of using this technique, particularly for those working in the building usage phase.

This chapter investigates the political and economic contexts of the controversy about the causes of the increase of income concentration in Brazil during the 1960s. That was the most important economic debate that took place under the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1964 to 1985. The perceived sharp increase in income inequality posed a challenge to the economic legitimation of the military regime, which had by the early 1970s achieved high rates of economic growth. This chapter discusses the apparent paradox of relatively open economic debate during a period of political repression, as well as its international dimension as reflected in the role played by institutions such as the World Bank.

The city of Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in the north-east of Brazil, presents a paradox as a present-day tourist destination, while also marked by features and processes characteristic of cities in the Global South, such as high levels of social inequality with fragmented urban margins and vulnerabilities. This research problematizes the idea of “historical ruins” proposed by Walter Benjamin as a viable way to understand how the organization process of today's city margins can be “denaturalized” by the past. The objective of this research is to assess how the urban margins of the city were organized as a history of resistance.

In theoretical terms, this research links critical urban studies with critical approaches to organizational history (COH) based on Walter Benjamin's philosophical concepts of “ruins” and “progress”. The historical and archival methodology, consisting of 193 documents, suggests the existence of a philosophical–historical nexus that helps explain the spatial fragmentation of the city, and especially the urban margins in the western region of Fortaleza.

The Benjaminian notion of “historical ruins” has been exemplified by the Brazilian government practices confining migrants fleeing drought in internment camps on the margins of the city of Fortaleza in three waves beginning in 1877, 1915 and 1932 respectively. The effects of such confinement policies put into practice in the name of “progress” influenced the organization of large urban spaces on the city's margins, whereas on the other hand, the analyses advanced in this research reflect on alternatives to re-frame the history of the organization of the margins of Fortaleza through a set of practices of resistance.

Based on the concept of “denaturalization”, and through re-activation of the memory of a circumstantial past, the gaze of the “ruins”, as represented by the belief in “progress” addressed in official reports of government confinement policies, spaces of resistance have emerged where new possibilities for the future of the city can be imagined.

This chapter is born out of concern about the perception of the physical and symbolic place of the live-in housekeeper, both in socioeconomic, and historical terms, as well as the architectural and social dynamics of the home. An intersectional and teleological analysis of the intrinsic devaluation of paid social reproduction work is carried out, based mainly on gender, race, and class inequalities. Ultimately, the chapter tries to locate the position in which the maid finds herself in the domestic environment, both in family relationships and in the symbolism inherent to the concept of the maid’s room. Based on sociological, philosophical, and anthropological analysis, the ambiguous place of domestic workers becomes clearer, promoting a reflection on the very concept of family and household. Thus, the chapter proposes to achieve a hermeneutic dive into the experience of this working class, revealing a hierarchical system beyond the socioeconomic, but above all, of their subjectivities.

While sharing fundamental similarities with other colonial and post-colonial experiences, Latin America has a unique history of having been the proving ground for early Spanish and Portuguese imperial projects, of having experienced a relatively long duration of – but also historically early end to – these projects, and of negotiating a particular and complex trajectory of internal and external post-colonial relations. What can the study of this distinct colonial and post-colonial experience contribute to a broader program of postcolonial sociology? Conversely, what can a revitalized postcolonial sociology contribute to the study of Latin America? This article develops provisional answers to these questions by reviewing major currents in South and North American scholarship on the Latin American colonial and post-colonial experience. Some of this scholarship self-consciously identifies with broader movements in postcolonial studies; but much of it – both historical and contemporary – does not. By bringing together diverse strands of thought, this article sheds new light on what postcolonialism means in the Latin American context, while using the comparative leverage that this set of often overlooked cases provides to contribute to a new program of postcolonial sociology.

This chapter examines books written by foreign authors which were published in Brazil and censored by the military regime between 1964 and 1985. The study focuses on non-fiction books, using official period documentation, with the goal of conducting an extensive survey of these works as well as examining the reasons why they were censored by the regime. The results of the research lead us to a greater understanding of the reasoning of censorship from within the State and to a greater understanding of the Brazilian military dictatorship as a whole.