Publication supported by FAPESP win book prize

Sugarcane Bioethanol – R&D for productivity and sustainability has won Brazil Jabuti award in the Natural Sciences Category.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – The book Sugarcane Bioethanol – R&D for productivity and sustainability (Bioetanol de Cana-de-açúcar – P&D para produtividade e sustentabilidade) has won the 2011 Prêmio Jabuti award in the Natural Sciences Category. Published by Editora Blucher, the book was organized by Augusto Barbosa Cortez, a professor at Universidade Estadual de Campinas’ Agricultural Engineering College and adjunct coordinator of FAPESP’s Special Programs. Câmara Brasileira do Livro (the Brazilian Chamber of Books), which grants the most prestigious Brazilian literature prize – the Jabuti, made the announcement on October 17.

Released in September 2010, the publication is a collection of scientific research works conducted between August 2006 and March 2009 under the auspices of the project “Public policies guidelines for scientific and technological research in bioenergy in the State of São Paulo,” coordinated by Cortez and developed through FAPESP funding under the Research Program on Public Policy.

The book includes the works of 139 specialists from diverse research institutions, such as the National Biomass Reference Center (Cenbio), the Sugarcane Research Center (CTC), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), the National Bioethanol Science and Technology Lab, the Agronomy Institute, the Technological Research Institute (IPT), Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), Unicamp, Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar) and Universidade de São Paulo (USP), in addition to the company Dedini S.A. Indústrias de Base.

In total, there are 992 pages, split among 76 chapters grouped in five sections. Each section was coordinated by one of the organizers. Arnaldo Walter and Manoel Regis Lima Verde Real, both of CTBE, coordinated Public Policy Strategies for Ethanol (Estratégias de políticas públicas para o etanol).

Cortez believes that the book could be useful to professors and graduate and post-graduate students, in addition to supporting pubic policy for the sector. The authors intend to transform the book into a textbook to be utilized in the post-graduate course on Bioenergy that will be offered by Unicamp as of 2013. 

The book also has an English version that can be acquired exclusively via internet. “The book’s objective is to identify the research needs and opportunities in the sugarcane ethanol production chain. To this end, we have organized roughly 20 workshops on different topics in the sector,” Cortez told Agência FAPESP.
 
This is the second time that the researcher has won the Prêmio Jabuti. In 1993, Cortez won the award in the “Exact and Technological Sciences” category with the book, Introdução à engenharia agrícola no Brasil (Introduction to agricultural engineering in Brazil), published by Unicamp’s publishing house.
 
In addition to the publication organized by Cortez, the book “Two centuries of projects in São Paulo: major works and urbanism - 1800-2000” (“Dois séculos de projetos no Estado de São Paulo – Grandes obras e urbanização”) also won the 2011 Prêmio Jabuti in the “Architecture and Urbanism” category. Published by the Editora Imprensa Oficial do Estado de São Paulo and USP’s publishing house Edusp, the book was funded in part through FAPESP’s Publication Assistance Program – Books. 

Split into three volumes, the work narrates the history of the development of São Paulo in the 19th and 20th centuries through a methodological perspective on reading the logic of human relations in the forms of spatial organization, the logic of projects and the works.

The study, which began in 1987 and involved collecting more than 25,000 images, had the objective of researching the role of major works in forming São Paulo State, particularly its urban system, in each stage of history.

It shows the relationship between urbanization, development, projects, infrastructure works and public services, split among four major periods: those from 1800 to 1822 and 1822 to 1889 comprise volume one; from 1889 to 1930 are included in the second; and the third volume consists of 1930 to 2000.

“It is history based on material evidence and not written documents. Historians, in general, work with written documents and we in the area of architecture and urbanism, work with constructed space and therefore, we have to work with material evidence.  We read history through urban space, the architectonic space,” Reis Filho said in an interview with Agência FAPESP. The book will also receive an award from the São Paulo History Academy in November.

Márcia Azevedo de Abreu, professor at Unicamp’s Language Studies Institute (IEL), who coordinates the project “The transatlantic circulation of printed matter - the globalisation of culture in the 19th century” (“A circulação transatlântica dos impressos – A globalização da cultura no século XIX”) won the Prêmio Jabuti in the “Communication” category for organizing the book Printed in Brazil –Two Centuries of Brazilian Books (Impresso no Brasil – Dois séculos de livros brasileiros), published by Universidade Estadual Paulista’s (Unesp) publication arm and Fundação Biblioteca Nacional. The book is comprised of several essays on the course of Brazilian editorial production over 200 years.

The first part of the work, entitled A new Brazilian Editorial History: editors, typographies and booksellers (Uma nova história editorial brasileira: editores, tipógrafos e livreiros),  presents 22 chapters that focuse on aspects of national editorial production. In the second part, Culture through Letters: authors, readers and interpretations  (Cultura letrada no Brasil: autores, leitores e leituras) 13 works analyze and interpret formation of readers and the public to which our editorial publications have been directed over the decades.

The works construct a panorama of the production of school books and literacy, cordel folk literature, newspapers and periodicals and analyzes the history of publishing houses such as Garnier, Melhoramentos, Civilização Brasileira, Companhia das Letras and Abril, among other topics.

The official award ceremony for the Prêmio Jabuti will be held on November 30, when the winners of the “Best Fiction” and “Best Nonfiction” categories will be announced.

The nominees for “Best Nonfiction” book of the year are comprised of the winners of the following categories: Theory/Literary Criticism; Reporting; Exact Sciences; Technology and Information Technology; Economics and Business; Law; Biography; Natural Sciences; Health Sciences; Human Sciences; Teaching and Textbooks; Education; Psychology and Psychoanalysis; Architecture and Urbanism; Photography; Communication; Arts; Tourism and Hotels and Gastronomy.