Abstract An extraordinary moment of agricultural modernization is currently underway due to innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In this process, management precepts are renewed, fostering significant gains in efficiency, productivity, and sustainable use of natural resources and the environment. The growing supply of ICTs and the extension of connectivity in rural areas, with their transforming roles in productive practices and economic relations, bring about questions regarding their impacts. These technologies include precision positioning systems and large volume databases, electronic sensors of site-specific production and environmental conditions, repositories of relational data, statistical and crop forecasting software, methodologies and processes; web-based information services, among others. The assessment of impacts focused on ICTs for agriculture needs innovative approaches, due to the peculiarities of their applications, the different scales of their socioenvironmental scopes and, at the same time, the verification of effectiveness of institutional investments on research, development, and innovation (RD&I). Based on these premises, the objectives of this work are to present a ‘module of impact indicators for Information and Communication Technologies (Ambitec-TICs)’, and assess its application to six typical technology adoption cases resulting from agricultural RD&I projects. The results detail critical analyses of the contributions of the proposed module for the registration, interpretation, and communication of impacts, with recommendations for technology transfer and accountability in institutional Social Balance documentation.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver uma metodologia alternativa para o estudo e a caracterização de propriedades cristalinas de fosfatos, diretamente associadas à sua solubilidade e disponibilidade para as plantas, em "biochar" de ossos de suínos. Foram estabelecidas algumas propriedades de simetria dos fosfatos de ossos pirolisados de suínos, por meio de espectroscopia de ressonância magnética nuclear no estado sólido, análise de componentes principais e análise multivariada de resolução de curvas, em quatro amostras pirolisadas em diferentes intensidades de carbonização. O aumento nos parâmetros de carbonização (temperatura ou tempo de residência) geram diferentes estruturas de fosfatos, com aumento de sua simetria e diminuição da polarizabilidade cruzada do par ¹H-31P, o que resultou na síntese de fosfatos, provavelmente com menor solubilidade do que os produzidos com menor intensidade de carbonização. Além disso, uma nova metodologia está sendo desenvolvida para estudar e caracterizar as propriedades cristalinas de fosfatos diretamente relacionadas à sua solubilidade e disponibilidade para as plantas.

The objective of this work was to develop an alternative methodology to study and characterize the phosphate crystalline properties, directly associated with solubility and plant availability, in biochar from swine bones. Some phosphate symmetry properties of pyrolyzed swine bones were established, using solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, principal component analysis, and multivariate curve resolution analysis, on four pyrolyzed samples at different carbonization intensities. Increasing carbonization parameters (temperature or residence time) generates diverse phosphate structures, increasing their symmetry and decreasing the crossed polarizability of the pair ¹H-31P, producing phosphates with, probably, lower solubility than the ones produced at lower carbonization intensity. Additionally, a new methodology is being developed to study and characterize phosphate crystalline properties directly associated with phosphate solubility and availability to plants.

A biofuel was prepared from acid aqueous fraction (pH = 2) of bio-oil produced by fast pyrolysis (Bioware Technology) of lignocellulosic biomass (sugar cane residue) and tested in blends (2, 5, 10 e 20% v/v) with gasoline type C (common) marketed in Brazil. The specification tests made in the Refinery President Getúlio Vargas (PETROBRAS) showed increasing in the octane number (MON) and antiknock index (AKI) with reduction in the residue generation during the combustion. The physicochemical characteristics of the biofuel were similar that combustible alcohol allowing its use as gasoline additive.