In recent years, a lot of work has been done dealing with alternative performance rankings for the Olympic Games. Almost all of these works use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Generally speaking, those works can be divided into two categories: Pure rankings with unitary input models and relative rankings with classical DEA models; both output oriented. In this paper we introduce an approach taking into account the number of athletes as a proxy to the country investment in sports. This number is an input for a DEA model, and the other input is the population of the country. We have three outputs,the number of gold, silver and bronze medals earned by each country. Contrary to the usual approach in the literature, our model is not output oriented. It is a non-radial DEA model oriented to the "number of athletes" input, as our goal is not a countries' ranking. We intend to analyse whether the number of athletes competing for each country accords with the number of won medals. For this analysis, we compare eachcountry with its benchmarks. The Decision Making Units (DMU) are all the countries participating in the Beijing Olympic Games, including those that did not earn a single medal. We use a BCC model and we compare each DMU's target with the number of athletes who have won, at least one medal.

Nos últimos anos, muitos trabalhos acadêmicos vêm sendo desenvolvidos para se verificar a existência de vantagem em disputar competições esportivas em domínios próprios (Home Advantage). Um grande número destes trabalhos utiliza ferramentas estatísticas para verificar a ocorrência do Home Advantage e suas causas. Este artigo propõe a aplicação de uma metodologia multicritério para verificar a ocorrência de Home Advantage nos Jogos Pan Americanos. O trabalho foca em especial o desempenho da delegação da República Dominicana e da Argentina ao longo da história dos jogos Pan Americanos, analisando as vantagens e desvantagens de utilização deste método em relação aos usualmente utilizados. Os resultados indicam a vantagem dos países analisados em sediar as competições.

In recent years, many academic papers have been developed to verify the advantage in sports competitions play in their own fields (Home Advantage). Many of these works use statistical tools to assess the occurrence of Home Advantage and its causes. This article proposes the application of a multicriteria methodology to assess the occurrence of Home Advantage in the Pan American Games, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of this method compared to commonly used. The work focuses in particular the Dominican Republic and Argentina delegations performance along the Pan American Games history. The results indicate the advantage of the countries analyzed in hosting competitions.

Uma importante propriedade dos Organossolos, e de outros solos com alto teor de C orgânico para predizer o potencial de uso e riscos de degradação, é o grau de subsidência (perda de massa e volume). Nos Organossolos ocorrem diferentes riscos de subsidência, resultantes de seus atributos, em especial da natureza da matéria orgânica e do ambiente de deposição. Este estudo foi realizado com dados de 19 perfis de solos de diferentes regiões do Brasil. Foram adotados os procedimentos da SBCS para descrição e coleta dos perfis, e os métodos analíticos da Embrapa Solos para caracterização dos solos. A análise dos componentes principais foi utilizada para agrupar os perfis com o auxílio de atributos morfológicos, físicos, químicos e do ambiente de ocorrência e mostrou-se adequada no agrupamento dos solos estudados com base em seus atributos, comparando-se com a sua taxonomia. Neste artigo foram usados os métodos multicritério ordinais de Borda, Condorcet e Copeland para ordenar, segundo o risco de subsidência, os perfis de Organossolos estudados. Os resultados mostram correlação entre os métodos (exceto Condorcet, que não foi capaz de ordenar as alternativas) e o resíduo mínimo, parâmetro usual para avaliar subsidência. Isso indica eficácia para ordenar/classificar os perfis de solos estudados quanto ao risco de subsidência. Os métodos quantitativos utilizados neste trabalho mostraram-se promissores como ferramentas em estudos na Ciência do Solo.

One important property of Organosols (Histosols) (and soils with high content of organic carbon) to predict use potential and degradation risks is the degree of subsidence (loss of mass and volume). In Organosols the subsidence risks vary according to the soil attributes, mainly the nature of organic matter and deposition environment. In this paper we studied 19 soil profiles from different parts of the country, collected and described according to procedures recommended by the SBCS (Brazilian Soil Science Society); the analytical methods proposed by EMBRAPA-Solos were used to characterize the soils. The principal component analysis was used to cluster the profiles based on morphological, physical, chemical and environmental attributes and proved adequate to group the soils under study based on the profile attributes and the grouping was well related to their taxonomy. The soil profiles were ranked by the ordinal multicriteria methods of Border, Condorcet and Copeland based on the subsidence risk. Results indicated a correlation between the methods (with exception of the Condorcet approach, unsuitable to rank the alternatives) and the minimum residue, which is the classical parameter for the evaluation of subsidence, indicating efficacy to rank/classify the soil profiles in relation to subsidence risk. The quantitative approaches used are promising as evaluation tools in soil science studies.