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Recycled paper has the potential to be used as a mulch for vegetable production and can be adopted for the cultivation of Italian zucchini. However, there have been no studies about the water savings or crop coefficient values used in irrigation management in this system; therefore, there is a need for more research. In view of the above, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of recycled paper mulch on evaporation and evapotranspiration in Italian zucchini and to determine the crop coefficients in its developmental stages. The study was carried out in two cultivation cycles conducted at the Lysimetric Station in Viçosa, MG, Brazil. The experiments were installed in a randomized block design with four replicates. Four lysimeter cultivation treatments were applied: without mulch (C); with recycled paper as mulch (CP); with only recycled paper (P); and with Bahia grass (G). Irrigation and drainage measurements were performed daily to calculate the crop and reference evapotranspiration, and thus the crop coefficient (Kc) values. The following characteristics were evaluated: fruit yield, NDVI and water productivity. For the cultivation of Italian zucchini using paper as mulch, Kc values of 0.54, 0.77 and 0.44 and Kcb values of 0.15, 0.45 and 0.18 are recommended for the initial, intermediate and final stages, respectively. NDVI can be used to estimate the Kc values for Italian zucchini. The use of recycled paper as mulch reduces the water consumption of Italian zucchini. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The lack of information regarding the burden of acute bacterial meningitis in Latin America leads to a reduction in the estimated incidence rates of the disease, and impairs public health decisions on the use and follow-up of preventive interventions, particularly, the evaluation of existing vaccination policies. The use of the real-time PCR in diagnostic routine procedures has resulted in a substantial increase in confirmed bacterial meningitis cases. However, in resource-poor countries, these assays are only available in reference laboratories. Sample transportation to these laboratories is a critical constraint, as it requires specialized, high cost courier services. To overcome this barrier we evaluated the use of FTATM Elute filter paper cards for the conservation and processing of samples under normal environmental conditions, as they would be when transported from remote and under-equipped healthcare facilities to the reference centers. A total of 401 samples received in 2015 as part of Sao Paulo's national surveillance for routine diagnosis were selected for this study., Methods: The sensitivity and specificity of real-time PCR were evaluated using fresh serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples processed using our laboratory's standard DNA extraction, and processing the same samples after being dried and stored on FTATM card, and DNA extracted following the manufacturer's instructions., Results: The sensitivities for detection of Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Haemophilus influenzae from CSF dried and stored on FTATM cards were 98%, 92%, and 100%, respectively, and with serum samples were 73%, 88%, and 100%, respectively. When compared to our laboratory's standard methodology, results showed high concordance, with Kappa index ranges of 0.9877-1.00 for CSF, and 0.8004-1.00 for serum samples., Conclusion: The use of FTATM cards for CSF and serum conservation and transport represents a rapid, reliable, and cost-effective alternative that will allow obtaining valuable epidemiological information that would otherwise be lost.

In recent decades, we have observed an intensification of science, technology and innovation activities in Brazil. The increase in production of scientific papers indexed in international databases, however, has not been accompanied by an equivalent increase in the impact of publications. This paper presents a methodology for analyzing production and the impact of certain research areas in Brazil related to two aspects: the origin of the journals (national or foreign) and international collaboration. These two variables were selected for being of particular importance in understanding the context of scientific production and communication in countries with emerging economies. The sample consisted of papers written by Brazilian researchers in 19 subfields of knowledge published from 2002 to 2011, totaling 85,082 papers. To calculate the impact, we adopted a normalized indicator called the relative subfield citedness (Rw) using a window of 5 years to obtain measurements evaluated in 2 different years: 2007 and 2012. The data on papers and citations were collected from the Web of Science database. From the results, we note that most of the subfields have presented, from one quinquennium to another, improved performance in the world production rankings. Regarding publication in national and foreign journals, we observed a trend in the distribution maintenance of production of the subfields based on the origin of the journal. Specifically, for impact, we identified a lower Rw pattern for Brazilian papers when they were published in national journals in all subfields. When Brazilian products are published in foreign journals, we observed a higher impact for those papers, even surpassing the average global impact in some subfields. For international collaboration, we analyzed the percentage of participation of foreign researchers and the connection between collaboration and the impact of papers, especially emphasizing the distinction of hyperauthorship papers in terms of production and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper presents the results of an online survey and subsequent interviews investigating whether, how, and why public administrations of Brazilian states and the federal district (Federation Units) use open government data. According to the literature reviewed, the questions were categorized into four big groups: benefits, barriers, enablers, and drivers. Design/Methodology/Approach: The Survey method, based on a questionnaire followed by interviews, was used to collect and analyze data from the open data officers of 26 Brazilian Federation Units. Findings: The use of open government data is controversial as responses from the questionnaires and interviews do not match and raise questions about how well-represented each Federation Unit was. Evidence of open government data use was found. Among others, findings showed that political leadership committed to using open data facilitates and motivates public agents to use these data. Additionally, interviews indicated that the lack of human resources with the knowledge, skills, and capabilities to use open data is a relevant barrier to data use. Findings also revealed that open government data mainly support policy and decision-making processes. Practical implications: This research contributed to the open data and public administration fields. It portrays diverse realities of open government data use and institutionalization in Brazilian state and district public administrations. In addition, it provides lists of open government data use benefits, barriers, drivers, and enablers from the perspective of these administrations so that they can benchmark against each other and improve their OGD use. Originality and research implications: For academia, this research provides empirical evidence of the factors influencing public administrations' use of open government data at the subnational level in Brazil. Even though Brazil ranks high on OGD global assessments, few studies on its use and reuse in the public sector were identified. This is one of the first academic studies focusing on open government data use in the country. It also contributes by offering to the academic community two instruments, a questionnaire and an interview protocol, which can be applied to other public settings to expand this study's results or open new research paths by applying them to other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically models the dynamics of Brazilian government bond (BGB) yields based on monthly macroeconomic data, in the context of the evolution of the key macroeconomic variables in Brazil. The results show that the current short-term interest rate has a decisive influence on the long-term interest rate on BGBs, after controlling for various key macroeconomic variables, such as inflation and industrial production. These findings support John Maynard Keynes's claim that the central bank's actions influence the long-term interest rate on government bonds mainly through the current short-term interest rate. These findings have important policy implications for Brazil. This paper relates the findings of the estimated models to ongoing debates in fiscal and monetary policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil has brought many challenges, particularly regarding the management of hospital capacity, and a new demand for healthcare that added to the preexisting demands, such as neoplasms, cardiovascular diseases and births. In this paper, we estimate the impact of the pandemic on the number of deaths and hospitalizations for other diseases. We construct a monthly panel data of deaths and hospitalizations for various causes by the municipality of residence and relate them to COVID-19 hospitalizations using regression models that control for municipalities fixed-effects and interactions between State and month fixed-effects. The standard errors are clustered at the municipality level. Our estimates imply that 100 more hospitalizations by COVID-19 is associated with a drop of 49 non-COVID-19 hospitalizations and an additional four deaths for other reasons (all measured per 100,000 pop.). The impact of intensive care units COVID-19 hospitalizations on mortality is larger. The groups most affected are the African Brazilians, less-educated and the elderly. Additional deaths occurred both at households and at hospitals. The main causes of additional deaths were diseases related to the circulatory and endocrine system. The decline in hospitalizations for other causes seems to be related to the overcrowding of hospitals in periods of surge in the COVID-19, alongside with the fall in the demand for care by the citizens who were afraid of COVID-19 infection. These mechanisms affected more strongly the vulnerable groups of the population. Our results highlight the importance of promoting the awareness of heightened risk of non-communicable chronic diseases during a health emergency context. This should be done preferably through already established channels with community outreach, such as the Family Health Program in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Detection of drug-resistant tuberculosis is essential for the control of the disease but it is often hampered by the limitation of transport and storage of samples from remote locations to the reference laboratory. We performed a retrospective field study to evaluate the performance of four supports enabling the transport and storage of samples to be used for molecular detection of drug resistance using the GenoType MTBDRplus., Methods: Two hundred Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains were selected and spotted on slides, FTA cards, GenoCards, and in ethanol. GenoType MTBDRplus was subsequently performed with the DNA extracted from these supports. Sensitivity and specificity were calculated and compared to the results obtained by drug susceptibility testing., Results: For all supports, the overall sensitivity and specificity for detection of resistance to RIF was between 95% and 100%, and for INH between 95% and 98%., Conclusion: The four transport and storage supports showed a good sensitivity and specificity for the detection of resistance to RIF and INH in M. tuberculosis strains using the GenoType MTBDRplus. These supports can be maintained at room temperature and could represent an important alternative cost-effective method useful for rapid molecular detection of drug-resistant TB in low-resource settings.

Studies comparing large-scale assessment data among educational systems have been an important tool for understanding the differences in how education is delivered worldwide. Many of these studies do not go beyond reporting average student scores in a particular educational system. A more unbiased analysis would avoid the simple use of gross performance and consider educational system contexts. A common approach is to estimate effectiveness by the residuals of parametric linear models. These models rely upon strong assumptions regarding the data-generating process, and are limited to handling extensive datasets. To address this issue, our paper provides a new approach based on machine learning models. The new approach is flexible, allows paired comparison, and is model-independent. An analysis conducted in Brazil verifies the suitability of the method to explore differences in effectiveness between Brazilian educational administrative units at the regional and state levels from 2009 to 2019. Our results are consistent with the existing literature, but the methodology produced a number of new findings that were not observed in studies using more traditional approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accidents with scorpions are a problem in several regions of the world. In Brazil, the number of accidents is sometimes higher than 160k/year, and the responsible for most accidents and deaths is the yellow scorpion Tityus serrulatus. Unfortunately, there are few publications testing the effectiveness of most of the products for chemical control of scorpions. Using the pesticide Bifentol, we tested: I–the effect of the pesticide on the mortality of T. serrulatus, II–whether the scorpion avoids areas with pesticide and, III–whether it leaves the shelter if pesticide is applied. In the first experiment, we applied pesticide or water on the dorsal region of the scorpion or substrate according to treatment. For five days we noted whether the scorpion slide (dead) or clung to the substrate (alive) after turning the arena vertically to left and right. After five days, no pesticide-treated scorpions were alive while all water-treated scorpions were. In the second experiment, we placed two shelters, applied pesticide and/or water inside the shelter. We then released a scorpion on the opposite side. We scored latency to enter one of the shelters and the choice made by the scorpions. We did not find differences in latency or in the choice made. In the third experiment, we applied the pesticide or water to the shelter where the scorpion was being maintained, and, on the following day, we recorded whether the scorpion had left the shelter. None of the scorpions left the shelters and only one died. Thus, we obtained evidence that a pesticide can kill scorpions, but we did not find a dislodging effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the analysis of trends in road accidents on highways in Brazil. We use time series techniques based on fractional integration that allow us to determine if exogenous shocks in the data have transitory or permanent effects depending on the order of integration of the series. Our results indicate that a low degree of long memory was detected in the series with shocks having thus transitory effects over time. We further find that the number of accidents have been reducing over time, though in the presence of negative shocks, the recovery is not going to be immediate due to the long memory nature of the data. Despite the absence of relevant investment relating to infrastructure expansion, it is worth mentioning the consolidation of a nationwide tolled road system in Brazil involving concessions to private administrators, alongside more severe traffic laws that can impose limitations on driving licences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commoditization of marine resources has dramatically increased anthropogenic footprints on coastal and ocean systems, but the scale of these impacts remain unclear due to a pervasive lack of historical baselines. Through the analysis of historical newspapers, this paper explores changes in marine animals (vertebrates and invertebrates) targeted by historical fisheries in southern Brazil since the late 19th century. The investigation of historical newspaper archives revealed unprecedented information on catch composition, and perceived social and economic importance of key species over decades, predating official national-level landing records. We show that several economically and culturally important species have been under persistent fishing pressure at least since the first national-scale subsidies were introduced for commercial fisheries in Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Our work expands the current knowledge on historical fish catch compositions in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean, while advocating for the integration of historical data in ocean sustainability initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnobotanical studies report that human populations from the Brazilian Caatinga biome use tree legumes (Fabaceae) with medicinal and food purposes. Our study provides a systematic review of the available published information concerning the antioxidant potential of Hymenaea courbaril L. (jatobá), Libidibia ferrea (Mart. Ex Tul.) L.P.Queiroz (jucá), and Dioclea grandiflora Mart. Ex Benth. (mucunã). Furthermore, in this paper, we infer the possible effects of local processing techniques applied to these plants on their antioxidant potential. In order to achieve these goals, we reviewed 52 articles, including studies from ethnobiology (n = 17), chemistry (n = 32), and food studies testing antioxidant activity (n = 17), excluding 14 repetitions. We found that these legume species can inhibit the formation of free radicals and this potential action varies among different parts of the plant. Probably, the presence of phenolic compounds such as phenolic acids and flavonoids, which are not uniformly distributed in the plants, explain their antioxidant activity. Local processing techniques (i.e., roasting, milling) affect the bioaccessibility of antioxidant components of tree legumes, inducing both positive and negative effects. However, studies about the antioxidant potential did not consider local processing techniques in their analyses. Our study highlights that culture is a fundamental driver of nutritional and pharmacological outcomes related to edible resources since it determines which parts of the plant people consume and how they prepare them. Hence, ignoring cultural variables in the analysis of antioxidant activity will produce inaccurate or wrong scientific conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sporotrichosis is a subcutaneous mycosis with a global distribution, also known as "rose gardener's disease". Brazil is experiencing a rapid spread of the zoonotic transmission of of Sporothrix brasiliensis, the main etiological agent of this disease in this country, affecting domestic felines. Cost-effective interventions need to be developed to control this emergent public health problem. To allow for the comparison of alternative control strategies, we propose in this paper, a mathematical model representing the transmission of S. brasiliensis among cats, stratified by age and sex. Analytical properties of the model are derived and simulations show possible strategies for reducing the endemic levels of the disease in the cat population, with a positive impact on human health. The scenarios included mass treatment of infected cats and mass implementation of contact reduction practices, such as neutering. The results indicate that mass treatment can reduce substantially the disease prevalence, and this effect is potentialized when combined with neutering or other contact-reduction interventions. On the other hand, contact-reduction methods alone are not sufficient to reduce prevalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socioeconomic factors have exacerbated the impact of COVID–19 worldwide. Brazil, already marked by significant economic inequalities, is one of the most affected countries, with one of the highest mortality rates. Understanding how inequality and income segregation contribute to excess mortality by COVID–19 in Brazilian cities is essential for designing public health policies to mitigate the impact of the disease. This paper aims to fill in this gap by analyzing the effect of income inequality and income segregation on COVID–19 mortality in large urban centers in Brazil. We compiled weekly COVID–19 mortality rates from March 2020 to February 2021 in a longitudinal ecological design, aggregating data at the city level for 152 Brazilian cities. Mortality rates from COVID-19 were compared across weeks, cities and states using mixed linear models. We estimated the associations between COVID-19 mortality rates with income inequality and income segregation using mixed negative binomial models including city and week-level random intercepts. We measured income inequality using the Gini index and income segregation using the dissimilarity index using data from the 2010 Brazilian demographic census. We found that 88.2% of COVID–19 mortality rates variability was between weeks, 8.5% between cities, and 3.3% between states. Higher-income inequality and higher-income segregation values were associated with higher COVID–19 mortality rates before and after accounting for all adjustment factors. In our main adjusted model, rate ratios (RR) per 1 SD increases in income inequality and income segregation were associated with 17% (95% CI 9% to 26%) and 11% (95% CI 4% to 19%) higher mortality. Income inequality and income segregation are long-standing hallmarks of large Brazilian cities. Risk factors related to the socioeconomic context affected the course of the pandemic in the country and contributed to high mortality rates. Pre-existing social vulnerabilities were critical factors in the aggravation of COVID–19, as supported by the observed associations in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) children have lower levels of participation in recreational and sporting activities when compared to their peers. Participation has been defined based on the Family of Participation-Related Constructs (fPRC) which defines participation as including both attendance and involvement, with sense of self, preferences and activity competence related to a child's participation. Modified sports interventions such as Sports Stars can act on physical literacy and some of the fPRCs components. This study aims to assess the feasibility of the Sports Stars Brazil intervention for children with ASD. Methods: This study will be conducted with 36 participants with ASD aged 6 to 12 years old following the CONSORT for pilot and feasibility recommendation. Participants will be randomly allocated into two groups. Intervention group will receive eight, weekly Sports Stars sessions. Each session will include of sports-focused gross motor activity training, confidence building, sports-education and teamwork development. Study assessments will occur at baseline, immediately post-intervention and 20-weeks post-randomization. First, we will assess process feasibility measures: recruitment, assessment completion, adherence, adverse events and satisfaction. Second, we will investigate the scientific feasibility of the intervention by estimating the effect size and variance at the level of achievement sports-related activity and physical activity participation goals (Goal Attainment Scaling), activity competence (Ignite Challenge, Test of Gross Motor Development-second edition, Physical Literacy Profile Questionnaire, Pediatric Disability Assessment Inventory–Computer Adaptive Test—PEDI-CAT—mobility, 10×5 Sprint Test and Muscle Power Sprint Test), sense of self (PEDI-CAT—responsibility), and overall participation at home, school and community, (Participation and Environment Measure for children and young people, PEM-CY). Discussion: The results of this feasibility study will inform which components are critical to planning and preparing a future RCT study, aiming to ensure that the RCT will be feasible, rigorous and justifiable. Trial registration: The trial was registered with the Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials database (ID: RBR-9d5kyq4) on June 15, 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper dissects the potential of state-of-the-art computational analysis to promote the investigation of government's administrative decisions and politics. The Executive Branch generates massive amounts of textual data comprising daily decisions in several levels and stages of the law and decree-making processes. The use of automated text analysis to explore this data based on the substantive interests of scholars runs into computational challenges. Computational methods have been applied to texts from the Legislative and Judicial Branches; however, there barely are suitable taxonomies to automate the classification and analysis of the Executive's administrative decrees. To solve this problem, we put forward a computational framework to analyze the Brazilian administrative decrees from 2000 to 2019. Our strategy to uncover the contents and patterns of the presidential decree-making is developed in three main steps. First, we conduct an unsupervised text analysis through the LDA algorithm for topic modeling. Second, building upon the LDA results, we propose two taxonomies for the classification of decrees: (a) the ministerial coauthorship of the decrees to map policy areas and (b) the decrees' fields of law based on a tagging system provided by the Brazilian Senate. Using these taxonomies, we compare the performance of three supervised text classification algorithms: SVM, Convolutional Neural Network, and Hierarchical Attention Network, achieving F1-scores of up to 80% when automatically classifying decrees. Third, we analyze the network generated by links between decrees through centrality and clustering approaches, distinguishing a set of administrative decisions related to the president's priorities in the economic policy area. Our findings confirm the potential of our computational framework to explore N-large datasets, advance exploratory studies, and generate testable propositions in different research areas. They advance the monitoring of Brazil's administrative decree-making process that is shaped by the president's priorities and by the interplay among cabinet members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forensic facial reconstruction aims to assemble and provide the appearance of a face over a skull, in order to lead to recognition of that individual, making possible the application of primary identification methods. The scientific literature presents facial soft tissue thickness (FSTT) tables for reference from a range of different geographic regions. However, the consensus on its importance or on how to use specific population data related to FSTT is not unanimous. Brazil is formed by geographic regions with diverse populations, which are reflected in facial features. This paper aimed to measure and compare FSTT of distinct Brazilian samples to ascertain the need for specific data sets for different regions. A specific protocol for cone beam computed tomography was used to standardize measurement, and it was applied in a sample of 101 subjects. The FSTT measurements of a Brazilian population from the Midwest Region was compared to a previous sample from Southeast, which was collected using the same protocol. High compatibility was observed when comparing the averages of FSTT among samples of these two different geographic regions. Regarding age groups, notable differences on the medium and inferior face were observed in females. Minor variances found are unlikely to affect the practice of forensic facial reconstruction. Facial features, such as eyes, lips, nose, and skin may also be relevant in the differentiation of people from these two areas in Brazil. Therefore, concerning the Southeast and Midwest Brazilian regions, the need to apply different data sets is unnecessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate inequalities in care for people with diabetes in Brazil. This cross-sectional population-based study was carried out in 2019 and evaluated care provided by receiving advice, requesting laboratory tests, and performing examinations. We used the slope index of inequality and concentration index to assess inequalities according to educational level and Poisson regression to estimate prevalence ratios for each outcome in the education category. We assessed a total of 6317 people with diabetes, 41.8% had their eyes checked, and 36.1% had their feet examined in the previous year. Prevalence for both examinations was 2.45 times higher in those from the highest level of education compared to those from the lowest level. The largest absolute differences (in percentage points) between the lowest and highest education levels in care indicators were the following: request for glycated hemoglobin test (39.0), glucose curve test (31.4), and eyes checked in the previous year (29.7). There were notable inequalities in the prevalence ratios of care provided to people with diabetes in Brazil. Requests for glycated hemoglobin tests, glucose curve tests, eye and feet examinations should be emphasized, especially for people from lower educational levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to there being a worldwide socio-economic crisis, with major impacts on developing countries. Understanding the dynamics of the disease and its driving factors, on a small spatial scale, might support strategies to control infections. This paper explores the impact of the COVID-19 on neighborhoods of Recife, Brazil, for which we examine a set of drivers that combines socio-economic factors and the presence of non-stop services. A three-stage methodology was conducted by conducting a statistical and spatial analysis, including clusters and regression models. COVID-19 data were investigated concerning ten dates between April and July 2020. Hotspots of the most affected regions and their determinant effects were highlighted. We have identified that clusters of confirmed cases were carried from a well-developed neighborhood to socially deprived areas, along with the emergence of hotspots of the case-fatality rate. The influence of age-groups, income, level of education, and the access to essential services on the spread of COVID-19 was also verified. The recognition of variables that influence the spatial spread of the disease becomes vital for pinpointing the most vulnerable areas. Consequently, specific prevention actions can be developed for these places, especially in heterogeneous cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Outdoor air pollution is increasingly recognised as a key threat to population health globally, with particularly high risks for urban residents. In this study, we assessed the association between residential nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure and children's cognitive and behavioural development using data from São Paulo Brazil, one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. Methods: We used data from the São Paulo Western Region Birth Cohort, a longitudinal cohort study aiming to examine determinants as well as long-term implications of early childhood development. Cross-sectional data from the 72-month follow-up was analysed. Data on NO2 concentration in the study area was collected at 80 locations in 2019, and land use regression modelling was used to estimate annual NO2 concentration at children's homes. Associations between predicted NO2 exposure and children's cognitive development as well as children's behavioural problems were estimated using linear regression models adjusted for an extensive set of confounders. All results were expressed per 10 μg/m3 increase in NO2. Results: 1143 children were included in the analysis. We found no association between NO2 and children's cognitive development (beta -0.05, 95% CI [-0.20; 0.10]) or behavioural problems (beta 0.02, 95% CI [-0.80; 0.12]). Conclusion: No association between child cognition or child behaviour and NO2 was found in this cross-sectional analysis. Further research will be necessary to understand the extent to which these null results reflect a true absence of association or other statistical, biological or adaptive factors not addressed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is unprecedented, and many control and prevention measures have been implemented to test for and trace COVID-19. However, invisible-spreaders, who are associated with nucleic acid detection and asymptomatic infections, have received insufficient attention in the current COVID-19 control efforts. In this paper, we analyze the time series infection data for Italy, Germany, Brazil, India and Sweden since the first wave outbreak to address the following issues through a series of experiments. We conclude that: 1) As of June 1, 2020, the proportion of invisible-spreaders is close to 0.4% in Sweden, 0.8% in early Italy and Germany, and 0.4% in the middle and late stages. However, in Brazil and India, the proportion still shows a gradual upward trend; 2) During the spread of this pandemic, even a slight increase in the proportion of invisible-spreaders could have large implications for the health of the community; and 3) On resuming work, the pandemic intervention measures will be relaxed, and invisible-spreaders will cause a new round of outbreaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When it comes to visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Brazil, one of the main targets of public health policies of surveillance is the control of domestic canine reservoirs of Leishmania infantum. This paper aims to evaluate the effect of the dog population and household environment for the maintenance of natural foci in the transmission to human and animal hosts in an endemic city for VL, Bauru, in Brazil. We collected 6,578 blood samples of dogs living in 3,916 households from Nov.2019 to Mar.2020 and applied geospatial models to predict the disease risk based on the canine population. We used Kernel density estimation, cluster analysis, geostatistics, and Generalized Additive Models (GAM). To validate our models, we used cross-validation and created a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. We found an overall canine VL (CVL) seroprevalence of 5.6% for the sampled dogs, while for the households, the positivity rate was 8.7%. Odds ratios (OR) for CVL increased progressively according to the number of canines for >2 dogs (OR 2.70); households that already had CVL in the past increased the chances for CVL currently (OR 2.73); and the cases of CVL increase the chances for human VL cases (OR 1.16). Our models were statistically significant and demonstrated a spatial association between canine and human disease cases, mainly in VL foci that remain endemic. Although the Kernel density ratio map had the best performance (AUC = 82), all the models showed high risk in the city's northwest area. Canine population dynamics must be considered in public policies, and geospatial methods may help target priority areas and planning VL surveillance in low and middle-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The techniques used for diagnosis of canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL) in Brazil ELISA and IFAT have been extensively questioned because of the accuracy of these tests. A recent change in the diagnosis protocol excluded IFAT and included the Dual-Path Platform (DPP). We evaluated the prevalence and incidence rates of Leishmania spp. before and after the change in the protocol. In addition, based on our results, we propose a new alternative that is less expensive for the screening and confirmation of CVL. Plasma samples were obtained from a serobank from dogs evaluated in a cross-sectional study (1,226 dogs) and in a cohort study of susceptible animals (n = 447), followed for 26 months. Serology testing was performed using ELISA, IFAT, and DPP. The incidence and prevalence of CVL were determined by using the protocol of the Visceral Leishmaniasis Control and Surveillance Program until 2012 (ELISA and IFAT using filter paper) and the protocol used after 2012 (DPP and ELISA using plasma). The prevalence was 6.2% and the incidence was 2.8 per 1,000 dog-months for the protocol used until 2012. For the new diagnosis protocol for CVL resulted in an incidence of 5.4 per 1,000 dog-months and a prevalence of 8.1%. Our results showed that the prevalence and incidence of infection were far greater than suggested by the previously used protocol and that the magnitude of infection in endemic areas has been underestimated. As tests are performed sequentially and euthanasia of dogs is carried out when the serological results are positive in both tests, the sequence does not affect the number of animals to be eliminated by the Control Program. Then we suggest to municipalities with a large demand of exams to use ELISA for screening and DPP for confirmation, since this allows easier performance and reduced cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide a retrospective cohort study with patients that have been hospitalized for general or intensive care unit admission due to COVID-19, between March 3 and July 29, 2020, in the state of Bahia, Brazil. We aim to correlate those patients' demographics, symptoms and comorbidities, with the risk of mortality from COVID-19, length of hospital stay, and time from diagnosis to definitive outcome. On the basis of a dataset provided by the Health Secretary of the State of Bahia, we selected 3,896 hospitalized patients from a total of 154,868 COVID-19 patients that included non-hospitalized patients and patients with invalid registration in the dataset. Then, we statistically analyzed whether there was a significant correlation between the patient record data and the COVID-19 pandemic, and our main findings reinforced by the use of a multivariable logistic regression were that older age (Odds Ratio [OR] = 1.03, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] = 1.03-1.04, p-value (p) <0.001), an initial symptom of shortness of breath (OR = 1.88, 95% CI = 1.60-2.20, p < 0.001), and the presence of comorbidities, mainly chronic kidney disease (OR = 2.41, 95% CI = 1.67-3.48, p < 0.001) are related to an increased risk of mortality from COVID-19. On the other hand, sore throat (OR = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.58-0.95, p = 0.02) and length of hospital stay (OR = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.58-0.95, p < 0.001) are more related to a reduced risk of mortality from COVID-19. Moreover, a multivariable linear regression conducted with statistically significant variables (p < 0.05) showed that age (OR = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.95-0.98, p < 0.001) and time from diagnosis to definitive outcome (OR = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.64-1.71, p < 0.001) are associated with the length of hospital stay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of the meshfree computational mechanics method, the Material Point Method (MPM), to model the composition and damage of typical renal calculi, or kidney stones. Kidney stones are difficult entities to model due to their complex structure and failure behavior. Better understanding of how these stones behave when they are broken apart is a vital piece of knowledge to medical professionals whose aim is to remove these stone by breaking them within a patient's body. While the properties of individual stones are varied, the common elements and proportions are used to generate synthetic stones that are then placed in a digital experiment to observe their failure patterns. First a more traditional engineering model of a Brazil test is used to create a tensile fracture within the center of these stones to observe the effect of stone consistency on failure behavior. Next a novel application of MPM is applied which relies on an ultrasonic wave being carried by surrounding fluid to model the ultrasonic treatment of stones commonly used by medical practitioners. This numerical modeling of Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) reveals how these different stones failure in a more real-world situation and could be used to guide further research in this field for safer and more effective treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile geolocation data is a valuable asset in the assessment of movement patterns of a population. Once a highly contagious disease takes place in a location the movement patterns aid in predicting the potential spatial spreading of the disease, hence mobile data becomes a crucial tool to epidemic models. In this work, based on millions of anonymized mobile visits data in Brazil, we investigate the most probable spreading patterns of the COVID-19 within states of Brazil. The study is intended to help public administrators in action plans and resources allocation, whilst studying how mobile geolocation data may be employed as a measure of population mobility during an epidemic. This study focuses on the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during the period of March 2020, when the disease first started to spread in these states. Metapopulation models for the disease spread were simulated in order to evaluate the risk of infection of each city within the states, by ranking them according to the time the disease will take to infect each city. We observed that, although the high-risk regions are those closer to the capital cities, where the outbreak has started, there are also cities in the countryside with great risk. The mathematical framework developed in this paper is quite general and may be applied to locations around the world to evaluate the risk of infection by diseases, in special the COVID-19, when geolocation data is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital datasets in several health care facilities, as hospitals and prehospital services, accumulated data from thousands of patients for more than a decade. In general, there is no local team with enough experts with the required different skills capable of analyzing them in entirety. The integration of those abilities usually demands a relatively long-period and is cost. Considering that scenario, this paper proposes a new Feature Sensitivity technique that can automatically deal with a large dataset. It uses a criterion-based sampling strategy from the Optimization based on Phylogram Analysis. Called FS-opa, the new approach seems proper for dealing with any types of raw data from health centers and manipulate their entire datasets. Besides, FS-opa can find the principal features for the construction of inference models without depending on expert knowledge of the problem domain. The selected features can be combined with usual statistical or machine learning methods to perform predictions. The new method can mine entire datasets from scratch. FS-opa was evaluated using a relatively large dataset from electronic health records of mental disorder prehospital services in Brazil. Cox's approach was integrated to FS-opa to generate survival analysis models related to the length of stay (LOS) in hospitals, assuming that it is a relevant aspect that can benefit estimates of the efficiency of hospitals and the quality of patient treatments. Since FS-opa can work with raw datasets, no knowledge from the problem domain was used to obtain the preliminary prediction models found. Results show that FS-opa succeeded in performing a feature sensitivity analysis using only the raw data available. In this way, FS-opa can find the principal features without bias of an inference model, since the proposed method does not use it. Moreover, the experiments show that FS-opa can provide models with a useful trade-off according to their representativeness and parsimony. It can benefit further analyses by experts since they can focus on aspects that benefit problem modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the scaling relationship between population sizes of cities with urban metrics like economic output and infrastructure (transversal scaling) mirror the evolution of individual cities in time (longitudinal scaling)? The answer to this question has important policy implications, but the lack of suitable data has so far hindered rigorous empirical tests. In this paper, we advance the debate by looking at the evolution of two urban variables, GDP and water network length, for over 5500 cities in Brazil. We find that longitudinal scaling exponents are city-specific. However, they are distributed around an average value that approaches the transversal scaling exponent provided that the data is decomposed to eliminate external factors, and only for cities with a sufficiently high growth rate. We also introduce a mathematical framework that connects the microscopic level to global behaviour, finding good agreement between theoretical predictions and empirical evidence in all analyzed cases. Our results add complexity to the idea that the longitudinal dynamics is a micro-scaling version of the transversal dynamics of the entire urban system. The longitudinal analysis can reveal differences in scaling behavior related to population size and nature of urban variables. Our approach also makes room for the role of external factors such as public policies and development, and opens up new possibilities in the research of the effects of scaling and contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job satisfaction is an important construct that is known to be associated with workers' performance and wellbeing. As such, to properly measure it, one must use adapted measures that show adequate validity evidence for the desired context. Such measures should preferably be short to allow the parsimonious use of various measures/constructs in the same data collection. The aim of this paper is to adapt the Portuguese version for Brazil and Portugal of the Short Index of Job Satisfaction (SIJS). The SIJS is a psychometric instrument that measures job satisfaction through five items. A cross-sectional study was conducted with two multi-occupational workers samples, one from Brazil (n = 599) and one other from Portugal (n = 572). The SIJS presented good validity evidence based on its internal structure, namely dimensionality, reliability, and measurement invariance across countries and sexes. It also revealed to be positively correlated with work engagement, and quality of work life (convergent evidence). It also has shown to be negatively associated with burnout (discriminant evidence). The SIJS showed promising validity evidence. The SIJS can be useful to be used together with other instruments, due to its small number of items, producing data with good psychometric properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anticarsia gemmatalis (Hübner, 1818) and Chrysodeixis includens (Walker, 1858) are species of Lepidoptera that cause great damages in the soybean plantations of Brazil. Despite the importance they have in this regard, there are no studies on the chromosomal organization of these species and recently, A. gemmatalis, which belonged to the Noctuidae family, was allocated to the Erebidae family. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to analyze, through conventional and molecular cytogenetic markers, both species of Lepidoptera. A 2n = 62 was observed, with ZZ/ZW sex chromosome system and holokinetic chromosomes for both species. There was homogeneity in the number of 18S rDNA sites for both species. However, variations in heterochromatin distribution were observed between both species. The cytogenetic analyses enabled separation of the species, corroborating the transference of A. gemmatalis, from the family Noctuidae to the family Erebidae, suggesting new cytotaxonomic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan that has great genetic diversity and is prevalent worldwide. In 2018, an outbreak of toxoplasmosis occurred in Santa Maria, Brazil, which was considered the largest outbreak ever described in the world. This paper describes the isolation and molecular characterization of Toxoplasma gondii from the placenta of two pregnant women with acute toxoplasmosis who had live births and were receiving treatment for toxoplasmosis during the outbreak. For this, placental tissue samples from two patients underwent isolation by mice bioassay, conventional PCR and genotyping using PCR-RFLP with twelve markers. Both samples were positive in isolation in mice. The isolate was lethal to mice, suggesting high virulence. In addition, the samples were positive in conventional PCR and isolates submitted to PCR-RFLP genotyping presented an atypical genotype, which had never been described before. This research contributes to the elucidation of this great outbreak in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grazing exclusion may lead to biodiversity loss and homogenization of naturally heterogeneous and species-rich grassland ecosystems, and these effects may cascade to higher trophic levels and ecosystem properties. Although grazing exclusion has been studied elsewhere, the consequences of alleviating the disturbance regime in grassland ecosystems remain unclear. In this paper, we present results of the first five years of an experiment in native grasslands of southern Brazil. Using a randomized block experimental design, we examined the effects of three grazing treatments on plant and arthropod communities: (i) deferred grazing (i.e., intermittent grazing), (ii) grazing exclusion and (iii) a control under traditional continuous grazing, which were applied to 70 x 70 m experimental plots, in six regionally distributed blocks. We evaluated plant community responses regarding taxonomic and functional diversity (life-forms) in separate spatial components: alpha (1 x 1 m subplots), beta, and gamma (70 x 70 m plots), as well as the cascading effects on arthropod high-taxa. By estimating effect sizes (treatments vs. control) by bootstrap resampling, both deferred grazing and grazing exclusion mostly increased vegetation height, plant biomass and standing dead biomass. The effect of grazing exclusion on plant taxonomic diversity was negative. Conversely, deferred grazing increased plant taxonomic diversity, but both treatments reduced plant functional diversity. Reduced grazing pressure in both treatments promoted the break of dominance by prostrate species, followed by fast homogenization of vegetation structure towards dominance of ligneous and erect species. These changes in the plant community led to increases in high-taxa richness and abundance of vegetation-dwelling arthropod groups under both treatments, but had no detectable effects on epigeic arthropods. Our results indicate that decision-making regarding the conservation of southern Brazil grasslands should include both intensive and alleviated levels of grazing management, but not complete grazing exclusion, to maximize conservation results when considering plant and arthropod communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macrocypraea mammoth is a new species from Trindade, a remote oceanic island located 1160 km off Espírito Santo, Brazil. This isolated species is described in a detailed morphological scenario that includes all Recent congeneric species. The detailed anatomy of two Recent species, M. zebra and M. cervinetta, were described in a previous paper. The remaining one, M. cervus, is included herein. Brief taxonomical comments on all these species is also included. The new species can be distinguished from other Western Atlantic species by its larger size, proportionally heavier and more solid shell, more rounded and wider outline, longer posterior tapered ending and slightly inflated base; anatomically it has some exclusivities, such as the mantle papillae mostly bearing 3–5 distal aligned projections, osphradium with a shorter branch, modifications in some odontophore muscles, penis with a clear glandular region, and a sac-like bursa copulatrix with a long duct. Based on the comparative analysis, the genus Macrocypraea can be defined by the wide distance between the osphradium and gill; a twofold buccal muscle (mc); a radular ventral tensor muscle (pair m11) surrounding radular sac; and a bursa copulatrix located at middle level of the pallial oviduct. Register ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C8E6E515-508F-47DE-9753-4EA619C1DDFD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saturnalia tupiniquim is a sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic (Carnian–c. 233 Ma) Santa Maria Formation of Brazil. Due to its phylogenetic position and age, it is important for studies focusing on the early evolution of both dinosaurs and sauropodomorphs. The osteology of Saturnalia has been described in a series of papers, but its cranial anatomy remains mostly unknown. Here, we describe the skull bones of one of its paratypes (only in the type-series to possess such remains) based on CT Scan data. The newly described elements allowed estimating the cranial length of Saturnalia and provide additional support for the presence of a reduced skull (i.e. two thirds of the femoral length) in this taxon, as typical of later sauropodomorphs. Skull reduction in Saturnalia could be related to an increased efficiency for predatory feeding behaviour, allowing fast movements of the head in order to secure small and elusive prey, a hypothesis also supported by data from its tooth and brain morphology. A principal co-ordinates analysis of the sauropodomorph jaw feeding apparatus shows marked shifts in morphospace occupation in different stages of the first 30 million years of their evolutionary history. One of these shifts is observed between non-plateosaurian and plateosaurian sauropodomorphs, suggesting that, despite also having an omnivorous diet, the feeding behaviour of some early Carnian sauropodomorphs, such as Saturnalia, was markedly different from that of later Triassic taxa. A second shift, between Late Triassic and Early Jurassic taxa, is congruent with a floral turnover hypothesis across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine environments are visual domains restricted regarding light characteristics. Overall, blue monochromatic spectrum prevails in offshore areas especially below 15m depth, since long wavelengths are quickly attenuated. Light intensity is even more constrained in coastal waters, particularly those of tropical estuaries and bays, because further scattering through dissolved and suspended materials. Biofluorescence, which is the ability of organisms to absorb light and reflect it in a different wavelength, has been reported for many marine fish. In this paper, biofluorescence was recorded for the first time for the longsnout seahorse Hippocampus reidi, under natural conditions at Ilha Grande bay, Brazil, and both adult, juvenile and fry individuals kept in captivity. Although displaying the same colour emissions, seahorses differed in relation to body lighting, colour patterns, and age wherein fluorescence occurs. Newborn seahorses exhibit green biofluorescence only in the eyes and stomach. Further experiments are necessary to address whether H. reidi can change the patterns of biofluorescence emission for sensorial and social purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary health care has been recognized as a critical strategy for improving population health in developing countries. This paper investigates the effect of primary care physicians on the infant mortality rate in Brazil using a dynamic panel data approach. This method accounts for the endogeneity problem and the persistence of infant mortality over time. The empirical analysis uses an eight-year panel of municipalities between 2005 and 2012. The results indicate that primary care physician supply contributed to the decline of infant mortality in Brazil. An increase of one primary care physician per 10,000 population was associated with 7.08 fewer infant deaths per 10,000 live births. This suggests that, in addition to other determinants, primary care physicians can play an important role in accounting for the reduction of infant mortality rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific collaboration has been studied by researchers for decades. Several approaches have been adopted to address the question of how collaboration has evolved in terms of publication output, numbers of coauthors, and multidisciplinary trends. One particular type of collaboration that has received very little attention concerns advisor and advisee relationships. In this paper, we examine this relationship for the researchers who are involved in the area of Exact and Earth Sciences in Brazil and its eight subareas. These pairs are registered in the Lattes Platform that manages the individual curricula vitae of Brazilian researchers. The individual features of these academic researchers and their coauthoring relationships were investigated. We have found evidence that there exists positive correlation between time of advisor–advisee relationship with the advisee’s productivity. Additionally, there has been a gradual decline in advisor–advisee coauthoring over a number of years as measured by the Kulczynski index, which could be interpreted as decline of the dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of high school students to know endangered species can vary among species (e.g., large body size can influence people’s interest) or among municipalities (e.g., more contact with biodiversity can influence people’s interest). Thus, in the present paper, we evaluated high school students’ knowledge about the endangered and non-endangered mammalian species of the Brazilian Cerrado. We tested whether the recognition of the endangered and non-endangered species varied in a cross-species analysis (twelve total species) according to species characteristics, such as body size, popularity, endangered status and the length of time of inclusion on the endangered species list. Moreover, we tested whether the recognition of the endangered mammal species varied between municipalities (spatial analysis). We interviewed 366 students in their first year of high school in 21 schools (one in each municipality). Our results indicated that the proportion of correctly identified endangered species varied according to species (cross-species). The endangered species that were most often correctly identified were Myrmecophaga tridactyla (known by its popular name, Tamanduá-bandeira, in Brazil), Priodontes maximus (Tatu canastra) and Panthera onca (onça-pintada), with more than 80% correct answers. Thus, students tended to recognize the more popular species and the endangered species more than the non-endangered species. The analysis of student knowledge according to municipality demonstrated that the students’ ability to recognize endangered species followed a spatial pattern. Finally, the cross-species and spatial variation patterns detected in the present study indicated the importance of formal education in increasing high school students’ knowledge about endangered species and suggested that education should also promote less well-known species, species with smaller body sizes, and other groups of vertebrates and invertebrates and consider local and regional biodiversity whenever possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Measures to ensure research integrity have been widely discussed due to the social, economic and scientific impact of research integrity. In the past few years, financial support for health research in emerging countries has steadily increased, resulting in a growing number of scientific publications. These achievements, however, have been accompanied by a rise in retracted publications followed by concerns about the quality and reliability of such publications. Objective: This systematic review aimed to investigate the profile of medical and life sciences research retractions from authors affiliated with Brazilian academic institutions. The chronological trend between publication and retraction date, reasons for the retraction, citation of the article after the retraction, study design, and the number of retracted publications by author and affiliation were assessed. Additionally, the quality, availability and accessibility of data regarding retracted papers from the publishers are described. Methods: Two independent reviewers searched for articles that had been retracted since 2004 via PubMed, Web of Science, Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS) and Google Scholar databases. Indexed keywords from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and Descritores em Ciências da Saúde (DeCS) in Portuguese, English or Spanish were used. Data were also collected from the Retraction Watch website (). This study was registered with the PROSPERO systematic review database (CRD42017071647). Results: A final sample of 65 articles was retrieved from 55 different journals with reported impact factors ranging from 0 to 32.86, with a median value of 4.40 and a mean of 4.69. The types of documents found were erratum (1), retracted articles (3), retracted articles with a retraction notice (5), retraction notices with erratum (3), and retraction notices (45). The assessment of the Retraction Watch website added 8 articles that were not identified by the search strategy using the bibliographic databases. The retracted publications covered a wide range of study designs. Experimental studies (40) and literature reviews (15) accounted for 84.6% of the retracted articles. Within the field of health and life sciences, medical science was the field with the largest number of retractions (34), followed by biological sciences (17). Some articles were retracted for at least two distinct reasons (13). Among the retrieved articles, plagiarism was the main reason for retraction (60%). Missing data were found in 57% of the retraction notices, which was a limitation to this review. In addition, 63% of the articles were cited after their retraction. Conclusion: Publications are not retracted solely for research misconduct but also for honest error. Nevertheless, considering authors affiliated with Brazilian institutions, this review concluded that most of the retracted health and life sciences publications were retracted due to research misconduct. Because the number of publications is the most valued indicator of scientific productivity for funding and career progression purposes, a systematic effort from the national research councils, funding agencies, universities and scientific journals is needed to avoid an escalating trend of research misconduct. More investigations are needed to comprehend the underlying factors of research misconduct and its increasing manifestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative approach to systematically understand the urban phenomena. One of its main pillars is the proposition that urban systems display universal scaling behavior regarding socioeconomic, infrastructural and individual basic services variables. This paper discusses the extension of the universality proposition by testing it against a broad range of urban metrics in a developing country urban system. We present an exploration of the scaling exponents for over 60 variables for the Brazilian urban system. Estimating those exponents is challenging from the technical point of view because the Brazilian municipalities’ definition follows local political criteria and does not regard characteristics of the landscape, density, and basic utilities. As Brazilian municipalities can deviate significantly from urban settlements, urban-like municipalities were selected based on a systematic density cut-off procedure and the scaling exponents were estimated for this new subset of municipalities. To validate our findings we compared the results for overlaying variables with other studies based on alternative methods. It was found that the analyzed socioeconomic variables follow a superlinear scaling relationship with the population size, and most of the infrastructure and individual basic services variables follow expected sublinear and linear scaling, respectively. However, some infrastructural and individual basic services variables deviated from their expected regimes, challenging the universality hypothesis of urban scaling. We propose that these deviations are a product of top-down decisions/policies. Our analysis spreads over a time-range of 10 years, what is not enough to draw conclusive observations, nevertheless we found hints that the scaling exponent of these variables are evolving towards the expected scaling regime, indicating that the deviations might be temporally constrained and that the urban systems might eventually reach the expected scaling regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obligate river dolphins occur only in the rivers of Asia and South America, where they are increasingly subject to damaging pressures such as habitat degradation, food competition and entanglement in fishing gear as human populations expand. The Amazon basin hosts two, very different, dolphins—the boto or Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) and the smaller tucuxi (Sotalia fluviatilis). Both species have wide geographical ranges and were once considered to be relatively abundant. Their IUCN Red List conservation status of Data Deficient (DD), due to limited information on threats, ecology, population numbers and trends, did not initially cause alarm. However, the development of dolphin hunting to provide fish bait at around the beginning of this millennium broadly coincided with the onset of a widespread perception that numbers of both species were in decline. Consequently, the need for population trend data to inform conservation advice and measures became urgent. This paper presents a 22-year time series of standardised surveys for both dolphins within the Mamirauá Reserve, Amazonas State, Brazil. Analysis of these data show that both species are in steep decline, with their populations halving every 10 years (botos) and 9 years (tucuxis) at current rates. These results are consistent with published, independent information on survival rates of botos in this area, which demonstrated a substantial drop in annual survival, commencing at around the year 2000. Mamirauá is a protected area, and is subject to fewer environmental pressures than elsewhere in the region, so there is no reason to suspect that the decline in dolphins within the Reserve is more pronounced than outside it. If South America's freshwater cetaceans are to avoid following their Asian counterparts on the path to a perilous conservation status, effective conservation measures are required immediately. Enforcement of existing fishery laws would greatly assist in achieving this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on socioeconomic and public health conditions of the population. Aim: To measure the temporal evolution of COVID-19 cases in cities near the countryside outside metropolitan areas of northeastern Brazil and the impact of the primary care organization in its containment. Methods: This is a time-series study, based on the first three months of COVID-19 incidence in northeastern Brazil. Secondary data were used, the outcome was number of COVID-19 cases. Independent variables were time, coverage and quality score of basic health services, and demographic, socioeconomic and social isolation variables. Generalizable Linear Models with first order autoregression were applied. Results: COVID-19 spreads heterogeneously in cities near the countryside of Northeastern Brazilian cities, showing associations with the city size, socioeconomic and organizational indicators of services. The Family Health Strategy seems to mitigate the speed of progression and burden of the disease, in addition to measures such as social isolation and closure of commercial activities. Conclusion: The spread of COVID-19 reveals multiple related factors, which require coordinated intersectoral actions in order to mitigate its problems, especially in biologically and socially vulnerable populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazilian coastal archaeology is renowned for its numerous and large shellmounds (sambaquis), which had been continuously occupied from at least 8000 to 1000 years cal BP. However, changes in their structure and material culture in the late Holocene have led to different hypotheses concerning their ecological and cultural changes. The archaeological site Galheta IV (ca. 1300 to 500 years cal BP) offers new insights into the complexity of the late coastal occupation in southern Brazil. Our attempt was to determine whether Galheta IV can be classified as a sambaqui site, or if it belongs to a Southern proto-Jê settlement. Here, we reassessed Galheta's collections and applied a multi-proxy approach using: new 14C dates, zooarchaeology, δ13C and δ15N isotopes in bulk collagen and 87Sr/86Srenamel isotopic ratios from eight human individuals, ceramics analysis, and FTIR. The results indicate an intense exploitation of marine resources, with an area designated for processing animals located at the opposite side of the funerary areas. Bone tools and specific species of animals were found as burial accompaniments. No evidence of human cremations was detected. 87Sr/86Sr results indicate that the eight human individuals always lived on the coast, and did not come from the inland. The pottery analysis confirms the association with Itararé-Taquara, but contrary to what was assumed by previous studies, the pottery seems related to other coastal sites, and not to the highlands. In light of these findings, we propose that Galheta IV can be considered a funerary mound resulting from long and continuous interactions between shellmound and Southern proto-Jê populations. This study not only enhances our understanding of the late coastal occupation dynamics in southern Brazil but also underscores its importance in reshaping current interpretations of shellmound cultural changes over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paracoccidioides fungi are thermodimorphic microorganisms that cause paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM), an autochthonous disease from Latin America, with most cases in Brazil. Humans become infected by inhaling conidia or mycelial fragments that transform into yeast at body temperature. These fungi cause chronic-granulomatous inflammation, which may promote fibrosis and parenchyma destruction in the lungs. In response to stress imposed by the host, fungi Paracoccidioides spp. increase the expression of heat shock proteins (HSP), which protect them by sustaining cellular proteostasis. Our group has studied the role of HSP60 in PCM, and previous data show that the recombinant HSP60 (rHSP60) has a deleterious effect when used in a single dose as therapy for experimental PCM. Here, we investigated the mechanism by which rHSP60 could worsen the disease. We found that rHSP60 caused the viability loss of splenic or lymph node cells from both immunized and non-immunized mice, including in splenic T lymphocytes under polyclonal stimulation with concanavalin A, probably by undergoing apoptosis. Among analyzed splenic cells, lymphocytes were indeed the main cells to die. When we investigated the death mechanisms, remarkably, we found that there was no viability loss in rHSP60-stimulated splenic cells from mice deficient in Toll-like receptor 4, TRIF adapter protein, and TNF receptor 1(TNFR1), as well as rHSP60-stimulated WT cells incubated with anti-TNF antibody. Besides, caspase-8 inhibitor IETD-CHO blocked the rHSP60 effect on splenic cells, suggesting that rHSP60 induces the extrinsic apoptosis pathway dependent on signaling via TLR4/TRIF and TNFR1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) represents the leading cause of death worldwide, and individual screening should be based on behavioral, metabolic, and genetic profile derived from data collected in large population-based studies. Due to the polygenic nature of ASCVD, we aimed to assess the association of genomics with ASCVD risk and its impact on the occurrence of acute myocardial infarction, stroke, or peripheral artery thrombotic-ischemic events at population level. CardioVascular Genes (CV-GENES) is a nationwide, multicenter, 1:1 case-control study of 3,734 patients in Brazil. Inclusion criterion for cases is the first occurrence of one of the ASCVD events. Individuals without known ASCVD will be eligible as controls. A core lab will perform the genetic analyses through low-pass whole genome sequencing and whole exome sequencing. In order to estimate the independent association between genetic polymorphisms and ASCVD, a polygenic risk score (PRS) will be built through a hybrid approach including effect size of each Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP), number of effect alleles observed, sample ploidy, total number of SNPs included in the PRS, and number of non-missing SNPs in the sample. In addition, the presence of pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants will be screened in 8 genes (ABCG5, ABCG8, APOB, APOE, LDLR, LDLRAP1, LIPA, PCSK9) associated with atherosclerosis. Multiple logistic regression will be applied to estimate adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), and population attributable risks will be calculated. Clinical trial registration: This study is registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT05515653). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International investment agreements (IIAs) promote foreign investment. However, they can undermine crucial health programs, creating a dilemma for governments between corporate and public health interests. For this reason, including clauses that safeguard health has become an essential practice in IIAs. According to the current literature, some countries have played a pivotal role in leading this inclusion, while others follow the former ones. However, the existing literature needs a unique approach that can quantify the influence strength of a country in disseminating clauses that explicitly mention health provisions to others. Following an NLP (Natural Language Processing)-based text similarity analysis of Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), this study proposes a metric, 'Influence' (INF), which provides insights into the role of different countries or regions in the propagation of IIA texts among BITs. We demonstrate a comprehensive application of this metric using a large agreement dataset. Our findings from this application corroborate the evidence in the current literature, supporting the validity of the proposed metric. According to the INF, Germany, Canada, and Brazil emerged as the most influential players in defensive, neutral, and offensive health mentions, respectively. These countries wield substantial bargaining power in international investment law and policy, and their innovative approaches to BITs set a path for others to follow. These countries provide crucial insights into the direction and sources of influence of international investment regulations to safeguard health. The proposed metric holds substantial usage for policymakers and investors. This can help them identify vital global countries in IIA text dissemination and create new policy guidelines to safeguard health while balancing economic development and public health protection. A software tool based on the proposed INF measure can be found at https://inftool.com/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants led to subsequent waves of COVID-19 worldwide. In many countries, the second wave of COVID-19 was marked by record deaths, raising the concern that variants associated with that wave might be more deadly. Our aim was to compare outcomes of critically-ill patients of the first two waves of COVID-19. Methods: This retrospective cohort included critically-ill patients admitted between March-June 2020 and April-July 2021 in the largest academic hospital in Brazil, which has free-access universal health care system. We compared admission characteristics and hospital outcomes. The main outcome was 60‐day survival and we built multivariable Cox model based on a conceptual causal diagram in the format of directed acyclic graph (DAG). Results: We included 1583 patients (1315 in the first and 268 in the second wave). Patients in the second wave were younger, had lower severity scores, used prone and non-invasive ventilatory support more often, and fewer patients required mechanical ventilation (70% vs 80%, p<0.001), vasopressors (60 vs 74%, p<0.001), and dialysis (22% vs 37%, p<0.001). Survival was higher in the second wave (HR 0.61, 95%CI 0.50–0.76). In the multivariable model, admission during the second wave, adjusted for age, SAPS3 and vaccination, was not associated with survival (aHR 0.85, 95%CI 0.65–1.12). Conclusions: In this cohort study, patients with COVID-19 admitted to the ICU in the second wave were younger and had better prognostic scores. Adjusted survival was similar in the two waves, contrasting with record number of hospitalizations, daily deaths and health system collapse seen across the country in the second wave. Our findings suggest that the combination of the burden of severe cases and factors such as resource allocation and health disparities may have had an impact in the excess mortality found in many countries in the second wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) is a malignancy of the lymphoid lineage of the hematopoietic system has worldwide, especially in developed countries. Better diagnostic and recording techniques, longer life expectancy, and greater exposure to risk factors are hypotheses for this growing incidence curve. Occupational exposures to chemical, biological, and physical agents have also been associated with NHL development, but the results are still controversial. We have investigated the occupational and lifestyle case-control study design with 214 adult patients and 452 population controls. Socio-demographic, clinical, and occupational exposure data were obtained through individual interviews with a standardized questionnaire. Clinical, laboratory, and histopathological data were obtained through medical records. Risk of NHL (any subtype), B-cell lymphoma, DLBCL, Follicular lymphoma and T-cell lymphoma was elevated among the those who had ever been exposed to any solvents, hydrocarbon solvents, pesticides, meat and meat products, and sunlight and tended to increase by years of exposure. A significant upward trend with years of exposure was detected for any solvents and hydrocarbon solvents (NHL (any subtype) p-value for trend<0.001), B-cell lymphoma (p-value for trend<0.001), and T-cell lymphoma (p-value for trend<0.023), pesticides (NHL (any subtype), p for trend<0.001) and T-cell lymphoma (p for trend<0.002), meat and meat products (NHL (any subtype) (p for trend<0.001) and DLBCL (p for trend<0.001), and sunlight (B-cell lymphoma (p for trend<0.001). The results of this study agree line with other international studies, can be extrapolated to other countries that have the same socio-demographic and occupational characteristics as Brazil and support strategies for surveillance and control of work-related cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To identify and describe the profile of potential transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CM) cases in the Brazilian public health system (SUS), using a predictive machine learning (ML) model. Methods: This was a retrospective descriptive database study that aimed to estimate the frequency of potential ATTR-CM cases in the Brazilian public health system using a supervised ML model, from January 2015 to December 2021. To build the model, a list of ICD-10 codes and procedures potentially related with ATTR-CM was created based on literature review and validated by experts. Results: From 2015 to 2021, the ML model classified 262 hereditary ATTR-CM (hATTR-CM) and 1,581 wild-type ATTR-CM (wtATTR-CM) potential cases. Overall, the median age of hATTR-CM and wtATTR-CM patients was 66.8 and 59.9 years, respectively. The ICD-10 codes most presented as hATTR-CM and wtATTR-CM were related to heart failure and arrythmias. Regarding the therapeutic itinerary, 13% and 5% of hATTR-CM and wtATTR-CM received treatment with tafamidis meglumine, respectively, while 0% and 29% of hATTR-CM and wtATTR-CM were referred to heart transplant. Conclusion: Our findings may be useful to support the development of health guidelines and policies to improve diagnosis, treatment, and to cover unmet medical needs of patients with ATTR-CM in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ocular toxoplasmosis (OT) is caused by protozoan T. gondii. Ophthalmological examination is considered the gold standard for OT diagnosis, and laboratory tests are used for diagnostic confirmation. However, these tests can present different results, which change depending on their basis, on sample type and on patients' clinical alteration. Thus, the aim of the present study is to assess immunodiagnostic and molecular techniques applied in blood, serum and tear fluid to diagnose T. gondii infection in patients seen at an Ophthalmology Clinic. In total, 160 patients were included in the study, 40 of them had OT with active lesions (G1); 40 had OT with healed lesions (G2), 40 had non-toxoplasmic uveitis (G3) and 40 had no ocular alterations (G4). Serum samples were subjected to Immunoenzymatic Assay (ELISA) and to Indirect Immunofluorescence Reaction (IFAT) to search for anti-T. gondii IgM and IgG. Tear fluid samples were analyzed through ELISA for IgA research. All blood and tear fluid samples were subjected to conventional polymerase chain reaction (cPCR) and in a Nested PCR model for T. gondii DNA amplification with targets B1, GRA7 and REP 529. IgG and IgM anti-T. gondii was detected in serum samples from 106 and 15 patients, respectively, when combining ELISA and IFAT results. Anti-T.gondii IgA antibodies were detected in 9.2% of the tear material. Nested PCR with GRA7 target showed higher positivity in blood samples (24.4%); Nested PCR with B1 target showed a higher frequency of positivity in tears (15%). Biological samples of patients with active lesions showed the highest positivity frequencies in all immunodiagnostic assays, as well as in most PCR models. The present results highlighted the need of associating techniques with different fundamentals to confirm OT diagnosis. Furthermore, further tear fluid analyses should be performed to validate this biological material as lesser invasive alternative for the more accurate OT diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]