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Objective. To describe the epidemiological status of malaria in the Brazilian Amazon region between 2003 and 2012. Methods. The present retrospective ecological study employed data from the Brazilian Epidemiological Surveillance and Malaria Communication System (SIVEP-Malária/SVS/MS), Hospital Admissions System (SIH/DATASUS/MS), and Mortality Information System (SIM). For each year, the percentage of Plasmodium falciparum cases, the number of admissions, and deaths and lethality due to malaria were determined. The distribution of P. falciparum cases in each state was also described. Data from 2012 were compared to data from 2005, when the Amazon region recorded a peak number of cases, and with data from 2011. Results. In 2012, 241 806 malaria cases were recorded in the region, a reduction of 60.1% vs. 2005 and of 9.1% vs. 2011. Between 2003 and 2005, there was an increase of 48.3% in the number of cases, with 606 069 recorded cases in 2005. Since 2006, a declining trend in number of cases has been observed, especially for P. falciparum, with 155169 cases notified in 2005 vs. 35 385 in 2012 (reduction of 77.2%). Between 2005 and 2012, the number of malaria hospital admissions (74,6%) and deaths (54,4%) was also reduced. Conclusions. Despite a decline in the number of malaria cases, the possible emergence of drug-resistant parasites and the lower frequency of P. falciparum indicate the need to adopt new surveillance strategies, more sensitive tools, and integrated vector management to achive a bold, but not impossible, goal: the elimination of P. falciparum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon a case study on public schools in the city of Juiz de Fora (MG), this article aims to discuss the substantive issue of secularism in Brazil. The paper builds on the current international debate that analyzes the process of secularization under a plural and multidimensional, rather than one-dimensional perspective, which has been modeled on European countries and the United States. We seek to establish a typology based on three paradigmatic cases that may bring us closer to the differing forms and informal regulation of the religious phenomenon in the public education environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point of this paper is the assumption that science journalists are stakeholders in the process of consolidating a science culture in Brazil. This is particularly pertinent in the context of a developing country, in which the mass media is one of the main sources of science and technology information. In Brazil, an important movement of the science journalism was observed in the 1970s, when the Brazilian Association of Science Journalism was created, and increased in the eighties. We will present the results of an exploratory study using an online survey on who are the media professionals who cover Science and Technology issues in Brazil, which are their working conditions and their practices. This Brazilian study included 71 respondents and is part of a global survey of Science Journalism. According to our results, the modal Science journalist working in Brazil is a woman with less than 40 years old, writing mostly for printed outlets and the Internet, and working in the field for less than 10 years. An important number of respondents have been working in full-time positions and are satisfied with their profession. In contrast to the working hypothesis that stimulated this survey – Science Journalism is in crisis – our study shows that, at least among those who answered our survey, there is a feeling of optimism toward this profession in Brazil. These results confirm other observations on Science communication in Brazil. This leads us to the question: Is there a new 'wave' of Science Journalism in Brazil? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses family farmer adaptation to climate change in semi-arid regions as local vulnerability reduction and forming transition processes towards more desirable states of socioecological resilience. We apply this methodological framework to the case of the National Program on Biodiesel Production and Use (PNPB) and its efforts to integrate family farmers from the Brazilian northeast into biofuel commodity chains. The results indicate that while the PNPB addresses important components for vulnerability reduction-such as technical assistance or market access-more sustainable futures will essentially rely on broader socioeconomic reforms to break with currently socially exclusive processes. In particular, successful adaptation will need concerted actions at local, regional and national scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]