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The exploitation of natural resources containing naturally occurring radionuclides may lead to enhanced levels of radioactive isotope and enhanced potential for exposure to naturally occurring radionudides in products, by-products, residues or wastes. Such resources include, for instance, monazite, the processing of which, in Brazil, generated a great amount of radioactive residues, being stored in buried concrete tanks, in temporary storage buildings and in sealed trenches. In addition, during the 1980s there were no radiological protection rules concerning the storage and transportation of these kinds of residues. Mineral radioactive residues were used as landfills and the residues of chemical processes contaminated floors and buildings. The decommissioning process and cleaning of old plants have generated tons of wastes that has been added to previously produced wastes. This paper reports and discusses the cycle of monazite in Brazil and its consequences in terms of site remediation and amount of wastes and residues generated and stored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Background and Aims Based on the bell shape and greenish colour of the flowers, bat-pollination was suggested for some Sinningieae species (Gesneriaceae). Actually, there are no reports on pollination biology and visitors for these species. This paper reports on pollination biology of Sinningia brasiliensis, Paliavana prasinata and P. sericiflora in south-eastern Brazil.• Methods Flowers were observed in situ to determine phases of anthesis, colour patterns and scent intensity. Corolla measures were taken from fresh flowers. Nectar production and concentration were measured in flowers bagged at the pre-anthesis phases. Direct visual observations of visitors were made during the day and night, and photographs were taken to analyse their visiting behaviour.• Key Results Some floral features of the three species fit the bat-pollination syndrome: large, robust and gullet-shaped corollas, colour patterns and large amount of nectar. However, other floral features—such as onset of anthesis, nectar attributes and odour intensity—differ among the species. Nectar volume and total sugar production increased significantly at midnight in S. brasiliensis and P. prasinata, but in P. sericiflora there were no significant differences in the total nectar and sugar production during anthesis. Scent intensity is much higher in S. brasiliensis and P. prasinata than P. sericiflora. Flowers of S. brasiliensis and P. prasinata, whose features fit the chiropterophilous syndrome, are pollinated by glossophagine bat species. Paliavana sericiflora, on the other hand, presents floral features intermediate between bat and hummingbird syndromes, but is visited and pollinated only by hummingbirds.• Conclusions These data strengthen the statement that the bat syndrome in Sinningieae originated independently in Sinningia brasiliensis and in Paliavana species. Paliavana sericiflora may be another example of a plant ‘in transition’ from the hummingbird to the bat pollination, but a reversion in the direction of bat to hummingbird might not be excluded. It is also possible that this is a case of speciation on both bat and hummingbird pollination. Studies on Paliavana sister species may provide insights about origins and the evolutionary directions of the pollination systems of these species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes variation at 6 microsatellite loci in 107 specimens of Ctenomys minutus from a chromosomal hybrid zone on the coastal plain of southern Brazil. Of the 56 alleles uncovered in this study, 39.2% are exclusive to alternative cytotypes or the contact populations. Clinal variation is not obvious because there are no microsatellite fixed differences among chromosomally divergent populations, but variation at Hai 2 locus is gradual across the zone. The local populations are highly differentiated and structured. The moderate estimated values of gene flow follow an isolation-by-distance model, which predicts concentration of an allele or a homozygous genotype in patches with generations of individuals with limited dispersal and mating by proximity. Analysis of populations distantly localized from the contact zone probably will provide further insights in the genetic relationship among cytotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Background and Aims The aim of this paper was to verify the variation in the loss of seed dormancy during after-ripening and the interspecific and interpopulation variability in the degree of dormancy of seven wild and two cultivated rice species comprising 21 populations and two cultivars.• Methods Four wild rice species from South America, Oryza glumaepatula, O. latifolia, O. grandiglumis and O. alta, and two O. sativa cultivars were tested in one experiment. In a second experiment, five wild species, O. punctata, O. eichingeri, O.rufipogon, O. latifolia and O. glumaepatula, and one cultivated species (O. glaberrima) were evaluated. Initial germination tests were performed soon after the seeds were harvested and subsequently at 2-month intervals, for a total of six storage periods in the first experiment and three in the second. All tests were conducted in the dark at a temperature of 27 °C.• Key Results Different patterns of after-ripening among populations within and between species were observed.• Conclusions The cultivated species (O. sativa and O. glaberrima) and, amongst the wild species, the tetraploids O. latifolia, O. grandiglumis and the diploids O. eichingeri and O. punctata, had weak dormancy, losing it completely 2 months after harvest, while O. rufipogon and O. glumaepatula exhibited pronounced dormancy. The latter showed different patterns of after-ripening between populations indigenous to the Amazon region and those originating in the Paraguay River system. Seeds of Solimões (Amazon) and Japura origin showed weak dormancy whereas those of Paraguay origin showed deep dormancy. Ecological differences among natural habitats may be involved in such differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Background and aims Pollination is a critical stage in plant reproduction and thus in the maintenance and evolution of species and communities. The Caatinga is the fourth largest ecosystem in Brazil, but despite its great extent and its importance few studies providing ecological information are available, with a notable lack of work focusing on pollination biology. Here, general data are presented regarding the frequency of pollination systems within Caatinga communities, with the aim of characterizing patterns related to floral attributes in order to make possible comparisons with data for plant communities in other tropical areas, and to test ideas about the utility of syndromes. This paper also intends to provide a reference point for further studies on pollination ecology in this threatened ecosystem.• Methods The floral traits and the pollination systems of 147 species were analysed in three areas of Caatinga vegetation in northeastern Brazil, and compared with world-wide studies focusing on the same subject. For each species, floral attributes were recorded as form, size, colour, rewards and pollination units. The species were grouped into 12 guilds according to the main pollinator vector. Analyses of the frequencies of the floral traits and pollination systems were undertaken.• Key Results Nectar and pollen were the most common floral resources and insect pollination was the most frequent, occurring in 69·9 % of the studied species. Of the entomophilous species, 61·7 % were considered to be melittophilous (43·1 % of the total). Vertebrate pollination occurred in 28·1 % of the species (ornithophily in 15·0 % and chiropterophily in 13·1 %), and anemophily was recorded in only 2·0 %.• Conclusions The results indicated that the pollination systems in Caatinga, despite climatic restrictions, are diversified, with a low percentage of generalist flowers, and similar to other tropical dry and wet forest communities, including those with high rainfall levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines violent crimes on the public transport system in a large Brazilian city. The research included 191 interviews with workers, labour union officials, users, managers, and the police officers and the examination of 88 police records and 26 criminal investigations. Robberies are seen as interactive, relatively unexpected though common events. We interpreted bus robbery as a psychological power game generating financial loss, injuries and fatalities, racial tensions and harsh policing We evaluated the efficiency of law and order measures taken to combat bus crime, including the excessive use of force by the police. The study concludes that improved policing social policies, targeting poor and black-mulatto youths, who make up most of the young offenders involved, should be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of care and support to persons living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Brazil who also use drugs and/or alcohol represents special challenges because of the combined effects of addiction, poverty, stigma, and discrimination. This paper presents details on a program providing both clinic- and field- based care to HIV-infected injection drug users, highlighting the use of a specialized case management approach to address the clinical and psychosocial needs of this population. This program includes both a mobile case management team that fosters group discussions and provides individual counseling, and provision of medical consultations at 2 major drug treatment centers in Rio de Janeiro. The article also describes the experience of working with injection drug users who regularly attend an outpatient clinic serving marginalized communities through the use of mutual self-help groups and specialized support groups to address to issue of adherence to antiretroviral therapies for the treatment of HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at the 8th Workshop on Logic, Language, Information and Computation held in Brazil in 2001 is presented. Topics include graphs and modality, kleene algebra, and second-order logic. The workshop was sponsored by the Interest Group in Pure and Applied Logics (IGPL) , the Association for Symbolic Logic (ASL), and the European Association for Logic, Language and Information (EALLI ).

Information on several papers discussed at the sixth workshop on Logic, Language, Information and Computation (WoLLIC) held held at Hotel Simon, National Park of Itatiaia, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is presented. Topics include game semantics, stability and finite model theory and markov decision processes and bayesian networks.

It is only recently that people have begun to study families in Brazil and many data are incomplete. This paper, however, tries to bring together some of the most important issues which have emerged from these studies and to consider their implications for social and political approaches to child care and the family. It emphasizes the complexity of developing family policy in a society where the legal tradition has been transplanted from another continent and applied to a situation whose multi-ethnic and multi-cultural population has had little historical time to establish its own approach (Neder 1994). The result has been the imposition of the particular ideologies of the hegemonic social forces in Brazil -- land owners, the Catholic Church and the emerging industrial and financial bourgeoisie -- derived from the western Christian tradition of patriarchal religious marriage. It has created forms of professional practice which are deeply intolerant of the other cultural traditions in Brazil, particularly the Afro-Brazilian, which are dismissed as irregular families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Base Christian Communities (CEBs) represented a key element in progressive Catholicism in Latin America, particularly in Brazil where they attained a high level of development. This article examines the evolution of a CEB in the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, exploring the obstacles to the production, circulation, and reception of the progressive Catholic message. While tensions and contradictions within the CEB contributed to its decline, they had deleterious effects only when they were conditioned by external processes such as the Vatican restoration and the economic crisis Brazil faced beginning in the mid-1980s. These macro processes exacerbated tensions between the pastoral agent and lay people and among different lay factions. They also disempowered the core of activists in the CEB. The paper concludes by challenging recent readings of the 'crisis' of Brazilian CEBs and by arguing for the need to place local religious dynamics in their proper institutional and structural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates firm specific indexes of technical efficiency for the Brazilian plastics and steel industries. Two different indexes are employed for the empirical estimates—the Farrell index and an index developed from a linear programming approximation of a nonstochastic frontier production function specified in the Cobb-Douglas functional form. Evidence of substantial relative technical inefficiency is revealed. In both industries only a very small proportion of all the observed firms were producing amounts of output greater than 80 percent of that technically possible on the estimated frontier. Relative efficiency of the firms in the two industries was not seen to be significantly related to ownership (foreign or government), but tests did suggest a tendency for larger firms, possessing larger market shares, to be closer to the frontier than smaller firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at the fourth Workshop on Logic, Language, Information and Computation held at the Ponta Mar Hotel in Fortaleza from August 19-22, 1997 is presented. It states that the workshop was scientifically sponsored by the Interest Group in Pure and Applied Logics (IGPL), The European Association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI ) and the Association for Symbolic Logic (ASL). Topics include Real Number Computation and Model Theory of Arithmetic.

Information on several papers discussed at XI Brazilian Logic Conference (XI EBL) held at the Ondina Campus of the Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA) in Salvador, Brazil, from the May 6-10,1996 is presented. Topics include countable compactness, natural ordinals and natural deduction for sublogics of predicate logic.

This article focuses on a paper which was presented in the debate series at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. English philosopher Herbert Spencer suggested that a great deal of self discipline is required of anyone venturing into sociology. He cautioned would be students of the subject against various biases they might introduce into sociological interpretation. He listed a patriotic bias, a class bias, a political bias, a theological bias, an occupational bias, and even a special bias in the point of view of the ruling classes. Social reality is conceived as complex because the theoretician has taken the individual as the unit of analysis arid realizes that only an exceptionally complex theory would suffice to connect individuals, as individuals to the phenomena observed in a variety of groups and societies. The individualists have embraced as an article of faith the exact opposite of any procedure that would permit them to develop a parsimonious theory. They have committed themselves to the view that social life is incomprehensible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The central question of this paper is why people of African descent have shown different rates of acculturation, and different degrees of "racial" distinctiveness in Mexico. Brazil, and the United States. Acculturation is greater in Mexico and the United States than in Brazil. but Mexico makes the least racial distinctions and the United States the most. with Brazil in between. The two dimensions are thus independent of each other, and each is determined by a multiplicity of factors including demographic ratios, the size and status of the indigenous population, racist ideology, the slave family structure, ethnic concentrations of African immigrants, recency of immigration, and the extent of cross-Atlantic ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a study which investigated whether the failure of multinationals in Brazil to adapt production techniques to labor abundance arises from limited factor substitutability or from a permissive environment. Production planners in the multinationals we studied rationalized their decisions in terms of a limited range of engineering-efficient technologies. This paper investigates whether the failure of multinationals to adapt their production techniques more fully to labor abundance arises from truly limited factor substitutability or from a permissive environment, which allows multinational corporations to produce profitably without searching extensively for technological alternatives.

The paper is a brief report of a study of the way of life followed by the caipiras who inhabit the Paraitinga Valley in the eastern part of the state of Sāo Paulo, Brazil. It is limited largely to considerations of the population and its characteristics; health, diet, housing and related aspects of the level and standard of living; labor contracts and work techniques; religious beliefs and practices; social participation; and the rights enjoyed by these humble folk who are similar in so many ways to the bulk of the rural inhabitants of other sections of the Brazilian nation. Most of the description and analysis is based upon a long period of personal observation and study by the Brazilian co-author of the report. For almost two decades the author has been in intimate contact with families in the region studied, making detailed observations and records of various aspects of social organization and social participation. Caipira is a term widely used in Sāo Paulo to designate the humble rural folk who inhabit the less advanced sections of the state. It usually has a depreciative connotation.

This paper is a study of the behaviour of the aggregate savings coefficient in the course of Brazilian development. Brazil is especially useful for such a case-study. Unlike most less-developed countries, many of the economic and social changes and the policy measures which have been suggested on a priori grounds as conducive to raising marginal savings rates have in fact taken place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the position of colored freedmen in Brazilian slave society. By analyzing the occupations, status, and degree of acceptance of freedmen during slavery, historians can shed light on the pattern of postemancipation assimilation for the entire slave class. Additionally, the role of the free colored indicates the nature of the slave regime and reveals whether it was closed or open. The paper looks at freedmen in Brazil through the use of data on numbers, rates of growth, occupational mobility, and degree of integration.

This paper examines the stagnation of Brazilian exports of products other than coffee during the postwar period. Export stagnation led to a pattern of autarkic development. The combination of growing domestic demand and income-inelastic supply of imports put pressure on the real exchange rate. As the external value of the cruzeiro depreciated more rapidly than the internal inflation, relative prices moved to favor domestic producers for many new products, leading to the establishment of many new industries producing only for the internal market, and very rapid growth based on import substitution. This process was self-sustaining, as import substitution coupled with export stagnation in one period lowered the equilibrium exchange rate for imports, and stimulated further import substitution in the next. Because of the increasing inelasticity of domestic production with respect to downward movements of the exchange rate, however, import substitution became a progressively more expensive way both of saving foreign exchange and of generating growth.

Summary: We previously standardized the direct agglutination test (DAT) to detect anti-Leishmania chagasi promastigote antibodies (DAT-LPC) with good sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing visceral leishmaniasis (VL). In this paper, we present a technical upgrade by introducing some modifications into the antigen preparation. This antigen was evaluated in DAT (DAT-Mod) using 61 sera samples from VL patients and 96 samples from patients with other diseases. The DAT-Mod presented a cut-off of 1:100, satisfactory reproducibility (VC <5.8), sensitivity of 93.4%, specificity of 96.9%, and diagnostic efficiency of 95.5%. The improvement in antigen preparation reduced inter-batch variations and resulted in a high test performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The advantages of established intergovernmental decision-making arenas for the implementation of health policies in decentralized settings are not well known. This paper presents the case of the joint health management committee, known as the Tripartite Committee, created to formalize intergovernmental decisions about the implementation of policies of the Brazilian Unified Health System. This paper adopts a descriptive approach for the strategic analysis of decision process among governmental actors from three federative levels, as well as of mechanisms for the negotiation of their interests in the formalization of health policy agreements. The roles and positions of governmental actors within the Tripartite Committee were analysed, together with the definition of decision agendas and strategies. The data come from normative documents and proceedings of the Tripartite Committee, interviews with their governmental actors and observations of their meetings. The distinct governmental actors from the Tripartite Committee employed cooperation strategies with permanent negotiations oriented towards interchanges and political mediation. The power of the federal Government is also pre-eminent for the constitution of decision agendas and in the shaping of negotiation processes and priorities. The Tripartite Committee formalized agreements between unequal administrative and political powers to ensure a systemic integration of governmental policies and a self-regulation of the political autonomies. There are some divergences within the governmental actors interpretation of key policies and processes in this decision arena; the primacy of political or technical criteria as well as the applicability of laws or ad hoc norms. Although such cooperation strategies may slow down the decision-making process and render it more complicated, they also define more clearly areas of institutional responsibility and ensure a broader support from different levels of government for the implementation of public health policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the effects of trade liberalisation on wages in developing countries, and presents new evidence for Brazil. Wages fell substantially in the traded sector after trade liberalisation, consistent with there being reduced rents as industries faced greater competition. After trade liberalisation there was an increase in the marginal returns to college education. Within the traded sector, the impact of increasing openness on wages was insignificant for those in the top two education groups but negative for lower level education groups. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that imported technology raised the relative demand for highly skilled labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the effects of the 1990 Brazilian trade liberalisation on the total factor productivity, market share and profits of a sample of 318 large manufacturing firms. A panel data production function analysis for the period 1986–94 indicates very large total factor productivity gains in the period to 1994, which were accompanied by large falls in market shares and profits. The explanation advanced is that the shock of trade liberalisation to profits was so great that firms were stimulated to improve their efficiency dramatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the paper "Giant Urticaria and Anaphylactic Shock After Eating Brazil Nuts," by P.G. Hesse. The author reports his own experiences. He has a strong family history of allergic manifestations and a personal history of eczema in childhood. At the age of 15 he had a severe attack of giant urticaria with anaphylactic shock after eating a brazil nut.

We consider the impact of the Brazilian crisis of 1999 on the extensive and intensive margin of exporters versus non-exporters through the open economy balance sheet channel. Using an open economy balance sheet channel model with firm heterogeneity, we explore predictors that firms will engage in global markets. Our results based on a detailed firm-level panel of data for Brazilian 10,573 firms for the period 1996-2007, show that the decision to export and overall growth of sales for exporting firms is driven by size, the debt ratio, the current ratio and operating costs as well as the direct impact of the crisis itself. The findings suggest that the mechanism is driven by the response of the credit market to the creditworthiness of firms as it is by changing terms of trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]