Evaluation of oral health in a community of native brazilians of the umutina reservation, Mato Grosso State

Fundação do Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Physics teachers initial education and professional performance: what do future teachers have to say?

This research deals with the discussion about Physics teachers’ undergraduate education and professional performance related to the knowledge acquired during this initial education. More specifically, we try to answer questions like: How do future teachers evaluate the knowledge acquired during their initial education as in terms of specific knowledge as pedagogical knowledge? What are their formative needs and future expectatives about professional performance and the school teaching environment? Data was constituted from a sample of 26 future high school physics teachers, one semester long, that were taking the supervised curricular training in a undergraduate Physics education program (called Licenciatura in Brazil), in São Paulo State public university. Besides the final report of this training, future teachers were asked to answer a questionnaire aiming to take their conceptions about their initial education program, their formative needs, future professional expectatives and high school teaching environment. According to the future teachers, the program they were about to finish was satisfactory in terms of Physics specific contents; however, about the pedagogical content knowledge and the pedagogical practice, they showed to be unsatisfied and insecure. The majority of the questionnaire responses demonstrated that they feel lack of teaching experience. Moreover, teachers emphasize other factors related to the future professional performance: possible difficulties to deal with students’ indiscipline, schools’ bad physical structure, limited number of Physics classes in high school level, lack of didactical laboratories and also they seem to be frightened that the expertise teachers do not be collaborative with the new ones. In this sense, the research outcomes shows the necessity of discussions about questions involving teachers knowledge, related to either, the Physics conceptual domain and the pedagogical one, since it matters directly to future teachers professional performance. Discussions in this sense can also help evaluation and restructuration of programs designed to initial and continuous teachers’ education.

T-cell lymphoma in the tongue of a dog with cutaneous and striated forelimb muscle involvement

Background: Primary tongue tumors rarely affect dogs and correspond to 4% of tumors involving the oropharynx. Until now, primary tongue lymphoma had not been reported. However, lymphoma involvement in the skeletal muscle, although quite unusual, was described in the literature in four cases. Cutaneous lymphoma is another rare extranodal manifestation. The objective of this report is to describe a case of T immunophenotype lymphoma occurrence, whose manifestation is atypical, not only because it is situated in the tongue muscle but also because of the subsequent involvement of the striated musculature of the left forelimb and the skin, which showed unfavorable evolution. Case: A female seven-year-old mongrel was seen showing a regular lump in the base of the tongue, 3 cm in diameter, not ulcerated and of fi rm consistency, with halitosis as the only clinical sign of the disease. Incisional biopsy of the lump was performed and histopathology verifi ed that it was large cell lymphoma. The material was sent for immunohistochemical evaluation and was characterized as T immunophenotype lymphoma by positive CD3 and negative CD79a marking. The CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone) chemotherapy protocol was established as treatment and after the fi rst chemotherapy session there was partial remission of the mass, measuring 2 cm in diameter. The lump, however, remained stable in the following sessions. Thirty days after the diagnosis of lymphoma, the animal began to show lameness of the left forelimb and swelling near the head of the left humerus. A muscle mass, fi rm in consistency, progressing fast, presented a signifi cant increase, just three weeks after its appearance. Two skin lesions, arcuate, erythematous and pruritic also appeared in the dorsocervical and ventral-abdominal region. Incisional biopsy of these lesions was performed and the histopathological diagnosis confi rmed muscle and cutaneous large cell lymphoma and immunophenotype compatible with T cells (positive CD3 and negative CD79a). Due to disease advance, even during chemotherapy, a rescue protocol of L-asparaginase administration followed by lomustine and prednisone was proposed. Even with the rescue protocol there was no remission of the tumors and the case was classifi ed as progressive. The animal of this report died after completing the fi rst cycle of chemotherapy protocol, with a survival of 92 days. Discussion: Despite the fact that clinical behavior of primary lymphoma in dogs’ skeletal muscle is unknown, it is believed that, as in humans, it can be associated with chronic infl ammation or neoplastic cell invasion by proximity of the tumor or metastasis, which could justify the dissemination of the lymphoma reported here from the tongue to other tissues. However, appearance of concurrent independent lymphomas cannot be ruled out. As observed in the three cases of primary muscular lymphoma, the dog of this report had low response to therapy and short survival. This report presents the fi rst case of lymphoma in tongue with subsequent skin and left forelimb skeletal muscle involvement described in the literature. The clinical outcome corroborates the aggressiveness of muscular lymphoma observed in the other reports and also suggests that both tongue and other skeletal muscle tumors should be included in the differential diagnosis of canine lymphoma.