Teaching in the community: Changing and implementing a new curriculum

The Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu is changing to, and implementing a new curriculum aimed at integrating teaching and learning in the community. Emphasis is on preparing the community settings for teaching, learning and providing health care. A particular task is staff development with emphasis on problem-based learning (PBL) and training medical and nursing students in the leadership to participate in this process. The new curriculum includes the gradual introduction of clinical practice during First Year, integration of the basic sciences with clinical sciences, through integrated modules studied in small groups, and maintenance of the two year clerkship. The undergraduates are introduced gradually to the community: 8% of the total curriculum during First Year, 10% during Second Year, 10% during Third Year, 20% during Fourth Year, 30% during Fifth and Sixth Years. The basic health units at primary care level, and the regional specialty outpatients and hospitals at the second level, are the main teaching sites. An Education Development Committee was established to discuss the strategies for supporting the changes and to structure the planning for promoting the gradual transformation of staff development. After 18 months of implementation of the curriculum, there followed discussions and monitoring of the objectives of changes in medical education at our school. Successful implementation of the new curriculum would fail, if the objectives were not absorbed by every member of the implementation Committee.

Ant community richness and composition across a gradient from Eucalyptus plantations to secondary Atlantic Forest

As florestas secundárias e plantações de espécies exóticas estão se expandindo nas paisagens tropicais. No entanto, nossa compreensão sobre o valor destas florestas para a conservação da biodiversidade de invertebrados ainda é incipiente. Neste trabalho, usamos a fauna de formigas de serapilheira para avaliar a diversidade desses insetos entre três florestas de Eucalyptus, sendo uma comercial (quatro anos de idade) e duas abandonadas em diferentes idades de regeneração (16 e 31 anos) e uma área de Mata Atlântica secundária. A riqueza total foi mais alta na floresta secundária e nos plantios de Eucalyptus abandonados há mais tempo. A densidade de espécies na floresta secundária foi significativamente maior quando comparado as plantações de Eucalyptus, mas não difere entre eucaliptais; análise de ordenação revelou diferenças na composição de espécies entre as plantações de Eucalyptus com subbosque ausente e com subbosque desenvolvido ou em desenvolvimento. Ainda, foi constatada uma sobreposição acentuada entre amostras de serapilheira das florestas de eucaliptos abandonadas há mais tempo e a floresta secundária. em geral, plantações de eucalipto foram caracterizadas pela presença de espécies generalistas e de ampla distribuição. Nossos resultados indicam que embora o subbosque de plantações de eucaliptos com maior idade de regeneração suporte um conjunto relativamente alto de espécies generalistas de formigas, é improvável que eucaliptais conservem a maioria das espécies de florestas primárias, especialmente predadores especializados, Dacetini e espécies nômades.

Relationship between green management and environmental training in companies located in Brazil: A theoretical framework and case studies

The main objective of this study is to understand the relationship between green management and environmental training in Brazilian companies, underscoring how this relationship takes place and its most important factors. For such, 9 case studies were conducted at large ISO 14001 certified companies, leaders in their market segments. Several interviews were conducted for each case, documents were collected and visits were made for direct observation. The main contributions and results of this study were: (a) a proposal for a theoretical framework relating the evolutionary stages of green management and the characteristics of environmental training; (b) it was ascertained, as per the proposed theoretical framework, that organizational culture and teamwork, top management support and more technical green management practices are the factors that seem to connect and convert environmental training into more proactive green management, especially for companies in the proactive green management stage; (c) the identification of the co-evolution between the companies' stage of green management and their environmental training level, which is the identified relationship mechanism between environmental training and green management. In other words, the higher the level of adoption of activities recommended for green management, the more evolved the green management practiced at the companies tends to be; and (d) identification that the proposed theoretical framework tends to be useful, mainly because it can explain the relationship between green management and environmental training at the company in the proactive stage. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reproductive phenology of a northeast Brazilian mangrove community: Environmental and biotic constraints

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Temporary fragmentation of a marginal lake and its effects on zooplankton community structure and organization

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

Community structure and comparative analysis of the woody component of a cerrado remnant in Southeastern Brazil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Variations in tree community composition and structure in a fragment of tropical semideciduous forest in southeastern Brazil related to different human disturbance histories

In an area of tropical seasonal semideciduous forest, the soil characteristics, floristic composition, physiognomic structure, and the distribution of three regeneration and three dispersal guilds were studied for four stands within the forest that had documented histories of varying degrees of human disturbance. The aim was to study forest regeneration in areas of preserved forest and secondary forest, with parts of both types of forest experiencing either 'intensive' or 'occasional' cattle trampling. The study was carried out in the Sebastiao Aleixo da Silva Ecological Station, Bauru, São Paulo State, Brazil. Two stands were called 'secondary' because they corresponded to forest tracts that were felled and occupied by crops and pastures in the past and then abandoned to forest regeneration ca. 40 years before this study. The other two stands, called 'preserved', corresponded to areas of the fragment where the forest has been maintained with only minor human impacts. The arboreal component of the tree community (diameter at breast height or dbh greater than or equal to 5 cm) was sampled in 20 plots of 40 m x 40 m, and the subarboreal component (diameter at the base of the stem or dbs < 5 cm and height greater than or equal to 0.5 m) in subplots of 40 m x 2 m. Physiognomic features, such as canopy height and density of climbing plants, were registered all over a 5 m x 5 m gridline laid on the sample plots. Soil bulk samples were collected for chemical and textural analyses. Most detected differences contrasted the secondary to the preserved forest stands. The soils of the secondary stands showed higher proportions of sand and lower levels of mineral nutrients and organic matter than those of the preserved stands, probably due to higher losses by leaching and erosion. Compared to the secondary stands, the preserved ones had higher proportions of tall trees, higher mean canopy height, lower species diversity, higher abundance of autochorous and shade-tolerant climax species, and lower abundance of pioneer and light-demanding climax species. Despite the high proportion of species shared by the preserved and secondary stands (108 out of 139), they differed consistently in terms of density of the most abundant species. on the other hand, the secondary and preserved stands held similar values for tree density and basal area, suggesting that 40 years were enough to restore these features. Effects of cattle trampling on the vegetation were detected for the frequency of trees of anemochorous and zoochorous species, which were higher in the stands under occasional and intensive cattle trampling, respectively. The density of thin climbers was lower in the stands with intensive trampling. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Periphyton on natural substratum in jurumirim reservoir (São Paulo, Brazil): Community biomass and primary productivity

Seasonal variation in the biomass and primary productivity of the periphyton on natural substratum (internodes of Echiiwchloa polystaclya HBK Hitch.) was studied during one year (from August 1993 to July 1994) in a lagoon with permanent connection with a river. We also analysed the relationships between the hydrological regime, climatic conditions and physico-chemical variables of water with the biological compounds of the periphyton. Values of dry mass, ash-free dry mass, chlorophyll a and phaeophytin of periphyton ranged from 0.55±0.24 g m-2 to 7.86±4.93 g m-2; 0.28±0.18 g m-2 to 3.72±2.23 g m-2; 0.57±0.09 mg m-2 to 15.57±4.52 mg m-2; 0.03±0.03 mg m-2 to 4.74±3.46 mg m-2, respectively. The primary productivity of periphytic algae measured by C14 method ranged from 6.45±1.29 mg C m-2 h-1 to 52.88± 7.55 mg C m-2 h-1. The biomass showed a peak in October 1993, February and April 1994. Higher value of primary productivity was recorded in December 1993 and January 1994 and was due to the peculiar light and nutrition conditions during this period. We conclude that biomass and productivity of the community are controlled mainly by hydrological regime (fluctuations of water level). © INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS.

Responses of blood lactate concentration in aerobic and anaerobic training protocols at different swimming exercise intensities in rats

A swimming periodized experimental training model in rats in which different training protocols (TP) were classified in aerobic (A) and anaerobic (AN) intensity levels. The purpose of the present study was to verify if the classification of the TP used in the periodized training experimental model presented the blood lactate concentration [La] response adequate to the aerobic and anaerobic intensities levels. Twenty three male Wistar rats were divided into three groups. Two groups of swimming training (continuous, CT, n = 7, and periodized training, PET, n = 7) rats were evaluated during 5 weeks in eight different TP (TP-1 to TP-8) through the analysis of the [La] response. The third group was the sedentary control (SC, n = 9). The TP were classified in five intensity levels, three aerobic (A-1, A-2, A-3) and two anaerobic (AN-1, AN-2). Analysis of variance (ANOVA one-way, P<0.05) indicated significant differences in the [La] among the TP and among the five intensity levels. All TP of the A-2 and A-3 intensity levels differed from the A-1 and AN-1. The A-1 and AN-1 also differed among them. These findings demonstrate that the TP were classified properly at different levels of aerobic and anaerobic intensities, as based on the [La] response in a way similar to that of high performance swimming with humans. The results offer new perspectives for the study of exercise training in swimming rats at different levels intensity for performance or for health.

QK-Means: A clustering technique based on community detection and K-Means for deployment of cluster head nodes

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are a special kind of ad-hoc networks that is usually deployed in a monitoring field in order to detect some physical phenomenon. Due to the low dependability of individual nodes, small radio coverage and large areas to be monitored, the organization of nodes in small clusters is generally used. Moreover, a large number of WSN nodes is usually deployed in the monitoring area to increase WSN dependability. Therefore, the best cluster head positioning is a desirable characteristic in a WSN. In this paper, we propose a hybrid clustering algorithm based on community detection in complex networks and traditional K-means clustering technique: the QK-Means algorithm. Simulation results show that QK-Means detect communities and sub-communities thus lost message rate is decreased and WSN coverage is increased. © 2012 IEEE.

The effects of combined aerobic and resistance training on heart rate variability in postmenopausal women

Model of the study: Controlled clinical trial. Objective: To verify the effects of 16 weeks of combined aerobic and resistance training on cardiac autonomic modulation in menopausal women. Methods: 17 menopausal women were divided into two groups: the training group (TG: n=11) and control group (CG: n=6). The body composition variables were estimated using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The cardiac autonomic modulation was evaluated by heart rate variability using linear indexes. The training protocol consisted of 16 weeks of 50 minutes of resistance training and 30 minutes of aerobic training. Results: For the TG there was an increase in the rMSSD(ms) index (pre:17,4±3,7 and post:24,8±13,1, p<0,045), an increase in the duration of the intervals between the cardiac beats(ms) (pre:891,2±80,2 and post:974,1±71,4, p<0,003) and in the values of heart rate(bpm) (pre:68,1±6,4 and post:62,0±4,7, p<0,003), additionally for the spectral indexes in normalized units, changes for LF (pre:52,2±13,1 and post:44,5±12,4, p<0,025) and HF (pre:47,8±13,3 and post:55,5±12,4, p<0,025) were noticed, demonstrating increased parasympathetic and reduced sympathetic. There were no significant differences to CG. Conclusion: combined aerobic and resistance training promoted benefits to the autonomic modulation in menopausal women.

Shading effects on community composition and food web structure of a deforested pasture stream: Evidences from a field experiment in Brazil

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