Detection of Listeria sp in meat and meat products using TECRA Listeria visual immunoassay and biocontrol visual immunoprecipitate assay for Listeria immunoassays and a cultural procedure

The routine methods for detecting Listeria sp. in foods are time consuming and involve using selective enrichments and plating on agars. In this study, the presence of Listeria sp. in 120 meat and meat product samples was investigated by two rapid immunoassays (TECRA Listeria Visual Immunoassay [VIA] and BioControl Visual Immunoprecipitate Assay [VIP] for Listeria) and a cultural procedure. The cultural method of detecting Listeria sp. followed Canada's Health Protection Branch Method, and the rapid tests followed the manufacturers' instructions. The agreement between the cultural and the rapid tests was established at a confidence limit of 95%. Seventy-nine samples (65.8%) were Listeria sp. positive in at least one of the three tests. There was no statistically significant difference between the cultural procedure and any of the rapid immunoassays. The agreement rates between the VIA and the cultural method and between the VIP and the cultural method were 87 and 84%, respectively. Both tests - the VIA and VIP - proved to be rapid, efficient and easy to perform.

Isolation and molecular identification of Fusobacterium nucleatum from Nigerian patients with oro-facial infections.

Fusobacterium nucleatum is one of the most common anaerobic bacteria present in the oral cavity and is often isolated from infections involving other body sites. To characterise F. nucleatum strains from patients attending a teaching hospital in Nigeria in order to provide information on the methods for accurate identification of anaerobes in clinical specimen. Fusobacterium nucleatum specie from 50 patients presenting with oro-facial infections were studied by culture on Fusobacterium selective agar and fastidious anaerobe agar. The isolates were characterised based on colonial morphology, microscopy, lipase production, susceptibility to kanamycin and colistin and resistance to vancomycin. Biochemical tests were performed using a commercial test kit. The identity of the isolates was confirmed based on molecular characterization performed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. Forty-eight (96%) F. nucleatum isolates were obtained from the 50 patients by culture and all the isolates were identified by colonial appearance and microscopy based on their unique spindle shape with tapered ends. Only 26 (54.2%) of the 48 isolates were identified by commercial API 20A test kit while PCR confirmed the identity of all the isolates. Anaerobes are involved in human infections and their study is quite cumbersome due to tedious nature and high cost of the techniques involved. Cultural method is reliable in the isolation and identification of F. nucleatum species. PCR is a rapid and simple method that can complement the phenotypic identification of anaerobes and would assist in their full identification.

Patterns of alcohol use between genders: A cross-cultural evaluation

Introduction: Alcohol use by men and women is very much influenced by social habits and customs. Cultural peculiarities and biological differences between the sexes require more focused and standardized studies. The objective was to systematize information on patterns of alcohol use between the sexes.Method: A literary review (1972-2004) identified 96 publications (Lilacs, Scielo, Medline) and some related books.Results and conclusions: Men drank more and presented more problems (legal, family, social, clinical, traumas and mortality) associated with alcohol use; the consequences of alcohol use in developing countries with low death rates is even higher. Women can face more discrimination by using alcohol as well as worse health problems when they abuse drinking (liver, pancreas, and central and peripheral nervous system problems, psychiatric comorbidity, etc.); sexual abuse is more commonly associated with women than discussing the different responses to treatment. As for social roles/responsibilities exercised by women, there are indications that marriage, employment, and children have a good influence, discouraging alcohol use, while divorce, unemployment, and no children contribute to higher consumption. For both sexes, religion was a protective factor for alcohol use; acculturation was a strong influence in the pattern of alcohol use, and alcohol worsened the evolution of existing psychiatric disorders. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cross-cultural adaptation of the Portuguese version of the patient-generated subjective global assessment

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

Impactos da imigração japonesa sobre a diversidade cultural na organização do espaço geográfico piracicabano - SP

Pós-graduação em Geografia - IGCE

Impactos das imigrações espanhola e sirio-libanesa como fator para o desenvolvimento econômico e diversidade cultural na organização do espaço geográfico piracicabano-sp

Pós-graduação em Geografia - IGCE

Translation and cultural adaptation for Brazil of the Developing Nurses' Thinking model

OBJETIVOS:traduzir e adaptar culturalmente para a língua portuguesa do Brasil o modelo Developing Nurses' Thinking, utilizado como estratégia ao ensino do raciocínio clínico.MÉTODO:a tradução e adaptação cultural foi realizada por meio de tradução inicial, síntese das traduções, retrotradução, avaliação por comitê de especialistas e pré-teste com 33 estudantes de graduação em enfermagem.RESULTADOS:as etapas de tradução inicial, síntese das traduções e retrotradução foram realizadas a contento, havendo a necessidade de pequenos ajustes. Na avaliação pelo comitê de especialistas da versão traduzida, todos os itens obtiveram concordância superior a 80% na primeira rodada de avaliação e no pré-teste com os estudantes. O modelo mostrou-se adequado à sua finalidade.CONCLUSÃO:recomenda-se o uso do modelo como uma estratégia complementar ao ensino do raciocínio diagnóstico, visando a formação de enfermeiros mais conscientes sobre a tarefa diagnóstica e a importância da segurança do paciente.

Translation and cultural adaptation of Brazilian Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting: conceptual and semantic equivalence

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

Didática para a Educação Infantil: implicações do materialismo histórico dialético e da Teoria Histórico-Cultural

In this article, we discuss the contributions of Didactics for intentional pedagogical action of teachers devoted to children education. In this sense, we initially say to be essential the reflections which aim to search for foundations focused on the mobilization of future teachers for the action-reflection-action about the educational phenomena, aiming at the unveiling, with rigor and objectivity, of its multiple determinations within the capitalist relations . We believe that such unveiling is only possible in the light of a world view, a method and a praxis constituted in unison with historical materialism and its dialectic. Afterwards, we reflect on some of the principles of the Historical-Cultural Theory to understand of the active and mediator role teachers have in the process of humanization of young children and contributions of dialectical materialism to this reflection. Finally are detailed some aspects of a Didactics focused on training teachers for Children and early elementary school years’ education, which have guided our actions as teachers of the Pedagogy Course and reiterated by teachers’ narratives about their experience both in life and teaching, in search of new systematization modes, targeting an educational praxis due to the redefinition (theorization) and on the teaching practice by its very subjects.

A sobrevivência das culturas como prescrição ética para o planejamento cultural: um estudo conceitual

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Avaliação do significado social, econômico e cultural do tabagismo em mulheres profissionais do sexo

Pós-graduação em Enfermagem - FMB

Mediação cultural em museus e exposições de história: conversas sobre imagens/história e suas interpretações

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A internalização de signos como intermediação entre a psicologia histórico-cultural e a pedagogia histórico-crítica

This article highlights the theoretical and methodological unity existing between the culturalhistorical psychology and the historical-critical pedagogy, taking the category of mediation as a central element of analysis. This fact is justified since that category is emerging as an essential premise of the historical-materialist dialectical method; and this method, in turn, is the foundation of both the historicalcultural psychology and the pedagogy historical-critical. For achieving the stated aim, the text is organized around two themes. The first goes back to the historical-cultural conception of psychism, highlighting of internalization of signs as a condition for the development of that psychism; the second brings into focus the relationship between internalization of signs and concept formation, in order to demonstrate that the quality of the concepts in the training school is the intervening variable in the psychological development. By the way of concluding remarks, it is said the internalization of signs as a central element of mediation between historical-cultural psychology and historical-critical pedagogy.

Desenvolvimento da linguagem infantil à luz da Teoria Histórico-Cultural: contribuições de práticas literárias na primeira infância

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)