Health surveys and use of maternal and child health care services in three municipalities within the São Paulo metropolitan area

Objectives. To describe the changes in the use of maternal and child health care services by residents of three municipalities-Embu, Itapecerica da Serra, and Taboao da Serra-in the São Paulo metropolitan area, 12 years after the implementation of the Unified Health System (SUS) in Brazil, and to analyze the potential of population-based health care surveys as sources of data to evaluate these changes.Methods. Two population-based, cross-sectional surveys were carried out in 1990 and 2002 in municipalities located within the São Paulo metropolitan area. For children under 1 year of age, the two periods were compared in terms of outpatient services utilization and hospital admission; for the mothers, the periods were compared in terms of prenatal care and deliveries. In both surveys, stratified and multiple-stage conglomerate sampling was employed, with standardization of interview questions.Results. The most important changes observed were regarding the location of services used for prenatal care, deliveries, and hospitalization of children less than 1 year of age. There was a significant increase in the use of services in the surrounding region or hometown, and decrease in the utilization of services in the city of São Paulo (in 1990, 80% of deliveries and almost all admissions for children less than 1 year versus 32% and 46%, respectively, in 2002). The use of primary care units and 24-hour walk-in clinics also increased. All these changes reflect care provided by public resources. In the private sector, there was a decrease in direct payments and payments through company-paid health insurance and an increase in payments through self-paid health insurance.Conclusions. The major changes observed in the second survey occurred simultaneous to the changes that resulted from the implementation of the SUS. Population-based health surveys are adequate for analyzing and comparing the utilization of health care services at different times.

When less is better: Insights from the product mix dilemma from the Theory of Constraints perspective

Perhaps due to its origins in a production scheduling software called Optimised Production Technology (OPT), plus the idea of focusing on system constraints, many believe that the Theory of Constraints (TOC) has a vocation for optimal solutions. Those who assess TOC according to this perspective indicate that it guarantees an optimal solution only in certain circumstances. In opposition to this view and founded on a numeric example of a production mix problem, this paper shows, by means of TOC assumptions, why the TOC should not be compared to methods intended to seek optimal or the best solutions, but rather sufficiently good solutions, possible in non-deterministic environments. Moreover, we extend the range of relevant literature on product mix decision by introducing a heuristic based on the uniquely identified work that aims at achieving feasible solutions according to the TOC point of view. The heuristic proposed is tested on 100 production mix problems and the results are compared with the responses obtained with the use of Integer Linear Programming. The results show that the heuristic gives good results on average, but performance falls sharply in some situations. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Knowledge and use of wild edible plants in rural communities along Paraguay River, Pantanal, Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

On the algebraic K theory of the massive D8 and M9-branes

In this paper we review some basic relations of algebraic K theory and we formulate them in the language of D-branes. Then we study the relation between the D8-branes wrapped on an orientable, compact manifold W in a massive Type IIA, supergravity background and the M9-branes wrapped on a compact manifold Z in a massive d = 11 supergravity background from the K-theoretic point of view. By interpreting the D8-brane charges as elements of K-0(C(W)) and the (inequivalent classes of) spaces of gauge fields on the M9-branes as the elements of K-0(C(Z) x ((k) over bar*) G) where G is a one-dimensional compact group, a connection between charges and gauge fields is argued to exists. This connection could be realized as a composition map between the corresponding algebraic K theory groups.

Habitat associations of small mammals in southern Brazil and use of regurgitated pellets of birds of prey for inventorying a local fauna

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

THEORY OF ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A SCHOTTKY-BARRIER HAVING EXPONENTIALLY DISTRIBUTED IMPURITY STATES AND METAL-INSULATOR METAL STRUCTURES

The metal-insulator or metal-amorphous semiconductor blocking contact is still not well understood. Here, we discuss the steady state characteristics of a non-intimate metal-insulator Schottky barrier. We consider an exponential distribution (in energy) of impurity states in addition to impurity states at a single energy level within the depletion region. We present analytical expressions for the electrical potential, field, thickness of depletion region, capacitance, and charge accumulated in the depletion region. We also discuss ln I versus V(ap) data. Finally, we compare the characteristics in three cases: (i) impurity states at only a single energy level; (ii) uniform energy distribution of impurity states; and (iii) exponential energy distribution of impurity states.In general, the electrical characteristics of Schottky barriers and metal-insulator-metal structures with Schottky barriers depend strongly on the energy distribution of impurity states.

THEORY OF NON-STEADY-STATE ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF METAL-INSULATOR-METAL STRUCTURES WITH SCHOTTKY BARRIERS AND UNIFORMLY DISTRIBUTED INTERFACE IMPURITY STATES

The metal-insulator (or amorphous semiconductor) blocking contact is still not well understood. In the present paper, we discuss the non steady state characteristics of Metal-lnsulator-Metal Structure with non-intimate blocking contacts (i.e. Metal-Oxide-Insulator-Metal Structure). We consider a uniform distribution (in energy) of impurity states in addition to impurity states at a single energy level within the depletion region. We discuss thermal as well as isothermal characteristics and present expressions for the temperature of maximum current (T-m) and a method to calculate the density of uniformly distributed impurity states. The variation of mobility with electrical field has also been considered. Finally we plot the theoretical curves under different conditions. The present results are closing into available experimental results.

Conjectures and theorems in the theory of entire functions

Motivated by the recent solution of Karlin's conjecture, properties of functions in the Laguerre-Polya class are investigated. The main result of this paper establishes new moment inequalities fur a class of entire functions represented by Fourier transforms. The paper concludes with several conjectures and open problems involving the Laguerre-Polya class and the Riemann xi -function.