Brazil: an emerging military power? The problem of the use of force in Brazilian international relations in the 21st century

The central goal of this paper is thinking about the Brazilian military power and its linking to the international ambitions of the country in the 21st century. After a comparative analysis to other BRICs and with a historical one about Brazil's strategic irrelevance, we aim to establish what the minimum military capacity Brazil would need in order to meet the country's latest international interests. Similarly, it will be discussed if the National Strategy of Defense, approved in 2008, and the recent strategic agreements signed with France represent one more step toward this minimum military capacity.

The role of Public Health Laboratory in the problem os salmonellosis in São Paulo, Brazil

From 1950 to 1990 a total of 45,862 strains (31,517 isolates from human sources, and 14,345 of non-human origin) were identified at Instituto Adolfo Lutz. No prevalence of any serovars was seen during the period 1950-66 among human sources isolates. Important changing pattern was seen in 1968, when S. Typhimurim surprisingly increased becoming the prevalent serovar in the following decades. During the period of 1970-76, S. Typhimurium represented 77.7% of all serovars of human origin. Significant rise in S. Agona isolation as well as in the number of different serovars among human sources strains were seen in the late 70' and the 80's. More than one hundred different serovars were identified among non-human origin strains. Among serovars isolated from human sources, 74.9%, 15.5%, and 3.7% were recovered from stool, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid cultures, respectively. The outbreak of meningitis by S. Grumpensis in the 60's, emphasizes the concept that any Salmonella serovars can be a cause of epidemics, mainly of the nosocomial origin. This evaluation covering a long period shows the important role of the Public Health Laboratory in the surveillance of salmonellosis, one of the most frequent zoonosis in the world.

A ten-year follow-up of human leptospirosis in Uruguay: an unresolved health problem

Leptospira spp. are delicate bacteria that cannot be studied by usual microbiological methods. They cause leptospirosis, a zoonotic disease transmitted to humans through infected urine of wild or domestic animals. We studied the incidence of this disease in the Uruguayan population, its epidemiologic and clinical features, and compared diagnostic techniques. After examining 6,778 suspect cases, we estimated that about 15 infections/100,000 inhabitants occurred yearly, affecting mainly young male rural workers. Awareness about leptospirosis has grown among health professionals, and its lethality has consequently decreased. Bovine infections were probably the principal source of human disease. Rainfall volumes and floods were major factors of varying incidence. Most patients had fever, asthenia, myalgias or cephalalgia, with at least one additional abnormal clinical feature. 30-40% of confirmed cases presented abdominal signs and symptoms, conjunctival suffusion and altered renal or urinary function. Jaundice was more frequent in patients aged > 40 years. Clinical infections followed an acute pattern and their usual outcome was complete recovery. Laboratory diagnosis was based on indirect micro-agglutination standard technique (MAT). Second serum samples were difficult to obtain, often impairing completion of diagnosis. Immunofluorescence was useful as a screening test and for early detection of probable infections.

Snakebites as a largely neglected problem in the Brazilian Amazon: highlights of the epidemiological trends in the State of Amazonas

Envenoming snakebites are thought to be a particularly important threat to public health worldwide, especially in rural areas of tropical and subtropical countries. The true magnitude of the public health threat posed by snakebites is unknown, making it difficult for public health officials to optimize prevention and treatment. The objective of this work was to conduct a systematic review of the literature to gather data on snakebite epidemiology in the Amazon region and describe a case series of snakebites from epidemiological surveillance in the State of Amazonas (1974-2012). Only 11 articles regarding snakebites were found. In the State of Amazonas, information regarding incidents involving snakes is scarce. Historical trends show an increasing number of cases after the second half of the 1980s. Snakebites predominated among adults (20-39 years old; 38%), in the male gender (78.9%) and in those living in rural areas (85.6%). The predominant snake envenomation type was bothropic. The incidence reported by the epidemiological surveillance in the State of Amazonas, reaching up to 200 cases/100,000 inhabitants in some areas, is among the highest annual snakebite incidence rates of any region in the world. The majority of the cases were reported in the rainy season with a case-fatality rate of 0.6%. Snakebite envenomation is a great disease burden in the State of Amazonas, representing a challenge for future investigations, including approaches to estimating incidence under-notification and case-fatality rates as well as the factors related to severity and disabilities.

The effect of deforestation on the water cycle in the amazon basin: an attempt reformulate the problem

If widespread deforestation in Amazon results in reduced evaporative water flux, then either a decrease in evaporation is compensated locally by reduced rainfall,or else changed moisture balance expresses itself downwind in the yet undisturbed forest. The question of where rain will occur is crucial. It is suggested that the appearance of clouds and the occurrence of rainout is governed primarily by the interplay of local meteorologic and physical geography parameters with the atmospheric stability structure except for a few well-defined periods when rain is dominated by large scale atmospheric instability. This means that the study of these phenomena (local heat balances,studies on cloud formation mechanism, vertical atmospheric stability, etc.) must be made on the scale of the cloud size, a few tens of kilometers at most.

Integrated control of Chagas disease for its elimination as public health problem - A Review

Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis is, together with geohelminths, the neglected disease that causes more loss of years of healthy life due to disability in Latin America. Chagas disease, as determined by the factors and determinants, shows that different contexts require different actions, preventing new cases or reducing the burden of disease. Control strategies must combine two general courses of action including prevention of transmission to prevent the occurrence of new cases (these measures are cost effective), as well as opportune diagnosis and treatment of infected individuals in order to prevent the clinical evolution of the disease and to allow them to recuperate their health. All actions should be implemented as fully as possible and with an integrated way, to maximise the impact. Chagas disease cannot be eradicated due because of the demonstrated existence of infected wild triatomines in permanent contact with domestic cycles and it contributes to the occurrence of at least few new cases. However, it is possible to interrupt the transmission ofTrypanosoma cruziin a large territory and to eliminate Chagas disease as a public health problem with a dramatic reduction of burden of the disease.

The association between need for touch and desire for unique products and consumer (inter)dependent problem-solving

Some people cannot buy products without first touching them, believing that doing so will create more assurance and information and reduce uncertainty. The international consumer marketing literature suggests an instrument to measure consumers' necessity for pohysical contact, called Need for Touch (NFT). This paper analyzes whether the Need for Touch structure is empirically consistent. Based on a literature review, we suggest six hypotheses in order to assess the nomological, convergent, and discriminant validity of the phenomenon. Departing from these, data supported four assumptions in the predicted direction. Need for Touch was associated with Need for Input and with Need for Cognition. Need for Touch was not associated with traditional marketing channels. The results also showed the dual characterization of Need for Touch as a bi-dimensional construct. The moderator effect indicated that when the consumer has a higher (vs. lower) Need for Touch autotelic score, the experiential motivation for shopping played a more (vs. less) important role in impulsive motivation. Our Study 3 supports the NFT structure and shows new associations with the need for unique products and dependent decisions.