Dengue epidemic in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: virological and epidemiological aspects

Laboratorial studies were carried out on 3178 patients with signs and symptoms suggestive of dengue infection from April 1986 to December 1987 in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The epidemic had two peaks following the first virus isolation and affected the inhabitants of 17 counties. Both sex and all age groups were affected. Dengue virus type 1 was isolated from 1039 sera and the number of confirmed cases was increased to 1874 (59%) by MAC-ELISA. Isolation rate confirmed cases reached 80% in the specimens obtained until the 4th day after the onset of disease and viraemia ranged from 10 3.0 to 10(8.5) TCID50/ml.

Age-period-cohort effects in the incidence of hip fractures: political and economic events are coincident with changes in risk

Introduction: Healthcare improvements have allowed prevention but have also increased life expectancy, resulting in more people being at risk. Our aim was to analyse the separate effects of age, period and cohort on incidence rates by sex in Portugal, 2000–2008. Methods: From the National Hospital Discharge Register, we selected admissions (aged ≥49 years) with hip fractures (ICD9-CM, codes 820.x) caused by low/moderate trauma (falls from standing height or less), readmissions and bone cancer cases. We calculated person-years at risk using population data from Statistics Portugal. To identify period and cohort effects for all ages, we used an age–period–cohort model (1-year intervals) followed by generalised additive models with a negative binomial distribution of the observed incidence rates of hip fractures. Results: There were 77,083 hospital admissions (77.4 % women). Incidence rates increased exponentially with age for both sexes (age effect). Incidence rates fell after 2004 for women and were random for men (period effect). There was a general cohort effect similar in both sexes; risk of hip fracture altered from an increasing trend for those born before 1930 to a decreasing trend following that year. Risk alterations (not statistically significant) coincident with major political and economic change in the history of Portugal were observed around birth cohorts 1920 (stable–increasing), 1940 (decreasing–increasing) and 1950 (increasing–decreasing only among women). Conclusions: Hip fracture risk was higher for those born during major economically/politically unstable periods. Although bone quality reflects lifetime exposure, conditions at birth may determine future risk for hip fractures.

How are top officials hybrid management models present across political-administrative systems?

Comunicação apresentada na 4th Annual ICPA - International Conference on Public Administration "Building bridges to the future: leadership and collaboration in public administration", na Universidade de Minnesota nos Estados Unidos, de 24 a 26 de setembro de 2008

Political confrontation (La confrontación política)

Recensão crítica do livro "La confrontación política" de José María Maravall

Severe scorpion envenomation in Brazil: clinical, laboratory and anatomopathological aspects

Scorpion stings in Brazil are important not only because of their incidence but also for their potential ability to induce severe, and often fatal, clinical situations, especially among children. In this report we present the clinical and laboratory data of 4 patients victims of scorpion stings by T. serrulatus, who developed heart failure and pulmonary edema, with 3 of them dying within 24 hours of the sting. Anatomopathologic study of these patients revealed diffuse areas of myocardiocytolysis in addition to pulmonary edema. The surviving child presented enzymatic, electrocardiographic and echocardiographic changes compatible with severe cardiac involvement, which were reversed within 5 days. These findings reinforce the need for continuous monitoring of patients with severe scorpion envenoming during the hours immediately following the sting.

Central nervous system virion detection in acute measles: histopathological, ultrastructural and pathogenetic aspects

Histopathological and ultrastructural studies of 23 patients who died with clinical diagnosis of measles were carried out. In 12 cases viral nucleocapsids were searched by electron microscopy and detected in 100% of the cases in the lungs and in 50% of the cases in the central nervous system. They were mostly intranuclear. Histopathological changes associated to neurological alterations and the detection of virion are discussed in relation to acute and delayed clinical manifestations.

Local political elites and the Revolution: Portalegre 1941-1997

Who directs local politics? Which social and professional groups directed city and village councils in Portugal? What was their evolution and behaviour for the second half of the twentieth century, during the final years of the Estado Novo and the political transition provided by the Revolution of April 25th, 1974?

O Registo das Operações de Transformação Fundiária Resultantes do Reparcelamento

Dissertação de Mestrado em Solicitadoria

Human enterovirus infection in stray dogs. Some aspects of interest to public health

To investigate the possible role of domestic animals as reservoirs of human enteroviruses, we studied 212 stray dogs captured in different areas of the municipality of São Paulo. The captured animals were divided into 19 groups of 10 to 20 dogs each; faeces of 126 of the 212 dogs were processed for enterovirus isolation. The following viruses were isolated from 12 dogs: poliovirus type 1 (2 dogs), poliovirus type 3 (1 dog), echovirus type 7 (8 dogs) and echovirus type 15 (1 dog). Of the 12 infected animals, four had specific homotypic neutralizing antibody titres > 16. All 212 animals were tested for the presence of neutralizing antibodies to human enteroviruses. The frequency of neutralizing antibodies present in titres of > 16 was 10.3%, 3,8% and 4.3% for vaccinal prototypes of polioviruses 1, 2 and 3 respectively; 1,9%, 1.4% and 1.5% for wild prototypes of the same viruses, 11.3% for echovirus 7, and 2.4% for echovirus 15. The proportion of dogs with neutralizing antibodies varied with the virus studied. Some indication of the susceptibility of dogs to infection with human enteroviruses was demonstrated, and the importance of this fact for the Plan for Global Eradication of the Wild Poliovirus is discussed.

Epidemiological aspects of the Brazilian spotted fever: serological survey of dogs and horses in an endemic area in the State of São Paulo, Brazil

In order to obtain information on Brazilian spotted fever, a study in domestic animals was performed in the County of Pedreira, State of São Paulo, Brazil, where 17 human cases had been notified. Serum samples obtained from animals were tested by indirect immunofluorescence for detectable antibodies to spotted fever-group rickettsiae. Seropositivity was revealed in 12 (36.4%) of 33 dogs and seven (77.8%) of nine horses from the endemic area. For comparison, blood samples from dogs and horses from non endemic area were tested and four (12.9%) of 31 dogs and three (27.3%) of 11 horses were positive. The highest titers of antibodies by IFA (IgG > 1:1024) were found only in three dogs and six horses from endemic area. The results suggest that dogs as horses may serve as environmental sentinels for estabilishing the prevalence of foci of spotted fever in Brazil.

Epidemiological and clinical aspects of snAkebite in Belo Horizonte, Southeast Brazil

Epidemiologic and clinical aspects of 310 hospitalized snakebite patients and 310 matched controls were described, over a seven years period, from an emergency hospital in Belo Horizonte, Southeast Brazil. The diagnosis was based upon clinical picture or actual snake identification. Fifty six percent of victims were bitten by the snakes of genus Bothrops, 32.0% by Crotalus, 1.0% by Lachesis and 10.0% undetermined. During the study period, stable number of cases and marked seasonal variation were noted. In comparing cases of snakebite and controls, those from a rural area or who were involved in agricultural labor activity were identified as a high risk group, with an odds ratio (OR) of 14.7 and 6.7, respectively, in favor of being bitten. Upon treatment, snakebite patients were 13.5 times more likely to have had early anaphylactic reactions than their controls, with a higher association in the age group ³ 20 years (OR = 30.3). Increased risks were also detected for pyrexia (OR = 11.7), with a marked association in the group under 19 years old (OR = 16.6). Severe cases of snakebite are an important treatable cause of morbidity in Brazil but therapy may be potentially life threatening. The higher case-fatality ratio encountered, compared to national statistics may be due the representativeness of the more severe cases who sought hospitalization. Preventing snakebite and early referral of those who are bitten is proposed

Some aspects of dermatophytoses seen at University Hospital in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Dermatophytoses comprise mycoses which are very frequently diagnosed in the routine of clinical laboratories of Florianópolis, like any other Brazilian cities. However, no clinical or epidemiological studies data have been published for that city so far. To partially clarify these questions, we carried out a study on this subject on patients who sought the mycology services of Hospital of Federal University of Santa Catarina, from January 1995 to November 1996. The most prevalent dermatophyte was Trichophyton rubrum (58.6%), followed by T. mentagrophytes (25.3%), Epidermophyton floccosum (7.2%), Microsporum canis (4.8%), T. tonsurans (1.6%) T. violaceum (1.6%) and M. gypseum (0.8%). The prevalence of T. mentagrophytes was significantly higher for females than for males, with a frequency of 37.3% and 16.0% respectively, which could be explained by higher infection of T. mentagrophytes in feet and nails, which were percentually more affected in females than in males. These results suggest that, in general, the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of dermatophytoses of our study have similar patterns of those occurring in other southern and southeastern Brazilian cities

Autochthonous acute Chagas’ disease in São Paulo State, Brazil: Epidemiological aspects

Since the beginning of the seventies the natural transmission of Chagas’ infection has been considered to be under control in the State of São Paulo and not even a case of American Trypanosomiasis, transmitted by triatomine bugs, has been detected by the epidemiological surveillance system. This situation justifies the report of a case of acute Chagas’ disease that occurred in a forest area considered free of domiciliary triatomines along the Southern seacoast of São Paulo State. In May, 1995 the presence of trypomastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi had been diagnosed in a retired 57 year-old male patient, born and living in Santos (São Paulo State), complaining of fever, fatigue and malaise. The patient reported that 40 days before he had participated with 17 friends in a 7-day excursion in a forest area of the municipalities of Itanhaém and Peruíbe. During this period the group had been lodged in three houses located within the forest. Eight days after the end of the excursion the patient began to have fever, malaise and fatigue. During the next 31 days he had received medical care both as an inpatient and an outpatient, without any significant improvement. After the detection of T. cruzi trypomastigotes in his blood stream the patient began to be treated with benzonidazole in a hospital but died 8 days after the beginning of treatment. The epidemiological investigation carried out showed no signs of the presence of triatomine bugs in the three houses where the group had been lodged, or any indication of Chagas' infection in other excursionists

Engineering Temporal and Spatial Aspects in OWL using Patterns

WWW is a huge, open, heterogeneous system, however its contents data is mainly human oriented. The Semantic Web needs to assure that data is readable and “understandable” to intelligent software agents, though the use of explicit and formal semantics. Ontologies constitute a privileged artifact for capturing the semantic of the WWW data. Temporal and spatial dimensions are transversal to the generality of knowledge domains and therefore are fundamental for the reasoning process of software agents. Representing temporal/spatial evolution of concepts and their relations in OWL (W3C standard for ontologies) it is not straightforward. Although proposed several strategies to tackle this problem but there is still no formal and standard approach. This work main goal consists of development of methods/tools to support the engineering of temporal and spatial aspects in intelligent systems through the use of OWL ontologies. An existing method for ontology engineering, Fonte was used as framework for the development of this work. As main contributions of this work Fonte was re-engineered in order to: i) support the spatial dimension; ii) work with OWL Ontologies; iii) and support the application of Ontology Design Patterns. Finally, the capabilities of the proposed approach were demonstrated by engineering time and space in a demo ontology about football.

Periodontal aspects of the juvenile form of paracoccidioidomycosis

Three cases of the juvenile form of paracoccidioidomycosis are reported. Emphasis has been given to the oral manifestations, particularly the periodontal involvement. The main periodontal findings were: generalized and progressive alveolar bone destruction leading to gingival recession with exposure of the tooth roots, and spontaneous tooth losses. The gingival mucosa was predominantly smooth, erithematous and slightly swollen. These aspects, although rare, may be the earliest signs of the disease and sometimes its only manifestation.