Peritonites em pacientes em diálise peritoneal: análise de um único centro brasileiro segundo a Sociedade Internacional de Diálise Peritoneal

INTRODUÇÃO: A peritonite continua sendo a maior complicação para os pacientes em diálise peritoneal (DP). OBJETIVO: Este estudo teve como objetivo determinar as taxas de peritonite por episódio/ano (ep./ ano), ep./ano por microrganismo causador e pela mediana do número de peritonites nos pacientes em diálise peritoneal do Serviço de Nefrologia do Hospital São Lucas da PUCRS. MÉTODOS: Estudo retrospectivo e descritivo, no qual a amostra foi composta de pacientes que fizeram diálise peritoneal no Serviço de Nefrologia do HSL no período de 1984 a agosto de 2012; foram considerados somente os que possuíam dados completos. RESULTADOS: Dos 427 pacientes analisados, 53,2% eram do sexo feminino, com idade média de 48,0 ± 19,9 anos, 13% (56) de diabéticos e 71,5% (303) dos pacientes realizavam seu próprio tratamento. Ocorreram 503 episódios de peritonite e 255 pacientes tiveram pelo menos uma peritonite. Staphylococcus coagulase negativo foi o microrganismo mais prevalente. As causas de saída de tratamento foram óbito, transplante renal e peritonite, com 34,4, 25,8 e 19,2%, respectivamente. A taxa de peritonite foi de 0,63 ep./ano e ep./ ano por microrganismo foi de 0,18 ep./ ano para Staphylococcus coagulase negativo, e de 0,12 ep./ano para Staphilococcus aureus e Gram negativos. A mediana da unidade foi de 0,41. CONCLUSÃO: A taxa de peritonite ep./ano, e a mediana dos pacientes estudados encontram-se dentro do mínimo preconizado, mas abaixo das metas sugeridas, assim como a caracterização de ep./ano por microrganismo.

La reconfiguración economica internacional

The international economic reconfiguration. The developed and developing countries have adjusted with varying degrees of success to the new international order. The world's evolution has not stopped: Europe and the emerging Asian economies, are struggling to create a multipolar World. In the periphery, some countries (Asia) are modernizing at a fast rate, while others (Latin America) are lagging behind and in need to revise their growth strategies. The decentralization of production and trade driven by transnational firms are shifting the geographic distribution of investment and employment. As a result, the industrialized countries have ceased to provide the bulk of the world's savings, changing somehow the foundations of the international financial system.

Liquidez internacional e ciclo reflexo: algumas observações para a América Latina

International liquidity and reflex cycle: some observations to Latin America. The international financial instability of the 1990 has been analysed in several occasions on Minskyan perspectives. The paper is based on this theoretical approach and intends to demonstrate that the financial fragility hypothesis is very useful to the analysis of the cycle in peripheral economies, which real performance is associated to the availability of international liquidity. The analysis is based on three Latin American countries: Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

Rendimentos crescentes e a distribuição internacional de renda

The existence of increasing returns in high technology industries assigns a path dependent character to the international division of labor. Rich countries, first entrants in these industries, enjoy permanent advantages that prevent, in a free market environment, the development of such industries in middle-income countries. This dynamics allows the former group of countries to experience a higher growth rate of labor productivity than the latter, and, as a result, increases the gap between the workers' standard of living in these countries. It is up to the States of middle-income countries the task of devising development strategies capable of breaking such pattern and improving the international distribution of income.

Existe uma ordem econômica internacional? A problematização de uma premissa

This article invites to a reflection on the ontological and axiological foundations of the concept 'international economic order'. We argue that the notion of 'order' implies, at first, identifying a sort of social arrangement or pattern. However, as we intend to demonstrate, this pattern is hardly present in contemporary international economic relations. Besides, the adjectives 'economic' and 'international' instill doubt not only in regard to the nature of the 'international', but also in what concerns the feasibility of spotting a working pattern in international economy nowadays. Thus, it seems, on heuristical terms, an appropriate methodological option to revisit some of the main canonical contributions to the theme of international (economic) order, and to submit it to academic scrutiny. Additionally, we seek to evaluate how plausible it is to think of a 'multilateral' economic international order.

A tendência à harmonização internacional da proteção de patentes e seus problemas

TRIPS agreement has been a milestone in the present trend towards international harmonization of intellectual property's protection (including patents' protection), where harmonization means to increase the protection level in developing countries according to the more rigorous standards of developed ones. Considering the economic theory of patents together with historical and empirical evidences, it is argued that international harmonization of patents' protection as it is settled by TRIPS agreement is not favorable to developing countries' economic development.

A arquitetura do sistema financeiro internacional contemporâneo

This paper discusses some features of financial institutions and instruments which originated the financial crisis triggered by increasing default rate, household real estate and financial asset depreciation combined with U.S. subprime mortgages. The first part presents major crisis events in a chronological order. The second part describes the interconnection of the institutions and markets which engendered a global shadow financial system. The third part focuses on an overview of measures taken by government authorities and large banks to bring about possible solutions for the global financial crisis.

Grassroots Charity in China: Case Analysis of a Charity Project Organised by Jane Zhang Fan Club

As unregistered grassroots charities do not appear in official statistics in China, they tend to remain unnoticed by scholars. Also as they operate unofficially and avoid publicity, their work is usually not reported by the media. In this research I explore the grassroots charity activity of one pop music fan club from the viewpoint of trust as a sociological concept. I will also establish the general situation on charity in China. By using textual analysis on internet blogs and discussion forums I map the charity project from the discussion of the original idea to the execution and follow up phase. I study the roles the fan club members assume during the project as anonymous participants of internet conversations, as well as concrete active charity volunteers outside of the virtual world. I establish parties, other than the fan club, which are involved in the charity project. Interviews with one of the participant of the project in 2010, 2014 and 2015 bring valuable additional information and help in distributing the questionnaire survey. A quantitative questionnaire survey was distributed among the fan club members to get more detailed information on the motives and attitudes towards official and unofficial charity in China. Because of the inequality in China, the rural minority areas do not have similar educational opportunities as the mostly majority inhabited urban areas, even though the country officially has a nine year compulsory education. Grassroots charities can operate in relative freedom taking some of the government’s burden of social responsibilities if they are not criticizing the authorities. The problem with grassroots charity seems to be lack of sustainability. The lack of trust for authorities and official charities was the reason why the Jane Zhang fan club decided to conduct a charity case unofficially. As a group of people previously unknown to each other, they managed to build mutual trust to carry out the project transparently and successfully, though not sustainably. The internet has provided a new and effective platform for unofficial grassroots charities, who choose not to co-operate with official organisations. On grassroots level charities can have the transparency and trust that lack from official charities. I suggest, that interviewing the real persons behind the internet aliases and finding out what happened outside the discussion forums, would bring a more detailed and outspoken description of the project concerning of the contacts with the local authorities. Also travelling to the site and communicating with the local people in the village would establish how they have experienced the project.

Política fiscal anticíclica, crise financeira internacional e crescimento econômico no Brasil

This study analyzes the long run equilibrium relationship and causality between economic growth and public expenditure in Brazil covering the period 1980-2008. The empirical results of the Granger causality test in a multivariate framework have shown up the importance of public investments not only to face the adverse effects of the international financial crisis, but also in stimulating the economic growth. Also, the results indicate the need of controlling the growing path of other current expenditure, social security and public debt.

Reciprocidade implícita e crescimento na economia internacional: uma perspectiva estruturalista

Implicit reciprocity and growth in the international economy: a structuralist perspective. This paper discusses some of the structuralist ideas about international coordination and growth in an international system formed by countries whose productive structures and technological capabilities are strongly asymmetric. These ideas are formalized taking as a point of departure the Keynesian Balance-of-Payments constrained growth model with two countries. To this model is added a function (based on the catching up literature) in which the income elasticity of the demand for exports and imports depends on the technology gap. The model allows for discussing the inter-relations between the fiscal and the industrial and technological policies. It also allows for finding the rate of growth of autonomous expenditure in the periphery which ensures that it will use all the foreign exchange it earns in promoting economic growth (the principle of "automatic reciprocity").

Teorias do comércio internacional: um debate sobre a relação entre crescimento econômico e inserção externa

Theories of international trade: a debate on the relationship between economic growth and foreign market insertion. The paper analyzes the importance accorded to the high technology industry sector in the process of economic growth, in its relation to international trade. Considering at first liberal arguments that disregard productive and commercial specialization as a cause of unequal economic development, the paper discusses then some institutionalist and evolutionist arguments which, since List, stress that high technology specialization matters for the rate of increase of productivity and for the surmount for foreign exchange restrictions to growth.

Vulnerabilidade externa e composição da posição internacional de investimentos: Brasil 2001-2010

The aim of this paper is to indicate that there was a significant change in the composition of the Brazilian International Investment Position in the period 2001-2010: international reserves became higher than the external debt and decreased the share of foreign liabilities denominated in foreign currency, getting smaller that the participation of the external liabilities denominated in domestic currency. These tend to suffer a double devaluation (prices and exchange rates) in times of crisis, thus characterizing the reduction of the external vulnerability in the financial sphere as evidenced in the global crisis hatched in 2008.