Associations between energetic expenditure, physical activity and body composition: exploratory study with industrial workers

This study, which involved a target population comprised by 292 workers of different industrial areas (metalmechanics, foundry, chemical, wood, food), aimed to verify the association between energy expenditure-EE, physical activity level-PAL and body composition (Body Mass Index-BMI, Waist-Hip Ratio-WHR and Waist To Height Ratio, WTHR) of participants. The work was completed with the description of the variables relating to the gender of the individuals (male and female) and the activities carried out in the two sectors of industrial work (administrative sector and productive sector). In this research, the statistical technique of principal components analysis (PCA) and the hierarchical analysis of clusters (HCA) were used. Sociodemographic and anthropometric data were collected as well as the level of physical activity and energy expenditure were assessed. The vast majority of individuals who spend greater energy expenditure and has more intense physical activity were male. Most of these workers are in the production sector. We can confirm that that both, gender and labor activity, are factors that have influence on the EE and the PAL.

Environment, health and safety policy in small construction sites: an analysis of the situation in Brazil

This paper analyzes the safety, environmental and occupational health of workers in the small construction industry in Brazil. In this sector there are still many unsafe practices, which are very common in small work sites. We used a qualitative approach to understand these problems by long interviews with people who work directly in small construction sites, including occupational physicians, civil engineers, safety engineers, safety technicians, general foremen, construction workers, labor unionists and auditors. This paper aims to demonstrate that the "invisibility" of the small sites workers makes them less safe and therefore more prone to accidents, also weakening their health. The results show that small constructions workers are less visible to society and supervision because of their short periods of work. Therefore, they are also uncovered to the rigorous applicability of principles of safety and accident prevention. Thus, it has been seen in this field of work a precarious application of NR - 18, which was specifically made for the construction sites and it needs simplification to meet normative characteristics of small construction sites. In the State of Rio de Janeiro, some laws on small sites were recently created and implemented. This study concludes that the rules to work are not being taken as seriously as the legislation determinates, remaining practically unknown by many professionals, from the plot command, supervisors, engineers, architects and technicians who work on construction sites. This ignorance creates space for the lack of safety and consequently to accidents, leading to by weakness in the workers health. Therefore, the work process needs to be modified, the safety regulation must be disseminated through safer practices, promoting employee health and ensure that the work of small sites can be visible, especially ensuring the construction workers health and safety.

Changes in population and land use over time in the Ecuadorian Amazon

This paper draws upon a detailed longitudinal survey of households living on agricultural plots in the northern three provinces of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the principal region of colonization by migrants in Ecuador since the 1970s. Following the discovery of petroleum in 1967 near what has subsequently come to be the provincial capital and largest Amazonian city of Lago Agrio, oil companies built roads to lay pipelines to extract and pump oil across the Andes for export. As a result, for the past 30 years over half of both Ecuador's export earnings and government revenues have come from petroleum extracted from this region. But the roads also facilitated massive spontaneous in-migration of families from origin areas in the Ecuadorian Sierra, characterized by minifundia and rural poverty. This paper is about those migrants and their effects on the Amazonian landscape. We discuss the data collection methodology and summarize key results on settler characteristics and changes in population, land use, land ownership, technology, labor allocation, and living conditions, as well as the relationships between changes in population and changes in land use over time. The population in the study region has been growing rapidly due to both natural population growth (high fertility) and in-migration. This has led to a dramatic process of subdivision and fragmentation of plots in the 1990's, which contrasts with the consolidation of plots that has occurred in most of the mature frontier areas of the Brazilian Amazon. This fragmentation has led to important changes in land tenure and land use, deforestation, cattle raising, labor allocation, and settler welfare.

O Esclavagismo dos Tempos Modernos e a Tutela Jurídica das suas Vítimas: os meios jurídicos ao serviço da recuperação psicológica das vítimas de tráfico de seres humanos

Dissertação de mestrado em Direitos Humanos

Early holocenic and historic mtDNA african signatures in the iberian peninsula: The andalusian region as a paradigm

Determining the timing, identity and direction of migrations in the Mediterranean Basin, the role of "migratory routes" in and among regions of Africa, Europe and Asia, and the effects of sex-specific behaviors of population movements have important implications for our understanding of the present human genetic diversity. A crucial component of the Mediterranean world is its westernmost region. Clear features of transcontinental ancient contacts between North African and Iberian populations surrounding the maritime region of Gibraltar Strait have been identified from archeological data. The attempt to discern origin and dates of migration between close geographically related regions has been a challenge in the field of uniparental-based population genetics. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies have been focused on surveying the H1, H3 and V lineages when trying to ascertain north-south migrations, and U6 and L in the opposite direction, assuming that those lineages are good proxies for the ancestry of each side of the Mediterranean. To this end, in the present work we have screened entire mtDNA sequences belonging to U6, M1 and L haplogroups in Andalusians--from Huelva and Granada provinces--and Moroccan Berbers. We present here pioneer data and interpretations on the role of NW Africa and the Iberian Peninsula regarding the time of origin, number of founders and expansion directions of these specific markers. The estimated entrance of the North African U6 lineages into Iberia at 10 ky correlates well with other L African clades, indicating that U6 and some L lineages moved together from Africa to Iberia in the Early Holocene. Still, founder analysis highlights that the high sharing of lineages between North Africa and Iberia results from a complex process continued through time, impairing simplistic interpretations. In particular, our work supports the existence of an ancient, frequently denied, bridge connecting the Maghreb and Andalusia.

Trans-cultural aspects of social anxiety disorder and related conditions: a Brazilian case series and a review of international clinical studies

Cross-cultural studies have much to teach clinicians and researchers alike about psychopathology in general and about social anxiety disorder (SAD) in particular. Unfortunately, little is known about the degree and the mechanisms through which cultural environment may influence clinical manifestations of SAD. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to identify culture-related clinical patterns in SAD and related disorders. METHODS: We described socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of a sample of 62 adult outpatients with SAD seen at a university clinic for anxiety and depressive disorders in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and compared them with those reported in clinical samples from North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania identified through a systematic review in Medline, PsychINFO, and LILACS. RESULTS: Our comparison of trans-cultural features of SAD lends partial support to Heimberg's (1997) contention that the majority of socio-demographic features and symptoms of this disorder are relatively independent of geographic and cultural differences. CONCLUSION: Patients with SAD were almost universally characterized by: 1) a predominance of males in clinical samples; 2) early onset of the disorder; 3) high educational attainment; and 4) great frequency of comorbidities.

Migration and mental health: Japanese Brazilians in Japan and in Brazil

OBJECTIVE: Brazil is the country with the largest community of Japanese descendants in the world, from a migration movement that started in 1908. However, more recently (1988), a movement in the opposite direction began. Many of these descendants went to Japan for work purposes and suffered mental distress. Some of them sought treatment in Japan, while others returned to Brazil to seek treatment. The aim of the present study was to compare the sociodemographic profile and diagnoses of Japanese Brazilian psychiatric outpatients in Japan (remaining group) and in Brazil (returning group). METHOD: All consecutive Japanese Brazilian outpatients who received care from the psychiatric units in Japan and Brazil from April 1997 to April 2000 were compared. The diagnoses were based on ICD-10 and were made by psychiatrists. Sociodemographic data and diagnoses in Brazil and Japan were compared by means of the Chi-Squared Test. RESULTS: The individuals who returned to Brazil were mostly male and unmarried, had lived alone in Japan, had stayed there for short periods and were classified in the schizophrenia group. The individuals who remained in Japan were mostly female and married, were living with family or friends, had stayed there for long periods and were classified in the anxiety group. Logistic regression showed that the most significant factors associated with the returning group were that they had lived alone and stayed for short periods (OR = 0.93 and 40.21, respectively). CONCLUSION: We conclude that living with a family and having a network of friends is very important for mental health in the context evaluated.

Brazilian norms for the International Affective Picture System (IAPS): comparison of the affective ratings for new stimuli between Brazilian and North-American subjects

OBJECTIVE: The study presents the Brazilian norms for 240 new stimuli from International Affective Picture System (IAPS), a database of affective images widely used in research, compared to the North-American normative ratings. METHODS: The participants were 448 Brazilian university students from several courses (269 women and 179 men) with mean age of 24.2 (SD = 7.8), that evaluated the IAPS pictures in the valence, arousal and dominance dimensions by the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) scales. Data were compared across the populations by Pearson linear correlation and Student's t-tests. RESULTS: Correlations were highly significant for all dimensions; however, Brazilians' averages for arousal were higher than North-Americans'. CONCLUSIONS: The results show stability in relation to the first part of the Brazilian standardization and they are also consistent with the North-American standards, despite minor differences relating to interpretation of the arousal dimension, demonstrating that IAPS is a reliable instrument for experimental studies in the Brazilian population.

Migrações recentes de portugueses para Angola: contextos e estratégias

Dissertação de mestrado em Sociologia das Organizações e Trabalho

Trabalho infantil: as crianças no mundo do espetáculo, moda e publicidade

Dissertação de mestrado em Direitos Humanos

Safety management of cranes on construction sites in Portugal: Critical factors of safety

The evolution of the construction caused a need to use more effective equipments, capable of meeting the increasingly demanding deadlines for the completion of works. In this context, the safety and efficiency of equipment have become key aspects in order to optimize the execution time of the works, as well as reducing labor costs and loss of materials. With the evolution of construction and construction processes, cranes have come to represent a signal of the construction of buildings, revealing to be, in most of the cases, the main equipment of construction sites. Currently, some engineers revels some apprehension regarding the use and handling of cranes which is natural and acceptable, since an equipment failure can lead to serious or fatal accidents. The factors affecting safety management of the cranes in construction sites were investigated, identified, classified and evaluated according to their degree of importance, through interviews with representatives of the general contractors of a set of selected construction sites.

O acesso enquanto direito humano: relato da Conferência Federation of International Human Rights Museums

Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia UID/ANT/04038/2013

Careers, identities and professionalization. A study on doctors about their social representations related to the labor market today and its foreseeable future

This study is in line with the analyses of university and working career in their interaction in relation with conditioning factors. It comprises two central issues: the issue of identity bound to the issue of professionalization within the domain of training and employment. Nowadays, professionalization of the individuals, inside a troubled occupational world, demands the implementation of mechanisms favoring the development of both the individuals and the institution in which they work. All this has an impact at the local, regional and even national levels. Three levels of analysis interplay from a sui generis perspective: macro-meso-micro-macro (Aparicio, 2005; 2007a; 2007b, 2013a, 2014, 2015 b, d – See the Three- Dimensional Spiral of Sense Theory). The aim was to be aware of the doctors’ representations regarding the value of such degree under the present “degree devaluation”, and its impact on the professional future as well as on the core issues of the labor market which need urgent measures with a view to a belter interaction between the two systems. The methodology used was quanti-qualitative (semi-structured questionnaires, interviews, and hierarchical evocations). The population consisted of doctors (2005-2012) from the National University of Cuyo, in Argentina. The results helped us understand the nucleus of such representations and the peripheral aspects by career and institution, thus revealing professional and disciplinary identities. The professional identities show the situated needs in terms of professionalization within the different contexts and, particularly, within the labor market.

China and India’s Maritime Geostrategies:: Implications for International Maritime Security and Scenarios for 2030

Dissertação de Mestrado em Estratégia