Validation of the social communication questionnaire in a population cohort of children with autism spectrum disorders

Objective: To examine the properties of the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) in a population cohort of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and in the general population, Method: SCQ data were collected from three samples: the Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP) cohort of 9- to 10-year-old children with special educational needs with and without ASD and two similar but separate age groups of children from the general population (n = 411 and n = 247). Diagnostic assessments were completed on a stratified subsample (n = 255) of the special educational needs group. A sample-weighting procedure enabled us to estimate characteristics of the SCQ in the total ASD population. Diagnostic status of cases in the general population samples were extracted from child health records. Results: The SCQ showed strong discrimination between ASD and non-ASD cases (sensitivity 0.88, specificity 0.72) and between autism and nonautism cases (sensitivity 0.90, specificity 0.86). Findings were not affected by child IQ or parental education. In the general population samples between 4% and 5% of children scored above the ASD cutoff including 1.5% who scored above the autism cutoff. Although many of these high-scoring children had an ASD diagnosis, almost all (similar to 90%) of them had a diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorder. Conclusions: This study confirms the utility of the SCQ as a,first-level screen for ASD in at-risk samples of school-age children.

Pushing the boundaries of the social: private agri-food standards and the governance of Fair Trade in European public procurement

The article explores how fair trade and associated private agri-food standards are incorporated into public procurement in Europe. Procurement law is underpinned by principles of equity, non-discrimination and transparency; one consequence is that legal obstacles exist to fair trade being privileged within procurement practice. These obstacles have pragmatic dimensions, concerning whether and how procurement can be used to fulfil wider social policy objectives or to incorporate private standards; they also bring to the fore underlying issues of value. Taking an agency-based approach and incorporating the concept of governability, empirical evidence demonstrates the role played by different actors in negotiating fair trade’s passage into procurement through pre-empting and managing legal risk. This process exposes contestations that arise when contrasting values come together within sustainable procurement. This examination of fair trade in public procurement helps reveal how practices and knowledge on ethical consumption enter into a new governance arena within the global agri-food system.

Emerging segmentation practices in the age of the social customer

This paper reports on an exploratory study of segmentation practices of organisations with a social media presence. It investigates whether traditional segmentation approaches are still relevant in this new socio-technical environment and identifies emerging practices. The study found that social media are particularly promising in terms of targeting influencers, enabling the cost-effective delivery of personalised messages and engaging with numerous customer segments in a differentiated way. However, some problems previously identified in the segmentation literature still occur in the social media environment, such as the technical challenge of integrating databases, the preference for pragmatic rather than complex solutions and the lack of relevant analytical skills. Overall, a gap has emerged between marketing theory and practice. While segmentation is far from obsolete in the age of the social customer, it needs to adapt to reflect the characteristics of the new media.

Property rights as a public policy tool: an empirical analysis of the social and economic effects

Secure property rights are considered a key determinant of economic development. However, the evaluation of the causal effects of land titling is a difficult task. The Brazilian government through a program called "Papel Passado" has issued titles, since 2004, to over 85,000 families and has the goal to reach 750,000. Furthermore, another topic in Public Policy that is crucial to developing economies is income generation and child labor force participation. Particularly, in Brazil, about 5.4 million children and teenagers between 5 and 17 years old are still working. This thesis examines the direct impact of securing a property title on income and child labor force participation. In order to isolate the causal role of ownership security, this study uses a comparison between two close and very similar communities in the City of Osasco case (a town with 650,000 people in the São Paulo metropolitan area). One of them, Jardim Canaã, was fortunated to receive the titles in 2007, the other, Jardim DR, given fiscal constraints, only will be part of the program schedule in 2012, and for that reason became the control group. Also, this thesis also aims to test if there is any relationship between land title and happiness. The estimates suggest that titling results in a substantial decrease of child labor force participation, increase of income and happiness for the families that received the title compared to the others.

Relationship of Coca-Cola Brazil and the communities participant of the social projects: (im) possibilities

Five years ago, Coca-Cola Brasil launched a program named “Coletivo Project”, with the purpose to enjoy an opportunity of increase on the potential consumption power of the low-income pyramid population that lived on the “favelas”. At the same time, it had the objective to offer to them a social and financial impact, which is a trust on the future, the first job for the young adults’ participant of this program and an increase on their family source of revenues, through salaries. This was possible because through Coletivo Project, Coca-Cola identified the assets they have through its value chain, focusing on its competencies, such as retail, merchandising and logistics to apply them on courses to teach the young people of the communities and, as a result, form them to be able to find their new jobs. Internal indicators followed in a monthly basis by Coca-Cola demonstrated that the communities that had the presence of Coletivos, in comparison to those without Coletivos, had social and financial impacts. The social was the fact that the young formed started to have more confidence on their future and felt with a higher self-stem to apply for and obtain their first job. On the financial aspect, they were benefit through the increasing of their revenues and also their families and Coca-Cola had an increase on sales, when compared to a community without a Coletivo Project installed. This dissertation seeks to identify the current relationship between Coca-Cola and the communities, through the Coletivo Project classes performed on the NGOs located at this places, in order to identify opportunities for improvement the benefits and the impacts (financial and social) on the NGOs, communities and all stakeholders of this project. This dissertation examines this relationship, through presence interviews performed on four NGOs selected, and located on four of the twenty communities, that are participants of the Coletivo Project on Rio de Janeiro city. These interviews performed with the students, representatives and educators of these NGOs. The covered period of the interviews ranges from April 2014 to August 2014. This dissertation draws on first-hand qualitative empirical evidence gathered through extensive fieldwork. The main findings among possibilities for improvement by Coca-Cola are: • Implement new courses, beyond those existent at Coca-Cola (Retail, Logistics, etc.). • Increase the content of the employment module of Coletivo classes, focusing on improving educational, cultural, economic, political, social and professional life. • Increase the scale, through the quantity of positions on the Retail Coletivo classes. • Develop cultural and sports events with the communities. • Support the points of sales, participant of the practical classes of the Coletivo Retail, with refrigerators and furniture with the Coca-Cola logo. • Provide coffee breaks and meals during the Coletivo classes, using Coca-Cola beverages and partners for food items, developing the nutrition platform of the company and filling a need of the students. • Perform a research with all stakeholders related to this Project, including those students and mothers that are not participant of the Coletivo, in order to listen to them, understand their needs, and offer solutions to fulfill these gaps. and on the side of the • Perform partnerships with educational institutions to make viable other type of courses, more technical, but that have a relation with the core business of Coca-Cola Brasil, such as marketing. • Implement the Coca-Cola University, already existed at the Company. • Create courses or activities focused on the children. Regarding the impossibilities, the findings are: • Improve the basic sanitation of the communities. • Improve the safety on the communities. • Provide a home to those do not have. • Implement courses that have no relationship with Coca-Cola business and expertise, such as gastronomy. However, Coca-Cola can influence stakeholders on that. The results suggest to executives of Coca-Cola that a deep and a qualitative research on the communities of Brazil, in order to listen young people, educators, mothers, partners that offer jobs, from Coletivo and out of the project, is mandatory, to understand their needs, dreams, complains and offer valuable solutions to all.

Serviço Social e terceiro setor: considerações sobre as atuais relações e condições de trabalho para o Assistente Social em Natal

The present study analyses the actual relations and work conditions found in the third sector in Natal city, in the context of productive restoration and increasingly retraction from the State in providing Social Service before the new approach that has been destined to the social issue. The study talks about the work of the social worker when fighting the different expressions the social issue has, such as social service provision as a way of teamwork associated to work relations and conditions, to accessible resources and quality control management. These are elements that affect and interfere in the accomplishment and in the work of the social worker itself. The State s improvement, according to neoliberal-political precepts and increasingly retraction from the public investment in the areas of social concern (health, social welfare, assistance) and in the wage and employment policy, besides expanding the partnership with the public and private areas, in search for social services with quality, it has diversified the structures of the professional work with the growth of the so called third sector institutions. However, the absorption of the social workers by the third sector groups in general, has as major features the impoverishment of work relations, the maintenance of an unequal salary model, pointing out the deadline contracts and/or single tasks that generate work instability. The research debates, with a critical view and full perspective, over the conception of the third sector, interpreted as an action that expresses functions and values, treated as a real phenomenon generated from the restoration of the capital based on neoliberal principles. This study aims for responding what the established work relations are and under what work conditions the social worker has been fitting in the third sector and how such a reality echoes in the current work conditions for a social work in the city of Natal, before this new model of state intervention that transfers part of the social service provision to distinctive divisions of society, among them the so called third sector. The research results have shown that like the other workers the social worker passes through the same crises, dilemmas, advances and challenges that occur in the world of employment and which are expressed in the drop of salary average in the growth of contemporary contracts, unemployment, and in the ever more selective requirements to one be included in the social spaces, where the professional work is done, having as a result a greater impoverishment of work relations and conditions as well as more vulnerability as a salaried occupation

O trabalho profissional dos(as) assistentes sociais no INSS pós as contra-reformas da Previdência Social

The present research study the work professional of the Social worker in the National Institute of Social Security of Rio Grande do Norte s State, especially about the working terms, the demands and working process of Social worker in consequence of the limits established with disorganization of his institutional space derived of the Counter-Reforms of the State and of Social Security. In decade of 1990 there was in Brazil adhesion to the neoliberal politics what configured a new organization of work and a new performance of the State. Inside this context, it was accomplished the Counter-Reforms with emphasis in the privatizations, reform of the Social Security and of the device of the Brazilian State, among other actions. Particularly, in Social Service reforms brought profound consequences for the Social workers of INSS, among it: reduction of professionals and in his institutional space. This study situates the Social Worker of Social Security in front of the contemporary modifications in the world of work as well as in front of the consequences come upon of the Counter-Reforms implemented and executed by the neoliberal governments in the country of way the of frame and to enter to the globalized world and the new order of the capital. From the qualitative research based in the critical and dialectic theoreticianmethodological perspective that study the phenomena from your relations, mediations and contradictions, was possible unveil the limits and the possibilities of the professional work of the Social worker in INSS placed the Counter-Reforms of Social Security. Synthetically, the results of this investigation indicate that, there is an worsening in the inconsistency of the work with relation to social worker's functional situation and his working terms in the institution

O serviço social na previdência social: a afirmação do seu espaço na materialização dos direitos

The work of the professional of social worker in social security policy, it is seen wrapped in an adverse situation to consolidate the ethical-political project work, marked by the materialization of the neoliberal policy essentially promotes the reduction of social rights historically achieved by the class struggle worker. In this sense, with the aim of analyzing the statement of work of the Social Worker in Social Security, their struggles and challenges to the realization of rights, against the current situation is that it renders the theoretical basis of the discussions to be fought. Thus, we performed procedures such as methodological research literature and documents in detail of our analytical categories in order to base the discussion on social security policy. The survey area covered was the Executive Management of Social Security Mossoró and Natal, representing a total of 07 (seven) surveyed social workers who work in the Department of Social Work. Thus, the research allowed us a comparison with the work of Social Workers and this allowed us to reach some conclusions: first, the fact that Social Security does not guarantee in its entirety, the conditions necessary for the work of Social Worker, taking into account the lack of human and material resources for its realization, and the virtual absence of professional secrecy, and second, that the social workers surveyed say the ethical-political project of Social Work, in exercise professional from engaging in projects and social movements related to the protection of social rights and working class, thirdly, that the statement of professional design, contributes to the formation of a new professional activities, based on an analysis of whole and an action more interventionist, critical and purposeful, able to relate to the interests of users who seek their services, the consolidation and socialization of social rights. Thus, the direction of the work of professional of social worker to support the theoretical and methodological maturity in recent years acquired the expertise and ethical-political daily, consolidated its space in claiming social security institution, the rights so hard fought in an environment grounded in the disintegration social struggles

A articulação da instrumentalidade no exercício profissional do assistente social em Natal/RN

Presents the discussion of practical and social dimensions that comprise the instrumentality (formative; theoretical and intellectual; investigative; technical-instrumental; and ethical-political) Social Work from research in social and occupational areas in which they operate social workers in Natal in Rio Grande do Norte. Chapters expose positions, experiences and reality of the respondents and the theoretical constructs and analytical, to understand: the evaluation of the training process, relating the teaching practice, the role of knowledge and the importance of research in professional practice of social workers, the seizure of technical-instrumental dimension, articulating demands, duties, powers and instruments, as elements that comprise it, and finally the ethical-political dimension, discussing the challenges of ethics and materialization of the ethical-political in daily work. In this sense, the dissertation sought add to production and academic debate about the work of the social worker, as well as contribute to their own professional practice, revealing how professionals articulate the practical and social dimensions that comprise the instrumentality in their daily work

Two new bradykinin-related peptides from the venom of the social wasp Protopolybia exigua (Saussure)

Two bradykinin-related peptides (Protopolybiakinin-I and Protopolybiakinin-II) were isolated from the venom of the social wasp Protopolybia exigua by RP-HPLC, and sequenced by Edman degradation method. Peptide sequences of Protopolybiakinin-I and Protopolybiakinin-II were DKNKKPIRVGGRRPPGFTR-OH and DKNKKPIWMAGFPGFTPIR-OH, respectively. Synthetic peptides with identical sequences to the bradykinin-related peptides and their biological functions were characterized. Protopolybiakinin-I caused less potent constriction of the isolated rat ileum muscles than bradykinin (BK). In addition, it caused degranulation of mast cells which was seven times more potent than BK. This peptide causes algesic effects due to the direct activation of B-2-receptors. Protopolybiakinin-II is not an agonist of rat ileum muscle and had no algesic effects. However, Protopolybiakinin-II was found to be 10 times more potent as a mast cell degranulator than BK. The amino acid sequence of Protopolybiakinin-I is the longest among the known wasp kinins. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mass spectrometric characterization of two novel inflammatory peptides from the venom of the social wasp Polybia paulista

The social wasp P. paulista is relatively common in southeast Brazil causing many medically important stinging incidents. The seriousness of these incidents is dependent on the amount of venom inoculated by the wasps into the victims, and the characteristic envenomation symptoms are strongly dependent on the types of peptides present in the venom. In order to identify some of these naturally occurring peptides available in very low amounts, an analytical protocol was developed that uses a combination of reversed-phase and normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) of wasp venom for peptide purification, with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight post-source decay mass spectrometry (MALDI-Tof-PSD-MS) and low-energy collision-induced dissociation (CID) in a quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (QTof-MS/MS) instrument for peptide sequencing at the sub-picomole level. The distinction between Leu and Ile was achieved both by observing d-type fragment ions obtained under CID conditions and by comparison of retention times of the natural peptides and their synthetic counterparts (with different combinations of I and/or L at N- and C-terminal positions). To distinguish the isobaric residues K and Q, acetylation of peptides was followed by Q-Tof-MS analysis. The primary sequences obtained were INWLKLGKMVIDAL-NH2 (MW 1611.98Da) and IDWLKLGKMVMDVL-NH2 (MW 1658.98Da). Micro-scale bioassay protocols characterized both peptides as presenting potent hemolytic action, mast cell degranulation, and chemotaxis of poly-morphonucleated leukocyte (PMNL) cells. The primary sequences and the bioassay results suggest that these toxins constitute members of a new sub-class of mastoparan toxins, directly involved in the occurrence of inflammatory processes after wasp stinging. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

Structural and functional characterization of two novel peptide toxins isolated from the venom of the social wasp Polybia paulista

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

Protonectin (1-6): A novel chemotactic peptide from the venom of the social wasp Agelaia pallipes pallipes

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

Proteomic Characterization of the Hyaluronidase (EC 3.2.1.35) from the Venom of the Social Wasp Polybia paulista

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