Brazilian Land Tenure and Conflicts: The Landless Peasants' Movement

This paper analyzes conflicts and violence in Brazil involving landless peasants occupying privately-owned land, for the period 2000-2008. It is the first study to be undertaken at a national level, with a contemporary data span, using a count data model that allows for heterogeneity, endogeneity and dynamics. Results from the estimated model show that the violent land occupation grows with left-wing political support for land occupation, rural population density, and agricultural credit, and decreases with poverty, agricultural productivity. The study discusses the interconnection of land reform, poverty and conflict.Land occupation, land reform, Brazil, poverty, conflict.

Safety and efficacy of a cardiovascular polypill in people at high and very high risk without a previous cardiovascular event: the international VULCANO randomised clinical trial.

Cardiovascular (CV) polypills are a useful baseline treatment to prevent CV diseases by combining different drug classes in a single pill to simultaneously target more than one risk factor. The aim of the present trial was to determine whether the treatment with the CNIC-polypill was at least non-inferior to usual care in terms of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c) and systolic BP (SBP) values in subjects at high or very high risk without a previous CV event. The VULCANO was an international, multicentre open-label trial involving 492 participants recruited from hospital clinics or primary care centres. Patients were randomised to the CNIC-polypill -containing aspirin, atorvastatin, and ramipril- or usual care. The primary outcome was the comparison of the mean change in LDL-c and SBP values after 16 weeks of treatment between treatment groups. The upper confidence limit of the mean change in LDL-c between treatments was below the prespecified margin (10 mg/dL) and above zero, and non-inferiority and superiority of the CNIC-polypill (p = 0.0001) was reached. There were no significant differences in SBP between groups. However, the upper confidence limit crossed the prespecified non-inferiority margin of 3 mm Hg. Significant differences favoured the CNIC-polypill in reducing total cholesterol (p = 0.0004) and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (p = 0.0017). There were no reports of major bleeding episodes. The frequency of non-serious gastrointestinal disorders was more frequent in the CNIC-polypill arm. The switch from conventional treatment to the CNIC-polypill approach was safe and appears a reasonable strategy to control risk factors and prevent CVD. Trial registration This trial was registered in the EU Clinical Trials Register (EudraCT) the 20th February 2017 (register number 2016-004015-13; https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/search?query=2016-004015-13 )

The taxonomic impediment: a shortage of taxonomists, not the lack of technical approaches.

Engel, Michael S, Ceríaco, Luis M P, Daniel, Gimo M, Dellapé, Pablo M, Löbl, Ivan, Marinov, Milen, Reis, Roberto E, Young, Mark T, Dubois, Alain, Agarwal, Ishan, Lehmann A., Pablo, Alvarado, Mabel, Alvarez, Nadir, Andreone, Franco, Araujo-Vieira, Katyuscia, Ascher, John S, Baêta, Délio, Baldo, Diego, Bandeira, Suzana A, Barden, Phillip, Barrasso, Diego A, Bendifallah, Leila, Bockmann, Flávio A, Böhme, Wolfgang, Borkent, Art, Brandão, Carlos R F, Busack, Stephen D, Bybee, Seth M, Channing, Alan, Chatzimanolis, Stylianos, Christenhusz, Maarten J M, Crisci, Jorge V, D'elía, Guillermo, Da Costa, Luis M, Davis, Steven R, De Lucena, Carlos Alberto S, Deuve, Thierry, Fernandes Elizalde, Sara, Faivovich, Julián, Farooq, Harith, Ferguson, Adam W, Gippoliti, Spartaco, Gonçalves, Francisco M P, Gonzalez, Victor H, Greenbaum, Eli, Hinojosa-Díaz, Ismael A, Ineich, Ivan, Jiang, Jianping, Kahono, Sih, Kury, Adriano B, Lucinda, Paulo H F, Lynch, John D, Malécot, Valéry, Marques, Mariana P, Marris, John W M, Mckellar, Ryan C, Mendes, Luis F, Nihei, Silvio S, Nishikawa, Kanto, Ohler, Annemarie, Orrico, Victor G D, Ota, Hidetoshi, Paiva, Jorge, Parrinha, Diogo, Pauwels, Olivier S G, Pereyra, Martín O, Pestana, Lueji B, Pinheiro, Paulo D P, Prendini, Lorenzo, Prokop, Jakub, Rasmussen, Claus, Rödel, Mark-Oliver, Rodrigues, Miguel Trefaut, Rodríguez, Sara M, Salatnaya, Hearty, Sampaio, Íris, Sánchez-García, Alba, Shebl, Mohamed A, Santos, Bruna S, Solórzano-Kraemer, Mónica M, Sousa, Ana C A, Stoev, Pavel, Teta, Pablo, Trape, Jean-François, Dos Santos, Carmen Van-Dúnem, Vasudevan, Karthikeyan, Vink, Cor J, Vogel, Gernot, Wagner, Philipp, Wappler, Torsten, Ware, Jessica L, Wedmann, Sonja, Zacharie, Chifundera Kusamba (2021): EDITORIAL The taxonomic impediment: a shortage of taxonomists, not the lack of technical approaches. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 193 (2): 381-387, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab072, URL: https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/193/2/381/637438