Social Inequality And Common Mental Disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the association between the socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and common mental disorders. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of the urban population, 14 years and older, in Campinas (Brazil) (n=515) was conducted using a multipurpose instrument that included the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) to assess common mental disorders in the previous 3 months. Weighted prevalence of common mental disorders was calculated for each independent variable. Crude and adjusted prevalence ratios were estimated using Poisson regression. RESULTS: The overall prevalence was 17% (95% CI 12.8-22.3), 8.9% in males and 24.4% in females. An inverse association was found between common mental disorders and the socioeconomic characteristics (schooling and employment) even after controlling for all the other variables. Higher common mental disorders prevalence was observed in those with less than 5 years of schooling (PR=5.5) and unemployed or underemployed (PR=2.0). CONCLUSIONS: As in other studies, common mental disorders were unevenly distributed; it was significantly more frequent in socially disadvantaged individuals. Specific actions to reduce inequalities in the general and mental health system should be studied.29325025

Gravitational field around a time-like current-carrying screwed cosmic string in scalar-tensor theories

In this paper we obtain the space-time generated by a time-like current-carrying superconducting screwed cosmic string(TCSCS). This gravitational field is obtained in a modified scalar-tensor theory in the sense that torsion is taken into account. We show that this solution is comptible with a torsion field generated by the scalar field $\phi$. The analysis of gravitational effects of a TCSCS shows up that the torsion effects that appear in the physical frame of Jordan-Fierz can be described in a geometric form given by contorsion term plus a symmetric part which contains the scalar gradient. As an important application of this solution, we consider the linear perturbation method developed by Zel'dovich, investigate the accretion of cold dark matter due to the formation of wakes when a TCSCS moves with speed $v$ and discuss the role played by torsion. Our results are compared with those obtained for cosmic strings in the framework of scalar-tensor theories without taking torsion into account.Comment: 21 pages, no figures, Revised Version, presented at the "XXIV- Encontro Nacional de Fisica de Particulas e Campos ", Caxambu, MG, Brazil, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Endonuclease heteroduplex mismatch cleavage for detecting mutation genetic variation of trypsin inhibitors in soybean

The objective of this work was to evaluate the genetic variation of trypsin inhibitor in cultivated (Glycine max L.) and wild (Glycine sofa Siebold & Zucc.) soybean varieties. Genetic variations of the Kunitz trypsin inhibitor, represented by a 21-kD protein (KTI), and of the Bowman-Birk trypsin chymotrypsin inhibitor (BBI) were evaluated in cultivated (G. max) and wild (G. sofa) soybean varieties. Endonuclease heteroduplex mismatch cleavage assays were performed to detect mutations in the KTI gene, with a single-stranded specific nuclease obtained from celery extracts (CEL I). The investigated soybean varieties showed low level of genetic variation in KTI and BBI. PCR-RFLP analysis divided the BBI-A type into subtypes A1 and A2, and showed that Tib type of KTI is the dominant type. Digestion with restriction enzymes was not able to detect differences between ti-null and other types of Ti alleles, while the endonuclease heteroduplex mismatch cleavage assay with CEL I could detect ti-null type. The digestion method with CEL I provides a simple and useful genetic tool for SNP analysis. The presented method can be used as a tool for fast and useful screening of desired genotypes in future breeding programs of soybean