How women’s empowerment influences fertility-related outcomes and contraceptive practices: A cross-sectional study in Mozambique

Women’s empowerment could be a crucial step for tackling gender inequality and improve women’s reproductive health and rights in Mozambique. This study aims to examine how different domains of women’s empowerment influence fertility-related outcomes and contraceptive practices in Mozambique. We used the 2015 Demographic Health Survey (DHS) conducted in Mozambique from which a sample of 2072 women aged 15 to 49 years were selected and included in this analysis. A principal component analysis was performed, and the components retained were identified as the domains of empowerment. These were: Beliefs about violence against women, Decision-making, and Control over sexuality and safe sex. A multinomial logistic regression was run to estimate the association between levels of empowerment for each domain and the study outcomes. Crude and adjusted odds ratio (OR) were calculated, with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Beliefs about violence against women and Control over sexuality and safe sex were positively associated with having 1 to 4 children. Control over sexuality and safe sex also increased likelihood of women wanting to space childbearing over more than 2 years. Decision-making increased the odds of women not wanting more children. Middle to high empowerment levels for Control over sexuality and safe sex also increased the chances of using any type of contraceptive method and using it for longer periods. All domains, from the middle to high levels of empowerment, decreased the chances of women not wanting to use contraception. Our study confirmed the multidimensional nature of empowerment showing that each domain had a different effect over specific fertility and contraceptive outcomes and reinforced the importance of a domain approach for estimating and understanding empowerment. It also revealed the critical role of Control over sexuality and safe sex domain for improving women’s ability to decide over fertility and contraceptive practices in Mozambique.We gratefully acknowledge the PhD grant from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to SCL (SFRH/BD/146625/2019) and the contract to SF (CEECIND/01516/2017). We also thank the Faculty Research Committee (FRC) of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Cape Town for the Post Graduate Research Training Grant (FRC Award 2019) to SCL. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Modeling disorder in graphene

We present a study of different models of local disorder in graphene. Our focus is on the main effects that vacancies -- random, compensated and uncompensated --, local impurities and substitutional impurities bring into the electronic structure of graphene. By exploring these types of disorder and their connections, we show that they introduce dramatic changes in the low energy spectrum of graphene, viz. localized zero modes, strong resonances, gap and pseudogap behavior, and non-dispersive midgap zero modes.Comment: 16 pages, lower resolution figure

Thyroid Function in Patients with Trisomy 21 in a Central Pediatric Hospital

Em crianças e adolescentes com síndrome de trissomia 21 observa-se uma prevalência aumentada de alterações da função tiroideia. A mais frequentemente encontrada é o hipotiroidismo subclínico, seguida do hipotiroidismo clínico e, mais raramente, doença de Graves. O diagnóstico de hipotiroidismo é, por vezes, tardio pois os sintomas são confundidos com as manifestações características da trissomia 21, sendo portanto fundamental rastrear sistematicamente a função tiroideia nestas crianças. A velocidade de crescimento é um elemento clínico que pode contribuir quer para a valorização do diagnóstico quer da terapêutica apesar de esta não ser totalmente consensual. Descreve-se a casuística de um Hospital Central Pediátrico em foram seguidas quarenta e cinco crianças e adolescentes com trissomia 21, entre Janeiro de 2000 e Maio de 2008. Neste grupo de crianças, foram detectadas alterações da função tiroideia em dezanove; a alteração mais frequente foi o hipotiroidismo subclínico (treze) seguida do hipotiroidismo clínico (cinco); houve apenas um caso de hipertiroidismo. As alterações da função tiroideia aumentaram com a idade dos doentes, foram mais frequentes no sexo feminino e tiveram uma clínica inespecífica

Socio-economic, demographic, and behavioural determinants of women's empowerment in Mozambique

Introduction Empowerment is considered pivotal for how women access and use health care services and experience their sexual and reproductive rights. In Mozambique, women’s empowerment requires a better understanding and contextualization, including looking at factors that could drive empowerment in that context. This study aims to identify socioeconomic, demographic, and behavioural determinants of different domains of women’s empowerment in Mozambique. Methods Using the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted in 2015 for Mozambique, a sample of 2072 women aged between 15 and 49 years old were included in this study. The DHS’s indicators of women’s empowerment were used in a principal component analysis and the obtained components were identified as the domains of empowerment. Logistic regressions were run to estimate the association of socioeconomic, demographic, and behavioural characteristics with each domain of empowerment. Crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) and respective 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated. Results Three domains of women’s empowerment were identified, namely (1) Beliefs about violence against women, (2) Decision-making, and (3) Control over sexuality and safe sex. Region, rurality, the experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) and partner’s controlling behaviours were associated with Beliefs about violence against women, while Decision-making and Control over sexuality and safe sex were also associated with education, age and wealth. Employment, polygamous marriage and religion was positively associated with Decision-making, and access to media increased the odds of Control over sexuality and safe sex. Conclusion Women’s empowerment seems to be determined by different socio-economic, demographic, and behavioural factors and this seems to be closely related to different domains of empowerment identified. This finding affirms the multi-dimensionality of empowerment as well as the importance of considering the context- and community-specific characteristics.We gratefully acknowledge the PhD grant from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to SCL (SFRH/BD/146625/2019) and the contract to SF (info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/CEEC IND 2017/CEECIND/01516/2017/CP1406/CT0001/PT). We also thank the University of Cape Town, Faculty of Health Sciences for the Post Graduate Research Training Grant (FRC Award 2019) to SCL. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Exponential behavior of the interlayer exchange coupling across non-magnetic metallic superlattices

It is shown that the coupling between magnetic layers separated by non-magnetic metallic superlattices can decay exponentially as a function of the spacer thickness $N$, as opposed to the usual $N^{-2}$ decay. This effect is due to the lack of constructive contributions to the coupling from extended states across the spacer. The exponential behavior is obtained by properly choosing the distinct metals and the superlattice unit cell composition.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.

Effect of active video games on the balance of healthy elderly: systematic review

Introduction: Active video games are an important parcel of our society. For many years this type of entertainment has been looked at as just a ludic device. More recently this device has been used as a form of therapeutic intervention. Objectives: Review in a systematic way the available scientific evidence about the efficacy of active video games, in balance on healthy elderly people and if necessary propose further investigation. Methodology: Were included experimental studies in English, French and Spanish, with an intervention based on active video games to promote balance on healthy elderly people. The research took place on the following databases: PubMed, PEDro, Science Direct, Cochrane, Web of Knowlegde, EBSCO, Taylor & Francis, Springer and Wiley. The article selection was made by five independent reviewers. Of the 1434 initial articles were selected nine. This final sample was read and analysed using PEDro’s scale. Results: All the studies used balance as the main variable and although using different evaluation methods they showed significant differences in the experimental groups. Conclusion: After analyzing the results it’s possible to observe that this type of intervention is effective in improving balance in healthy elderly. However the limitations of the studies have to be considered and the results cannot be applied to the general population. It´s essential to continue the investigation about this subject creating more evidence with strong experimental relevance.N/

Localized States at Zigzag Edges of Multilayer Graphene and Graphite Steps

We report the existence of zero energy surface states localized at zigzag edges of $N$-layer graphene. Working within the tight-binding approximation, and using the simplest nearest-neighbor model, we derive the analytic solution for the wavefunctions of these peculiar surface states. It is shown that zero energy edge states in multilayer graphene can be divided into three families: (i) states living only on a single plane, equivalent to surface states in monolayer graphene; (ii) states with finite amplitude over the two last, or the two first layers of the stack, equivalent to surface states in bilayer graphene; (iii) states with finite amplitude over three consecutive layers. Multilayer graphene edge states are shown to be robust to the inclusion of the next nearest-neighbor interlayer hopping. We generalize the edge state solution to the case of graphite steps with zigzag edges, and show that edge states measured through scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy of graphite steps belong to family (i) or (ii) mentioned above, depending on the way the top layer is cut.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Neuropathic pain after breast cancer treatment: characterization and risk factors

Context: Neuropathic pain (NP) may be an important contributor to the morbidity burden of breast cancer. Objectives: We aimed to quantify the incidence of NP in the first year after diagnosis of breast cancer and to identify its main determinants. Methods: We performed a prospective cohort study including 506 patients with incident breast cancer, recruited at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Porto, and followed for one year; patients with incident NP were additionally evaluated when this condition was diagnosed and after six months, to identify chronic NP. Results: During the first year, 156 patients were diagnosed with NP (30.8%, 95% CI 27.0–35.0). Anxiety (relative risk [RR] 1.50; 95% CI 1.06–2.13), arm symptoms (RR 1.44; 95% CI 1.02–2.05), cancer Stage III/IV (RR 2.47; 95% CI 1.66–3.66), breast-conserving surgery with axillary lymph node dissection (RR 3.13; 95% CI 1.51–6.48), mastectomy with axillary lymph node dissection (RR 2.52; 95% CI 1.25–5.11), and damaging of the intercostobrachial nerve (RR 2.05; 95% CI 1.25–3.37) were predictors of a higher risk of NP. A total of 97 patients (62.2%, 95% CI 54.4–69.4) diagnosed with NP remained symptomatic after six months. Conclusion: NP and chronic NP were frequent in this population, being associated with anxiety and arm symptoms before breast cancer treatments and type of surgical management. These results highlight the need for monitoring the occurrence of this neurologic side effect of treatments and to develop strategies for reducing the morbidity burden of breast cancer.The work of F. F. was co-funded by “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia” (grant number SFRH/BD/92630/2013) and by the “Programa Operacional Capital Humano” (POCH/FSE). Data management activities were supported by the Chair on Pain Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto and by the Grünenthal Foundation—Portugal. The authors declare no conflicts of interests

Double Exchange Model for Magnetic Hexaborides

A microscopic theory for rare-earth ferromagnetic hexaborides, such as Eu(1-x)Ca(x)B6, is proposed on the basis of the double-exchange Hamiltonian. In these systems, the reduced carrier concentrations place the Fermi level near the mobility edge, introduced in the spectral density by the disordered spin background. We show that the transport properties such as Hall effect, magnetoresitance, frequency dependent conductivity, and DC resistivity can be quantitatively described within the model. We also make specific predictions for the behavior of the Curie temperature, Tc, as a function of the plasma frequency, omega_p.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Peculiar Broad Absorption Line Quasars found in DPOSS

With the recent release of large (i.e., > hundred million objects), well-calibrated photometric surveys, such as DPOSS, 2MASS, and SDSS, spectroscopic identification of important targets is no longer a simple issue. In order to enhance the returns from a spectroscopic survey, candidate sources are often preferentially selected to be of interest, such as brown dwarfs or high redshift quasars. This approach, while useful for targeted projects, risks missing new or unusual species. We have, as a result, taken the alternative path of spectroscopically identifying interesting sources with the sole criterion being that they are in low density areas of the g - r and r - i color-space defined by the DPOSS survey. In this paper, we present three peculiar broad absorption line quasars that were discovered during this spectroscopic survey, demonstrating the efficacy of this approach. PSS J0052+2405 is an Iron LoBAL quasar at a redshift z = 2.4512 with very broad absorption from many species. PSS J0141+3334 is a reddened LoBAL quasar at z = 3.005 with no obvious emission lines. PSS J1537+1227 is a Iron LoBAL at a redshift of z = 1.212 with strong narrow Mgii and Feii emission. Follow-up high resolution spectroscopy of these three quasars promises to improve our understanding of BAL quasars. The sensitivity of particular parameter spaces, in this case a two-color space, to the redshift of these three sources is dramatic, raising questions about traditional techniques of defining quasar populations for statistical analysis.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, Accepted to the Astronomical Journa