How Does the Law Put a Historical Analogy to Work?: Defining the Imposition of “A Condition Analogous to That of a Slave” in Modern Brazil

Over the last decades, the Brazilian state has engaged in concerted legal efforts to identify and prosecute cases of what officials refer to as “slave labor” (trabalho escravo). At a conceptual level, the campaign has paired the constitutional protection of human dignity and the “social value of labor” with an expansive interpretation of the offense described in Article 149 of the Criminal Code as “the reduction of a person to a condition analogous to that of a slave.” At the operational level, mobile teams of inspectors and prosecutors have intervened in thousands of work sites, and labor prosecutors have obtained hundreds of consent agreements and convictions in the labor courts, a civil branch of the judiciary. Between the mid-1990s and the end of 2016, some 51,000 workers were administratively resgatados (“rescued”) from rural and urban workplaces in which inspectors determined that they had been reduced to a condition analogous to slavery. Under the supervision of the inspectors, labor contracts have been administratively cancelled, back pay has been (when possible) extracted from the employer, and unemployment insurance payments have been provided to the rescued workers

That Should Be Left to Doctors, That's What They are There For! - Exploring the Reflexivity and Trust of Young Adults When Seeking Health Information

This paper explores the health information-seeking practices of healthy young adults and how they assess and rank sources of information through a qualitative study. The findings show that participants (a) are strongly committed to searching for information about health and lifestyle, especially via the Internet; (b) healthcare professionals were perceived as the most reliable source of health information and advice; (c) online health information, although frequently accessed and experienced as empowering, is seen as a potentially unreliable source. Findings evidence how becoming better informed about health-related topics plays a pivotal role in individuals’ lives, most notably by using the Internet. Participants were able to reflect about what it means to know about health. The construction of trust regarding health information involved a heuristic process vis-à-vis source reliability and perceived credibility that places doctors as the most trustworthy medium of medical advice and health information. We conclude that participants’ trust toward professionals suggests the preference and need for more personalized care; and it is a response to the ambiguity and uncertainty that permeates the health information landscape, particularly that which is web-based.This article draws on research conducted as part of the project “Evaluating the State of Public Knowledge on Health and Health Information in Portugal” (HMSP/IISE/SAU-ICT/0003/2009), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the Harvard Medical School-Portugal Program on Translational Research and Health Information. Part of this work has been financed by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020—POCI, Portugal 2020, and by Portuguese funds through FCT/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação—project “Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274). ÁM (SFRH/BPD/88647/2012) and LA (SFRH/BD/78949/2011) are both supported by fellowships from FCT. The authors would like to thank all the participants in this study, the coordinators of the EpiTeen study, and the administrative staff of the Epidemiology department of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto. The authors would also like to thank Liliana Gil and Patrícia Ferreira (Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal) for their collaboration in part of the interviews, and Rute Verdade for her help in proofreading this text. The authors are also grateful to anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions that very much improved the quality of the paper

Identifying therapeutic targets for cancer among 2074 circulating proteins and risk of nine cancers

Circulating proteins can reveal key pathways to cancer and identify therapeutic targets for cancer prevention. We investigate 2,074 circulating proteins and risk of nine common cancers (bladder, breast, endometrium, head and neck, lung, ovary, pancreas, kidney, and malignant non-melanoma) using cis protein Mendelian randomisation and colocalization. We conduct additional analyses to identify adverse side-effects of altering risk proteins and map cancer risk proteins to drug targets. Here we find 40 proteins associated with common cancers, such as PLAUR and risk of breast cancer [odds ratio per standard deviation increment: 2.27, 1.88-2.74], and with high-mortality cancers, such as CTRB1 and pancreatic cancer [0.79, 0.73-0.85]. We also identify potential adverse effects of protein-altering interventions to reduce cancer risk, such as hypertension. Additionally, we report 18 proteins associated with cancer risk that map to existing drugs and 15 that are not currently under clinical investigation. In sum, we identify protein-cancer links that improve our understanding of cancer aetiology. We also demonstrate that the wider consequence of any protein-altering intervention on well-being and morbidity is required to interpret any utility of proteins as potential future targets for therapeutic prevention.</p

Dextran-Coated Magnetic Supports Modified with a Biomimetic Ligand for IgG Purification

The authors thank the financial support from Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia through Grant PEst-C/EQB/LA0006/2011 and contracts no. PTDC/EBB-BIO/102163/2008, PTDC/EBB-BIO/098961/2008, PTDC/EBB-BIO/118317/2010, SFRH/BD/72650/2010 for V.L.D, and Santander Totta Bank - Universidade Nova de Lisboa for the Scientific Award 2009/2010. The authors are grateful to Dr. Abid Hussain and M. Telma Barroso (REQUIMTE, FCT-UNL, Portugal) for the preparation of the synthetic affinity ligands, to Lonza Biologics, U.K. (Dr. Richard Alldread), and the Animal Cell Technology Unit of ITQB-UNL/IBET (Dr. Paula M Alves and Dr. Ana Teixeira) for providing the cells and the culture bulks and to Mr. Filipe Cardoso and Prof. Paulo Freitas (INESC-MN, Lisbon, Portugal) for the help with the VSM measurements.Dextran-coated iron oxide magnetic particles modified with ligand 22/8, a protein A mimetic ligand, were prepared and assessed for IgG purification. Dextran was chosen as the agent to modify the surface of magnetic particles by presenting a negligible level of nonspecific adsorption. For the functionalization of the particles with the affinity ligand toward antibodies, three methods have been explored. The optimum coupling method yielded a theoretical maximum capacity for human IgG calculated as 568 ± 33 mg/g and a binding affinity constant of 7.7 × 10⁴ M⁻¹. Regeneration, recycle and reuse of particles was also highly successful for five cycles with minor loss of capacity. Moreover, this support presented specificity and effectiveness for IgG adsorption and elution at pH 11 directly from crude extracts with a final purity of 95% in the eluted fraction.proofpublishe

Bottom up ethics - neuroenhancement in education and employment

Neuroenhancement involves the use of neurotechnologies to improve cognitive, affective or behavioural functioning, where these are not judged to be clinically impaired. Questions about enhancement have become one of the key topics of neuroethics over the past decade. The current study draws on in-depth public engagement activities in ten European countries giving a bottom-up perspective on the ethics and desirability of enhancement. This informed the design of an online contrastive vignette experiment that was administered to representative samples of 1000 respondents in the ten countries and the United States. The experiment investigated how the gender of the protagonist, his or her level of performance, the efficacy of the enhancer and the mode of enhancement affected support for neuroenhancement in both educational and employment contexts. Of these, higher efficacy and lower performance were found to increase willingness to support enhancement. A series of commonly articulated claims about the individual and societal dimensions of neuroenhancement were derived from the public engagement activities. Underlying these claims, multivariate analysis identified two social values. The Societal/Protective highlights counter normative consequences and opposes the use enhancers. The Individual/Proactionary highlights opportunities and supports use. For most respondents these values are not mutually exclusive. This suggests that for many neuroenhancement is viewed simultaneously as a source of both promise and concern

Complete kappa-reducibility of pseudovarieties of the form DRH

We denote by. the implicit signature that contains the multiplication and the (omega-1)-power. It is proved that for any completely kappa-reducible pseudovariety of groups H, the pseudovariety DRH of all finite semigroups whose regular R-classes are groups in H is completely kappa-reducible as well. The converse also holds. The tools used by Almeida, Costa, and Zeitoun for proving that the pseudovariety of all finite R-trivial monoids is completely kappa-reducible are adapted for the general setting of a pseudovariety of the form DRH

Encuesta COLLES realizada a los participantes de 4 cursos impartidos por la Facultad de Veterinaria a través de Moodle

La Facultad de Veterinaria de la Universidad de la República (Uruguay) ha instalado la plataforma Moodle para realizar actividades semipresenciales y a distancia. Los participantes de 4 cursos que la utilizaron -uno de estudiantes de grado, uno de profesores de veterinaria, dos de profesores de educación terciaria del interior del país- realizaron la encuesta COLLES (Constructivist On-Line Learning Environment Survey) para evaluar la calidad del ambiente educativo. Del análisis de los resultados de las encuestas se evidencia que que obtienen menor nivel de aprobación la Interactividad y Apoyo de los compañeros, manteniéndose en un nivel medio a alto los correspondientes a Relevancia, Pensamiento Reflexivo e Interpretación, y en un nivel medio el correspondiente al Apoyo del Tutor. Se observa que los docentes que realizan los cursos de perfeccionamiento, ven mucho más relevante los aprendido en los cursos en línea para su práctica profesional, que los estudiantes de grado. Los participantes del curso de grado valoran los niveles de relevancia y pensamiento reflexivo ligeramente por debajo de lo manifestado por los participantes de los cursos de perfeccionamiento docente. La continua implementación de instancias de formación en tecnología educativa es indispensable para acompañar exitosamente este proceso