Impact of trust on local residents' mega-event perceptions and their support

This study examines the influence of residents’ trust in government and organizing committee on their impact perceptions and support for a mega-event, namely, 2014 FIFA World Cup. Findings suggest significant relationships between impact perceptions and support. While trust in government is found to be a significant determinant of impact perceptions, findings indicate no significant relationship between trust in government and support, which suggest that the relationship is mediated by impact perceptions. While a positive relationship between trust in the organizing committee and positive impact perceptions is found, findings suggest no significant relationship between trust in the organizing committee and negative impact perceptions. Trust in the organizing committee is also found to have significant positive impact on support

On the relation between Transversal and Longitudinal Scaling in Cities

Given that a group of cities follows a scaling law connecting urban population with socio-economic or infrastructural metrics (transversal scaling), should we expect that each city would follow the same behavior over time (longitudinal scaling)? This assumption has important policy implications, although rigorous empirical tests have been so far hindered by the lack of suitable data. Here, we advance the debate by looking into the temporal evolution of the scaling laws for 5507 municipalities in Brazil. We focus on the relationship between population size and two urban variables, GDP and water network length, analyzing the time evolution of the system of cities as well as their individual trajectory. We find that longitudinal (individual) scaling exponents are city-specific, but they are distributed around an average value that approaches to the transversal scaling exponent when the data are decomposed to eliminate external factors, and when we only consider cities with a sufficiently large growth rate. Such results give support to the idea that the longitudinal dynamics is a micro-scaling version of the transversal dynamics of the entire urban system. Finally, we propose a mathematical framework that connects the microscopic level to global behavior, and, in all analyzed cases, we find good agreement between theoretical prediction and empirical evidence

A busca pela excelência laboratorial: acreditação de ensaios do Laboratório de Análise de Sementes da Embrapa Milho e Sorgo baseada na Norma ISO/IEC 17025: 2005.

A acreditação na ISO/IEC 17025:2005, com o conseqüente reconhecimento da competência técnica para realizar ensaios e aceitação dos resultados obtidos, é um instrumento eficaz para a remoção de barreiras técnicas ao comércio nacional e internacional. A qualidade comparável de resultados forma a base da aceitação mútua entre os países que adotam essa norma, além de se evitar a duplicação de testes, reduzindo o desperdício de tempo e recursos. A metodologia para implantação do sistema de gestão da qualidade (SG) no LAS da Embrapa Milho e Sorgo foi baseada na aplicação de ações de gestão, levantamento das necessidades, sensibilização e capacitação da equipe, documentação e validação do sistema de gestão da qualidade. Desde o ano de 2003, o LAS iniciou a implantação do SG com resultados parciais e lentos. A parceria entre duas Unidades da Embrapa (Embrapa Meio Ambiente, Unidade da Embrapa certificada desde 2005 na ISO 9001 :2000, e Milho e Sorgo) mostrou-se bastante eficaz, o que tomou possível a participação da Embrapa Milho e Sorgo num projeto corporativo para melhoria da gestão organizacional, onde essas experiências foram difundidas e compartilhadas. O parecer final sobre o processo de auditoria foi que o LAS da Embrapa Milho e Sorgo demonstrou ter instalações, equipamentos, pessoal e competência para realizar as análises do escopo do credenciamento e comprovou a implantação de um sistema de gestão da qualidade baseado na Norma NBR ISO /IEC 17025. A equipe auditora do LASO /LANAGRO /MG recomendou que seja concedido o credenciamento no RENASEM solicitado pelo laboratório

Acreditação de ensaios do Laboratório de Análise de Sementes da Embrapa Milho e Sorgo pela ISO/IEC 17025:2005 e obtenção do Renasem.

bitstream/CNPMS-2010/22393/1/Com-167.pd

Fragile X Syndrome. Clinical, Electroencephalographic And Neuroimaging Characteristics.

We studied 11 patients (9 males) with cytogenetic diagnosis of fragile X syndrome (FXS) with the purpose of investigating the neural circuitry involved in this condition. The ages ranged from 8 to 19. All the individuals presented large ears, elongated faces and autistic features. Ten patients had severe mental retardation. Attention disorder was found in 10 individuals. Electroencephalographic recordings were abnormal in 6 of 10 patients examined, showing focal epileptiform discharges predominantly in frontal and parietal areas. All patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging studies which were abnormal in 8 of them. The most important abnormalities were reduction of the cerebellar vermis and enlargement of the IV ventricle. Single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) was performed in 7 patients and was abnormal in all of them, the most frequent finding being a hypoperfusion of the inferior of the frontal lobes. Based on the clinical picture, neuropsychological findings and functional and structural imaging studies we suggest that FXS presents with a dysfunction involving a large area of the central nervous system: cerebellum-basal frontal regions-parietal lobes. The literature points to a disturbance involving the same neural circuitry in patients with autism.5618-2

Balance of IL-10 and Interferon-γ plasma levels in human visceral leishmaniasis: Implications in the pathogenesis

BACKGROUND: Leishmaniasis remains a serious public health problem in several parts of the developing world. Effective prophylactic measurements are hampered by imprecise comprehension of different aspects of the disease, including its immunoregulation. A better comprehension of immunoregulation in human VL may be useful both for designing and evaluating immunoprophylaxis. METHODS: To explore immunoregulatory mechanisms, 20 visceral leishmaniasis (VL) patients were evaluated during active disease and at different periods up to one year after treatment determining their plasma cytokine levels, clinical parameters (palpable spleen and liver) and antibody levels. RESULTS: Elevated plasma levels of IFN-γ and of IL-12 p40 were observed during active disease, significantly decreasing after treatment whereas in vitro Leishmania antigen-stimulated IFN-γ production by PBMC exhibited an inverse pattern being low during disease and increasing steadily thereafter. Absence of IFN-γ activity is a hallmark of VL. The main candidate for blunting IFN-γ activity is IL-10, a cytokine highly elevated in plasma with sharp decrease after treatment. Activity of IL-10 is inferred by high levels of anti-Leishmania specific IgG1 and IgG3. TGF-β had elevated total, but not of active, levels lessening the likelihood of being the IFN-γ counterpart. Spleen or liver size presented a steady decrease but return to normal values at only 120 days after treatment. Anti-Leishmania IgG (total and subclasses) levels and DTH or Leishmania-stimulated lymphocyte proliferation conversion to positive also present a slow decrease after treatment. IL-6 plasma levels were elevated in only a few patients. CONCLUSION: Taken together our results suggest that IFN-γ and IL-10 are the molecules most likely involved in determining fate of disease. After treatment, there is a long delay before the immune profile returns to normal what precludes using plasma cytokine levels as criteria of cure as simpler clinical evaluations, as a palpable spleen or liver, can be used