A História da Alimentação: balizas historiográficas

Os M. pretenderam traçar um quadro da História da Alimentação, não como um novo ramo epistemológico da disciplina, mas como um campo em desenvolvimento de práticas e atividades especializadas, incluindo pesquisa, formação, publicações, associações, encontros acadêmicos, etc. Um breve relato das condições em que tal campo se assentou faz-se preceder de um panorama dos estudos de alimentação e temas correia tos, em geral, segundo cinco abardagens Ia biológica, a econômica, a social, a cultural e a filosófica!, assim como da identificação das contribuições mais relevantes da Antropologia, Arqueologia, Sociologia e Geografia. A fim de comentar a multiforme e volumosa bibliografia histórica, foi ela organizada segundo critérios morfológicos. A seguir, alguns tópicos importantes mereceram tratamento à parte: a fome, o alimento e o domínio religioso, as descobertas européias e a difusão mundial de alimentos, gosto e gastronomia. O artigo se encerra com um rápido balanço crítico da historiografia brasileira sobre o tema

Culturally Competent Healthcare Systems: A Systematic Review

Culturally competent healthcare systems—those that provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services—have the potential to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities. When clients do not understand what their healthcare providers are telling them, and providers either do not speak the client’s language or are insensitive to cultural differences, the quality of health care can be compromised. We reviewed five interventions to improve cultural competence in healthcare systems—programs to recruit and retain staff members who reflect the cultural diversity of the community served, use of interpreter services or bilingual providers for clients with limited English proficiency, cultural competency training for healthcare providers, use of linguistically and culturally appropriate health education materials, and culturally specific healthcare settings. We could not determine the effectiveness of any of these interventions, because there were either too few comparative studies, or studies did not examine the outcome measures evaluated in this review: client satisfaction with care, improvements in health status, and inappropriate racial or ethnic differences in use of health services or in received and recommended treatment.https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(02)00657-8/abstrac

Tailoring information provision and consent processes to research contexts: the value of rapid assessments

Guidance requires that consent processes for research be appropriately tailored to their cultural context. This paper discusses the use of rapid assessments to identify cultural and ethical issues arising when explaining research in studies in The Gambia and Ethiopia. The assessments provided insights into appropriate ways of providing information to minimize the risk of stigmatizing vulnerable research populations; research participants' views about the most important information to provide about research and their understandings of research; and perceived constraints upon reaching voluntary decisions about participation. These insights demonstrate that rapid assessments are a relatively quick and inexpensive intervention that can provide valuable information to assist in the tailoring of information provision and consent processes to research context while maintaining and enhancing participants' fundamental protections

The genome of the platyfish, Xiphophorus maculatus, provides insights into evolutionary adaptation and several complex traits

Several attributes intuitively considered to be typical mammalian features, such as complex behavior, live birth and malignant disease such as cancer, also appeared several times independently in lower vertebrates. The genetic mechanisms underlying the evolution of these elaborate traits are poorly understood. The platyfish, X. maculatus, offers a unique model to better understand the molecular biology of such traits. We report here the sequencing of the platyfish genome. Integrating genome assembly with extensive genetic maps identified an unexpected evolutionary stability of chromosomes in fish, in contrast to in mammals. Genes associated with viviparity show signatures of positive selection, identifying new putative functional domains and rare cases of parallel evolution. We also find that genes implicated in cognition show an unexpectedly high rate of duplicate gene retention after the teleost genome duplication event, suggesting a hypothesis for the evolution of the behavioral complexity in fish, which exceeds that found in amphibians and reptiles