The influence of high ionic strength on the potentiometric determination of pH 4.0 (25 °c, I = 1.0 mol L-1) in acidified brine of preserved hearts of palm

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of ionic strength (I) on the potentiometric pH measurement of solutions with high I such as the Acidified Brine of Preserved Hearts of Palm (ABPHP) as it is accurately measured only in dilute solutions where I £ 0.1 mol L-1 as defined by Debye-Hückel's theory. Standard calibrators were developed to evaluate a potassium biphthalate buffer solution (BS4: pH 4.0 at 25 °C) with the variation of I of the medium. In practical application, the objective is the optimization of the potentiometric pH measurements of solutions having high I, for example, ABPHP with an I of 0.98 mol L-1 (1). The choice of this procedure is justified because ABPHP has a naturally high I that is not consistent with Debye-Hückel's theory. This can make pH measurements unreliable. From a public health point of view, the botulism often implicated these preserved vegetables, and the potentiometric pH measurement is the only legal parameter for quality control employed to improve sanitary control actions. The quantitative variables (position and dispersion) were calculated as mean, maximum and minimum values, standard deviation and coefficient of variation. Moreover, the Grubbs’ test was used to identify possible outliers and their homogeneity, thereby demonstrating the linear tendency of the results. Student's t-test and ANOVA with a 95% confidence index were used to verify the variability of the results. The results are promising, since by altering the I of the medium (I > 0.1 mol L-1), there was a change in the pH of the solution. This study is important to ensure a true quality control in the production of preserved hearts of palm

Por uma antropologia do direito humano à alimentação: interconexões entre consumo alimentar e cidadania na percepção de comensais de um mercado público em Teresina-PI / For an anthropology of the human right to food: interconnections between food consumption and citizenship in the perception of diners of a public market in Teresina-PI

Trata-se de um estudo descritivo que objetiva traçar a percepção de consumidores habituais de um mercado público acerca dos seus direitos no contexto da segurança alimentar e nutricional. A pesquisa vincula-se à Iniciação Científica Voluntária da Universidade Federal do Piauí, em parceria com o Programa de Educação Tutorial e o Programa de Pós-Graduação em Alimentos e Nutrição da mesma instituição. Para descrever o universo pesquisado, utilizou-se da pesquisa bibliográfica analítica, da aplicação de questionários estruturados, bem como da observação direta intensiva com a produção de diário de campo com o recurso da observação sistemática e de mapas analíticos a partir das entrevistas colhidas. Nesse ínterim, o estudo avança no sentido de apresentar como a contribuição antropológica pode enriquecer a pesquisa jurídica, ao estabelecer as interconexões entre o universo do consumo, em especial o consumo alimentar e a cidadania. Destarte, assumindo-se uma relação indiscutível e necessária entre esses dois pilares, tanto o fornecedor como o consumidor assumem responsabilidades mais acentuadas

Estimativa do cálculo da incerteza otimizada utilizando curva de adição cumulativa de padrão na determinação espectrofotométrica de nitratos em água mineral envasada

Nos últimos anos observou-se um interesse crescente na determinação dos níveis de nitrato em produtos alimentícios, essencialmente devido ao potencial de redução de nitrato em nitrito, que é conhecido por ter efeitos adversos na saúde humana e animal. O nitrato é intermediário no ciclo do nitrogênio e sua alta concentração na água é indicador de baixa qualidade (Wang et al.). A determinação direta em águas é realizada na região do ultravioleta em meio ácido e no comprimento de onda específico (205 nm) (APHA, 2012). Esse procedimento é muito útil em águas potáveis, mas suscetível a efeito de matriz em águas com pH alcalino ou com elevada força iônica (APHA, 2012). Assim, propôs-se no presente trabalho utilizar o método de adição de padrão (MAP) em comparação com o procedimento de calibração convencional (MC) descrito no livro de normas “Métodos Físico-químicos para Análise de Alimentos” (técnica 195/IV) (IAL, 2008) e executado no Laboratório de Análises Físico-químicas do Instituto Adolfo Lutz - Centro de Laboratório Regional de São José do Rio Preto X, em contrapondo, ao procedimento de adições cumulativas do padrão (MAP-C). Diante disso, foi realizada uma comparação entre os métodos MC, MAP e MAP-C, objetivando viabilizar e validar um tratamento de dados diferente do original para a estimativa do cálculo da incerteza, destacando para esse fim a abordagem bottom-up. Além, de identificar as limitações dos métodos que podem ser empregados para a vigilância da qualidade da água mineral e de abastecimento. De acordo com a ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 17025:20175, foram determinados os parâmetros de desempenho para os três procedimentos: limite de detecção, limite de quantificação, exatidão, precisão intermediária e a incerteza. Para a execução dos ensaios as condições ambientais foram monitoradas e estabelecidas as curvas de calibração (absorbância x concentração da solução padrão de nitrato de sódio, 9,98 mg L-1, calculado em N, para MC, MAP e para o MAP-C uma solução de 2,00 mg L-1), com o objetivo de determinar a concentração de nitrato de sódio. Assim, foram ensaiados 100 mL provenientes de 4L das amostras de água mineral de três marcas com diferentes pH (8,44; 6,96; e 5,77). Os parâmetros de desempenho dos procedimentos foram determinados a partir de diluições das soluções padrão e os resultados obtidos

Percepção da identidade alimentar de consumidores de um mercado público do Nordeste Brasileiro / Perception of food identity of consumers in a public market in Northeastern Brazil

A alimentação está envolta por diversos significados, questões socioculturais, experiências pessoais. O estudo objetivou descrever o perfil do indivíduo que consome alimentos habitualmente em um mercado público da capital teresinense e conhecer as principais motivações que os levam a fazer suas refeições nesse espaço. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de campo transversal, de natureza quantitativa, com aspectos qualitativos. O mercado é um local frequentado por um público diversificado, representado em maior parte por adultos jovens, em maioria do sexo masculino, casados ou solteiros, pardos, com pelo menos o ensino médio e com prevalência de baixa renda. Sabor, tempo e preço foram valores destacados pelos entrevistados, mostrando que a gastronomia local contribui para a motivação da escolha alimentar. Ficou evidenciado que a comida do mercado é dotada de simbolismo e o espaço é um replicador da cultura local, uma vez que fornece à população produtos e pratos típicos da região

Social Participation in the Brazilian National Biodiversity Monitoring Program Leads to Multiple Socioenvironmental Outcomes

The Brazilian Biodiversity Monitoring Program (Monitora Program) is a long-term large-scale program aimed at monitoring the state of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services in the protected areas (PAs) managed by Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio). Encouraging qualified social participation is one of Monitora Program’s guiding principles. In this case study, we describe how citizen participation occurs in various stages of the Monitora Program, including planning, data collection, interpretation, and discussion of results. Aspects that are crucial for a legitimate and continuous involvement and participation are described. We also illustrate some of the results from the Program and discuss how the program can contribute to Brazil’s achievement of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2022, the program was implemented in 113 of the 334 protected areas managed by ICMBio, most of them in the Amazon. The program results are aligned to 12 of the 17 SDGs, influencing changes that move society closer to these goals at the local scale. Data from the Monitora Program can be used to support Brazilian SDG reporting, but this requires further developments. Social participation in Monitora Program has strengthened links between institutions and people of different profiles, enhancing participation in protected area (PA) management and generating multiple local impacts, while producing quality biodiversity information to inform decision-making in conservation

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults

Background Underweight and obesity are associated with adverse health outcomes throughout the life course. We estimated the individual and combined prevalence of underweight or thinness and obesity, and their changes, from 1990 to 2022 for adults and school-aged children and adolescents in 200 countries and territories. Methods We used data from 3663 population-based studies with 222 million participants that measured height and weight in representative samples of the general population. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in the prevalence of different BMI categories, separately for adults (age ≥20 years) and school-aged children and adolescents (age 5–19 years), from 1990 to 2022 for 200 countries and territories. For adults, we report the individual and combined prevalence of underweight (BMI <18·5 kg/m2) and obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2). For schoolaged children and adolescents, we report thinness (BMI <2 SD below the median of the WHO growth reference) and obesity (BMI >2 SD above the median). Findings From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity in adults decreased in 11 countries (6%) for women and 17 (9%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 that the observed changes were true decreases. The combined prevalence increased in 162 countries (81%) for women and 140 countries (70%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. In 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity was highest in island nations in the Caribbean and Polynesia and Micronesia, and countries in the Middle East and north Africa. Obesity prevalence was higher than underweight with posterior probability of at least 0·80 in 177 countries (89%) for women and 145 (73%) for men in 2022, whereas the converse was true in 16 countries (8%) for women, and 39 (20%) for men. From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of thinness and obesity decreased among girls in five countries (3%) and among boys in 15 countries (8%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80, and increased among girls in 140 countries (70%) and boys in 137 countries (69%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. The countries with highest combined prevalence of thinness and obesity in school-aged children and adolescents in 2022 were in Polynesia and Micronesia and the Caribbean for both sexes, and Chile and Qatar for boys. Combined prevalence was also high in some countries in south Asia, such as India and Pakistan, where thinness remained prevalent despite having declined. In 2022, obesity in school-aged children and adolescents was more prevalent than thinness with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 among girls in 133 countries (67%) and boys in 125 countries (63%), whereas the converse was true in 35 countries (18%) and 42 countries (21%), respectively. In almost all countries for both adults and school-aged children and adolescents, the increases in double burden were driven by increases in obesity, and decreases in double burden by declining underweight or thinness. Interpretation The combined burden of underweight and obesity has increased in most countries, driven by an increase in obesity, while underweight and thinness remain prevalent in south Asia and parts of Africa. A healthy nutrition transition that enhances access to nutritious foods is needed to address the remaining burden of underweight while curbing and reversing the increase in obesit