Investment in drinking water and sanitation infrastructure and its impact on waterborne diseases dissemination: The Brazilian case

Investment in sanitation and drinking water infrastructure is essential for universal access to these services in developing countries. Universal coverage of water and sanitation services (WSS) can prevent the dissemination of waterborne diseases and mitigate their adverse effects. These diseases are responsible for many deaths worldwide, especially among the disadvantaged population and children. A causal effect can be established between WSS investment and hospital admissions due to waterborne diseases. Therefore, we considered an innovative network-DEA approach that models the link between serially connected subsystems (upstream investment and downstream hospitalizations). This approach allowed us: to measure the efficiency of both subsystems; estimate the amount of (efficient) investment necessary to universalize the access to proper WSS infrastructure; and mitigate hospital admissions due to waterborne diseases. We used the Brazil case study to test our model. On average, Brazilian states could increase the number of people not requiring hospitalizations due to waterborne diseases by 157 thousand per R$100 million invested in sanitation and 26 thousand per R$100 million invested in drinking water. Our results suggest that relatively small (efficient) investment in those two infrastructure types has a massive impact on hospitalizations. This impact would be more significant than the investment in WSS coverage. Therefore, if safely managed, WSS would cover all citizens, and Brazil would come closer to developed countries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Problems in Physics Aimed at Biology: A Contribution to the Initial Formation of the Teacher through the Complexity in Problems Proposed by Halliday Volume II

This article presents an excerpt from dissertation research on initial teacher education that analyzed and identified the relationships of the complexity involved in solving problems proposed by Halliday - volume II by 26 undergraduate students in Biology from a Public University in the State of Paran Therefore the action research methodology was used for the collection and development of the research associated with the Grounded Theory methodology for data analysis followed by the moments of open axial and selective coding The problem that this research solved was What is the influence of complex Physics problems on the learning process of Biology undergraduate students In this way the complex relationships built within the training process of the future Biology teacher and their influence on the teaching-learning process were identified The main results show that the formation process of such students future teachers reflects the concept of complexity and that a formative process with problembased learning enables the understanding of physical concepts on the subject of fluids in volume II of Hallida

Association of advanced oxidative and adsorptive processes for dye treatment in the sanitizer industry: kinetic, equilibrium and toxicity evaluation

The presence of dyes in wastewater can cause several damages to the environment. Aiming at its removal, advanced oxidative processes (AOP) and adsorption (ADS) have been used. In this work, the removal of acid blue dye 80 (AA80) by AOP (photoperoxidation (PP) and photo-Fenton (PF)) and by ADS was evaluated, individually and combined. The use of the PP/UV-C system led to degradations of 72.7 and 83.8% for the λ of 334 and 622 nm, respectively. The PP/LED system did not degrade. For the PF process, > 90% degradation was obtained for both radiations. The [Fe] (1 mg.L-1) and [H2O2] (90 mg.L-1)were optimized for the PF/LED system. As for the PF/UV-C system, the optimal [H2O2] was 60 mg.L-1. The experimental data fit well with the Chan and Chu (2003) kinetic model with R2>0.94. The kinetic data showed a better fit to the pseudo-second order model (R2>0.90), while equilibrium was reached in 30 min with removal of 62.45 (λ=334 nm) and 83.22% (λ=622 nm), being well represented by the Langmuir and Sips models. Finally, the combined study promoted a 7% increase in AA80 removal, achieving an improvement in the final toxicity of the treated matrix when compared to isolated AOP systems.

NEOTROPICAL ALIEN MAMMALS: a data set of occurrence and abundance of alien mammals in the Neotropics

Biological invasion is one of the main threats to native biodiversity. For a species to become invasive, it must be voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into a nonnative habitat. Mammals were among first taxa to be introduced worldwide for game, meat, and labor, yet the number of species introduced in the Neotropics remains unknown. In this data set, we make available occurrence and abundance data on mammal species that (1) transposed a geographical barrier and (2) were voluntarily or involuntarily introduced by humans into the Neotropics. Our data set is composed of 73,738 historical and current georeferenced records on alien mammal species of which around 96% correspond to occurrence data on 77 species belonging to eight orders and 26 families. Data cover 26 continental countries in the Neotropics, ranging from Mexico and its frontier regions (southern Florida and coastal-central Florida in the southeast United States) to Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay, and the 13 countries of Caribbean islands. Our data set also includes neotropical species (e.g., Callithrix sp., Myocastor coypus, Nasua nasua) considered alien in particular areas of Neotropics. The most numerous species in terms of records are from Bos sp. (n = 37,782), Sus scrofa (n = 6,730), and Canis familiaris (n = 10,084); 17 species were represented by only one record (e.g., Syncerus caffer, Cervus timorensis, Cervus unicolor, Canis latrans). Primates have the highest number of species in the data set (n = 20 species), partly because of uncertainties regarding taxonomic identification of the genera Callithrix, which includes the species Callithrix aurita, Callithrix flaviceps, Callithrix geoffroyi, Callithrix jacchus, Callithrix kuhlii, Callithrix penicillata, and their hybrids. This unique data set will be a valuable source of information on invasion risk assessments, biodiversity redistribution and conservation-related research. There are no copyright restrictions. Please cite this data paper when using the data in publications. We also request that researchers and teachers inform us on how they are using the data