Investigating Violence and Control Dyadically in a Help-Seeking Sample from Mozambique

A sample of 1442 women attending a Forensic Healthcare Service provided information on their own and their partners' use of controlling behaviors, partner violence, and sexual abuse, as well as their own experiences of childhood abuse. Using Johnson's typology, the relationships were categorized as Nonviolent, Intimate Terrorism, or Situational Couple Violence. Findings suggest that help-seeking women's experiences of intimate violence may be diverse, with their roles ranging from victim to perpetrator

Care of elderly in Portugal: Official data and scientific and professional challenges

First published online: 10 August 2019The world has never been so active in approaching human needs and human rights. As the population has become older, new kind of pressures has been made over health and protective services, as well as on research targeted to older adults. This chapter presents the scientific and practical developments in the field of elder mistreatment in Portugal. An overview of the scientific trends in Portuguese research is presented. National research on elder mistreatment has been increasing slowly. The current national scenery is focused on prevalence data and identifying risk and vulnerabilities. This chapter will also discuss the support structures available for mistreated older adults in Portugal, namely the current legal framework and the institutions/entities that offer aid to the victims. Legally, elder mistreatment in Portugal is no different from domestic violence, though some legislative advances have been seen in abandonment. Some structures have been developed over the years to offer aid to older adults, from special programs in the police to private institutions, passing by government supported initiatives.This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). The first author was funded by a scholarship from the Portuguese Foundations for Science and Technology - FCT - (PD/BD/105965/2014

Por uma nova cultura da água no ensino básico

A presente comunicação centra-se na apresentação à comunidade científica de um Projecto de investigação em Educação que tem como finalidade produzir contributos para o Ensino Básico, no âmbito do que se designa como uma Nova Cultura da Água. Com esta iniciativa pretendemos não só alertar para a pertinência e importância de estudos em ordem a uma temática cada vez mais emergente, mas também recolher contributos significativos de uma comunidade mais alargada. O referido projecto centra-se pois no bem Água. Começará por procurar conhecer melhor como ele é evocado e tratado no Ensino Básico. Destina-se a aprofundar e promover teorias, conhecimentos, competências, valores, atitudes e práticas que potenciem o bom uso e a protecção daquele bem, e de um modo mais geral uma alteração de posturas culturais e mesmo civilizacionais. Fá-lo-á segundo perspectivas científicas, pedagógicas, didácticas e sociais em parte já construídas e em parte a construir, e que justificadamente se considerem adequadas. O Projecto assume estar à partida marcado por saberes, perspectivas, ideais, dilemas e objectivos dos elementos da equipa do Projecto e por outras visões que, globalmente e de um modo aproximativo, aglomeramos sob a designação Nova Cultura da Água. Simultaneamente, assume que pretende contribuir para que tal Nova Cultura da Água seja mais bem compreendida e especificada, e em particular para que ela seja mais enriquecida com contributos portugueses. O âmbito central de intervenção do Projecto é o Ensino Básico, mas desde logo isso implica a sua intersecção com a Formação (Inicial e Contínua) de Professores, e portanto com o Ensino Superior. Além disso, pela natureza do tema, do bem, em estudo, o Projecto intersecta-se também com os mundos das Ciências e das Tecnologias. Intersecta-se também com a Sociedade em geral, e designadamente com a formação para a cidadania de cidadão portugueses que são também cidadãos da Península Ibérica, da Europa e do Mundo. O Projecto terá pois múltiplas incidências e mesmo, previsivelmente, contributos de vários tipos e âmbitos, designadamente a nível de divulgação científica e a um nível pedagógico geral. Mas é essencialmente um Projecto do âmbito da Didáctica. Tem a sua focagem na Escola, portanto em ambientes de ensino e aprendizagem formais, e incide sobre meios e métodos relacionados com ambientes de aula (em sentido lato)

Catalytic and Photocatalytic Nitrate Reduction Over Pd-Cu Loaded Over Hybrid Materials of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes and TiO2

TiO2 and carbon nanotube-TiO2 hybrid materials synthesized by sol-gel and loaded with 1%Pd−1%Cu (%wt.) were tested in the catalytic and photocatalytic reduction of nitrate in water in the presence of CO2 (buffer) and H2 (reducing agent). Characterization of the catalysts was performed by UV-Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, temperature programed reduction, N2 adsorption, and electron microscopy. The presence of light produced a positive effect in the kinetics of nitrate removal. Higher selectivity toward nitrogen formation was observed under dark condition, while the photo-activated reactions showed higher selectivity for the production of ammonium. The hybrid catalyst containing 20 %wt. of carbon nanotubes shows the best compromise between activity and selectivity. A mechanism for the photocatalytic abatement of nitrate in water in the presence of the hybrid materials was proposed, based in the action of carbon nanotubes as light harvesters, dispersing media for TiO2 particles and as charge carrier facilitators

Social disorganization and history of child sexual abuse against girls in sub-Saharan Africa : a multilevel analysis

Background: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a considerable public health problem. Less focus has been paid to the role of community level factors associated with CSA. The aim of this study was to examine the association between neighbourhood-level measures of social disorganization and CSA. Methods: We applied multiple multilevel logistic regression analysis on Demographic and Health Survey data for 6,351 adolescents from six countries in sub-Saharan Africa between 2006 and 2008. Results: The percentage of adolescents that had experienced CSA ranged from 1.04% to 5.84%. There was a significant variation in the odds of reporting CSA across the communities, suggesting 18% of the variation in CSA could be attributed to community level factors. Respondents currently employed were more likely to have reported CSA than those who were unemployed (odds ratio [OR] = 2.05, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.48 to 2.83). Respondents from communities with a high family disruption rate were 57% more likely to have reported CSA (OR=1.57, 95% CI 1.14 to 2.16). Conclusion: We found that exposure to CSA was associated with high community level of family disruption, thus suggesting that neighbourhoods may indeed have significant important effects on exposure to CSA. Further studies are needed to explore pathways that connect the individual and neighbourhood levels, that is, means through which deleterious neighbourhood effects are transmitted to individuals

Service provision and barriers to care for homeless people with mental health problems across 14 European capital cities

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Morphological analysis and description of the ovaries of female silky sharks, Carcharhinus falciformis (Müller & Henle, 1839)

This work aims to study the female reproductive tract of silky sharks, Carcharhinus falciformis, captured in the South and Equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Samples were collected between January 2008 and March 2010 through oceanic commercial vessels that targeted tuna and swordfish, with a total of 17 females collected. The methodologies followed for analyzing the ovaries of those females included both macroscopic and histological analysis. Macroscopically, it was possible to determine that the ovaries on these sharks is suspended by mesenteries in the anterior section of the body cavity, heavily irrigated by blood vessels, and contains a wide range of oocytes. Ovaries were found in three distinct maturational stages: Stage I (Immature), Stage II (Maturing) and Stage III (Mature). Immature ovaries were small, with widths ranging from 1.0 to 3.1 cm, and had a gelatinous or granulose internal structure; maturing ovaries were slightly larger, ranging in width between 5.2 and 6.0 cm; mature ovaries ranged in width between 6.5 and 7.8 cm, and had a more rounded shape and the presence of large and well developed oocytes. Under microscopic examination, it was observed that the ovaries were covered with simple epithelial tissue during the early development stages and a simple cubic epithelium in the final stages of maturation. During the initial maturation stages the epigonal organ was not differentiated from the ovary. In mature specimens, the ovary showed a simple cubic epithelium and just below this epithelium there was a layer of dense connective tissue and muscle with the presence of vitellogenic oocytes and fat cells. A thin yolk membrane enclosing the oocytes was also evident. Finally, it was possible to distinguish a zona pellucida, separating the oocytes from the follicle wall and a basal lamina between the granular layers and the teak layer.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The prevalence of self-reported underuse of medications due to cost for the elderly: Results from seven European urban communities

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of self-reported underuse of medications due to procurement costs amongst older persons from seven European urban communities. Methods: The data were collected in a cross-sectional study (“ABUEL, Elder abuse: A multinational prevalence survey”) in 2009. Randomly selected people aged 60–84 years (n = 4,467) from seven urban communities: Stuttgart (Germany), Athens (Greece), Ancona (Italy), Kaunas (Lithuania), Porto (Portugal), Granada (Spain) and Stockholm (Sweden) were interviewed. Response rate - 45.2 %. Ethical permission was received in each country. Results: The results indicate that 3.6 % (n = 162) of the respondents self-reported refraining from buying prescribed medications due to cost. The highest prevalence of this problem was identified in Lithuania (15.7 %, n = 99) and Portugal (4.3 %, n = 28). Other countries reported lower percentages of refraining from buying medications (Germany – 2.0 %, Italy – 1.6 %, Sweden – 1.0 %, Greece – 0.6 %, Spain – 0.3 %). Females refrained more often from buying medications than males (2.6 % vs. 4.4 %, p < 0.0001). The prevalence of this refraining tended to increase with economic hardship. Discussion: These differences between countries can be only partly described by the financing of health-care systems. In spite of the presence of cost reimbursement mechanisms, patients need to make co-payments (or in some cases to pay the full price) for prescribed medications. This indicates that the purchasing power of people in 10.1186/s12913-015-1089-4 the particular country can play a major role and be related with the economic situation in the country. Lithuania, which has reported the highest refrain rates, had the lowest gross domestic product (at the time of conducting this study) of all participating countries in the study. Conclusions: Refraining from buying the prescribed medications due to cost is a problem for women and men in respect to ageing people in Europe. Prevalence varies by country, sex, and economic hardship.The ABUEL was supported by the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers (EAHC) (Grant No., A/2007123) and participating institutions

New physics reach of the decay mode Bˉ→Kˉ∗0ℓ+ℓ−\bar{B} \to \bar{K}^{*0}\ell^+\ell^-

We present a complete method to construct QCD-protected observables based on the exclusive 4-body $B$-meson decay $\bar{B} \to \bar{K}^{*0}\ell^+\ell^-$ in the low dilepton mass region. The core of the method is the requirement that the constructed quantities should fulfil the symmetries of the angular distribution. We have identified all symmetries of the angular distribution in the limit of massless leptons and explore: a new non-trivial relation between the coefficients of the angular distribution, the possibility to fully solve the system for the $K^{*}$ amplitudes, and the construction of non-trivial observables. We also present a phenomenological analysis of the new physics sensitivity of angular observables in the decay based on QCD factorisation. We further analyse the CP-conserving observables, $A_{T}^{(2)}$, $A_{T}^{(3)}$ and $A_{T}^{(4)}$. They are practically free of theoretical uncertainties due to the soft form factors for the full range of dilepton masses rather than just at a single point as for $A_{FB}$. They also have a higher sensitivity to specific new physics scenarios compared to observables such as $A_{FB}$. Moreover, we critically examine the new physics reach of CP-violating observables via a complete error analysis due to scale dependences, form factors and $\Lambda/m_b$ corrections. We have developed an ensemble method to evaluate the error on observables from $\Lambda/m_b$ corrections. Finally, we explore the experimental prospects of CP-violating observables and find that they are rather limited. Indeed, the CP-conserving (averaged) observables $A_{T}^{(i)}$ (with $i=2,3,4$) will offer a better sensitivity to large CP phases and may be more suitable for experimental analysis.Comment: 38 pages, 17 figures, updated version to fix a few typo

A study protocol to evaluate the relationship between outdoor air pollution and pregnancy outcomes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The present study protocol is designed to assess the relationship between outdoor air pollution and low birth weight and preterm births outcomes performing a semi-ecological analysis. Semi-ecological design studies are widely used to assess effects of air pollution in humans. In this type of analysis, health outcomes and covariates are measured in individuals and exposure assignments are usually based on air quality monitor stations. Therefore, estimating individual exposures are one of the major challenges when investigating these relationships with a semi-ecologic design.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>Semi-ecologic study consisting of a retrospective cohort study with ecologic assignment of exposure is applied. Health outcomes and covariates are collected at Primary Health Care Center. Data from pregnant registry, clinical record and specific questionnaire administered orally to the mothers of children born in period 2007-2010 in Portuguese Alentejo Litoral region, are collected by the research team. Outdoor air pollution data are collected with a lichen diversity biomonitoring program, and individual pregnancy exposures are assessed with spatial geostatistical simulation, which provides the basis for uncertainty analysis of individual exposures. Awareness of outdoor air pollution uncertainty will improve validity of individual exposures assignments for further statistical analysis with multivariate regression models.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Exposure misclassification is an issue of concern in semi-ecological design. In this study, personal exposures are assigned to each pregnant using geocoded addresses data. A stochastic simulation method is applied to lichen diversity values index measured at biomonitoring survey locations, in order to assess spatial uncertainty of lichen diversity value index at each geocoded address. These methods assume a model for spatial autocorrelation of exposure and provide a distribution of exposures in each study location. We believe that variability of simulated exposure values at geocoded addresses will improve knowledge on variability of exposures, improving therefore validity of individual exposures to input in posterior statistical analysis.</p