Female - headed households, poverty, and the welfare of children in urban Brazil

The authors analyze the characteristics and behavior of households headed by women in urban Brazil and identify some of the consequences for child welfare on the growth of these households. The following was among their findings. First, households headed by women are a heterogeneous group, which varies strongly by region - as does the extent of poverty among them. Such households are more common in the northeast and increase with urbanization. Second, households headed by women are not, on average, a"vulnerable group"in Brazil, as some are quite well off. The subset of such households that are very poor is quite vulnerable. Households headed by women tend to be poorer in the northeast, especially around Recife, than in Porto Alegre in the south, where there is virtually no gap. Third, less than half the households headed by women contain dependent children, and only a third are headed by the stereotypical"single mother."When there are children in households headed by women, especially households headed by single mothers, the income gap is greater than in other households. As a portion of households in Brazil, households headed by women and containing children represent only 3.4 percent of urban households, but this group tends to be poor, which is worrisome for child outcomes. Poor children tend to live in households headed by women. These households are poor not because there are more children or fewer adults but because women earn less than men. Women heading households do not earn less than other women - on the contrary. However, it female heads of households earned as much as male heads of households, the average income in households headed by women would be above that for other households and fewer single mothers would be poor. The best interventions toeliminate poverty in this group are those that focus on: (a) ending wage discrimination; and (b) ending occupational segregation. Interventions that focus on raising skill levels and educational attainment for the whole workforce, including women, would also help alleviate absolute poverty, although not necessarily relative income differences."Workfare"or public employment policies would not help this group since most already participate in the labor force. Programs targeted to this group would not be particularly progressive, given the heterogeneity and income spread among these households. But the results do suggest the need for special interventions for children in households headed by women, given those children's tendency to stay out of school.Poverty Assessment,Anthropology,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,VN-Acb Mis -- IFC-00535908,Housing&Human Habitats

An efficient and automated P2P overlay system for network monitoring

Precise and efficient monitoring is vital to ensure that a network works according to the intended behaviour, as well as quickly acting in response to possible problems. The task of monitoring a network becomes complex with increasing network size and its heterogeneity. This work explores the development of a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) system to monitor network communication infrastructures. All the processes of creation of the system and the existing entities will be described as well as their communication capabilities. Then, the definition of a metalanguage will be exposed, allowing network administrators to conFigure and pre-program the network in an effective and versatile manner. The optimization of the monitoring system will be also described, reducing the traffic generated by the P2P network. It will be also addressed how the system became fault-tolerant, recovering its state even if any entity has a problem.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/202

Fungal infections diagnosis - Past, present and future

Despite the scientific advances observed in the recent decades and the emergence of new methodologies, the diagnosis of systemic fungal infections persists as a problematic issue. Fungal cultivation, the stan-dard method that allows a proven diagnosis, has numerous disadvantages, as low sensitivity (only 50% of the patients present positive fungal cultures), and long growth time. These are factors that delay the patient's treatment and, consequently, lead to higher hospital costs. To improve the accuracy and quickness of fungal infections diagnosis, several new methodologies attempt to be implemented in clinical microbiology laboratories. Most of these innovative methods are independent of pathogen isolation, which means that the diagnosis goes from being considered proven to probable. In spite of the advantage of being culture-independent, the majority of the methods lack standardization. PCR-based methods are becoming more and more commonly used, which has earned them an important place in hospital laboratories. This can be perceived now, as PCR-based methodologies have proved to be an essential tool fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic. This review aims to go through the main steps of the diagnosis for systemic fungal infection, from diagnostic classifications, through methodologies considered as "gold standard", to the molecular methods currently used, and finally mentioning some of the more futuristic approaches.(c) 2021 Institut Pasteur. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.This work was supported by the UID/BIA/04050/2013 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007569) and UID/BIA/04050/2019 strategic programs, which is funded by national funds through the FCT-Fundacao para a Ciência e Tecnologia, and by the ERDF-European Regional Devel-opment Fund through the COMPETE2020-Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (POCI) and Sistema de Apoio à Investigacao Cientifica e Tecnol?ogica (SAICT)

Optimization of a quantitative PCR methodology for detection of Aspergillus spp. and Rhizopus arrhizus

Introduction Multiplex quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) methods for the detection of Aspergillus spp. based only on SYBR Green and melting curve analysis of PCR products are difficult to develop because most targets are located within ITS regions. The aim of this study was to adapt our previously developed methodology based on a multiplex PCR assay coupled with GeneScan analysis to provide a qPCR method. Methods A SYBR Green-based real-time PCR assay was optimized to detect A. fumigatus, A. flavus, A. niger, A. terreus, and R. arrhizus in a multiplex assay and applied to cultured fungi and spiked plasma. Results Different melting temperatures allowed identification of all five pathogens and discrimination between them, even in samples with low amounts of fungal gDNA (from 1.3 to 33.0 pg/mu L), which has been reported previously as problematic. No false-positive results were obtained for non-target species, including bacteria and human DNA. This method allowed detection of fungal pathogens in human plasma spiked with fungal DNA and in coinfections of A. niger/R. arrhizus. Discussion This work provides evidence for the use of a qPCR multiplex method based on SYBR Green and melting curve analysis of PCR products for the detection of A. fumigatus, A. flavus, A. niger, A. terreus, and R. arrhizus. The proposed method is simpler and less expensive than available kits based on fluorescent probes and can be used for aiding diagnosis of the most relevant invasive filamentous fungi, particularly in low-income health care institutions

Gerber File Parsing for Conversion to Bitmap Image–The VINCI7D Case Study

The technological market is increasingly evolving as evidenced by the innovative and streamlined manufacturing processes. Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) are widely employed in the electronics fabrication industry, resorting to the Gerber open standard format to transfer the manufacturing data. The Gerber format describes not only metadata related to the manufacturing process but also the PCB image. To be able to map the electronic circuit pattern to be printed, a parser to convert Gerber files into a bitmap image is required. The current literature as well as available Gerber viewers and libraries showed limitations mainly in the Gerber format support, focusing only on a subset of commands. In this work, the development of a recursive descent approach for parsing Gerber files is described, outlining its interpretation and the renderization of 2D bitmap images. All the defined commands in the specification based on Gerber X2 generation were successfully rendered, unlike the tested commercial parsers used in the experiments. Moreover, the obtained results were comparable to those parsers regarding the commands they can execute as well as the ground-truth, emphasizing the accuracy of the proposed approach. Its top-down and recursive architecture allows easy integration with other software regardless of the platform, highlighting its potential inclusion and integration in the production of electronic circuits.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Frequency of genetic polymorphisms of PXR gene in the Brazilian population

INTRODUCTION: PXR polymorphisms have been implicated in modulating CYP3A4 and PXR expression, potentially accounting for interindividual differences in drug metabolism. The prevalence of PXR polymorphisms varies among ethnic groups and data on the allelic distribution in the highly mixed Brazilian population is lacking. The aim of this study was to analyze genetic variations in the PXR gene in Brazilians and to compare the results to other ethnic groups. METHODS: DNA samples from 117 healthy Brazilians underwent PCR amplification and sequencing. RESULTS: Eleven polymorphisms were identified, 3 of which are highly associated with differences in CYP3A4 expression. We also identified 1 new synonymous variant in 1.3% of the alleles. Among the functional polymorphisms, -25913 C&gt;T and -6994T&gt;C occurred at a higher frequency comparedtothe Africanalleles (p < 0.05) but at a lower frequency compared to Caucasian alleles. The 8055 C&gt;T allele was found at a similar frequency to those described in Caucasians and Africans (p &gt; 0.05). CONCLUSION: We observed that functional variants of the PXR were frequent in our sample of the Brazilian population. Our results suggest that PXR gene variants may be of interest in pharmacogenetic studies involving Brazilians

Frequency of genetic polymorphisms of PXR gene in the Brazilian population

INTRODUCTION: PXR polymorphisms have been implicated in modulating CYP3A4 and PXR expression, potentially accounting for interindividual differences in drug metabolism. The prevalence of PXR polymorphisms varies among ethnic groups and data on the allelic distribution in the highly mixed Brazilian population is lacking. The aim of this study was to analyze genetic variations in the PXR gene in Brazilians and to compare the results to other ethnic groups. METHODS: DNA samples from 117 healthy Brazilians underwent PCR amplification and sequencing. RESULTS: Eleven polymorphisms were identified, 3 of which are highly associated with differences in CYP3A4 expression. We also identified 1 new synonymous variant in 1.3% of the alleles. Among the functional polymorphisms, -25913 C>T and -6994T>C occurred at a higher frequency comparedtothe Africanalleles (p < 0.05) but at a lower frequency compared to Caucasian alleles. The 8055 C>T allele was found at a similar frequency to those described in Caucasians and Africans (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: We observed that functional variants of the PXR were frequent in our sample of the Brazilian population. Our results suggest that PXR gene variants may be of interest in pharmacogenetic studies involving Brazilians