Social Exclusion Modifies Climate and Deforestation Impacts on a Vector-Borne Disease

American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis emergence has been associated with changes in the interaction between people and forests. The association between outbreaks and forest clearance, higher risk for populations living close to forests, and the absence of this disease from urban settings has led to the proposal that it will disappear with the destruction of primary forests. This view ignores the complex nature of deforestation as a product of socioeconomic inequities. Our study shows that such inequities, as measured by a marginalization index, may ultimately determine risk within the country, with socially excluded populations most affected by the disease. Contrary to the established view, living close to the forest edge can diminish the risk provided other factors are taken into account. Additionally, differences in vulnerability to climatic variability appear to interact with forest cover to influence risk across counties where the disease has its largest burden. Incidence exacerbation associated with El Niño Southern Oscillation is observed in counties with larger proportions of deforestation. Our study calls for control efforts targeted to socially excluded populations and for more localized ecological studies of transmission in vectors and reservoirs in order to understand the role of biodiversity changes in driving the emergence of this disease

The decay of homogeneous anisotropic turbulence

We present the results of a numerical investigation of three-dimensional decaying turbulence with statistically homogeneous and anisotropic initial conditions. We show that at large times, in the inertial range of scales: (i) isotropic velocity fluctuations decay self-similarly at an algebraic rate which can be obtained by dimensional arguments; (ii) the ratio of anisotropic to isotropic fluctuations of a given intensity falls off in time as a power law, with an exponent approximately independent of the strength of the fluctuation; (iii) the decay of anisotropic fluctuations is not self-similar, their statistics becoming more and more intermittent as time elapses. We also investigate the early stages of the decay. The different short-time behavior observed in two experiments differing by the phase organization of their initial conditions gives a new hunch on the degree of universality of small-scale turbulence statistics, i.e. its independence of the conditions at large scales.Comment: 9 pages, 17 figure

Produção sazonal de óleo essencial em uma população natural de Piper aduncum L. em Adrianópolis - PR.

O objetivo desta pesquisa foi verificar a produção sazonal de óleo essencial em uma população natural de Piper aduncum L. no município de Adrianópolis - PR

Two Galaxy Clusters: A3565 and A3560

We report 102 new redshifts and magnitudes for a sample of galaxies to RF ~ 15.5 mag in a 2.17 deg x 2.17 deg region centered on the galaxy IC 4296, the most luminous member of the A3565 cluster. Up to the limiting magnitude we find 29 cluster members, and measure a velocity dispersion of 228 km/s. The estimated total mass for this system is ~ 3.0 x h**-1 10**13 Msun (where h = H0/100 km/s/Mpc), and its dynamical properties are quite typical of poor clusters presenting X-ray emission. We also find that galaxies with absorption lines are more concentrated towards the center of the cluster, while systems with emission lines are mainly located in the outer parts. The small velocity dispersion of the cluster, coupled to the known presence of an interacting pair of galaxies, and the large extent of the brightest cluster galaxy, could indicate that galaxy formation through mergers may still be underway in this system. The surveyed region also contains galaxies belonging to the Shapley Concentration cluster A3560. Within 30 arc min of the cluster center, we detect 32 galaxies, for which we measure a velocity dispersion of 588 km/s and a mass of ~2 x h**-1 10**14 Msun. However, because our sample is restricted to galaxies brighter than M*, these values should be considered only as rough estimates.Comment: 33 pages, including 6 tables and 9 postscript figures. Uses AAS Latex macros. Postscript file and ASCII versions of Tables 4 and 6 are available at http://www.dan.on.br/other_surveys/a3565.html. Scheduled for September 1999 issue of The Astronomical Journa

Sensory analysis as a tool to support rice breeding research: a comparison between hybrid rice and conventional commercial rice.

This study aims to assess sensory differences between a hybrid variety sample and conventional commercial rice samples by the Difference from Control Method. This method provides information on the size of the difference between a control and other sample

Teores e conteúdo de NPK em folhas de alfavaca-cravo em função da adubação orgânica e épocas de corte.

Estudou-se o efeito da adubação orgânica e épocas de corte nos teores e extração de NPK em alfavaca-cravo nas condições de Botucatu - SP. Utilizou-se 04 doses de esterco de poedeira curtido (tratamentos principais) e 04 épocas de corte (outono, inverno e primavera do ano de 2001 e verão de 2002)