OBJECTIVETo analyze the evolution in the prevalence and determinants of malnutrition in children in the semiarid region of Brazil.METHODSData were collected from two cross-sectional population-based household surveys that used the same methodology. Clustering sampling was used to collect data from 8,000 families in Ceará, Northeastern Brazil, for the years 1987 and 2007. Acute undernutrition was calculated as weight/age < -2 standard deviation (SD); stunting as height/age < -2 SD; wasting as weight/height < -2 SD. Data on biological and sociodemographic determinants were analyzed using hierarchical multivariate analyses based on a theoretical model.RESULTSA sample of 4,513 and 1,533 children under three years of age, in 1987 and 2007, respectively, were included in the analyses. The prevalence of acute malnutrition was reduced by 60.0%, from 12.6% in 1987 to 4.7% in 2007, while prevalence of stunting was reduced by 50.0%, from 27.0% in 1987 to 13.0% in 2007. Prevalence of wasting changed little in the period. In 1987, socioeconomic and biological characteristics (family income, mother’s education, toilet and tap water availability, children’s medical consultation and hospitalization, age, sex and birth weight) were significantly associated with undernutrition, stunting and wasting. In 2007, the determinants of malnutrition were restricted to biological characteristics (age, sex and birth weight). Only one socioeconomic characteristic, toilet availability, remained associated with stunting.CONCLUSIONSSocioeconomic development, along with health interventions, may have contributed to improvements in children’s nutritional status. Birth weight, especially extremely low weight (< 1,500 g), appears as the most important risk factor for early childhood malnutrition.

Prevalência e determinantes de obesidade e sobrepeso em mulheres em idade reprodutiva residentes na região semiárida do BrasilPrevalence and determinants of obesity and overweight among reproductive age women living in the semi-arid region of Brazil

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The present study reports the fabrication of free-standing nanomembranes with semiconducting and biodegradable properties. Nanomembranes have been prepared by spin-coating mixtures of a semiconducting polythiophene derivative, poly(3-thiophene methyl acetate), and a biodegradable polyester, poly(tetramethylene succinate). Both the roughness and thickness of the nanomembranes, which ranged from 3 to 20 nm and from 20 to 80 nm, respectively, were precisely controlled through the spin-coater speed and the solvent evaporation properties. Nanomembranes made of conducting polymer/polyester blends, which are able to retain the properties of the individual polymers, are stable in air and in ethanol solution for more than one year, facilitating their manipulation. Enzymatic degradation essays indicated that the ultra-thin films are biodegradable due to the presence of the aliphatic polyester. Interestingly, adhesion and proliferation assays with epithelial cells revealed that the behavior of the blend as cellular matrix is superior to that of the two individual polymers, validating the use of the nanomembranes as bioactive substrates for tissue regeneration.

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A class of synchronized queueing networks with deterministic routing is identified to be equivalent to a subclass of timed Petri nets called marked graphs. First some structural and behavioral properties of marked graphs are recalled and used to show interesting properties of this class of performance models. In particular, ergodicity is derived from boundedness and liveness of the underlying Petri net representation, which can be efficiently computed in polynomial time on the net structure. In case of unbounded (i.e., non-strongly connected) marked graphs, ergodicity is computed as a function of the average transition firing delays. Then the problem of computing both upper and lower bounds for the steady-state performance of timed and stochastic marked graphs is studied. In particular, linear programming problems defined on the incidence matrix of the underlying Petri nets are used to compute tight (i.e., attainable) bounds for the throughput of transitions for marked graphs with deterministic or stochastic time associated with transitions. These bounds depend on the initial marking and the mean values of the delays but not on the probability distribution functions (thus including both the deterministic and the stochastic cases). The benefits of interleaving qualitative and quantitative analysis of marked graph models are shown.

Introduction: the Health School Programme (HSP) should be understood as a permanent development process. In this context, the actions of a policy aimed at children and adolescentsare paramount in the HSP. Objective: to identify and describe the actions developed by the Family Health Group in the HSP, from the National Programme for ImprovingAccess and Quality of Primary Care (PIPCAQ). Methods: this cross-sectional research used secondary data collected fromthe 17,202 groups who joined PIPCAQ in 2012. Results: all regions showed significant results concerning the execution of school activities. the Northern region was the one that performed most school actions (80.5%), followed by the Northeast, Midwest, South and Southeast, respectively. However, some items, such as professional training in education and health work need to be streng the ned. Conclusion: HSP in Brazil has mobilised significant actions, even though it has not happened in homogeneously in all Brazilian regions.

This paper addresses ergodicity and throughput bounds characterizations for a subclass of timed and stochastic Petri nets, interleaving qualitative and quantitative theories. The considered nets represent an extension of the well known subclass of marked graphs, de ned as having a unique consistent ring count vector, independently of the stochastic interpretation of the net model. In particular, persistent and mono-T-semi ow nets subclasses are considered. Upper and lower throughput bounds are computed using linear programming problems de ned on the incidence matrix of the underlying net. The bounds proposed here depend on the initial marking and the mean values of the delays but not on the probability distributions (thus including both the deterministic and the stochastic cases). From a di erent perspective, the considered subclasses of stochastic nets can be viewed as special classes of synchronized queueing networks, thus the proposed bounds can be applied to these networks.