Universidade Estadual de Londrina

About: Universidade Estadual de Londrina is a education organization based out in Londrina, Brazil. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Toxoplasma gondii. The organization has 13052 authors who have published 19291 publications receiving 212123 citations.

Programs for control of congenital toxoplasmosis

Abstract: Congenital toxoplasmosis can cause miscarriage and neurological and/or eye damage to the fetus. Since Austria and France established the prenatal screening, the prevalence of toxoplasmosis has declined from 50% to 35% and 84% to 44%, respectively. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, have educational practices to reduce the risk of infection in seronegative pregnant women. In Brazil, prenatal screening is carried out in the states of Mato Grosso do Sul and Minas Gerais and the cities of Curitiba and Porto Alegre. In Londrina, state of Parana, the "Health Surveillance Program for Toxoplasmosis Acquired during Pregnancy and Congenital Toxoplasmosis" was established, which is based on serological screening, advising on prevention measures and quarterly serological monitoring in pregnant women that are initially seronegative, in addition to the monitoring of pregnant women and children with acute infection and case notification. In the first four years of implementation, the program evaluation showed a 63% reduction in the number of pregnant women and 42% in the number of children referred to reference services, resulting in the opening of vacancies for the care of patients with other diseases. As for medications, there was a 62% reduction in consumption of folic acid and 67% of sulfadiazine. Moreover, the definition of the protocols resulted in the standardization of care and safety for the decision-making by physicians. Therefore, as there are several protocols individualized in various departments and regions, the establishment of an ideal, consensual conduct with technical support, will result in implementing measures that will certainly save public resources, with the decrease in congenital toxoplasmosis.

The potential of NIR spectroscopy to predict soil texture and mineralogy in Cerrado Latosols

Abstract: Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) has been accepted as a fast method to evaluate various soil constituents However, very few studies have used NIRS as a predictor of the textural and mineralogical content of tropical soils The objective of this study was to investigate the potential use of NIRS as a tool for assessment of diverse soil properties, with specific attention to the prediction of properties related to the mineralogy of a wide range of Latosols from the Cerrado region of central Brazil The reflectance of the soil samples, 148 in total, taken from 00 to 02 and 06 to 08-m depth, was determined in the near-infrared region between 1100 and 2500 nm at 2-nm intervals with a NIRS spectrophotometer Our results show that for soil sampling corresponding to a large-scale map and taking into account the variability of Latosols over a wide region, NIRS can predict most of the mineralogical properties of the Latosols accurately Near-infrared spectroscopy did not predict most of the physico-chemical characteristics of soils accurately, in particular those that are largely dependent on agricultural practice, such as pH or CEC However, the main characteristics that correspond to soil constituents (organic matter and clay content) were relatively well predicted