Rural Brazilian Community Research Articles

Modeling the decay of free residual chlorine in water distribution networks in Brazilian rural communities using artificial neural network

Disinfecting water with chlorine is crucial for maintaining sanitation and preventing waterborne diseases. However, managing Free Residual Chlorine (FRC) concentrations becomes challenging in water supply systems, as its levels can decrease throughout the distribution network, impacting water quality and public health. By leveraging water quality data from the Water Quality Surveillance Information System for Human Consumption (Sisagua) and employing the variable selection method t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding, we crafted a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network. This MLP, fine-tuned with weighted mean square error (WMSE), was designed to evaluate the decline of free residual chlorine in water distribution networks within rural Brazilian communities. Training the model with the weighted mean squared error (WMSE) increased the average hit rate from 3.6 % to 5.0 %. In contrast to the traditional colorimetric method for predicting free residual chlorine, the proposed methodology showed superior performance, with accuracy rates of 85.45 %, 95.58 % and 99.84 % for equipment accuracies of 0.5 mg. /L, 1.0 mg/L and 2.0 mg/L, respectively. The MLP approach not only anticipates nonconformities related to FRC but also aids in adjusting chlorine dosage proactively.

THE WORLD READING OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE APINAYÉ ETHNICITY

Introduction: Since the beginning, humanity has had to indoctrinate its communication and language has always been the principle of dialogue to establish relationships between different peoples. At the beginning of the 20th century, indigenous school education was guided by the catechization and forced integration of the Indians into the national society. Exclusively in the last decades, with the vicissitudes in international politics, Brazil started to recognize that it is a country constituted by a rich diversity of ethnic groups and the legislation granted these peoples the right to maintain their cultural specificities. During this period, educational policies aimed at the Apinayé were no different from those offered to other indigenous groups, which were compatible with the pedagogical practices developed by schools in rural Brazilian communities related to bilingualism. Objective: To describe how the process of teaching the mother tongue happens to indigenous children of the Apinayé ethnic group, as well as highlighting the curiosities and challenges faced by the Apinayé Indians to maintain their culture and their teachings of the native language for the indigenous children who live in the villages of that region. ethnicity. Method: This is an integrative literature review, of a descriptive-exploratory nature, carried out through a bibliographic survey in the databases: SCIELO and Google Scholar. Results and Discussions: Through the analysis of the literature, some factors related to the bilingualism of the Apinayé peoples, associated with maternal education, were evidenced. Currently, they have the possibility to study in elementary and secondary schools located in their own villages. This education process only took place with the implementation of the actions of the Apinayé Indigenous Education and Pedagogical Support Project, in mid-2001, where the village teachers themselves prepared didactic material in their mother tongue and in Portuguese for the early years of elementary school. . Thus highlighting the culture of bilingualism. Final Considerations: It was found that bilingualism is something that is incorporated into the social and cultural practices of the Apinayé people and we emphasize the need to maintain the mother tongue for children in the context of the society and culture of the Apinayé Indians. Therefore, it is necessary that their ethnic identities are valued and respected.

Water and sanitation are not gender-neutral: human rights in rural Brazilian communities

AbstractThe Human Rights to Water and Sanitation (HRWS), adopted as UN Resolutions since 2010, contemplates key elements that seek to ensure equal and non-discriminatory access to water and sanitation, including the elimination of gender inequalities. Working in populations with socio-environmental vulnerabilities, this study aims to assess gender division of labor in households of two rural communities in the North and Northeast Brazilian macroregions and identify why greater impacts occur on the lives of women when compared to men, resulting in human rights concerns. A qualitative analysis was carried out through semi-structured interviews and direct observation. The study showed that in the two rural Brazilian communities there is a clear labor division for water and sanitation access from a gender perspective. Men undertake more specialized work, sometimes requiring greater physical effort. As for women, they are assigned functions related to the domestic environment, including activities concerning water and sanitation. When facilities are inadequate, there is a disproportionate impact on women's health and quality of life, showing that the non-compliance with the human rights to water and sanitation often results in more harmful consequences for them.

Water Meters and Monthly Bills Meet Rural Brazilian Communities: Sociological Perspectives on Technical Objects for Water Management

Lasting solutions for communities in need of improved water and sanitation services—notably rural ones—depend on a balanced consideration of what some have called natural, technical, and social factors. Worldwide deficits in access to appropriate water services in rural areas highlight the need to develop sustainable management models, which are increasingly being proposed with an emphasis on local user participation. The current research analyzes a case study of two rural communities in Northeast Brazil who recently began receiving water supply services through the SISAR, a state-affiliated organization underpinned by shared management with local actors. Using sociological frameworks based conceptually in Actor-Network Theory, the study’s main objectives aimed to characterize what changes—if any—the application of the SISAR’s model would produce upon local dynamics, be them wide-scale or intra-household. Field research was carried out over three months in 2014, in which the researcher interviewed a handful of professionals and several dozens of local residents during an extended in situ research phase. Our study finds that two technical factors (the water meter and monthly bill) were at the heart of key tensions and uncertainty for users in the new water management model. Lacking appropriate guidance, users acquainted themselves with these technical objects with what personal resources, interests, and intuitions they possessed. Users were without instruction on how the meter worked, how to understand the bill, and did not know that a price table even existed. Consequently, users revealed unknown qualities of these objects that countered the service provider’s intentions to rationalize water use, and adopted attitudes and behaviors marked by subjective impressions of precaution and frugality. The findings show that technical objects have no self-evident qualities to users and, thus, users must learn or be taught how to interact with them in such a way as to produce desired outcomes. Rushed attempts at establishing low-cost, so-called participative models may indeed have heavy consequences. The most significant of which is an unfavorable climate for the formation of societies where informed individuals collectively possess the tools required to grasp the situations they live within and manage sustainable water supply systems. Awareness of one’s environmental impact is predicated on knowledge of one’s consumption. Thus, this research contributes to development-related discussions by demonstrating that producing particular user attitudes and behaviors on a mass scale vis-a-vis resource consumption requires regular efforts to understand and mediate the encounter between users and non-human actants.

Repeated praziquantel treatments remodel the genetic and spatial landscape of schistosomiasis risk and transmission

Repeated treatments with praziquantel reduce schistosomiasis prevalence and morbidity, but transmission persists and populations often recover within a few years. To identify factors associated with persistence, we surveyed and treated all identified Schistosoma mansoni infections in two rural Brazilian communities (Jenipapo and Volta do Rio) in 2009, 2012 and 2013. Eggs were collected from all infected individuals and genotyped with 11 microsatellite markers to evaluate parasite differentiation and diversity. After successive rounds of community-wide treatment, prevalence decreased from 45% to 24% then 16%. Intensity of infection decreased by 57% over this period, and the number of eggs transmitted to the environment decreased by 92%. During all time periods the majority of eggs were excreted by those >15years of age. The incidence was 23% in 2012 and 15% in 2013, consistent with a decrease in transmission. There was little immigration or gene flow over a distance of 6km. On reinfection, infrapopulations were moderately differentiated indicating that pretreatment multilocus genotypes were not fully reacquired. The effective population size responded to census population decline more rapidly than differentiation. Reinfection was concentrated in the downstream portion of Jenipapo, consistent with the observed increased human fecal contamination. At this scale and in this area S. mansoni infections exist on a fragmented landscape with a highly focal pattern of transmission that may facilitate future elimination.

FORMAS DE SUJEIÇÃO E SOCIABILIDADE CAMPONESA NO SEMIÁRIDO

The primary focus of the present paper is the forms of subjection and sociability presented by rural Brazilian communities in the context of capitalist society. For this, the study presents the different forms of labor oppression and the appropriation of income derived from rural activities found in the Brazilian semi-arid region. The analysis of these phenomena is based on social theory and the discussion of the question of rural social movements as a contradictory force to the development of capitalist society. This research was based on a transversal study of rural settlements in the Brazilian state of Ceara between 2004 and 2008. It was possible to confirm that the rural communities, in their efforts to conquest a portion of the capitalist territory, have developed relationships of work and sociability, based on a strategy of social reproduction, and that new fronts in the struggle for agrarian reform continue to emerge through the political efforts of the rural population. Key words: forms of subjection, rural communities, semi-arid region.

Rural electrification in Brazil and implications for schistosomiasis transmission: a preliminary study in a rural community in Minas Gerais State, Brazil

To evaluate the potential transmission of Schistosoma mansoni through well water pumped into households in a rural Brazilian community within the context of Brazil's rural electrification program Luz Para Todos (Light for All). All households were interviewed about their water facilities and domestic water use, all household members were examined for S. mansoni infections and positives treated, and malacological and water contact studies were performed between 2001 and 2009. Thirty-one of the 142 households in the Virgem das Graças study area owned wells with electric pumps in 2009, vs. no wells in 2001, and the number of water storage tanks increased from 85 to 131. The potential for schistosomiasis transmission through piped well water was indicated by the recovery of Biomphalaria gabrata, including S. mansoni-infected snails, from wells, the presence of Biomphalaria in tanks and the ability of S. mansoni cercariae to remain infective for considerable distances in flowing water. However, access to well water was not associated with higher S. mansoni infection rates. Our results indicate that further studies are needed to determine the infectivity of well water and its impact on schistosomiasis transmission.

Mulheres ciganas: medo, relações intergrupais e confrontos identitários

Através da Teoria da Identidade Social buscou-se conhecer os estereótipos presentes no imaginário rural associados ao grupo cigano, bem como os sentimentos associados a esta etnia. Foram entrevistadas 10 mulheres rurais, não-ciganas, moradoras de uma comunidade rural brasileira. Realizou-se a organização dos dados através do software Alceste e da Análise de Conteúdo. A análise das informações nos permitiu identificar o sentimento de medo como importante orientador das práticas relacionadas aos ciganos, confirmando características presentes no imaginário social amplamente difundido acerca desta etnia. Estão presentes os clássicos estereótipos de ladrões, malfeitores e amaldiçoados. Discute-se a dinâmica identitária provocada pelo conflito entre a comunidade rural e os ciganos, enfatizando os processos que orientam o campo de identificação e diferenciação endo/exogrupal

Association between dental prosthesis and periodontal disease in a rural Brazilian community

The aim of this study was to describe the periodontal conditions and to analyze the association between the wearing of fixed/removable partial dentures and periodontal disease in a representative adult rural population in southeast Brazil. Cross-sectional study of a representative sample comprising 200 individual aged 34-44 years. Data were collected by clinical examinations in accordance with the World Health Organization Basic Methods Criteria, which included the Community Periodontal Index and dental prosthesis exam. A descriptive analysis and the chi-square statistic were performed. In total, 40.5% of the individuals wore partial denture and 59.5% were non-users of denture. The prevalence of periodontal disease was 100%. The subjects scored either calculus (44.5%) or shallow pockets (47%), and only a small proportion was recorded as having deep pockets (8.5%). All denture wearer displayed periodontal problem in the sextant where the denture were recorded. The statistical analysis indicated that wearing partial dentures was found to be associated with considerable periodontal disease (X 2 = 10.75; p=0.0014). The periodontal condition of the study population can be considered unsatisfactory. The wearing of partial dental prosthesis was associated with periodontal disease, and a significant percentage of cases might have been prevented if plaque control interventions had been implemented.

Forgetting the Forest: Assessing Medicinal Plant Erosion in Eastern Brazil

Tropical landscapes represent storehouses of medicinal drug plants. It is widely held that these medicinal resources—real and potential—are threatened by a host of destructive forces. This paper examines these threats, especially the process of culture change and ethnobotanical erosion, in a rural Brazilian community. Employing a quantitative analysis of a sample plant pharmacopoeia, we investigate the relationship between medicinal plant knowledge and age, gender, and socio-economic standing. The results indicate that female gender, increasing age, illiteracy, and decreasing formal education are all positively correlated with level of medicinal plant knowledge. The process of modernization, particularly increasing access to formal education, appears to be incompatible with the retention of traditional domains of medical knowledge. Increasingly perceived as an irrelevant province of past generations, knowledge of the healing powers of tropical forests and fields is rapidly declining in this community.

Frequency of serum anti-cysticercus antibodies in the population of a rural Brazilian community (Cássia dos coqueiros, SP) determined by Elisa and immunoblotting using Taenia crassiceps antigens.

Considering the impact of cysticercosis on public health, especially the neurologic form of the disease, neurocysticercosis (NC), we studied the frequency of positivity of anti-Taenia solium cysticercus antibodies in serum samples from 1,863 inhabitants of Cássia dos Coqueiros, SP, a municipal district located 80 km from Ribeirão Preto, an area considered endemic for cysticercosis. The 1,863 samples were tested by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using an antigenic extract from Taenia crassiceps vesicular fluid (Tcra). The reactive and inconclusive ELISA samples were tested by immunoblotting. Of the 459 samples submitted to immunoblotting, 40 were strongly immunoreactive to the immunodominant 18 and 14 kD peptides. Considering the use of immunoblotting as confirmatory due to its high specificity, the anti-cysticercus serum prevalence in this population was 2.1%.

Infant feeding in two rural Brazilian communities

The feeding practices of 76 infants in two rural communities in Piracicaba, a city in the state of São Paulo, were analyzed. Home interviews were conducted using 24‐hour dietary recall, as well as some questions about the attitudes of mothers in relation to feeding. Diets were found to be deficient in both of the communities, especially in terms of food energy, iron and niacin, with greater diversity in the diet of families of higher per‐capita income. In both of the communities, quality was the factor considered most important in the purchase of food, although in the poorer neighborhood, the product yield was also important. Commercial baby foods were never used in the suburb of Santa Olimpia, due to a lack of confidence of the mothers in relation to such products, and in the suburb of Anhumas, price was the limiting factor. All mothers presented a reasonable knowledge of nutritional information.

The Impact of Television Viewing in the Brazilian Amazon

This article reports the results of an ethnographic study on the impact of television viewing in the Brazilian Amazon. In the fall of 1996, the researcher spent three months doing field work in the community of Sao Joao de Pirabas. The narrative account that follows tries to answer these questions: What has been the role of television in the way that rural Brazilian communities construct their own interpretation of reality? And what kinds of cultural changes (if any) can be attributed to systematic and pervasive television viewing?