Fernando de Souza

Utilização de métodos contraceptivos entre as usuárias da rede pública de saúde do município de Maringá-PR

PURPOSE: to evaluate the contraceptive methods adopted by the public health system of Maringa County, Parana, regarding the orientations for using them, indications, contraindications and reasons for interrupting these methods, as well as the profile of the female users. METHODS: transversal descriptive study, performed through 284 home interviews with women selected from the 62 groups of the Family Health Program, after their free and informed consent, and after the questionnaire had been approved by the Ethics in Research Committee involving human beings of the State University of Maringa (Universidade Estadual de Maringa - UEM). Before applying the questionnaires, they were pretested, focusing on the following sections: characterization of the interviewee, socioeconomical factors and contraceptive methods. Results were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software 12.0 version. RESULTS: most women were white, married, between 35 and 49 years old, with high school education, working without salary, and from D and E economical classes. Of them, 22.5% were smokers and 4.9% alcohol users. Contraceptive pills were adopted by 50.3% of the women; condom by 28.1% and tubal ligature by 32%, following, in general, the health professional orientation. Reasons for interrupting the contraceptive methods were the wish to get pregnant, preference for a permanent method, and also because of the side effects of the pill. Smoking was the most prevalent risk factor for pill use. Only 35.9% of the interviewed women started using the pill after a previous medical visit, and almost in the same proportion, 33.6%, without visit before starting to use it. CONCLUSIONS: it was observed that the indications of the contraceptive method to be used, and the orientations accomplished by the health professionals were satisfactory, despite the high levels of tubal ligature and the detection of relative contraindications for pill users with more than 5 years of use.

Adsorption of a copper (II) complex on calcium phosphate intercalated with 4-aminobenzoic acid: synthesis and electrochemical investigation

In this study, the adsorption isotherm of copper (II) on a calcium phosphate host intercalated with 4-aminobenzoic acid in an ethanol solution was investigated. This gave a maximum adsorption capacity of 1.74 mmol g-1. The material was incorporated into a carbon-paste electrode, and its electrochemical properties were investigated. However, for a dopamine solution, the anodic peak current increased owing to the electrocatalytic oxidation. The electrode presented the same response for at least 150 successive measurements, showing good repeatability. The modified electrode is very stable and reproducible. The electrode sensor was successfully applied for dopamine determination in pharmaceutical preparations.

Adsorption of Diuron from aqueous solution onto commercial organophilic clay: kinetic, equilibrium and thermodynamic study

ABSTRACT Due to their abundance in nature, clays have been frequently studied in the adsorption of different emergent contaminants, since they have good efficiency and low cost. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the performance of commercial organoclays as an adsorbent in the environmental remediation of wastewater containing the herbicide Diuron. The clay was characterized by the techniques of N2 physisorption, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and point of zero charge. In the batch adsorption experiments it was verified that the adsorption kinetics is ruled by the pseudo-second-order model (R2 > 0.97), and the adsorption equilibrium study at different temperatures (298, 302 and 308 K) showed that the non-linear models of Langmuir (R2 > 0.99) and Freundlich (R2 > 0.98) were those that present better adjustments to the experimental data. In addition, the adsorption capacity in monolayer (qmax) was 44.24 mg g−1, being higher or comparable to several works reported in the literature. As for the thermodynamic adsorption study, it was possible to infer that the process is spontaneous (ΔG°ads < 0) and endothermic (ΔH°ads = 71.58 kJ mol−1) in the temperature range studied. As far as the regeneration study was concerned, the maximum desorption capacity, 26.59 mg g−1, was obtained from the use of ethanol as eluent at 298 K. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACTABSTRACTDue to their abundance in nature, clays have been frequently studied in the adsorption of different emergent contaminants, since they have good efficiency and low cost. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the performance of commercial organoclays as an adsorbent in the environmental remediation of wastewater containing the herbicide Diuron. The clay was characterized by the techniques of N2 physisorption, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and point of zero charge. In the batch adsorption experiments it was verified that the adsorption kinetics is ruled by the pseudo-second-order model (R2 > 0.97), and the adsorption equilibrium study at different temperatures (298, 302 and 308 K) showed that the non-linear models of Langmuir (R2 > 0.99) and Freundlich (R2 > 0.98) were those that present better adjustments to the experimental data. In addition, the adsorption capacity in monolayer (qmax) was 44.24 mg g−1, being higher or comparable t...