Sex ratio of equine offspring is affected by the ages of the mare and stallion

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of parental age on the sex ratio of offspring in horses. Two trials were performed. In the first trial, the data from a randomly obtained population with a 1:1 sex ratio of 59,950 Mangalarga Marchador horses born in Brazil from 1990 to 2011 were analyzed. The sex ratios of the offspring were compared among groups according to the mare and the stallion ages (from 3 to 25 years). In the first step of the analysis, the mares and stallions were grouped according to age in 5-year intervals. In the second step, the groups were based on the parental age gap at conception. In the third step, the group of the mares and stallions with similar ages from the second step was subdivided, and the different parental age subgroups that were divided into 5-year intervals were compared. In the fourth step, the sex ratio of the offspring was determined according to the ages of the mares and the stallions at conception. The second trial was based on the data from 253 horses of several breeds that were born after natural gestation into a herd from 1989 to 2010, and the offspring of groups that were younger or older than 15 years were compared. The data from both trials were analyzed using a chi-square test (P ≤ 0.01 for the first trial; and P ≤ 0.05 for the second trial) for the comparisons of the sex ratios. In the first trial, the Spearman test (P ≤ 0.01) was used to verify the correlations between the parental age and the offspring sex ratio. In the first trial, the offspring sex ratio decreased as the mare or stallion age increased, and the decrease was more marked for the mares than for the stallions. In the second trial, the mares older than 15 years had more fillies than the younger mares, but the stallion age had no effect on the sex of the offspring. The first trial, with a large number of horses, revealed the pattern of the distribution of the sex ratios of offspring according to the parental age in horses, whereas the second trial, with a more restricted number of horses, confirmed the influence of the age of the mare on the offspring sex ratio. We concluded that the parental age affected the offspring sex ratio in horses and that this effect was stronger for the mares than for the stallions.

["I will never forget it!": the experience of a woman with induced abortion]

Based on the symbolic interactionist approach, we aimed to verify the meanings attributed to induced abortion by women who adopted such behavior as well as to analyze the impact of the experience on their self-image. The results point out the contradiction in women's discourse when they evaluate the experience, and the emotional negative reactions they had developed: remorse/guilty conscience, regret, feeling of grief, and mainly guilt, which, according to their accounts, they will carry for the rest of their lives.

[Burns: characteristics of cases treated in a teaching hospital in Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo), Brazil]

Burns are a significant health problem in Brazil, but there have been few data collected that could shape treatment and prevention programs. To help overcome that knowledge gap, this study looked at the types of accidents and the characteristics of 138 burn patients admitted into the burn unit of the University of São Paulo Hospital in Ribeirão Preto, state of São Paulo, Brazil, between November, 1991, and December, 1993. Patient charts were reviewed to collect data on age, sex, region of the body affected, burn depth and surface affected, agent causing the burn, and circumstances in which the burn happened. Of the 138 cases, 71% occurred in the home. In 50% of all accidents the victims were children. Boiling water was the agent responsible for 59% of the accidents among children younger than 3 years of age; fuel alcohol used in the home for cooking and other purposes caused 57% of the accidents among children between 7 and 11 years, the most affected pediatric group. Among adults, the group between 20 and 39 years of age was the most affected (23%); 84% of the victims in this age group were male. Seventeen percent of all cases involved adult males at work. Women suffered burns in accidents at home (67%) and in suicide-related events (33%). Seventy-five percent of the suicide cases were women. The strategies to reduce the incidence of burn injuries should aim at eliminating environmental risk factors and implementing educational programs disseminated through radio and television.

[Risk factors for pressure ulcer in bedridden patients]

Exploratory-descriptive study in which we aimed to identify, in the specialized literature, which predisposing conditions and risks factors would be related to the development of pressure ulcer, and to verify how often these predisposing conditions and risk factors would be present in bedridden patients, hospitalized in an institution that renders health services in João Pessoa-PB. From the analysis of results obtained, we concluded that there is the need to construct an instrument to measure this risk must suit our reality and that incorporates risk factors identified with a significant frequency in this study and are not contemplated in most of the available scales in the literature.

[Nursing research and positivism]

The authors discuss positivism foundations; the most remarkable influences to comtian's philosophy structuration; how Comte's ideas, as doctrine in so far as method, dominate society's thoughts, passing beyond XIX century and reaching XX century; and how the positivist doctrine and empirical method influenced Nursing conceptions about science and about human being/environment/disease.

[Historical retrospective of nursing education in Brazil and current tendencies]

This paper analyses the laws and resolutions that regulate Brazilian nursing education since 1923, emphasizing the circumstances that surrounded them and evidencing the major tendencies at the present time.

[Scientific production in nursing in northeastern Brazil (1988-1992)]

Descriptive exploratory study accomplished with the purpose of identifying nurses' scientific productions in the Northeast Region during the period of 1988-1992, checking the rind of papers presented, the predominating theme area and the divulgation used. We observe that there is a sensitive increase in these productions since 1990. Scientific articles and assistentcal area themes predominated, as did the divulgation through national events.

[The placebo effect--its implications for nursing care and teaching]

As autoras fazem uma revisão bibliográfica sobre o placebo e o efeito placebo, enfocando sua conceituação, histórico, tipos, ação, indicações e características da placebo reator, para fundamentar as implicações do seu uso e efeitos para o ensino e a assistência de enfermagem.

[The representations of unmarried pregnant adolescents regarding their psychosocial problems]

Estudou-se um grupo de oito gestantes adolescentes solteiras, com idade entre 15 a 18 anos, que compareceram ao Serviço de Pré-Natal de uma instituição localizada no Município de São Paulo, entre janeiro a junho de 1984. O objetivo foi o de conhecer as representações dessas gestantes sobre aspectos de sua problemática psicossocial. O método utilizado foi o qualitativo. O conhecimento das representações dessas gestantes e a análise resultante da interpretação de seu discurso evidenciaram o desajuste psicossocial para o qual a gestação em adolescentes solteiras pode concorrer.