Prevalence of intestinal parasites and socioeconomic evaluation of a country town in the Serra Gaucha region, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Worms are a serious public health issue in Brazil, easily transmitted in school-age children. To evaluate the prevalence of intestinal parasites and socioeconomic conditions in students in Ipê city, the children's guardians filled in a questionnaire to evaluate their knowledge about parasitosis and basic sanitary conditions; then, feces were analyzed with sedimentation and centrifugation-fluctuation techniques. Out of 124 analyzed samples, a positivity rate of 8.1% was observed, with the presence of Entamoeba coli (50%), Giardia intestinalis (20%), Enterobius vermicularis eggs (20%) or multiple parasites. The students' average ages were 8.2±1.5, of which 53.2% were female. In relation to the questionnaires, 80.6% of the respondents answered assertively concerning the definition of a parasite, and 91.1% thought they knew how parasitoses are acquired. Regarding basic sanitation, only 4% of the studied population does not possess piped drinking water at home, and waste collection was done in 89.5% of the residences. The current study found a low frequency of parasitoses, which may be due to the level of information on the part of the parents or guardians, to the basic sanitary conditions of the respondents and to the high percentage (84.7%) of students who had already used anti-parasitic drugs.

Eficiência da seleção recorrente para redução da estatura de plantas em mamoneira (Ricinus communis L.) / Recurrent selection efficiency for stature reduction of castor bean (Ricinus communis L.) plants

Realizou-se, o presente trabalho, com o objetivo de avaliar a eficiência da seleção recorrente para a redução da estatura de plantas de mamona da cultivar Guarani (Ricinus communis L.), tornando-a com porte adequado para facilitar a colheita manual e/ou mecânica. Foram realizados quatro ciclos de seleção recorrente com a utilização de progênies autofecundadas na cultivar Guarani para redução da estatura das plantas, nas condições edafoclimáticas dos municípios de São Manuel - SP, Botucatu - SP e Penápolis - SP. As avaliações de estatura das plantas e de produtividade de grãos (kg.ha-1), dos quatro ciclos de seleção e do ciclo original foram realizadas nos municípios de São Manuel - SP, Botucatu - SP e Penápolis - SP na safra 2005/2006, sob um delineamento de blocos casualizados com cinco repetições e parcela útil de 30 m². A análise de variância para as características avaliadas foi feita separadamente para cada local e conjuntamente para os três locais e, posteriormente, realizada a comparação das médias pelo teste de Tukey, a 5 por cento. Foram estimados, para as três localidades, por análise de regressão, os ganhos genéticos dos quatros ciclos de seleção para estatura de plantas. A partir dos resultados obtidos pôde-se concluir que a seleção recorrente foi eficiente para a redução da estatura de plantas e que a cultivar de mamona Guarani apresenta variabilidade genética para essa característica e que a produtividade não foi influenciada pela redução da estatura de plantas.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the recurrent selection efficiency for reduction of stature of the castor bean plants of the Guarani cultivar (Ricinus communis L.), turning it with appropriate strucuture to facilitate the manual and/or mechanic harvest. Four cycles of recurrent selection were accomplished through the utilization of self-pollinated progenies in the Guarani cultivar for reduction of plants stature, in edaphclimatic conditions of São Manuel-SP, Botucatu-SP and Penápolis-SP towns. The evaluations of plants stature and yield (kg.ha-1) of the four selection cycles and the original cycle (cycle 0) were accomplished in São Manuel-SP, Botucatu-SP and Penápolis-SP, under a randomized block design with five repetitions and useful parcels of 30 m². The analysis of variance for the characteristics plant stature and yield was made apart to each environment and together for the three environment and, afterwards one performed the average comparison by the Tukey test using 5 percent of probability. One estimated for the three environments, by the regression analysis, the genetic gains of the four selection cycles for plant stature. One concluded that the recurrent selection was efficient to the reduction of plant stature and that Guarani castor bean cultivar could create genetic variability for this characteristic and the yield was not influenced by the reduction of plants stature.