Bacteria that reside in the gastrointestinal tract of healthy humans are essential for our health, sustenance and well-being. About 50 to 60% of those bacteria have the ability to produce resilient spores, important for the life cycle in the gut and for host-to-host transmission. A genomic signature for sporulation in the human intestine was recently described, which spans both commensals and pathogens such as Clostridioides difficile, and contains several genes of unknown function. We report on the characterization of a signature gene, csiA, which, as we show, is involved in the control of sporulation initiation in C. difficile. Spo0A is the main regulatory protein controlling entry into sporulation and we show that an in-frame deletion of csiA results in increased sporulation, and increased expression of spo0A per cell. Spo0A also drives transcription of the spoIIA and spoIIG operons, coding for the first forespore-(σF) and mother cell-specific (σE) RNA polymerase sigma factors. Strikingly, deletion of csiA increases expression of the spoIIG operon, but not that of the spoIIA operon. Increased expression of spoIIG results in increased production and proteolytic activation of pro-σE, suggesting that normally, the levels of active σE are limiting for sporulation. While other regulatory proteins affect both sporulation and several processes during the transition phase of growth, including toxin production or motility, deletion of the csiA gene does not alter the expression of the genes coding for the TcdA and TcdB cytotoxins or the genes involved in motility. Thus, our results establish that CsiA acts to modulate sporulation by reducing expression of the spo0A gene.

Introduction: Conservative treatments are usually the most indicated for the management of musculoskeletal pain; consequently, a detailed description of interventions enables the reproducibility of interventions in clinical practice and future research. The objective of this study is to evaluate the description of physical interventions for musculoskeletal pain in children and adolescents. Methods: We considered randomised controlled trials that included children and adolescents between 4 and 19 years old, with an acute or chronic/persistent musculoskeletal pain. We considered interventions including active and passive physical therapies – related to all types of physical modalities aimed to reduce the intensity of pain or disability in children and adolescents with musculoskeletal pain. The description of interventions was assessed using the TIDieR checklist. We searched on CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsyINFO and PEDro up to October 2021. The description of physical interventions was presented using frequencies, percentages and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We also calculated the total TIDieR score for each study. Results: We included 13 randomised controlled trials. The overall quality of description measured through the TIDieR checklist was poor, with an average of 11 (4.3) points out of 24. The item of the TIDieR that was mostly described was item 1 (brief name). The item that the description was mostly absent was item 10 (modifications). Conclusion: The descriptions of physical interventions for the treatment of musculoskeletal pain in children and adolescents are usually poorly described, indicating the need for strategies to improve the quality of description to enable truly clinical reproducibility.

O presente artigo apresenta os resultados da pesquisa realizada em uma escola pública com foco na Gestão Democrática da Escola, com o objetivo de investigar como acontece a administração participativa entre os atores que compõem a comunidade escolar. Metodologicamente, trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa e exploratória, em que, para alcançar os objetivos propostos, foi realizada uma breve revisão bibliográfica e aplicado um questionário com a equipe diretiva de uma escola da rede municipal de ensino, localizada no sudeste do Rio Grande do Sul. Esta pesquisa partiu dos estudos de Gadotti (2021) e Paro (2000) sobre gestão democrática na escola e de Ball e Bowe (1992) e Mainardes (2006) sobre o ciclo de políticas, com vistas a analisar as políticas educacionais do local em que a pesquisa foi realizada. Durante o levantamento de dados, deparou-se com a seguinte problemática: como ocorre a gestão democrática na escola, sendo que constatamos a inexistência de uma base legal fornecida pelo município para a mesma, pois esta lei municipal ainda não foi criada, devido ao fato que primeiro deveria ser criado o sistema de ensino municipal, e este, por motivos adversos, ainda não foi criado. Deste modo, os conselhos escolares das escolas do município se orientam com base no que está exposto na Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (LDB 9394/96) e na Lei Orgânica do município (Capítulo II – Da Educação). Alguns resultados preliminares, mostraram que a família se faz muito presente dentro da escola, contribuindo em reformas e arrecadação de dinheiro para a instituição, e que a instituição tenta seguir o que está presente dentro da legislação, mas que nas reuniões mensais, a participação maior é de professores e outros funcionários da escola.

The theory of capital market is to deal with the equilibrium relationship between risk and expected return on risky assets. Based on the theory, the present study investigates the effects of sectoral size (sectoral capitalization) on risk and expected return for the period of 2000-2004 as monthly. Multifactor model is utilized in the study using the Arbitrage Pricing Theory in analyzing the effects of sectoral size on the risk and return by utilizing the ordinary least square estimation procedure. The findings indicate that the firm size or sector have insignificant effects on firm or sectoral return in the Brazilian stock market.

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