The epidemiology of sepsis in Brazilian intensive care units (the Sepsis PREvalence Assessment Database, SPREAD): an observational study.

Background: The sepsis burden on acute care services in middle-income countries is a cause for concern. We estimated incidence, prevalence, and mortality of sepsis in adult Brazilian intensive care units (ICUs) and association of ICU organisational factors with outcome.

Methods: We did a 1-day point prevalence study with follow-up of patients in ICU with sepsis in a nationally representative pseudo-random sample.

Implications of water hardness in ecotoxicological assessments for water quality regulatory purposes: a case study with the aquatic snail Biomphalaria glabrata (Say, 1818).

Water hardness is a property depending on the presence of alkaline earth metals, mainly calcium and magnesium. Among the strategies for water quality monitoring, ecotoxicological assays are performed to minimize impacts and classify water bodies. For these laboratory evaluations parameters are previously defined in the guidelines, including water hardness for both cultivation and testing medium.