The Portuguese law on social economy
This study is a reflection on the Portuguese Framework Law on Social Economy, highlighting, from a critical point-of-view, its contribution to the explicit institutional and legal recognition of the social economy sector. It does so by defining the concept of social economy and listing the entities engaged in this sector, by defining its guiding principles and the mechanisms for its promotion and encouragement, and also by describing the creation of a tax and competition regime which will take into account its specificities. The setting up of this foundation of the social economy was based on the constitutional principle of protection of the social and co-operative sector, which substantiates the adoption of differentiating solutions in view of the positive discrimination of this sector.
A identidade cooperativa na ordem jurídica portuguesa
1.1. Desde o Congresso do Centenário da Aliança Cooperativa Internacional (ACI ), realizado em 1995, em Manchester, esta organização, tendo continuado a dar grande importância aos princípios cooperativos, passou a assumir expressamente que a identidade cooperativa não se materializava apenas neles. É certo que eles continuaram a ser o seu elemento nuclear, mas essa identidade depende agora também dos valores cooperativos e de uma definição de cooperativa concreta.
Improved culture method for the isolation of Histoplasma capsulatum and Blastomyces dermatitidis form contaminated specimens.
Studies were performed to evaluate a method for selective isolation of Histoplasma capsulatum and Blastomyces dermatitidis from contaminated specimens. Ammonium hydroxide placed on an agar medium surface was found to inhibit the growth of many bacteria, yeasts, and saphrophytic fungi normally found in specimens such as animal tissues and sputum. In one study involving the culture of B. dermatitidis from canine tissues, 24% more isolations were obtained on a medium using NH4OH compared with a similar medium. Increases in the isolation of H. capusulatum from sputum specimens were also obtained, ranging from 20 to 32% compared with four other media without NH4OH.