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Professions – Experts accustomed to researching the labor market and forecasting its future guarantee that the world is entering an era in which science and technology will be valued and trusted, thus triggering profound changes in the world of work. Furthermore, they state that the promising careers of the future will be centered on four broad areas: digital and technological, environmental, health and well-being, and space.

Economy 1 – Startups – rising, innovative, and lean companies with great potential for growth – are broadening their horizons in the country, especially those developing software, applications, and Internet platforms.

Economy 2 – Some sectors of the basic industry are being slowly eroded by the ongoing deindustrialization process in Brazil. Quite broad, this industry encompasses from capital goods (equipment and machines) to steel mills, train parts and components manufacturers, cement companies, to extraction industries.

Business – The Brazilian woman of today spends fortunes on products and services that will improve her look and make her prettier, thus boosting an industry that has gained momentum: Every month about 7,000 new businesses in the beauty industry are opened across the country.

Cities – For fifteen years the city of São Caetano do Sul, located in the Greater São Paulo and with a population of 156,000 people, has remained as the Brazilian city with the best Human Development Index (HDI), a ranking confirmed last July by the “2013 Atlas of Human Development in Brazil” released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Northeast – Amid conflicts over land that have been going on for decades, there is a very special way of living in Brazil’s arid northeastern sertão: Back pastures, huge collectively used areas, deep inside the caatinga, with no demarcation, where goats and cattle belonging to a community’s families are raised freely.

Interview – Aged 62, Rio de Janeiro-born geoeconomist Claudio Antonio Gonçalves Egler, who is also a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), says that he dedicated part of his life to researching South American integration and energy issues, the topics of this interview.

Memory – The moment Brazil’s streets are once again taken by thousands of youths claiming for social and political transformations, Problemas Brasileiros focuses on the lives of two prominent figures of the Brazilian youth music – Renato Russo and Cássia Eller. Both died before the age of 40, yet affirmed the right to unrestrained individual freedom and led generations increasingly less inclined to accepting taboos, hypocrisies, and mediocrities.

Literature – The book industry has been experiencing decline rates that look like warnings. Even children’s and teens literature, until very recently the industry’s “pride and joy”, is no longer the same. In contrast with other cash cows like religious, self-help, technical-scientific, and erotic literature, children’s books are showing fatigue and a rising lack of interest by readers.

Books – An overview of the life and works of a score of top Brazilian writers is the purpose of Profissionais da Solidão [literally “Solitude Professionals”], by the Senac São Paulo publishing house, a timely collection of articles by journalist Cecilia Prada, a writer herself and who has had several books published.

Health 1 – 112 years after its founding, the Butantan Institute, one of the largest biomedical research centers in the world, is responsible for 93% of the antiserums and immunobiologicals produced in Brazil today. In mid-August this year, the Institute was authorized to by the Brazilian National Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) to test a vaccine against dengue fever in humans that has been developed since 2006.

Health 2 – Is it possible to improve the lives of people suffering from aphasia, the loss of the power to comprehend and/or use spoken, written, or gesture language caused by brain damage? Yes, says NGO Ser em Cena. Working with big groups of aphasics, the NGO has achieved excellent results through drama, dance, mime, speech therapy, and psychotherapy, all of which are used with both men and women of all ages in the NGO’s facilities in São Paulo’s Perdizes neighborhood.

Thematic panel – Geologist Geraldo Lino challenges all ecologists: There is no global warming. It’s just catastrophism.