Influência da proporção entre as alturas do ramo mandibular e dentoalveolar posterior na inclinação do plano mandibular

OBJETIVO: avaliar a existência de correlação entre a proporção da altura do ramo mandibular (AR) com a altura dentoalveolar posterior total (ADAPT) e a inclinação do plano mandibular (PM). MÉTODOS: dois examinadores avaliaram 81 telerradiografias laterais de pacientes, com idades a partir de 18 anos, do arquivo do curso de especialização em Ortodontia e Ortopedia Facial da Faculdade de Odontologia da UFBA. As radiografias foram digitalizadas, os pontos marcados e as medidas obtidas através do programa Radiocef 1.0. Mediu-se a inclinação do plano mandibular para caracterizar o padrão vertical da face e dividir as radiografias em três grupos: grupo de face normal (GN), de 22º a 28º, de face curta (GC), menor que 22º, e de face longa (GL), maior que 28º. A inclinação do plano palatino serviu como critério de exclusão, sendo que valores abaixo de -2,5° ou acima de 3,5º foram excluídos. Desta forma, 46 telerradiografias laterais totalizaram a amostra. RESULTADOS: a AR diferiu entre GC e GL, porém não houve diferença estatisticamente significante para as alturas dentoalveolares posteriores. Houve baixa correlação entre a AR e a ADAPT nos grupos, no entanto, a correlação da proporção entre essas alturas com a inclinação do PM mostrou-se estatisticamente significante e negativa. CONCLUSÃO: este é um fator a ser levado em consideração na avaliação do PM, quando do diagnóstico e tratamento das displasias verticais dentofaciais.

Efeitos da fonte de enxofre sobre a população de protozoários e degradabilidade no rúmen

Estudaram-se os efeitos de fontes de enxofre na dieta sobre os parâmetros ruminais de bovinos Nelore, utilizando-se oito novilhos canulados no rúmen e submetidos a quatro tratamentos, segundo a fonte de enxofre. Os animais do grupo-controle não receberam suplementação de enxofre. Os dos outros três grupos receberam flor de enxofre ou metionina ou carboquelatado, como suplementação. Os animais foram arraçoados com dieta total, utilizando cana-de-açúcar picada como volumoso. O período experimental foi de 76 dias, dividido em quatro subperíodos de 19 dias, dos quais 14 eram para adaptação à dieta e cinco para as colheitas. Não foram encontradas diferenças entre as fontes de enxofre na degradabilidade da matéria seca, proteína bruta e fibras em detergente ácido e neutro e no pH ruminal. O tratamento com carboquelatado resultou em maior número de protozoários ciliados e o tratamento metionina em menor contagem. O carboquelatado pode ser uma boa alternativa para a suplementação de enxofre para bovinos em confinamento.

Acessibilidade dos sítios web dos governos estaduais brasileiros: uma análise quantitativa entre 1996 e 2007

A utilização da web para a disponibilização de informações e serviços de órgãos governamentais para os cidadãos tem se tornado cada vez mais expressiva. Assim, a garantia de que esses conteúdos e serviços possam ser acessíveis a qualquer cidadão é imprescindível, independentemente de necessidades especiais ou de quaisquer outras barreiras. No Brasil, o Decreto-Lei nº5.296/2004 determinou que todos os órgãos governamentais deveriam adaptar seus sítios na web de acordo com critérios de acessibilidade até dezembro de 2005. Com o objetivo de verificar a evolução da acessibilidade ao longo dos anos e como foi o impacto dessa legislação, este artigo analisa a acessibilidade dos sítios dos governos estaduais brasileiros por meio de amostras coletadas entre 1996 e 2007. Foram efetuadas análises por meio de métricas, obtidas por avaliações com ferramentas automáticas. Os resultados indicam que a legislação teve pouco impacto para a melhoria real da acessibilidade dos sítios no período indicado, com uma melhora somente em 2007. Verifica-se que se faz necessário adotar políticas públicas mais efetivas para que as pessoas com necessidades especiais tenham os seus direitos para acesso a informações e aos serviços públicos na web assegurados mais amplamente.

Elementos protetores do leite materno na prevenção de doenças gastrintestinais e respiratórias

A Epistemologia Genética defende que o indivíduo passa por várias etapas de desenvolvimento ao longo da sua vida. O desenvolvimento é observado pela sobreposição do equilíbrio entre a assimilação e a acomodação, resultando em adaptação. Assim, nesta formulação, o ser humano assimila os dados que obtém do exterior, mas uma vez que já tem uma estrutura mental que não está vazia, precisa adaptar esses dados à estrutura mental já existe. O processo de modificação de si próprio é chamado de acomodação. Este esquema revela que nenhum conhecimento chega do exterior sem que sofra alguma alteração pelo indivíduo, sendo que tudo o que se aprende é influenciado por aquilo que já havia sido aprendido. A assimilação ocorre quando a informação é incorporada às estruturas já pré-existentes nessa dinâmica estrutura cognitiva, enquanto que a adaptação ocorre quando o organismo se modifica de alguma maneira de modo a incorporar dinamicamente a nova informação. Por fim, de um pensamento moderno que, buscando a síntese inusitada entre o biológico e o lógico-matemático, parece encontrar seus limites na desconstrução ainda mais inusitada a que tende sistematicamente todo o pensamento na atualidade: a de si mesmo se construindo de modo essencialmente esclarecido

Psychometric evaluation of the Disordered Eating Attitude Scale (DEAS)

Eating attitudes are defined as beliefs, thoughts, feelings, behaviors and relationship with food. They could influence people’s food choices and their health status. Objective: This study aimed to adapt from Portuguese to English the Disordered Eating Attitude Scale (DEAS) and evaluate its validity and reliability. The original scale in Portuguese was translated and adapted into English and was applied to female university students of University of Minnesota—USA (n = 224). Internal consistency was determined (Cronbach’s Alpha). Convergent validity was assessed by correlations between Eating Attitude Test-26 (EAT-26) and Restrain Scale (RS). Reliability was evaluated applying twice the scale to a sub-sample (n = 30). The scale was back translated into Portuguese and compared with the original version and discrepancies were not found. The internal consistency was .76. The DEAS total score was significantly associated with EAT-26 (r = 0.65) and RS (r = 0.69) scores. The correlation between test–retest was r = 0.9. The English version of DEAS showed appropriate internal consistency, convergent validity and test–retest reliability and will be useful to assess eating attitudes in different population groups in English spoken countries

A epistemologia genética de Piaget e o construtivismo

A Epistemologia Genética defende que o indivíduo passa por várias etapas de desenvolvimento ao longo da sua vida. O desenvolvimento é observado pela sobreposição do equilíbrio entre a assimilação e a acomodação, resultando em adaptação. Assim, nesta formulação, o ser humano assimila os dados que obtém do exterior, mas uma vez que já tem uma estrutura mental que não está vazia, precisa adaptar esses dados à estrutura mental já existe. O processo de modificação de si próprio é chamado de acomodação. Este esquema revela que nenhum conhecimento chega do exterior sem que sofra alguma alteração pelo indivíduo, sendo que tudo o que se aprende é influenciado por aquilo que já havia sido aprendido. A assimilação ocorre quando a informação é incorporada às estruturas já pré-existentes nessa dinâmica estrutura cognitiva, enquanto que a adaptação ocorre quando o organismo se modifica de alguma maneira de modo a incorporar dinamicamente a nova informação. Por fim, de um pensamento moderno que, buscando a síntese inusitada entre o biológico e o lógico-matemático, parece encontrar seus limites na desconstrução ainda mais inusitada a que tende sistematicamente todo o pensamento na atualidade: a de si mesmo se construindo de modo essencialmente esclarecido

Change and Aging Senescence as an Adaptation

Understanding why we age is a long-lived open problem in evolutionary biology. Aging is prejudicial to the individual, and evolutionary forces should prevent it, but many species show signs of senescence as individuals age. Here, I will propose a model for aging based on assumptions that are compatible with evolutionary theory: i) competition is between individuals; ii) there is some degree of locality, so quite often competition will be between parents and their progeny; iii) optimal conditions are not stationary, and mutation helps each species to keep competitive. When conditions change, a senescent species can drive immortal competitors to extinction. This counter-intuitive result arises from the pruning caused by the death of elder individuals. When there is change and mutation, each generation is slightly better adapted to the new conditions, but some older individuals survive by chance. Senescence can eliminate those from the genetic pool. Even though individual selection forces can sometimes win over group selection ones, it is not exactly the individual that is selected but its lineage. While senescence damages the individuals and has an evolutionary cost, it has a benefit of its own. It allows each lineage to adapt faster to changing conditions. We age because the world changes.

Fluoride-modified electrical properties of lead borate glasses and electrochemically induced crystallization in the glassy state

Lead fluoroborate glasses were prepared by the melt-quenching technique and characterized in terms of (micro)structural and electrical properties. The study was conducted on as prepared as well as temperature- and/or electric field-treated glass samples. The results show that, in the as-prepared glassy-state materials, electrical conductivity improved with increasing the PbF(2) glass content. This result involves both an increase of the fluoride charge carrier density and, especially, a decrease of the activation energy from a glass structure expansion improving charge carrier mobility. Moreover, for the electric field-treated glass samples, surface crystallization was observed even below the glass transition temperature. As previously proposed in literature, and shown here, the occurrence of this phenomenon arose from an electrochemically induced redox reaction at the electrodes, followed by crystallite nucleation. Once nucleated, growth of beta-PbF(2) crystallites, with the indication of incorporating reduced lead ions (Pb(+)), was both (micro)structurally and electrically detectable and analyzed. The overall crystallization-associated features observed here adapt well with the floppy-rigid model that has been proposed to further complete the original continuous-random-network model by Zachariasen for closely addressing not only glasses' structure but also crystallization mechanism. Finally, the crystallization-modified kinetic picture of the glasses' electrical properties, through application of polarization/depolarization measurements originally combined with impedance spectroscopy, was extensively explored. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Atlantic forest: A natural reservoir of chemical elements

The accumulation of chemical elements in biological compartments is one of the strategies of tropical species to adapt to a low-nutrient soil. This study focuses on the Atlantic Forest because of its eco-environmental importance as a natural reservoir of chemical elements. About 20 elements were determined by INAA in leaf, soil, litter and epiphyte compartments. There was no seasonality for chemical element concentrations in leaves, which probably indicated the maintainance of chemical elements in this compartment. Considering the estimated quantities, past deforestation events could have released large amounts of chemical elements to the environment.

Use of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in Portuguese for categorizing web-based healthcare content

Introduction: Internet users are increasingly using the worldwide web to search for information relating to their health. This situation makes it necessary to create specialized tools capable of supporting users in their searches. Objective: To apply and compare strategies that were developed to investigate the use of the Portuguese version of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for constructing an automated classifier for Brazilian Portuguese-language web-based content within or outside of the field of healthcare, focusing on the lay public. Methods: 3658 Brazilian web pages were used to train the classifier and 606 Brazilian web pages were used to validate it. The strategies proposed were constructed using content-based vector methods for text classification, such that Naive Bayes was used for the task of classifying vector patterns with characteristics obtained through the proposed strategies. Results: A strategy named InDeCS was developed specifically to adapt MeSH for the problem that was put forward. This approach achieved better accuracy for this pattern classification task (0.94 sensitivity, specificity and area under the ROC curve). Conclusions: Because of the significant results achieved by InDeCS, this tool has been successfully applied to the Brazilian healthcare search portal known as Busca Saude. Furthermore, it could be shown that MeSH presents important results when used for the task of classifying web-based content focusing on the lay public. It was also possible to show from this study that MeSH was able to map out mutable non-deterministic characteristics of the web. (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Building a Open Source Framework for Virtual Medical Training

This paper presents a framework to build medical training applications by using virtual reality and a tool that helps the class instantiation of this framework. The main purpose is to make easier the building of virtual reality applications in the medical training area, considering systems to simulate biopsy exams and make available deformation, collision detection, and stereoscopy functionalities. The instantiation of the classes allows quick implementation of the tools for such a purpose, thus reducing errors and offering low cost due to the use of open source tools. Using the instantiation tool, the process of building applications is fast and easy. Therefore, computer programmers can obtain an initial application and adapt it to their needs. This tool allows the user to include, delete, and edit parameters in the functionalities chosen as well as storing these parameters for future use. In order to verify the efficiency of the framework, some case studies are presented.

Methods of imagetic information representation

The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the methods of imagetic information representation, reviewing the literature of the area and proposing a model of methodology adapted to Brazilian museums. An elaboration of a methodology of imagetic information representation is developed based on Brazilian characteristics of information treatment in order to adapt it to museums. Finally, spreadsheets that show this methodology are presented.

Neuromuscular activity during bench press exercise performed with and without the preexhaustion method

Brennecke, A, Guimaraees, TM, Leone, R, Cadarci, M, Mochizuki, L, Simao, R, Amadio, AC, and Serrao, J. Neuromuscular activity during bench press exercise performed with and without the preexhaustion method. J Strength Cond Res 23(7): 1933-1940, 2009-The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of exercise order on the tonic and phasic characteristics of upper-body muscle activity during bench press exercise in trained subjects. The preexhaustion method involves working a muscle or a muscle group combining a single-joint exercise immediately followed by a multi-joint exercise (e. g., flying exercise followed by bench press exercise). Twelve subjects performed 1 set of bench press exercises with and without the preexhaustion method following 2 protocols (P1-flying before bench press; P2-bench press). Both exercises were performed at a load of 10 repetition maximum (10RM). Electromyography (EMG) sampled at 1 kHz was recorded from the pectoralis major (PM), anterior deltoid (DA), and triceps brachii (TB). Kinematic data (60 Hz) were synchronized to define upward and downward phases of exercise. No significant (p > 0.05) changes were seen in tonic control of PM and DA muscles between P1 and P2. However, TB tonic aspect of neurophysiologic behavior of motor units was significantly higher (p < 0.05) during P1. Moreover, phasic control of PM, DA, and TB muscles were not affected (p > 0.05). The kinematic pattern of movement changed as a result of muscular weakness in P1. Angular velocity of the right shoulder performed during the upward phase of the bench press exercise was significantly slower (p < 0.05) during P1. Our results suggest that the strategies set by the central nervous system to provide the performance required by the exercise are held constant throughout the exercise, but the tonic aspects of the central drive are increased so as to adapt to the progressive occurrence of the neuromuscular fatigue. Changes in tonic control as a result of the muscular weakness and fatigue can cause changes in movement techniques. These changes may be related to limited ability to control mechanical loads and mechanical energy transmission to joints and passive structures.

The game inside the school: a representation of 5(th) graders physical education classes

Since the beginning of Physical Education entrance in the brazilin public schools, the game has been frequently used as content, and in the course of time that practice seems to be intensified. In spite of many approaches of different purposes to justify its pedagogic usefulness, the game has been used as an indiscriminate way due to the fascination that it provides to the students. The present study searches for a description and analysis of children`s (10-12 years old) attitudes behaviors in games, on Physical Education classes, inside a public school. The study was accomplished with the researcher also attending as a teacher (action research). For the accomplishment of the study 55 children were filmed in four different games, of different kinds (exposed, transformed, and spontaneous). The classes` description and analysis were focused in the attitude axis and it was defined four topics for the discussion: Conflicts, Respect of rules, Expressiveness, and Competitiveness. The relationship between the individual with the game and its culture were pointed as the main characteristics in the configuration of the ludicrous activity atmosphere. It was also possible to observe specific situations of this relationship, once the games were limited to the social games (Piaget category), in a school atmosphere where children have students roles. Due to the obtained results, the study proposes a reflexive practice in which the students notice their own attitudes and try to adapt the game to their needs and not he other way around. In this perspective, the teacher has an important mediator roll, once he will be responsible to point out the students` difficulties and promote discussions in favor to provide teamwork.

The cultural adaptation and validation of the ""Burn Specific Health Scale-Revised"" (BSHS-R): Version for Brazilian burn victims

Background: The Burns Specific Health Scale-Revised (BSHS-R) is of easy application, can be self-administered, and it is considered a good scale to evaluate various important life aspects of burn victims. Objectives: To translate and culturally adapt the BSHS-R into the Brazilian-Portuguese language and to evaluate the internal consistency and convergent validity of the translated BSHS-R. Methods: The cultural adaptation of the BSHS-R included translation and back-translation, discussions with professionals and patients to ensure conceptual equivalence, semantic evaluation, and pre-test of the instrument. The Final Brazilian-Portuguese Version (FBPV) of the BSHS-R was tested on a group of 115 burn patients for internal consistency and validity of construct (using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)). Results: All values of Cronbach`s alpha were greater than. 8, demonstrating that the internal consistency of the FBPV was very high. Self-esteem was highly correlated with affect and body image (r = .59, p < .001), and with interpersonal relationships (T = .51, p < .001). Correlations between the domains of the FBPV and the BDI were all negative but larger in magnitude than the correlations with RSES. Depression was highly correlated with affect and body image (r = -77, p < .001), and with interpersonal relationships (r = -67, p < .001). Conclusions: The results showed that the adapted version of the BSHS-R into Brazilian-Portuguese fulfills the validity and reliability criteria required from an instrument of health status assessment for burn patients. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.