Past/present and future worries: na fMRI study

For the past decade, numerous imaging techniques gave rise to remarka-ble progresses in the understanding of brain’s structure and function. Amongst the wide variety of studies onto the field of neuroscience, neuropsychiatric re-searches with resource to neuroimaging have attracted increasing attention. The present study will focus on the identification of brain areas recruited while normative subjects read sentences related to past/present or future wor-ries. Our main aim was to accurately characterize these brain areas while providing them with a time-stamp that would hopefully help us understand the implications of past/present memories and future envisioning in worrying episodes. With that purpose, functional magnetic resonance imaging data was collected from ten healthy individuals. The obtained data was processed and statistically treated using the General Linear Model and both Fixed and Ran-dom Effects Analysis for group-level results. Thereafter, a Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis with Searchlight Mapping was performed in order to find patterns of activation that allow differentiation between conditions. The obtained results indicate higher brain activation while reading sen-tences related to past/present worries when compared to future worry or neu-tral sentences. The main areas include frontal cortex, posterior parietal, occipital and temporal areas. Worrying, per se, was characterized by activation of the medial posterior parietal cortex, left posterior occipital lobe and left central temporal lobe. With the searchlight mapping approach we were able to further identify patterns of distinction between conditions, which were located in the parietal, limbic and frontal lobes.

Two Technological Dystopias: Le monde tel que'il sera and Alpha Ralpha Boulevard

The aim of this paper is to corn pare two technological dystopias: Emile Souvestre's Le Monde tel qu'il sera (1846) and Cordwainer Smith's "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" (1961). Both texts present dystopian societies experienced by many of its inhabitants as being the best of possible worlds. The above authors question the massive use of technology, worry about what technology can do to human beings, how it can dehumanize them. They reveal serious social and moral concerns regarding the less privileged. These are excluded from the benefits of"Utopia" while making it possible. Both authors are childs of.. their time: they live in a period of national pride, they can see the shadows behind the luminous, the dangers resulting from human beings playing God with nature and humanity. Also, they are innovators: Souvestre announces dystopian science fiction and Smith renews with the genre announcing the New Wave movement in Anglo-American science fiction.

Relatório de estágio curricular realizado na Comissão Nacional de Protecção de Dados

The personal data protection is presented as an indisputably complex and transversal subject and gives an account of this report, a result of curricular internship at the Portuguese Commission for Data Protection. The Commission is the competent authority for the control and supervision of personal data processing. The subject around which this report was prepared is the protection of personal data, analyzed in several aspects. The protection of personal data is, for some time, a topic that raises many concerns, because it is closely linked to fundamental rights constitutionally protected. Fundamental rights inherent in each of us are a result of Article 1 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, in the sense that the dignity of the human person is affirmed as the first value around which the Portuguese legal system will have to be based. In other words, is the dignity of the human person the highest value in the Portuguese legal system. Was the development of societies to the point that we know today that has led to the importance to the personal data of citizens. In modern societies, it is possible to know everything about everyone and the curiosity of others seems not to worry about the injuries that affect the rights of citizens. Where new technologies make excuses for the excessive processing of personal data and where subjects do not seem to bother about their personal data crossing the world, it is important that jurisdictions give value the protection of personal data and the implications of its misuse, in that as these are the mirror of identity each of us and can be used against their owners, causing irreparable damage to the their fundamental rights. Being understood as protection of personal data the possibility of each citizen to decide the use of their data and how they can be used, we can say that its protection depends essentially on each of us, as holders of personal data. Therefore, the protection of our data begins in ourselves.

As redes sociais e a participação política no âmbito do marketing político do Governo Federal Brasileiro entre 2011 e 2014 : atuação do Ministério da Educação no Facebook

A democracia contemporânea vem, ao longo das últimas décadas, recebendo cada vez mais influência dos meios de comunicação em seus processos. Com o surgimento e propagação da Internet, os governos tem precisado se adaptar e se preocupar com a transparência de suas ações e com as inúmeras vozes de atores sociais cada vez mais conectados, informados e munidos de ferramentas, por meio das quais, podem realizar comunicações de grande alcance de forma rápida e eficaz, sem o intermédio de grandes meios de comunicação. Com o objetivo de observar a relação entre o governos e cidadãos por meio das redess sociais online – um dos principais meios por onde a sociedade, hoje, tem se comunicado e se mobilizado sobre inúmeras, inclusive, políticas – esse estudo analisou como o Ministério da Educação do Brasil (MEC), órgão responsável pelo planejamento e desenvolvimento de políticas públicas para educação no país, trabalha sua comunicação com o cidadão por meio do Facebook e como utiliza essa ferramenta no processo de implementação e avaliação de suas políticas. O trabalho foi realizado por meio do estudo exploratório e da análise qualitativa dos dados colhidos na página MEC no Facebook entre anos de 2011 e 2014, período do primeiro mandato da presidente Dilma Rousseff. Com a análise, observou-se que o MEC modificou bastante a forma como se comunica por esta rede social, recebendo, inclusive, aparente melhor infra-estrutura para esta tarefa. Sua mudança de postura no Facebook deixa claro o interesse e a busca pela participação dos cidadadãos no desevolvimento de suas políticas públicas. Por outro lado, mostra que essa participação é, de certa forma, limitada pela atitude do MEC de não desenvolver diálogo com o cidadão, mantendo-os sempre a certa distância.