Behavioural profiles of captive capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.): analyses at group and individual levels

The use of behavioural indicators of suffering and welfare in captive animals has produced ambiguous results. In comparisons between groups, those in worse condition tend to exhibit increased overall rate of Behaviours Potentially Indicative of Stress (BPIS), but when comparing within groups, individuals differ in their stress coping strategies. This dissertation presents analyses to unravel the Behavioural Profile of a sample of 26 captive capuchin monkeys, of three different species (Sapajus libidinosus, S. flavius and S. xanthosternos), kept in different enclosure types. In total, 147,17 hours of data were collected. We explored four type of analysis: Activity Budgets, Diversity indexes, Markov chains and Sequence analyses, and Social Network Analyses, resulting in nine indexes of behavioural occurrence and organization. In chapter One we explore group differences. Results support predictions of minor sex and species differences and major differences in behavioural profile due to enclosure type: i. individuals in less enriched enclosures exhibited a more diverse BPIS repertoire and a decreased probability of a sequence with six Genus Normative Behaviour; ii. number of most probable behavioural transitions including at least one BPIS was higher in less enriched enclosures; iii. proeminence indexes indicate that BPIS function as dead ends of behavioural sequences, and proeminence of three BPIS (pacing, self-direct, active I) were higher in less enriched enclosures. Overall, these data are not supportive of BPIS as a repetitive pattern, with a mantra-like calming effect. Rather, the picture that emerges is more supportive of BPIS as activities that disrupt organization of behaviours, introducing “noise” that compromises optimal activity budget. In chapter Two we explored individual differences in stress coping strategies. We classified individuals along six axes of exploratory behaviour. These were only weakly correlated indicating low correlation among behavioural indicators of syndromes. Nevertheless, the results are suggestive of two broad stress coping strategies, similar to the bold/proactive and shy/reactive pattern: more exploratory capuchin monkeys exhibited increased values of proeminence in Pacing, aberrant sexual display and Active 1 BPIS, while less active animals exhibited increased probability in significant sequences involving at least one BPIS, and increased prominence in own stereotypy. Capuchin monkeys are known for their cognitive capacities and behavioural flexibility, therefore, the search for a consistent set of behavioural indictors of welfare and individual differences requires further studies and larger data sets. With this work we aim contributing to design scientifically grounded and statistically correct protocols for collection of behavioural data that permits comparability of results and meta-analyses, from whatever theoretical perspective interpretation it may receive.

Concepões e práticas pedagógicas de professoras da educação infantil na inclusão de alunos com deficiência

This research focuses on inclusive in childhood education. Its purpose was to investigate and analyze the conceptions and expectations of teachers of childhood education, childhood education center form Natal/RN, on the inclusion students with disabilities, school and pedagogical practices developed and implications for students learning. Theoric base of the cultural historic perspective, the search took by qualitative analysis of numbers form the case study method. It was used methodological procedures: documentary analysis, participant observation, field journal and semi structures interview.Three teachers participated in the survey of that school had student with disabilities in their classrooms. These teachers were called: Rapunzel, Snow white e Pretty. The teacher s nouns involved the refered kind of education. The data obtained from the observation indicated the regular school of childhood education provides educational practices that promote the participation and participation and development of students with disabilities, live situation that may create barriers to learning and to the development of these children. The analysing data of interview from Bardin content analysis (1994) was based in Cunha s studies (2001) Brun (2006, 2008), Mantoam (2006, 2008), Palacios, Paniagua (2007), among others. The dada showed that correlation and divergence of perceptions and expectations about the issues surrounding inclusion in childhood education. The results shaved that teaching strategies, affective ties, sensitivity and own routine of childhood education are factors that can promote inclusive proposal, but also needs a greater fulfillment individual differences of each child in order to their potentiality. The study also shaved that the negative of pedagogic support to teacher, the ignorance of them as guidelines and strategies that include the student s diversity, the importance having positive conceptions about the learning and development of student with severe learning disabilities and the need for a pedagogic training and of a collective work at school which everybody collaborates : parents, direction, coordination getting inclusive school. Believe that this study pointed relevant issues to be focus new research, since the theme is still lacking in study, therefore emphasize, the importance of conducting research that continuous this job

Cooperação em sagüis comuns callithrix jacchus: condições e restrições

The cooperative behavior is no longer a dilemma for the theory of evolution, since there are models that explain the evolution of this behavior by means of natural selection at the individual level. However, there have been few studies on the proximal factors that interfere with cooperative behavior. In the study of the influence of cognition on cooperation, many authors have been interested in situations in which individuals decide whether to act cooperatively and select partners with different qualities to cooperate. Of the factors studied, we highlight the need for understanding the apparatus and communication between partners to the occurrence of cooperation. Recently, highlight is the proposal that the ability to cooperate would be greater in species with cooperative breeding system. Thus, the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a New World monkey which stands as a valuable species for this type of study because it presents cooperative actions in nature, such as sharing food and protection of the community territory. Our experiment investigated whether common marmosets unrelated females (n = 6) were able to cooperate using an electrical and a mechanical apparatus, if this cooperation is a byproduct of individual actions or involve social attention, if it occurs inter-individual variation in the use of devices and formation of roles (producer / scrounger) in dyads. We use the number of rewards obtained by animals (Ratio of Correct Pulls) as indicators of cooperation and glances for partners (Ratio of Correct Glances) as indicators of social attention and communication. The results indicate that the type of apparatus was not a constraint for the occurrence of cooperation between the marmosets, but still has not been verified formation of roles in the dyads. The performance of animals in the two devices showed a large variation in the learning time, not having relationship with the performance in the tests phase. In both devices the level of social glances at control phases were casually correlated with any other phase, but the data showed that there was not social attention, that is, the monkeys realized that they gave food to the partners, but the partners did

Caracterização do ciclo sono/vigília de professores do ensino médio em natal/rn

In the school environment is fundamental the knowledge about the sleep-wake cycle (SWC), because we find children and adolescents with excessive sleepiness and learning difficulties. Furthermore, teachers with high demand and with different work schedule, which may contribute to changes in SWC. The aim of this study was to describe the SWC of high school teachers in Natal/RN. Habits and knowledge about sleep, chronotype, SWC, daytime sleepiness, sleep quality and job satisfaction were described in 98 high school teachers from public and private school. These parameters were compared according to the characteristics of work, family structure and gender. Data collection was performed with the use of questionnaires in two stages: 1) "health and sleep" (general characterization of sleep habits), Horne & Ostberg questionnaire (characterization of chronotype), Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the Index of Pittsburg Sleep Quality, 2) The sleep diary for 14 days. From the results, we observe that the teachers woke up and went to bed earlier in the week and showed a reduction of time in bed around 42min comparing to weekend. This reduction in time in bed during the week was accompanied by an increase in nap duration on weekend. In addition the teachers woke up earlier on Saturdays than on Sundays, probably due to housework and leisure. The teachers' knowledge about sleep was low in relation to individual differences and effect of alcoholic beverages on sleep, and high in the consequences of sleep deprivation. The differences found in comparisons on the characteristics of work, family structure and gender were punctual, except concerning the work schedule. The teacher who started work in the morning and finished in the night, woke up earlier, went to bed later and had less time in bed, when compared to teachers who work only in two shifts. In addition, teachers with late chronotypes who begin the work in the morning had a greater irregularity in the wake up time compared to teachers with earlier and intermediate chronotypes. Half of teachers have excessive sleepiness, which was positive correlated with work dissatisfaction. In general, teachers showed IPSQ averages equivalent to poor sleep quality and the women showed worst averages. From the results, it is suggested that the SWC of teachers varies according to work schedule, leading to irregularity and partial sleep deprivation in the week, although these responses vary according to chronotype. These changes are accompanied by excessive daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality. However, it is necessary to expand the sample to clarify the influence of variables related to work, family structure and gender together

Rendimento acadêmico e sua relação com os estilos de personalidade de estudantes universitários

One of the Psychology challenges, especially among the assessment and educational areas, is to understand and predict individual differences. In this context, this research aimed to verify the personality styles of students with high and low academic performance. The study included 236 university students from Petrolina-PE and Juazeiro-BA campus of the UNIVASF (Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco). They were uniformly distributed in four disciplines (medicine, psychology, administration and civil engineering), 10 students from each semester (five highest scores average students and five lowest scores average students) took place of the sample. The Millon Index Personality Styles (MIPS) was applied to analyze the personality/behavioral styles of the students. The MIPS is a 180 dichotomous (true/false) item scale. It was also developed and applied a questionnaire about the students characteristics and their academic information. Descriptive and central tendency statistics analysis (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage) were done to provide sample information. Then we performed a Mann-Whitney test in the overall sample and in each course and a factorial ANOVA. The results suggest that the university population is heterogeneous and there are significant differences (p <0.05) between the personality styles of students with high and low academic performance, when analyzing the overall sample and in courses of different areas of knowledge. Students of Medicine who have higher performance as personality styles prevalent the conformism and compliance, while students with lower income in this course, the styles are: innovation and discrepancy. Psychology students with higher income are more systematic and lower income students to score significantly on accommodation. The civil engineering students of the two groups differed only in personality style intuition, being such a style more characteristic of higher income students. Students of Management with higher yield stand out more in the style of the doubt and lower yields in these styles: individual, reflection and discrepancy. This study is correlational, but had an exploratory nature because there are no studies about this relationship in Brazil. Therefore, it provided a better understanding of the action characteristics of students with high and low academic performance. Further studies using the Big Five Personality Factors instruments are required because it is the most used model in understanding the influence of personality on students performance. This way, the relation between personality and academic performance will be better discussed. Otherwise, it will be possible to compare with the existing studies in the area

Abordando o sono no ensino médio: proposta de unidade didática contextualizada com o tema saúde

Biological rhythms are part of the life from the simplest to the most complex living beings. In humans, one of the most important biological rhythms is the sleep-wake cycle (SWC), which represents an indispensable behavior for health, since sleep deprivation can lead to deficits in attention and memory, mood and daytime sleepiness which may affect school performance. Nevertheless, the SWC is a content rarely discussed in schools. Thus, the aim of this research was to address contents of the sleep-wake cycle, related to the content of Health to encourage healthy sleep habits. This study was conducted in a public school with 33 students of the 3rd year of high school and is divided into four stages: 1st) Study and analysis of the content of the textbook adopted by the school to subsidize the activities covered in the teaching unit (TU) and approximation with the biology teacher from the class to evaluated the feasibility of schedules for the development of TU; 2nd) Survey of students' prior knowledge, through a questionnaire, to guide the development of the TU; 3rd) Development and implementation of a TU based on meaningful learning and characterization of the students sleep habits, 4th) Evaluation of the TU as a viable proposal to teach biological rhythms concepts. Previous knowledge of students about the SWC are scarce and this content is not covered in the books adopted by the school. Alternative conceptions were observed, particularly with regard to individual differences in sleep, which may contribute to the occurrence of inadequate sleep habits, as reported by the adolescents in this study. The activities developed during UD were well received by the students who showed participative, motivated and evaluated positively the procedures used by the researcher. After the TU, students' knowledge about the concept of biological rhythms has been increased and they started to identify that the SWC changes throughout life and occur due biological and socio-cultural factors. Thus, the UD elaborated in this study represents a viable proposal to teach the concepts of biological rhythms contextualized to the content of Health, in high school

Efeito tardio do kinesio taping na função do membro inferior e no desempenho neuromuscular do quadríceps femoral de mulheres saudáveis: ensaio clínico e randomizado

Introduction: Kinesio Taping (KT) has been used in healthy people to improve neuromuscular performance, however, few studies have evaluated its chronic effects, despite being suggested. Objective: To analyze the chronic effects of KT on neuromuscular performance of the quadriceps, the oscillation of the center of pressure and lower limb function in healthy women. Methods: blinded, randomized, controlled trial, composed of 60 women (mean age 21.9 ± 3.3 years and BMI 22.3 ± 2.2 kg / m2) submitted to the evaluation of oscillation of the center of pressure through the baropodometry, the lower limb function by the hop test, isokinetic knee performance, the electromyographic activity of the vastus lateralis (VL) and joint position sense of the knee (JPS). Then, participants were randomly divided into three groups of twenty: control - did not apply the KT; placebo - application of KT without tension on the quadriceps; Kinesio Taping - application of KT with tension in the same muscle group. The evaluations were conducted in five moments: prior to application of KT, immediately after the application, 24h, 48h after application and 24 hours after its removal (72h). SPSS 20.0 was used for statistical analysis. The KS test was used to verify the data normality, the Levene test for homogeneity of variances and a mixed-model ANOVA 3x5 to check intra and inter-group differences. Results: there was no difference in peak torque, the power, nor the electromyographic activity or SPA (p> 0.05) between groups. The displacement speed of center of pressure reduced immediately after the application on kinesio taping group (p <0.001), but with no differences between the groups (p = 0.28). There was a reduction in the time of peak torque among the three groups in the evaluations after KT application (p <0.001) and an increase in single hop in all groups (p <0.001), but with no differences between them. Conclusion: KT can not change, in a chronic way, the lower limb function, the oscillation of the center of pressure, the isokinetic performance, the JPS of the knee and the electromyographic activity of VL muscle in healthy women.

Preferência e competição alimentar em um grupo de Sapajus flavius em fragmento de Mata Atlântica em Caaporã – Paraíba – Brasil

Feeding is the primary selective pressure in all forms of animals. Nutritional ecological models predict consequences of preferred and non-preferred food consumption on behavioural, physiological and morphological adaptations. At same time, socioecological models infer socio-organizarion patterns based on feeding competition faced by animals. A list of preferred foods, and inferences regarding the intensity of feeding competition and its behavioural consequences are information of much importance for management of populations in fragments. In this work we observed the feeding behavior and spatial positioning of a group of more than 100 blond capuchin monkeys (Sapajus flavius) that inhabit a fragment of Atlantic forest, surrounded by sugarcane plantation. We compared the consumption of different food items with their monthly availability in the area to define the preferred and fallback food items. We recorded the vocalizations of aggression and the inter-individual distance (area of Minimum Convex Polygon/n individuals) to infer the type of food competition experienced by animals. In the year studied the fruit feeding time correlated with top consumed fruit productivity, indicating preference for fruits. Our data indicate that the species Elaeis sp., Cecropia palmata, Inga spp. and Simarouba amara are the preferred food items in the diet. Available all year round and uniformly distributed, sugarcane was a regular item in the diet and its was characterized as a staple fallback food for this group. Although fruits are preferential food items, direct competition rate did not correlate to fruit productivity in the area, maintaining the high rates throughout the year (2.45 events/ hour). The inter-individual distance index positively correlated with rain fall indicating scramble food competition. The number of neighbours of females carrying infants was smaller when fruit productivity is low, indicating that females carrying infants are suffering increased indirect competition. Our data indicates that blond capuchins in this fragment make use of sugar cane as a staple fallback food, which evidence the importance of sugar cane landscape for the survival of this critically endangered capuchin species in fragmented habitats in Northeast Brazil. A preliminary list of preferred and important foods is offered, and can assist in the choice of trees for reforestation, better fragments to be preserved and areas of release and translocation of animals. We did not observe an increase of contest competition while using preferred foods, but when using staple FBF. This may be due the altered environment, which results in high competition food throughout the year. Both the food preference as the social and behavioral consequences of high food competition experienced by animals in this fragment must be accompanied over the years to ensure the survival of this population.

Preferência e competição alimentar em um grupo de Sapajus flavius em fragmento de Mata Atlântica em Caaporã – Paraíba – Brasil

Feeding is the primary selective pressure in all forms of animals. Nutritional ecological models predict consequences of preferred and non-preferred food consumption on behavioural, physiological and morphological adaptations. At same time, socioecological models infer socio-organizarion patterns based on feeding competition faced by animals. A list of preferred foods, and inferences regarding the intensity of feeding competition and its behavioural consequences are information of much importance for management of populations in fragments. In this work we observed the feeding behavior and spatial positioning of a group of more than 100 blond capuchin monkeys (Sapajus flavius) that inhabit a fragment of Atlantic forest, surrounded by sugarcane plantation. We compared the consumption of different food items with their monthly availability in the area to define the preferred and fallback food items. We recorded the vocalizations of aggression and the inter-individual distance (area of Minimum Convex Polygon/n individuals) to infer the type of food competition experienced by animals. In the year studied the fruit feeding time correlated with top consumed fruit productivity, indicating preference for fruits. Our data indicate that the species Elaeis sp., Cecropia palmata, Inga spp. and Simarouba amara are the preferred food items in the diet. Available all year round and uniformly distributed, sugarcane was a regular item in the diet and its was characterized as a staple fallback food for this group. Although fruits are preferential food items, direct competition rate did not correlate to fruit productivity in the area, maintaining the high rates throughout the year (2.45 events/ hour). The inter-individual distance index positively correlated with rain fall indicating scramble food competition. The number of neighbours of females carrying infants was smaller when fruit productivity is low, indicating that females carrying infants are suffering increased indirect competition. Our data indicates that blond capuchins in this fragment make use of sugar cane as a staple fallback food, which evidence the importance of sugar cane landscape for the survival of this critically endangered capuchin species in fragmented habitats in Northeast Brazil. A preliminary list of preferred and important foods is offered, and can assist in the choice of trees for reforestation, better fragments to be preserved and areas of release and translocation of animals. We did not observe an increase of contest competition while using preferred foods, but when using staple FBF. This may be due the altered environment, which results in high competition food throughout the year. Both the food preference as the social and behavioral consequences of high food competition experienced by animals in this fragment must be accompanied over the years to ensure the survival of this population.

The song of humpback whale and the potential effects of whale-watching in the abrolhos bank, BA, Brazil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

The song of humpback whale and the potential effects of whale-watching in the abrolhos bank, BA, Brazil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)