Investigação da capacidade intelectiva de pacientes pediátricos diagnosticados com tumores de fossa posterior

Central Nervous System are the most common pediatric solid tumors. 60% of these tumors arise in posterior fossa, mainly in cerebellum. The first therapeutic approach is surgical resection. Malignant tumors require additional strategies - chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The increasing survival evidences that childhood brain tumors result in academic and social difficulties that compromise the quality of life of the patients. This study investigated the intellectual functioning of children between 7 to 15 years diagnosed with posterior fossa tumors and treated at CEHOPE - Recife / PE. 21 children were eligible - including 13 children with pilocytic astrocytoma (G1) who underwent only surgery resection, and eight children with medulloblastoma (G2) - submitted to surgical resection, chemotherapy and craniospinal radiotherapy. Participants were evaluated by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - WISC-III. Children of G1 scored better than children of G2. Inferential tools (Mann-Whitney Ü Test) identified significant diferences (p ≤ 0.05) between the Performance IQ (PIQ) and Processing Speed Index (PSI) as a function of treatment modality; Full Scale IQ (FSIQ), PIQ and PSI as a function of parental educational level; PIQ, FSIQ, IVP and Freedom from Distractibility (FDI) as a function of time between diagnosis and evaluation. These results showed the late and progressive impact of radiotherapy on white matter and information processing speed. Furthermore, children whose parents have higher educational level showed better intellectual performance, indicating the influence of xxii socio-cultural variables on cognitive development. The impact of cancer and its treatment on cognitive development and learning should not be underestimated. These results support the need to increase the understanding of such effects in order to propose therapeutic strategies which ensure that, in addition to the cure, the full development of children with this pathology

Gestão participativa em educação: compasso e descompasso de uma experiência de democracia no espaço escolar

This work aims at investigating the strategies of management used by State School Joaquim Jose de Medeiros, located in the city of Cruzeta - RN, as award practice of "School of Reference in Management", with a state title in 1999 at the beginning of the decade from 2000, being "Outstanding Brazil" from best management strategies nationally. In 2005, it is ranked among the best experiences of the state. It has been become complex by experiencing in that institution, but at the same time an enjoyable practice, mainly by using a social research, in a qualitative and quantitative approach, and a analysis of the institutional performance of two management practices: from 1995 to 2002 and from 2003 to 2007 . To understand the object, a investigative questionnaire was used with representatives of the school community and carried out an analysis of assessment of institutional and documents of institutional organization of the periods above in order to identify management strategies and examine the influences of the share capital, public policies , the institutional evaluation, in the process of democratic construction that has allowed achievements, highlighting Cruzeta, in the Seridó in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, semi-arid northeast, in the national and international juncture of well-successful experiences in management in institutional categories and leadership. This study becomes relevant to allow understand that the cultural practices of seridoenses that symbolize a capital generated by principles of trust, reciprocity, civic culture, as a driving force in overcoming the problems community and the conquest of democratic principles, worked for the school become a national reference in educational administration. Another aspect that made it natural that school was the collective creation of educational project with the participation and civic culture of self-evaluation as a way to understand the institutional practice and establish guidelines to improve the teaching and practice management in its many dimensions educational, social, administrative - financial and legal

Percepção do mercado romântico e influência do contexto nas preferências românticas entre universitários

Men and women express different preferences for ideal romantic partners. These preferences seem to vary with the level of involvement and commitment expected for the relationship and the perceptions people have about themselves. The current work was developed to expand the findings related to this subject, investigating the market perception of romantic relationships and the effect of context on self-assessment and preferences for romantic partners. For this purpose, 753 undergraduate, Brazilian and American, were enrolled between March 2010 and November 2012 and took part in at least one of the four studies that compose this research, performing the assessment of specific stimulus-subject descriptions. Studies one and two addressed Brazilian and American samples to respectively describe female and male expectations on human mating market. It was observed that individuals from both the genders expect positive assortative mating within couples, that each trait is not evaluated independently, and, in addition to biological predispositions, factors as environmental local constrains and cultural values may also affect mating expectations. The contrasts between the samples showed that Americans valued physical-attractiveness and social-status in describing the same-gender subjects and their expected partners, while Brazilians valued social-skills. Another expectation was also identified for both genders: physically attractive women and men of high-status were expected to be paired to each other. Study three addressed males and females expectations regarding which characteristics are most relevant in ensuring desirable partnerships for same-gender individuals. The results showed that men and women can be grouped together by having similar expectations. However, the group mainly composed of men considered status characteristics as the most important attributes, while the groups mostly composed of women indicated that social skills or physical characteristics as the most important in appealing to a desirable partner. Finally, study four investigated the effect of social comparison on self-perception and mate preferences, revealing that individuals were aware of the attributes valued by the opposite-gender and that self-perception was affected by the attributes of other people. In sum, this work evidenced that romantic relationships can be interpreted as a biological market and that the value of the attributes in the romantic mating marketplace are associated with reproductive relevance of the characteristics.

Validade e confiabilidade da versão informatizada do inventário Million de estilos de personalidade

Currently, several psychological and non-psychological tests can be found in publishes without standardization on procedures set in different psychological areas, like intelligence, emotional states, attitudes, social skills, vocation, preferences and others. The computerized psychological testing is a extension of traditional testing psychological practices. However, it has own psychometrics qualities, either by its matching in a computerized environment or by the extension that can be developed in it. The current research, developed from a necessity to study process of validity and reliability on a computerized test, drew a methodological structure to provide parallel applications in numerous kinds of operational groups, evaluating the influences of the time and approach in the computerization process. This validity refers to normative values groups, reproducibility in computerized applications process and data processing. Not every psychological test can be computerized. Therefore, our need to find a good test, with quality and plausible properties to transform in computerized application, leaded us to use The Millon Personality Inventory, created by Theodore Millon. This Inventory assesses personality according to 12 bipolarities distributed in 24 factors, distributed in categories motivational styles, cognitive targets and interpersonal relations. This instrument doesn t diagnose pathological features, but test normal and non adaptive aspects in human personality, comparing with Theodore Millon theory of personality. In oder to support this research in a Brazilian context in psychological testing, we discuss the theme, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of such practices. Also we discuss the current forms in computerization of psychological testing and the main specific criteria in this psychometric specialized area of knowledge. The test was on-line, hosted in the site http://www.planetapsi.com, during the years of 2007 and 2008, which was available a questionnaire to describe social characteristics before test. A report was generated from the data entry of each user. An application of this test was conducted in a linear way through a national coverage in all Brazil regions, getting 1508 applications. Were organized nine groups, reaching 180 applications in test and retest subject, where three periods of time and three forms of retests for studies of on-line tests were separated. Parallel to this, we organized multi-application session offline group, 20 subjects who received tests by email. The subjects of this study were generally distributed by the five Brazilian regions, and were noticed about the test via the Internet. The performance application in traditional and on-line tested groups subsidies us to conclude that on-line application provides significantly consistency in all criteria for validity studied and justifies its use. The on-line test results were related not only among themselves but were similar to those data of tests done on pencil and paper (0,82). The retests results demonstrated correlation, between 0,92 and, 1 while multisessions had a good correlation in these comparisons. Moreover, were assessed the adequacy of operational criteria used, such as security, the performance of users, the environmental characteristics, the organization of the database, operational costs and limitations in this on-line inventory. In all these five items, there were excellent performances, concluding, also, that it s possible a self-applied psychometric test. The results of this work are a guide to question and establish of methodologies studies for computerization psychological testing software in the country

Representação social do ensinar: a dimensão pedagógica do habitus professoral

Teaching is an activity inherent to the human condition. Historically, from the institutionalization of education, the key role to pursue that activity has been attributed to the teacher, who is required to adapt to the demands of each historical conjuncture. Currently, according to the new paradigmatic requirements, the teacher must possess various skills in order to handle the complex and challenging act of teaching. Assuming the existence of a gap between what the State and the scientific discourse recommend the teacher act upon in the classroom, a decision was made to identify the configuration and structure of social representation in the act of teaching, put forth by elementary school teachers in the public schools of Natal, RN, Brazil. Therefore, the research relied on the theoretical model developed by Domingos Sobrinho (1998, 2000, 2003), which articulates the praxeology of Pierre Bourdieu with the theory of social representations of Serge Moscovici (1978). It was intended to demonstrate how teachers habitus, in its due historical context, directs the construction of social representations in the act of teaching which guides the actions of the teacher, particularly in the classroom context. At the methodological level, the following methods and techniques were used: bibliographic and documentary review in order to identify the scientific discourse on the subject matter and the official parameters of educational regulation and the act of teaching; the Procedure of Multiple Classifications PMC in order to capture the configuration and structure of the representational content in focus, the direct observation of the classroom to identify in actual terms the social representation as "guide to action" as the theory preaches. From the standpoint of the analysis, quantitative data were analysed through Multidimensional Scaling MDS, covering in this study the Multidimensional Scale Analysis MSA and Smallest Space Analysis SSA; and non-parametric statiscal techniques. Additional data of qualitative value had to undergo categorical content analysis. It was then concluded that the teachers investigated guided themselves by social representation, the product of collectively constructed and shared assumptions about the act of teaching, forming a synthesis of different sources of information and knowledge acquirement, involving elements of common sense, religious habitus, pedagogic models considered outdated, the agencies responsible for teacher training and the hegemonic discourse about education today

Despertando responsabilidade social no ensino médio por meio de temáticas associadas à física nuclear

Many discussions about the role of the school are on the agenda, in an increasingly complex society. Sociologists, educators, anthropologists, researchers of different areas seek that role. The objective of this dissertation is to contribute what we can consider the central role for the physics teaching, citizenship training. We have elaborated a didactic proposal to increase the interest of high school students on issues of social relevance and, throughout it, to promote the formation of attitudes of social responsibility, enhancing the formation of a more politically and socially active citizen. For the preparation of the proposal, studies were made on education for citizenship and on attitudes change, using as its main theoretical foundation the researches on the Science, Technology and Society curricular emphasis. The teaching of Nuclear Physics was integrated to our proposal, due to its pedagogical potential for the discussion of social, political and economic subjects related to scientific concepts and associated technologies. The educational proposal we have produced was applied on a high school class of a private school at Natal-RN. It was composed from the controversial issue involving the installation of nuclear power plants in Brazilian northeast. The methodology of role playing, in which students assumed social roles and produced specific subsidies for a public hearing and a later referendum, both simulated. In the analysis of the implementation of the proposal, we highlighted the difficulties but also the possibilities and the relevance of exercising skills such as reasoning, finding information, and arguing about of social problems. The results of the research showed the possibility of meaningful learning on Nuclear Physics contents, through this social, political, economic, scientific and technological contextualization using a controversial and real issue together with mechanisms that trigger for greater popular participation, as public hearing. It has also been identified changes in attitude by some students about issues related to Nuclear Physics. We hope, through this dissertation, to contribute to the formation of future citizens as well as to the initiative of teachers-researchers with pedagogical aims similar to those in the present work