Morphological changes in distant muscle fibers following thermal injury in Wistar rats

Purpose: Thermal injury causes catabolic processes as the body attempts to repair the damaged area. This study evaluated the effects of a scald injury on the morphology of muscle fibers belonging to a muscle distant from the lesion. Methods: Thirty Wistar rats were divided into control (C) and scalded (S) groups. Group S was scalded over 45% of the body surface, standardized by body weight. Rats in both groups were euthanized at four, seven and 14 days following the injury. The middle portions of the medial gastrocnemius muscles were sectioned, stained with hematoxylin and eosin and Picrosirius, and submitted to histological analysis. Results: Control group sections exhibited equidistantly distributed polygonal muscle fibers with peripheral nuclei, characteristic of normal muscle. The injured group sections did not consistently show these characteristics; many fibers in these sections exhibited a rounded contour, variable stain intensities, and greater interfiber distances. A substantially increased amount of connective tissue was also observed on the injured group sections. Conclusion: This experimental model found a morphological change in muscle distant from the site of thermal injury covering 45% of the body surface.

Conversion of web texts into Braille characters for real time reading through arrays of electromechanical actuators

This paper describes an electronic device conceived to convert common web texts into sequences of corresponding Braille signals, which are immediately reproduced onto an array ( keyboard) of electromechanical actuators. These actuators are reconfigurable in real time, displaying the Braille characters as matrices of points composed by small stems which can be lowered or raised according to the Braille code. The device, together with its conversion software package, can provide direct access to web texts in any personal computer, thus avoiding the use of complicated Braille printers.

Reading, equivalence, and recombination of units: A replication with students with different learning histories

First graders, preschoolers, special education students, and adults received a reading program in which they learned to match printed to dictated words and to construct (copy) printed words. The students not only learned to match the training words but also learned to read them. In addition, most of the students learned to read new words that involved recombinations of the syllables of the training words. The results replicate and extend the generality of a prior analysis of a reading program based on stimulus equivalence and recombination of units.

Distant stable direct orbits around the Moon

In the present work we explore regions of distant direct stable orbits around the Moon. First, the location and size of apparently stable regions are searched for numerically, adopting the approach of temporary capture time presented in Vieira Neto & Winter (2001). The study is made in the framework of the planar, circular, restricted three-body problem, Earth-Moon-particle. Regions of the initial condition space whose trajectories are apparently stable are determined. The criterion adopted was that the trajectories do not escape from the Moon during an integration period of 10(4) days. Using Poincare surface of sections the reason for the existence of the two stable regions found is studied. The stability of such regions proved to be due to two families of simple periodic orbits, h1 and h2, and the associated quasi-periodic orbits that oscillate around them. The robustness of the stability of the larger region, h2, is tested with the inclusion of the solar perturbation. The size of the region decreases, but it is still significant in size and can be useful in spacecraft missions.

Observing documentary reading by verbal protocol

Verifies the applicability to research on indexers' reading strategies of the process observing technique known as Verbal Protocol or Thinking Aloud. This interpretative-qualitative data collecting technique allows the observation of different kinds of process during the progress of different kinds of tasks. Presents a theoretical investigation into reading and into formal methodological procedures to observe reading processes. Describes details of the methodological procedures adopted in five case studies with analysis of samples of data. The project adopted three kinds of parameters for data analysis: theoretical, normative, empirical (derived from observations made in the first case study). The results are compared, and important conclusions regarding documentary reading are drawn.

Is there any defence for matricide? A juridical reading of Sophocles' Electra

Based on an analysis of Electra by Sophocles, it is proposed that the central concern of the dramatist is not the matricide of Clytemnestra itself. Sophocles invites the audience to reflect, as though they were the jury in a law court, on the legality of the actions of Electra. The play is thus a contribution to the debate on Justice in Greek society initiated almost two centuries previously.

A redistricting problem applied to meter reading in power distribution networks

The capacitated redistricting problem (CRP) has the objective to redefine, under a given criterion, an initial set of districts of an urban area represented by a geographic network. Each node in the network has different types of demands and each district has a limited capacity. Real-world applications consider more than one criteria in the design of the districts, leading to a multicriteria CRP (MCRP). Examples are found in political districting, sales design, street sweeping, garbage collection and mail delivery. This work addresses the MCRP applied to power meter reading and two criteria are considered: compactness and homogeneity of districts. The proposed solution framework is based on a greedy randomized adaptive search procedure and multicriteria scalarization techniques to approximate the Pareto frontier. The computational experiments show the effectiveness of the method for a set of randomly generated networks and for a real-world network extracted from the city of São Paulo. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

A concepção de cultura em Bruner e Vigotski: implicações para a educação escolar

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Crenças sobre a língua inglesa: o antiamericanismo e sua relação com o processo de ensino - aprendizagem de professores em formação

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Políticas públicas para o ensino superior a distância e a implementação do sistema do Universidade Aberta do Brasil no estado do Paraná

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Reading strategies - from L1 to L2.

This paper intends to present a selection of the most useful reading strategies for the typical ESP students in Brazilian universities, showing whether the readers use them in their native language or not, the way the teacher should develop these strategies in the classroom, the problems involved in their use and the reasons for using them.

Uma leitura de 26 poetas hoje / A reading of 26 poetas hoje

Este trabalho procura identificar selecionadas produções poéticas da antologia 26 Poetas Hoje as faces da resistência indicada por Alfredo Bosi no ensaio “Poesia Resistência”. Do “grito de alarme” pessoal de poetas pertencentes a gerações diferentes, emerge uma poesia espontânea, autêntica e, sobretudo, resistente, como produto da renovação da expressão poética, impregnado de afetividades e de intimismo e que incorporou o coloquial e os recursos da grande poesia brasileira desde 22. This reading presents a sample from this anthology and tries to identify in it the faces of resistance indicated by Alfredo Bosi in his essay: “ Poesia Resistência”. In the several manners the poets of different generations chose for their personal cry of alert we find a poetry wich is spontaneous, authentic and, above all, “resistent”. This is due mainly to the renewal of the poetical expression, impregnated with affective ness and intimism, which included colloquial language and devices used by all great Brazilian poetry since the modernism of 1922.

Construction and validation of an instrument to assess the reading comprehension of students from the third to the fifth grades of elementary school

Objetivo:Este estudo teve como objetivo construir e validar um instrumento de avaliação da compreensão de leitura a fim de caracterizar o perfil de leitura e detectar dificuldades de compreensão em escolares do terceiro ao quinto ano do Ensino Fundamental.Métodos:Participaram 378 escolares divididos em trés grupos para avaliação da compreensão de proposições literais e inferenciais de micro e macroestruturas de dois textos expositivos e dois textos narrativos por meio de questões de múltipla escolha.Resultados:Os dados analisados estatisticamente indicaram valores do teste alfa de Cronbach apresentando consisténcia interna nos quatros textos aplicados para os trés grupos.Conclusão:Foi possível constatar que os escolares apresentaram menor número de erros com o aumento da escolarização e que cada tipo de texto apresentou uma dificuldade específica para os escolares.

Accuracy in dictation after improvement of reading and copying skills in a student with learning difficulties

The aim of this study was to use systematic teaching in a clinical setting using software to teach reading and writing in one boy with learning difficulties and obtain accurate performance in dictation. In the pre-test, the student showed good performance in matching-to-sample tasks (96% in matching printed words to dictated words; 88% in matching pictures to dictated words), although he obtained a low percentage of correct answers in the dictation of constructed responses (52%) and manuscripts (24%). The teaching strengthened the selection of printed words matched to dictated words and copying words. The student obtained 100% correct answers in the teaching tasks. In post-tests of dictation, he obtained 100% correct answers in constructed response and 96% correct answers in manuscripts. The results indicate that carefully teaching copying may promote accuracy in the performance of responding to minimal units in dictation tasks.