Sex Trade Involvement in São Paulo, Brazil and Toronto, Canada: Narratives of Social Exclusion and Fragmented Identities

An extensive international literature has been developed regarding the risk trajectories of sex trade-involved children and youth. This literature has not, however, substantially incorporated the narratives of youths regarding their experiences. In this article, the contemporary literature on child and youth sex trade-involvement is reviewed and the findings of a qualitative analysis of the narratives of 14 youth from São Paulo, Brazil and 58 youth from Toronto, Canada are presented. Substantial similarities were found between the groups of narratives with respect to abusive and unstable home experiences, pathways into the sex trade, social exclusion, and the impacts of the sex trade on physical and mental health. Key areas of divergence included the roles of poverty and drug use in entering the sex trade. The implications of shared experiences of social exclusion and fragmented identity across differing sociocultural contexts for policy and intervention are discussed.

Speedup and scalability analysis of Master-Slave applications on large heterogeneous clusters

Although cluster environments have an enormous potential processing power, real applications that take advantage of this power remain an elusive goal. This is due, in part, to the lack of understanding about the characteristics of the applications best suited for these environments. This paper focuses on Master/Slave applications for large heterogeneous clusters. It defines application, cluster and execution models to derive an analytic expression for the execution time. It defines speedup and derives speedup bounds based on the inherent parallelism of the application and the aggregated computing power of the cluster. The paper derives an analytical expression for efficiency and uses it to define scalability of the algorithm-cluster combination based on the isoefficiency metric. Furthermore, the paper establishes necessary and sufficient conditions for an algorithm-cluster combination to be scalable which are easy to verify and use in practice. Finally, it covers the impact of network contention as the number of processors grow. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of a metatextual intervention program in developing written narratives of students with learning difficulties

This study aimed to verify the effects of a metatextual intervention program, in the elaboration of stories written by students with learning difficulties. Four students were included in the sample of both genders, with ages ranging between eight years and four months and ten years and two months of age. The program was implemented at the participant schools, using an approach of multiple baseline within-subjects, with two conditions: baseline and intervention. Data analysis was based on the classification of stories produced by the students. Mann-Whitney testing was also applied, to analyze whether there have been significant changes in these productions. The results indicated that all students have improved performance in relation to the categories of produced stories, from elementary schemas (33%), for a more elaborate scheme (77%), with a better structuring of the elements that constitute a story. Statistical analysis also showed that the intervention has produced significant results for all variables analyzed. The data obtained have shown that the program was effective.

Complex narratives: estudos de casos de narrativas audiovisuais complexas

O presente trabalho apresenta estudos de casos de expressões audiovisuais reunidas por Jan Simons sob a denominação de narrativas complexas, propondo a sua utilização como referência para aplicação de interação na TV Digital. O corpus é constituído das seguintes produções submetidas a essa classificação: forking path narratives e puzzle films com The Butterfly Effect (Erci Bress e J. Mackye Gruber, 2004); mind-game films com Lola Rennt (Tom Tykwer, 1998); modular narratives com Nine Lives (GPS films, 2005), database narratives e modular narratives com Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994); network narratives com Babel (Alejandro Gonzalez, 2006) e subjectives stories com Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999). Compreendida como uma técnica de seleção e articulação de fragmentos de sentidos na composição do discurso audiovisual, aponta-se a montagem como um mecanismo propulsor de interação, manifestada pela transferência da sincronização dos módulos de sentidos que compõe a mensagem ou na construção de discursos audiovisuais com linearidade que se difere do nível dos acontecimentos. A pesquisa gerou um capítulo de livro, duas publicações em revistas científicas, além de integrar anais de diversos eventos acadêmicos

Memória de onde, memória de quem

The spatial formation of Rio Claro city preserves several features of the problematic transition from the slave to remunerated labor in the late 20th, when the tacit ethnic bipolar sociability standard emerged, imprinting “black” and “white” forms to the city’s urban space. The ethnic social clubs José do Patrocínio and Tamoio, are two objects of ethnic groups’ exclusive use. Such ethnic social clubs indicate the existence of conflicts in their formation, as well as in their present existence, they are forms that preserve in themselves the codes and histories of the local black movement’s fight for their rights and for an autonomous place in the local society. In the present context the spaces are increasingly subjected to commercial interests and the spirits are embedded in confusion. What is the value of these spaces for the subjects who built them? The versions and narratives from oral accounts will allow us to understand the existing dimensions in the relation between the places and the memory, evidencing the importance of the patrimony and the patrimonial policies to the cities in the present historical period of geographic space globalization

Unfaithful narratives: methodological and affective notes about experiences of masculinity in a dating website for married people

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Narrativa audiovisual complexa: modular narratives e database narratives

Procura-se nesse trabalho expor as considerações levantadas sobre a modularidade e a temporalidade do filme Pulp Fiction (1994), de Quentin Tarantino, enquadrada por Simons (2008) nas categorias de narrativa audiovisual complexa denominadas modular narratives e database narratives. Com Ricoeur (1983), discutiu-se a sua organização temporal a partir do conceito de tríplice presente em Santo Agostinho, enquanto com Propp (1970) e Cameron (2008) o cará- ter modular dessa narrativa.