Report of the CDCC working group - redefining and revitalizing the role of the CDCC in Caribbean regional development

At the thirteenth meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the CDCC held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on 23-24 August 2007, delegates agreed to the establishment of a working group to explore ways of improving the effectiveness, visibility and relevance of the CDCC. The need for the establishment of the working group arose out of the recognition that the CDCC has been handicapped by the following: (a) a loss of its original vision and mission as a result of its changing operational context; (b) institutional overload in the regional institutional architecture as a result of the deepening of CARICOM and the creation of the ACS; (c) difficulties in securing high-level representation at meetings; and (d) continuing concerns by the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean about their lack of representation/inclusion in the work of the wider ECLAC system.

Encontro de idéias: proposta de valorização e recurso para formação de professores de redes e sistemas de ensino

Pós-graduação em Educação - FFC

TACTILE CARTOGRAPHY EXPERIENCES IN BRAZIL: METHODOLOGIES AND DIDACTICAL MATERIAL WITH TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES FOR INCLUSION OF BLIND AND LOW VISION STUDENTS

The tactile cartography is an area of Cartography that aims the development of methodologies and didactical material to work cartographic concepts with blind and low vision people. The main aim of this article is to present the experience of Tactile Cartography Research Group from Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), including some didactical material and courses for teachers using the System MAPAVOX. The System MAPAVOX is software developed by our research group in a partnership with Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) that integrates maps and models with a voice synthesizer, sound emission, texts, images and video visualizing for computers. Our research methodology is based in authors that have in the students the centre of didactical activity such as Ochaita and Espinosa in [1], which developed studies related to blind children's literacy. According to Almeida the child's drawing is, thus, a system of representation. It isn't a copy of objects, but interpretation of that which is real, done by the child in graphic language[2]. In the proposed activities with blind and low vision students they are prepared to interpret reality and represent it by adopting concepts of graphic language learned. To start the cartographic initialization it is necessary to use personal and quotidian references, for example the classroom tactile model or map, to include concepts in generalization and scale concerning to their space of life. During these years many case studies were developed with blind and low vision students from Special School for Hearing Impaired and Visually Impaired in Araras and Rio Claro, Sao Paulo - Brazil. The most part of these experiences and others from Brazil and Chile are presented in [3]. Tactile material and MAPAVOX facilities are analysed by students and teachers who contribute with suggestions to reformulate and adapt them to their sensibility and necessity. Since 2005 we offer courses in Tactile Cartography to prepare teachers from elementary school in the manipulation of didactical material and attending students with special educational needs in regular classroom. There were 6 classroom and blended courses offered for 184 teachers from public schools in this region of the Sao Paulo state. As conclusion we can observe that methodological procedures centred in the blind and low vision students are successful in their spatial orientation if use didactical material from places or objects with which they have significant experience. During the applying of courses for teachers we could see that interdisciplinary groups can find creative cartographic alternatives more easily. We observed too that the best results in methodological procedures were those who provided concreteness to abstract concepts using daily experiences.

Prostituição e morte em Maggie: a girl of the streets: uma leitura feminista sobre a Slum fiction norte-americana de Stephen Crane

Pós-graduação em Letras - FCLAS

Electromyographic validation of the trapezius and serratus anterior muscles in military press exercises with open grip

It was studied the trapezius muscle and serratus anterior muscle in 24 male volunteers using a 2-channel TECA TE 4 electromyograph and Hewlett Packard surface electrodes, during the execution of four different modalities of military press exercises with open grip. The results showed that TS acted significantly in the modalities standing and sitting press behind neck, while SI acted in all the modalities, i.e., standing and sitting press behind neck and forward, justifying their inclusion as basic exercises for physical conditioning programmes.

Online analysis of H2S and SO2 via advanced mid-Infrared gas sensors

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

Similar health benefits of endurance and high-intensity interval training in obese children

Purpose: To compare two modalities of exercise training (i.e., Endurance Training [ET] and High-Intensity Interval Training [HIT]) on health-related parameters in obese children aged between 8 and 12 years. Methods: Thirty obese children were randomly allocated into either the ET or HIT group. The ET group performed a 30 to 60-minute continuous exercise at 80% of the peak heart rate (HR). The HIT group training performed 3 to 6 sets of 60-s sprint at 100% of the peak velocity interspersed by a 3-min active recovery period at 50% of the exercise velocity. HIT sessions last similar to 70% less than ET sessions. At baseline and after 12 weeks of intervention, aerobic fitness, body composition and metabolic parameters were assessed. Results: Both the absolute (ET: 26.0%; HIT: 19.0%) and the relative VO2 peak (ET: 13.1%; HIT: 14.6%) were significantly increased in both groups after the intervention. Additionally, the total time of exercise (ET: 19.5%; HIT: 16.4%) and the peak velocity during the maximal graded cardiorespiratory test (ET: 16.9%; HIT: 13.4%) were significantly improved across interventions. Insulinemia (ET: 29.4%; HIT: 30.5%) and HOMA-index (ET: 42.8%; HIT: 37.0%) were significantly lower for both groups at POST when compared to PRE. Body mass was significantly reduced in the HIT (2.6%), but not in the ET group (1.2%). A significant reduction in BMI was observed for both groups after the intervention (ET: 3.0%; HIT: 5.0%). The responsiveness analysis revealed a very similar pattern of the most responsive variables among groups. Conclusion: HIT and ET were equally effective in improving important health related parameters in obese youth.

Frontal-orbital advancement for the management of anterior plagiocephaly

The main purposes of this manuscript are to provide an overview of various modalities of surgical correction of anterior plagiocephaly and to emphasize their differences with the classic open frontal-orbital advancement. Advancement of technology provides development of many other ways to achieve the same results. The authors describe the classic open frontal-orbital advancement and compare with other proposed techniques for correction of frontal plagiocephaly. The main limitation of the use of new forms of treatment of the anterior plagiocephaly is the age of the patient. There is still no consensus on criteria for quantitative evaluation of surgical results, and new forms of treatment do not present results with long follow-up. Frontal-orbital advancement is the preferred procedure to correct unicoronal synostosis due to its universal indication regardless of the age and degree of deformation of the anterior plagiocephaly.

Cytokine inhibition and time-related influence of inflammatory stimuli on the hyperalgesia induced by the nucleus pulposus

The symptoms of lumbar disc herniation, such as low back pain and sciatica, have been associated with local release of cytokines following the inflammatory process induced by the contact of the nucleus pulposus (NP) with the spinal nerve. Using an animal experimental model of intervertebral disc herniation and behavioral tests to evaluate mechanical (electronic von Frey test) and thermal (Hargreaves Plantar test) hyperalgesia in the hind paw of rats submitted to the surgical model, this study aimed to detect in normal intervertebral disc the cytokines known to be involved in the mechanisms of inflammatory hyperalgesia, to observe if previous exposure of the intervertebral disc tissue to specific antibodies could affect the pain behavior (mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia) induced by the NP, and to observe the influence of the time of contact of the NP with the fifth lumbar dorsal root ganglion (L5-DRG) in the mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia. The cytokines present at highest concentrations in the rat NP were TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta and CINC-1. Rats submitted to the disc herniation experimental model, in which a NP from the sacrococcygeal region is deposited over the right L5-DRG, showed increased mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia that lasted at least 7 weeks. When the autologous NP was treated with antibodies against the three cytokines found at highest concentrations in the NP (TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta and CINC-1), there was decrease in both mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia in different time points, suggesting that each cytokine may be important for the hyperalgesia in different steps of the inflammatory process. The surgical remotion of the NP from herniated rats 1 week after the implantation reduced the hyperalgesia to the level similar to the control group. This reduction in the hyperalgesia was also observed in the group that had the NP removed 3 weeks after the implantation, although the intensity of the hyperalgesia did not decreased totally. The removal of the NP after 5 weeks did not changed the hyperalgesia observed in the hind paw, which suggests that the longer the contact of the NP with the DRG, the greater is the possibility of development of chronic pain. Together our results indicate that specific cytokines released during the inflammatory process induced by the herniated intervertebral disc play fundamental role in the development of the two modalities of hyperalgesia (mechanical and thermal) and that the maintenance of this inflammation may be the most important point for the chronification of the pain.

Spiritist Psychiatric Hospitals in Brazil: Integration of Conventional Psychiatric Treatment and Spiritual Complementary Therapy

In Brazil, during the XX century, dozens of Spiritist psychiatric hospitals emerged seeking to integrate conventional medical treatment with complementary spiritual therapy. This combined inpatient treatment is largely found in Brazil, where many psychiatric hospitals stem from the Spiritist movement. The present report describes the use of these spiritual practices, their operating structure, health professionals involved, modalities of care, and institutional difficulties in integrating spiritual practices with conventional treatment in six leading Brazilian Spiritist psychiatric hospitals. These hospitals combine conventional psychiatric treatment with voluntary-based spiritual approaches such as laying on of hands ("fluidotherapy"), lectures regarding spiritual and ethical issues, intercessory prayer, spirit release therapy ("disobsession") and "fraternal dialogue". The non-indoctrination and optional nature of these spiritual complementary therapies seem to increase acceptance among patients and their family members. In conclusion, the Spiritist psychiatric hospitals in Brazil have, for more than half a century, provided an integrative approach in the treatment of psychiatric disorders, associating conventional and spiritual treatments, more specifically Spiritist therapy. The lack of standardized treatment protocols and scientific studies remain a barrier to assessing the impact of this integrative approach on patients' mental health, quality of life, adherence, and perceived quality of treatment.

Conceptual problem for noncommutative inflation and the new approach for nonrelativistic inflationary equation of state

In a previous paper, we connected the phenomenological noncommutative inflation of Alexander, Brandenberger and Magueijo [ Phys. Rev. D 67 081301 (2003)] and Koh and Brandenberger [ J. Cosmol. Astropart Phys. 2007 21 ()] with the formal representation theory of groups and algebras and analyzed minimal conditions that the deformed dispersion relation should satisfy in order to lead to a successful inflation. In that paper, we showed that elementary tools of algebra allow a group-like procedure in which even Hopf algebras (roughly the symmetries of noncommutative spaces) could lead to the equation of state of inflationary radiation. Nevertheless, in this paper, we show that there exists a conceptual problem with the kind of representation that leads to the fundamental equations of the model. The problem comes from an incompatibility between one of the minimal conditions for successful inflation (the momentum of individual photons being bounded from above) and the Fock-space structure of the representation which leads to the fundamental inflationary equations of state. We show that the Fock structure, although mathematically allowed, would lead to problems with the overall consistency of physics, like leading to a problematic scattering theory, for example. We suggest replacing the Fock space by one of two possible structures that we propose. One of them relates to the general theory of Hopf algebras (here explained at an elementary level) while the other is based on a representation theorem of von Neumann algebras (a generalization of the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients), a proposal already suggested by us to take into account interactions in the inflationary equation of state.

Analysis of competitiveness in the NBA regular seasons

[EN] Research background and hypothesis. Several attempts have been made to understand some modalities of sport from the point of view of complexity. Most of these studies deal with this phenomenon with regard to the mechanics of the game itself (in isolation). Nevertheless, some research has been conducted from the perspective of competition between teams. Our hypothesis was that for the study of competitiveness levels in the system of league competition our analysis model (Shannon entropy), is a useful and highly sensitive tool to determine the degree of global competitiveness of a league. Research aim. The aim of our study was to develop a model for the analysis of competitiveness level in team sport competitions based on the uncertainty level that might exist for each confrontation. Research methods. Degree of uncertainty or randomness of the competition was analyzed as a factor of competitiveness. It was calculated on the basis of the Shannon entropy. Research results. We studied 17 NBA regular seasons, which showed a fairly steady entropic tendency. There were seasons less competitive (? 0.9800) than the overall average (0.9835), and periods where the competitiveness remained at higher levels (range: 0.9851 to 0.9902). Discussion and conclusions. A league is more competitive when it is more random. Thus, it is harder to predict the fi nal outcome. However, when the competition is less random, the degree of competitiveness will decrease signifi cantly. The NBA is a very competitive league, there is a high degree of uncertainty of knowing the fi nal result.

Synthesis, multiscale-multiphase characterization and applications of thiophene-based biohybrids

Biohybrid derivatives of π-conjugated materials are emerging as powerful tools to study biological events through the (opto)electronic variations of the π-conjugated moieties, as well as to direct and govern the self-assembly properties of the organic materials through the organization principles of the bio component. So far, very few examples of thiophene-based biohybrids have been reported. The aim of this Ph. D thesis has been the development of oligothiophene-oligonucleotide hybrid derivatives as tools, on one side, to detect DNA hybridisation events and, on the other, as model compounds to investigate thiophene-nucleobase interactions in the solid state. To obtain oligothiophene bioconjugates with the required high level of purity, we first developed new synthetic ecofriendly protocols for the synthesis of thiophene oligomers. Our innovative heterogeneous Suzuki coupling methodology, carried out in EtOH/water or isopropanol under microwave irradiation, allowed us to obtain alkyl substituted oligothiophenes and thiophene based co-oligomers in high yields and very short reaction times, free from residual metals and with improved film forming properties. These methodologies were subsequently applied in the synthesis of oligothiophene-oligonucleotide conjugates. Oligothiophene-5-labeled deoxyuridines were synthesized and incorporated into 19-meric oligonucletide sequences. We showed that the oligothiophene-labeled oligonucletide sequences obtained can be used as probes to detect a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in complementary DNA target sequences. In fact, all the probes showed marked variations in emission intensity upon hybridization with a complementary target sequence. The observed variations in emitted light were comparable or even superior to those reported in similar studies, showing that the biohybrids can potentially be useful to develop biosensors for the detection of DNA mismatches. Finally, water-soluble, photoluminescent and electroactive dinucleotide-hybrid derivatives of quaterthiophene and quinquethiophene were synthesized. By means of a combination of spectroscopy and microscopy techniques, electrical characterizations, microfluidic measurements and theoretical calculations, we were able to demonstrate that the self-assembly modalities of the biohybrids in thin films are driven by the interplay of intra and intermolecular interactions in which the π-stacking between the oligothiophene and nucleotide bases plays a major role.

Ranking of parameters of pain hypersensitivity according to their discriminative ability in chronic low back pain

Low back pain is associated with plasticity changes and central hypersensitivity in a subset of patients. We performed a case-control study to explore the discriminative ability of different quantitative sensory tests in distinguishing between 40 cases with chronic low back pain and 300 pain-free controls, and to rank these tests according to the extent of their association with chronic pain. Gender, age, height, weight, body mass index, and psychological measures were recorded as potential confounders. We used 26 quantitative sensory tests, including different modalities of pressure, heat, cold, and electrical stimulation. As measures of discrimination, we estimated receiver operating characteristics (ROC) and likelihood ratios. Six tests seemed useful (in order of their discriminative ability): (1) pressure pain detection threshold at the site of most severe pain (fitted area under the ROC, 0.87), (2) single electrical stimulation pain detection threshold (0.87), (3) single electrical stimulation reflex threshold (0.83), (4) pressure pain tolerance threshold at the site of most severe pain (0.81), (5) pressure pain detection threshold at suprascapular region (0.80), and (6) temporal summation pain threshold (0.80). Pressure and electrical pain modalities seemed most promising and may be used for diagnosis of pain hypersensitivity and potentially for identifying individuals at risk of developing chronic low back pain over time.

Translational neuroprotection research in glaucoma: a review of definitions and principles

The maintenance of vision, through prevention and attenuation of neuronal injury in glaucoma, forms the basis of current clinical practice. Currently, the reduction of intraocular pressure is the only proven method to achieve these goals. Although this strategy enjoys considerable success, some patients progress to blindness; hence, additional management options are highly desirable. Several terms describing treatment modalities of neuronal diseases with potential applicability to glaucoma are used in the literature, including neuroprotection, neurorecovery, neurorescue and neuroregeneration. These phenomena have not been defined within a coherent framework. Here, we suggest a set of definitions, postulates and principles to form a foundation for the successful translation of novel glaucoma therapies from the laboratory to the clinic.