Social representation of domestic violence against women among Nursing Technicians and Community Agents

OBJECTIVE To analyze the social representations of the Nursing Technicians and Community Health Agents about domestic violence against women. METHOD A qualitative study carried out in the city of Rio Grande, RS, in which evocations and interviews were collected between July and November 2013. For the treatment of data were used the EVOC 2005 software and the context analysis. RESULT It is a structured representation, in which the central nucleus contains conceptual, imaging and attitudinal elements, namely: abuse, aggression, physical aggression, cowardice and lack of respect. Such terms were present in the context of the interviews. The professionals acknowledged that violence is not limited to physical aspects and were judgemental about the acts of the aggressor. CONCLUSION This knowledge may enable the problematization of the studied phenomenon with the team, and facilitate the search for prevention and intervention strategies for victims, offenders and managers of health services.

Manual for the various agents of the United States Interdepartmental social hygiene board.

Mode of access: Internet.

Computational Analysis of Intelligent Agents: Social and Strategic Settings

The central motif of this work is prediction and optimization in presence of multiple interacting intelligent agents. We use the phrase `intelligent agents' to imply in some sense, a `bounded rationality', the exact meaning of which varies depending on the setting. Our agents may not be `rational' in the classical game theoretic sense, in that they don't always optimize a global objective. Rather, they rely on heuristics, as is natural for human agents or even software agents operating in the real-world. Within this broad framework we study the problem of influence maximization in social networks where behavior of agents is myopic, but complication stems from the structure of interaction networks. In this setting, we generalize two well-known models and give new algorithms and hardness results for our models. Then we move on to models where the agents reason strategically but are faced with considerable uncertainty. For such games, we give a new solution concept and analyze a real-world game using out techniques. Finally, the richest model we consider is that of Network Cournot Competition which deals with strategic resource allocation in hypergraphs, where agents reason strategically and their interaction is specified indirectly via player's utility functions. For this model, we give the first equilibrium computability results. In all of the above problems, we assume that payoffs for the agents are known. However, for real-world games, getting the payoffs can be quite challenging. To this end, we also study the inverse problem of inferring payoffs, given game history. We propose and evaluate a data analytic framework and we show that it is fast and performant.

A integralidade numa rede de proteção social ao adolescente: uma reflexão a partir do pensamento de Giles Lipovetsky

O propósito deste artigo é apresentar uma discussão sobre a integralidade como um paradigma, uma ideia-referência, do campo de conhecimento da Saúde Pública. Para isso apresentamos a exploração empírica dos elementos discursivos coletados numa rede de proteção social voltada ao adolescente dos quais deriva parte importante da prática de agentes de saúde. As experiências colhidas em campo a partir da ação dos articuladores da Política Municipal de Atenção à Criança e ao Adolescente, no Município de Suzano-SP, foram analisadas sob o ponto de vista de Gilles Lipovetsky. Essa análise situou a integralidade como ideia-referência proposta pelo campo de conhecimento da saúde pública, que questiona e provoca mudanças nas práticas médicas e de saúde inseridas na sociedade contemporânea, sobretudo no que se refere à atenção psicossocial.

Mobility and social network effects on extremist opinions

Understanding the emergence of extreme opinions and in what kind of environment they might become less extreme is a central theme in our modern globalized society. A model combining continuous opinions and observed discrete actions (CODA) capable of addressing the important issue of measuring how extreme opinions might be has been recently proposed. In this paper I show extreme opinions to arise in a ubiquitous manner in the CODA model for a multitude of social network structures. Depending on network details reducing extremism seems to be possible. However, a large number of agents with extreme opinions is always observed. A significant decrease in the number of extremists can be observed by allowing agents to change their positions in the network.

Social interaction as a heuristic for combinatorial optimization problems

We investigate the performance of a variant of Axelrod's model for dissemination of culture-the Adaptive Culture Heuristic (ACH)-on solving an NP-Complete optimization problem, namely, the classification of binary input patterns of size F by a Boolean Binary Perceptron. In this heuristic, N agents, characterized by binary strings of length F which represent possible solutions to the optimization problem, are fixed at the sites of a square lattice and interact with their nearest neighbors only. The interactions are such that the agents' strings (or cultures) become more similar to the low-cost strings of their neighbors resulting in the dissemination of these strings across the lattice. Eventually the dynamics freezes into a homogeneous absorbing configuration in which all agents exhibit identical solutions to the optimization problem. We find through extensive simulations that the probability of finding the optimal solution is a function of the reduced variable F/N(1/4) so that the number of agents must increase with the fourth power of the problem size, N proportional to F(4), to guarantee a fixed probability of success. In this case, we find that the relaxation time to reach an absorbing configuration scales with F(6) which can be interpreted as the overall computational cost of the ACH to find an optimal set of weights for a Boolean binary perceptron, given a fixed probability of success.

MODELING SCIENTIFIC AGENTS FOR A BETTER SCIENCE

Science is a fundamental human activity and we trust its results because it has several error-correcting mechanisms. It is subject to experimental tests that are replicated by independent parts. Given the huge amount of information available and the information asymetry between producers and users of knowledge, scientists have to rely on the reports of others. This makes it possible for social effects to influence the scientific community. Here, an Opinion Dynamics agent model is proposed to describe this situation. The influence of Nature through experiments is described as an external field that acts on the experimental agents. We will see that the retirement of old scientists can be fundamental in the acceptance of a new theory. We will also investigate the interplay between social influence and observations. This will allow us to gain insight in the problem of when social effects can have negligible effects in the conclusions of a scientific community and when we should worry about them.

Computer technology - A political player in social policy processes

The absence of considerations of technology in policy studies reinforces the popular notion that technology is a neutral tool, Through an analysis of the role played by computers in the policy processes of Australia's Department of Social Security, this paper argues that computers are political players in policy processes, Findings indicate that computers make aspects of the social domain knowable and therefore governable, The use of computers makes previously infeasible policies possible, Computers also operate as bureaucrats and as agents of client surveillance. Increased policy change, reduced discretion and increasingly targeted and complex policies can be attributed to the use of computer technology, If policy processes are to be adequately understood and analysed, then the role of technology in those processes must be considered.

An ergonomic approach to reorganize parking inspection agents` work productivity, health and safety in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Objective: The Traffic Engineering Company of the City of Sao Paulo (Brazil) observed a decrease in productivity, and an increase in sick leave, accidents and psychological distress among their parking inspection agents. To document this situation, qualitative research was undertaken to obtain an in-depth comprehension of work activity. Participants: Workers, managers and health and safety professionals contributed to the documentation of the problem and to the proposal of possible solutions. Methods: Ergonomic work analysis focusing on real work activity, as well as interviews with individual or groups of stakeholders, were conducted. Results: This research revealed that political-economic factors gradually contributed to: 1) an increasing work load; 2) growing fatigue throughout the day, increasing the workers` vulnerability to incidents and accidents and their tendency to react inappropriately to violence experienced on the street; and 3) excessive individual responsibility to manage dangerous situations. Conclusions: Recommendations to ameliorate the situation are proposed. These suggestions are discussed in terms of feasibility given the impact of macro social factors upon micro work activity, and the associated potential expansion of the ergonomist`s role.

Conselhos locais de saúde : caminhos e (des)caminhos da participação social no Sistema Único de Saúde

A partir da descentralização, novas instâncias de negociação e novas alternativas de ordenamento da estrutura organizacional do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) foram criadas. Dentre estas alternativas, podemos citar os conselhos de saúde, importantes canais de participação social. Todavia, frente às limitações destes canais tradicionais de articulação entre Estado e sociedade, destacamos os ideais da gestão participativa e os Conselhos Locais de Saúde (CLS) como alternativa de renovação e criação de instâncias mais flexíveis, porosas e efetivas às complexas demandas sociais. Neste sentido, buscamos analisar o processo de criação e implementação dos CLS do município de Anchieta/ES, a partir de uma abordagem quali-quantativa. Inicialmente, traçamos o perfil socioeconômico e político dos conselheiros eleitos, a partir de um questionário aplicado a uma amostra de 54 conselheiros; dados que foram categorizados e analisados por meio do emprego de estatísticas descritivas. Em seguida, entrevistamos treze conselheiros, de dois conselhos distintos do município, procedendo à análise de conteúdo do material, a partir dos ideais de Bardin (2000). Os resultados demonstraram que os conselhos foram criados a partir da iniciativa da gestão municipal em 2011, e que simplesmente institucionalizá-los como espaço de participação social não foi suficiente para promover a mobilização social e o envolvimento comunitário. Quanto ao perfil dos conselheiros locais, 78% são mulheres, com predominância de raça/cor branca, idade entre os 20 e 39 anos e funcionárias públicas; 57% possuem Ensino Médio e participaram como conselheiro por dois anos, e 60% destes já tiveram outras experiências de participação similares aos CLS. Do material oriundo das entrevistas, emergiram quatro categorias de análise, a saber: 1) Ser ou não ser conselheiro de saúde? Eis a questão!; 2) O não pertencimento e a não-participação; 3) Conselhos Locais de Saúde: elos, meios e mediações; e 4) A exogenia da administração e os obstáculos à participação social. Os entraves ao funcionamento dos conselhos de saúde, mesmo em nível local, ainda são desafios a serem superados, para que estas instâncias sejam mais influentes na gestão pública, conforme os princípios de sua criação. A participação social e a democracia são fundamentais para a construção de políticas de saúde que correspondam às reais demandas da comunidade. Contudo, para garantir a democracia na sociedade não basta promover a descentralização. É necessário que os sujeitos políticos resistam às relações de dominação, opressão e subordinação. Para isso, torna-se imprescindível os programas de educação para cidadania dos sujeitos envolvidos nestes fóruns de participação. O que nos motiva, enfim, é notarmos a existência, entre os conselheiros eleitos, de sujeitos protagonistas de seu próprio devir; sujeitos que atuam como agentes transformadores, motivadores de sonhos e projetos em prol da saúde pública e de sua comunidade.

A HIPÓTESE INTEGRADORA DA GOVERNANÇA CORPORATIVA E DA RESPONSABILIDADE SOCIAL CORPORATIVA SOB O ENFOQUE DOS DIREITOS HUMANOS

A governança corporativa e a responsabilidade social corporativa são dois instrumentos que têm o caráter de atingir a excelência da organização empresarial. Por sua vez, os mesmos foram instrumentalizados como meio de proteção dos interesses dos agentes privados com vista à potencialização da sociedade empresarial, motivados pela desconfiança dos processos decisórios dos administradores societários. Posteriormente, evoluiram sob a forma de códigos de condutas, ditados pelos organismos de controle empresarial, sempre conservando o caráter voluntário de sua aceitação. Alguns objetivos sequer foram incluídos nos seus processos internos de excelência, como por exemplo os direitos humanos de determinados stakeholders. Esse ponto é o objeto principal desta investigação, que busca evidenciar a hipótese de integração da governança corporativa e da responsabilidade social corporativa sob o enfoque dos direitos humanos. § The Corporate governance and corporate social responsibility are two instruments that have the character to achieve excellence in business organization. On the other hand, they have been exploited as a way of protecting the interests of private agents for enhancement of corporate society, motivated by the distrust of the decision-making process of corporate managers. Later, it evolved in the form of codes of conduct, dictated by the bodies of corporate control, always preserving the voluntary nature of their acceptance. Some objectives were not even included in its internal process of excellence, such as the human rights of certain stakeholders. This point is the main object of this research, which seeks to demonstrate the possibility of integration of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility in the human rights perspective.

Interação social entre agentes em ambientes de recursos limitados

Trabalho final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia de Redes de Comunicação e Multimédia