Agentes Inteligentes com Foco de Atenção Afetivo em Simulações Baseadas em Agentes

Simulations based on cognitively rich agents can become a very intensive computing task, especially when the simulated environment represents a complex system. This situation becomes worse when time constraints are present. This kind of simulations would benefit from a mechanism that improves the way agents perceive and react to changes in these types of environments. In other worlds, an approach to improve the efficiency (performance and accuracy) in the decision process of autonomous agents in a simulation would be useful. In complex environments, and full of variables, it is possible that not every information available to the agent is necessary for its decision-making process, depending indeed, on the task being performed. Then, the agent would need to filter the coming perceptions in the same as we do with our attentions focus. By using a focus of attention, only the information that really matters to the agent running context are perceived (cognitively processed), which can improve the decision making process. The architecture proposed herein presents a structure for cognitive agents divided into two parts: 1) the main part contains the reasoning / planning process, knowledge and affective state of the agent, and 2) a set of behaviors that are triggered by planning in order to achieve the agent s goals. Each of these behaviors has a runtime dynamically adjustable focus of attention, adjusted according to the variation of the agent s affective state. The focus of each behavior is divided into a qualitative focus, which is responsible for the quality of the perceived data, and a quantitative focus, which is responsible for the quantity of the perceived data. Thus, the behavior will be able to filter the information sent by the agent sensors, and build a list of perceived elements containing only the information necessary to the agent, according to the context of the behavior that is currently running. Based on the human attention focus, the agent is also dotted of a affective state. The agent s affective state is based on theories of human emotion, mood and personality. This model serves as a basis for the mechanism of continuous adjustment of the agent s attention focus, both the qualitative and the quantative focus. With this mechanism, the agent can adjust its focus of attention during the execution of the behavior, in order to become more efficient in the face of environmental changes. The proposed architecture can be used in a very flexibly way. The focus of attention can work in a fixed way (neither the qualitative focus nor the quantitaive focus one changes), as well as using different combinations for the qualitative and quantitative foci variation. The architecture was built on a platform for BDI agents, but its design allows it to be used in any other type of agents, since the implementation is made only in the perception level layer of the agent. In order to evaluate the contribution proposed in this work, an extensive series of experiments were conducted on an agent-based simulation over a fire-growing scenario. In the simulations, the agents using the architecture proposed in this work are compared with similar agents (with the same reasoning model), but able to process all the information sent by the environment. Intuitively, it is expected that the omniscient agent would be more efficient, since they can handle all the possible option before taking a decision. However, the experiments showed that attention-focus based agents can be as efficient as the omniscient ones, with the advantage of being able to solve the same problems in a significantly reduced time. Thus, the experiments indicate the efficiency of the proposed architecture

A doença de criar passarinhos: a lírica humanizadora de João Cabral de Melo Neto

João Cabral de Melo Neto n a jamais aimé les vers sentimentaux et prolixes venus de la tradition romantique. C est pour ça que son uvre a un discours objectif, rigoureusement elaboré e elle comporte certaines influences concretistes ça explique pourquoi l auteur est connu comme l ingénieur de la langage. En verité, le poète même dissait qu il était un homme froid et rationnel. La critique a assidument analysé la matière logique et le rigeuer formel de l uvre de Cabral de Melo. Pourtant, dans ce travail nous analysons les poèmes dont le sentiments humaines sont la mtière principal de l élaboration de l experiènce esthétique. La poèsie de João Cabral n est pas simple verbalisme formel, ni un uvre sens vie, car les objects concrètes et la langage objectif n empêchent pas qui le sujet décrit avec émotion les scènes presents dans les poèmes. Nous travaillons avec la hypothèse de que le poète a une attitude trop humaine quand il parle de l experience culturel et de l experience de la vie dans le Nord-est brésilien. Les unités témathiques de ce travail, pourtant, montrent la représentation du Nord-est dans la poèsie de João Cabral et examinent aussi le sentiment qu il sent par la memoire culturel de sa région. Parmi les aspects qui composent sa lyrique humaine nous citons la personification constant de les paysages du Nord-est le poète ne veux pas faire une décrition tophographique de la région parce que les places ont un valeuer sentimentel pour lui; au moyen d un discours erotique, Cabral represente les desirs et les intints humaines de sa terre; ensuite, il semble que le poète est enchanté et enveloppé avec certains elemets culturels de sa région, come l hamac, la littérature oral et la musique régional; la preoccupation avec la population explorée et la denonciation de la condition miserable dans le Nord-est brésilien confirment aussi la humanité présent dans son uvre; finalment, la récordation de l enfance et la nostalgie du temps passé sont, pour le poète, un possibilité qui peut aider dans la formation humaine de la population

Ética: neurocência e neuroética

L étude de la neuroétique, est placée dans le champs de l étique philosophique, où l émotion et la ration se trouve comme des elements important dans le processus des decition moral. Les champs d étude de la neuroscience et neuroéthique ouvre la discussion sur le changement et les emergences conceptuels, le progrés da la science, le devéloppement de la tecnique, de la tecnhologie et la biotecnologie, et ses relations vis-a-vis des dilemes morales concernat au champs des études et recherches dans ce domaine. On compprende que les procedures adoptés em ces études et recherches ne sont pas concernant solement aux individus soumises aux procedures et or traitement, mas a tout la societé. Le champs d étude de la neuroscience comme quelque d outre est soumis a des principles morales et étiques, sourtout c est relatifs aux prises de decition par rapport aux êtres vivants. Dans ces processus les scientifiques sont charchées des responsabilités et des risques, en face des dilemes morales concernat a tout les recherches. L analise a été faite, appui dentre outres, en la pensée de Immanuel Kant et Jonh Stuart Mill em ce que dit respect au devoir et l utilité

Realidade virtual na atividade cerebral: um estudo comparativo entre estados emocionais de adultos jovens e idosos

The association of Virtual Reality (VR) to clinical practice has become common in the recent years, showing to be an additional tool on health care, especially for elderly. Its use has been related to higher therapeutic adhesion levels and well being sensation. Such emotional based aspects are often observed by subjective tools of relative validity. This study analyzed the immediate effects of varied VR contexts balance training over emotional behavior, which was observed under peaks of maximum expression of EEG waves. Methodology: 40 individuals, divided in two groups, both gender, 20 young and 20 elderly, were submitted to a 60 minutes intervention, including balance training under VR. The first 25 minutes referred to initial evaluation, general orientation and cognitive assessment by the use of Mini Mental. The next ten minutes were designated to the avatar creation and tutorial video presentation. Through the following 20 minutes, the individuals from both groups were exposed to the exact same sequence of games under virtual contexts, while submitted to electroencephalography by Emotiv EPOC® focusing Adhesion, Frustration and Meditation states. The virtual interface was provided by the Nintendo® game, Wii Fit Plus, with the scenarios Balance Bubble (1), Penguin (2), Soccer (3), Tight Rope (4) and Table Tilt (5). Finally, a questionnaire of personal impressions was applied on the 5 minutes left. Results: data collected showed 64,7% of individuals from both groups presented higher concentration of adhesion peaks on Balance Bubble game. Both groups also presented similar behavior regarding meditation state, with marks close to 40%, each, on the same game, Table Tilt. There was divergence related to the frustration state, being the maximum concentration for the young group on the Soccer game (29,3%), whilst the elderly group referred highest marks to Tight Rope game (35,2%). Conclusion: Findings suggest virtual contexts can be favorable to adhesion and meditation emotional patterns induction, regardless age and for both sexes, whilst frustration seems to be more related to cognitive motor affordance, likely to be influenced by age. This information is relevant and contributes to the orientation for the best choice of games applied in clinical practice, as for other studies regarding this topic

Déficits de memória induzidos por baixas doses de reserpina em ratos: possível relação com prejuízos no processamento emocional na Doença de Parkinson

We have recently verified that the monoamine depleting drug reserpine at doses that do not modify motor function - impairs memory in a rodent model of aversive discrimination. In this study, the effects of reserpine (0.1-0.5 mg/kg) on the performance of rats in object recognition, spatial working memory (spontaneous alternation) and emotional memory (contextual freezing conditioning) tasks were investigated. While object recognition and spontaneous alternation behavior were not affected by reserpine treatment, contextual fear conditioning was impaired. Together with previous studies, these results suggest that mild monoamine depletion would preferentially induce deficits in tasks involved with emotional contexts. Possible relationships with cognitive and emotional processing deficits in Parkinson disease are discussed

Efeito da coesão semântica sobre a discriminação de itens emocionais em testes de memória de reconhecimento de palavras

Highly emotional itens are best remembered in emotional memory tasks than neutral items. An example of emotional item that benefits declarative memory processes are the taboo words. These words undergo from a conventional prohibition, imposed by tradition or custom. Literature suggests that the strongest recollection these words is due to emotional arousal, as well as, the fact that they form a cohesive semantic group, which is a positive additive effect. However, studies with semantic lists show that cohesion can have a negative effect of interference, impairing memory. We analyzed, in two experiments, the effect of arousal and semantic cohesion of taboo words on recognition tests, comparing with into two other word categories: semantically related and without emotional arousal (semantic category) and neutral, with low semantic relation (objects). Our results indicate that cohesion has interfered whith the performance of the test by increasing the number of false alarms. This effect was strongly observed in the semantic category of words in both experiments, but also in the neutral and taboo words, when both were explicitly considered as semantic categories through the instruction of the test in Experiment 2. Despite the impairment induced by semantic cohesion in both experiments, the taboo words were more discriminated than others, and this result agrees with the indication of the emotional arousal as the main factor for the best recollection of emotional items in memory tests

Efeitos do tratamento com lítio na memória aversiva, comportamentos relacionados à ansiedade e depressão e na expressão de BDNF em ratos

Lithium (Li) is the first choice to treat bipolar disorder, a psychiatric illness characterized by mood oscillations between mania and depression. However, studies have demonstrated that this drug might influence mnemonic process due to its neuroprotector, antiapoptotic and neurogenic effects. The use of Li in the treatment of cognitive deficits caused by brain injury or neurodegenerative disorders have been widely studied, and this drug shows to be effective in preventing or even alleviating the memory impairment. The effects of Li on anxiety and depression are controversial and the relationship of the effects of lithium on memory, anxiety and depression remain unknown. In this context, this study aims to: evaluate the effects of acute and chronic administration of lithium carbonate in aversive memory and anxiety, simultaneously, using the plus maze discriminative avoidance task (PMDAT); test the antidepressant effect of the drug through the forced swimming test (FS) and analyze brainderived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression in structures related to memory and emotion. To evaluation of the acute effects, male Wistar rats were submitted to i.p. administration of lithium carbonate (50, 100 or 200 mg/kg) one hour before the training session (PMDAT) or lithium carbonate (50 or 100 mg/kg) one hour before the test session (FS). To evaluation of the chronic effects, the doses administered were 50 or 100 mg/kg or vehicle once a day for 21 days before the beginning of behavioral tasks (PMDAT and FS). Afterwards, the animals were euthanized and their brains removed and submitted to immunohistochemistry procedure to quantify BDNF. The animals that received acute treatment with 100 and 200 mg/kg of Li did not discriminated between the enclosed arms (aversive and non-aversive) in the training session of PMDAT, showing that these animal did not learned the task. This lack of discrimination was also observed in the test session, showing that the animals did not recall the aversive task. We also observed an increased exploration of the open arms of these same groups, indicating an anxiolytic effect. The same groups showed a reduction of locomotor activity, however, this effect does not seem to be related with the anxiolytic effect of the drug. Chronic treatment with Li did not promote alterations on learning or memory processes. Nevertheless, we observed a reduction of open arms exploration by animals treated with 50 mg/kg when compared to the other groups, showing an anxiogenic effect caused by this dose. This effect it is not related to locomotor alterations since there were no alterations in these parameters. Both acute and chronic treatment were ineffective in the FS. Chronic treatment with lithium was not able to modify BDNF expression in hippocampus, amygdala and pre-frontal cortex. These results suggest that acute administration of lithium promote impairments on learning in an aversive task, blocking the occurrence of memory consolidation and retrieval. The reduction of anxiety following acute treatment may have prevented the learning of the aversive task, as it has been found that optimum levels of anxiety are necessary for the occurrence of learning with emotional context. With continued, treatment the animals recover the ability to learn and recall the task. Indeed, they do not show differences in relation to control group, and the lack of alterations on BDNF expression corroborates this result. Possibly, the regimen of treatment used was not able to promote cognitive improvement. Li showed acute anxiolytic effect, however chronic administration 4 promoted the opposite effect. More studies are necessary to clarify the potential beneficial effect of Li on aversive memory

Efeito do alerta e valência emocional nos componentes de lembrança e familiaridade da memória episódica

The episodic memory system allows us to retrieve information about events, including its contextual aspects. It has been suggested that episodic memory is composed by two independent components: recollection and familiarity. Recollection is related to the vivid e detailed retrieval of item and contextual information, while familiarity is the capability to recognize items previously seen as familiars. Despite the fact that emotion is one of the most influent process on memory, only a few studies have investigated its effect on recollection and familiarity. Another limitation of studies about the effect of emotion on memory is that the majority of them have not adequately considered the differential effects of arousal and positive/negative valence. The main purpose of the current work is to investigate the independent effect of emotional valence and arousal on recollection and familiarity, as well as to test some hypothesis that have been suggested about the effect of emotion on episodic memory. The participants of the research performed a recognition task for three lists of emotional pictures: high arousal negative, high arousal positive and low arousal positive. At the test session, participants also rated the confidence level of their responses. The confidence ratings were used to plot ROC curves and estimate the contributions of recollection and familiarity of recognition performance. As the main results, we found that negative valence enhanced the component of recollection without any effect on familiarity or recognition accuracy. Arousal did not affect recognition performance or their components, but high arousal was associated with a higher proportion of false memories. This work highlight the importance of to consider both the emotional dimensions and episodic memory components in the study of emotion effect on episodic memory, since they interact in complex and independent way

Estratégias de coping desenvolvidas por cuidadores de idosos portadores de doença crônica

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

Sentimentos e percepções de puérperas com relação à assistência prestada pelo serviço materno-infantil de um hospital universitário

OBJETIVOS: avaliar percepções e sentimentos de puérperas adultas e adolescentes, relacionados ao filho e a assistência materno-infantil, em hospital universitário de nível terciário. MÉTODOS: estudo transversal, envolvendo 180 puérperas, no Alojamento Conjunto (AC) e no Berçário Interno (BI) do Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu , entrevistadas no segundo e terceiro dia pós-parto e distribuídas em três grupos: adultas primíparas, adultas multíparas e adolescentes. Para comparação entre grupos e locais de internação utilizou-se o chi2 ou teste de Fisher. RESULTADOS: ultrasom obstétrico e cardiotocografia tiveram impacto positivo na emoção materna. Houve pouca diferença entre os grupos quanto aos sentimentos antes e após o parto, sendo felicidade, amor, responsabilidade, ansiedade e medo os mais freqüentes. A culpa predominou nas adolescentes do BI. As percepções relacionadas ao filho, a avaliação da assistência e equipe, não diferiram entre adultas e adolescentes. Nas duas enfermarias o relacionamento entre mães e cuidadores foi bom, as mães mostraram-se satisfeitas com a equipe e a assistência, mas o aleitamento materno foi pouco valorizado e poucas mães conheciam o médico. CONCLUSÕES: está ocorrendo um processo de humanização na assistência materno-infantil deste hospital universitário, mas alguns aspectos precisam ser melhorados, especialmente a valorização do aleitamento materno e a individualização no contato médico-paciente.

O idoso e a ressignificação emocional do lazer

A sociedade contemporânea vê-se desafiada a responder qualitativamente às demandas da ciência e da tecnologia, cujas ressonâncias afetam as múltiplas dimensões humanas. Uma delas, o aumento da longevidade, vem requisitando políticas e programas sociais voltados à qualidade de vida, incluindo o âmbito do lazer. Este estudo qualitativo objetivou identificar aspectos emocionais na percepção de idosos, durante vivências no lazer. Os dados foram coletados por meio de questionário misto, aplicado a uma amostra de 20 participantes, de ambos os sexos. Foram analisados descritivamente pela Técnica de Análise de Conteúdo, revelando recorrências de crescimento positivo como a relação interpessoal e o respeito mútuo, a contemplação, a sensação de harmonia com a natureza, o elemento lúdico, entre outros, também responsáveis pelo vínculo afetivo do grupo. Conclui-se que experiências significativas no âmbito do lazer, capazes de contemplar a gama de necessidades e expectativas do homem, contribuem para a ressignificação emocional do lazer nesta fase do desenvolvimento.

As estratégias de enfrentamento de pacientes durante o tratamento de radioterapia

O câncer é uma doença que traz indagações para a pessoa que passa por essa experiência e transtornos dos mais variados, podendo gerar estresse que é inevitável e faz parte da vida humana. Para manejar o estresse há diferentes formas de adaptação a uma situação. O sucesso desse manejo vai depender das estratégias de coping (enfrentamento), definido como um processo utilizado para controlar as demandas da relação indivíduo-ambiente que serão elaboradas pelo indivíduo. Este trabalho teve como objetivo identificar as formas de enfrentamento utilizadas diante dessa doença e do tratamento. Realizou-se estudo qualitativo, através da Análise de Discurso do Sujeito Coletivo e referencial teórico de coping. Foram entrevistados 16 pacientes em tratamento radioterápico, sendo a amostra constituída por conveniência. Pode-se observar que os participantes, ao enfrentarem o câncer e a radioterapia elaboraram estratégias de enfrentamento tanto baseadas na emoção, como no problema.

Estratégias de enfrentamento (coping) de pessooas ostomizadas

Este trabalho objetivou compreender a experiência de pessoas com derivações intestinais, quanto ao enfrentamento à nova condição de vida. Realizou-se estudo qualitativo, sendo entrevistados 11 sujeitos ostomizados. Os dados foram coletados por meio de entrevistas semi-estruturadas, gravadas e posteriormente transcritas na íntegra e foram analisadas segundo a proposta de análise de conteúdo de Bardin e do referencial teórico de Coping . Os achados do estudo evidenciaram-se por três categorias centrais: eu não escolhi; tive que aceitar e con(vivo) com a ostomia. A forma para manejar a condição de estar ostomizado revelou-se por estratégias de enfrentamento tanto baseadas na emoção, como no problema. O estudo contribuiu para a reflexão e a utilização do conhecimento na prática assistencial e de ensino para cuidar do ostomizado.

Metáforas, memórias e narrativas: aproximações e distâncias na formação de professores : uma análise de narrativas de professores de artes do Programa REDEFOR

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA

Uma odisséia de quase meio século pelo espaço teatral paulistano, através da memória de um espectador movido a paixão e em permanente processo de formação

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA