The paradox of the binomial Ixodes ricinus activity and the observed unimodal Lyme borreliosis season in Hungary

The change of ambient temperature plays a key role in determining the run of the annual Lyme season. Our aim was to explain the apparent contradiction between the annual unimodal Lyme borreliosis incidence and the bimodal Ixodes ricinus tick activity run – both observed in Hungary – by distinguishing the temperaturedependent seasonal human and tick activity, the temperature-independent factors, and the multiplicative effect of human outdoor activity in summer holiday, using data from Hungary in the period of 1998–2012. This separation was verified by modeling the Lyme incidence based on the separated factors, and comparing the run of the observed and modeled incidence. We demonstrated the bimodality of tick season by using the originally unimodal Lyme incidence data. To model the outdoor human activity, the amount of camping guest nights was used, which showed an irregular run from mid-June to September. The human outdoor activity showed a similar exponential correlation with ambient temperature to that what the relative incidence did. It was proved that summer holiday has great influence on Lyme incidence.

Consumo c(l)iente: abordagem do gênero anúncio publicitário em livros didáticos de língua portuguesa do ensino médio

Portuguese language textbooks, according to what has been preconized on the official document to education, have been configured on discursive genres imported from diverse spheres of human activity. Adverts, genre of ample social circulation, spread from the Advertising sphere to the schools and started being approached by these collectaneas as an object and a tool for teaching. Therefore, this research deals with the approach of ads in Portugese textbooks. These discursive practices matter for the impact or appeal they exert over the (new) consumers, among which High School students; for their representation in the capitalist system, which guides us on our relationships and social practices; and for the mix of languages that end up at their composition, once they encapsulate the spirit of our time, par excellence, the one from the verbal-visual genres. To understand the treatment given to these advertising pieces, from questions/commentaries related to them, two collections were selected by the Programa Nacional do Livro Didático – Textbook National Program (PNLD 2012) among the ones more used by public High Schools in Natal/RN. From Applied Linguistics, from mestizo, nomadic and inter/transdisciplinary identity (MOITA LOPES, 2009), this study falls within the discursive chain of the interpretive tradition of historical-cultural approach (FREITAS, 2010) and names the Bakhtin Circle and its language‟s dialogical conception as inescapable partners. The data of the colletaneas show that the genre approach can happen as concrete utterance, as linguistic artifact and as hybrid, at work with questions and without questions, with the predominance of its occurrence in the portion of the volume devoted to the study of grammar. In the literature chapters and production/interpretation of compositions, it insert is incipient or it doesn‟t happen in the volume. Such a provision has implications for multiliteracies (ROJO, 2012) of the citizen student, once the lack or the abundance of critical reading proposals for this genre, that demand from the student the exercise of knowledge that is necessary to the construction of linguistic and social meanings, can be responsible for guide to a more conscious consumerism (material and cultural) by the chief customers of the work under review. The approaches of the genres seems to indicate a gradual transition that such material have undergone, which means, from the focus on clauses to the focus on utterances, or even the approach as linguistic artifact to hybrid and the concrete utterance, in search of overcoming the traditional tendency of taking advantage of formal aspects of the language, to the detriment of enunciative ones, and for coming into harmony with the guidelines and parameters of teaching in contemporary times, bringing the school duties close to the rights in life.

Soundscape Ecology of Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin Resting Bays

Sound is a key sensory modality for Hawaiian spinner dolphins. Like many other marine animals, these dolphins rely on sound and their acoustic environment for many aspects of their daily lives, making it is essential to understand soundscape in areas that are critical to their survival. Hawaiian spinner dolphins rest during the day in shallow coastal areas and forage offshore at night. In my dissertation I focus on the soundscape of the bays where Hawaiian spinner dolphins rest taking a soundscape ecology approach. I primarily relied on passive acoustic monitoring using four DSG-Ocean acoustic loggers in four Hawaiian spinner dolphin resting bays on the Kona Coast of Hawai‛i Island. 30-second recordings were made every four minutes in each of the bays for 20 to 27 months between January 8, 2011 and March 30, 2013. I also utilized concomitant vessel-based visual surveys in the four bays to provide context for these recordings. In my first chapter I used the contributions of the dolphins to the soundscape to monitor presence in the bays and found the degree of presence varied greatly from less than 40% to nearly 90% of days monitored with dolphins present. Having established these bays as important to the animals, in my second chapter I explored the many components of their resting bay soundscape and evaluated the influence of natural and human events on the soundscape. I characterized the overall soundscape in each of the four bays, used the tsunami event of March 2011 to approximate a natural soundscape and identified all loud daytime outliers. Overall, sound levels were consistently louder at night and quieter during the daytime due to the sounds from snapping shrimp. In fact, peak Hawaiian spinner dolphin resting time co-occurs with the quietest part of the day. However, I also found that humans drastically alter this daytime soundscape with sound from offshore aquaculture, vessel sound and military mid-frequency active sonar. During one recorded mid-frequency active sonar event in August 2011, sound pressure levels in the 3.15 kHz 1/3rd-octave band were as high as 45.8 dB above median ambient noise levels. Human activity both inside (vessels) and outside (sonar and aquaculture) the bays significantly altered the resting bay soundscape. Inside the bays there are high levels of human activity including vessel-based tourism directly targeting the dolphins. The interactions between humans and dolphins in their resting bays are of concern; therefore, my third chapter aimed to assess the acoustic response of the dolphins to human activity. Using days where acoustic recordings overlapped with visual surveys I found the greatest response in a bay with dolphin-centric activities, not in the bay with the most vessel activity, indicating that it is not the magnitude that elicits a response but the focus of the activity. In my fourth chapter I summarize the key results from my first three chapters to illustrate the power of multiple site design to prioritize action to protect Hawaiian spinner dolphins in their resting bays, a chapter I hope will be useful for managers should they take further action to protect the dolphins.

A three-dimensional representation method for noisy point clouds based on growing self-organizing maps accelerated on GPUs

The research described in this thesis was motivated by the need of a robust model capable of representing 3D data obtained with 3D sensors, which are inherently noisy. In addition, time constraints have to be considered as these sensors are capable of providing a 3D data stream in real time. This thesis proposed the use of Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) as a 3D representation model. In particular, we proposed the use of the Growing Neural Gas (GNG) network, which has been successfully used for clustering, pattern recognition and topology representation of multi-dimensional data. Until now, Self-Organizing Maps have been primarily computed offline and their application in 3D data has mainly focused on free noise models, without considering time constraints. It is proposed a hardware implementation leveraging the computing power of modern GPUs, which takes advantage of a new paradigm coined as General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU). The proposed methods were applied to different problem and applications in the area of computer vision such as the recognition and localization of objects, visual surveillance or 3D reconstruction.

Ontologia do espaço : critica da critica da entificação social do ser enquanto pressuposto a uma teoria espacial interpenetrada a “ontologia do ser social”, de Gyorgy Lukacs

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Humanas, Departamento de Geografia, Programa de Pós Graduação em Geografia, 2015.

Whole-body cortisol increases after direct and visual contact with a predator in zebrafish, Danio rerio

Ornamental fish may be severely affected by a stressful environment. Stressors impair the immune response, reproduction and growth rate; thus, the identification of possible stressors will aid to improve the overall quality of ornamental fish. The aim of this study was to determine whole-body cortisol of adult zebrafish, Danio rerio, following visual or direct contact with a predator species. Zebrafish were distributed in three groups: the first group, which consisted of zebrafish reared completely isolated of the predator, was considered the negative control; the second group, in which the predator, Parachromis managuensis was stocked together with zebrafish, was considered the positive control; the third group consisted of zebrafish stocked in a glass aquarium, with direct visual contact with the predator. The mean whole-body cortisol concentration in zebrafish from the negative control was 6.78 +/- 1.12 ng g(-1), a concentration statistically lower than that found in zebrafish having visual contact with the predator (9.26 +/- 0.88 ng g(-1)) which, in turn, was statistically lower than the mean whole-body cortisol of the positive control group (12.35 +/- 1.59 ng g(-1)). The higher whole-body cortisol concentration found in fish from the positive control can be attributed to the detection, by the zebrafish, of relevant risk situations that may involve a combination of chemical, olfactory and visual cues. One of the functions of elevated cortisol is to mobilize energy from body resources to cope with stress. The elevation of whole-body cortisol in fish subjected to visual contact with the predator involves only the visual cue in the recognition of predation risk. We hypothesized that the zebrafish could recognize predator characteristics in P managuensis, such as length, shape, color and behavior. Nonetheless, the elevation of whole-body cortisol in zebrafish suggested that the visual contact of the predator may elicit a stress response in prey fish. This assertion has a strong practical application concerning the species distribution in ornamental fish markets in which prey species should not be allowed to see predator species. Minimizing visual contact between prey and predator fish may improve the quality, viability and welfare of small fish in ornamental fish markets. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Prevalencia de sintomatología musculoesqueléticade una empresa outsourcing operativa. Bogotá, Colombia, 2016

La prevalencia de sintomatología osteomuscular en los trabajadores va en aumento. La influencia de factores propios de la labor como la postura, los movimientos repetitivos, el tipo de remuneración y los factores sociodemográficos como la edad, el sexo y el índice de masa corporal pueden influir en la aparición temprana de sintomatología osteomuscular. Objetivo: Determinar la prevalencia de sintomatología musculoesquelética en trabajadores de una empresa Outsourcing operativa en la ciudad de Bogotá Colombia en el año 2016. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio de corte transversal para la estimación de la prevalencia de sintomatología musculoesquelética para lo cual se utilizó una fuente de datos secundaria de 323 trabajadores de una empresa Outsourcing operativa. Se tuvieron en cuenta las variables sociodemográficas y laborales. El análisis descriptivo incluyó el cálculo de la media y los porcentajes. El análisis comparativo se realizó por medio del Test Chi² con una significancia estadística p <0.05 para un intervalo de confianza del 95%. Por último se realizó un análisis de regresión logístico. Resultados: Del total de la población estudiada, la cual fue de 323 personas, el 55.4% de los trabajadores corresponde al sexo femenino y el 44.6% corresponde al sexo masculino. El promedio de edad fue de 30.34 años. El tiempo en el cargo que presentó mayor prevalencia fue entre 13 a 60 meses con un porcentaje de 60,7%. Para el estudio se incluyó la variable de tipo de remuneración con un porcentaje de 58.2% de pago por salario mínimo legal mensual vigente (SMLMV), mientras que el 41.8% de la población recibió pago por destajo. La prevalencia de sintomatología por segmentos en la población fue de 17.3% para espalda baja, el 12,1% para mano y muñeca, el 10.2% para piernas, el 7.7% para espalda alta, el 7,4% para cuello, el 7,1% para hombro, el 6.2% para brazos y antebrazos y el 2,5% para dedos. Se aplicó un modelo de regresión logístico, analizando variables de confusión e interacción, estas últimas no aportaron al modelo. Con la variable tipo de remuneración, se encontró una asociación estadística significativa (P= 0.005) con la sintomatología. Para las demás variables sociodemográficas y extra-laborales no se obtuvieron resultados estadísticamente significativos Conclusión: Teniendo en cuenta los resultados obtenidos en el estudio se encontró asociación estadísticamente significativa entre la sintomatología de los segmentos cuello y manos con la variable sociodemográfica (sexo) y la variable laboral (tipo de remuneración: Destajo). Para las demás variables no se encontró asociación. Se sugiere realizar programas de vigilancia epidemiológica para hacerle seguimiento a esta población y que permitan la prevención de enfermedades de origen laboral.

Human cysticercosis in Portugal: long gone or still contemporary?

Cysticercosis, a leading cause of acquired epilepsy in developing countries, has been controlled or eradicated in industrialized countries. This paradigm has recently been challenged, with human neurocysticercosis (NCC) being increasingly diagnosed in these countries. In order to assess the NCC burden in Portugal, a retrospective study on NCC hospitalizations (2006–2013) was conducted based on the national database on hospital morbidity: 357 hospitalized cases were detected. NCC was most frequent in the following age groups: 20–64 years (n = 197, 55·2%) >64 years (n = 111, 31·1%), and <20 years (n = 49, 13·7%). In the Norte and Centro regions cases tended to be older than in the Lisboa and Vale do Tejo Region. The results raise concerns for imported and autochthonous disease, suggesting the Lisboa and Vale do Tejo Region, due to its higher frequency of cases at younger ages, as a priority for research and intervention, and further suggest that NCC should be under surveillance (notifiable). The National Observatory of Cysticercosis and Taeniasis has been established and will define NCC cases as well as monitoring and surveillance.

A SOCIO-HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF CONTENT AND SCTRUCTURE OF THE TEACHING ACTIVITY

ABSTRACT: This text reports an analysis of teaching activity with basis in the category of human activity. Refers to a theoretical research that focuses the essential nexus generators of objectification of educational practice both in the material aspect as the ideal. It is assumed that this practice, in dialectical unity between those aspects, constitutes in the material relations of social life, is structured and institutionalized as universal model of education (ideally) and becomes the main determinant of teacher performance. Methodologically, this study analyzes the educational practice in the totality of its relations.Therefore, the actions and operations of teaching, as well as, the reason and  purposes that moved and guide this activity are determined by the objective conditions current of the school and the effects generated by the position of the teacher in these relations as an active subject. The guiding worry of this research focuses on the characterization of teaching activity in educational performance: in its accomplishment. When to investigate the evidence of these connections is necessary to reflect on the correlative links between the structural elements of the teaching activity and the natural practice of teachers under the determinations derived from the first. This reflection, arise the need to investigate the process of appropriation of the activity by the teacher. Thereby, concludes that the teacher not only appropriates the specific knowledge of the disciplines that teaches and the means of education which is available in their educational practice, but also the elements that structure their activity. This evinced the importance of investigations that worry with: the significance of the purpose of education for the teacher; the necessities that move in your performance; the meaning of your activity; among others. In addition to the responses of teachers is necessary to analyze what the content and the origin of appropriation. KEYWORDS: Teacher; Teaching activity; Educational practice.   

Research Monograph: The role of community and lifestyle in the making of a knowledge city

Our brief is to investigate the role of community and lifestyle in the making of a globally successful knowledge city region. Our approach is essentially pragmatic. We start by broadly examining knowledge-based urban development from a number of different perspectives. The first view is historical. In this context knowledge work and knowledge workers are seen as vital parts of a new emergent mode of production reliant on the continual production of abstract knowledge. We briefly develop this perspective to encompass the work of Richard Florida who has, notedly, claimed: “Wherever talent goes, innovation, creativity, and economic growth are sure to follow.” Our next perspective examines concepts of knowledge and modes of its production to discover knowledge is not an unchanging object but a human activity that changes in form and content through history. The suggestion emerges that not only is the production of contemporary ‘knowledge’ organised in a specific (and new) manner but also the output of this networked production is a particular type of knowledge (i.e. techné). The third perspective locates knowledge production and its workers in the contemporary urban context. As such, it co-ordinates the knowledge city in the increasingly global structure of cities and develops a typology of different groups of knowledge workers in their preferred urban environment(s). We see emerging here a distinctive geography of knowledge production. It is an urban phenomenon. There is, in short, something about the nature of cities that knowledge workers find particularly attractive. In the next, essentially anthropological, perspective we start to explore the needs and desires of the individual knowledge worker. Beyond the needs basic to any modern human household an attempt is made to deduce, from a base understanding of knowledge work as mental labour, the compensatory cultural needs of the knowledge worker when not at work - and the expression of these needs in the urban fabric. Our final perspective consists of two case studies. In a review of the experiences of Austin, Texas and Singapore’s one-north precinct we collect empirical data on, respectively, a knowledge city that has sustained itself for over 50 years and an urban precinct newly launched into the global market for knowledge work and knowledge workers. Interwoven The Role of Community and Lifestyle in the Making of a Knowledge City Urban Research Program 8 through all perspectives, in the form of apposite citation, is that of ‘expert opinion’ gathered in a rudimentary poll of academic and industry sources. This opinion appears in text boxes while details of the survey can be found in Appendix A. In the conclusion of the report we interpret the wide range of evidence gathered above in a policy frame. It is our hope this report will leave the reader with a clearer picture of the decisive organisational, infrastructural, aesthetic and social dimensions of a knowledge precinct.

Listening to nature : techniques for large-scale monitoring of ecosystems using acoustics

Climate change and human activity are subjecting the environment to unprecedented rates of change. Monitoring these changes is an immense task that demands new levels of automated monitoring and analysis. We propose the use of acoustics as a proxy for the time consuming auditing of fauna, especially for determining the presence/absence of species. Acoustic monitoring is deceptively simple; seemingly all that is required is a sound recorder. However there are many major challenges if acoustics are to be used for large scale monitoring of ecosystems. Key issues are scalability and automation. This paper discusses our approach to this important research problem. Our work is being undertaken in collaboration with ecologists interested both in identifying particular species and in general ecosystem health.

Uncertainty budget in the measurement of typical airborne number, surface area and mass particle distributions

The effects of particulate matter on environment and public health have been widely studied in recent years. A number of studies in the medical field have tried to identify the specific effect on human health of particulate exposure, but agreement amongst these studies on the relative importance of the particles’ size and its origin with respect to health effects is still lacking. Nevertheless, air quality standards are moving, as the epidemiological attention, towards greater focus on the smaller particles. Current air quality standards only regulate the mass of particulate matter less than 10 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM10) and less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5). The most reliable method used in measuring Total Suspended Particles (TSP), PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 is the gravimetric method since it directly measures PM concentration, guaranteeing an effective traceability to international standards. This technique however, neglects the possibility to correlate short term intra-day variations of atmospheric parameters that can influence ambient particle concentration and size distribution (emission strengths of particle sources, temperature, relative humidity, wind direction and speed and mixing height) as well as human activity patterns that may also vary over time periods considerably shorter than 24 hours. A continuous method to measure the number size distribution and total number concentration in the range 0.014 – 20 μm is the tandem system constituted by a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) and an Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS). In this paper, an uncertainty budget model of the measurement of airborne particle number, surface area and mass size distributions is proposed and applied for several typical aerosol size distributions. The estimation of such an uncertainty budget presents several difficulties due to i) the complexity of the measurement chain, ii) the fact that SMPS and APS can properly guarantee the traceability to the International System of Measurements only in terms of number concentration. In fact, the surface area and mass concentration must be estimated on the basis of separately determined average density and particle morphology. Keywords: SMPS-APS tandem system, gravimetric reference method, uncertainty budget, ultrafine particles.

Hypercapitalism : an investigation into the relationship between language, new media, and social perceptions of value

Overall, this thesis purports to make two significant contributions to knowledge. The first is a foundational critique of political economy in the context of an emergent global knowledge economy. The second is a method for analysing evaluations in language. The relationships that give coherence to those two contributions are as follows. The widely-heralded emergence of a knowledge economy indicates that more intimate aspects of human activity have become exposed to commodification on a massive scale, specifically, activities associated with thought and language. Correspondingly, more abstract forms of value have developed as the products of thought and language have become dominant commodity forms. Historical investigation shows that value has moved from an objective category in political economy, pertaining to such substances as precious metals and land, to become situated today predominantly in “expert” expressions of language, or more precisely, their institutional contexts of production. These are now propagated and circulated on a global scale. Legal, political, and technological developments are key in the development of new, more abstract forms of labour and value, although the relationships connecting these are neither simple nor direct. They are, however, inseparably related in the trajectories that this thesis describes. Consequently they are dealt with inseparably throughout.

Mining robotics

Mining is the process of extracting mineral resources from the Earth for commercial value. It is an ancient human activity which can be traced back to Palaeolithic times (43 000 years ago), where for example the mineral hematite was mined to produce the red pigment ochre. The importance of many mined minerals is reflected in the names of the major milestones in human civilizations: the stone, copper, bronze, and iron ages. Much later coal provided the energy that was critical to the industrial revolution and still underpins modern society, creating 38% of world energy generation today. Ancient mines used human and later animal labor and broke rock using stone tools, heat, and water, and later iron tools. Today’s mines are heavily mechanized with large diesel and electrically powered vehicles, and rock is broken with explosives or rock cutting machines.

Values, controversial issues and interfaith understanding

Values are fundamental to human activity. What makes us distinctive is our ability to understand the challenges we face in life, and to make choices about how to respond. Yet, as the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland observed, if we don’t care about how we make such choices, the outcome of our decision-making is diminished. Values education is a broad, complex and controversial area, and, while it has shifted in emphasis and focus, it continues to be an essential part of many education systems. For example, some international education systems are exploring the links between values education and student wellbeing. In Australia, the values basis for ethical behaviour is receiving emphasis as a general capability, or important component of education, that can be developed across the curriculum. Indeed, some syllabus and policy documents require that particular values are emphasised, while numerous schools aim to inculcate and foster a range of personal social, moral and spiritual values in their students, many of which are shared by members of the wider community. However, because values are also contested in the community, values education involves the exploration of controversial issues. Similarly, values education explores the underlying belief systems of different world views and how they influence value commitments, ways of behaving, and interfaith understanding in today’s globalised world. This chapter explores the significance and teaching possibilities of values, controversial issues and interfaith understanding.