Functional imaging of numerical processing in adults and 4-y-old children.

Adult humans, infants, pre-school children, and non-human animals appear to share a system of approximate numerical processing for non-symbolic stimuli such as arrays of dots or sequences of tones. Behavioral studies of adult humans implicate a link between these non-symbolic numerical abilities and symbolic numerical processing (e.g., similar distance effects in accuracy and reaction-time for arrays of dots and Arabic numerals). However, neuroimaging studies have remained inconclusive on the neural basis of this link. The intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is known to respond selectively to symbolic numerical stimuli such as Arabic numerals. Recent studies, however, have arrived at conflicting conclusions regarding the role of the IPS in processing non-symbolic, numerosity arrays in adulthood, and very little is known about the brain basis of numerical processing early in development. Addressing the question of whether there is an early-developing neural basis for abstract numerical processing is essential for understanding the cognitive origins of our uniquely human capacity for math and science. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 4-Tesla and an event-related fMRI adaptation paradigm, we found that adults showed a greater IPS response to visual arrays that deviated from standard stimuli in their number of elements, than to stimuli that deviated in local element shape. These results support previous claims that there is a neurophysiological link between non-symbolic and symbolic numerical processing in adulthood. In parallel, we tested 4-y-old children with the same fMRI adaptation paradigm as adults to determine whether the neural locus of non-symbolic numerical activity in adults shows continuity in function over development. We found that the IPS responded to numerical deviants similarly in 4-y-old children and adults. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that the neural locus of adult numerical cognition takes form early in development, prior to sophisticated symbolic numerical experience. More broadly, this is also, to our knowledge, the first cognitive fMRI study to test healthy children as young as 4 y, providing new insights into the neurophysiology of human cognitive development.

Tullis Rennie's Muscle Memory: Listening to the Act of Listening

This paper explores a recent, broadly 'electroacoustic', fixed medium composition by Tullis Rennie, which uses his background in ethnographic fieldwork to explore (in this case through auto-ethnography) modes of listening, and the role of technologies in mediating this listening. Muscle Memory: A conversation about jazz, with Graham South (trumpet) (2014) begins to answer questions about how one work can comment on and analyse or critique another through its own agency as music, bringing composition and ethnography together in fruitful collision, and illuminating the human capacity to manipulate and be manipulated by musical activity. The paper uses the piece to test the extent to which four functions, identified by Simon Frith (1987. Towards an aesthetic of popular music. In R. Leppert & S. McClary (Eds.), Music and society (pp. 133-49). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) as crucial to the meaningfulness of popular music may, in the context of ubiquitously technologised music, have broader application than he originally intended.

Análise do risco de incêndios urbanos do município de Maputo em Moçambique

Tese de doutoramento, Território, Risco e Politícas Públicas, Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território, Universidade de Aveiro, 2015

Équité d’utilisation des services de santé et de disponibilité des ressources en matière de santé dans la province de Québec

Objectif : L’objectif général de cette étude est de comprendre en quoi l’utilisation des services de santé et de disponibilité des ressources en santé au Québec sont équitables. Méthodes : De type transversal et corrélationnel, cette étude intéresse les 95 territoires CSSS du Québec, et couvre les années 2006-2007 et 2008-2009. L’indice de défavorisation matérielle et sociale de Pampalon est mis en lien avec deux séries de variables, soit celles d’utilisation des services par CSSS (services hospitaliers; services médicaux; services CLSC) et celles de disponibilité des ressources (capacité financière; capacité matérielle, capacité humaine; viabilité). Pour ce faire, des analyses de variance ont été effectuées. Le modèle intégrateur de la performance des services de santé EGIPSS et celui de l’utilisation des services de santé de Donabedian servent de cadre d’analyse. Résultats : L’utilisation des services de santé est équitable en ce qui concerne la défavorisation matérielle, mais pas en ce qui a trait à la défavorisation sociale. L’utilisation des services médicaux dispensés par les omnipraticiens est plus élevée chez les populations les plus favorisées socialement comparativement aux populations les plus défavorisées. Toutefois, l’utilisation des médecins spécialistes est plus équitable que celle des omnipraticiens, cela, chez les populations défavorisées autant matériellement que socialement. Les hospitalisations évitables sont plus élevées chez les populations les défavorisées socialement comparativement aux populations les plus favorisées. En termes de disponibilité des ressources, les populations défavorisées disposent de plus de ressources que les plus favorisées, sauf en ce qui concerne la répartition du personnel. Conclusion : En général, il existe très peu d’iniquités dans l’utilisation des services de santé au Québec. Par ailleurs, la disponibilité des ressources en santé est relativement équitable au Québec, exception faite de la disponibilité du personnel.

A review of climate risk information for adaptation and development planning

Although the use of climate scenarios for impact assessment has grown steadily since the 1990s, uptake of such information for adaptation is lagging by nearly a decade in terms of scientific output. Nonetheless, integration of climate risk information in development planning is now a priority for donor agencies because of the need to prepare for climate change impacts across different sectors and countries. This urgency stems from concerns that progress made against Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) could be threatened by anthropogenic climate change beyond 2015. Up to this time the human signal, though detectable and growing, will be a relatively small component of climate variability and change. This implies the need for a twin-track approach: on the one hand, vulnerability assessments of social and economic strategies for coping with present climate extremes and variability, and, on the other hand, development of climate forecast tools and scenarios to evaluate sector-specific, incremental changes in risk over the next few decades. This review starts by describing the climate outlook for the next couple of decades and the implications for adaptation assessments. We then review ways in which climate risk information is already being used in adaptation assessments and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of three groups of techniques. Next we identify knowledge gaps and opportunities for improving the production and uptake of climate risk information for the 2020s. We assert that climate change scenarios can meet some, but not all, of the needs of adaptation planning. Even then, the choice of scenario technique must be matched to the intended application, taking into account local constraints of time, resources, human capacity and supporting infrastructure. We also show that much greater attention should be given to improving and critiquing models used for climate impact assessment, as standard practice. Finally, we highlight the over-arching need for the scientific community to provide more information and guidance on adapting to the risks of climate variability and change over nearer time horizons (i.e. the 2020s). Although the focus of the review is on information provision and uptake in developing regions, it is clear that many developed countries are facing the same challenges. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society

Justice, community, and dialogue in international relations

This book is concerned with the issue of cultural diversity and international morality. The author asks whether cultural diversity presents an obstacle to the development of ethical codes which could be acceptable to cultures around the world. He argues that the human capacity to engage in conversation and the ability to understand each other despite linguistic and cultural differences can provide the basis for the development of a world-wide, cosmopolitan moral community. Conversation can be a moral act, in which participants treat each other as equals despite their differences.

Mirjana Lozanovska. Deakin University

Creativity can be related to the human capacity to make, but with more emphasis on the process of making and the way the thing made reveals this. Creativity can also be related to production or objects that involve beauty, innovation, pleasure and ideas beyond the functional, rational and economic. Creativity can thus be associated with the human subject and/ or the object produced. The subject and object of creativity are sometimes entwined, and often represented as symbiotic in relation to artists and artistic production. In the seminal text Keywords, Raymond Williams (1976: 76) explains the historical associations between the words 'create' and 'creation' and the 'divine'; and later associations with the poet's and the artist's productions, leading eventually to the 'creative arts: However, the subject and object of creativity are not the same, as illustrated in the study of archaeological artefacts, where often the human subject (maker) is unknown. It is important they are not merged, and in this text I will try to respond to each part.

Different clinical courses of children exposed to a single incident of psychological trauma: a 30-month prospective follow-up study

We investigated the distinct longitudinal trajectories of posttraumatic stress symptoms in a sample of 167 children, who witnessed death of two mothers of their schoolmates.

A Geração de inovação na carcinicultura do RN: Uma análise a partir da imersão social

This dissertation examines the organizational innovation as a nonlinear process, which occurs in a social and political context and, therefore, socially immersed. Examines the case of shrimp in the state of RN, starting from the following problem: although the norteriograndense shrimp occupies the largest producer of farmed shrimp from Brazil, has a series of bottlenecks concerning the generation of industry innovation, concerning the social relationships and policies between the various actors in the network, whether private or public, and its consequences in terms of opportunity and limits generated for the innovative dynamics. The objective of the research is to understand how the social embeddedness of political actors affects norteriograndense shrimp within the context of structural relations, the industry generation of innovation, throughout its technological trajectory . The approach of social embeddedness balances atomised perspectives, undersocialized and oversocialized, of economic action, considering both the human capacity to act as sources of constraint, whose mechanisms are analyzed the structural and political. In methodological terms this is a case study, analyzed from the research literature, documentary and experimental. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed in depth by the technique of content analysis. Was adopted a longitudinal approach, seeking to understand the phenomenon from the perspective of the subjects, describing it in an inductive process of investigation. After characterizing the sector and defining their technological trajectory, the analysis of the results followed its four stages: (1) Introduction of Technology: 1973-1980, (2) Intensification of Research: 1981-1991, (3) Technological Adaptation, 1992 -2003, (4) Technological Crisis: 2004-2009. A cross-sectional analysis along the evolutionary trajectory revealed the character of structural changes and policies over time, and implications on the generating process of innovation. Note that, the technological limit to which the sector reached requires changes in technology standards, but is more likely that the potiguar shrimp is entering a new phase of his career in technology rather than a new technological paradigm

Nas asas de Ícaro: uma análise da Pedagogia Freinet do 2º ao 5º ano do Ensino Fundamental na perspectiva da ação docente continuada

Célestin Freinet was one of the most memorable educators of the twentieth century. He presented some educational alternatives that had the objective of stimulating the construction of pedagogic actions to promote the social development of the student based upon a work centered on the free expression as the way to self-structure the knowledge. With a permanent proposal of research based on the enquiry-based learning, Freinet set human capacity (cognitive, social-affective, psychometrical) taking cooperation in consideration on the processes of knowledge construction. Based on this referential, this present work has the objective to show Freinet s pedagogy in a continuous teaching action from 2nd to 5th grade focusing the teacher s discourse and also the educative practice of the students of a city public school in Natal. The observed work revealed the teacher s discourse and educative experience and delineated the students development while immersed into Freinet s educational practice. By virtue of the nature and specificity of the theme that guided our research, we chose a qualitative approach to it, as a way of conducting ourselves during our investigative process. We observed and analyzed the method that was used to conduct the activities in the classroom, as well as the ways of expression that the children used through drawings, words (oral text), or through writing. We highlight, among the written texts, the individual and collective texts, and also letters and notes, which during some moments served as a base to express a diversity of languages. The results, after a analyzing the research data, point towards a teaching practice that favors the construction of a significant learning process through the grasping of the school environment, on which all these factors are based: society, knowledge acquisition, abilities, attitudes and values. This learning process also strengthens human solidarity bonds and mutual tolerance, on which the student s social life is seated.

Sensibilidade interoceptiva e respostas psicofisiológicas ao exercício submaximo

The complex human behavior related to exercise involves cognitive, physical and emotional processing. The recent theories about exercise s intensity regulation have highlighted the role played by psychophysics aspects in controlling exercise s intensity. In this regard, recent evidences have shown that there is variability in human capacity in perceiving interoceptives clues. Thus, subjects more sensitive show higher physiological arousal to physical and/or emotional stress, and sensations with higher intensity. In fact, studies have evidenced that interoceptive feedback modifies behavior in exercise with free load. However, exercise recommendations are based in a constant load standard. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the influence of interoceptive sensibility on psychophysics responses during dynamic exercise performed with constant load. Twenty-four adult males were allocated into two groups accordingly with their interoceptive sensibility: high sensibility (n=11) and low sensibility (13). They underwent to an incremental test (IT) and then randomly to two sections of moderate and severe exercise intensity for 20 minutes. Heart rate (HR), rating of perceived exertion (RPE), affective feelings (AF), alert state (AS), and percentage of associative thoughts were collect during exercise. A two-way ANOVA with repeated measures was used to assess differences between psychophysics responses. There were differences between group in RPE, AF, and AS in moderate intensity. There was no difference in any measure in severe intensity. We conclude that subjects with high interoceptive sensibility feel dynamic moderate exercise more intense than the subjecs with low interoceptive sensibility

Information and communication technologies for disaster risk management in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography.

Um mundo radicalmente melhor: criatividade, colaboração e padrão de redes como estratégias para o desenvolvimento sustentável

There are substantial evidences that the period experienced by humanity globally is unprecedented and is heading towards a major transformation that results from the Globalization. Totally conditioned to the addictions of the dominant and predatory capitalism, humanity has, for decades, exhausted natural resources, disregarded the nature of its own social existence and walked away from its humanity. It is notable, however, an impressive flow of factors that dialogue and support each other as trends that go towards sustainable development, based on the harmonious integration between Technology, Culture, Society, Environment and Economy. This emerging moment can be seen from the perspectives of the Creative Economy as economic paradigm centered on the subjectivity and the human capacity to undertake innovative services, products and solutions guided by social values. Within this fluid and dynamic global context, initiatives that legitimately intend to act sustainably are gaining space. This socioeconomic moment fosters and is fostered by new kinds of work and organization guided by the Collaboration and social structuring on Network Patterns. These new social models significantly transform the understanding and insights about the Communication flows. The HUB São Paulo, as creative and social organization that operates under the logic of Collaboration through a Network Structure, was the subject of a case study used to sustain the defense of this emerging scenario and also to perform an analysis on the new role of Communication, at perspectives of transformation of mental paradigms towards sustainability and establishment of meaningful connections

Argumentation and artifacts for intelligent multi-agent systems

Reasoning under uncertainty is a human capacity that in software system is necessary and often hidden. Argumentation theory and logic make explicit non-monotonic information in order to enable automatic forms of reasoning under uncertainty. In human organization Distributed Cognition and Activity Theory explain how artifacts are fundamental in all cognitive process. Then, in this thesis we search to understand the use of cognitive artifacts in an new argumentation framework for an agent-based artificial society.

Disruption of right prefrontal cortex by low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation induces risk-taking behavior

Decisions require careful weighing of the risks and benefits associated with a choice. Some people need to be offered large rewards to balance even minimal risks, whereas others take great risks in the hope for an only minimal benefit. We show here that risk-taking is a modifiable behavior that depends on right hemisphere prefrontal activity. We used low-frequency, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to transiently disrupt left or right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) function before applying a well known gambling paradigm that provides a measure of decision-making under risk. Individuals displayed significantly riskier decision-making after disruption of the right, but not the left, DLPFC. Our findings suggest that the right DLPFC plays a crucial role in the suppression of superficially seductive options. This confirms the asymmetric role of the prefrontal cortex in decision-making and reveals that this fundamental human capacity can be manipulated in normal subjects through cortical stimulation. The ability to modify risk-taking behavior may be translated into therapeutic interventions for disorders such as drug abuse or pathological gambling.