[the Perception Of Behavior Related To Mindfulness And The Brazilian Version Of The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory].

Mindfulness is a practice and a form of consciousness which has been the basis for innovative interventions in care and health promotion. This study presents mindfulness, describes and discusses the process of cultural adaptation of The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) to Brazilian Portuguese. From the original version of this pioneering instrument for assessing mindfulness two translations and two back-translations were made. These were evaluated by a committee of 14 experts (Buddhists, linguists, health professionals), who helped to create two versions for the first pre-test, based on which suggestions were made by a sample of 41 people of the population through interviews. Considering the difficulties in understanding the concepts that are unfamiliar to the Brazilian culture, a new version was prepared with additional explanations, which underwent a further evaluation of the experts and a second pre-test with 72 people. This process aimed at addressing the limitations and challenges of evaluating mindfulness in a country of western culture through a self-report instrument based on Buddhist psychology. With appropriate levels of clarity and equivalence with the original instrument, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory adapted for Brazil is presented.

[maternal Perception Regarding Hospitalized Newborns].

Cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in the neonatal unit of a public teaching hospital in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, which aimed to determine the perceptions of mothers about their newborns hospitalized children. The sample consisted of 100 women questioned, through the Neonatal Perception Inventory Broussard, about how much trouble was expected to be presented by babies of the general unit, on behaviors such as crying; feeding; regurgitate or vomit; evacuate; sleep and have a routine. Then, the same questions were repeated about their own babies. Ninety mothers considered their children with fewer difficulties than other babies at the unit. Younger women and mothers of infants with higher weights tended to consider their children with more difficulty. The Inventory is easy to apply and may be useful in the evaluation of mother-child interaction, although its result cannot be considered in isolation.

Validação da Body Appreciation Scale (BAS), Life Satisfaction Index for the Third Age (LSITA) e do Aging Perception Questionnaire (APQ) para a língua portuguesa no Brasil : um estudo em idosos brasileiros

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Self-perception and malocclusion and their relation to oral appearance and function

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between malocclusion and self-perception of oral appearance/function, in 12/15-year-old Brazilian adolescents. The cluster sample consisted of 717 teenagers attending 24 urban public (n=611) and 5 rural public (n=107) schools in Maringá/PR. Malocclusion was measured using the Dental Aesthetic Index (DAI), in accordance with WHO recommendations. A parental questionnaire was applied to collect information on esthetic perception level and oral variables related to oral health. Univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed. Multiple logistic regression confirmed that for 12-year-old, missing teeth (OR=2.865) and presence of openbite (open occlusal relationship) (OR=2.865) were risk indicators for speech capability. With regard to 15-year-old, presence of mandibular overjet (horizontal overlap) (OR=4.016) was a risk indicator for speech capability and molar relationship (OR=1.661) was a risk indicator for chewing capability. The impact of malocclusion on adolescents' life was confirmed in this study. Speech and chewing capability were associated with orthodontic deviations, which should be taken into consideration in oral health planning, to identify risk groups and improve community health services.

Prótese implantável de condução óssea (BAHA): relato de caso

INTRODUÇÃO: A Prótese Implantável de Condução Óssea (BAHA) consiste em uma excelente opção na reabilitação auditiva de pacientes com perda auditiva condutiva e mista uni ou bilateral, e sensorioneural unilateral. Tem sido uma alternativa vantajosa sobre os aparelhos de condução óssea convencionais e os aparelhos de amplificação sonora individuais (AASI) quando o uso dos mesmos fica impossibilitado pela presença de otite externa crônica de difícil controle clínico. OBJETIVO: Apresentar o primeiro caso de BAHA realizado no Brasil, após a autorização da ANVISA, para a reabilitação da perda auditiva mista com episódios de otite externa crônica. MÉTODO: Paciente do sexo feminino, 50 anos, com perda auditiva de grau moderado à direita e severo à esquerda, zumbido bilateral, decorrente de otosclerose, submetida a quatro cirurgias de estapedotomia e com impossibilidade de uso de AASI devido a otorreia e otalgia bilateral. A avaliação médica e audiológica indicaram o benefício do BAHA. Realizada a cirurgia e implantação do sistema BAHA, a paciente apresentou melhora significativa nos limiares audiométricos, na percepção e discriminação da fala, além de relatar extrema satisfação relacionada ao fator estético. COMENTÁRIOS FINAIS: O processo cirúrgico do BAHA é seguro, simples e rápido, proporcionando excelentes resultados audiológicos e alto grau de satisfação por parte dos pacientes.

Perception of difficulties with vision-related activities of daily living among patients undergoing unilateral posterior capsulotomy

OBJECTIVES: To assess the influence of Nd:YAG (neodymium: yttrium-aluminum- garnet) laser unilateral posterior capsulotomy on visual acuity and patients' perception of difficulties with vision-related activities of daily life. METHODS: We conducted an interventional survey that included 48 patients between 40 and 80 years of age with uni- or bilateral pseudophakia, posterior capsule opacification, and visual acuity <0.30 (logMAR) in one eye who were seen at a Brazilian university hospital. All patients underwent posterior capsulotomy using an Nd:YAG laser. Before and after the intervention, patients were asked to complete a questionnaire that was developed in an exploratory study. RESULTS: Before posterior capsulotomy, the median visual acuity (logMAR) of the included patients was 0.52 (range 0.30-1.60). After posterior capsulotomy, the median visual acuity of the included patients improved to 0.10 (range 0.0-0.52). According to the subjects' perceptions, their ability to perform most of their daily life activities improved after the intervention (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: After patients underwent posterior capsulotomy with an Nd:YAG laser, a significant improvement in the visual acuity of the treated eye was observed. Additionally, subjects felt that they experienced less difficulty performing most of their vision-dependent activities of daily living.

Dweller perception using fuzzy logic for slum upgrading

A large number of initiatives in cities in Brazil - including slum clearance and upgrading - have been undertaken over the years in an effort to ameliorate the problems arising from informal occupation; unfortunately, however, little is known about the related performance outcomes. Careful appraisal of the results of such initiatives is thus called for, covering evaluations of dwellers` perceptions of the upgraded environments. Among the available evaluation methods, post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is commonly employed, although it fails adequately to reflect prevailing subjective concepts of quality. The present paper contains the partial findings of a research exercise aimed at developing an original method, using fuzzy logic, for urban environmental quality evaluation in informally occupied areas on the basis of combining quantitative indicators and dweller perception. It combines POE with fuzzy logic in order to develop tools that can better model the uncertain information that emerges from that kind of study. This paper aims to introduce an uncertainty measure used in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of slum upgrading projects. The results show that it is possible to quantify certainty degrees in the findings and to define if additional information is needed.

Letters and cities: reading the urban environment with the help of perception theories

When wandering around a city such as Sao Paulo, we are surrounded by letters, numbers and symbols. These elements form part of an environment full of signs in many shapes and sizes that compete for our attention. Our perception of these elements contributes towards our spatial guidance and sense of place. The idea of `reading` the city, or urban environment, was introduced by Kevin Lynch, for whom reading the urban structure follows on from recognizing or identifying its numerous visual elements, not necessarily verbal ones. Beginning with a brief bibliographic review of perception theories, this article combines concepts from environmental psychology with concerns brought up by the fields of information design and epigraphy studies, setting out the basis of a methodological proposal for the study of typography and lettering in the urban environment.

Expertise and the perception of kinematic and situational probability information

Two experiments were conducted on the nature of expert perception in the sport of squash. In the first experiment, ten expert and fifteen novice players attempted to predict the direction and force of squash strokes from either a film display (occluded at variable time periods before and after the opposing player had struck the ball) or a matched point-light display (containing only the basic kinematic features of the opponent's movement pattern). Experts outperformed the novices under both display conditions, and the same basic time windows that characterised expert and novice pick-up of information in the film task also persisted in the point-light task. This suggests that the experts' perceptual advantage is directly related to their superior pick-up of essential kinematic information. In the second experiment, the vision of six expert and six less skilled players was occluded by remotely triggered liquid-crystal spectacles at quasi-random intervals during simulated match play. Players were required to complete their current stroke even when the display was occluded and their prediction performance was assessed with respect to whether they moved to the correct half of the court to match the direction and depth of the opponent's stroke. Consistent with experiment 1, experts were found to be superior in their advance pick-up of both directional and depth information when the display was occluded during the opponent's hitting action. However, experts also remained better than chance, and clearly superior to less skilled players, in their prediction performance under conditions where occlusion occurred before any significant pre-contact preparatory movement by the opposing player was visible. This additional source of expert superiority is attributable to their superior attunement to the information contained in the situational probabilities and sequential dependences within their opponent's pattern of play.

Hitting a moving target: Perception and action in the timing of rapid interceptions

Different interceptive tasks and modes of interception (hitting or capturing) do not necessarily involve similar control processes. Control based on preprogramming of movement parameters is possible for actions with brief movement times but is now widely rejected; continuous perceptuomotor control models are preferred for all types of interception. The rejection of preprogrammed control and acceptance of continuous control is evaluated for the timing of rapidly executed, manual hitting actions. It is shown that a preprogrammed control model is capable of providing a convincing account of observed behavior patterns that avoids many of the arguments that have been raised against it. Prominent continuous perceptual control models are analyzed within a common framework and are shown to be interpretable as feedback control strategies. Although these models can explain observations of on-line adjustments to movement, they offer only post hoc explanations for observed behavior patterns in hitting tasks and are not directly supported by data. It is proposed that rapid manual hitting tasks make up a class of interceptions for which a preprogrammed strategy is adopted-a strategy that minimizes the role of visual feedback. Such a strategy is effective when the task demands a high degree of temporal accuracy.

Studies of Cognition and Emotion in Organisations: Attribution, Affective Events, Emotional Intelligence and Perception of Emotion

This article details the author’s attempts to improve understanding of organisational behaviour through investigation of the cognitive and affective processes that underlie attitudes and behaviour. To this end, the paper describes the author’s earlier work on the attribution theory of leadership and, more recently, in three areas of emotion research: affective events theory, emotional intelligence, and the effect of supervisors’ facial expression on employees’ perceptions of leader-member exchange quality. The paper summarises the author’s research on these topics, shows how they have contributed to furthering our understanding of organisational behaviour, suggests where research in these areas are going, and draws some conclusions for management practice.

The role of affect, fairness, and social perception in team member exchange

Accumulating evidence suggests that Team-member exchange (TMX) influences employee work attitudes and behaviours separately from the effects of leader-member exchange (LMX). In particular, little is known of the effect of LMX differentiation (in-group versus out-group) as a process of social exhange that can, in turn, affect TMX quality. To explore this phenomenon, this chapter presents a multi-level model of TMX in organizations, which incorporates LMX differentiation, team identification, team member affect at the individual level, and fairness of LMX differentiation and affective climate at the group-level. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our model for theory, research, and practice.

The influence of joint position on the dynamics of perception-action coupling

Six right-handed subjects performed rhythmic flexion and extension movements of the index finger in time with an auditory metronome. On each block of trials, the wrist of the response hand was placed in a extended, neutral or flexed position. In the flex-on-the-beat condition, subjects were instructed to coordinate maximum excursion in the direction of finger flexion with each beat of the metronome. In the extend-on-the-beat condition, subjects were instructed to coordinate maximum excursion in the direction of finger extension with each beat of the metronome. The frequency of the metronome was increased from 2.00 Hz to 3.75 Hz in 8 steps (8 s epochs) of 0.25 Hz. During trials prepared in the extend-on-the-beat pattern, all subjects exhibited transitions to either a flex-on-the-beat pattern or to phase wandering as the frequency of pacing was increased. The time at which these transitions occurred was reliably influenced by the position of the wrist. Four subjects exhibited qualitative departures from the flex-on-the-beat pattern at pacing frequencies that were greater than those at which the extend-on-the-beat pattern could be maintained. The lime at which these departures occurred was not influenced by the position of the wrist. These results are discussed with reference to the constraints imposed on the coordination dynamics by the intrinsic properties of the neuromuscular-skeletal system.

The Australian public's perception of genetically-engineered foods

This paper describes a recent Australian survey on attitudes to genetically-engineered foods. Initial results of the survey are discussed and presented in tabular form. While there is some acceptance of particular genetically-engineered products, the results show that responfdents did have concerns over the long-term health effects of eating genetically-engineered foods and the potential risk to the environment. Respondents clearly endorsed labelling of the products and government control of the technology.

Effects of preferred hand and sex on the perception of tactile simultaneity

The effects of handedness, sex and the influence of hand placement in extrapersonal space on temporal information processing was investigated by measuring thresholds for perceiving the simultaneity of pairs of tactile stimuli. Simultaneity thresholds of preferred right handed and left handed university students with left hemisphere speech representation were compared using unimanual and bimanual stimulation at three hand placements (midline, lateral and crossed). In unimanual conditions two fingers of one hand were stimulated (single hemisphere), whereas in the bimanual conditions one finger of each hand was stimulated (cross hemispheres). Bimanual minus unimanual thresholds provided an estimate of interhemisphere transmission time (IHTT) regardless of hand placement. The effects of hemispace varied with the type of stimulation. With unimanual stimulation, overall thresholds were longer at the midline placement, however, with bimanual stimulation, thresholds were longer when the hands were spatially separated (crossed and/or uncrossed). Left handers' IHTTs were 8 ms faster than those of right handers. IHTTs in males were faster than females with hands placed in lateral (by 10.8 ms) or crossed (by 9.8 ms) but not midline positions. It was concluded that the cerebral hemispheres are equally capable of discriminating temporal intervals, but that the left hemisphere predominates when there is uncertainty about location of stimulation.