Mundos pequenos, produção acadêmica e grafos de colaboração: um estudo de caso dos Enanpads

Utilizando a base de dados dos trabalhos publicados nos Enanpads realizados em 2002-04, este artigo focaliza a área de administração da informação para realizar um estudo exploratório sobre a formação de padrões nas estruturas de disseminação do conhecimento acadêmico no Brasil, apoiado nos conceitos oriundos da análise das redes sociais e conjugados com a base proveniente da teoria dos grafos e em recursos computacionais. Procurou-se mapear os fluxos de informações que possibilitam as trocas de conhecimento através das ligações existentes no meio acadêmico. Os resultados indicam a necessidade de ampliar e estreitar os laços entre os autores, notadamente os que possuem algum grau de centralidade local, no intuito de obter o fortalecimento das instituições de ensino, de forma a quebrar as resistências à produção conjunta entre elas, em detrimento do padrão de reprodução endógena detectado.

Facebook3d

INTRODUCTION With the advent of Web 2.0, social networking websites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn have become hugely popular. According to (Nilsen, 2009), social networking websites have global1 figures of almost 250 millions unique users among the top five2, with the time people spend on those networks increasing 63% between 2007 and 2008. Facebook alone saw a massive growth of 566% in number of minutes in the same period of time. Furthermore their appeal is clear, they enable users to easily form persistent networks of friends with whom they can interact and share content. Users then use those networks to keep in touch with their current friends and to reconnect with old friends. However, online social network services have rapidly evolved into highly complex systems which contain a large amount of personally salient information derived from large networks of friends. Since that information varies from simple links to music, photos and videos, users not only have to deal with the huge amount of data generated by them and their friends but also with the fact that it‟s composed of many different media forms. Users are presented with increasing challenges, especially as the number of friends on Facebook rises. An example of a problem is when a user performs a simple task like finding a specific friend in a group of 100 or more friends. In that case he would most likely have to go through several pages and make several clicks till he finds the one he is looking for. Another example is a user with more than 100 friends in which his friends make a status update or another action per day, resulting in 10 updates per hour to keep up. That is plausible, especially since the change in direction of Facebook to rival with Twitter, by encouraging users to update their status as they do on Twitter. As a result, to better present the web of information connected to a user the use of better visualizations is essential. The visualizations used nowadays on social networking sites haven‟t gone through major changes during their lifetimes. They have added more functionality and gave more tools to their users, but still the core of their visualization hasn‟t changed. The information is still presented in a flat way in lists/groups of text and images which can‟t show the extra connections pieces of information. Those extra connections can give new meaning and insights to the user, allowing him to more easily see if that content is important to him and the information related to it. However showing extra connections of information but still allowing the user to easily navigate through it and get the needed information with a quick glance is difficult. The use of color coding, clusters and shapes becomes then essential to attain that objective. But taking into consideration the advances in computer hardware in the last decade and the software platforms available today, there is the opportunity to take advantage of 3D. That opportunity comes in because we are at a phase were the hardware and the software available is ready for the use of 3D in the web. With the use of the extra dimension brought by 3D, visualizations can be constructed to show the content and its related information to the user at the same screen and in a clear way. Also it would allow a great deal of interactivity. Another opportunity to create better information‟s visualization presents itself in the form of the open APIs, specifically the ones made available by the social networking sites. Those APIs allow any developers to create their own applications or sites taking advantage of the huge amount of information there is on those networks. Specifically to this case, they open the door for the creation of new social network visualizations. Nevertheless, the third dimension is by itself not enough to create a better interface for a social networking website, there are some challenges to overcome. One of those challenges is to make the user understand what the system is doing during the interaction with the user. Even though that is important in 2D visualizations, it becomes essential in 3D due to the extra dimension. To overcome that challenge it‟s necessary the use of the principles of animations defined by the artists at Walt Disney Studios (Johnston, et al., 1995). By applying those principles in the development of the interface, the actions of the system in response to the user inputs became clear and understandable. Furthermore, a user study needs to be performed so the users‟ main goals and motivations, while navigating the social network, are revealed. Their goals and motivations are important in the construction of an interface that reflects the user expectations for the interface, but also helps in the development of appropriate metaphors. Those metaphors have an important role in the interface, because if correctly chosen they help the user understand the elements of the interface instead of making him memorize it. The last challenge is the use of 3D visualization on the web, since there have been several attempts to bring 3D into it, mainly with the various versions of VRML which were destined to failure due to the hardware limitations at the time. However, in the last couple of years there has been a movement to make the necessary tools to finally allow developers to use 3D in a useful way, using X3D or OpenGL but especially flash. This thesis argues that there is a need for a better social network visualization that shows all the dimensions of the information connected to the user and that allows him to move through it. But there are several characteristics the new visualization has to possess in order for it to present a real gain in usability to Facebook‟s users. The first quality is to have the friends at the core of its design, and the second to make use of the metaphor of circles of friends to separate users in groups taking into consideration the order of friendship. To achieve that several methods have to be used, from the use of 3D to get an extra dimension for presenting relevant information, to the use of direct manipulation to make the interface comprehensible, predictable and controllable. Moreover animation has to be use to make all the action on the screen perceptible to the user. Additionally, with the opportunity given by the 3D enabled hardware, the flash platform, through the use of the flash engine Papervision3D and the Facebook platform, all is in place to make the visualization possible. But even though it‟s all in place, there are challenges to overcome like making the system actions in 3D understandable to the user and creating correct metaphors that would allow the user to understand the information and options available to him. This thesis document is divided in six chapters, with Chapter 2 reviewing the literature relevant to the work described in this thesis. In Chapter 3 the design stage that resulted in the application presented in this thesis is described. In Chapter 4, the development stage, describing the architecture and the components that compose the application. In Chapter 5 the usability test process is explained and the results obtained through it are presented and analyzed. To finish, Chapter 6 presents the conclusions that were arrived in this thesis.

BlueFriends: measuring, analyzing and preventing social exclusion between elementary school students

Social exclusion is a relatively recent term, whose creation is attributed to René Lenoir(Lenoir, 1974). Its concept covers a remarkably wide range of social and economic problems, and can be triggered for various reasons: mentally and physically handicapped, abused children, delinquents, multi-problem households, asocial people, and other social “misfits” (Silver, 1995, pp. 63; Foucault, 1992). With an increasingly multi-cultural population, cultural and social inequalities rapidly ascend, bringing with them the need for educational restructuring. We are living in an evermore diverse world, and children need to be educated to be receptive to the different types of people around them, especially considering social and cultural aspects. It is with these goals that inclusive education has seen an increased trend in today’s academic environment, reminding us that even though children may be taught under the same roof, discriminatory practices might still happen. There are, however, a number of developed tools to assess the various dimensions of social networks. These are mostly based on questionnaires and interviews, which tend to be fastidious and don’t allow for longitudinal, large scale measurement. This thesis introduces BlueFriends, a Bluetooth-based measurement tool for social inclusion/exclusion on elementary school classes. The main goals behind the development of this tool were a) understanding how exclusion manifests in students’ behaviors, and b) motivating pro-social behaviors on children through the use of a persuasive technology. BlueFriends is a distributed application, comprised by an application running on several smartphones, a web-hosted database and a computer providing a visual representation of the data collected on a TV screen, attempting to influence children behaviors. The application makes use of the Bluetooth device present on each phone to continuously sample the RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indication) from other phones, storing the data locally on each phone. All of the stored data is collected, processed and then inserted into the database at the end of each day. At the beginning of each recess, children are reminded of how their behaviors affect others with the help of a visual display, which consists of interactions between dogs. This display illustrates every child’s best friends, as well as which colleagues they don’t interact with as much. Several tips encouraging social interaction and inclusiveness are displayed, inspiring children to change their behaviors towards the colleagues they spend less time with. This thesis documents the process of designing, deploying and analyzing the results of two field studies. On the first study, we assess how the current developed tools are inferior to our measuring tool by deploying a measurement only study, aimed at perceiving how much information can be obtained by the BlueFriends application and attempting to understand how exclusion manifests itself in the school environment. On the second study, we pile on the previous to try and motivate pro-social behaviors on students, with the use of visual cues and recommendations. Ultimately, we confirm that our measurement tool’s results were satisfying towards measuring and changing children’s behaviors, and conclude with our thoughts on possible future work, suggesting a number of possible extensions and improvements.

Ecology and conservation of bottlenose dolphins in Madeira Archipelago, Portugal

This study aimed to provide an insight on the ecology of the bottlenose dolphin population in Madeira archipelago. To achieve this, population structure; group dynamics, site-fidelity, residency and movement patterns within and out of the study area; survival and abundance estimates and spatial and temporal distribution and habitat preferences related to physiographic parameters using data collected between 2001-2011, were investigated. Photo-identification data analysis revealed strong evidences that bottlenose dolphins seen in the archipelago of Madeira belong to an open population with regular recruitment of new animals to the area. This population exhibited a typical fission-fusion society, in which short-term acquaintances prevail, with only a few long-lasting associations. Photo-identification methods demonstrated that there is a large variability in residency pattern, with resident, transient and migrant individuals. Only a small number of dolphins were found to be resident (4.3%). Social network diagram as well as SLAR analysis supported the existence of a mixed population of residents, migrants and transients. Mark-recapture methods estimated a high survival rate, within the range of other long-lived cetacean species. The resident community is composed of app. 180 individuals. In addition, around 400 dolphins of different residency patterns were found to use the south area of Madeira Island. Spatial distribution indicated that bottlenose dolphins were regularly found in shallow and closer to shore areas, suggesting the existence of biological processes influenced by bathymetry. Moreover, temporal patterns revealed no strong seasonal fluctuation in the presence of bottlenose dolphins in Madeira archipelago waters. Bottlenose dolphins are listed under the Annex II of the EU habitats Directive that requires the designation of Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) for this species; as such, the knowledge gained through this work can be used by governmental authorities to the establishment and management of areas for the conservation of bottlenose dolphin in Madeira archipelago.

Breadcrumbs: location and context aware mobile platform for story sharing

With the current proliferation of sensor equipped mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, location aware services are expanding beyond the mere efficiency and work related needs of users, evolving in order to incorporate fun, culture and the social life of users. Today people on the move have more and more connectivity and are expected to be able to communicate with their usual and familiar social networks. That means communications not only with their peers and colleagues, friends and family but also with unknown people that might share their interests, curiosities or happen to use the same social network. Through social networks, location aware blogging, cultural mobile applications relevant information is now available at specific geographical locations and open to feedback and conversations among friends as well as strangers. In fact, nowadays smartphone technologies aloud users to post and retrieve content while on the move, often relating to specific physical landmarks or locations, engaging and being engaged in conversations with strangers as much as their own social network. The use of such technologies and applications while on the move can often lead people to serendipitous discoveries and interactions. Throughout our thesis we are engaging on a two folded investigation: how can we foster and support serendipitous discoveries and what are the best interfaces for it? In fact, to read and write content while on the move is a cognitively intensive task. While the map serves the function of orienting the user, it also absorbs most of the user’s concentration. In order to address this kind of cognitive overload issue with Breadcrumbs we propose a 360 degrees interface that enables the user to find content around them by means of scanning the surrounding space with the mobile device. By using a loose metaphor of a periscope, harnessing the power of the smartphone sensors we designed an interactive interface capable of detecting content around the users and display it in the form of 2 dimensional bubbles which diameter depends on their distance from the users. Users will navigate the space in relation to the content that they are curious about, rather than in relation to the traditional geographical map. Through this model we envisage alleviating a certain cognitive overload generated by having to continuously confront a two dimensional map with the real three dimensional space surrounding the user, but also use the content as a navigational filter. Furthermore this alternative mean of navigating space might bring serendipitous discovery about places that user where not aware of or intending to reach. We hence conclude our thesis with the evaluation of the Breadcrumbs application and the comparison of the 360 degrees interface with a traditional 2 dimensional map displayed on the devise screen. Results from the evaluation are compiled in findings and insights for future use in designing and developing context aware mobile applications.

Escafandristas do tempo: narrativas de vida e regeneração da memória em São Rafael-RN

In the late 1970s, the semi-arid region of Rio Grande do Norte was the setting of Projeto Baixo-Açu whose highlight was the building of the dam Eng. Armando Ribeiro Gonçalves, designed to collect 2.4 billion cubic meters of water. Presumably, such an initiative would bring economic and social development for thousands of potiguares who suffered the hardships of drought. However, the dam would reach several cities in the region, reaching to cover one of them: São Rafael. As a result, the early years of the 1980s, nearby, a new town was built by DNOCS. This thesis aims to discuss how the population of São Rafael recalls this fact and reconstructs its history by speaking, writing and computing, after three decades. Based on the prospect moriniana method as a strategy, visits were made to the city of São Rafael and open interviews (individual and collective) with two groups of subjects: one composed of those who lived in their ancient homeland, and another, with young people who were born in the new city. Besides the reports of these subjects, they were observed the visual narratives presented by images, mostly photographic, available on a profile created for the city in the orkut social network. As sources for this study, they were also considered the dialogues between rafaelenses accessing the above profile. Having as a central observation by Edgar Morin about what does not regenerate, degenerates . This study is the central argument that the idea of orkut has performed, today, a dual and interdependent role: being a tool that promotes a collective intelligence through cooperation, exchange of ideas and reconstitution of visual and written narratives. Far from a frozen conception in a historical perspective, it has defended the thesis that orkut has regenerated, repaired, reproduced, restored, reorganized and renewed the memory and history of a city that has succumbed to the immensity of the waters of a dam for almost thirty years

Física estatística aplicada a sistemas sociais através do estudo de redes complexas

In this work a study of social networks based on analysis of family names is presented. A basic approach to the mathematical formalism of graphs is developed and then main theoretical models for complex networks are presented aiming to support the analysis of surnames networks models. These, in turn, are worked so as to be drawn leading quantities, such as aggregation coefficient, minimum average path length and connectivity distribution. Based on these quantities, it can be stated that surnames networks are an example of complex network, showing important features such as preferential attachment and small-world character

Análisis organizacional del Partido de la Democracia Social Brasileña en el Estado de San Pablo (1988-2006)

The article represents a theoretical and methodological approach to the analysis of organizational dynamics of political parties today, based on a study of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB) in the State of Sao Pãulo (period between 1988 to 2006). It is hypothesized that the structure and the institutional rules of a particular party, or even their election results, are insufficient to explain the inner workings, such as the role of party organization in the electoral system. An approach that articulates the relationship patterns, election results and posts held in the party, identified the factors that explain the political capital that circulated within the party and ensured its organizational dynamics over the period analyzed.

A Universidade Aberta a Terceira Idade e as redes de apoio afetivo e social do idoso

Pós-graduação em Educação - FFC

Circulação de crianças: o olhar do cuidador sobre o desenvolvimento emocional

O presente estudo teve como objetivo compreender a forma como cuidadores, pais e/ou responsáveis, compreendem o desenvolvimento emocional no contexto de circulação de crianças. Para tanto, embasou-se na teoria psicodinâmica sobre o desenvolvimento emocional, cuidador (es) e circulação de crianças.Utilizou-se o método qualitativo, no intuito de capturar dados e informações sobre o fenômeno estudado em sua singularidade (MINAYO, 2010). A dimensão interdisciplinar do presente estudo, calcado na união de conceitos antropológicos e psicológicos, levantou a necessidade de utilizar mais de uma estratégia metodológica, para responder o problema da pesquisa e alcançar o seu objetivo. Desta forma, utilizou-se para coleta dos dados a entrevista semi-estruturada com uma dupla de pais e/ou responsáveis por cinco crianças regularmente matriculadas no primeiro ano do ensino fundamental, além do professor responsável pela referida classe. Fez-se o grupo focal com pais e/ou responsáveis, além da observação de um dia inteiro de cada criança. A análise de conteúdo foi utilizada para avaliar qualitativamente as respostas das entrevistas, ou seja, analisar o material verbal (FRANCO, 2007). Utilizou-se, ainda, do ecomapa e de um viés da perspectiva proposta por Mauss (2001), os quais auxiliaram a montagem da rede social (BOTT, 1976) e a observação participante com registro em diário de campo e posterior análise, ao permitir identificar e interpretar os fenômenos em estudo. Conclui-se que o desenvolvimento emocional na atualidade está ancorado em uma circulação de crianças vigiada, com redes de malha estreita, com poucas relações possíveis sem a escolha dos responsáveis. O ser em cuidado então se sente sufocado, por conseguinte os cuidadores passam a exigir cuidados redobrados de si que os tornam carentes e necessitados de escuta, pois a interdição e o medo gera angústia, ansiedade e futura agressividade. Assim, deve-se ampliar e investir em pesquisas que apreendam a circulação de crianças como forma de investigar como ela está se desenvolvendo emocionalmente na atualidade, para diminuir transtornos psiquiátricos futuros e auxiliar os cuidadores de crianças.

Fatores envolvidos na natureza e administração de redes sociais de estudantes universitários

No presente estudo investigamos as relações interpessoais humanas. Especificamente buscamos com ele, replicar parcialmente o trabalho de Stiller e Dunbar (2007) usando o mesmo instrumento, porém utilizando outro tipo de amostra. O objetivo principal foi verificar se as redes sociais desses estudantes estão de acordo com a Hipótese do Cérebro Social, segundo a qual seres humanos seriam capazes de manter e administrar um determinado número de relações interpessoais, por volta de 150 pessoas. Encontramos uma média de 52,53 contatos sociais, inferior ao predito pela Hipótese, despendendo com esses cerca de 25% do seu tempo. Houve correlações significativas entre as variáveis Tamanho da rede social, Freqüência, Tempo de contato, Proximidade Emocional e Coeficiente de parentesco, na rede social em geral, na rede de parentes e na rede de amigos. Em todos os casos, mesmo com a disponibilidade de tecnologias de comunicação à longa distância, os respondentes preferiram contatos face-a-face com os membros da rede social. Discutimos os resultados a partir de quatro hipóteses que não são mutuamente exclusivas. Por outro lado, foram confirmadas hipóteses secundárias, sobre a composição das redes sociais e sobre a interação entre Tamanho da rede, Freqüência e Tempo de Interações e Proximidade emocional. Estudos adicionais são necessários para esclarecer as diferenças encontradas, bem como a influência de outras variáveis que possam aumentar a compreensão das redes sociais.

O abaixamento das médias pretônicas no português falado em Aurora do Pará – PA: uma análise variacionista

A presente pesquisa teve como objeto de estudo a investigação do abaixamento das médias pretônicas na variedade do português falado em Aurora do Pará (PA). Pautou-se nos pressupostos da sociolinguística quantitativa de Labov (1972), suporte necessário para investigar e sistematizar a variação de uma comunidade linguística. Além destes, foram utilizados alguns procedimentos metodológicos adotados por Bortoni-Ricardo (1985) para as análises de redes sociais, importantes para o estudo de dialetos em comunidades de migração, como é o caso de Aurora do Pará, localizada na Mesorregião do Nordeste Paraense e que apresenta como particularidade o fato de ter recebido intenso fluxo migratório nas décadas de 60,70 e 80 do século passado. O corpus foi formado a partir de gravações de entrevistas de 28 informantes, divididos em dois grupos: a) um grupo de ancoragem, com 19 informantes migrantes do Ceará (9 (nove) do sexo masculino e 10 (dez) do sexo feminino), distribuídos nas faixas etárias de 30 a 46 anos e de 50 anos acima; b) outro de controle, com 9 (nove) informantes (3 (três) do sexo masculino e 6 (seis) do sexo feminino), paraenses descendentes do grupo de ancoragem. Os dados do corpus submetidos às análises somaram 4.033 ocorrências das vogais-objeto, anterior (2.394) e posterior (1.639). Foram estabelecidas como variáveis extralinguísticas: sexo, grupo de amostra, tempo de residência, e localidade. Para variáveis linguísticas, foram consideradas: natureza da vogal tônica, vogal pre-pretônica quando for oral, vogal pré-pretônica quando for nasal, vogal contígua, distância relativa à sílaba tônica, atonicidade, natureza do sufixo, consoante do onset da sílaba da vogal-alvo, consoante do onset da sílaba da vogal seguinte e peso silábico. Após as análises estatísticas computadas pelo software Goldvarb, os resultados mostraram que no dialeto de Aurora do Pará/PA predominam as variantes de não abaixamento – [.i,e] .71 e [o,u] .74 em detrimento das do abaixamento [E] .28 e [O] .26. Para o abaixamento, as variáveis favorecedoras foram: (i) natureza da vogal tônica, (ii) Vogal pré-pretônica, quando for oral, (iii) Vogal contígua, (iv) Distância relativamente à Sílaba Tônica, (v) Atonicidade, (vi) Natureza do sufixo, (vii) Consoante do onset da sílaba da vogal-alvo, (viii) Consoante do onset da sílaba seguinte, (ix) Peso silábico em relação à sílaba vogal alvo, (x) Sexo, (xi) Faixa etária, (xii) Tempo de residência. Os resultados revelaram perda da marca dialetal dos migrantes cearenses por conta do contato dialetal com outros dialetos e evidenciaram que o abaixamento vocálico no dialeto em questão é motivado, sobretudo pelo processo de harmonia vocálica. Tais resultados são reflexos da rede social dos informantes a qual tem baixa densidade e é uniplex, caracterizando-os como mais propensos a mudanças culturais e inovações linguísticas.

Desenvolvimento da floricultura tropical paraense: uma análise dos fatores locais de inovação

Teve como objetivo a interação de comunidades sociais específicas no aglomerado da floricultura tropical paraense. A mesma foi direcionada a produtores locais em interação direta com outros agentes do setor para valorizar os fatores locais de inovação da floricultura tropical. Embora a floricultura tropical tenha uma representação econômica menor que a da floricultura temperada (inserida de outras regiões do Brasil) no cenário local, a mesma, ainda em seu curto estabelecimento, vai sendo considerada pelos diferentes agentes públicos e privados como uma importante atividade econômica do estado do Pará. No entanto, evidenciam-se ações de atores que se focam em organizações sociais, alternativa que reduz os “custos de produção” e os “custos de transações” sobre as diferentes atividades que este setor demanda. Entre as comunidades estudadas estão: a Associação dos Floricultores de Benevides (AFLORBEN), Cooperativa Agrícola Santo Antônio (COOPSANT), Associação dos Produtores de Flores de Santa Bárbara (TROPISAN), Associação de Microprodutores de Castanhal (BARREIRÃO), Associação Paraense de Floricultura e Plantas Medicinais (PARÁFLOR), e por último, as comunidades e/ou agentes que conformam o cenário comercial e institucional da floricultura (a Rede Social do Aglomerado Local de Flores na Mesorregião Metropolitana de Belém). Esta última comunidade como sendo a responsável pela concretização do objeto central do estudo, onde se integrou os processos organizacionais de relevância que valorizam os fatores de inovação local e seu impacto para o desenvolvimento sustentável do setor. A metodologia foi baseada na análise do capital social e redes sociais, tendo como finalidade resgatar a estruturação e a funcionalidade da sociedade local sobre um mercado dinâmico e competitivo como a floricultura em si. Já os resultados mostram que os processos organizacionais minimizam os custos de transação e ajudam a permanência destes grupos sociais no mercado, e com isto, a valorização da marca tropical. Por último, sugere-se priorizar processos mais integrativos e abrangentes para fortalecer ainda mais esta atividade local.