Sleep and school education

Sleep has emerged in the past decades as a key process for memory consolidation and restructuring. Given the universality of sleep across cultures, the need to reduce educational inequality, the low implementation cost of a sleep-based pedagogy, and its global scalability, it is surprising that the potential of improved sleep as a means of enhancing school education has remained largely unexploited. Students of various socio-economic status often suffer from sleep deficits. In principle, the optimization of sleep schedules both before and after classes should produce large positive benefits for learning. Here we review the biological and psychological phenomena underlying the cognitive role of sleep, present the few published studies on sleep and learning that have been performed in schools, and discuss potential applications of sleep to the school setting. Translational research on sleep and learning has never seemed more appropriate.

O domínio da leitura e da escrita : por que não eu?

The study and research field of Education is wide and rich, mainly when it goes towards the empirical area of social reality. This research focuses on young and adult subjects who cannot read or write, although they had had access to and attended schools in Natal/RN. The locus of the research are the Municipal Schools that develop the Youth and Adults Education program EJA, having representatives from the North, South, East and West zones of the city, in a total of 6 municipal schools. It analyzes these subjects' replies to the questions: "Why are there young and adults who attended school but still cannot read or write?", What are the exclusion situations they face by not being able to read or write?". From a dialectic view on the subject, the research's strategy for data collection is the semi-structured interview to collect the replies given by the interviewees; replies that are separated by analysis categories presented charts of ideas. The research's results are analyzed and lead us to the conclusion that the affective, organic, cognitive, social, political and pedagogical factors are mentioned by the subjects as reasons why they can not dominate the reading or writing skills. The youth and adults interviewed are not happy with their school failure; the reading and writing learning is something that eases their social inclusion into a society that privileges such abilities, and that with it they could avoid the social exclusion they faced at school, in the work place, at home, in church, at health centers, on the street, at their children's school and in public assistance institutions

Tramas do impedimento: os sentidos da desistência entre Alfabetizandos da EJA

For young people and adults that have not yet conquered reading and writing, being literate is the most important thing in life , a dream . Scholarly learning for them is like hegemonic knowledge in contemporary literate society. Thus, for them to get into school is to be able to have such knowledge and, through it, feel inserted into this society. However, along this process of learning, they start to drop out, little by little, statistically increasing the number of people who give up on young people and adult education Eja, as well as slowly reducing the contingent of illiteracy in the country. With this reality as a starting point, we question the concrete and symbolic reasons or motives that lead to a dropping out of the literacy classes at Eja. To do so, we have established, as the object of our study, the feelings of giving up among those involved in young people and adult literacy training. To understand such feelings is our purpose in this investigation. The theory of Social Representations (MOSCOVICI, 1978, 2004) was the theoretical-methodological option for subsidizing data search, analyses and interpretation, making us perceive the significance of the object of this study for these individuals. The gathering of such symbolic content involved the use of semi-structured interviews with eleven drop-outs and ten students who had repeated this modality of teaching in public schools in Natal, RN, during the 2006 school year. From the thematic and categorical analyses (BARDIN, 1977), we identified elements that gave support to some themes. Later, these themes led to three categories, suggesting that feelings associated with dropping out were based on the following: learning difficulties because they did not understand the contents; having their lack of knowledge exposed, thus bringing forth feelings of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment for not knowing how to read and write at a mature age; work, tiredness and sickness. The students who manage to remain in school are those who force themselves to live with the feelings of maladaptation and those who develop a sense of adaptation the other way round to the institution, that is, acceptance of institutional failures and omissions

Globos e mapas ao alcance das mãos : ensino de matemática numa perspectiva de alfabetização funcional na EJA

The following dissertation has as its main advantage the privilege of visualizing the literacy processes through the angle of the functional perspective, which does not see the literary process as a practice solely based on the decoding of alphabetical codes, and then allows for the opening of ample spaces for the allocation of mathematical skills in the realms of the functional literacy. The main object of this study was to investigate which are the contributions that a sequence of activities and of methodologies developed for the teaching of Geometry could provide for a part of the functional literacy process in mathematics of youngsters and adults of EJA, corresponding to the acquisition or to the improvement of skills related to the orientation capacity. The focus of the analyses consisted in the practice of these activities with the young and adult students of an EJA class belonging to a municipal public school of Natal/RN. The legacies of Paulo Freire about the redimensioning of the role of the teacher, of the students, of the knowledge and of their connections within the teaching-learning process, prevailed in the actions of the methodology implemented in the classroom and, especially, in the establishing of dialogic connections with the students, which directed all the observations and analyses regarding the collected information. The results indicated that the composition of articulations between the teaching of mathematics and the exploration of maps and the earth globe enabled the creation of multidisciplinary learning environments and situations, where we could observe, gradually, the development of procedures and attitudes indicating the evolution of space-visual type skills

Hematological values and body, heart and liver weights of male and female broiler embryos of young and old breeder eggs

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

Da representação social do ser professor da EJA à descoberta de seu aluno como referente

Evidence of learning object like representation to social teachings that active in the education of young and adult with the point of view of the ―To be teacher‖ in this modality of teaching, to direct the intention, this research is way, understand the existence of this representation in center acting teachers in the initial periods of the EJA in the Rio Grande do Norte and its reasoning the theories of social representation (MOSCOVICI, 1978, 2003; JODELET, 2001; ABRIC, 1998). We interviewed one hundred and ten (110) teachers who work at schools in the Metropolitan Regions of Natal. We use two procedures: focal group (GATTI, 2005) and multiple classification analysis MCA (ROAZZI, 1995).Thus us with the focal group, attended by eight (08) teachers and seek to know understanding their ideas about EJA, what was possible from the content analysis (BARDIN, 1977; FRANCO, 2007) of the following category: the teacher s view of the EJA context. Developing the MCA, we met twenty (20) teachers in the first stage, free-word association technique FAT (ABRIC, 1998), and ninety in the second stage, including the participants of the focal group. The results of this procedure were submitted to multidimensional analysis and content analysis. The first showed three facets: having and being teacher dimension (ideal), which was about the example teacher s characteristics and behaviors; teacher/ student relation which was about the difficulties and doubts of this relationship as well as its success; at last, conflicting dimension from/ with practice, based on the conflicts experienced by the teachers as EJA workers. Content analysis based on the theme organization from the interpreted data showed four categories: resources to be a teacher which also brought out the definition of an ideal teacher; talk about teaching which disclosed teachers thoughts about the knowledge and being a teacher; obstacles to EJA which showed situations and conditions that prejudice EJA development; and also admission as EJA teacher: viewing reasons which revealed the reasons why teachers went to EJA even though they were formed to deal with children. The conjoint analysis us evidenced the little the dominion of the teachers a participation these search at respect of origin, of the meaning of the character while the singular of EJA modality of teaching the conformation of the social representation from the ―To be‖ on the general vision dissociating with it of inexistence of a social representation of ―to be teacher of the EJA‖ white striking element in the reference at singularity that define the related modality of teaching

O currículo e as práticas pedagógicas na EJA: concepções e crenças dos professores da escola municipal Francisca Leonísia Cruz

The present investigation deals with the Curriculum and Pedagogical Practices of Young and Adults, EJA, and articulates with the conceptions and beliefs of teachers sitting. The empirical scope of this investigation consisted in the Municipal School Francisca Leonísia, located in the Agrarian Reform Settlement Serra Nova, city of Florânia/RN. Seeks to analyze the relationship between the Curriculum and Educational Practices of Young and Adult EJA - conceptions beliefs of these teachers. This work is based on qualitative research, interpretative character reflective and makes use of documentary analysis, structured interviews and reflective sessions as methodological procedures which ensure the achievement of our goals in research. These procedures allowed us to enter the practice setting and curriculum for teachers to understand how they think, prepare and practice of adult education in school curriculum research field. The documentary analysis provided the rethinking of the curriculum selected references, Political Pedagogical Project and Proposed Course of EJA, from a critical reading of concepts and conceptions given in these references, with a view to construction and reconstruction of concepts that reclaim the identity of young people and adult field, inserted in the Rural Workers Movement landless/MST. As reflective sessions were constituted in spaces of collective training and allowed the group to selfreflection e collective reflection about the ideas and beliefs that permeate the curriculum and guide their practices education in adult education. In these areas of training are also discussed current problems of adult education, the construction of an educational project of the adult education field to, warranties of learning and cultural identity of the adult education field and placed in the context of the MST. Under this view, it is concluded that the conceptions and beliefs of teachers seated directly relate to the curriculum designed, developed and practiced in adult education, as well as the educational practices that permeate the curriculum. This relation is in the midst of adversities of Rural Education, inserted in the Movement of Landless Rural Workers-MST, and requires the commitment of teachers to the necessary changes to an education are critical and emancipatory

Entomopathogenic fungal activity against pupae and adult Haematobia irritans (Diptera: Muscidae)

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

Differential antibody isotype expression to the major Paracoccidioides brasiliensis antigen in juvenile and adult form paracoccidioidomycosis

We investigated the relationship between antibody response to the major Paracoccidioides brasiliensis antigen, a 43-kDa glycoprotein, and the two paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) clinical presentations, the juvenile and the adult forms. Total immunoglobulin G (IgG), IgG isotypes, and IgA anti-gp43 antibodies were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in patients' sera. Juvenile PCM patients had higher (P =.003) IgG anti-gp43 levels than adult form patients. IgG1 subclass levels, however, were comparable between the two clinical forms. Patients with the juvenile form had higher (P <.001) IgG4, but lower(P =.03) IgG2 levels than patients with the adult form. The IgG4 isotype, regulated by interleukin 4, was found in all juvenile form patients but in only 12% of the adult form patients. In contrast, high levels of the IgG2 isotype, regulated by interferon-gamma, were found in 41% of the adult PCM patients, mainly those with a more benign disease, but in only 12% of the juvenile patients. IgG3 was either absent or detected at low levels. These results demonstrate, for the first time, specific IgG4 antibodies in the humoral immune response of patients with an endemic deep mycosis and suggest that the switch to the IgG subclasses in PCM is regulated by the patients' T-helper subset (Th-l or Th-2) dominant cytokine profile. A possible role for IgG4 in the immunopathogenesis of the juvenile, more severe form of the disease is discussed. Finally, IgA was found mainly in adult form patients, probably as a result of the chronic mucosal antigenic stimulation characteristic of this form. (C) Elsevier, Paris.

Differential behavioral and neuroendocrine effects of repeated nicotine in adolescent and adult rats

Despite the high prevalence of tobacco abuse among adolescents, the neurobiology of nicotine addiction has been studied mainly in adult animals. Repeated administration of this drug to adult rats induces behavioral sensitization. Nicotine activates the HPA axis in adult rats as measured by drug-induced increases in ACTH and corticosterone. Both behavioral sensitization and corticosterone are implicated in drug addiction. We examined the expression of behavioral sensitization induced by nicotine as well as the changes in corticosterone levels after repeated injections of nicotine in adolescent and adult animals. Adolescent and adult rats received subcutaneous (s.c.) injections of saline or 0.4 mg/kg of nicotine once daily for 7 days. Three days after the last injection animals were challenged with saline or nicotine (0.4 mg/kg; s.c.). Nicotine-induced locomotion was recorded in an activity cage. Trunk blood samples were collected in a subset of adolescent and adult rats and plasma corticosterone levels were determined by radioimmunoassay. Adult, but not adolescent, rats expressed behavioral sensitization. Pretreatment with nicotine abolished corticosterone-activating effect of this drug only in adult animals, indicating the development of tolerance at this age. Our results provide evidence that adolescent rats exposed to repeated nicotine display behavioral and neuroendocrine adaptations distinct from that observed in adult animals. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of simultaneous exposure to stress and nicotine on nicotine-induced locomotor activation in adolescent and adult rats

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Comparison of caffeine-induced locomotor activity between adolescent and adult rats

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

Serological profile of Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum infection in commercial sheep from São Paulo State, Brazil

Neosporosis and toxoplasmosis are two important infections in young and adult sheep, leading to low production and abortion. This study aimed to determine the frequency of antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii and Neospora caninum in sheep from the eastern region of São Paulo State, Brazil. Serum samples (382) were collected from the sheep and assayed for T. gondii through modified agglutination test (MAT) and indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT), and for N. caninum antibodies, through IFAT, with cut-off titers equal to 16 (T. gondii) and 25 (N. caninum). All frozen samples were sent to the Center for Zoonoses Research (NUPEZO), Department of Veterinary Hygiene and Public Health (DHSVP), FMVZ, UNESP, for serological tests. A total of 71/382(18.6%) samples reacted to T. gondii, especially at titers 16 (28; 39.4%), 64(15; 21.1%), 256 (21; 29.6%) and 1024 (6; 8.5%) by MAT, and 16(34: 47.9%), 64 (18; 25.4%), 256 (14; 19.7%) and 1024 (5; 7%) by IFAT. As regards N. caninum, 49/382 (12.8%) samples reacted at titers 25 (17; 34.7%), 50 (11; 22.5%), 100 (11; 22.5%), and >= 200 (10; 20.4%). These animals presented infection but no clinical signs. Six and ten animals had high titers for toxoplasmosis and neosporosis. No significant association was observed between antibodies for both parasites (P = 0.535) according to Fisher's exact test, and no correlation was found between T. gondii (MAT) and N. caninum antibody titers (r = -0.0068; P=0.895), T. gondii (IFAT) and N. caninum antibody titers (r = -0.0025; P = 0.961). Thus, T. gondii and N. caninum infections were observed in farms located in São Paulo State, where sheep play an important economical role for the national and regional business. (C) 2010 Elsevier By. All rights reserved.