Municipal research, to promote the application of scientific principles to government

Includes supplements

The application of physiological observation methods to emotion research

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer emotions and the social science and observation measures that can be utilised to capture the emotional experiences of consumers. The paper is not setting out to solve the theoretical debate surrounding emotion research, rather to provide an assessment of methodological options available to researchers to aid their investigation into both the structure and content of the consumer emotional experience, acknowledging both the conscious and subconscious elements of that experience. Design/methodology/approach - A review of a wide range of prior research from the fields of marketing, consumer behaviour, psychology and neuroscience are examined to identify the different observation methods available to marketing researchers in the study of consumer emotion. This review also considers the self report measures available to researchers and identifies the main theoretical debates concerning emotion to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues surrounding the capture of emotional responses in a marketing context and to highlight the benefits that observation methods offer this area of research. Findings - This paper evaluates three observation methods and four widely used self report measures of emotion used in a marketing context. Whilst it is recognised that marketers have shown preference for the use of self report measures in prior research, mainly due to ease of implementation, it is posited that the benefits of observation methodology and the wealth of data that can be obtained using such methods can compliment prior research. In addition, the use of observation methods cannot only enhance our understanding of the consumer emotion experience but also enable us to collaborate with researchers from other fields in order to make progress in understanding emotion. Originality/value - This paper brings perspectives and methods together to provide an up to date consideration of emotion research for marketers. In order to generate valuable research in this area there is an identified need for discussion and implementation of the observation techniques available to marketing researchers working in this field. An evaluation of a variety of methods is undertaken as a point to start discussion or consideration of different observation techniques and how they can be utilised.

Finding natural groups in data:an application to strategic group research

The best way of finding “natural groups” in management research remains subject to debate and within the literature there is no accepted consensus. The principle motivation behind this study is to explore the effect of choices of method upon strategic group research, an area that has suffered enduring criticism, as we believe that these method choices are still not fully exploited. Our study is novel in the use of a variety of more robust clustering and validation techniques, rarely used in management research, some borrowed from the natural sciences, which may provide a useful and more robust base for this type of research. Our results confirm that methods do exist to address the concerns over strategic group research and adoption of our chosen methods will improve the quality of management research.

Mathematical Packages for Teaching and Research in Internet – Application and Information Support

The paper considers the use and the information support of the most important mathematical Application Packages (AP), such as Maple, Matlab, Mathcad, Mathematica, Statistica and SPSS – mostly used during Calculus tuition in Universities. The main features of the packages and the information support in the sites of the producers are outlined, as well as their capacity for work in Internet, together with educational sites and literature related to them. The most important resources of the TeX system for preparation of mathematical articles and documents are presented.

Application of an Education Research Lab (ERL) Model to a Community Sailing Program

This presentation showcases the application of a university-based education research lab (ERL) model to the evaluation of a community sailing program for individuals with disabilities. Presenters conceptualize the ERL model as a mutually beneficial relationship between universities and community education agencies.

Design and implementation of an enterprise application integration solution for science and research outcomes information management using guaraná technology

This document presents an Enterprise Application Integration based proposal for research outcomes and technological information management. The proposal addresses national and international science and research outcomes information management, and corresponding information systems. Information systems interoperability problems, approaches, technologies and integration tools are presented and applied to the research outcomes information management case. A business and technological perspective is provided, including the conceptual analysis and modelling, an integration solution based in a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) and the integration platform to execute the proposed solution. For illustrative purposes, the role and information system needs of a research unit is assumed as the representative case.

Application of new Technologies –Tensiomyography- In Assessment of Muscle Response In Sport, Health And Research

06/UPR10/10

Effect Of Aloe Vera Application On The Content And Molecular Arrangement Of Glycosaminoglycans During Calcaneal Tendon Healing.

Although several treatments for tendon lesions have been proposed, successful tendon repair remains a great challenge for orthopedics, especially considering the high incidence of re-rupture of injured tendons. Our aim was to evaluate the pharmacological potential of Aloe vera on the content and arrangement of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) during tendon healing, which was based on the effectiveness of A. vera on collagen organization previously observed by our group. In rats, a partial calcaneal tendon transection was performed with subsequent topical A. vera application at the injury site. The tendons were treated with A. vera ointment for 7 days and excised on the 7(th) , 14(th) , or 21(st) day post-surgery. Control rats received ointment without A. vera. A higher content of GAGs and a lower amount of dermatan sulfate were detected in the A. vera-treated group on the 14(th) day compared with the control. Also at 14 days post-surgery, a lower dichroic ratio in toluidine blue stained sections was observed in A. vera-treated tendons compared with the control. No differences were observed in the chondroitin-6-sulfate and TGF-β1 levels between the groups, and higher amount of non-collagenous proteins was detected in the A. vera-treated group on the 21(st) day, compared with the control group. No differences were observed in the number of fibroblasts, inflammatory cells and blood vessels between the groups. The application of A. vera during tendon healing modified the arrangement of GAGs and increased the content of GAGs and non-collagenous proteins.

Application Of Laser Microdissection Icp-ms For High Resolution Elemental Mapping In Mouse Brain Tissue: A Comparative Study With Laser Ablation Icp-ms.

Mapping of elements in biological tissue by laser induced mass spectrometry is a fast growing analytical methodology in life sciences. This method provides a multitude of useful information of metal, nonmetal, metalloid and isotopic distribution at major, minor and trace concentration ranges, usually with a lateral resolution of 12-160 µm. Selected applications in medical research require an improved lateral resolution of laser induced mass spectrometric technique at the low micrometre scale and below. The present work demonstrates the applicability of a recently developed analytical methodology - laser microdissection associated to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LMD ICP-MS) - to obtain elemental images of different solid biological samples at high lateral resolution. LMD ICP-MS images of mouse brain tissue samples stained with uranium and native are shown, and a direct comparison of LMD and laser ablation (LA) ICP-MS imaging methodologies, in terms of elemental quantification, is performed.

Pedagogia do esporte : organização, sistematização, aplicação e avaliação de conteúdos esportivos na educação não formal = Sport pedagogy : organization, systematization and application of sports content in non-formal education

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

The need for adequate ethical guidelines for qualitative health research

O artigo discute a adequação de aplicar a Resolução 196/961 do Conselho Nacional de Saúde - CNS, às pesquisas qualitativas em saúde, que se baseiam em paradigmas não positivistas. Nestas pesquisas, freqüentemente as decisões sobre a pesquisa são tomadas conjuntamente com a comunidade em estudo. Há a preocupação de favorecer a justiça e a mudança social. E, uma vez que a subjetividade pode ser considerada seu instrumento privilegiado, busca-se o balanço entre objetividade e subjetividade, e discute-se como superar a visão do pesquisador. Estudamos o âmbito de aplicação e a concepção de pesquisa presentes nas diretrizes éticas internacionais e brasileiras. Verificamos que elas adotam uma concepção positivista de pesquisa, que prevê: teste de hipótese, definição prévia de todos os procedimentos pelo pesquisador e neutralidade do pesquisador e do conhecimento produzido. Serão apresentadas algumas características das pesquisas qualitativas, as implicações éticas da maneira como a pesquisa qualitativa é concebida nos paradigmas não positivistas e um breve histórico dos documentos sobre ética em pesquisa. Concluímos que não é adequado analisar estas pesquisas com base nestes documentos e sugerimos a elaboração de diretrizes específicas

A reliable measure of similarity based on dependency for short time series: an application to gene expression networks

Background: Microarray techniques have become an important tool to the investigation of genetic relationships and the assignment of different phenotypes. Since microarrays are still very expensive, most of the experiments are performed with small samples. This paper introduces a method to quantify dependency between data series composed of few sample points. The method is used to construct gene co-expression subnetworks of highly significant edges. Results: The results shown here are for an adapted subset of a Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene expression data set with low temporal resolution and poor statistics. The method reveals common transcription factors with a high confidence level and allows the construction of subnetworks with high biological relevance that reveals characteristic features of the processes driving the organism adaptations to specific environmental conditions. Conclusion: Our method allows a reliable and sophisticated analysis of microarray data even under severe constraints. The utilization of systems biology improves the biologists ability to elucidate the mechanisms underlying celular processes and to formulate new hypotheses.

Power imbalance application region method for distributed synchronous generator anti-islanding protection design and evaluation

This paper presents a novel graphical approach to adjust and evaluate frequency-based relays employed in anti-islanding protection schemes of distributed synchronous generators, in order to meet the anti-islanding and abnormal frequency variation requirements, simultaneously. The proposed method defines a region in the power mismatch space, inside which the relay non-detection zone should be located, if the above-mentioned requirements must be met. Such region is called power imbalance application region. Results show that this method can help protection engineers to adjust frequency-based relays to improve the anti-islanding capability and to minimize false operation occurrences, keeping the abnormal frequency variation utility requirements satisfied. Moreover, the proposed method can be employed to coordinate different types of frequency-based relays, aiming at improving overall performance of the distributed generator frequency protection scheme. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Application of Fluorescence to the Study of Crude Petroleum

Crude petroleum oils are complex mixtures of different compounds (mainly organic), which are obtained from an extensive range of different geological sources. The fluorescence of crude petroleum oils derives largely from the aromatic hydrocarbon fraction, and this fluorescence emission is strongly influenced by the chemical composition (e.g., fluorophore and quencher concentrations) and physical characteristics (e.g., viscosity and optical density) of the oil. The fluorescence spectroscopy (FS) is increasingly used in petroleum technology due the availability of better optical detection techniques, because FS offers high sensitivity, good diagnostic potential, and relatively simple instrumentation. In this work we analyzed crude petroleum at different dilution in Nujol, a transparent mineral oil. The main objective of this work was to verify the possibility to measure crude oil emission spectroscopic without use of volatile solvents. The mixtures of nujol with different -crude oil concentrations were measured with a 10 mm optical path cuvette thus simplifying the fluorescence spectroscopy signal detection. The emission spectra were obtained by exciting the samples with a 400 W Xenon lamp at 350 nm, 450 nm and 532 nm. The emissions of the samples were collected perpendicularly with the excitation axis.