A “COMMODITIZAÇÃO” DO CONHECIMENTO TRADICIONAL: notas sobre o processo de regulamentação jurídica

Resumo Observa-se que a CDB e MP recorreram às “velhas” categorias vinculadas à ordem privada para “enquadrar”  as “novas” situações relacionadas às “populações indígenas” e “comunidades locais”, como são designados esses grupos sociais portadores de identidade étnica. Nesse sentido, o  presente trabalho procura articular a noção de “sujeito de direito” e de “contrato” com intuito de compreender as conseqüências desse processo de regulamentação jurídica do acesso ao conhecimento tradicional associado à biodiversidade,  na medida em que essas transformações tendem a desarticular as relações construídas, ameaçando de forma paradoxal a própria diversidade, que objetiva proteger. Na verdade, trata-se de colocar  em suspenso os dispositivos legais que regulamentam o acesso, sob pena de não conseguirmos apreendê-los.   Abstract It´s observed that CDB and MP resorted to “old” categories bonded to the private law in order to “square” the “new” situations related to “native American communities” and to the “local communities”, how these social groups, which carry ethnic identity, are assigned. In this direction, the present work intents to articulate the notion of “subject of right” and “contract” with the purpose to understand the consequences of the legal regulation process of traditional knowledge access associated to the biodiversity, at the same time that these transformations tend to disarticulate the constructed relations, threatening in a paradoxical way the own diversity that it objectives to protect. In the truth, it´s treated to place the legal devices that regulate the access in suspended, duly warned not to obtain apprehends them.

Managerial experiences related to corporate demerger

In the current economic situation very few business operations are static. In some cases, organizations feel that the most rational solution is not expanding but focusing on their core competencies or certain areas of business through corporate restructuring. The focus in this thesis is on corporate demerger, a process that involves a complete separation of units within a company. Despite the vast amount of research considering corporate demergers, there is still a lack of knowledge about how top managers experience these kinds of organizational rearrangements. In this qualitative case study, the aim is to bring forward the thoughts of executives in two companies that emerged from a single company through corporate demerger a few years ago. By conducting dyadic semi-structured interviews with the management group and board members in both the parent company and the demerger company, I pursue to understand the impressions that they had during the demerger process as well as during the change that followed afterwards. Additionally, their retrospective sense-making patterns are briefly examined. The findings suggest that the way operations are managed before plays an important role in the demerger process. In this case the pre-demerger organization was quite distinctly divided into two business areas, which allowed a somewhat natural allocation of resources. In addition, apart from the top management, every employee knew their future company and role, thus decreasing the amount of uncertainty in lower organizational levels. Consequently, the ambiguity and change faced by the top executives was evidently more powerful compared to the operational actors. The fragmented characteristics also enabled certain points of reference in the unfolding demerger process. Along with the information about future management groups, the pre-demerger re-grouping took place. This sparked up the mental division, where both groups started to act separately. On a personal level, the managers involved in the demerger planning have made retrospective sense of the repercussions related to the restructuring process. For them, it was an extremely demanding, ambiguous and burdensome project that provided them with managerial experiences they are likely not to have again.

Behavioral traits predicting cocaine-conditioned place reference in mice: role of anxiety adn the basolateral amygdala

Aims. The individual susceptibility to cocaine addiction, a factor of interest in the understanding and prevention of this disorder, may be predicted by certain behavioral traits. However, these are not usually taken into account in research, making it difficult to identify whether they are a cause or a consequence of drug use. Methods. Male C57BL/6J mice underwent a battery of behavioral tests (elevated plus maze, hole-board, novelty preference in the Y maze, episodic-like object recognition memory and forced swimming test), followed by a cocaine-conditioned place preference (CPP) training to assess the reinforcing effect of the drug. In a second study, we aimed to determine the existence of neurobiological differences between the mice expressing high or low CPP by studying the number of neurons in certain addiction-related structures: the medial prefrontal cortex, the basolateral amygdala and the ventral tegmental area. Results. Anxiety-like behaviors in the elevated plus maze successfully predicted the cocaine-CPP behavior, so that the most anxious mice were also more likely to search for cocaine in a CPP paradigm. In addition, these mice exhibited an increased number of neurons in the basolateral amygdala, a key structure in emotional response including anxiety expression, without differences in the others regions analyzed. Conclusions. Our results suggest a relevant role of anxiety as a psychological risk factor for cocaine vulnerability, with the basolateral amygdala as potential common neural center for both anxiety and addiction.

Design de comunicação

Dissertação de Doutoramento para obtenção do grau de Doutor em Design, dissertação apresentada na Universidade de Lisboa - Faculdade de Arquitetura.

Le Cœur est une permanence, suivi de Empathie et souffrance dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos de Martine Audet

Ce mémoire en recherche création est divisé en deux principales sections : un recueil de poésie et un essai. Le recueil, intitulé Le Cœur est une permanence, explore différentes interprétations du phénomène d’empathie dans la création littéraire. Afin que l’empathie devienne l’objet du discours, ce dernier est centré sur la relation à l’autre. L’empathie prend vie à travers deux entités, un « je » et un « tu ». Alors que le « je » entre en contact avec ses propres zones d’ombres, il s’ouvre tranquillement aux souffrances du « tu ». Au fil des poèmes, le « je » et le « tu » apaisent leur douleur en la partageant, faisant de l’empathie une voie d’accès à l’intimité. Ce déploiement de l’intime prend forme en trois temps : les sections replis de voix, point archimédien et ensembles vides. Le recueil accorde une importance particulière à la figure du corps comme véhicule de la souffrance. Il propose une réflexion sur l’amour, balançant entre naufrage et terre promise, et fait de l’enfance une pierre de touche pour interroger la douleur. La deuxième partie de ce mémoire est un essai intitulé Empathie et souffrance dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos de Martine Audet. Divisé en trois chapitres, cet essai étudie l’empathie à l’œuvre dans le recueil de Audet, selon une approche bioculturelle. Il allie interprétation littéraire, sciences cognitives de deuxième génération et philosophie de l’esprit. Dans le premier chapitre, le concept de « simulation incarné », développé par Vittorio Gallese, permet d’interpréter la figure du corps et de suggérer qu’elle véhicule la douleur tout en étant la manifestation d’un effacement identitaire. Le deuxième chapitre se penche sur l’intersubjectivité en lien avec l’empathie. Il intègre certaines notions clés de la phénoménologie husserlienne afin d’analyser les manifestations du lien empathique unissant les deux présences parcourant le recueil de Audet. Le dernier chapitre explique comment les représentations de l’environnement dans lequel évoluent ces présences peuvent refléter leur souffrance. Pour ce faire, certains concepts liés à l’environnement, particulièrement importants pour l’écocritique actuelle, sont analysés dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos, comme ceux de place et de nature. Ces derniers, étant construits par les perceptions propres à la cognition humaine, sont envisagés d’un point de vue bioculturel. En interprétant ces trois principaux aspects du texte (figure du corps, intersubjectivité et environnement), l’hypothèse selon laquelle la perception de la souffrance dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos repose essentiellement sur l’empathie comme effet et objet du discours s’en voit validée.

Assessment of Seismic Damage of Buildings and Related Environmental Impacts

Sustainable development has only recently started examining the existing infrastructure, and a key aspect of this is hazard mitigation. To examine buildings under a sustainable perspective requires an understanding of a building's life-cycle environmental costs, including the consideration of associated environmental impacts induced by earthquake damage. Damage repair costs lead to additional material and energy consumption, leading to harmful environmental impacts. Merging results obtained from a seismic evaluation and life-cycle analysis for buildings will give a novel outlook on sustainable design decisions. To evaluate the environmental impacts caused by buildings, long-term impacts accrued throughout a building's lifetime and impacts associated with damage repair need to be quantified. A method and literature review for completing this examination has been developed and is discussed. Using software Athena and HAZUS-MH, this study evaluated the performance of steel and concrete buildings considering their life-cycle assessments and earthquake resistance. It was determined that code design-level greatly effects a building repair and damage estimations. This study presented two case study buildings and found specific results that were obtained using several premade assumptions. Future research recommendations were provided to make this methodology more useful in real-world applications. Examining cost and environmental impacts that a building has through, a cradle-to-grave analysis and seismic damage assessment will help reduce material consumption and construction activities from taking place before and after an earthquake event happens.

Sociocultural Complexities of Ecosystem Restoration: Remaking Identity, Landscape and Belonging in the Florida Everglades

The Florida Everglades is a highly diverse socionatural landscape that historically spanned much of the south Florida peninsula. Today, the Florida Everglades is an iconic but highly contested conservation landscape. It is the site of one of the world’s largest publicly funded ecological restoration programs, estimated to cost over $8 billion (U.S. GAO 2007), and it is home to over two million acres of federally protected lands, including the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. However, local people’s values, practices and histories overlap and often conflict with the global and eco-centric values linked to Everglades environmental conservation efforts, sparking environmental conflict. My dissertation research examined the cultural politics of nature associated with two Everglades conservation and ecological restoration projects: 1) the creation and stewardship of the Big Cypress National Preserve, and 2) the Tamiami Trail project at the northern boundary of Everglades National Park. Using multiple research methods including ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, participant observation, surveys and semi-structured interviews, I documented how these two projects have shaped environmental claims-making strategies to Everglades nature on the part of environmental NGOs, the National Park Service and local white outdoorsmen. In particular, I examined the emergence of an oppositional white identity called the Gladesmen Culture. My findings include the following: 1) just as different forms of nature are historically produced, contingent and power-laden, so too are different claims to Everglades nature; 2) identity politics are an integral dimension of Everglades environmental conflicts; and 3) the Big Cypress region’s history and contemporary conflicts are shaped by the broader political economy of development in south Florida. My dissertation concluded that identity politics, class and property relations have played a key, although not always obvious, role in shaping Everglades history and environmental claims-making, and that they continue to influence contemporary Everglades environmental conflicts.

Investigation of Escape and Negative Student Behaviors Related to Florida State High Stakes Test Preparation in Miami-Dade County Public High Schools, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a relationship between pressure to perform on state mandated, high-stakes tests and the rate of student escape behavior defined as the number of school suspensions and absences. The state assigned grade of a school was used as a surrogate measure of pressure with the assumption that pressure increased as the school grade decreased. Student attendance and suspension data were gathered from all 33 of the regular public high schools in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. The research questions were: Is the number of suspensions highest in the third quarter, when most FCAT preparation takes place for each of the 3 school years 2007-08 through 2009-10? How accurately does the high school’s grade predict the number of suspensions and number of absences during each of the 4 school years 2005-06 through 2008-09? The research questions were answered using repeated measures analysis of variance for research question #1 and non-linear multiple regression for research question #2. No significant difference could be found between the numbers of suspensions in each of the grading periods nor was there a relationship between the number of suspensions and school grade. A statistically significant relationship was found between student attendance and school grade. When plotted, this relationship was found to be quadratic in nature and formed a loose inverted U for each of the four years during which data were collected. This indicated that students in very high and very low performing schools had low levels of absences while those in the midlevel of the distribution of school performance (C schools) had the greatest rates of absence. Identifying a relationship between the pressures associated with high stakes testing and student escape behavior suggests that it might be useful for building administrators to reevaluate test preparation activities and procedures being used in their building and to include anxiety reducing strategies. As a relationship was found, it sets the foundation for future studies to identify whether testing related activities are impacting some students emotionally and are causing unintended consequences of testing mandates.

Individual differences in preferences for recruitment websites

This study investigated individual differences in preferences for recruitment websites. Specifically, I expected that personality and ethnic identity would be related to individuals' preferences for corporate websites. A policy-capturing methodology was employed to determine the weight participants place on five website characteristics (i.e. navigability, information relevancy, diversity information, privacy, and contact). Regression and correlational analyses were employed with the five beta weights obtained from individual regression analyses and the other individual differences measures. Results from two samples (student and general population) revealed that, generally, individuals do not differ in the weight they place on different aspects of recruitment websites. However, this study is the first to investigate individual differences in preferences for recruitment websites. Thus, it seems premature to conclude that such differences do not exist. Given its uniqueness, hopefully this study will stimulate research that further elucidates the process by which individuals interpret and evaluate recruitment websites.

How monuments shape urban identity

Monuments in our society commemorate historical events, acts or heroes, and educate people about them. Monuments are landmarks that stand out from other buildings to give the city identity and order. This thesis asks how a monument can be designed to project a clear image at a distance and articulate a spatial experience at close range. Two important monuments that form part of the life of America serve as examples: (1) The Statue of Liberty, in the New York Harbor, that has become the visual icon of New York if not the nation and (2) The Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach, Florida, that leads the visitor through a poignant experience at close range. The second part of the thesis is the design of a monument and museum for The Port of Miami, as part of the Port Boulevard Enhancement Project, sponsored by the Florida Foreign Trade Association, to celebrate the trade pioneers who helped Miami-Dade County achieve its prominence. The site for the monument is located at Biscayne Boulevard and Fifth Street, between Bayside Market Place and The American Airlines Arena in downtown Miami, at the Biscayne Bay.

Le Cœur est une permanence, suivi de Empathie et souffrance dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos de Martine Audet

Ce mémoire en recherche création est divisé en deux principales sections : un recueil de poésie et un essai. Le recueil, intitulé Le Cœur est une permanence, explore différentes interprétations du phénomène d’empathie dans la création littéraire. Afin que l’empathie devienne l’objet du discours, ce dernier est centré sur la relation à l’autre. L’empathie prend vie à travers deux entités, un « je » et un « tu ». Alors que le « je » entre en contact avec ses propres zones d’ombres, il s’ouvre tranquillement aux souffrances du « tu ». Au fil des poèmes, le « je » et le « tu » apaisent leur douleur en la partageant, faisant de l’empathie une voie d’accès à l’intimité. Ce déploiement de l’intime prend forme en trois temps : les sections replis de voix, point archimédien et ensembles vides. Le recueil accorde une importance particulière à la figure du corps comme véhicule de la souffrance. Il propose une réflexion sur l’amour, balançant entre naufrage et terre promise, et fait de l’enfance une pierre de touche pour interroger la douleur. La deuxième partie de ce mémoire est un essai intitulé Empathie et souffrance dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos de Martine Audet. Divisé en trois chapitres, cet essai étudie l’empathie à l’œuvre dans le recueil de Audet, selon une approche bioculturelle. Il allie interprétation littéraire, sciences cognitives de deuxième génération et philosophie de l’esprit. Dans le premier chapitre, le concept de « simulation incarné », développé par Vittorio Gallese, permet d’interpréter la figure du corps et de suggérer qu’elle véhicule la douleur tout en étant la manifestation d’un effacement identitaire. Le deuxième chapitre se penche sur l’intersubjectivité en lien avec l’empathie. Il intègre certaines notions clés de la phénoménologie husserlienne afin d’analyser les manifestations du lien empathique unissant les deux présences parcourant le recueil de Audet. Le dernier chapitre explique comment les représentations de l’environnement dans lequel évoluent ces présences peuvent refléter leur souffrance. Pour ce faire, certains concepts liés à l’environnement, particulièrement importants pour l’écocritique actuelle, sont analysés dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos, comme ceux de place et de nature. Ces derniers, étant construits par les perceptions propres à la cognition humaine, sont envisagés d’un point de vue bioculturel. En interprétant ces trois principaux aspects du texte (figure du corps, intersubjectivité et environnement), l’hypothèse selon laquelle la perception de la souffrance dans Tête première / Dos / Contre dos repose essentiellement sur l’empathie comme effet et objet du discours s’en voit validée.

Plant Genes Related to Gibberellin Biosynthesis and Signaling Are Differentially Regulated during the Early Stages of AM Fungal Interactions

Dear Editor, Phytohormones are essential regulators of plant development, but their role in the signaling processes between plants and fungi during arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) establishment is far from being understood (Ludwig-Müller, 2010). AM colonization leads to extensive effects on host metabolism, as revealed by transcriptome studies of AM plants (Hogekamp et al., 2011). Some genes have been specified as an AM core set, since they are mycorrhizal-responsive, irrespective of the identity of the plant, of the fungus, and of the investigated organ. These data support the idea that, on colonization, plants activate a wide reprogramming of their major regulatory networks and argue that mobile factors of fungal or plant origin are involved in such generalized metabolic changes. In this context, hormones may be good candidates (Bonfante and Genre, 2010). However, the emerging picture of the interaction between phytohormones and AMs is very patchy, and information on gibberellin (GA) involvement is still more limited (García-Garrido et al., 2010). The role of GA during nodulation is instead known to control the nodulation signaling pathway (Ferguson et al., 2011).

Cognitive and Visual Speech Contributions to Speech Perception in Challenging Listening Conditions

Speech perception routinely takes place in noisy or degraded listening environments, leading to ambiguity in the identity of the speech token. Here, I present one review paper and two experimental papers that highlight cognitive and visual speech contributions to the listening process, particularly in challenging listening environments. First, I survey the literature linking audiometric age-related hearing loss and cognitive decline and review the four proposed causal mechanisms underlying this link. I argue that future research in this area requires greater consideration of the functional overlap between hearing and cognition. I also present an alternative framework for understanding causal relationships between age-related declines in hearing and cognition, with emphasis on the interconnected nature of hearing and cognition and likely contributions from multiple causal mechanisms. I also provide a number of testable hypotheses to examine how impairments in one domain may affect the other. In my first experimental study, I examine the direct contribution of working memory (through a cognitive training manipulation) on speech in noise comprehension in older adults. My results challenge the efficacy of cognitive training more generally, and also provide support for the contribution of sentence context in reducing working memory load. My findings also challenge the ubiquitous use of the Reading Span test as a pure test of working memory. In a second experimental (fMRI) study, I examine the role of attention in audiovisual speech integration, particularly when the acoustic signal is degraded. I demonstrate that attentional processes support audiovisual speech integration in the middle and superior temporal gyri, as well as the fusiform gyrus. My results also suggest that the superior temporal sulcus is sensitive to intelligibility enhancement, regardless of how this benefit is obtained (i.e., whether it is obtained through visual speech information or speech clarity). In addition, I also demonstrate that both the cingulo-opercular network and motor speech areas are recruited in difficult listening conditions. Taken together, these findings augment our understanding of cognitive contributions to the listening process and demonstrate that memory, working memory, and executive control networks may flexibly be recruited in order to meet listening demands in challenging environments.

Chicano identity and discourses of supplementarity on Mexican cinema: from ‘The Man Without a Fatherland’ (Contreras Torres: 1922) to ‘Under the Same Moon’ (Riggen: 2008)

A radical change took place in Mexican narratives of belonging during the 1990s, when NAFTA was first negotiated. Narratives of migration drastically changed the status of Mexican migrants to the US, formerly derided as ‘pochos’, presenting them as model citizens instead. Following Derrida, I argue the role of the migrant became that of a supplement, which is, discursively, at the same time external to and part of a given unit, standing for and allowing deeper transformations to take place in the whole discourse of bilateral relations and national identity more generally. I use Derrida’s concept of the supplement to discuss changing representations of Chicanos in Mexican cinema, and to assess the extent that they have succeeded in reframing the discourse on national identity, with a focus on gender.

O falar de Marvão

Nesta dissertação, é estudado o Falar de Marvão, um concelho de raia, do Alto Alentejo, com baixa densidade demográfica, população muito envelhecida e uma taxa de analfabetismo acima da média nacional e regional. O presente estudo é composto por cinco capítulos. Nos dois primeiros, são apresentados os estudos dialectológicos realizados no distrito de Portalegre e é caracterizado o concelho de Marvão. O estudo do falar desenrola-se ao longo dos três capítulos principais, dedicados aos aspectos fonético-fonológicos e morfo-sintácticos, bem como ao léxico relacionado com o Homem. O Falar de Marvão está integrado nos dialectos portugueses centro-meridionais, mais especificamente na variedade da Beira Baixa e Alto Alentejo. Assim, apresenta a maior parte das características identificadas pelos linguistas do século XX sobre esta região dialectal, demarcando-se, contudo, por algumas particularidades que o distinguem dos falares dos concelhos circundantes, essencialmente ao nível de alguns aspectos fonético-fonológicos e do léxico. /ABSTRACT: ln this dissertation is presented a study on The Marvão 's Dialect, a bordering district from Alto Alentejo, with a low demographic density, very old population and a rate of illiteracy above the national and regional average. This study is composed by five chapters. ln the two first chapters, are presented the dialectological studies, which took place in the district of Portalegre, and there is also characterized the district of Marvão. The study of the dialect is developed along the three main chapters, which are dedicated to the phonetic, phonologic, morphologic and syntactic aspects, as well as the lexicon related to the human being. The Marvão 's dialect is integrated in the centre-meridional portuguese dialects, specifically in the Beira Baixa and Alto Alentejo’s diversity, presenting the main characteristics identified in this dialectical region by the linguists of the XX century. However, it distinguishes itself by some particularities, which differentiate it from the dialects spoken in the surrounding districts, mainly on the level of some phonetic and phonologic aspects and the lexicon.