Leprosy and pregnancy in the State of Para: an epidemiological perspective

Introduction A few older publications describe leprosy associated with pregnancy, a situation that has been linked to leprosy exacerbation. This study aimed to describe the detection rate of this association in the State of Pará by county and Integration Region (IR) from 2007 to 2009 via an analysis of sociodemographic, epidemiological and operational indices. Methods This was a descriptive study using information generated by the SINAN. The Detection Coefficient of the Leprosy and Pregnancy Association (DCLP) epidemiological index was constructed to help interpret the endemicity parameters. The disease was considered hyperendemic when greater than two cases per 10,000 inhabitants were identified. Results During the study period, 149 associations were detected, with 14 hyperendemic counties: seven in 2007, five in 2008 and two in 2009. The Carajás Integrated Region displayed the highest DCLP index in the period. Eldorado dos Carajás had the single highest DCLP index (5.7/10,000 inhabitants, 2008), whereas the DCLP index in Conceição do Araguaia was very high in all three years. However, most counties displayed low or medium DCLP indices. The annual averages were 0.31 DCLP (2007), bass; 0.30 (2008), bass and 0.19 (2009), bass. The average DCLP index was 0.26, which is considered low. Three clusters of medium endemicity were identified by the average DCLP in the study period. Conclusions The analyses indicated that the surveillance program is still unsatisfactory in Pará. The interpretation of the endemicity parameters enabled qualitative and quantitative analyses to determine the epidemiological panorama of this association. The identification of high endemicity requires further clarification.

Southern Modernisms. Critical Stances through Regional Appropriations. Conference proceedings

The hegemonic definition of Modernism has been subjected to an intense critical revision process that began several decades ago. This process has contributed to the significant broadening of the modernist canon by challenging its primal essentialist assumptions and formalist interpretations in the fields of both the visual arts and architecture. This conference aims to further expand this revision, as it seeks to discuss the notion of “Southern Modernisms” by considering the hypothesis that regional appropriations, both in Southern Europe and the Southern hemisphere, entailed important critical stances that have remained unseen or poorly explored by art and architectural historians. In association with the Southern Modernisms research project (FCT – EXPL/CPC-HAT/0191/2013), we want to consider the entrenchment of southern modernisms in popular culture (folk art and vernacular architecture) as anticipating some of the premises of what would later become known as critical regionalism. It is therefore our purpose to explore a research path that runs parallel to key claims on modernism’s intertwinement with bourgeois society and mass culture, by questioning the idea that an aesthetically significant regionalism – one that resists to the colonization of international styles and is supported by critical awareness – occurred only in the field of architecture, and can only be represented as a postmodernist turn. (...)

Tropical lowland mosses disjunct between Africa and the Americas, including Calyptothecium planifrons (Ren. & Par.) Argent, new to the Western Hemisphere

Calyptothecium planifrons (Ren. & Par.) Argent is reported new to the Western Hemisphere based on two recent collections from Brazilian Amazonia, in Pará and Rondônia; C. planifrons was originally described from Madagascar. Forteen Other species of mosses with apparently disjunct distributions between tropical Africa and tropical America are also discussed. It is likely that mos or all of this species discussed will prove to have wider distributions in the tropics when world-wide revisions are carried out.

Changes in peripheral refractive profile after orthokeratology for different degrees of myopia

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of orthokeratology for different degrees of myopia correction in the relative location of tangential (FT) and sagittal (FS) power errors across the central 70 of the visual field in the horizontal meridian. Methods: Thirty-four right eyes of 34 patients with a mean age of 25.2 ± 6.4 years were fitted with Paragon CRT (Mesa, AZ) rigid gas permeable contact lenses to treat myopia (2.15 ± 1.26D, range: 0.88 to 5.25D). Axial and peripheral refraction were measured along the central 70 of the horizontal visual field with the Grand Seiko WAM5500 open-field auto-refractor. Spherical equivalent (M), as well as tangential (FT) and sagittal power errors (FS) were obtained. Analysis was stratified in three groups according to baseline spherical equivalent: Group 1 [MBaseline = 0.88 to 1.50D; n = 11], Group 2 [MBaseline = 1.51 to 2.49D; n = 11], and Group 3 [MBaseline = 2.50 to 5.25D; n = 12]. Results: Spherical equivalent was significantly more myopic after treatment beyond the central 40 of the visual field (p50.001). FT became significantly more myopic for all groups in the nasal and temporal retina with 25 (p 0.017), 30 (p 0.007) and 35 (p 0.004) of eye rotation. Myopic change in FS was less consistent, achieving only statistical significance for all groups at 35 in the nasal and temporal retina (p 0.045). Conclusions: Orthokeratology changes significantly FT in the myopic direction beyond the central 40 of the visual field for all degrees of myopia. Changes induced by orthokeratology in relative peripheral M, FT and FS with 35 of eye rotation were significantly correlated with axial myopia at baseline. Keywords: Field

Promoção da motivação e da autonomia com recurso às tecnologias de informação e comunicação em alunos normovisuais e em alunos com deficiência visual

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ensino de Informática

O Espelho do Índio: A estética da afetividade no autorretrato da criança indígena na Fotopintura

Tese de Doutoramento em Estudos da Criança - Especialidade Comunicação Visual e Expressão Plástica

Conflito e trauma: XVI Colóquio de Outono

It has been the main concern of CEHUM, as a Research Centre within the Humanities which operates in an inter and transdisciplinary structure to listen attentively to the “noise of the world” and attempt a global interpretation of the signs of the times issuing from the world around us, as vibrant echoes of many social and cultural pressing issues. Every year each new Colóquio de Outono attempts to give evidence of that concern through the topic chosen for debate, ample enough and challenging enough to trigger a lively multidisciplinary dialogue amongst the diff erent research groups that compose this centre, the participants and our invited guest speakers. Throughout the three days of this 16th Colóquio de Outono we had the privilege to debate the propositions of a vast number of national and international specialists in the manifold fi elds of inquiry here represented, engaging keynote speakers, project advisors, members of research teams and external researchers attached to the various research projects currently running in CEHUM, in the fi elds of literature, linguistics, philosophy, ethics, visual arts, cultural studies, music and performance. Each specifi c fi eld of studies was however never seen isolated, but always embodied in a geo-cultural context and within the scope of a wide variety of critical debates and current theories of knowledge, as a signal of our understanding of the Humanities as a rich and plural territory which engages us all, scholars, researchers, students.

A comunicação online: a página Web como o BIO Empresarial: estratégias de comunicação visual e web design

Dissertação de mestrado em Ciências da Comunicação (área de especialização em Audiovisuais e Multimédia)

The retained capacity of Lutzomya longipalpis (Lutz & Neiva) to transmit Leishmania chagasi (Cunha & Chagas) after eight years (64 generations in a closed laboratory colony

A closed Lutzomyia longipalpis colony, from Ceará has been used to transmit Leishmania chagasi isolated from a fox in Pará state. The last time this colony was successfully used in similar transmission experiments was eight years (64 generations) ago indicating that this colony of Lu. longipalpis has fully maintained its vectorial capacity in spite of such a long period of maintainance in the laboratory.

New Phlebotomine Sandflies of the walkeri group (Diptera: Psychodidae) from Pará State, Brazil, with a pictorial key 1

The male and female of Lutzomyia carmelinoi n.sp., and the female only of L. baculus and L. williamsi, (Diptera:Psychodidae) are described and illustrated from specimens collected in Pará state, Brazil. A pictorial key is presented to these and the other members of the walkeri group.

Psychodopygus Leonidasdeanei a new species of sand fly (Diptera: Psychodidae) from Pará State, Brazil

The male and female of Psychodopygus leonidasdeanei n.sp., (Diptera : Psychodidae) are described and illustrated from specimens collected in Shannon traps near Santarém, Pará State, Brazil. This species is a member of the squamiventris series and information is given on the distribution of the members of this series in Pará. A pictorial guide to separate the males and some females from others in the series is given.

Olfactory traces and spatial learning in rats.

We conducted an experiment to assess the use of olfactory traces for spatial orientation in an open environment in rats, Rattus norvegicus. We trained rats to locate a food source at a fixed location from different starting points, in the presence or absence of visual information. A single food source was hidden in an array of 19 petri dishes regularly arranged in an open-field arena. Rats were trained to locate the food source either in white light (with full access to distant visuospatial information) or in darkness (without any visual information). In both cases, the goal was in a fixed location relative to the spatial frame of reference. The results of this experiment revealed that the presence of noncontrolled olfactory traces coherent with the spatial frame of reference enables rats to locate a unique position as accurately in darkness as with full access to visuospatial information. We hypothesize that the olfactory traces complement the use of other orientation mechanisms, such as path integration or the reliance on visuospatial information. This experiment demonstrates that rats can rely on olfactory traces for accurate orientation, and raises questions about the establishment of such traces in the absence of any other orientation mechanism. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Influence of local environmental olfactory cues on place learning in rats

The aim of the present study was to assess the influence of local environmental olfactory cues on place learning in rats. We developed a new experimental design allowing the comparison of the use of local olfactory and visual cues in spatial and discrimination learning. We compared the effect of both types of cues on the discrimination of a single food source in an open-field arena. The goal was either in a fixed or in a variable location, and could be indicated by local olfactory and/or visual cues. The local cues enhanced the discrimination of the goal dish, whether it was in a fixed or in a variable location. However, we did not observe any overshadowing of the spatial information by the local olfactory or visual cue. Rats relied primarily on distant visuospatial information to locate the goal, neglecting local information when it was in conflict with the spatial information.

Las nuevas tecnologías en la circulación de los discursos literarios y artísticos

La acelerada invención de nuevos hardware y software van modificando, casi diariamente, la percepción del mundo, y, por lo tanto, la producción cultural, permeabilizando conceptos como arte-literatura, cuadro-libro, imagen-texto. Si bien estas parejas han sido siempre objeto del discurso teórico, la discusión asume hoy una urgencia creciente al momento que las nuevas tecnologías exponen lo que estaba refugiado en el reino de la teoría. La misma forma de comprender la realidad se ve afectada por la inmediatez de estos medios. La investigación analiza la obra de diferentes autores de los nuevos medios que trabajan en torno a la problemática de la representación de la memoria en esta perspectiva contemporánea. El trabajo de investigación desarrollado en la Tesis Doctoral se centra en la forma de representación de la memoria, así como esta planteada en la obra de Chris Marker. Interesan especialmente los últimos dispositivos creados por el autor en el marco de las llamadas nuevas tecnologías y los nuevos espacios de exposición de cine. El proyecto propone un análisis en torno a la memoria que dichos discursos sugieren a través de los temas que les son propios: archivo, identidades culturales, contribución del espectador, base de datos y tratamiento tecnológico de la información. Se ha seleccionado la obra de Chris Marker por las características de realización y de discurso que permiten una amplia discusión sobre las llamadas nuevas tecnologías y el mundo que éstas representan en el nuevo espacio híbrido construido entre las artes visuales, la literatura y la tecnología.

The Rank Lecture: Has imaging told us anything new about human visual organisation?

The functional architecture of the occipital cortex is being studied with increasing detail. Functional and structural MR based imaging are altering views about the organisation of the human visual system. Recent advances have ranged from comparative studies with non-human primates to predictive scanning. The latter multivariate technique describes with sub-voxel resolution patterns of activity that are characteristic of specific visual experiences. One can deduce what a subject experienced visually from the pattern of cortical activity recorded. The challenge for the future is to understand visual functions in terms of cerebral computations at a mesoscopic level of description and to relate this information to electrophysiology. The principal medical application of this new knowledge has focused to a large extent on plasticity and the capacity for functional reorganisation. Crossmodality visual-sensory interactions and cross-correlations between visual and other cerebral areas in the resting state are areas of considerable current interest. The lecture will review findings over the last two decades and reflect on possible roles for imaging studies in the future.