Spiritual Violence: Queer People and the Sacrament of Communion

This thesis addresses spiritual violence done to queer people in the sacrament of Communion, or Eucharist, in both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in the U.S. Rooted in the sexual dimorphic interpretation of Genesis, theologians engendered Christianity with sexism and patriarchy, both of which have since developed into intricate intersections of oppressions. Religious abuse is founded on the tradition of exclusionary practices and is validated through narrow interpretations of Scripture that work to reassert the authority of the experiences of the dominant culture. The resultant culture of oppression manifests itself in ritualized spiritual violence. Queer people are deemed “unworthy” to take ‘the body and blood of the Christ’ and, in fact, are excluded altogether. This “unworthiness” is expressed as spiritual violence against queer people who are shunned and humiliated, internalize hateful messages, and are denied spiritual guidance or life-affirming messages. By “queering” Scripture, or reading the Bible anew through a framework of justice, queer people have begun to sacramentalize their experiences and reclaim their place at the table.

Health profile of centenarians in Portugal: a census-based approach

Background: The number of centenarians is rapidly increasing in Europe. In Portugal, it has almost tripled over the last 10 years and constitutes one of the fastest-growing segments of the population. This paper aims to describe the health and sociodemographic characteristics of Portuguese centenarians as given in the 2011 census and to identify sex differences. Methods: All persons living in Portugal mainland and Madeira and Azores islands aged 100 years old at the time of the 2011 census (N = 1,526) were considered. Measures include sociodemographic characteristics and perceived difficulties in six functional domains of basic actions (seeing, hearing, walking, cognition, self-care, and communication) as assessed by the Portuguese census official questionnaires. Results: Most centenarians are women (82.1 %), widowed (82 %), never attended school (51 %), and live in private households (71 %). The majority show major constraints in seeing (67.4 %), hearing (72.3 %), and particularly in their mobility (83.7 % cannot/have great difficulties in walking/climbing stairs and 80.7 % in bathing/dressing). In general, a better outcome was found for reported memory/concentration and understanding, with 39.1 % and 42.5 % presenting no or mild difficulty, respectively. Top-level functioning (no/mild difficulties in all dimensions concurrently) was observed in a minority of cases (5.96 %). Women outnumber men by a ratio of 4.6, and statistically significant differences were found between men and women for all health-related variables, with women presenting a higher percentage of difficulties. Conclusion: Portuguese centenarians experience great difficulties in sensory domains and basic daily living activities, and to a lesser extent in cognition and communication. The obtained profile, though self-reported, is important in considering the potential of social and family participation of this population regardless of their functional and sensory limitations. Based on the observed differences between men and women, gender-specific and gender-sensitive interventions are recommended in order to acknowledge women’s worse overall condition.

Professor gender, age, and “hotness” in influencing college students’ generation and interpretation of professor ratings

Undergraduate psychology students rated expectations of a bogus professor (randomly designated a man or woman and hot versus not hot) based on an online rating and sample comments as found on RateMyProfessors.com (RMP). Five professor qualities were derived using principal components analysis (PCA): dedication, attractiveness, enhancement, fairness, and clarity. Participants rated current psychology professors on the same qualities. Current professors were divided based on gender (man or woman), age (under 35 or 35 and older), and attractiveness (at or below the median or above the median). Using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), students expected hot professors to be more attractive but lower in clarity. They rated current professors as lowest in clarity when a man and 35 or older. Current professors were rated significantly lower in dedication, enhancement, fairness, and clarity when rated at or below the median on attractiveness. Results, with previous research, suggest numerous factors, largely out of professors’ control, influencing how students interpret and create professor ratings. Caution is therefore warranted in using online ratings to select courses or make hiring and promotion decisions.

Chest Breadths to Predict Individuals' Age - A Case Based View

It is well known that rib cage dimensions depend on the gender and vary with the age of the individual. Under this setting it is therefore possible to assume that a computational approach to the problem may be thought out and, consequently, this work will focus on the development of an Artificial Intelligence grounded decision support system to predict individual’s age, based on such measurements. On the one hand, using some basic image processing techniques it were extracted such descriptions from chest X-rays (i.e., its maximum width and height). On the other hand, the computational framework was built on top of a Logic Programming Case Base approach to knowledge representation and reasoning, which caters for the handling of incomplete, unknown, or even contradictory information. Furthermore, clustering methods based on similarity analysis among cases were used to distinguish and aggregate collections of historical data in order to reduce the search space, therefore enhancing the cases retrieval and the overall computational process. The accuracy of the proposed model is satisfactory, close to 90%.

Crossing frontiers between tourism and demography. An empirical analysis based on European travellers’ behaviour

This paper aims to establish possible tourism demand scenarios of European travellers to Portugal based on the relationship with changing population structures. A combination of the EuROBAROMETER report 370 (“Attitudes of Europeans towards Tourism in 2013”) and the cohort-component method for population projections will allow the development of different possible tourism demand scenarios. Following the European report, individuals who travelled in 2013 were most likely to live in a household with two or more individuals. Thus, if elderly couples are together till later in their life and in better physiological shape, it is possible that the number of elderly individuals travelling for tourism purposes will increase in the near future. If we can expect tourists from developing countries to be younger due to their demographic dynamics than those from developed countries, where the ageing population is growing fast, we can expect that the percentage of the elderly among tourists will increase. Furthermore, the 2013 European report found that the combination of socio-demographic variables, such as, age, population, gender, household dimension, country of residence and trip purpose explained tourism demand scenarios for Portugal, confirming that seniors and families evidence a paramount sense of importance for the destination. In the literature there is a lack of discussion about the effects of demography in the future and the role of an ageing population in tourism demand choice patterns. We aim to contribute to filling this gap. Consequently, we strongly believe that this paper contributes to the literature by introducing a new field of discussion about the importance of demographic changes in shaping travel trends.

Social Representations of Violence against the Elderly

The repercussions of violence on the mental, social, and physical well-being of the elderly are some of the most challenging problems in public health today. Using a qualitative design, we conducted a study in Portugal and the United States that applied both descriptive and comparative methods in order to understand the social representations of violence against the elderly. Utilizing the Theory of Social Representations, we explored the perspectives of the elderly, their families, and healthcare professionals on the subject of violence against the elderly. The data on which the findings were based were obtained in two very different cultural contexts, yet the representations of violence against the elderly revealed no significant cross-cultural differences. However, conceptualizations regarding expectations of care and protection for the elderly proved to be distinct. We discussed concerns about the general attitudes of tolerance toward violence, including those of the elderly who self-identified as eventual victims. Violence against the elderly was portrayed as a part of old age and also somehow was justified by it. The results also indicated the need to better prepare healthcare professionals and society in general to deal with the consequences of the problem and not, as we would like to report, to prevent it from happening.

The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between coping and suicide risk in a Portuguese community sample of adults

Background and aims(s): The study evaluated the contribution of coping strategies, based on the Toulousiane conceptualization of coping, to the prediction of suicide risk and tested the moderating effect of gender, controlling for depressive symptoms. Method: A two-time data collection design was used. A community sample of 195 adults (91 men and 104 women) ranging in age from 19 to 65 years and living in several Portuguese regions, mostly in Alentejo, participated in this research. Results: Gender, depressive symptoms, control, and withdrawal and conversion significantly predicted suicide risk and gender interacted with control, withdrawal and conversion, and social distraction in the prediction of suicide risk. Coping predicted suicide risk only for women. Conclusions: Results have important implications for assessment and intervention with suicide at-risk individuals. In particular,the evaluation and development of coping skills is indicated as a goal for therapists having suicide at-risk women as clients.

Age Prediction through Pelvis X-Ray Images - A Case Based approach to Problem Solving

It is well known that the dimensions of the pelvic bones depend on the gender and vary with the age of the individual. Indeed, and as a matter of fact, this work will focus on the development of an intelligent decision support system to predict individual’s age based on pelvis’ dimensions criteria. On the one hand, some basic image processing technics were applied in order to extract the relevant features from pelvic X-rays. On the other hand, the computational framework presented here was built on top of a Logic Programming approach to knowledge representation and reasoning, that caters for the handling of incomplete, unknown, or even self-contradictory information, complemented with a Case Base approach to computing.

Gender differences in first-year College students’ academic expectations

Based on a multidimensional definition of academic expectations (AEs), the authors examine students’ AE component scores across countries and genders. Two samples (343 Portuguese and 358 Spanish students) completed the Academic Perceptions Questionnaire (APQ) six months after enrolling in their universities. Factorial invariance was ensured across countries and genders, allowing us to study AEs using the APQ for both genders and in both countries. No significant differences in factor means were found between countries, indicating that AEs are not an obstacle to student mobility. Gender differences were found in some AE factor means, Training for employment, Personal and social development, Student mobility, Political engagement and citizenship, and Social pressure, with males exhibiting higher scores. Because these differences are not supported by most literature in this domain, further studies are needed to clarify the causes of women’s lower expectations and, therefore, risk of adaptation difficulties.

Crossing frontiers between tourism and demography. An empirical analysis based on European travellers’ behaviour

This paper aims to establish possible tourism demand scenarios of European travellers to Portugal based on the relationship with changing population structures. A combination of the EUROBAROMETER report 370 (“Attitudes of Europeans towards Tourism in 2013”) and the cohort-component method for population projections will allow the development of different possible tourism demand scenarios. Following the European report, individuals who travelled in 2013 were most likely to live in a household with two or more individuals. Thus, if elderly couples are together till later in their life and in better physiological shape, it is possible that the number of elderly individuals travelling for tourism purposes will increase in the near future. If we can expect tourists from developing countries to be younger due to their demographic dynamics than those from developed countries, where the ageing population is growing fast, we can expect that the percentage of the elderly among tourists will increase. Furthermore, the 2013 European report found that the combination of socio-demographic variables, such as, age, population, gender, household dimension, country of residence and trip purpose explained tourism demand scenarios for Portugal, confirming that seniors and families evidence a paramount sense of importance for the destination. In the literature there is a lack of discussion about the effects of demography in the future and the role of an ageing population in tourism demand choice patterns. We aim to contribute to filling this gap. Consequently, we strongly believe that this paper contributes to the literature by introducing a new field of discussion about the importance of demographic changes in shaping travel trends.

Age and Gender Identification using Stacking for Classification⋆ Notebook for PAN at CLEF 2016

This paper presents our approach of identifying the profile of an unknown user based on the activities of known users. The aim of author profiling task of PAN@CLEF 2016 is cross-genre identification of the gender and age of an unknown user. This means training the system using the behavior of different users from one social media platform and identifying the profile of other user on some different platform. Instead of using single classifier to build the system we used a combination of different classifiers, also known as stacking. This approach allowed us explore the strength of all the classifiers and minimize the bias or error enforced by a single classifier.

Más allá del género

Recibido 06 de setiembre de 2010 • Aceptado 09 de marzo de 2011 • Corregido 22 de mayo de 2011      El propósito del presente ensayo es describir, desde la cotidianidad, la influencia de la palabra en las canciones populares y destacar, al mismo tiempo, cómo lo cotidiano, lo que vemos, escuchamos y vivimos son poderosas herramientas de aprendizaje duradero en la construcción de las representaciones culturales relativas al género. Se destaca la influencia de las letras de las canciones populares en la construcción de la identidad masculina. Además, cómo esto determina las relaciones entre los sujetos, sean hombres y mujeres. Se plantea la necesidad de romper con modelos sexuales estereotipados que generan la violencia contra las mujeres y algunos hombres, en un contexto de una sociedad patriarcal, en procura de una sociedad más democrática y equitativa, sobre la base del principio de igualdad.

Seguridad comunitaria y el rol de la policía

Se desarrolla un marco teórico de la seguridad comunitaria al definirla a partir de la evolución que ha tenido el tema de la seguridad comunitaria a partir de la adopción del enfoque más amplio de la seguridad humana de los habitantes como base y eje de las políticas públicas, de donde nace un nuevo conjunto de prioridades para la erradicación de los factores de riesgo social asociados o que son proclives a la violencia y la comisión de delitos, tales como la deserción escolar, el desempleo, la violencia en todas sus formas, la inequidad de género y diversidad social, la falta de cohesión social, las migraciones, internas o externas, forzadas por las condiciones de vida. El enfoque se basa en un nuevo modelo criminológico que está sustentado en el marco de los derechos humanos, la seguridad humana y el modelo de control social democrático para formar un modelo de desarrollo humano sostenible, por tanto la prevención sustentada en políticas públicas para la seguridad humana, la participación comunitaria y el nuevo rol de la policía comunitaria.It develops a theoretical framework for defining the community from the developments that have taken the issue of community safety from the adoption of the broader approach to human security of people as the basis and focus of public policy, arises where a new set of priorities for the eradication of social risk factors that are associated with or prone to violence and committing crimes, such as school dropouts, unemployment, violence in all its forms, gender inequity and social diversity, lack of social cohesion, migration, internal or external, forced by the conditions of life. The approach is based on a new criminological model that is based on the framework of human rights, human security and control model to form a social democratic model of sustainable human development, thus preventing sustained public policies for security human, community involvement and the new role of community police.