Dream characteristics in a Brazilian sample: an online survey focusing on lucid dreaming

During sleep, humans experience the offline images and sensations that we call dreams, which are typically emotional and lacking in rational judgment of their bizarreness. However, during lucid dreaming (LD), subjects know that they are dreaming, and may control oneiric content. Dreaming and LD features have been studied in North Americans, Europeans and Asians, but not among Brazilians, the largest population in Latin America. Here we investigated dreams and LD characteristics in a Brazilian sample (n=3,427; median age=25 years) through an online survey. The subjects reported recalling dreams at least once a week (76%), and that dreams typically depicted actions (93%), known people (92%), sounds/voices (78%), and colored images (76%). The oneiric content was associated with plans for the upcoming days (37%), memories of the previous day (13%), or unrelated to the dreamer (30%). Nightmares usually depicted anxiety/fear (65%), being stalked (48%), or other unpleasant sensations(47%). These data corroborate Freudian notion of day residue in dreams, and suggest that dreams and nightmares are simulations of life situations that are related to our psychobiological integrity. Regarding LD, we observed that 77% of the subjects experienced LD at least once in life (44% up to 10 episodes ever), and for 48% LD subjectively lasted less than 1 min. LD frequency correlated weakly with dream recall frequency (r =0.20,p< 0.01), and LD control was rare (29%). LD occurrence was facilitated when subjects did not need to wake up early (38%), a situation that increases rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) duration, or when subjects were under stress (30%), which increases REMS transitions into waking. These results indicate that LD is relatively ubiquitous but rare, unstable, difficult to control, and facilitated by increases in REMS duration and transitions to wake state. Together with LD incidence in USA, Europe and Asia, our data from Latin America strengthen the notion that LD is a general phenomenon of the human species.

Estudo estatístico sobre eventos de precipitação intensa no nordeste do Brasil

The Northeast of Brazil (NEB) shows high climate variability, ranging from semiarid regions to a rainy regions. According to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the NEB is highly susceptible to climate change, and also heavy rainfall events (HRE). However, few climatology studies about these episodes were performed, thus the objective main research is to compute the climatology and trend of the episodes number and the daily rainfall rate associated with HRE in the NEB and its climatologically homogeneous sub regions; relate them to the weak rainfall events and normal rainfall events. The daily rainfall data of the hydrometeorological network managed by the Agência Nacional de Águas, from 1972 to 2002. For selection of rainfall events used the technique of quantiles and the trend was identified using the Mann-Kendall test. The sub regions were obtained by cluster analysis, using as similarity measure the Euclidean distance and Ward agglomerative hierarchical method. The results show that the seasonality of the NEB is being intensified, i.e., the dry season is becoming drier and wet season getting wet. The El Niño and La Niña influence more on the amount of events regarding the intensity, but the sub-regions this influence is less noticeable. Using daily data reanalysis ERAInterim fields of anomalies of the composites of meteorological variables were calculated for the coast of the NEB, to characterize the synoptic environment. The Upper-level cyclonic vortex and the South atlantic convergene zone were identified as the main weather systems responsible for training of EPI on the coastland

Distúrbios do sono em pacientes com transtorno depressivo

To evaluate sleep disorder complaints in outpatients with depressive disorder from a general hospital. Methods: An observational, cross-sectional study was carried out with a study sample composed of 70 patients (44 women and 26 men) with diagnosis of depressive disorder, according to the DSM-IV criteria. The patients were interviewed and evaluated by the Identification Questionnaire, the Sleep Habits Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results: In this study, 50 (71.3%) patients had recurrence of sleep disorder complaints. Mean BDI score was 35.83+8.85, with significant differences between patients with (38.50+8.70) and without (29.60+7.80) recurrence (p<0.05) and among patients with 1, 2, 3 and >3 episodes (p<0.05). In this study, 49 (70%) patients had insomnia and 21 (30%) had subjective excessive sleepiness. Significant differences were observed between the mean duration in months of the sleep disorders (7.16+2.10) and the depressive disorder (6.12+1.90) (p<0.05). Discussion: In the study sample, recurrence of sleep disorder complaints was high and significantly associated with severe depression. Insomnia was prevalent and the mean duration of sleep disorders was higher in relation to depressive disorder

Testemunhos de um tempo vivido : fragmentos e contextos de uma narrativa de Janduís-RN

Shows up the memory of the elderly, as a consistent experience in the in the construction of the social memory of Janduís, Rio Grande do Norte, where the research takes place. Through an autobiographic narrative, in a qualitative approaching, the intent is to stand up aspects about the individual history and collective memories, starting in a simple question: what did they remember? A question that turns into many others, as how the remember and under which circumstances. So, the lived and remembered moments are the subject of this paper, as these testimonials shows and reveals the citizens typical aspects, intending to telling (again) the city s history by the memories of this people. By oral statements and the analysis that followed, subjective aspects that made a social memory, highlight in violent episodes, that, now remembered, occurred in the historical sediment, which connects several social times, establishing a narrative standard. In Janduís, this standard is about the memory that sticks out their individual ways, and the collective life, in the past, standing out the fair and the events that occurred on it, as the most remembered place, where the memories go stronger. When they narrate are incorporated others facts, the story is reinvented, connecting the past to the future. The paper also revels builders subjects aspects of a social memory, as historical sediment that joins the social times. At the present moment, the fair, to them, is a place that doesn t exist anymore; for the city, is a place of enlargement of women s presence at the trending spaces, which means a place of social transformation. That being said, the fair, in both times, present and past, turns into a analysis object, with important elements to reference narrative s time and place. And how the narrative update the past recorded in the old citizen s memory. What was intended to do was articulate the memory and the history form temporal and special etching that define the place and the narrative context: the lived and the remembered at the group s day by day. In that way, were identify the collective memory s common elements, enunciating the memory and the narratives that update that history, influencing and being influenced, forming in memories in a collective phenomenon fueling the local imaginary

Literatura e educação :ação argumentativa na discussão de histórias

The focus of this thesis is the discussion of stories from the fairy tales genre in reading classes of Children´s Literature. Its main purpose is to investigate the argumentative action in the mediation pedagogic process.The evidence from this study is that the argumentative action is a fundamental component of teacher´s mediation as far as story discussion is concerned. The concept of mediation in this thesis comes from principles of interacionist Psychology articulated with THE theory of argumentation. It is understood that argumentative action is a process that objectives to obtain and to intensify the interlocuter´s adhesion through speech. The analysis of the story discussion activity is based on Psycholinguistic, particularly on the study of prevision ability; on the Theory of reception with special reference to the theory of the aesthetic effect, which considers the reader´s reactions and reader´s replies to the text; and on sociocognitive conflict study highlighting conflicts modalities brought up by the discussion of texts. The corpus analysed is composed by discussion episodes of stories from reading classes of Children´s Literature realized through participative observation.The subjects were children aged five-six years old from a public pre-school located in Natal-RN, Brazil. The study highlights mediation acts of argumentative nature such as direct question; illustrations from the book; rereading that were used by the teacher-researcher in story discussion. Among its conclusions it is revealed that argumentative action in stories discussion favors and intensifies the agreement of children´s to the activity. It increases the interaction between text and reader; it favours children´s organization and explicitation of their thoughts. The analysed material shows children´s exposing their ability to argue when having adequade scaffolding by an argumentative mediator the teacher

A literatura na sala de aula: uma alternativa de ensino transdisciplinar

The present thesis studies the appropriate education of the literary gender based in an approach of trans-disciplinary teaching. The main objectives will be to survey the degree of trans-disciplinarity of the literary reading in classrooms and to propose the literary reading as an alternative of trans-disciplinary teaching. The theoretical contributions, which sustain the lines of central argument of this thesis, are related to the critical theories on the epistemological and methodological crisis in the speech of the modernity; the emergency of an emerging paradigm under the optics of the speech of the post-modernity; the theories concerned to curriculums and their interrelations with the school teaching; the theories of the complexity and of the inter and trans-disciplinarity; theories of the reading and of the literature, more precisely the literary semiology and the aesthetics of the acceptance; theories about the pedagogic mediation starting from presupposed and trans-disciplinary principles. The methodological foundations, of the type inter and trans-disciplinary, which anchor the approach of the study is related to a line of qualitative analyses applied the teaching-learning situation accomplished during the data collection during the empiric stage of the research. The analyzed corpus is composed of episodes originated from the classes with literary texts accomplished in the months of June and December of 2005, under the orientation of a complex and trans-disciplinary didacticism. The involved subjects are students in the age group of 9 and 13 years of age from a public school in the county of Cabo de Santo Agostinho, in the State of Pernambuco. Starting from the discoveries found during the research, so much bibliographical, as that of the field, it is possible to conclude, among other things, that the literary reading, when mediated accordingly in the classroom, is a trans-disciplinary object of high degree, because the literary reading can allow and make it possible to the real reader, through a necessary process of speculation on life and its unfolding, solid reflection around the individual and collective occurrences so much in simpler instances as in more complex ones

Role of midbrain in the control of breathing in anuran amphibians

The present study was designed to explore systematically the midbrain of unanesthetized, decerebrate anuran amphibians (bullfrogs), using chemical and electrical stimulation and midbrain transections to identify sites capable of exciting and inhibiting breathing. Ventilation was measured as fictive motor output from the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve and the laryngeal branch of the vagus nerve. The results of our transection studies suggest that, under resting conditions, the net effect of inputs from sites within the rostral half of the midbrain is to increase fictive breathing frequency, whereas inputs from sites within the caudal half of the midbrain have no net effect on fictive breathing frequency but appear to act on the medullary central rhythm generator to produce episodic breathing. The results of our stimulation experiments indicate that the principal sites in the midbrain that are capable of exciting or inhibiting the fictive frequency of lung ventilation, and potentially clustering breaths into episodes, appear to be those primarily involved in visual and auditory integration, motor functions, and attentional state.

Hepatic concentration of heat shock protein 70 kD (Hsp70) in broilers subjected to different thermal treatments

1. The relationship between repeated thermal treatments and hepatic synthesis of Hsp 70 was studied in broiler chickens.2. Sixty broilers were submitted to 5 different treatments (12 birds each) from day 1 to day 42. Four groups were kept in a thermoneutral environment and subjected to 0, 1, 2 and 3 heat stress episodes at 35 degrees C for 4 h per week (TN-0, TN-1, TN-2 and TN-3, respectively). The last group (HT-35) was reared at a room temperature of 35 degrees C.3. From 39 to 42 old, the birds experienced acute heat stress at 41 degrees C. Resistance to heat stress was evaluated by the time taken for rectal temperature to increase by 3 degrees C above the pre-treatment value. Livers were collected (before and after heat stress) and Hsp70 was determined using Western Blot analysis with monoclonal anti-Hsp70 antibody.4. Resistance to heat stress and concentration of Hsp70 were higher in those birds subjected to more heat stress episodes during the experimental period (TN-3) and HT-35. A positive correlation was observed between Hsp70 concentration and the time taken for a 3 degrees C increase in rectal temperature (r=0.42; P<0.01).5. Exposing birds to episodes of heat stress (35 degrees C) during rearing may improve their resistance to acute heat stress, but the previous thermal history did not seem to influence the hepatocyte Hsp70 content after exposure to more severe heat stress (41 degrees C).

Já li muita coisa, então, eu posso inventar mais! A leitura literária e o desenvolvimento do pensamento criativo na infância

This study investigates the contributions of reading literature for the development of creative thinking in childhood. Its relevance consists in exploring practices that contemplate the creative thinking development in apprentices at school space and understanding the literature like a significant way to promote the creative thinking. The study is connected to the qualitaty strand. The exploratory observation and the intervention were adopted as research techniques. The field diary and the audio and video recording of the reading sections were adopted as methodological instruments. The research was conducted in the application s college from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, in a 1th grade class, with 18 students between 6 and 7 years old. During the intervention, 8 readind class happened, with varied strategies and literary genres. The reading sessions were conducted through the principles of scaffolding, defended by Graves and Graves (1995). The corpus is made of speaks episodes, whose encoding semantics allowed the grouping into two central categories: divergent thinking and coauthoring of literary reader. It was taken as a theoretical framework the studies of Amarilha (2011; 2006; 2001; 1991; 1993; 1994), Alencar (2001), Coelho (2000; 1997), Culler (1999), De Masi (2005), Gallo (2000), Guilford (1977), Iser (1996), Jouve (2002), Kneller (1978), Martínez (1997), Smith (2003), Stierle (1979), Vigotski (2009; 1998), Wechsler; Nakano (2003; 2002). The analysis points to the formation of creative individuals in the classroom, through the reading of literature. Reposition the literary education front of the new social demands. Resizes the function of school in children s development, considering the children s skill in exploring, testing hypotheses and making use of their creative thinking, in climate of freedom mental. It signals, in this way, the teacher like a mediator, promoting a favorable to the development of creative thinking environment, a stimulating atmosphere, which enhances the expression of creative thinking in community

Gastric Torsion from an Intestinal Hernia Through a Rent in the Gastrosplenic Ligament in a Horse

The present report describes an 8-year-old gelding presenting with signs of severe abdominal pain. After performing a thorough physical examination, including rectal palpation and additional diagnostic tests, an exploratory laparotomy was recommended. The jejunum was found herniated through the gastrosplenic ligament, and the stomach was severely distended with gas. Given a poor prognosis, the horse was euthanized on the table. At necropsy, the stomach appeared dilated, with an 180 horizontal gastric torsion, from left (lateral) to right (medial), dividing the organ into dorsal and ventral compartments. We believe that the chronic traction exerted by an incarcerated and distended loop of jejunum, in the dorsal aspect of the gastrosplenic ligament, associated with trauma during episodes of intense rolling, enlarged the rent until it ruptured. Because of this rupture, the lateral dorsal aspect of the stomach became unattached, predisposing it to the torsion. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Violência ocupacional contra profissionais de saúde em um hospital de urgência. natal/rn, 2009

Descriptive exploratory study, with quantitative approach, with data collected from April to May 2009, aiming to identify the types of occupational violence affecting professionals on the nursing and medical staff in an emergency hospital service in Natal/RN, over the last 12 months; to identify emergency sectors where occupational violence episodes took place; to characterize aggressors on each type of occupational violence; to know the procedures adopted after each violent act targeting nursing and medical staff professionals; and to know the consequences of violence suffered by the nursing and medical staff professionals. The sample consisted of 26 nurses, 95 nursing assistants/technicians and 124 physicians, for a total of 245 professionals. The results showed that 50.61% of the professionals were women, aged 41 to 45 (22.45%), with post-graduate studies (51.43%), married (60.82%); 21.22% had 16 to 20 years of experience in the profession and in emergency practice; working 40 weekly hours (86.12%); and working both the day shift and the night shift (70.21%); 27.35% consider violence to be a part of their profession and the patient s companions as an important risk factor (86.53%); couldn t inform whether there was a specific established procedure for reporting occupational violence (45.71%); 73.06% suffered occupational violence in the 12 months; 70.20% verbal assault, 24.08% moral harassment, 6.12% physical assault, and 3.67% sexual harassment; 66.67% of the patients took part in the physical assault; the companions, in verbal assault (58.14%); and the health staff in moral harassment (69.49%); facing episodes violence, 37.65% of the professionals reported the fact to their co-workers; 57.25% uffered from stress as a consequence; on 4.71% of the episodes the professionals had to be bsent from work, resulting in 75 days of occupational violence-related absence. We conclude here was a high rate of occupational violence in the researched population, with verbal ssault and moral harassment as the most frequent violence types. Because factors related to ccupational violence were very diverse, actions seeking to confront this problem shouldn t be limited to the work environment itself. Education ought to be one of the most effective ctions for avoiding or minimizing these events occurrence

Atuação da escola frente à violência: estudo comparativo entre duas instituiçoes de ensino

It is a descriptive, exploratory study, quantitative comparative approach, whose general objective was to analyze the violence at school in a comparative way in the context of two schools in Natal / RN. The specifics were to identify the types of manifestations of violence in the contexts of public and private schools, to identify the position of the leadership, teachers and school staff during and after the occurrence of manifestations of violence in the school environment, to identify measures to prevent violence within of schools. The results show that 68 of the 121 participants (56.20%) were female and 53 (43.80%) were male, 38 (31.40%) were between 40 and 49, 85 (70.2%) lived in the south of Natal (RN), 46 (38.02%) specialization, 68 (56.20%) were Catholic, 63 (52.07%) married, 41 (33.88%) received between 03 and 05 and 68 minimum wages (56.20%) were teachers, 51 (42.15%) 02 employees (01,65%) and directors, 46 (38.02%) providers had between 05 and 14 years and 11 months experience in teaching 70 (57.85%) less than five years in the job, 68 (56.20%) worked between 20 hours and 40 hours per week, 81 (16.30%) worked in the 9th grade of elementary school II. As for the sizing of violence, 111 (91.74%) respondents witnessed episodes of this event who work in the institution, 100 (82.64%) witnessed verbal violence, 87 (71.90%) called for parents when some event happenedviolent that it caused injury to students, 66 (54.55%) believed that family violence is the main reason for young people practiced bullying, 44 (38.98%) reported daily episodes of bullying, 64 (52.89% ) the event happens in the courtyard. Of the 37 victims of violence at school, 22 (59.45%) suffered verbal abuse, 18 (48.65%) experienced violence once a week, 36 (97.30%) were attacked by students, 104 (85.95 %) are able to differentiate the bad acts of bullying behavior, 28 (23.14%) separated the involved coordination and communicated verbally, 23 (19.00%) stated that the coordination of schools talked with parents about the aggressive behavior of the student. Regarding the actions taken to minimize bullying, 69 (57.02%) participated in any professional education process, 47 (38.84%) was the educational process at another institution, 49 (71.01%) took courses lasting 12 to 24 hours, 59 (48.76%) stated that interaction with parents and family was the most stimulated by the school to try to minimize and prevent the event and 116 (95.87%) participated in meetings at the institutions surveyed , 58 (50.00%) responded that the meetings took place every two months and 121 (100.00%) reported having no refresher course on school violence in the schools surveyed. We conclude that violence in schools has been expressed in any social class and that professionals are poorly prepared to deal with the situation. So we hope that education professionals through the reading of our study may realize that school violence takes place in any institution affecting the lives of all who make up the educational universe. It is extremely important that these professionals always seek to empower through knowledge so that they can develop strategies to prevent and minimize the bullying to change the reality of the workplace

Violência contra a mulher : estudo de caso em uma instituição de ensino

The study research case with a quantitative approach and prospective data, carried out between December 2010 and February 2011 with the aim of identifying the profile of women in the study, to characterize the acts of violence in the type, frequency, location occurrence and aggressor, analyze the steps taken after the occurrence of acts of violence and the main consequences on the victims. The population consisted of 285 workers in a tertiary institution in Rio Grande do Norte. The results showed that 99 (34.74%) have between 51 to 60 years of age, 78 (27.37%) of 41 to 50 and 62 (21.75%) between 20 and 30 years, are considered color white, 162 (56.84%) have completed higher education, 171 (60.00%) and of these 97 (56.73%) reported having some post-graduate degrees, are married, 141 (49.47%) and have from zero to one child, 148 (51.93%) reside in the south of the city of Natal, 146 (51.23%) have a monthly income of three to five minimum wages, 171 (60.00%) and are mostly in the Technical Administrative Sciences 152 (53.33%), 77 (27.02%) reported having experienced violence, 60 (62.50%) episodes of verbal aggression, 26 (27.08%) of bullying , 05 (5.21%) of physical abuse and 05 (5.21%) sexual harassment; 05 (100.00%) assaults were made by the spouse or partner of the victims and co-workers is another profession were responsible for 18 (30.00%) verbal aggression, 15 (57.69%) bullying and 03 (60.00%) sexual harassment, 02 (40.00%) of victims of physical aggression and 18 (30.00 %) of verbal abused only once, 10 (38.46%) of bullying and 02 (40.00%) of sexual harassment experienced four or more times 05 (100.00%) assaults occurred at domestic and work stood out with 36 (60.00%), verbal abuse, 22 (84.62%), moral harassment and 04 (80.00%) sexual harassment, 35 (36.46%) told colleagues work and 31 (32.29%) for family and friends in 75 (78.13%) cases there was no intervention, 07 (7.29) were unable to respond if something had been done and 14 (14.58% ) have been reported intervention of these, 09 (64.29%) were taken by the heads of the victims, 26 (32.10%) did not notify the fact on the ground that no action would be taken, 62 (80.52%) felt stress , 5 (1.76%) of women turned away from work after the episode of violence, accounting for 198 days of absenteeism. It is concluded that there is a high rate of violence against women, even when they have a good socioeconomic status, and in this sense is important to establish bases of new proposals for improving control of cases of health professionals, especially nurses, to approach patients with a more investigative, and that by identifying a case of violence, be instructed about the paths to be followed for notification while providing psychological support to victims.

Controvérsias sobre a natureza da luz: uma aplicação didática

Researches in the field of Science Teaching have shown, in recent decades, that students from high school level have difficulties in understanding basic concepts of science, in general, and physics, in particular. The specific literature indicates, as a priority for a scientific education of better quality, a more structured understanding about science. This work proposes the introduction of elements of History and Philosophy of Science in high school as an aid to learning the concepts of optics, in general, and of aspects concerning the nature of science, specifically. Making use of historical episodes regarding the controversy on the nature of light, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as clippings of the history of optics in relation to the development of models that explain the process of vision, we formulated a teaching unit and implemented it on two night high school classes of a public school in the city of Parnamirim (RN). The unit involved, primarily, the reading of three historical texts containing written questions followed by a collective debate ("moot"). The results indicated some difficulties in overcoming the misconceptions related to the process of vision and the nature of light. Nevertheless, we believe that the teaching unit has succeeded in relation to the learning of most students, both in relation to a better understanding of science as well as concepts of optics

Ensinando sobre a natureza da ciência: uma abordagem explícita e contextualizada a partir da história do vácuo

In last decades, the importance of including the contents of the Nature of Science (NOS) in Science Education has been emphasized. Several studies have focused on investigating the conceptions of NOS, supported by students and teachers, as well as design, implement and evaluate proposals that aim to provide a reflection on this theme in the educational context. Considering the complexity of such content, studies indicate the need for explicit and contextualized approaches and the History of Science (HS) is one of the possible paths to this inclusion. We started from the premise that, through a historical study, that aims to discuss the meaning and the basis of our "beliefs", we can know the process of building on what we "believe" and better understand its meaning. This thesis is part of this perspective, proposing to explore the History of the Vacuum, a themed high didactic potential still little used, in order to collaborate with the teaching content of NOS. We present actions on different fronts that originated three products in the context of this research. On the first front, we insert the research and production of instructional materials (three historical texts) to subsidize people interested in the implementation of HPS for educational context through this material. The relevance of this front is justified by the existence of gaps with regard to the production of such material for the context of teacher training. However, we consider that the preparation of instructional material of good quality and accessible does not guarantee that these resources will be used, if they will not be accompanied by discussions in teacher training, on how to use them, contexts and obstacles to be faced. The second part presented refers to the organization and implementation of a workshop for undergraduate students in physics and physics teachers, considering the instrumentalization of these individuals to the preparation and use of teaching strategies to approach aspects of NOS through episodes of History of the Vacuum, as well as the preparation of the text orientation for people interested in implementing the instructional material for secondary education. This guidance text contemplates the difficulties anticipated by the literature of the area and the main challenges faced by the participants about the didactic transposition of HPS for the educational context they were noted during the workshop. The relevance of this second front, in particular, is justified by the existence of gaps with regard to the inclusion of the theme of NOS and the HPS teacher training