Desafios de uma comunidade minoritária: os apoios sociais na comunidade cigana de Barcelos

Dissertação de mestrado em Crime Diferença e Desigualdade

Wonder Woman et la mythologie contemporaine des amazones

[Extrait] Notre point de départ est la constatation dans les différents médias, genres et arts de la culture populaire et médiatique de la grande quantité de personnages féminins qui défendent par la force la liberté de choisir leur destin: Wonder Woman, Lara Croft, Beatrix Kiddo (Kill Bill), Salt, Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Tris (Divergent), Lisbeth Salander (The Millenium Trilogy), Elektra, Yoko Tsuno, Marie des Dragons, Artémis Delambre (Les Pirates de Barataria), Isabellae, entre beaucoup d’autres (1). Toutes ces femmes combattent. La conjugaison des valeurs de la liberté et de la force – la force comme condition de la liberté – structure un certain profil féminin qui se réapproprie deux qualités, l’une physique, l’autre politique, qui constituent dans la tradition socioculturelle patriarcale une prérogative typiquement masculine. (...)

As crianças-soldado na Serra Leoa e na Libéria: estudo comparado sobre o papel da ONU como provedor de segurança humana

Dissertação de mestrado em Relações Internacionais

Zeolite-based nanomaterials for the control of opportunistic pathogenic microorganisms

Dissertação de mestrado em Applied Biochemistry (área de especialização em Biomedicine)

A utilização dos preços de transferência pelas empresas multinacionais como mecanismo de evasão fiscal

Dissertação de mestrado em Direito Tributário e Fiscal

Síntese e testes in vitro de novas pirimido[5,4-d] pirimidinas em células resistentes do cancro coloretal

Dissertação de mestrado em Química Medicinal

O uso de Charges como instrumento para identificação de concepções individuais e representações sociais sobre a Dengue

A dengue é hoje uma das doenças com maior incidência no Brasil, com especial frequência no município de Fênix –Paraná. No presente estudo pretendeu-se analisar as concepções que as crianças têm sobre a dengue, identificando os componentes do modelo KVP, bem como conhecer as representações sociais deste grupo. Para o efeito optou-se pela utilização de charges com alunos do 5º ano do ensino fundamental de uma escola localizada no município de Fênix, cujos textos foram analisados para identificação de categorias e dos componentes do modelo KVP (conhecimentos, valores e práticas) a elas associadas. Foram identificadas quatro categorias de respostas sobre a interpretação da charge relativa à dengue: (i) prevenção da dengue, (ii) perigoso que pode levar à morte, (iii) problema de saúde pública e (iv) combater a dengue. Verificou-se que a “prevenção da dengue” foi a categoria em que se identificaram os três domínios K, V e P implicados na construção das concepções, enquanto as duas categorias “perigoso que pode levar à morte” e “problema de saúde pública” apresentaram apenas os domínios K e V, e a categoria “combater a dengue” apenas evidenciou o domínio V. Os resultados do estudo mostraram que os alunos já veem a dengue como um problema com consequências sérias e que todos têm sua responsabilidade no controle da doença. Percebe-se, portanto, que todo o trabalho que vem sendo realizado pela secretaria de saúde, pelas escolas ou campanhas publicitárias esta surtindo efeito, uma vez que no ano de 2014 houve uma redução do número de casos no município foco da pesquisa.

Synthetic biology approaches to shape bacteriophages towards Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm control

Dissertation for Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering.

Reproductive biology of Hyla goiana (Anura, Hylidae)

Male-male and male-female interactions, reproductive habitat, and vocalizations of Hyla goiana B. Lutz, 1968 a member of H. polytaenia species group, are described. Three groups of calling males were surveyed along a small stream, at the Estação de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Ambiental de Galheiro, Perdizes municipality, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The mean distance between the nearest calling neighbors was 2.7 m, in accordance with an uniform distribution. Clutches (mean 180 eggs) were deposited in the stream, submerged and attached to plants. In two observed courtships the female moved towards a calling male that rapidly clasped her. In the male-male interaction, the males emitted advertisement and encounter calls and then engaged in physical combat. The males have a prepollical fang-like spine on each hand and several of them were observed with scratches on dorsum. The advertisement call consists of alternating harsh notes and a trilled of brief notes. The frequency of the call is lower than that of H. aff. polytaenia and H. cipoensis B. Lutz, 1968. The clutch characteristics of H. goiana are similar to those described for H. polytaenia Cope, 1870 and H. cipoensis.

Endogenous and exogenously-induced immunomodulation of tumour-host responsiveness

In spite of the availability of multiple effector mechanisms of the immune system to combat tumour growth and metastases, their impairment frequently accompanies the appearance of cancer. Factors contributing to this impairment may be related to properties of the host and/or the tumour itself and may be with respect to their origin -endogenous or exogenour. Based on the unique biological behavior of prostate cancer (PCa), and its apparent escape from immune surveillance in the presence of tumour immuno genicity, continuing investigation of endogenous and exogenous factors thought to be relevant to its pathogenesis have been made. For this purpose further studies of the suggested role of human seminal plasma (SePl) and the synthetic oestrogen, diethylstiboestrol (DES), as representative endogenous and exogenous immunomodulatory factors (IMF) of tumour-host responsiveness, together with evaluation of human prostatic tissue extracts and leuprolide (the luteinizing-hormone-releasing-hormone proposed as an alternate to DES therapy) have been made by evaluating their effect on the lytic activity of natural killer (NK) cells. SePl and prostate extracts significantly suppressed NK cell lysis. Physicochemical studies suggest SePl and prostate IMF to be associated with high and low molecular weight macromolecules; and implicate the participation of transglutaminase and prostaglandins. Comparative study of therapeutic levels of DES vs. leuprolide on NK cell lysis demonstrated significant suppression by DES vs. a negligible effect of leuprolide. Metastases are highly prevalent in PCa, and contribute significantly to its morbidity and mortality. Further knowledge of the range of effects of endogenous and exogenous IMF on effector mechanisms of tumour-host responsiveness, to include suppression of NK cells, and elucidation of their nature, may contribute toward our understanding of the unique biological behavior of tumours of the prostate, in addition to improvement in their clinical management.

Expectations, Learning and Monetary Policy: An Overview of Recent Research

Expectations about the future are central for determination of current macroeconomic outcomes and the formulation of monetary policy. Recent literature has explored ways for supplementing the benchmark of rational expectations with explicit models of expectations formation that rely on econometric learning. Some apparently natural policy rules turn out to imply expectational instability of private agents’ learning. We use the standard New Keynesian model to illustrate this problem and survey the key results about interest-rate rules that deliver both uniqueness and stability of equilibrium under econometric learning. We then consider some practical concerns such as measurement errors in private expectations, observability of variables and learning of structural parameters required for policy. We also discuss some recent applications including policy design under perpetual learning, estimated models with learning, recurrent hyperinflations, and macroeconomic policy to combat liquidity traps and deflation.

Hawtreyan “Credit Deadlock” or Keynesian “Liquidity Trap”? Lessons for Japan from the Great Depression

This paper outlines the ideas of Ralph Hawtrey and Lauchlin Currie on the need for monetised fiscal deficit spending in 1930s USA to combat the deep depression into which the economy had been allowed to sink. In such exceptional circumstances of “credit deadlock” in which banks were afraid to lend and households and business afraid to borrow, the deadlock could best be broken through the spending of new money into circulation via large fiscal deficits. This complementarity of fiscal and monetary policy was shown to be essential, and as such indicates the potential power of monetary policy – in contrast to the Keynesian “liquidity trap” view that it is powerless This lesson was not learned by the Japanese authorities in their response to the asset price collapse of 1991-92, resulting in a lost decade as ballooning fiscal deficits were neutralised throughout the 1990s by unhelpfully tight monetary policy with the Bank of Japan refusing to monetise the deficits.

Sharp Bounds on Heterogeneous Individual Treatment Responses

This paper discusses how to identify individual-specific causal effects of an ordered discrete endogenous variable. The counterfactual heterogeneous causal information is recovered by identifying the partial differences of a structural relation. The proposed refutable nonparametric local restrictions exploit the fact that the pattern of endogeneity may vary across the level of the unobserved variable. The restrictions adopted in this paper impose a sense of order to an unordered binary endogeneous variable. This allows for a uni.ed structural approach to studying various treatment effects when self-selection on unobservables is present. The usefulness of the identi.cation results is illustrated using the data on the Vietnam-era veterans. The empirical findings reveal that when other observable characteristics are identical, military service had positive impacts for individuals with low (unobservable) earnings potential, while it had negative impacts for those with high earnings potential. This heterogeneity would not be detected by average effects which would underestimate the actual effects because different signs would be cancelled out. This partial identification result can be used to test homogeneity in response. When homogeneity is rejected, many parameters based on averages may deliver misleading information.

A high-throughput test to detect C.E.R.A. doping in blood.

C.E.R.A., a continuous erythropoietin receptor activator, is a new third-generation erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) that has recently been linked with abuse in endurance sports. In order to combat this new form of doping, we examined an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) designed to detect the presence of C.E.R.A. in serum samples. The performance of the assay was evaluated using a pilot excretion study that involved six subjects receiving C.E.R.A. Validation data demonstrated an excellent reproducibility and ensured the applicability of the assay for anti-doping purposes. To maximize the chances of detecting the drug in serum samples, we propose the use of this specific ELISA test as a high-throughput screening method, combined with a classic isoelectric focusing test as a confirmatory assay. This strategy should make C.E.R.A. abuse relatively easy to detect, thereby preventing the future use of this drug as a doping agent.