Development of an open case-based decision-support system for diagnosis in oral pathology

Making diagnoses in oral pathology are often difficult and confusing in dental practice, especially for the lessexperienced dental student. One of the most promising areas in bioinformatics is computer-aided diagnosis, where a computer system is capable of imitating human reasoning ability and provides diagnoses with an accuracy approaching that of expert professionals. This type of system could be an alternative tool for assisting dental students to overcome the difficulties of the oral pathology learning process. This could allow students to define variables and information, important to improving the decision-making performance. However, no current open data management system has been integrated with an artificial intelligence system in a user-friendly environment. Such a system could also be used as an education tool to help students perform diagnoses. The aim of the present study was to develop and test an open case-based decisionsupport system.Methods: An open decision-support system based on Bayes' theorem connected to a relational database was developed using the C++ programming language. The software was tested in the computerisation of a surgical pathology service and in simulating the diagnosis of 43 known cases of oral bone disease. The simulation was performed after the system was initially filled with data from 401 cases of oral bone disease.Results: the system allowed the authors to construct and to manage a pathology database, and to simulate diagnoses using the variables from the database.Conclusion: Combining a relational database and an open decision-support system in the same user-friendly environment proved effective in simulating diagnoses based on information from an updated database.

Adaptive control charts for attributes

We develop a general model for adaptive c, np, u and p control charts in which one, two or three design parameters (sample size, sampling interval and control limit width) switch between two values, according to the most recent process information. For a given in-control average sampling rate and a given false alarm rate, the adaptive chart detects changes in the process much faster than a chart with fixed parameters. Moreover, this study also offers general guidance on how to choose an effective design.

Trabalhando com estratégias de ensino-aprendizado por descoberta na área da saúde: a problematização e a aprendizagem baseada em problemas.

Considering the changes in teaching in the health field and the demand for new ways of dealing with knowledge in higher learning, the article discusses two innovative methodological approaches: problem-based learning (PBL) and problematization. Describing the two methods' theoretical roots, the article attempts to identify their main foundations. As distinct proposals, both contribute to a review of the teaching and learning process: problematization, focused on knowledge construction in the context of the formation of a critical awareness; PBL, focused on cognitive aspects in the construction of concepts and appropriation of basic mechanisms in science. Both problematization and PBL lead to breaks with the traditional way of teaching and learning, stimulating participatory management by actors in the experience and reorganization of the relationship between theory and practice. The critique of each proposal's possibilities and limits using the analysis of their theoretical and methodological foundations leads us to conclude that pedagogical experiences based on PBL and/or problematization can represent an innovative trend in the context of health education, fostering breaks and more sweeping changes.

Digital review 2007 of Latin America and the Caribbean: progress and challenges policies for development with ICT. Abridged document

Includes bibliography

Public policies for the information society: a shared vision?

Includes bibliography

O trabalho de orientação dos estágios frente aos diferentes cenários educacionais

This paper discussed the professor's role in teacher education during the trainee activities. Several scenarios were identified in the literature and the potential improvement that tutorial actions could have was highlighted. Three main dimensions of tutorial actions were proposed: education is to advise for life, to advise is to support the student to perceive alternative processes, attitudes and perceptions and to advise is to develop the student towards his or her learning process. It is proposed that the professor exercise educational tutoring and not only specific tutoring, these last ones usually focused on the classroom only.

A variedade léxica da língua espanhola em dicionários bilíngues espanhol-português para aprendizes brasileiros

Due to factors such as globalization and the demography of Hispanic countries, the Spanish language has influenced worldwide, especially since the last decade of the 20th century, mainly countries which are geographically close to Spanish American countries, such as Brazil. In this context, it is necessary to think of the linguistic variation of the Spanish language, in which we emphasize the lexical variation. As any language, Spanish has a colossal and wealthy lexicon with different varieties related to the characteristics from each region: history, culture, customs etc. This diversity influences the development, the amplification and the renewal of a language, as well as the teaching-learning process. Thus, we proposed to analyze the lexicon varieties of Spanish language entries in some Spanish-Portuguese bilingual dictionaries for Brazilian learners. In order to achieve this goal, we selected some examples of lexical variety in a corpus organized with texts of different textual genres and we verified if these lexical items are registered in the dictionaries chosen. As the corpus is organized from texts present in didactic manuals used in Brazil, our goal is to verify if the vocabulary which the Brazilian learner has contact in formal education is registered in the analyzed dictionaries.

Policies and practices for the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in education in Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

A common standardized methodology for the measurement of defence spending

Includes bibliography

A visual tool for building synchronous generator capability curves

Synchronous generators are essential components of electric power systems. They are present both in hydro and thermal power plants, performing the function of converting mechanical into electrical energy. This paper presents a visual approach to manipulate parameters that affect operation limits of synchronous generators, using a specifically designed software. The operating characteristics of synchronous generators, for all possible modes of operation, are revised in order to link the concepts to the graphic objects. The approach matches the distance learning tool requirements and also enriches the learning process by developing student trust and understanding of the concepts involved in building synchronous machine capability curves. © 2012 IEEE.

Educação a distância e formação continuada do professor

Distance Education has had a significant role in further teacher development. The aim of this study was to collect and analyze data related to distance education for the further teacher development related to the inclusion process of people with disability. One hundred and eighty two students from the Distance Training course from Unesp - Bauru / SP participated in the research, constructing and applying a semi-structured questionnaire. The results indicate that scheduling flexibility and attendance of a great number of students in different geographical areas stand out as positive points of this modality, however, for it to be a success, tutors must be adequately prepared to use new tools in the teaching-learning process. It is essential that the students feel they are being assisted in every moment, contributing to the construction of a virtual community and effecting quality development in distance education.

Atención farmacéutica como proceso pedagógico: Relato de un caso

The autonomy pedagogy allows the integration among theory, practice and reflection in the learning process. Applied to pharmaceutical care, the patient-centered process to achieve desired goals of therapy enables to build, rebuild and share knowledge and experiences with patients, in a critic and progressive way, inquiring and investigating. Therefore, it is possible to design a care plan according to patient experience, working together with the pharmaceutical care practitioner, to solve drugtherapy problems detected, with the patient as the center of the health care system. © 2012 Ediciones Mayo, S.A. Todos los derechos reservados.

Predicting academic success of engineering students in technical drawing from working memory

Tests on spatial aptitude, in particular Visualization, have been shown to be efficient predictors of the academic performance of Technical Drawing stu-dents. It has recently been found that Spatial Working Memory (a construct defined as the ability to perform tasks with a figurative content that require si-multaneous storage and transformation of information) is strongly associated with Visualization. In the present study we analyze the predictive efficiency of a bat-tery of tests that included tests on Visualization, SpatialWorking Memory, Spatial Short-term Memory and Executive Function on a sample of first year engineering students. The results show that Spatial Working Memory (SWM) is the most important predictor of academic success in Technical Drawing. In our view, SWM tests can be useful for detecting as early as possible those students who will require more attention and support in the teaching-learning process.

English collocations extracted from a corpus of university learners and its contribution to a language teaching pedagogy

Taking into consideration the relevance of foreign language teaching and the learning of collocations (ALTENBERG; EEG-OLOFSSON, 1990; FONTENELLE, 1994; MEUNIER; GRANGER, 2008), this paper aims at showing results of an investigation on whether the teaching of collocations should be implicit or explicit to the Brazilian university students. Furthermore, the research has the purpose of presenting some collocational aspects from a corpus of the written language learners made up of intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced university students' argumentative essays at a public university in Brazil. With the help of WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 2007), it was possible to raise students' most frequent collocational choices and patterns, the most/least used type of collocations, the influence of the mother tongue on their choices, among other aspects. With the purpose of motivating and involving students in classroom research, it was also introduced The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), created by Mark Davies. By doing so, students could compare their collocational choices with the patterns found in the online corpus, extract more collocational patterns and, consequently, be aware of the potential of corpora for the foreign learning process, specifically for raising language awareness, with focus on prefabricated chunks.

Creating capabilities in local environments and production networks

Includes bibliography