Cross-cultural adaptation of a tobacco questionnaire for Punjabi, Cantonese, Urdu and Sylheti speakers: qualitative research for better clinical practice, cessation services and research.Â

Objective : To develop cross‐culturally valid and comparable questionnaires for use in clinical practice, tobacco cessation services and multiethnic surveys on tobacco use.
Methods : Key questions in Urdu, Cantonese, Punjabi and Sylheti on tobacco use were compiled from the best existing surveys. Additional items were translated by bilingual coworkers. In one‐to‐one and group consultations, lay members of the Pakistani, Chinese, Indian Sikh and Bangladeshi communities assessed the appropriateness of questions. Questionnaires were developed and field tested. Cross‐cultural comparability was judged in a discussion between the researchers and coworkers, and questionnaires were finalised. Questionnaires in Cantonese (written and verbal forms differ) and Sylheti (no script in contemporary use) were written as spoken to avoid spot translations by interviewers.
Results : The Chinese did not use bidis, hookahs or smokeless tobacco, so these topics were excluded for them. It was unacceptable for Punjabi Sikhs to use tobacco. For the Urdu speakers and Sylheti speakers there was no outright taboo, particularly for men, but it was not encouraged. Use of paan was common among women and men. Many changes to existing questions were necessary to enhance cultural and linguistic appropriateness—for example, using less formal language, or rephrasing to clarify meaning. Questions were modified to ensure comparability across languages, including English.
Conclusion : Using theoretically recommended approaches, a tobacco‐related questionnaire with face and content validity was constructed for Urdu, Punjabi, Cantonese and Sylheti speakers, paving the way for practitioners to collect more valid data to underpin services, for sounder research and ultimately better tobacco control. The methods and lessons are applicable internationally.

Multi-media and real fiction theatre making

Visual images, in the process of both the imagination and conception of a theatre production, are central to contemporary practice in drama-making. The use of multi-media in theatre is not only a fruitful way to represent the visual component of a particular experience, it but also constitutes a way of speaking the unspoken. Visual language expresses through multi-media and allows broaching taboo subjects, speaking directly to the audience in spite of the indirect form and drawing subtle connections with the live action so as to make meaning. The tension between live action and any form of visual art blurs the lines between imagination and reality. The multi-media theatre is a metaphor for the human mind exposed to social reality. It consists of interruptions, half-finished conversations and ideological aspersions including its primary function of meta-representation.

In the name of the Father : God in Lacan, Judaic or Christian?

This essay challenges the widespread notion that Lacanian psychoanalysis represents a 'Christianing' of psychoanalysis. It argues that Lacanian psychoanalysis brings to psychoanalysis a broadly "Averroist" attitude towards religion which develops out of and transcends Freud's position in Totem and Taboo. For Lacan, religious texts are an invaluable source of pre-psychoanalytic insight or another regal road into the champ Freudien: the dynamic of human beings' desire, in its co-conformity with language and Law. The text focuses on trying to decipher the missing content of the Names of the Father seminar: the seminar that "does not exist" (Miller, 2006) beyond its opening, esoteric and dramatic session. The force of doing this will be to show how much, and how fundamental, the things are that Lacan thinks the bible, and the first Abrahamic monotheism in particular, can teach us about human subjectivity and the instance of the Law that shapes it - insights which go to explain Freud's unmistakable attachment, despite himself, to the civilizational importance of his fathers.

Narratives of judgement: representations of 'privileged' Jews in Holocaust documentaries

Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi’s highly influential essay, “The Grey Zone”, explores the taboo issue of “privileged” Jews, those prisoners who were forced to cooperate with their Nazi captors in order to prolong their lives or the lives of their families. Levi argues that moral evaluations of privileged Jews should be suspended; however, judgements of these liminal figures have permeated representations of victims’ experiences. Taking Levi’s reflections on the “grey zone” as a point of departure, I analyse the ways in which a number of Holocaust documentary narratives construct problematic judgements of privileged Jews; nonetheless, it will be shown that some films engage with the issue in a nuanced manner. While Levi singles out the medium of film as particularly predisposed to simplistic judgements, I argue that documentary film has considerable potential to offer a complex representation of the extreme ethical dilemmas that privileged Jews faced.

Prison rape : is it okay to make jokes about rape in prison?

The trivialisation of sexual violence through what passes as humour is much less common than it once was. Jokes about rape are not innocent, are not harmless fun, are not unconnected to the horrible crime they make light of. Their gradual marginalisation represents social change of real importance. But there is one last refuge of the rape joke in mainstream popular culture, and its continued presence reflects a shameful blind spot in our society. It is a joke which conceals a horrible and damaging reality which is somehow both a taboo topic and a truth universally acknowledged.

A picture that circulated widely on Facebook and other social media last year captures the horror in the humour. It is a picture of a man’s back, decorated with a huge image of an alluring, naked woman, with the man’s buttocks marked to look like breasts. The caption: This man had what he thought was the best tattoo in the world . . . until he went to prison. How can a gag about a man being anally raped while in prison be widely popular, seen as funny, a giggle to share? Were the prospective victim a child or a woman, or were the rape in almost any other setting, the reaction would surely be revulsion and anger. Jail rape, though, somehow remains funny.

The ‘r’ word and closure of remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia; a potential framework for change

AbstractThe latest Australian Commonwealth Government Close the Gap Report reveals the circumstances of many of Australia’s Indigenous Peoples are either stagnant or going backwards. This paper argues that such ongoing injustice is a consequence of systemic racism that has been perpetuated since colonization and sustained in the twenty first century by discussion or mention of racism being taboo. A counter colonial educational framework is then provided that has the potential to address such institutional racism. The paper begins by providing a definition of systemic racism. Following this there is a brief explanation of the unique geographical context and the racist history of colonization in Australia. The nature of remote communities, the link between traditional law, country and identity will be outlined. Based on readily available sources such as media reports, social media links, and public policy announcements by government the paper then reflects on what has been reported about closure of remote communities in Western Australia. Government policy, announcements and events of the past year will be described and critically discussed in light of the definition of racism provided at the beginning of the article. The proposed framework requires self-reflexivity of organisations and individuals with a particular focus on aspects of sovereignty, healing, re-learning history and starting with a focus on agency instead of deficit. Being guided by this framework has the potential to avoid arbitrarily forcing people from their physical, spiritual and ancestral home, though this is likely to be a long term proposition rather than a quick fix.

As possibilidades de satisfação na adoção

Com este trabalho se teve a intenção de penetrar um pouco na natureza da adoção, avaliando comparativamente alguns aspectos da interação pais-filhos adotivos e pais-filhos biológicos. Ser adotivo constitui urna das características dos heróis mitológicos. Sendo terna tão antigo e calcado em fantasias universais da humanidade, talvez seja por isto que ele ainda conserve um tanto de mito e um tanto de tabu que sempre lhe dificultam um tratamento científico. Em comparação à quantidade de estudos de que dispõe a Psicologia, relacionados à interação pais-filhos, o terna da adoção não tem sido muito estudado, no nosso país, principalmente. Com base teórica na Psicanálise e inspirados no trabalho de Wish & Kaplan (1977) (que apresentaram urna forma de comparar relações diádicas), foram propostas hipóteses de que algumas diferenças seriam encontradas ao compararmos as interações pais-filhos adotivos e pais-filhos biológicos.

O incesto : discurso e ideologia

This research had as purpose to establish the logic symbolic present in the contemporary society that facilitated the emergency of a public speech on the incest, and, consequently, to demonstrate the ideological nature that structures it. Event associated to the order of the taboo, the incest would be the transgression of the injunction that, second Lévi-Strauss, facilitated the emergency of the Culture while symbolic order, differentiated of the natural order. The injunction of the incest would reveal the elementary and universal structures of the order symbolic presents in the human societies: the demand of the Rule as rule; the reciprocity and the gift, present element in the social changes that it transforms the individuals in partners, increasing a new quality in the transferred value, according to Lévi-Strauss. Starting from this, I developed the hypothesis second which the phenomenon of the alone incest became an event of discursive order and public as right social transformations affected the normative system (social representations, values, moral) regulator of the relationships among the social subjects, being reflected like this, in the own structuring of the Law. A second work hypothesis was developed starting from that. I develop it leaving of the argument that if when inserting the discussion of the thematic of the defense of the children and adolescent rights, being then, considering it while "privileged modality of sexual abuse against children", the present central subjects in the structuring of the social entail would be leaved. Being like this, the partner-institutional speech on the incest would answer the social demands of order and social control, becoming like this, discursive formations of ideological character. This research work tried to follow the hypothesis above referred, demonstrating the singular sense that it will be attributed to the incest in the contemporary society, particularly, its relationship with the Law and the transgression in the contemporary society

Corporeidade e educação: sinfonia de saberes na educação musical

This study investigates the implications between the musical theory and pedagogical practice based on a study that questions the reasons why some students feel incapable of learning the music language, as well as, if the musical codes are truly so difficult to be apprehended by them. To answer these questions takes itself as reference, the classes I have minister while teaching the disciplines: Music Workshop and Music Language I in the Art Department, Scenic Art Course at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. I have searched the knowledge that constitutes the teacher formation based on the union between the pedagogical efficiency and sensibility, searching in the Corporality the theoretical port for my investigation. This way, advocating is a methodological principle for musical education originated from the experience of knowledge: creating, playing, feeling, thinking, and the interaction among them, conducting the students not only to music learning, but to a process of human formation. It adopts itself as methodological resource, amongst the qualitative methods, some of the techniques that are associated with the ethnographic research, for having as its main objective, to study the meaning of the actions and events of the investigated group. The analysis of the data leads to the conclusion that when the teacher displays his or her pedagogical knowledge in an environment constructed with affectivity, in a playful and pleasant form, the assimilation and construction of the musical concepts happen naturally and efficiently, surpassing the taboo that music learning is only possible to the especially well endowed people for music. Very aware that the scientific debate is important for the strengthening of formative programs involved in the growth and consolidation of the musical teaching and learning area, it is expected to promote this research discussions and reflections in the general educational field with this research, as well as, to contribute significantly to the specific growth of musical education

Por trás de links, sempre existem pessoas: o anonimato como fator de pertencimento no uso de redes sociais on-line em projetos educacionais

The thesis investigated how social networks online that allows anonymous postings can be used by teachers and students to promote the meeting between the sexual education and the needs and expectations of young people face a crosscutting theme, remarkably a taboo. It needs teaching strategies more efficient than those traditionally defended. With this experience, found in a short course about sexuality and health, we sought to go beyond the use of social networks for social entertainment, showing they can be an field that favors the process of teaching and learning. The research was based on the convergence of the communication concepts from Paulo Frere and another from Jürgen Habermas, as well as the philosophical concepts of utopia, ideology and dialectic are interrelated not only among themselves, but also inside an education field. Methodologically in this thesis, we adopted the category of qualitative research; the method is a combination of case study with action research. The technique was the use of questionnaires, data collection was in attendance and the types of data were primary. Finally, we present, then, the idea the communication is not in the middle, but in the trusty relationship established between the interlocutors. In this way, we can think when a student has met their need to be able answer his questions about sex with their teacher through an online social network that allows anonymity and through which the student knows who responds is their teacher, but the teacher can not distinguish the identity of his students, this dialogic relationship serves to get claims of the validity that are characterized as potential communicative action

Heurísticas usando construção de vocabuilário aplicadas ao problema da atribuição de localidades a anéis em redes SONET/SDH

The SONET/SDH Ring Assignment Problem (PALAS) treats to group localities in form of some rings, being respected the traffic's limitations of the equipment. Each ring uses a DXC (Digital Cross Connect) to make the communication with the others, being the DXC the equipment most expensive of the net, minimizing the number total of rings, will minimize the total net cost, problem's objective . This topology in rings provides a bigger capacity of regeneration. The PALAS is a problem in Combinatorial Optimization of NP-hard Class. It can be solved through Heuristics and Metaheuristics. In this text, we use Taboo Search while we keep a set of elite solutions to be used in the formation of a part of the collection of vocabulary's parts that in turn will be used in the Vocabulary Building. The Vocabulary Building will be started case Taboo Search does not reach the best solution for the instance. Three approaches had been implemented: one that only uses vocabulary's parts deriving of Taboo Search, one that it only uses vocabulary's parts randomly generated and a last one that it uses half come of the elite and half randomly generated

Efeito da coesão semântica sobre a discriminação de itens emocionais em testes de memória de reconhecimento de palavras

Highly emotional itens are best remembered in emotional memory tasks than neutral items. An example of emotional item that benefits declarative memory processes are the taboo words. These words undergo from a conventional prohibition, imposed by tradition or custom. Literature suggests that the strongest recollection these words is due to emotional arousal, as well as, the fact that they form a cohesive semantic group, which is a positive additive effect. However, studies with semantic lists show that cohesion can have a negative effect of interference, impairing memory. We analyzed, in two experiments, the effect of arousal and semantic cohesion of taboo words on recognition tests, comparing with into two other word categories: semantically related and without emotional arousal (semantic category) and neutral, with low semantic relation (objects). Our results indicate that cohesion has interfered whith the performance of the test by increasing the number of false alarms. This effect was strongly observed in the semantic category of words in both experiments, but also in the neutral and taboo words, when both were explicitly considered as semantic categories through the instruction of the test in Experiment 2. Despite the impairment induced by semantic cohesion in both experiments, the taboo words were more discriminated than others, and this result agrees with the indication of the emotional arousal as the main factor for the best recollection of emotional items in memory tests

Um estudo algorítmico de problemas logísticos na indústria de petróleo e gás natural

This work consists on the study of two important problems arising from the operations of petroleum and natural gas industries. The first problem the pipe dimensioning problem on constrained gas distribution networks consists in finding the least cost combination of diameters from a discrete set of commercially available ones for the pipes of a given gas network, such that it respects minimum pressure requirements at each demand node and upstream pipe conditions. On its turn, the second problem the piston pump unit routing problem comes from the need of defining the piston pump unit routes for visiting a number of non-emergent wells in on-shore fields, i.e., wells which don t have enough pressure to make the oil emerge to surface. The periodic version of this problem takes into account the wells re-filling equation to provide a more accurate planning in the long term. Besides the mathematical formulation of both problems, an exact algorithm and a taboo search were developed for the solution of the first problem and a theoretical limit and a ProtoGene transgenetic algorithm were developed for the solution of the second problem. The main concepts of the metaheuristics are presented along with the details of their application to the cited problems. The obtained results for both applications are promising when compared to theoretical limits and alternate solutions, either relative to the quality of the solutions or to associated running time

Vacinação contra influenza em idosos por área de residência: prevalência e fatores associados

A vacinação contra influenza é a principal forma de prevenir e reduzir a morbidade e mortalidade associadas à doença entre os idosos e grupos de risco. O objetivo deste estudo é determinar fatores demográficos, socioeconômicos, comportamentais e de saúde associados à vacinação, entre idosos residentes em diferentes áreas do Estado de São Paulo, no período de 2001 a 2002. Trata-se de um delineamento transversal de base populacional que considerou os idosos residentes em duas áreas do Estado: uma composta pelo município de Campinas e distrito do Butantã, na cidade de São Paulo, e outra pelos municípios de Taboão da Serra, Embu e Itapecerica da Serra (região metropolitana do município de São Paulo). A amostra foi composta por 849 e 641 indivíduos com 60 anos ou mais, residentes em tais localidades, respectivamente. Na análise bruta foram utilizadas razões de prevalência e intervalos de confiança de 95% e a análise multivariada foi realizada pela regressão de Poisson. A prevalência de vacinação auto-referida foi de 66,9% entre os residentes em Campinas e no distrito do Butantã e 67,6% naqueles das demais localidades. Após análise ajustada, para os idosos de Campinas e Butantã, apenas menor escolaridade (RP = 1,25; IC 95%: 1,02-1,54) esteve associada à vacinação. Já na área composta pelos municípios menos populosos, idade mais avançada (RP = 1,15; IC 95%: 1,02-1,31), hipertensão arterial (RP = 1,21; IC 95%: 1,02-1,45), diabetes (RP = 1,16; IC 95%: 1,01-1,33) e doença crônica de pulmão (RP = 1,30; IC 95%: 1,03-1,64) referidas, estiveram também associadas. Apesar de a prevalência de vacinação contra influenza entre os idosos das diversas localidades ser praticamente a mesma, pôde-se observar diferenças no perfil do idoso quanto à referência desse procedimento preventivo.

Consumo abusivo e dependência de álcool em população adulta no Estado de São Paulo, Brasil

OBJETIVO: Descrever as prevalências de consumo abusivo e dependência de álcool em população adulta de 20 a 59 anos no Estado de São Paulo, e suas associações com variáveis demográficas e socioeconômicas. MÉTODOS: Inquérito domiciliar do tipo transversal (ISA-SP), em quatro áreas do Estado de São Paulo: a) Região Sudoeste da Grande São Paulo, constituída pelos Municípios de Taboão da Serra, Itapecerica da Serra e Embu; b) Distrito do Butantã, no Município de São Paulo; c) Município de Campinas e; d) Município de Botucatu. Foi considerado consumo abusivo de álcool a ingestão em dia típico de 30 gramas ou mais de etanol para os homens, e 24 gramas ou mais para as mulheres. A dependência de álcool foi caracterizada pelo questionário CAGE. Análises bivariadas e multivariadas dos dados foram realizadas a partir de Modelos de Regressão de Poisson. Todas as análises foram estratificadas por sexo. RESULTADOS: em 1.646 adultos entrevistados, a prevalência de consumo abusivo de álcool foi de 52,9% no sexo masculino e 26,8% no sexo feminino. Quanto à dependência de álcool, foram observadas duas ou mais respostas positivas no teste CAGE em 14,8% dos homens e em 5,4% das mulheres que relataram consumir álcool. Isto corresponde a uma prevalência populacional de dependência de 10,4% nos homens e 2,6% nas mulheres. O consumo abusivo de álcool no sexo masculino apresentou associação inversa à faixa etária e associação direta à escolaridade e ao tabagismo. No sexo feminino, observou-se associação direta do consumo abusivo de álcool com a escolaridade e o tabagismo, e com as situações conjugais sem companheiro. A dependência de álcool no sexo masculino associou-se a não exercer atividade de trabalho e à baixa escolaridade. No sexo feminino não houve associação do CAGE com nenhuma das variáveis estudadas. CONCLUSÕES: Pela alta prevalência de consumidores e dependentes, é essencial a identificação dos segmentos sociodemográficos mais vulneráveis ao consumo abusivo e dependência de álcool. As associações entre a dependência/abuso e não estar exercendo atividade de trabalho, no sexo masculino, e a maior prevalência em mulheres de escolaridade universitária, sugerem componentes para programas de intervenção e controle.