O impacto de programas de escrita na evolução das escritas inventadas em crianças de idade pré-escolar

Hoje em dia é relativamente consensual a importância desempenhada pelas escritas inventadas para a compreensão do princípio alfabético. Em estudos anteriores (Alves Martins & Silva, 2006 a, b) mostrámos que crianças em idade pré-escolar que participaram em programas em que lhes era pedido que confrontassem as suas escritas inventadas com escritas de um nível mais avançado mas muito próximo do seu, evoluíam nas suas escritas. O objectivo deste estudo é o de verificar se a evolução das escritas inventadas das crianças varia consoante as escritas de confronto. Os participantes foram 39 crianças de 5 anos, cujas escritas eram grafo-perceptivas (Ferreiro, 1988). As crianças foram aleatoriamente divididas em dois grupos experimentais e um grupo de controlo. A idade, letras conhecidas, nível de inteligência e consciência fonológica foram controlados. As suas escritas inventadas foram avaliadas num pré-teste e num pósteste. Entretanto, os grupos experimentais participaram num programa de escrita delineado para induzir a reestruturação das suas escritas (o grupo 1 foi confrontado com escritas silábicas com fonetização e o grupo 2 com escritas alfabéticas), enquanto as crianças do grupo de controlo fizeram desenhos. As crianças do grupo experimental 2 produziram escritas mais avançadas do que as do grupo experimental 1.

Protocol for the psychotherapeutic group intervention for facilitating posttraumatic growth in nonmetastatic breast cancer patients

Breast cancer can be perceived as a traumatic event with disturbing effects on psychological domains such as depression, anxiety, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. In contrast, growing evidence has shown that posttraumatic growth can occur as a result of coping with breast cancer. Challenging the assumptive world, deliberate rumination, and emotional disclosure are recognized as strong predictors of posttraumatic growth. Group interventions may also increase social support, distress disclosure, and posttraumatic growth. The aim of this study is to evaluate how group-based interventions can facilitate posttraumatic growth and promote improved psychosocial adjustment to breast cancer. This article describes the study protocol and the applied research methods.

Effects of ocean acidification on the swimming ability, development and biochemical responses of sand smelt larvae

Ocean acidification, recognized as a major threat to marine ecosystems, has developed into one of the fastest growing fields of research in marine sciences. Several studies on fish larval stages point to abnormal behaviours, malformations and increased mortality rates as a result of exposure to increased levels of CO2. However, other studies fail to recognize any consequence, suggesting species-specific sensitivity to increased levels of CO2, highlighting the need of further research. In this study we investigated the effects of exposure to elevated pCO2 on behaviour, development, oxidative stress and energy metabolism of sand smelt larvae, Atherina presbyter. Larvae were caught at Arrábida Marine Park (Portugal) and exposed to different pCO2 levels (control: ~600μatm, pH=8.03; medium: ~1000μatm, pH=7.85; high: ~1800μatm, pH=7.64) up to 15days, after which critical swimming speed (Ucrit), morphometric traits and biochemical biomarkers were determined. Measured biomarkers were related with: 1) oxidative stress - superoxide dismutase and catalase enzyme activities, levels of lipid peroxidation and DNA damage, and levels of superoxide anion production; 2) energy metabolism - total carbohydrate levels, electron transport system activity, lactate dehydrogenase and isocitrate dehydrogenase enzyme activities. Swimming speed was not affected by treatment, but exposure to increasing levels of pCO2 leads to higher energetic costs and morphometric changes, with larger larvae in high pCO2 treatment and smaller larvae in medium pCO2 treatment. The efficient antioxidant response capacity and increase in energetic metabolism only registered at the medium pCO2 treatment may indicate that at higher pCO2 levels the capacity of larvae to restore their internal balance can be impaired. Our findings illustrate the need of using multiple approaches to explore the consequences of future pCO2 levels on organisms.

Contraexemplos e raciocínio dedutivo

Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia na área de especialização de Psicologia Cognitiva apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto Universitário

Self-transcendence is related to higher female sexual desire

One facet of self-transcendence is creative self-forgetfulness (CSF; tendency to be attentionally absorbed in mindaltering experiences). Proneness to mind-altering attentional absorption and other aspects of self-transcendence were previously related to vaginal intercourse frequency, sexual arousability, and female coital orgasm. Given that sexual responsiveness is enhanced by focused attention, itwas testedwhether CSF correlates with sexual responsiveness, and if maladaptive defenses, openness to experience, and testosterone explain the hypothesized relationships. One hundred thirty-nine Portuguese (98 women) provided saliva samples for testosterone determination by luminescence immunoassays before and after a romantic movie scene and reported how intensely they felt sexual desire and arousal during the movie. CSF was measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory– Revised, maladaptive defenses by the immature defenses subscale of the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40), male and female past month desire by the desire dimensions of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF), and Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI). Female desire and arousal during themoviewere independently predicted by CSF, openness to experience and testosterone, but not by immature defenses. Female past month desire was independently predicted by CSF, testosterone, and less immature defenses. Possible psychobiological processes linking self-transcendence and sexual responsiveness are discussed.

Construct and diagnostic validities of the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test in the alzheimer’s disease spectrum

The Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) is a memory test that controls attention and acquisition, by providing category cues in the learning process. Because it enables an assessment of memory not confounded by normal age-related changes in cognition and a high accuracy on Alzheimer's disease (AD) evaluation, it has been suggested by the International Working Group on AD. Our aim was to assess the construct related validity of the FCSRT in the AD spectrum disorders.

Da sobrevivência física à sobrevivência mental : aspectos do funcionamento psíquico em ex-combatentes da guerra colonial portuguesa

Tese de Doutoramento apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto Universitário

Contraexemplos e raciocínio dedutivo

Tese de Doutoramento apresentada ao ISPA - Instituto Universitário

O Inventário Artístico do Patriarcado de Lisboa: história e análise de uma ferramenta museológica precursora

Artigo inserido no âmbito da realização da tese de doutoramento em História da Arte, financiada por bolsa FCT (SFRH/BD/63763/2009).

Southern Modernisms. Critical Stances through Regional Appropriations. Conference proceedings

The hegemonic definition of Modernism has been subjected to an intense critical revision process that began several decades ago. This process has contributed to the significant broadening of the modernist canon by challenging its primal essentialist assumptions and formalist interpretations in the fields of both the visual arts and architecture. This conference aims to further expand this revision, as it seeks to discuss the notion of “Southern Modernisms” by considering the hypothesis that regional appropriations, both in Southern Europe and the Southern hemisphere, entailed important critical stances that have remained unseen or poorly explored by art and architectural historians. In association with the Southern Modernisms research project (FCT – EXPL/CPC-HAT/0191/2013), we want to consider the entrenchment of southern modernisms in popular culture (folk art and vernacular architecture) as anticipating some of the premises of what would later become known as critical regionalism. It is therefore our purpose to explore a research path that runs parallel to key claims on modernism’s intertwinement with bourgeois society and mass culture, by questioning the idea that an aesthetically significant regionalism – one that resists to the colonization of international styles and is supported by critical awareness – occurred only in the field of architecture, and can only be represented as a postmodernist turn. (...)

Southern modernisms from A to Z and back again

The book now being published results from a research project entitled Southern Modernisms that ran from March 2014 to May 2015 with FCT funding. The aim of the project was to explore the possibility of constructing a more inclusive, plural notion of modernism through the revision of Modernism’s prevailing definition – its stylistic focus, its formalist and anti-representative bias, as well as its autonomic assumptions, or, as far as architecture is concerned, its functionalist credo. This critical undertaking was grounded on the hypothesis that southern European modernisms featured a strong entrenchment in popular culture (folk art and vernacular architecture), and that this characteristic could be understood as anticipating some of the premises of, what would later become known as, critical regionalismo. (...)

Appreciating the power of words and imaginative organizing: A triadic model of ethics practiced in everyday conversations

This thesis provides an alternative framework to analyze power and ethics practiced in everyday conversations, which constitute processes of organizing. Drawing upon narrative frameworks, the analyses of messages posted on an online message board demonstrate people’s imaginative capacity to create relevant stories, in respect of their precise grasp of factual understandings, contextual relevance and evaluative/moral appropriateness, by appropriating others’ words. Based on the empirical analyses, the thesis indicates that studies on power and ethics in organizations can be re-oriented towards appreciating irremediable power imbalances by offering alternative ways of member’s denoting experiences of power.

The determinants of mutual fund performance: A cross-country study

We use a new data set to study the determinants of the performance of open–end actively managed equity mutual funds in 27 countries. We find that mutual funds underperform the market overall. The results show important differences in the determinants of fund performance in the USA and elsewhere in the world. The US evidence of diminishing returns to scale is not a universal truth as the performance of funds located outside the USA and funds that invest overseas is not negatively affected by scale. Our findings suggest that the adverse scale effects in the USA are related to liquidity constraints faced by funds that, by virtue of their style, have to invest in small and domestic stocks. Country characteristics also explain fund performance. Funds located in countries with liquid stock markets and strong legal institutions display better performance.

The flow-performance relationship around the world

We use a new dataset to study how mutual fund flows depend on past performance across 28 countries. We show that there are marked differences in the flow-performance relationship across countries, suggesting that US findings concerning its shape do not apply universally. We find that mutual fund investors sell losers more and buy winners less in more developed countries. This is because investors in more developed countries are more sophisticated and face lower costs of participating in the mutual fund industry. Higher country-level convexity is positively associated with higher levels of risk taking by fund managers.

Development and application of NMR techniques to study water-in-CO2 microemulsions

Self-assembly is a phenomenon that occurs frequently throughout the universe. In this work, two self-assembling systems were studied: the formation of reverse micelles in isooctane and in supercritical CO2 (scCO2), and the formation of gels in organic solvents. The goal was the physicochemical study of these systems and the development of an NMR methodology to study them. In this work, AOT was used as a model molecule both to comprehensively study a widely researched system water/AOT/isooctane at different water concentrations and to assess its aggregation in supercritical carbon dioxide at different pressures. In order to do so an NMR methodology was devised, in which it was possible to accurately determine hydrodynamic radius of the micelle (in agreement with DLS measurements) using diffusion ordered spectroscopy (DOSY), the micellar stability and its dynamics. This was mostly assessed by 1H NMR relaxation studies, which allowed to determine correlation times and size of correlating water molecules, which are in agreement with the size of the shell that interacts with the micellar layer. The encapsulation of differently-sized carbohydrates was also studied and allowed to understand the dynamics and stability of the aggregates in such conditions. A W/CO2 microemulsion was prepared using AOT and water in scCO2, with ethanol as cosurfactant. The behaviour of the components of the system at different pressures was assessed and it is likely that above 130 bar reverse microemulsions were achieved. The homogeneity of the system was also determined by NMR. The formation of the gel network by two small molecular organogelators in toluene-d8 was studied by DOSY. A methodology using One-shot DOSY to perform the spectra was designed and applied with success. This yielded an understanding about the role of the solvent and gelator in the aggregation process, as an estimation of the time of gelation.