Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação no cotidiano dos adolescentes: enfoque no comportamento e na competências informacionais da geração Google

Introduction: Individuals born from the 1990’s to accompany technological change course and learn how to use the technological resources that have access before they even learn to read or write. In this sense, the literature considers the digital natives or even 'Google generation'. However, it has been questioned their skills to identify information needs and seeking and use of information in the most varied environments digital information available on the Web. Objectives: To characterize the behavior of information seeking in everyday life of a group of teenage students from a private school in Marilia, Sao Paulo. Methodology: A qualitative study with 30 adolescent students of a private school in Marilia, Sao Paulo. Data collection was accomplished at first by means of a questionnaire, based on the research of Hughes-Hussell and August (2007), containing questions about age, gender, hobbies and everyday tasks, and issues the use of computers and the internet, which allowed determination of the social, economic and cultural rights of respondents. Results: have focused on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to search access and use information. It was suggested that the "Brotherhood of Informatics', an incentive for students to (re) learn the tools of digital communication and make appropriate use of the resources, products and services on the web to search and effective use of information compatible with their needs and that is tied to the ethical and responsible use of technology environments. Conclusions: The results arising from this study will continue through the continuation of the Confraternity of Computing, which became a "thermometer" on the use of digital information environments and the attitude of the students in front of Information and Communication Technologies in the College “Cristo Rei”.

Complexity and information technologies: an ethical inquiry into human autonomous action

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Aplicando Métodos de Mineração Visual de Texto em conteúdo de Fórum de Discussão

We are included in a society where the use of the Internet became very important to our everyday life. The relationships nowadays usually happen through technological devices instead of face to face contact, for instance, Internet forums where people can discuss online. However, the global analysis is a big challenge, due to the large amount of data. This work investigates the use of visual representations to support an exploratory analysis of contents in messages from discussions forums. This analysis considers the thematic and the chronology. The target forums refer to the educational area and the analysis happens manually, i.e. by direct reading message-by-message. The proprieties of perception and cognition of the human visual system allow a person the capacity to conduct high-level tasks in information extraction from a graphical or visual representation of data. Therefore, this work was based on Visual Analytics, an area that aims create techniques that amplify these human abilities. For that reason we used software that creates a visualization of data from a forum. This software allows a forum content analysis. But, during the work, we identified the necessity to create a new tool to clean the data, because the data had a lot of unnecessary information. After cleaning the data we created a new visualization and held an analysis seeking a new knowledge. In the end we compared the new visualization with the manual analysis that had been made. Analyzing the results, it was evident the potential of visualization use, it provides a better correlation between the information, enabling the acquisition of new knowledge that was not identified in the initial analysis, providing a better use of the forum content

Sistemi riconfigurabili a basso consumo per applicazioni di monitoraggio distribuito

The term Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to a vision on the future of the information society where smart, electronic environment are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people and their activities (Context awareness). In an ambient intelligence world, devices work in concert to support people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals in an easy, natural way using information and intelligence that is hidden in the network connecting these devices. This promotes the creation of pervasive environments improving the quality of life of the occupants and enhancing the human experience. AmI stems from the convergence of three key technologies: ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous communication and natural interfaces. Ambient intelligent systems are heterogeneous and require an excellent cooperation between several hardware/software technologies and disciplines, including signal processing, networking and protocols, embedded systems, information management, and distributed algorithms. Since a large amount of fixed and mobile sensors embedded is deployed into the environment, the Wireless Sensor Networks is one of the most relevant enabling technologies for AmI. WSN are complex systems made up of a number of sensor nodes which can be deployed in a target area to sense physical phenomena and communicate with other nodes and base stations. These simple devices typically embed a low power computational unit (microcontrollers, FPGAs etc.), a wireless communication unit, one or more sensors and a some form of energy supply (either batteries or energy scavenger modules). WNS promises of revolutionizing the interactions between the real physical worlds and human beings. Low-cost, low-computational power, low energy consumption and small size are characteristics that must be taken into consideration when designing and dealing with WSNs. To fully exploit the potential of distributed sensing approaches, a set of challengesmust be addressed. Sensor nodes are inherently resource-constrained systems with very low power consumption and small size requirements which enables than to reduce the interference on the physical phenomena sensed and to allow easy and low-cost deployment. They have limited processing speed,storage capacity and communication bandwidth that must be efficiently used to increase the degree of local ”understanding” of the observed phenomena. A particular case of sensor nodes are video sensors. This topic holds strong interest for a wide range of contexts such as military, security, robotics and most recently consumer applications. Vision sensors are extremely effective for medium to long-range sensing because vision provides rich information to human operators. However, image sensors generate a huge amount of data, whichmust be heavily processed before it is transmitted due to the scarce bandwidth capability of radio interfaces. In particular, in video-surveillance, it has been shown that source-side compression is mandatory due to limited bandwidth and delay constraints. Moreover, there is an ample opportunity for performing higher-level processing functions, such as object recognition that has the potential to drastically reduce the required bandwidth (e.g. by transmitting compressed images only when something ‘interesting‘ is detected). The energy cost of image processing must however be carefully minimized. Imaging could play and plays an important role in sensing devices for ambient intelligence. Computer vision can for instance be used for recognising persons and objects and recognising behaviour such as illness and rioting. Having a wireless camera as a camera mote opens the way for distributed scene analysis. More eyes see more than one and a camera system that can observe a scene from multiple directions would be able to overcome occlusion problems and could describe objects in their true 3D appearance. In real-time, these approaches are a recently opened field of research. In this thesis we pay attention to the realities of hardware/software technologies and the design needed to realize systems for distributed monitoring, attempting to propose solutions on open issues and filling the gap between AmI scenarios and hardware reality. The physical implementation of an individual wireless node is constrained by three important metrics which are outlined below. Despite that the design of the sensor network and its sensor nodes is strictly application dependent, a number of constraints should almost always be considered. Among them: • Small form factor to reduce nodes intrusiveness. • Low power consumption to reduce battery size and to extend nodes lifetime. • Low cost for a widespread diffusion. These limitations typically result in the adoption of low power, low cost devices such as low powermicrocontrollers with few kilobytes of RAMand tenth of kilobytes of program memory with whomonly simple data processing algorithms can be implemented. However the overall computational power of the WNS can be very large since the network presents a high degree of parallelism that can be exploited through the adoption of ad-hoc techniques. Furthermore through the fusion of information from the dense mesh of sensors even complex phenomena can be monitored. In this dissertation we present our results in building several AmI applications suitable for a WSN implementation. The work can be divided into two main areas:Low Power Video Sensor Node and Video Processing Alghoritm and Multimodal Surveillance . Low Power Video Sensor Nodes and Video Processing Alghoritms In comparison to scalar sensors, such as temperature, pressure, humidity, velocity, and acceleration sensors, vision sensors generate much higher bandwidth data due to the two-dimensional nature of their pixel array. We have tackled all the constraints listed above and have proposed solutions to overcome the current WSNlimits for Video sensor node. We have designed and developed wireless video sensor nodes focusing on the small size and the flexibility of reuse in different applications. The video nodes target a different design point: the portability (on-board power supply, wireless communication), a scanty power budget (500mW),while still providing a prominent level of intelligence, namely sophisticated classification algorithmand high level of reconfigurability. We developed two different video sensor node: The device architecture of the first one is based on a low-cost low-power FPGA+microcontroller system-on-chip. The second one is based on ARM9 processor. Both systems designed within the above mentioned power envelope could operate in a continuous fashion with Li-Polymer battery pack and solar panel. Novel low power low cost video sensor nodes which, in contrast to sensors that just watch the world, are capable of comprehending the perceived information in order to interpret it locally, are presented. Featuring such intelligence, these nodes would be able to cope with such tasks as recognition of unattended bags in airports, persons carrying potentially dangerous objects, etc.,which normally require a human operator. Vision algorithms for object detection, acquisition like human detection with Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification and abandoned/removed object detection are implemented, described and illustrated on real world data. Multimodal surveillance: In several setup the use of wired video cameras may not be possible. For this reason building an energy efficient wireless vision network for monitoring and surveillance is one of the major efforts in the sensor network community. Energy efficiency for wireless smart camera networks is one of the major efforts in distributed monitoring and surveillance community. For this reason, building an energy efficient wireless vision network for monitoring and surveillance is one of the major efforts in the sensor network community. The Pyroelectric Infra-Red (PIR) sensors have been used to extend the lifetime of a solar-powered video sensor node by providing an energy level dependent trigger to the video camera and the wireless module. Such approach has shown to be able to extend node lifetime and possibly result in continuous operation of the node.Being low-cost, passive (thus low-power) and presenting a limited form factor, PIR sensors are well suited for WSN applications. Moreover techniques to have aggressive power management policies are essential for achieving long-termoperating on standalone distributed cameras needed to improve the power consumption. We have used an adaptive controller like Model Predictive Control (MPC) to help the system to improve the performances outperforming naive power management policies.

Skin and mucosa care in systemic sclerosis - patients' and family caregivers' experiences and expectations of a specific education programme: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND Skin and mucosal manifestations such as skin thickening, pruritus, reduced microvascular circulation, digital lesions, appearance-related changes, and dryness of the eyes and mucosa are common in systemic sclerosis (SSc). A specific skin and mucosa care education programme for patients and their family caregivers should increase their self-efficacy and improve coping strategies. AIMS The aims of this qualitative study were to explore the participants' experiences of both everyday life with skin and mucosal manifestations and the programme itself, while identifying unmet needs for programme development. METHODS Narrative interviews were conducted with eight SSc patients and two family caregivers of individuals with SSc. Using qualitative content analysis techniques, the transcribed interviews were systematically summarized and categories inductively developed. RESULTS The findings illustrated participants' experiences of skin and mucosal symptoms and revealed them to be experts in finding the right therapy mix alone (before diagnosis) and also in collaboration with health professionals (after diagnosis). Participants emphasized that the programme gave them useful education on skin and mucosa care. They described how they had to cope alone with the lack of information on pathophysiology, people's reactions, and the impact on their family and working lives. Nevertheless, participants said that they maintained a positive attitude by not dwelling on future disabilities. CONCLUSIONS Patients and family caregivers benefited from the individualized and SSc-specific education on skin and mucosa care. Future improvements to the programme should focus on imparting understandable information on SSc pathophysiology, dealing with disfigurement and seeking reliable disease information, as well as facilitating peer support.

Metadata Visualization of Cultural Heritage Information within a Collaborative Environment

Cultural content on the Web is available in various domains (cultural objects, datasets, geospatial data, moving images, scholarly texts and visual resources), concerns various topics, is written in different languages, targeted to both laymen and experts, and provided by different communities (libraries, archives museums and information industry) and individuals (Figure 1). The integration of information technologies and cultural heritage content on the Web is expected to have an impact on everyday life from the point of view of institutions, communities and individuals. In particular, collaborative environment scan recreate 3D navigable worlds that can offer new insights into our cultural heritage (Chan 2007). However, the main barrier is to find and relate cultural heritage information by end-users of cultural contents, as well as by organisations and communities managing and producing them. In this paper, we explore several visualisation techniques for supporting cultural interfaces, where the role of metadata is essential for supporting the search and communication among end-users (Figure 2). A conceptual framework was developed to integrate the data, purpose, technology, impact, and form components of a collaborative environment, Our preliminary results show that collaborative environments can help with cultural heritage information sharing and communication tasks because of the way in which they provide a visual context to end-users. They can be regarded as distributed virtual reality systems that offer graphically realised, potentially infinite, digital information landscapes. Moreover, collaborative environments also provide a new way of interaction between an end-user and a cultural heritage data set. Finally, the visualisation of metadata of a dataset plays an important role in helping end-users in their search for heritage contents on the Web.

La telefonía móvil : el impacto social

El objetivo de este proyecto ha sido el de realizar un análisis del importante desarrollo que han sufrido las telecomunicaciones, haciendo un especial hincapié en la telefonía móvil y el impacto y repercusión que ha causado actualmente en nuestra sociedad. Para ello se hará un repaso evolutivo de las tecnologías de la información y las telecomunicaciones, y se establecerá una relación entre la gran difusión de éstas y su efecto sobre los usos, y cambios percibidos por los consumidores del nuevo siglo. Ciertamente la historia de la tecnología, nos enseña que la gente y las organizaciones acaban utilizándola para unos propósitos muy diferentes de aquellos que inicialmente fueron concebidas. Además cuanto más interactiva sea una tecnología, tanto más probable será que los usuarios se conviertan en productores o modificadores de la misma. Por tanto, la sociedad necesita resolver las incógnitas que pueda suscitar el rápido y continúo cambio de las comunicaciones. Este proyecto trata de ayudar a responder alguna de las cuestiones que actualmente se están planteando. ¿Son los teléfonos móviles una expresión de identidad, artilugios de moda, herramientas de la vida cotidiana, o todo lo anterior? ¿Existen nuevos modelos de comportamiento y conducta social? ¿La comunicación móvil está favoreciendo la aparición de una nueva cultura joven con un lenguaje propio basado en la comunicación textual y multimodal? ¿Tienen los teléfonos móviles efectos nocivos en la salud? La respuesta a estas preguntas afecta a nuestras vidas y también condiciona las políticas públicas y las estrategias de negocio, por eso requiere adquirir un conocimiento cimentado en la información, y la recopilación de datos de diversas fuentes, tanto de estadísticas provenientes de diferentes estudios e investigaciones, como de empresas consultoras, siempre basada en una perspectiva global. En conjunto, se espera dentro de los límites del conocimiento actual, contribuir a establecer las bases para el análisis y valoración de la relación existente entre comunicación, tecnología y sociedad en todo el mundo. Abstract The purpose of this project has been to analyse the significant development undergone by telecommunications, putting a special emphasis on mobile phones and the impact it has caused in society. We will go over the evolution of IT technologies and telecommunications as well as establish a relationship between its spread and effect of its uses and changes understood by the new century consumers. Technology history shows us that people and organizations use it for very different purposes from those originally thought. Furthermore, the more interactive technologies are, the more users will modify or produce it. Therefore, society needs to solve the mysteries of the quick and continuous change of communications. This project tries to help and answer some of the questions considered these days. Are mobile phones an expression of identity, fashionable devices, tools for everyday life or all at once? Are there any new models of performance and social behaviour? Is mobile communication favouring the existence of a new young culture with a typical language based on textual and multimodal communication? Are mobile phones bad for our health? The answer to these questions affects us all and conditions public politics and business strategies so it is required to get firm knowledge based on information. It is also important to compile data from various sources, from statistics of research and studies, based on a global perspective. As a whole, we hope to contribute to establish the bases for the future analysis and assessment of a fundamental trend that is redefining the relationship between communication, technology and society worldwide by transforming the wireless networks that make our lives.

Ciberdelincuencia: desarrollo y persecución tecnológica

La aparición de Internet y los sistemas informáticos supuso un antes y un después en el modo que las personas emplearían para acceder a los sistemas de información. El crecimiento exponencial seguido en los años posteriores ha llevado este hecho hasta la situación actual, donde prácticamente todos los ámbitos del día a día se encuentran reflejados en la Red. Por otro lado, a la par que la sociedad se desplazaba al ciberespacio, también comenzaban a hacerlo aquellos que buscaban obtener un rendimiento delictivo de los nuevos medios y herramientas que se ponían a su disposición. Avanzando a pasos agigantados en el desarrollo de técnicas y métodos para vulnerar unos sistemas de seguridad, aún muy inmaduros, los llamados ciberdelincuentes tomaban ventaja sobre las autoridades y su escasa preparación para abordar este nuevo problema. Poco a poco, y con el paso de los años, esta distancia ha ido reduciéndose, y pese a que aún queda mucho trabajo por hacer, y que el crecimiento de los índices de ciberdelincuencia, junto con la evolución y aparición de nuevas técnicas, sigue a un ritmo desenfrenado, los gobiernos y las empresas han tomado consciencia de la gravedad de este problema y han comenzado a poner sobre la mesa grandes esfuerzos e inversiones con el fin de mejorar sus armas de lucha y métodos de prevención para combatirla. Este Proyecto de Fin de Carrera dedica sus objetivos a la investigación y comprensión de todos estos puntos, desarrollando una visión específica de cada uno de ellos y buscando la intención final de establecer las bases suficientes que permitan abordar con la efectividad requerida el trabajo necesario para la persecución y eliminación del problema. ABSTRACT. The emergence of Internet and computer systems marked a before and after in the way that people access information systems. The continued exponential growth in the following years has taken this fact to the current situation, where virtually all areas of everyday life are reflected in the Net. On the other hand, meanwhile society moved into cyberspace, the same began to do those seeking to obtain a criminal performance of new media and tools at their disposal. Making great strides in the development of techniques and methods to undermine security systems, still very immature, so called cybercriminals took advantage over the authorities and their lack of preparation to deal with this new problem. Gradually, and over the years, this distance has been declining, and although there is still much work to do and the growth rates of cybercrime, along with the evolution and emergence of new techniques, keep increasing at a furious pace, governments and companies have become aware of the seriousness of this problem and have begun to put on the table great efforts and investments in order to upgrade their weapons to fight against this kind of crimes and prevention methods to combat it. This Thesis End of Grade Project focuses its objectives on the research and understanding of all these points, developing a specific vision of each of them and looking for the ultimate intention of establishing a sufficient basis by which to manage with the required effectiveness the type of work needed for the persecution and elimination of the problem.

El imaginario en la génesis del proyecto arquitectónico: La construcción de la realidad a través del mito, la utopía y la cibercultura

El término imaginario, nombra el principio y el tema central de una investigación del mundo arquitectónico, necesaria para entender las condiciones alrededor de un proceso proyectual íntimo, cargado de significaciones ideológicas y simbólicas. En diferentes interpretaciones, el inconsciente colectivo y personal, científico o social, aparece en el origen de cada pensamiento y comportamiento humano, constituyendo un universo cerrado y caótico, donde todas las ideas están en constante tensión y contradicción. Por esta razón existen nociones y construcciones lógicas y coherentes que estructuran el marco de la verisimilitud y por tanto el régimen de la realidad, mediante la verdad y la verificación. Para el proyecto arquitectónico estas configuraciones se expresan en la situación del espacio, el tiempo y el cuerpo, como elementos básicos de jerarquización de la habitabilidad y de la cohabitabilidad humana. Esta tesis pretende acotar y definir un ámbito de procesos verosímiles instalados dentro del imaginario mediante el patrimonio intangible del pensamiento mítico o utópico, donde no solamente se crean envolventes del pensamiento, de iconografía o de sociedades, sino de donde también se derivan modelos rígidos y excluyentes, desde teorías basadas en la heteronormatividad y la segregación según el sexo, el género, la clase y la capacidad dentro de la diversidad funcional. La experiencia del espacio arquitectónico ha sido tradicionalmente descrita mediante palabras e imágenes: el lógos y el símbolo han sido los grandes intermediadores entre los sujetos y el habitar. Los ámbitos cotidiano y urbano se han regido por modelos y normas absolutas aplicadas universalmente y el mundo arquitectónico se ha visto estancado en la polaridad dual, entre lo público y lo privado, el dentro y el fuera, el movimiento y el reposo, el hombre y la mujer. Si el espacio-tiempo, el cuerpo y sus interpretaciones son la base para los modelos absolutistas, universalistas y perfeccionistas que han dominado el pensamiento occidental y elaborado la noción de lo “normal” en su totalidad, restando complejidad y diversidad, en la era hipermoderna ya no tiene sentido hablar en términos que no contemplen la superposición y la contradicción de la multiplicidad caótica en igualdad y en equilibrio instable. La realidad se ha visto reinventada a través de situaciones intermedias, los lugares inbetween en los espacios, tiempos, identidades y nociones presupuestas, donde se ha tergiversado el orden establecido, afectando al imaginario. La cotidianidad ha superado la arquitectura y el tiempo ha aniquilado el espacio. La conectividad, las redes y el libre acceso a la información – allá donde los haya – componen el marco que ha permitido a los sujetos subalternos emerger y empezar a consolidarse en el discurso teórico y práctico. Nuevos referentes están apareciendo en el hiper-espacio/tiempo aumentado, infringiendo todas aquellas leyes e interpretaciones impuestas para controlar los hábitos, las conductas y las personas. La casa, la ciudad y la metrópolis al vaciarse de contenidos, han dejado de cumplir funciones morales y simbólicas. Los no-lugares, los no-space, los no-time (Amann, 2011) son las condiciones radicalmente fenoménicas que reemplazan la realidad de lo vivido y activan de forma directa a los sentidos; son lugares que excitan el cuerpo como termótopos (Sloterdijk, 2002), que impulsan el crecimiento de la economía y en gran medida la multinormatividad. Sin duda alguna, aquí y ahora se requiere un nuevo modo de emplear la palabra, la imagen y la tecnología, dentro de una temporalidad efímera y eterna simultáneamente. ABSTRACT The term imaginary marks the beginning and the main topic of this research into the architectural world, presented as the necessary condition to understand the design process in its intimate layers, loaded with ideological and symbolic meanings. Through different interpretations, the unconscious, personal and collective, scientific or social, is found in the origin of every human thought and behaviour, constituting a closed chaotic universe, where all ideas are in constant tension and contradiction. This is why there are logical and coherent notions or discursive constructions which organise the context of verisimilitude and therefore the regime of reality through truth and its verification. For the architectural project, these specific configurations are associated with space, time and body as basic elements of management and hierarchization of human habitability and co-habitability. This thesis aims to demarcate and define a field of verisimilar processes installed in the imaginary, through the intangible heritage of mythical or utopian thinking, where not only enclosures of thought, iconography or utopian ideals are created, but from where rigid and exclusive models are derived as well, from theories based on heteronormativity and segregation by sex, gender, class and functional diversity. The experience of the architectural space has been described traditionally through words and images: the language and the symbol have been intermediating between the user and his habitat. Everyday life and urban interactions have been governed by absolute, universally applied, models or standards, therefore the architectural world has been stalled in a constant dual polarity between the public and the private, the inside and the outside, the movement and the repose, the man and the woman. Certainly, if the space-time notion, along with the theorization of the body, are the basis for absolutist, universalist and perfectionist models that have dominated western thought and developed the concept of “normal” in its totality, deducting all complexity and diversity, in the hypermodern era it makes no longer sense to speak in terms that ignore the overlap and contradiction of the chaotic multiplicity that characterises equality and unstable balance. Reality has been reinvented through intermediate situations, the in-between spaces, time, identities, or other presupposed notions. The order of truth has been distorted, affecting and transforming the contemporary imaginary. Everyday practices have surpassed the architectural design and time has annihilated space. Connectivity, networks, free access to information -wherever it exists-, compose the framework that has allowed subaltern subjectivity to emerge and begin to consolidate into main theoretical and practical discourses. New models are appearing in the augmented hyper-space/ time, transgressing any rule and interpretation imposed to control habits, behaviours and people. The house, the city and the metropolis are empty of content; they no longer fulfil moral and symbolic functions. The non-places, non-space, non-time (Amann, 2011) are radically phenomenal conditions that replace the reality of the lived experience and activate the senses as places that excite the body, thermotopos (Sloterdijk, 2002), which boost economic growth and to a considerable extent the multinormativity. Undoubtedly, what is required here and now is a new way of employing the word, the image and the technology within an ephemeral yet eternal temporality.

Multiple paradigms and organisational research: an analysis of work behaviour in the fire service

The thesis examines Kuhn's (1962, 1970) concept of paradigm, assesses how it is employed for mapping intellectual terrain in the social sciences, and evaluates it's use in research based on multiple theory positions. In so doing it rejects both the theses of total paradigm 'incommensurability' (Kuhn, 1962), and also of liberal 'translation' (Popper, 1970), in favour of a middle ground through the 'language-game of everyday life' (Wittgenstein, 1953). The thesis ultimately argues for the possibility of being 'trained-into' new paradigms, given the premise that 'unorganised experience cannot order perception' (Phillips, 1977). In conducting multiple paradigm research the analysis uses the Burrell and Morgan (1979) model for examining the work organisation of a large provincial fire Service. This analysis accounts for firstly, a 'functionalist' assessment of work design, demonstrating inter alia the decrease in reported motivation with length of service; secondly, an 'interpretive' portrayal of the daily accomplishment of task routines, highlighting the discretionary and negotiated nature of the day's events; thirdly, a 'radical humanist' analysis of workplace ideology, demonstrating the hegemonic role of officer training practices; and finally, a 'radical structuralist' description of the labour process, focusing on the establishment of a 'normal working day'. Although the argument is made for the possibility of conducting multiple paradigm research, the conclusion stresses the many institutional pressures serving to offset development.

Investigation of multisensory processing and structural brain differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder

This thesis is an investigation of structural brain abnormalities, as well as multisensory and unisensory processing deficits in autistic traits and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). To achieve this, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and psychophysical techniques were employed. ASD is a neurodevelopmental condition which is characterised by the social communication and interaction deficits, as well as repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests and activities. These traits are thought to be present in a typical population. The Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaire (AQ) was developed to assess the prevalence of autistic traits in the general population. Von dem Hagen et al. (2011) revealed a link between AQ with white matter (WM) and grey matter (GM) volume (using voxel-based-morphometry). However, their findings revealed no difference in GM in areas associated with social cognition. Cortical thickness (CT) measurements are known to be a more direct measure of cortical morphology than GM volume. Therefore, Chapter 2 investigated the relationship between AQ scores and CT in the same sample of participants. This study showed that AQ scores correlated with CT in the left temporo-occipital junction, left posterior cingulate, right precentral gyrus and bilateral precentral sulcus, in a typical population. These areas were previously associated with structural and functional differences in ASD. Thus the findings suggest, to some extent, autistic traits are reflected in brain structure - in the general population. The ability to integrate auditory and visual information is crucial to everyday life, and results are mixed regarding how ASD influences audiovisual integration. To investigate this question, Chapter 3 examined the Temporal Integration Window (TIW), which indicates how precisely sight and sound need to be temporally aligned so that a unitary audiovisual event can be perceived. 26 adult males with ASD and 26 age and IQ-matched typically developed males were presented with flash-beep (BF), point-light drummer, and face-voice (FV) displays with varying degrees of asynchrony and asked to make Synchrony Judgements (SJ) and Temporal Order Judgements (TOJ). Analysis of the data included fitting Gaussian functions as well as using an Independent Channels Model (ICM) to fit the data (Garcia-Perez & Alcala-Quintana, 2012). Gaussian curve fitting for SJs showed that the ASD group had a wider TIW, but for TOJ no group effect was found. The ICM supported these results and model parameters indicated that the wider TIW for SJs in the ASD group was not due to sensory processing at the unisensory level, but rather due to decreased temporal resolution at a decisional level of combining sensory information. Furthermore, when performing TOJ, the ICM revealed a smaller Point of Subjective Simultaneity (PSS; closer to physical synchrony) in the ASD group than in the TD group. Finding that audiovisual temporal processing is different in ASD encouraged us to investigate the neural correlates of multisensory as well as unisensory processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI. Therefore, Chapter 4 investigated audiovisual, auditory and visual processing in ASD of simple BF displays and complex, social FV displays. During a block design experiment, we measured the BOLD signal when 13 adults with ASD and 13 typically developed (TD) age-sex- and IQ- matched adults were presented with audiovisual, audio and visual information of BF and FV displays. Our analyses revealed that processing of audiovisual as well as unisensory auditory and visual stimulus conditions in both the BF and FV displays was associated with reduced activation in ASD. Audiovisual, auditory and visual conditions of FV stimuli revealed reduced activation in ASD in regions of the frontal cortex, while BF stimuli revealed reduced activation the lingual gyri. The inferior parietal gyrus revealed an interaction between stimulus sensory condition of BF stimuli and group. Conjunction analyses revealed smaller regions of the superior temporal cortex (STC) in ASD to be audiovisual sensitive. Against our predictions, the STC did not reveal any activation differences, per se, between the two groups. However, a superior frontal area was shown to be sensitive to audiovisual face-voice stimuli in the TD group, but not in the ASD group. Overall this study indicated differences in brain activity for audiovisual, auditory and visual processing of social and non-social stimuli in individuals with ASD compared to TD individuals. These results contrast previous behavioural findings, suggesting different audiovisual integration, yet intact auditory and visual processing in ASD. Our behavioural findings revealed audiovisual temporal processing deficits in ASD during SJ tasks, therefore we investigated the neural correlates of SJ in ASD and TD controls. Similar to Chapter 4, we used fMRI in Chapter 5 to investigate audiovisual temporal processing in ASD in the same participants as recruited in Chapter 4. BOLD signals were measured while the ASD and TD participants were asked to make SJ on audiovisual displays of different levels of asynchrony: the participants’ PSS, audio leading visual information (audio first), visual leading audio information (visual first). Whereas no effect of group was found with BF displays, increased putamen activation was observed in ASD participants compared to TD participants when making SJs on FV displays. Investigating SJ on audiovisual displays in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG), an area involved in audiovisual integration (see Chapter 4), we found no group differences or interaction between group and levels of audiovisual asynchrony. The investigation of different levels of asynchrony revealed a complex pattern of results indicating a network of areas more involved in processing PSS than audio first and visual first, as well as areas responding differently to audio first compared to video first. These activation differences between audio first and video first in different brain areas are constant with the view that audio leading and visual leading stimuli are processed differently.

Ocular injuries and eye care seeking patterns following injuries among cocoa farmers in Ghana.

Background: The work environment of cocoa farmers exposes them to several ocular hazards that predispose them to eye diseases and injuries. However, the extent of ocular injuries and health seeking patterns following these injuries are unknown among cocoa farmers in Ghana. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of ocular injuries and health seeking behaviour following injury among cocoa farmers in Ghana. Methods: Five hundred and fifty six participants were recruited through simple random sampling using a multistage approach from four cocoa growing districts in Ghana. A structured questionnaire was used to collect relevant information such as demography, ocular hazards and injuries experienced. An ocular examination was also conducted to assess the eye health of the participants. Descriptive and regression statistics were used to analyze the data. The rate of ocular injuries was calculated by using the number of injuries reported that resulted in lost work time/days divided by the number of worker years at risk of injury (sum of years worked in cocoa farms for all the participants). Results: The rate of ocular injuries was 11.3/1000 worker years (95% CI: 9.4 - 31) which led to lost work time of 37.3/1000 worker years (95% CI: 34.1 - 40.8). The major causes of ocular injury were plants/branches (n=73, 51.1%), chemicals (n=27, 18.9%), cocoa pod/husk (n=14, 9.8%) and occurred mostly during weeding, harvesting and chemical spraying. Few (n=34, 6.1%) participants reported the use of ocular protection. Fifty-five (38.5%) participants visited the local chemical shops, while 37 (25.9%) visited hospitals/clinics for ocular treatment of their injuries. Conclusion: There is a high rate of ocular injuries among cocoa farmers who make insufficient use of appropriate eye care services. There is the need for eye health education among cocoa farmers in Ghana. Keywords:

Hábitos relacionados ao descarte pós-consumo de aparelhos e baterias de telefones celulares em uma comunidade acadêmica

Cada vez mais a sociedade contemporânea incorpora em seu cotidiano equipamentos elétricos e eletrônicos, muitos deles contendo substâncias perigosas, que representam ameaças ao meio ambiente e riscos à saúde humana. Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa exploratória com o objetivo de relacionar comportamento de descarte pós-consumo de aparelhos e baterias de celulares, em um grupo de consumidores de telefonia móvel, que tem proximidade em seu cotidiano de trabalho e de estudo com informações sobre saúde pública e ambiental. Os resultados da pesquisa indicam que informação pode aproximar as pessoas do problema, porém não levam por si só à produção de alterações significativas sobre o que e como fazer com o descarte pós-consumo. Os participantes do estudo possibilitaram identificar, que além da informação e acesso a coletores específicos, outros aspectos e critérios pessoais ou coletivos interferem no procedimento de descarte: percepção sobre risco, valor econômico disponibilizado na compra do aparelho e vínculos afetivos, entre outros. Esses fatores podem produzir diferentes respostas dos usuários sobre como lidar com as inovações tecnológicas de uso pessoal.

Syndrome packets and health worker training improve sexually transmitted disease case management in rural South Africa: randomized controlled trial

Background: Sexually transmitted diseases (STD) are important co-factors in HIV transmission. We studied the impact of health worker training and STD syndrome packets (containing recommended drugs, condoms, partner notification cards and information leaflets) on the quality of STD case management in primary care clinics in rural South Africa. Methods: A randomized controlled trial of five matched pairs of clinics compared the intervention with routine syndromic management. Outcomes were measured by simulated patients using standardized scripts, and included the proportion given recommended drugs; correctly case managed (given recommended drugs plus condoms and partner cards); adequately counselled; reporting good staff attitude; and consulted in privacy. Results: At baseline, the quality of STD case management was similarly poor in both groups. Only 36 and 46% of simulated patients visiting intervention and control clinics, respectively, were given recommended drugs. After the intervention, intervention clinics provided better case management than controls: 88 versus 50% (P < 0.01) received recommended drugs; 83 versus 12% (P < 0.005) were correctly case managed; 68 versus 46% (P = 0.06) were adequately counselled; 84 versus 58% experienced good staff attitude (P = 0.07); and 92 versus 86% (P = 0.4) were consulted privately. A syndrome packet cost US$1.50; the incremental cost was US$6.80. The total intervention cost equalled 0.3% of annual district health expenditure. Interpretation: A simple and affordable health service intervention achieved substantial improvements in STD case management. Although this is a critical component of STD control and can reduce HIV transmission, community-level interventions to influence health-seeking behaviour are also needed. (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

What is an effective health consumer? A convergent interviewing approach

This study is part of a larger project on the measurement of effective health consumers in the context of musculoskeletal illness. This complex issue involves the progressive nature of the disease, invisibility of the illness and attendant impairments, complexity of decision-making and negotiation, and urgent need to translate emergent evidence about treatment and management to patients and health professionals. We conducted indepth interviews with patients, family members, general practitioners, specialist clinicians, and health consumer advocates (N = 84) about effective consumers in this context, using a process of convergent interviewing, with convergence conducted within and across groups and countries. The initial set of themes included information seeking and adaptation, decision-making, roles of patients, GPs, and specialists and communication between them, importance of pain and impact of depression, impact of the social environment (including the invisibility of the disease and the need for a normal life), and coping strategies.