Ethics and Design in the Brazilian Context

Often driven by practical and immediate requirements, more and more people are incorporating technology into a variety of aspects of their lives, often without reflecting on the consequences of using them. On the other hand, studies on interactive system development that lead to behavioral change have been gaining ground on the agenda of large HCI conferences. This movement brings to the forefront the fundamental issues of ethics in design and technology use. A designer’s intentions, when directing certain actions or behaviors, are not always explicit or desired by the stakeholders affected by the use of the technology. Systems that induce an undesired purchase, or even those that use conditioning strategies to cause a behavioral change are examples of such intentions. The challenge proposed is therefore about the relationship between design and personal freedom in a way that these technology users do not become victims, either passively or submissively, of the effects of its use. This advance allows for the redefinition of the relationship between man and technology, and the application of new forms of designing and developing interactive systems that take into account the ethical aspects of this relationship

Análisis de conectividad funcional de la dinámica neuroenergética del TDAH = Functional Connectivity Analysis of Neuroenergetic Dynamics for ADHD

A fast and economic pilot study for measuring the neuroenergetic dynamics in an ADHD-diagnosed sample is performed. Based in a simplified connectome version, a graph theory application for neural connectivity, the performance and subjective states are linked through brain activity analysis during a behavioral attention test. ADHD is a neurobehavioral disorder related to a deficient filtering of stimuli, inefficacy performing in sustained activities and difficulties responding to unpredictable situations. There are two main strategies to evaluate this disorder: (1) behavioral tests and (2) neural biomarkers. Behavioral tests provide a criterion for classifying responses in a collection of tasks, looking for unstructured and inconsistent responses to given instructions or rules. Hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity are some criteria analyzed. By the other hand, neural biomarkers are measurable indicators for particular states or diseases set up from EEG data. Since 2013, the theta/beta ratio was accepted as the ADHD biomarker, suggesting a misbalance of electrical brain activity. In this study, brain connectivity on sustained attention task performed by children between 7 to 13 years old from a public school. Ten participants were ADHD-diagnosed and five were selected for the control group to compare EEG signals collected with low-cost neuroheadset. Graphs show different connectivity dynamics in both groups for Theta (4-8 Hz), SMR (12-15 Hz) and Beta (15-20 Hz), indicating connectivity variations in brain regions according to the neuroenergetics theory. The connectivity in the ADHD group is reduced in lower frequencies first (Theta), then SMR and finally Beta. In contrast, the control graphs for Theta and SMR brainwaves are closer to the small-world networks and it can be noticed by comparing the measurements of the different graphs among themselves. The decay process corresponds to the bottom-up approach, where random stimuli trigger transitions from one state to the other, which is in this case the transition from attention to inattention. The declining of resources placed for disposal at the randomized SART stage might imply a limitation regulating the production of the required resources for the tasks fulfillment, as it has been reported in previous studies where other techniques are implemented