Medicina baseada em evidência e medicina baseada em preconceito: o caso da homeopatia

In recent decades an important social movement related to Complementary and Alternative Medicine has been identified worldwide. In Brazil, although homeopathy was recognized as a specialist medical area in 1980, few medical schools offer courses related to it. In a previous study, 176 resident doctors at the University of Campinas Medical School were interviewed and 86 (49%) rejected homeopathy as a subject in the core medical curriculum. Thus, this qualitative study was conducted to understand their reasons for refusing. 20 residents from 15 different specialist areas were interviewed. Very few of them admitted to a lack of knowledge for making a judgment about homeopathy; none of them made a conscientious objection to it; and the majority demonstrated prejudice, affirming that there is not enough scientific evidence to support homeopathy, defending their position based on personal opinion, limited clinical practice and on information circulated in the mass media. Finally, resident doctors’ prejudices against homeopathy can be extended to practices other than allopathic medicine301123682376Durante as últimas décadas, um importante movimento social relacionado à Medicina Alternativa e Complementar foi identificado em todo o mundo. No Brasil, apesar de a homeopatia ser reconhecida como especialidade médica desde 1980, poucas escolas médicas oferecem cursos relacionados a ela. Em um estudo prévio, 176 médicos residentes da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade Estadual de Campinas foram entrevistados e 86 (49%) recusaram a disciplina de homeopatia no currículo médico. Portanto, este estudo qualitativo foi conduzido para entender as razões desta recusa. Vinte residentes de 15 especialidades diferentes foram entrevistados. Poucos declararam falta de conhecimento para julgar a homeopatia; nenhum deles fez uma objeção consciente a ela; e a maioria demonstrou preconceito, afirmando que não há evidência científica suficiente para sustentá-la, defendendo suas posições baseados em opinião pessoal, prática clínica limitada e em informações de meios de comunicação de massa. Finalmente, este preconceito em relação à homeopatia pode ser estendido a outras práticas diferentes da medicina alopáticasem informaçã

Students with disabilities on regular schools: the boundaries of a discourse

This article reports the results of a research that analyzed aspects of the narratives on behalf of the inclusion of disabled students in ordinary schools. To undertake this analysis, it was chosen, as an empirical target, the advertising strategy carried out by the Brazilian Federal Government - represented by the Educational State Department (called MEC). It was focused specifically on an advertising piece that pushed the second governmental campaign started in the beginning of the year 2000. The speech analysis was settled in the intersection of the advertisement's making off and the government's political position regarding the social inclusion of the disabled ones. It has to be noticed that the issue of disability was particular puzzling for the federal government because at the same time the needs of the disabled persons were discussed as a public policy, disability itself - claimed in its harmfulness - was also thought as a means to convince the population engaging polio vaccination campaigns. Once it's on the basis of the speech analysis that it aims to point out the historical circumstances on which a speech is being developed, so, one can say that the goal of this tool is to make it clear that a speech is a social construction. Taken this way, the speech analysis engaged upon this research, at the same time that described the steps that led to a slogan campaign, tried to show that the words (in its political correctness) that fulfill people's minds were not there since ever.Este artigo é resultado de uma pesquisa que analisou aspectos do discurso em favor da inclusão de alunos deficientes em escolas regulares. Para tanto, se escolheu como corpus de análise a propaganda do Governo Federal - representado pelo Ministério da Educação - tendo, como recorte específico, a peça publicitária que encabeçou a segunda campanha governamental pela inclusão escolar de deficientes, então lançada no início do ano 2000. A análise de discurso empreendida foi situada em seus condicionantes sócio-históricos a partir de duas contextualizações que se entrecruzaram: as circunstâncias operacionais de criação e discussão da peça publicitária entre a agência de propaganda contratada e o MEC, e a postura de Governo presente em discursos que ora justificavam a inclusão como uma política pública, ora denunciavam intenções concorrentes como aquelas expostas por campanhas de saúde pública. Na medida em que um dos fundamentos da análise de discurso é o assinalamento das suas condições históricas de produção, então, pode-se dizer que uma de suas finalidades é evidenciar o caráter socialmente construído deste discurso. Tomada desse modo, a análise de discurso empreendida, ao descrever os passos de elaboração do slogan de uma campanha de política social destinada aos deficientes buscou desnaturalizar palavras de ordem que, repetidas como chavões, fazem adormecer a percepção de que um dia elas não estiveram lá

Shear strengthening of reinforced concrete beams strengthened using embedded through section steel bars

A new shear strengthening technique, designated as embedded through section (ETS), has been developed to retrofit existing reinforced concrete (RC) elements. This technique calls for holes to be drilled through the beam section; then bars of steel or FRP materials are introduced into these holes and bonded with adhesives to the surrounding concrete. When concrete cover has not the bond and strength requisites to guarantee a strengthening effectiveness for the Externally Bonded and Near Surface Mounted techniques, ETS strategy can be a competitive alternative since it mobilizes the beam’s concrete core which is, generally, free of damage. To explore the potentialities of the ETS technique for the shear strengthening of RC beams, an experimental program was carried out, composed of RC T-cross section beams shear strengthened by using steel bars. The influence on the shear strengthening efficiency of the inclination and shear strengthening ratio of ETS configurations was evaluated; the study also examined the interaction of ETS bars and existing steel stirrups. An increase of shear capacity up to 109% and 136% in the beams with and without internal stirrups, respectively, was obtained. Inclined ETS bars provided higher increase of shear resistance than vertical ones.The authors wish to acknowledge Elletipi S.r.l. (Ferrara, Italy) for supporting the experimental program, Interbau S.r.l. (Milano, Italy) for applying the ETS strengthening system and the ENDIF Geomatic Group (University of Ferrara, Italy) for monitoring the experimental program. The authors also wish to acknowledge the Engineering Department of the University of Ferrara for its financial support

Hybrid CFRP-based strengthening technique to increase the flexural resistance and concrete confinement of RC columns submitted to axial and cyclic lateral loading

A strengthening technique that combines carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates and strips of wet lay-up CFRP sheet was used to increase the flexural resistance and the energy dissipation capacity of square cross-section columns of very low concrete strength submitted to constant axial compressive force and cyclic lateral loading. The laminates, applied according to the Near Surface Mounted (NSM) technique, have the purpose of increasing the flexural resistance of the columns, while the CFRP sheet installed as a localized jacket in the plastic hinge has the aim of increasing the concrete confinement and avoid the buckling and the debonding of the laminates. In spite of the 8 MPa of average concrete compressive strength used to manufacture the columns, the hybrid strategy provided an average increase of about 46 % in terms of load carrying capacity, even when applied in columns that had already been tested and presented intensives damages. The experimental program is described and the main results are presented and analyzed

Moody Learners -- Explaining Competitive Behaviour of Reinforcement Learning Agents

Designing the decision-making processes of artificial agents that are involved in competitive interactions is a challenging task. In a competitive scenario, the agent does not only have a dynamic environment but also is directly affected by the opponents' actions. Observing the Q-values of the agent is usually a way of explaining its behavior, however, do not show the temporal-relation between the selected actions. We address this problem by proposing the \emph{Moody framework}. We evaluate our model by performing a series of experiments using the competitive multiplayer Chef's Hat card game and discuss how our model allows the agents' to obtain a holistic representation of the competitive dynamics within the game.Comment: Accepted by ICDl-EPIROB 202