Incremental validity of sense of coherence, neuroticism, extraversion, and general self-efficacy: longitudinal prediction of substance use frequency and mental health

Background: Several studies have demonstrated the importance of sense of coherence (SOC), neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), and general self-efficacy (GSE) for health, yet the unique utility of these overlapping constructs remains uncertain. The present research aims at exploring incremental validity when predicting (1) substance use specifically and (2) mental health generally among adolescents. Methods: A prospective and longitudinal design was used to predict (1) initial substance use nine years into the future and (2) mental health one year and four years into the future. Participants were 318 adolescents (age 14 to 15 at the beginning of the study). Results: Structural equation modeling revealed (1) that SOC had long-term incremental validity over N, E, and GSE for tobacco use and alcohol use, whereas cannabis use was predicted by E and GSE; and (2) that long-term mental health after four years was only predicted by SOC. Conclusions: Two studies provide further evidence for the importance of considering salutogenic factors when forecasting mental health and health-related behavior beyond classical constructs such as N, E, and GSE. Differences in criterion validity reveal that SOC cannot be equated with reversed neuroticism

PREPARE FOR CLIMATE CRISIS AND PLAN FOR THE FUTURE : how the green blue solutions in the city can handle the daily water management and at the same time give positive effects of the future climate

En varmare värld och klimatförändringar är något som människan kan komma att se mer av i framtiden. I bland annat Skandinavien är kraftiga och/eller långvariga regnfall en av konsekvenserna av ett förändrat klimat, där människan ses som den största orsaken till problemet. Tillsammans med en ökad mängd hårdgjorda ytor i den urbana miljön som inte har förmåga att infiltrera dagvatten, samt med ett överbelastat vattensystem under mark är översvämningar en ”klimatkris” som redan orsakat och kan komma att orsaka flera samhällsproblem om inga åtgärder tas. I detta arbete ligger därmed fokus på hantering av dagvatten och kraftiga regnfall i urban miljö där ett historiskt perspektiv skildrar de lösningar som tidigare använts och de utmaningar som städerna står inför gällande nutida och framtida stadsplanering och dagvattenhantering. Olika öppna grönblå lösningar undersöks på grund av dess omtalade mångfunktionalitet och förmåga att på ett hållbart och naturligt sätt rena, infiltrera och fördröja dagvatten. I samband med detta undersöks även begreppet ekosystemtjänster för att i ett senare stadie studera lösningarnas omfattning i mångfunktionalitet och för att se om de kan bidra till positiva effekter på klimatet, inte bara rusta inför framtida kraftiga regnfall. Arbetet har utförts med hjälp av litteraturstudier och platsbesök, vilket resulterat i en utvärdering av tre projekt, ämnade för att hantera stora mängder dagvatten, i Malmö, Köpenhamn och Uppsala. Utvärderingen och studien av projekten har utförts för att ge större förståelse för dagvattenhantering som kvantitativ, kvalitativ, social och biologisk lösning. Målet är att med denna studie utvärdera vilka ekosystemtjänster som respektive projekt bidrar med för att på så sätt förstå vad en grönblå dagvattenlösning kan ge människan, staden och naturen mer än att bara förhindra översvämningar. Studien resulterade i att projekt med större omfattning gällande öppen dagvattenhantering genererade fler ekosystemtjänster än de med mindre omfattning, vilket i sig genererar positiva effekter på klimatet. Stadens dagvattenhantering kan behöva ett system där grönblå lösningar med naturens hjälp kombineras med grå ingenjörsmässiga lösningar för att på så sätt komplettera varandras brister och generera så många fördelar som möjligt.A warmer world and climate change is something that the human kind can expect more from in the future. For instance, in Scandinavia powerful and/or long-lasting rainfalls are one of many consequences regarding a changed climate, where the human kind could be seen as the biggest cause of the problem. Together with an increased number of paved surfaces in the urban environment that doesn’t have the capability of infiltrating rainwater and with an overloaded drainage system under ground, floods are a “climate crisis” that has already caused and could be causing more society problems if nothing is going to be done. Thereby, this thesis will focus on managing large amounts of rainwater in the urban environment. An historical perspective will describe solutions that have been used in the past but also the challenges that the cities are and will be facing regarding stormwater management. Different solutions of sustainable drainage systems will be investigated because of their multifunctionality and ability to clean, infiltrate and detain rainwater in a sustainable and natural way. In addition, the concept of ecosystem services will also be investigated. This is to, in a later stage, study the drainage system solution’s extent in multifunctionality and to also see if the solutions can contribute positive effects on the climate and not only prepare for powerful future rainfalls. The thesis has been made by literature studies and visits of different projects, which resulted in an evaluation of three projects, made to manage big amounts of rainwater, in Malmö, Copenhagen and Uppsala. The evaluation and the study of the projects have been made to give a bigger understanding for stormwater management as a quantitative, qualitative, social and biological solution. The objective of the study is to evaluate what kinds of ecosystem services each project contributes to. This is to understand what a sustainable drainage system can do for people, cities and nature than just prevent floods. The study resulted in a conclusion that projects with larger extent regarding stormwater management generated more ecosystem services, which in itself also generates positive effects on the climate. Stormwater management in the cities might need a solution where sustainable drainage systems are combined with engineered solutions and in that way complete each other’s lacks and generate as many benefits as possible. When the space in the cities is getting smaller, multifunctionality is a must and should be used in every stage from planning to final construction

Contribuições da perspectiva freireana de educação para a interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de ciências

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação Científica e Tecnológica, Florianópolis, 2012.A interdisciplinaridade vem sendo discutida no Brasil há alguns anos, tanto na literatura, em documentos oficiais, bem como em estudos e pesquisas em geral. No entanto, a sua compreensão permanece polissêmica e o seu desenvolvimento na prática ainda enfrenta dificuldades. O presente estudo busca mostrar elementos que permitam desenvolver a interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências. Partimos da proposta da perspectiva freireana de educação como um referencial que contribui para a interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências. A pesquisa compreende os seguintes encaminhamentos: a) estudo sobre o processo de formação de professores e o ensino de Ciências no Brasil; b) estudo das principais perspectivas de interdisciplinaridade na literatura e em documentos oficiais elaborados pelo Ministério da Educação (MEC); c) estudo de pressupostos da concepção educacional freireana importantes para o desenvolvimento da interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências; d) identificação e análise de trabalhos sobre interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências; e) estudo do Projeto Pedagógico de Curso (PPC) do Curso interdisciplinar de Licenciatura Plena em Ciências Naturais e Matemática (LPCNM) da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso (UFMT) do Campus Universitário de Sinop; e f) realização de entrevistas com professores formadores e alunos egressos do Curso de LPCNM da UFMT. Observamos que existem diferentes perspectivas e compreensões sobre interdisciplinaridade na literatura, em documentos oficiais, nas pesquisas em Educação em Ciências e nas falas dos professores formadores e alunos egressos entrevistados; algumas perspectivas interdisciplinares se aproximam e outras se distanciam da nossa perspectiva de interdisciplinaridade, no entanto, o ponto comum entre elas é a superação de um ensino fragmentado, linear e descontextualizado. O estudo realizado em teses e dissertações, nas Atas do ENPEC e nos periódicos da Área de Ensino mostrou que há poucos trabalhos acerca da interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências. Com base nos dados da literatura e nas falas dos entrevistados, sinalizamos a importância da prática e vivência da interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências. Ainda a partir da fala dos entrevistados, apresentamos os limites e possibilidades para o desenvolvimento da interdisciplinaridade no contexto da formação inicial de professores de Ciências. Em síntese, defendemos que a interdisciplinaridade é construída coletivamente entre os pares, envolve o processo histórico de produção do conhecimento e a articulação entre as diferentes áreas do conhecimento, no sentido de buscar uma visão mais integrada e contextualizada de sociedade e ser humano. Para isso, argumentamos que fundamentos da teoria educacional freireana, os quais visam atingir uma educação humanizadora, transformadora e libertadora, contribuem para o desenvolvimento da interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências.Abstract : The interdisciplinary has been discussed in Brazil for some years, both in literature, in official documents, as well as in studies and research in general. However, the understanding of interdisciplinary remains polysemous and its development in practice still faces difficulties. This study seeks to show elements that allow developing interdisciplinary in the initial training of Science teachers. We start from the proposal of Freirean perspective of education as a framework that contributes to interdisciplinarity in the initial training of Science teachers. The research comprises: a) study about the process of teacher training and the Science teaching in Brazil; b) study of the main perspectives of interdisciplinary in literature and in official documents elaborated by the Ministry of Education (MEC); c) study of presuppositions from the Freirean s educational conception which are important to the development of interdisciplinary in the initial training of Science teachers; d) identification and analysis of papers about interdisciplinary in the initial training of science teachers; e) study of the Pedagogical Course Project (PPC) from de Interdisciplinary Course of initial training of teacher of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (LPCNM) of the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT), University Campus of Sinop; and f) interviews with teachers that act at the referred course and with graduates of the Course LPCNM from UFMT. We note that there are different perspectives and understandings of interdisciplinary in the literature, in official documents, in the research in Science Education and in the speeches of interviewees; some interdisciplinary perspectives it approaches and others move away from our perspective of interdisciplinary, however, the common point between them is the overcoming of a fragmented, linear and decontextualized education. The study of theses and dissertations, in the Proceedings of the ENPEC and journals from the Education Area showed that there are few studies about interdisciplinary in the initial training of Science teachers. Based on literature data and the interviewees discourse, we signaled the importance of practice and experience of the interdisciplinary in the initial training of Science teachers. Even from the interviewees statements, we present the limits and possibilities for the development of interdisciplinary in the context of initial training of Science teachers. In summary, we argue that the interdisciplinary is collectively constructed among peers, involves the historical process of knowledge production and the articulation between different areas of knowledge, in order to seek a more integrated and contextualized view of society and person. For this, we argue that foundations of Freirean s educational theory, which aim to achieve a humane education, transforming and liberating, contribute to the development of interdisciplinary in the initial training of Science teachers

AVALIAÇÃO DA EVOLUÇÃO DO ÍNDICE GERAL DE CURSOS - IGC DAS INSTITUIÇÕES DE ENSINO SUPERIOR DE SANTA CATARINA

The competitiveness in the education sector makes Higher Education Institution (HEI) to be attentive to the quality of service they offer, aiming to maintain and win new students, partners or investors. For many students, the institution's image and its perceived quality are the main criteria in choosing an HEI and it is transmitted, often, through the media that publishes rankings. Most rankings and indicators take into account the concepts of General Index of Courses - IGC, so HEI’s managers should be aware of them, looking for strategies to improve them, as they will be responsible for conveying the quality of HEIs and course. Thus, this study sought to determine the evolution of IGC of the Santa Catarina’s HEI from 2007 to 2014 and if has difference in the quality of public and private HEI, as well as to evaluate the difference between types of academic organization – namely university, university centers, colleges and federal institutes, in order to examine whether disclosure of such indicators really serves as a promoter of improvement in the quality of the HEI. Using data from the E-MEC system and with the help of statistical techniques it’s possible to conclude that (1) the evolution of the IGC was marginally significant in the analyzed period, (2) the universities have higher IGC than colleges only in three analyzed years, (3) the public’s HEI are superior of private’s HEI

STNet: Selective Tuning of Convolutional Networks for Object Localization

Visual attention modeling has recently gained momentum in developing visual hierarchies provided by Convolutional Neural Networks. Despite recent successes of feedforward processing on the abstraction of concepts form raw images, the inherent nature of feedback processing has remained computationally controversial. Inspired by the computational models of covert visual attention, we propose the Selective Tuning of Convolutional Networks (STNet). It is composed of both streams of Bottom-Up and Top-Down information processing to selectively tune the visual representation of Convolutional networks. We experimentally evaluate the performance of STNet for the weakly-supervised localization task on the ImageNet benchmark dataset. We demonstrate that STNet not only successfully surpasses the state-of-the-art results but also generates attention-driven class hypothesis maps

Interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores: um olhar sobre as pesquisas em educação em ciências

Neste trabalho trazemos um panorama das discussões sobre interdisciplinaridade na formação inicial de professores de Ciências. Para tanto, investigamos os estudos sobre esse tema em Teses e Dissertações (1987 a 2010), nas Atas do ENPEC (1997 a 2009) e em Periódicos brasileiros da Área de Ensino (2007 a 2011). A compreensão de interdisciplinaridade observada na maioria dos trabalhos é de articulação dos conhecimentos/saberes de diferentes disciplinas/áreas em favor de um ensino contextualizado; no entanto alguns autores também associam a interdisciplinaridade à mudança de postura ou atitude, ação e competência ou, ainda, ao trabalho coletivo. Com relação à abordagem, a interdisciplinaridade é apresentada como construção curricular e/ou princípio formativo, ou como metodologia de trabalho em uma ou mais disciplinas. Apesar de ser o objetivo de muitas práticas e reconhecidamente importante, o conceito de interdisciplinaridade ainda é polissêmico e o seu desenvolvimento carece de estudos, particularmente na formação inicial de professores de Ciências

Laboratory alcohol self-administration experiments do not increase subsequent real-life drinking in young adult social drinkers

BACKGROUND: While the utility of experimental free-access alcohol self-administration paradigms is well established, little data exist addressing the question of whether study participation influences subsequent natural alcohol consumption. We here present drinking reports of young adults before and after participation in intravenous alcohol self-administration studies. METHODS: Timeline Follow-back drinking reports for the 6 weeks immediately preceding the first, and the 6 weeks after the last experimental alcohol challenge were examined from subjects completing 1 of 2 similar alcohol self-administration paradigms. In study 1, 18 social drinkers (9 females, mean age 24.1 years) participated in 3 alcohol self-infusion sessions up to a maximum blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 160 mg%. Study 2 involved 60 participants (30 females, mean age 18.3 years) of the Dresden Longitudinal Study on Alcohol Use in Young Adults (D-LAYA), who participated in 2 sessions of alcohol self-infusion up to a maximum BAC of 120 mg%, and a nonexposed age-matched control group of 42 (28 females, mean age 18.4 years) subjects. RESULTS: In study 1, participants reported (3.7%) fewer heavy drinking days as well as a decrease of 2.5 drinks per drinking day after study participation compared to prestudy levels (p < 0.05, respectively). In study 2, alcohol-exposed participants reported 7.1% and non-alcohol-exposed controls 6.5% fewer drinking days at poststudy measurement (p < 0.001), while percent heavy drinking days and drinks per drinking day did not differ. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that participation in intravenous alcohol self-administration experiments does not increase subsequent real-life drinking of young adults

Identification and characterization of novel CD274 (PD‐L1) regulating microRNAs and their functional relevance in melanoma

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors directed against programmed cell death 1 (PDCD1/PD1) receptor and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (CD274/PD-L1) have been recently successfully implemented for the treatment of many cancers, but the response rate of tumour patients is still limited due to intrinsic and acquired resistances. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms of this limited response have still to be defined in detail. The aim of this study is to uncover processes inhibiting PDCD1/CD274 expression thereby enhancing anti-tumour immune responses. The identification and characterization of microRNAs (miRNAs) targeting the 3′-untranslated region (3′-UTR) as well as the coding sequence (CDS) of CD274 will provide the basis for a new drug development. Methods: Human melanoma cell lines and tissue samples were subjected to mRNA and/or protein expression analysis using qPCR, Western blot, flow cytometry, and/or immunohistochemistry. The data were correlated to clinical parameters. MiRNA trapping by RNA in vitro affinity purification (miTRAP) technology in combination with small RNA sequencing and different bioinformatics tools were employed to identify CD274-regulating miRNAs. Results: Screening based on miTRAP in combination with RNAseq identified a large number of novel CD274-regulating candidate miRNAs, from which eight selected miRNAs were functionally validated. Five out of eight miRNAs were able to significantly reduce CD274 surface expression indicating that these miRNAs directly bind to the 3′-UTR or CDS of the CD274 gene. The miRNA-mediated inhibition of CD274 expression was accompanied by an increased T cell recognition. Furthermore, an inverse expression of three CD274-regulating miRNAs and CD274 was demonstrated in melanoma lesions. A CD274 miRNA score was generated, which was associated with disease progression and reduced survival of melanoma patients. Conclusions: These data revealed a novel mechanism that miRNAs targeting the CDS of immune checkpoint genes are functional, have prognostic relevance, and also the potential for the development of novel miRNA-based therapies