My tooth is ill: about the mental representation of the concept of caries in children (phase I)

Abstract in proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held at Egas Moniz’ University Campus in Monte de Caparica, Almada, from 3–5 June 2019.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bug and the bacteria: are these the unique mental representation of tooth decay?

Objective: Dental caries has a multifactorial aetiology and affects a large part of children’s population worldwide, sometimes configured as a chronic disease. The use of drawing as a projective technique has revealed to be of great use on accessing children's perceptions regarding health issues. The present study aimed to understand how children experience the mental representation of dental caries. Methods: In this exploratory study, the sample consists of 812 children aged between 6 -12 years, recruited from appointments of Paediatric Dentistry at the Egas Moniz University Clinic. This study combined a qualitative methodological strategy with quantitative parameters. Participants were invited to draw a healthy tooth and an (un)healthy tooth. In the present study, only the illustrations regarding (un)healthy tooth has been analyzed through a content analysis grid, to explore the presence of dental caries on the drawing teeth. It was taken into consideration five (5) analytical categories and subcategories, from the content analysis grid designed especially for this research: i) fractures, ii) stains, iii) cavitation, iv) symbols and v) extra drawing. Results: In the present study, Tooth Decay were mental represented by children mostly as Stains. Some participants also drew tears, representing the pain associated to the dental decay. Extra drawings such as bugs, thermometers, bandages and ice bags, were also drawn by the participants expressing the idea of a sick tooth. Conclusions: The drawing as a projective technique of a qualitative nature is a graphical record of high empirical relevance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A representação mental do sorriso da criança antes e após a perda da dentição decídua

Dissertação de mestrado, Psicologia (Área de Especialização em Psicologia Clínica e da Saúde - Psicologia Clínica Dinâmica), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2022Introdução: O sorriso constitui-se como parte integrante do leque intercomunicacional quotidiano dos comportamentos relacionais e um fator determinante para uma aparência facial esteticamente harmoniosa. A partir dos cinco anos de idade, a criança enfrenta a etapa da perda da dentição decídua. Tal pode ter um impacto importante ao nível da sua autoimagem. Objetivo: Explorar empiricamente a autorrepresentação mental que a criança tem do seu rosto, especialmente do sorriso, aquando da perda dos dentes decíduos. Amostra: crianças (N = 62) com idades compreendidas entre os seis e os treze anos, recrutadas na consulta de Ortodontia da Clínica Dentária Egas Moniz. Instrumentos: Além do Consentimento Informado, onde se pretendia envolver o adulto e a criança, foram aplicados três instrumentos concebidos originalmente para este estudo - i) Questionário Sociodemográfico e Clínico; ii) Instrumento de Autorrepresentação Gráfica do Rosto/Sorriso da Criança, para a recolha de autorretratos referentes aos momentos anterior e posterior à perda da dentição decídua e iii) Grelha de Análise de Conteúdos Gráficos, destinada a efetuar uma análise qualitativa e quantitativa dos perceptos gráficos elaborados pelas crianças. Resultados: Em ambos os momentos antes e depois da perda, os perceptos desenhados foram maioritariamente rostos com sorriso, considerados investidos. Após a perda da dentição decídua, assiste-se, sobretudo, ao aumento do tamanho da cabeça e ao surgimento de sorrisos distintos e menos harmoniosos, nomeadamente caracterizados por espaços sem dentes e o aparecimento de dentes tortos. Conclusão: Face a esta perda de uma parte do Eu, parece haver uma fratura psíquica ao nível da representação mental do rosto e do sorriso. A partir dos perceptos produzidos pela amostra, com recurso ao desenho como técnica projetiva, foi possível averiguar que a criança é capaz de elaborar a perda e reconhece o impacto de esta etapa do desenvolvimento na sua autoimagem.Background: The human smile is part of the daily intercommunicative behavioral range and a determining factor for an aesthetically harmonious facial presentation. From five years old on, children face the loss of deciduous teeth which may have a major impact on their self-image. Aim: To explore, from an empirical point of view, children’s self-representation, especially the smile, at the time when deciduous teeth are lost. Sample: children (N = 62) aged between 6 and 13 years old were recruited at the orthodontic consultation of Clínica Dentária Egas Moniz. Instruments: In addition to Informed Consent, which intention was to engage both the adult and the child, three instruments originally designed for this study were applied – i) Sociodemographic and Clinical Questionnaire; ii) Child's Face/Smile Graphic SelfRepresentation Tool, for the collection of self-portraits referring to the moments before and after the loss of the primary dentition and iii) Graphic Content Analysis Grid, aiming to carry out a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the children’s drawings. Results: In both moments before and after the loss, the percepts drawn were mostly smiling faces, considered as invested. After the loss of the primary dentition, there is, above all, an increase in the size of the head and the emergence of different and disharmonious smiles, characterized by spaces without teeth and the emergence of crooked teeth. Conclusion: Facing the loss of a part of the Self, there seems to happen a psychic detachment in terms of the mental representation of both the face and the smile. Based on the percepts produced by the sample and using drawing as a projective technique, it was possible to verify that children seem to be capable of elaborating the loss and to recognize the impact of this developmental stage on their self-image

The phantasmatic mind and the superstitious parts of the tattooed body

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Tattoos have presently become works of art and body accessories, serving as anchors that help to solidify a sense of Self. The present exploratory and qualitative study aimed at understanding the mental representation of the skin in tattooed individuals and the role that tattoos play as a vehicle for the projected identity of the Self. The studied sample consisted of 387 individuals from both genders (146 males and 241 females), aged 16 to 72 years with exposed tattoos, who were invited to produce two self-portraits and a written answer on whether they had experienced any form of discrimination due to their tattooed body. We then proceeded to the content analysis of the 774 collected pictorial drawings, using a grid featuring analytical categories purposely conceived for this study. The results revealed that the self-portraits drawn before the subjects were tattooed showed less body investment than those drawn afterwards. However, the mental representation of the self-portraits drawn after the subjects were tattooed showed a fragmented idea of the body - only the body part that was tattooed was pictorially represented. Additionally, they were associated to a state of happiness (e.g. smile, movement, flexibility, freedom) and to a personal valorization.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Framework for assessing collective irrigation systems resilience to climate change—The Maiorga case study

In order to increase water productivity at the Collective Irrigation System (CIS) level it is crucial to adapt the existing irrigation infrastructure, enhancing water intake at the source, as well as its transport and delivery efficiency. Rehabilitation may involve structural changes and thus, a large capital investment. This investment should be proportionate to the increase in climate resilience associated to different rehabilitation alternatives. A methodology framework was developed to evaluate CIS resilience to climate change considering different rehabilitation alternatives. The assessed components were: (i) crop production systems; (ii) on-farm irrigation systems; and (iii) project rehabilitation alternatives for the conveyance and distribution of the irrigation water from the source to the farmer fields. This framework was applied to the Maiorga CIS, in central Portugal, to test the methodology performance in assessing the impacts of climate change on the supply-demand balance of the proposed rehabilitation alternatives and to evaluate their climate resilience, for the representative concentration pathways, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, and two time periods, 2041–2070 and 2071–2100. For each scenario, period, and rehabilitation alternative, irrigation requirements at the source (demand) and stream flows (supply) were computed and the supply-demand balance was performed. Projected increases in irrigation water demand varied between 5.5% for RCP4.5/2071–2100 and 35.7% for RCP8.5/2071–2100. For RCP4.5, 11% (2050) and 9% (2080) reductions in irrigation water supply were projected, while for RCP8.5 the reduction ranges between 13% (2050) and 30% (2080). The proposed framework determined that the rehabilitation alternatives considering just one type of water source, without flow regularization and with open channel distribution to the farmer’s field, have proved to be unviable due to low resilience to climate change.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cytotoxicity of temperature-responsive cationic diblock copolymers in human cancer and non-cancer cells lines

Abstract in proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of CiiEM: Health, Well-Being and Ageing in the 21st Century, held at Egas Moniz’ University Campus in Monte de Caparica, Almada, from 3–5 June 2019.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Moody : a criação de um serviço e de uma marca de street-food em Portugal

Falar de marcas é necessariamente falar de serviço. Tudo é serviço. Quer estejamos a falar de uma marca que o tem como produto final, quer estejamos a falar de uma marca que vende um produto palpável. No momento de vender esse produto há um serviço que está a ser prestado ao cliente. Mas “servir” tem muitas vezes, pelo menos na língua portuguesa, agarrado a si uma conotação menos positiva. Olhamos, ainda assim, para este acto de “servir” como uma opção pessoal, como uma elevação do próprio ser, algo que diz respeito à postura que cada um tem perante a vida e perante os outros. É, portanto, crucial procurar o melhor equilíbrio possível entre a orientação interna e externa da marca. Numa marca de serviços a produção e o consumo estão intimamente ligados, um não pode ficar completo sem o outro e isto implica a construção coerente do princípio ao fim – desde a escolha dos fornecedores com os melhores produtos até à decisão do consumidor em voltar ou não. Os consumidores procuram satisfazer necessidades e desejos concretos. Nesse sentido, inovar é absolutamente decisivo e tal só será possível através de um olhar sobre valores como a confiança, orientação a longo prazo, compromisso e lealdade. Deveremos focar a nossa comunicação naqueles que serão os “advogados da marca”. São quem dá realmente importância à marca, quem sabe tudo sobre o produto em questão e ainda falarão dele como ninguém. Não esquecemos, no entanto, a relação construída com os colaboradores. É essencial envolvê-los e fazê-los sentirem-se parte da marca e isso só será possível através da construção de relações humanas devidamente fundamentadas e de acordo com a proposta feita no momento de construção da mesma. Esta interacção entre a marca e os consumidores acabou por ganhar uma força ainda maior com a evolução das tecnologias. Elas têm hoje um papel determinante na relação entre aquelas partes. A comunicação é feita a uma velocidade estonteante, permitindo-nos transmitir a identidade do serviço e da marca, os seus valores, posicionamento, personalidade e missão de uma forma mais fácil, rápida e barata, diferenciando-nos de tudo o que nos rodeia.When one refers to brand one necessarily refers to services. Nowadays everything is a service. Whether we speak about a brand which has it as a final product or whether we speak about a brand which intends to sell a tangible product. When the product is sold a service is being provided to the customer. But “to serve” has been having, most of the times and specifically in the portuguese language, a less positive connotation. Nevertheless, we see the act of “serving” as a personal option, as an elevation of the own being, something which denotes the attitude towards life and the others. It is, thus, crucial to find the balance between the brand’s internal and external orientation. Services brands carry with them a straight connection between production and consumption, one being incomplete without the other and this necessarily implies a coherent construction from the beginning up to the the end - from the choice of the suppliers providing the best products to the customer’s decision of whether to return or not. Consumers look to meet concrete needs and desires. In that sense, innovation plays a decisive role and one can only achieve that by focusing on values such as confidence, long-term orientation, commitment and loyalty. We should focus our communication on those who will be the future "brand advocates". They are the ones giving the brand the due importance, the ones knowing everything about the product at stake and the ones speaking about the brand like no one. In the meantime we cannot disregard the relationship with employees and contributors. It is essential to make them feel engaged and make them feel they are part of the brand and that can only be achieved through the development of duly reasoned human relations and following the proposal made on the brand building. This interaction between brand and consumers ended up by being empowered with the technological evolution. Nowadays they play a decisive role on the relationship between those parties. Communication is executed at a dazzling speed, allowing to transmit the identity of the service and brand, its values, positioning, personalities and goals in an easiest, faster and cheaper way, distinguishing us from everything around us

From drawing as place of action to design as being transformation

Partindo de uma aprendizagem em desenho onde este é encarado como um contentor de marcas deixadas num rasto de acção. Lido como prótese ou incitamento à memória, num jogo de visibilidades e invisibilidades, onde o mimetismo do traço se torna inviável. O desenho como registo tradutor e conversor do gesto de um corpo no espaço. Um processo desenhado que põe em evidência um acontecimento passado, que aconteceu e já lá não está, o que dele temos acesso enquanto vestígios desse acontecimento, estas são as marcas deixadas por um corpo num rasto de acção. Resgatamos essa poesis de vestígio (de algo que brevemente desaparecerá), da memória que o desenho (como no mito de Butades) representa para, na óptica do design, assumir uma reflexão como elemento simbolicamente capaz de protagonizar o incitamento especulativo de acontecimentos da vida sócio política circundante. Pretendemos contribuir com uma reflexão teórica em design, pensada como concepção de desconstrução e transformação social. Interpretamos o design como uma ferramenta discursiva, cujos objectos serão sempre contentores semânticos; como uma prática que ao estar abrangida pela reprodutibilidade técnica (W. Benjamin) pode ser um motor de dinamização de consciência e de produção de pensamento crítico na malha social da comunidade onde se insere. Pensar o Design não apenas como um medidor de conteúdos, mas como um posicionador conceptual mediante determinado quadro social e político. Fazer do Design um elemento de pertença comprometida com determinado contexto e lugar. Assumindo-se como preposição crítica, como um elemento de emancipação e desconstrução dos arquétipos do pensamento hegemónico

Drawing as a process of psychic mediation along the child´s developmental trajectory

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).INTRODUCTION: The intrapsychic process of resorting to the symbolic is innate and prepares the child for the organization of his internal world. Throughout the child's developmental trajectory, its playful projective expression, allows us to assess the psychographically internalized stages of development. The present study aims to evaluate the mental representation of the concept of symbolism, size, and perspective of designed percepts along the developmental trajectory (age range from 4 to 12 years).METHODS: Patients were invited to produce two drawings depicting a Healthy Tooth and an Unhealthy Tooth. The qualitative content grid for the analysis of the drawings was originally designed to study the pictorial representations found in the sample. However, in this article, we only intend to present the results obtained regarding Symbolism, Size and Perspective categories that are part of the content analysis grid.RESULTS: Regarding the Symbolism Category, most respondents between 4 and 6 years of age, pictorially represented an Unrealistic Tooth, and from 10 years onwards there is a marked decrease in this pictorial (Un)Realism. Regarding the Size of Teeth Category, from 8 years old onwards the drawings seem to increase in terms of their dimension. When it comes to Perspective Category, the percept drawn in a 2D perspective clearly prevails, regardless of age.CONCLUSION: Results obtained in this study show that the mental representation of (Un)Healthy teeth are early internalized during childhood and the stages of psychographic development seem to be reliable indicators of the development of the mental representation of the child´s symbolism.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio