An exercise on developing an ontology-epistemology about schizophrenia and neuroanatomy

This paper describes preliminary ideas on formalizing some concepts of neuroanatomy into ontological and epistemological terms. We envisage the application of this ontology on the assimilation of facts about medical knowledge about neuroimages from schizophrenic patients

Evaluating the Effect of Homicide Prevention Strategies in São Paulo, Brazil: A Synthetic Control Approach

Although Brazil remains severely affected by civil violence, the state of São Paulo has made significant inroads into fighting criminality. In the last decade, São Paulo has witnessed a 70 percent decline in homicide rates, a result that policy-makers attribute to a series of crime-reducing measures implemented by the state government. While recent academic studies seem to confirm this downward trend, no estimation of the total impact of state policies on homicide rates currently exists. The present article fills this gap by employing the synthetic control method to compare these measures against an artificial São Paulo. The results indicate a large drop in homicide rates in actual São Paulo when contrasted with the synthetic counterfactual, with about 20,000 lives saved during the period. The theoretical usefulness of the synthetic control method for public policy analysis, the role of the Primeiro Comando da Capital as a moderating variable, and the practical implications of the security measures taken by the São Paulo State government are also discussed

Between ballots and bullets: Executive competitiveness and civil war incidence, 1976-2000

Although recent research has yielded some determining elements to civil war, the influence of politicalfactors on internal conflicts remains disputed. This article presents a critical review of the mostwidely used indices of democracy in civil war studies, and suggests that the competitiveness ofthe executive power can be a useful measure for quantitative conflict research. The paper alsoanalyses, by means of statistical regression, the relationship between the competitiveness in theexecutive recruitment and civil war incidence from 1976 to 2000. The findings indicate that bothsingle-candidate and multi-party elections reduce the incidence of civil war. Furthermore, theresults lend support to the hypotheses put forward by recent literature that ethnic fractionalisation,mountainous terrain, large population and centralised political systems significantly heighten therisk of incidence of civil war, while high GDP per capita and economic growth decrease the likelihoodof internal conflicts

prisonbrief: An R package that returns tidy data from the World Prison Brief website

risonbrief is an R package that downloads, cleans and returns tidy data (Wickham 2014) from the World Prison Brief website (Institute for Criminal Policy Research 2017). The World Prison Brief (WPB) is an online database compiled by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research with information on prison systems around the world. WPB data currently cover 223 jurisdictions and have been collected from public sources. The prisonbrief package provides three easy-to-use functions that convert WPB data into a format convenient for statistical analysis. Researchers interested in comparative prison systems – such as criminologists, sociologists and economists – can use the output from functions in the package to create maps, plot time series graphs and calculate descriptive statistics with only a few lines of code

Controle de fluxo adaptativo para Gateways Bluetooth Low-Energy aplicado a sistemas de monitoramento remoto de pacientes.

O cenário introduzido pela Internet das Coisas potencializa a criação de um novo conjunto de aplicações e serviços, onde diversos dispositivos interagem entre si através da Internet. Esse cenário viabiliza o advento de novas tecnologias de transmissão sem fio de baixo consumo, como o Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE), as quais viabilizam a criação de redes pessoais (PAN) sem fio. Em paralelo, com a crescente disponibilidade de Dispositivos Pessoais de Saúde com capacidade de comunicação, um cenário onde informações de saúde podem ser disponibilizadas na Internet surge, viabilizando a criação de sistemas de Saúde Conectada. Entretanto, ao viabilizar a criação de redes PAN interconectando diversos dispositivos, a Qualidade de Serviço na rede necessária para o correto funcionamento desses dispositivos de saúde pode ser afetada, dado que redes PAN BLE não oferecem mecanismos para a diferenciação da Qualidade de Serviço entre os dispositivos conectados. Considerando esse contexto de compartilhamento de uma rede PAN entre diversos dispositivos, nesse trabalho propõe-se uma abordagem para o controle do fluxo adaptativo em Gateways BLE utilizando um mecanismo de distribuição de créditos temporal entre os clientes de uma rede PAN. Para essa priorização, informações fornecidas por aplicações são utilizadas para a distribuição e configuração dos parâmetros de conectividade dos dispositivos da rede PAN. Também são apresentados detalhes sobre o projeto e evolução arquitetural do controlador adaptativo, detalhando suas características de controle de fluxo com prioridade temporal. São apresentados resultados experimentais do funcionamento do controlador adaptativo em diferentes cenários. Esses resultados demonstram que o mesmo é capaz de garantir a Qualidade de Serviço de rede necessária para dispositivos específicos em um ambiente compartilhado. Para a validação desse trabalho em um cenário mais amplo, é apresentada uma arquitetura para Sistemas de Monitoramento Remoto de Pacientes padronizado para a Internet das Coisas. Esse sistema serve como base para a implantação e avaliação experimental do controlador de fluxo adaptativo em um Smart-Gateways BLE, onde informações de serviços e aplicações em saúde são utilizadas para priorizar Dispositivos Pessoais de Saúde a depender do seu contexto de uso.The Internet of Things paradigm enables a new set of applications and services to be available in the Internet. This scenario makes possible the development of new low-power communication technologies, such asBluetooth Low-Energy (BLE), which creates wireless Personal Area Networks (PAN). At the same time, the rising availability of Personal Health Devices (PHD) capable of PAN communication and the desire of keeping a high quality of live are the ingredients of the Connected Health vision. However, as the number of PHDs increase, the number of other peripherals connected in the PAN also increases. Therefore, PHDs are now competing for medium access with other devices, decreasing the network Quality of Service of health applications in the BLE PAN, as these networks do not guarantee Quality of Service requirements for connected devices. In this context, where a BLEPAN is shared with multiple devices, it is where this work is immersed. In this work is presented an approach for adaptive flow-control of BLE Gateways using a temporal credit distribution mechanism between clients in a PAN. For this distribution, application context information is used for network prioritization and parameter configuration of PAN devices. In this work is detailed how the adaptive flow-control was designed and how was its architectural evolution, detailing how its temporal mechanism works. Experimental results are presented showing the controller behavior in different scenarios. These results show that using the proposed approach it is possible to guarantee Quality of Service requirements for target devices using a prioritization process in a shared medium. In order to validate this work in a broad scenario, it is also presented a standard-based Remote Patient Monitoring System architecture for the Internet of Things. This system is used as base infrastructure for prioritization of PHDs connections based on their state and requirements by the use of a Smart BLE Gateway. An implementation was developed showing the relevance of the problem and how a BLE adaptive controller can assist in the prioritization of devices in the context of healthcare services and applications.Cape

Changes in throwing sports rules: Implications about the performance of Paralympic athletes

The objective of this study was to identify statutory changes in throwing sports occurred in 2014 and how they interfere with the Brazilian athletes’ performance. The research is characterized as descriptive, documentary and quantitative. Rules were consulted in the archives from the International Paralympic Committee and the Brazilian Paralympic Committee as well as 177 results from competitions between 2013 and 2014. Student’s t-test (paired) was used during statistical analysis with a 5% significance level. Results show a significant difference in throwing competitors’ performance following the statutory changes. The functional classification F58 and F57 revealed a decrease in performance in 2014. Athletes with higher functional capabilities had worse performance compared to the results of those who are less functionally capable. The results of this investigation show that the changes in rules had direct consequences in results during the years analyzed, thus suggesting athletes have yet to assimilate and adapt to them

Bottom-up accountability and public service provision: Evidence from a field experiment in Brazil

Does local oversight improve public service delivery? We study the effect of a mobile phone application that allows citizens to monitor school construction projects in Brazilian municipalities. The app prompts users to submit data about construction sites, sends such crowdsourced information to independent engineers, and contacts the mayors’ offices about project delays. Our results show that the app has a null impact on school construction indicators. Additionally, we find that politicians are unresponsive to individual requests. The results question the impact of bottom-up monitoring on public service performance and suggest that interventions targeted at other groups, or focused on different issues, may produce better policy outcomes

Spectroscopic evidence in solid and solution of a discrete copper(I) tetrahedral complex dimer supported by supramolecular interactions

The first study of the self-association of a copper(I) tetrahedral complex ([Cu(N-{4-nitrophenyl}pyridine-2-yl-methanimine)(PPh 3)Br]) has been performed. The formation of a discrete dimer supported by supramolecular π-π stacking and C-H·Br interactions was established by X-ray diffraction techniques. 1D- and 2D NMR techniques were used for the structural characterization of this compound in solution. Unexpected 1H- 1H NOE effects are coherent with the presence of a dimer in solution, whose structure replicates that found in the crystal. Dimerization constants obtained by VT- 1H NMR spectroscopy allowed the determination ofthe thermodynamic parameters for the self-association process, namely ΔS = -0.67±0.21 calmol -1K -1, ΔH = -2.00±0.05 kcalmol -1 and ΔG(298 K) = -1.79 kcalmol -1. Consequently, this association process is enthalpy driven.Fil: Jara, Danilo H.. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; ChileFil: Lemus, Luis. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; ChileFil: Farías, Liliana. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; ChileFil: Freire Espeleta, Eleonora. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Escuela de Ciencia y Tecnología; ArgentinaFil: Baggio, Ricardo Fortunato. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Guerrero, Juan. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; Chil

A Compatibilidade da Legislação Interna com a Convenção Internacional sobre os Direitos da Pessoa com Deficiência no Acesso aos Cargos Públicos

Among the rights guaranteed to persons with disabilities , there is access to public offices and positions through reserve places in competitions , as provided for in section VIII of Article 37 of the Constitution . What if you want to investigate this work is the issue of national legislation compatible with the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , in particular the issue of the reservation of vacancies in public tenders , checking the possibility of judicial intervention to consider person with disabilities who is not in the internal regulatory framework .Dentre os direitos garantidos às pessoas com deficiência, destaca-se o acesso aos cargos e empregos públicos por meio de reserva de vagas nos certames, conforme previsto no inciso VIII do artigo 37 da Constituição Federal. O que se pretende investigar neste trabalho como problemática é se há compatibilidade da legislação interna com a Convenção Internacional sobre os Direitos das Pessoas com Deficiência, em especial a questão da reserva de vagas em concursos públicos, verificando a possibilidade de intervenção judicial para que se considere pessoa com deficiência quem não se enquadre na moldura normativa interna