Obama x McCain: os caminhos da política externa norte-americana

Neste artigo analisaremos os programas de política externa propostos pelos candidatos à presidência dos EUA. Iremos, nesse sentido, comparar as propostas de Barack Obama e John McCain tendo em vista o legado neoconservador de George W. Bush e observação das questões-chaves, como a relação com potências rivais, Organizações e Tratados Internacionais, terrorismo e Estados inimigos. Pretendemos enfocar ainda o futuro do Iraque e do Oriente Médio e a posição com relação à liderança americana entre seus aliados

A HISTÓRIA E OS ARQUIVOS: ANOTAÇÕES À MARGEM DOS DOCUMENTOS

This article starts with the critical reading of the historical discourse and, more widely, of a model of knowledge in which an association between a historiographical tradition and the dependency on the research in archives was identified. It still considers the changes made in the archivistique, and in its consequent process of separation from History, to the benefit of the analysis of the processes, in a whole made of the technologies of information. It also analyses the relationship between the two subjects from a common instance assigned to both: the memory and its results, between the risks of forgetting and the cult to the past.Esse artigo parte da leitura crítica sobre o discurso histórico e mais amplamente sobre um modelo de conhecimento nos quais foi identificada a associação entre uma tradição historiográfica e a dependência da pesquisa em arquivos. Considera ainda as mudanças operadas na arquivística e seu consequente trabalho de distanciamento da História em prol da análise dos processos e da forma, em um universo compreendido pelas tecnologias da informação. Analisa a relação entre as duas disciplinas a partir de uma instância comumente atribuída a ambas: a memória e suas decorrências, entre o risco do esquecimento e o culto ao passado

American nature´s inventory in the collection of National Archives

The National Archives holds in its 70 km of documents, gathered over 176 years of existence, a collection ranging from the sixteenth century to the present days. In this article we highlight the theme of natural history in Portuguese America present in the funds and collections related to Luso-Brazilian history. The correspondence between the Court and the colonial authorities shows the circulation of ideas, the heavy flow of consignments of specimens, the growing importance of knowledge of the natural environment and the significance of this process in the framework of the illustrated program on the second half of the eighteenth century

Векторизация растровых изображений с использованием преобразования Хафа

This article describes Hough algorithms for detecting lines and circles in pictures and gives basic definitions of such area. There is a detailed overview of the algorithm

Therapeutic misunderstandings in modern research

Clinical trials play a crucial role in generating evidence about healthcare interventions and improving outcomes for current and future patients. For individual trial participants, however, there are inevitably trade-offs involved in clinical trial participation, given that trials have traditionally been designed to benefit future patient populations rather than to offer personalised care. Failure to understand the distinction between research and clinical care and the likelihood of benefit from participation in clinical trials has been termed the ‘therapeutic misconception’. The evolution of the clinical trials landscape, including greater integration of clinical trials into healthcare and development of novel trial methodologies, may reinforce the significance of the therapeutic misconception and other forms of misunderstanding while at the same time (paradoxically) challenging its salience. Using cancer clinical trials as an exemplar, we describe how methodological changes in early- and late-phase clinical trial designs, as well as changes in the design and delivery of healthcare, impact upon the therapeutic misconception. We suggest that this provides an impetus to re-examine the ethics of clinical research, particularly in relation to trial access, participant selection, communication and consent, and role delineation

Interleukin-2/interferon-α2a/13-retinoic acid-based chemoimmunotherapy in advanced renal cell carcinoma: results of a prospectively randomised trial of the German Cooperative Renal Carcinoma Chemoimmunotherapy Group (DGCIN)

We performed a prospectively randomised clinical trial to compare the efficacy of four subcutaneous interleukin-2-(sc-IL-2) and sc interferon-α2a (sc-IFN-α2a)-based outpatient regimens in 379 patients with progressive metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Patients with lung metastases, an erythrocyte sedimentation rate ⩽70 mm h−1 and neutrophil counts ⩽6000 μl−1 (group I) were randomised to arm A: sc-IL-2, sc-IFN-α2a, peroral 13-cis-retinoic acid (po-13cRA) (n=78), or arm B: arm A plus inhaled-IL-2 (n=65). All others (group II) were randomised to arm C: arm A plus intravenous 5-fluorouracil (iv-5-FU) (n=116), or arm D: arm A plus po-Capecitabine (n=120). Median overall survival (OS) was 22 months (arm A; 3-year OS: 29.7%) and 18 months (arm B; 3-year OS: 29.2%) in group I, and 18 months (arm C; 3-year OS: 25.7%) and 16 months (arm D; 3-year OS: 32.6%) in group II. There were no statistically significant differences in OS, progression-free survival, and objective response between arms A and B, and between arms C and D, respectively. Given the known therapeutic efficacy of sc-IL-2/sc-INF-α2a/po-13cRA-based outpatient chemoimmunotherapies, our results did not establish survival advantages in favour of po-Capecitabine vs iv-5-FU, and in favour of short-term inhaled-IL-2 in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma receiving systemic cytokines