As relações de equivalência como critério de análise da pertinência científica de categorias analíticas

El objetivo del presente trabajo es proponer las relaciones de equivalencia como criterio estructural o de ordenamiento analítico mediante el cual se puedan delimitar las funciones del conocimiento requeridas en una actividad científica. Se parte de considerar al conocimiento como un fenómeno estudiado por la psicología y cuya explicación requiere de dar cuenta de la manera en que se establecen, organizan y actualizan las funciones conductuales o del conocimiento. De este modo, se considera que las tareas de igualación a la muestra permiten comprender el modo de abstraer las categorías analíticas que estructuran científicamente el conocimiento de la realidad. Cuando se usan estos procedimiento, se derivan nuevas relaciones sin la necesidad de un entrenamiento directo y que no pueden explicarse con base en principios de generalización de estímulos, sino, más bien, como relaciones equivalentes diferenciadas mediante los entrenamientos previos y que adquieren un cierre en una categoría analítica cuando se abstraen los criterios categoriales o, si se quiere, cuando estas relaciones se nominan. Así, al categorizarse o nominarse, estas trascienden la situación -porque nominar se entiende como un ajuste a criterios convencionales- y una vez que las interacciones situacionales se nominan, regulan todas las prácticas sociales, incluidas las prácticas del conocimiento científico.O objetivo deste trabalho é propor as relações de equivalência como critério estrutural ou de ordenamento analítico pelo qual possam ser delimitadas as funções do conhecimento requeridas numa atividade científica. Parte-se de considerar o conhecimento como um fenômeno estudado pela psicologia e cuja explicação requer evidenciar a maneira na qual são estabelecidas, organizadas e atualizadas as funções comportamentais ou do conhecimento. Desse modo, considera-se que as tarefas de igualação à amostra permitem compreender o modo de abstrair as categorias analíticas que estruturam cientificamente o conhecimento da realidade. Quando são usados esses procedimentos, são derivadas novas relações que, sem a necessidade de um treinamento direto, não podem ser explicadas com base em princípios de generalização de estímulos, mas sim como relações equivalentes diferenciadas mediante os treinamentos prévios e que adquirem uma delimitação numa categoria analítica quando são abstraídos os critérios categoriais ou, se se quiser, quando essas relações são nominadas. Assim, ao serem categorizadas ou nominadas, elas transcendem a situação -porque nominar se entende como um ajuste a critérios convencionais- e, uma vez que as interações situacionais são nominadas, regulam todas as práticas sociais, incluídas as práticas do conhecimento científico.The aim of this paper is to propose equivalence relations as a structural criterion or analytical order, through which the functions of knowledge required in a scientific activity are delimited. It begins by considering knowledge as a phenomenon studied by psychology, whose explanation requires giving an account of the way in which such behavioral or knowledge functions are established, organized and updated. It is considered that the procedures of matching-to-sample allow understanding the way of abstracting the analytical categories that scientifically structure the knowledge of reality. When using these procedures, new relationships are derived that without the need for direct training, cannot be explained based on principles of stimulus generalization, but rather as equivalent relations differentiated through previous training. They get a closure in an analytical category, once the categorical criteria are abstracted or if desired, when these relationships are nominated. And when categorized or nominated, they transcend the situation, since nominating is understood as an adjustment to conventional criteria. Once situational interactions are nominated, they regulate all social practices, including practices of scientific knowledge

Temporal Cross-Media Retrieval with Soft-Smoothing

Multimedia information have strong temporal correlations that shape the way modalities co-occur over time. In this paper we study the dynamic nature of multimedia and social-media information, where the temporal dimension emerges as a strong source of evidence for learning the temporal correlations across visual and textual modalities. So far, cross-media retrieval models, explored the correlations between different modalities (e.g. text and image) to learn a common subspace, in which semantically similar instances lie in the same neighbourhood. Building on such knowledge, we propose a novel temporal cross-media neural architecture, that departs from standard cross-media methods, by explicitly accounting for the temporal dimension through temporal subspace learning. The model is softly-constrained with temporal and inter-modality constraints that guide the new subspace learning task by favouring temporal correlations between semantically similar and temporally close instances. Experiments on three distinct datasets show that accounting for time turns out to be important for cross-media retrieval. Namely, the proposed method outperforms a set of baselines on the task of temporal cross-media retrieval, demonstrating its effectiveness for performing temporal subspace learning.Comment: To appear in ACM MM 201

Antiquities trafficking in conflict countries: A crime-mapping approach

Studies on antiquities trafficking have often been overshadowed by research looking at the trafficking of human beings, drugs, and weapons, a fact partly motivated by the arguably higher relevance and greater security implications involved in these other forms of illicit trade. However, the past decade of conflicts in the Middle East has revived an interest in the study of antiquities trafficking networks. 1 The association between the growing size of the illicit antiquities market and conflicts in the region did not go unnoticed by crime scientists and criminologists looking deeper at the relation between the trafficking of antiquities and transnational organized crime

Prospective randomized comparison of laparoscopic versus open adrenalectomy for sporadic pheochromocytoma.

BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic adrenalectomy for pheochromocytoma remains subject of debate, owing to the systemic consequences of pneumoperitoneum in patients with catecholamine-secreting tumors. METHODS: A prospective randomized study was conducted (2000-2006), evaluating cardiovascular instability during open (n = 9, group A) or laparoscopic (n = 13, group B) adrenalectomy for pheochromocytoma. Haemodynamic parameters were recorded by invasive monitoring. RESULTS: Haemodynamic instability was observed in 3/9 (group A) and 6/13 patients (group B), with a mean of 1.8 and 2.2 hypertensive peaks per patient (p = n.s.). Blood loss (164 +/- 94 cc versus 48 +/- 36 cc, p < 0.05) and operative time (180 +/- 40 versus 158 +/- 45 min, p = n.s.) favored laparoscopic procedures. Postoperative morbidity and mortality were nil. Hospital stay was shorter in group B (p < 0.05). Long-term follow-up was always normal. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic approach for pheochromocytoma can be as safe as open surgery; intraoperative haemodynamic instability, although usually controlled with success, remains a source of concern

Eosinophilic inflammation in allergic asthma

Eosinophils are circulating granulocytes involved in pathogenesis of asthma. A cascade of processes directed by Th2 cytokine producing T-cells influence the recruitment of eosinophils into the lungs. Furthermore, multiple elements including interleukin (IL)-5, IL-13, chemoattractants such as eotaxin, Clara cells, and CC chemokine receptor (CCR)3 are already directly involved in recruiting eosinophils to the lung during allergic inflammation. Once recruited, eosinophils participate in the modulation of immune response, induction of airway hyperresponsiveness and remodeling, characteristic features of asthma. Various types of promising treatments for reducing asthmatic response are related to reduction in eosinophil counts both in human and experimental models of pulmonary allergic inflammation, showing that the recruitment of these cells really plays an important role in the pathophysiology of allergic diseases such asthma.Univ São Paulo, Sch Med, Dept Med, BR-01246 São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biol Sci, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Biol Sci, São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Metachronous hepatic metastases from gastric carcinoma: a multicentric survey

BACKGROUND: The treatment of hepatic metastases from gastric cancer is controversial, due to biologic aggressiveness of the disease. OBJECTIVE: To survey the clinical approach to the subset of atients presenting with metachronous hepatic metastases as sole site of recurrence after curative resection of gastric cancer, focusing on the results achieved by different therapies and to investigate the prognostic factors of major clinical relevance. METHODS: Retrospective multi-center chart review evaluating 73 patients, previously submitted to D >or= 2 gastrectomy for gastric cancer, who developed exclusive hepatic recurrence. Prognostic factors related to the patient, to the gastric malignancy and its treatment, and to the metastatic disease and its therapy were evaluated. RESULTS: Forty-five patients received supportive care, 17 were submitted to chemotherapy, and 11 to hepatic resection. Survival was independently influenced by the variables T (p=0.019), N (p=0.05) and G (p=0.018) of the gastric primary and by the therapeutic approach to the metastases (p<0.005). In particular, T4 gastric cancer, presence of lymph-node metastases and G3 tumor displayed a negative prognostic value. Therapeutic approach to the metastases was the principal prognostic variable: 1, 2, and 3 years survival rates were 22.2%, 4.4% and 2.2%, respectively, for patients without specific treatment; 44.9%, 12.8% and 6.4% after chemotherapy (p=0.08) and 80.8%, 30.3% and 20.2% after surgical resection (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest some clinical criteria that may facilitate selection of therapy for patients with hepatic recurrence after primary gastric cancer resection. The best survival rates are associated with surgical treatment, which should be chosen whenever possible

Increased risk of second malignancy in pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous tumors: Review of the literature.

AIM: To analyze the available evidence about the risk of extrapancreatic malignancies and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma associated to pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous tumors (IPMNs). METHODS: A systematic search of literature was undertaken using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane and Web-of-Science libraries. No limitations for year of publication were considered; preference was given to English papers. All references in selected articles were further screened for additional publications. Both clinical series and Literature reviews were selected. For all eligible studies, a standard data extraction form was filled in and the following data were extracted: study design, number of patients, prevalence of pancreatic cancer and extrapancreatic malignancies in IPMN patients and control groups, if available. RESULTS: A total of 805 abstracts were selected and read; 25 articles were considered pertinent and 17 were chosen for the present systematic review. Eleven monocentric series, 1 multicentric series, 1 case-control study, 1 population-based study and 3 case report were included. A total of 2881 patients were globally analyzed as study group, and the incidence of pancreatic cancer and/or extrapancreatic malignancies ranged from 5% to 52%, with a mean of 28.71%. When a control group was analyzed (6 papers), the same incidence was as low as 9.4%. CONCLUSION: The available Literature is unanimous in claiming IPMNs to be strongly associated with pancreatic and extrapancreatic malignancies. The consequences in IPMNs management are herein discussed

Measurement of forward photon production cross-section in proton-proton collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV with the LHCf detector

In this paper, we report the production cross-section of forward photons in the pseudorapidity regions of $\eta\,>\,10.94$ and $8.99\,>\,\eta\,>\,8.81$, measured by the LHCf experiment with proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. The results from the analysis of 0.191 $\mathrm{nb^{-1}}$ of data obtained in June 2015 are compared to the predictions of several hadronic interaction models that are used in air-shower simulations for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. Although none of the models agree perfectly with the data, EPOS-LHC shows the best agreement with the experimental data among the models.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure