Brazilian Studies Then and Now

In 1912 the Brazilian diplomat and scholar Manuel de Oliveira Lima gave six lectures at Stanford University that encapsulated his views of what we now call Brazilian Studies. This article summarizes Oliveira Lima’s lectures. It then points out three aspects of Oliveira Lima’s worldview that are problematic from the perspective of the twenty-first century: his Eurocentrism; the unproblematic nature of the nation-state in his thinking; and his largely negative view of Brazil’s racial heritage. The third part of the essay analyzes three aspects of Oliveira Lima’s lectures that are still contemporary. These are the need to establish an adequate comparative context for the study of Brazil; the difficulty of justifying an academic discipline that revolves around the study of a single country; and the challenge of uniting disparate and specialized disciplines in order to appreciate Brazil’s complexity and trajectory in the modern world. In the conclusion, some guidelines for maintaining Brazilian Studies as a vibrant field are suggested

Perceptual vs. Grammatical Constraints and Social Factors in Subject-Verb Agreement in Brazilian Portuguese

The earliest studies of variable subject/verb concord in Brazilian Portuguese showed that some sorts of verbs tend to show more frequent use of concord than others. Specifically, according to the saliency hypothesis (Naro 1981), when there is little difference in phonetic realization of plural with respect to singular, use of non-agreeing forms is much more frequent. Thus, in eles come/comem feijão ‘they eat beans’, where the singular differs from the plural only in nasalization of the final vowel, lack of agreement is much more frequent than in eles fez/fizeram as pazes ‘they made up’, where the two forms are very different. The distribution of saliency is highly overlaid with tense/mood: most high saliency forms are preterit, whereas most low saliency forms are present or imperfect. But there are exceptions, such as high saliency present é/são ‘is/are’ and dá/dão ‘gives/give’. In an attempt to discover whether saliency or tense is the most important variable, we made a very detailed coding of both saliency and tense/mood of over 7,000 tokens in two random samples of the speech community separated by an interval of about twenty years (Silva and Scherre 1996, Paiva and Duarte 2003). Both saliency and tense/mood are highly significant in separate analyses, but saliency overcomes tense/mood when both are posited in the same analysis, showing that a cognitive/perceptual factor is stronger than a grammatical factor. Furthermore, our social results in real time suggest that, in a counter-flow to earlier tendencies of loss, resurgence in use of concord is underway, with women in the lead, independently of social orientation as measured by contact with media, a possibility foreseen in Naro 1981, almost thirty years ago. Thus, language-external factors take on importance in the analysis and interpretation of flows and counter-flows in the dynamics of verbal concord in Brazilian Portuguese

Sociolinguistic Correlates of Negative Evaluation: Variable Concord in Rio de Janeiro

Variable agreement in Brazilian Portuguese is subject to social stigma, under strongly negative evaluation, brought to the public’s attention in 2011 in a heated nation-wide sociolinguistic debate triggered by TV Globo, the principal national television network. In order to isolate objective factors underlying this debate, we examine the variable ‘years of schooling’ in a trend study of Rio de Janeiro speech from 1980 and 2000. Analysis of relative weights and their corresponding ranges reveals that distance between effects of each level of education has increased over time. Polarization of the education variable in 1980 was moderate, while in 2000 polarization becomes extreme in an increasingly uneven social distribution of marked forms. The results reveal massive exacerbation of sociolinguistic apartheid, showing that nothing has changed in human interaction with respect to language despite many years of language studies. For this reason, we suggest that our sociolinguistic studies ought to trigger legal action, with creation of laws against linguistic prejudice, modeled on laws against other forms of prejudice, so that society can profit from results of sociolinguistic research in a humanistic and emancipatory way

Hepatic acute phase response protects the brain from focal inflammation during postnatal window of susceptibility

Perinatal inflammation is known to contribute to neurodevelopmental diseases. Animal models of perinatal inflammation have revealed that the inflammatory response within the brain is age dependent, but the regulators of this variation remain unclear. In the adult, the peripheral acute phase response (APR) is known to be pivotal in the downstream recruitment of leukocytes to the injured brain. The relationship between perinatal brain injury and the APR has not been established. Here, we generated focal inflammation in the brain using interleukin (IL)-1β at postnatal day (P)7, P14, P21 and P56 and studied both the central nervous system (CNS) and hepatic inflammatory responses at 4 h. We found that there is a significant window of susceptibility in mice at P14, when compared to mice at P7, P21 and P56. This was reflected in increased neutrophil recruitment to the CNS, as well as an increase in blood–brain barrier permeability. To investigate phenomena underlying this window of susceptibility, we performed a dose response of IL-1β. Whilst induction of endogenous IL-1β or intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 in the brain and induction of a hepatic APR were dose dependent, the recruitment of neutrophils and associated blood–brain barrier breakdown was inversely proportional. Furthermore, in contrast to adult animals, an additional peripheral challenge (intravenous IL-1β) reduced the degree of CNS inflammation, rather than exacerbating it. Together these results suggest a unique window of susceptibility to CNS injury, meaning that suppressing systemic inflammation after brain injury may exacerbate the damage caused, in an age-dependent manner

FocalSpace: Multimodal Activity Tracking, Synthetic Blur and Adapative Presentation for Video Conferencing

We introduce FocalSpace, a video conferencing system that dynamically recognizes relevant activities and objects through depth sensing and hybrid tracking of multimodal cues, such as voice, gesture, and proximity to surfaces. FocalSpace uses this information to enhance users' focus by diminishing the background through synthetic blur effects. We present scenarios that support the suppression of visual distraction, provide contextual augmentation, and enable privacy in dynamic mobile environments. Our user evaluation indicates increased memory accuracy and user preference for FocalSpace techniques compared to traditional video conferencing

Avaliação e predição da asma e sua gravidade na comunidade pediátrica

Seventy four asthmatic children aged 7 to 11 years were examined along with controls matched by age and sex. Clinical and laboratory investigations preceded a 28-day follow-up where data about morning and evening peak expiratory flow rate (PEF), symptoms and treatment were recorded. The coefficient of variation of PEF was found to be an objective measurement of asthma severity that has statistically significant correlation with both symptoms (r s= .36) and treatment (r s= .60). Moreover, it separates mild and severe asthmatics, as confirmed by statistically significant differences (p= .008 or less) in symptoms, treatment, skin allergy and airways response to exercise. Skin allergy and airways responsiveness to exercise were found to be predictors of both disease and severity. By means of logistic regression analysis it was possible to establish the probabilities for both asthma and severe asthma when children presenting and not presenting these characteristics are compared. One single positive skin test represent a probability of 88% for the development of asthma and a probability of 70% for severe disease. A PEF reduction of 10% after an exercise test implies a probability of 73% for disease and a probability of 64% for severe disease. Increases in these variables imply geometrically increased risks and their presence together have a multiplicative effect in the final risk.Foram submetidas a exames, juntamente com grupos controle segundo idade e sexo,74 crianças asmáticas, com idade de 7 a 11 anos. Exames clínicos e laboratoriais precederam um acompanhamento de 28 dias, quando foram registrados dados sobre a taxa de pico do fluxo respiratório (PEF), sintomas e tratamento. Observou-se que o coeficiente de variação do PEF é uma medida objetiva do grau de gravidade da asma, que tem uma correlação estatística significativa, tanto com os sintomas (r s = .036), quanto com o tratamento (r s = .60). Além disso, separa os asmáticos graves e leves, como foi confirmado pelas diferenças estatisticamente significantes (p = 008 ou menos) nos sintomas, tratamentos, alergias da pele e resposta das vias aéreas ao exercício. Estas duas últimas foram consideradas elementos prognosticadores tanto da doença como do grau de gravidade. Pela regressão logística foi possível estabelecer a probabilidade para a asma grave quando as crianças, apresentando ou não essas características, foram comparadas. Um único teste de pele positivo representa uma probabilidade de 88% para o desenvolvimento de asma, e de 70% para doença grave. A redução do PEF de 10%, depois de um teste de exercício, leva a uma probabilidade de 73% de doença e de 64% para doença grave. Aumentos nessas variáveis implicam riscos aumentados geométricamente, cuja presença conjunta tem efeito multiplicativo no risco final

Paper cemeteries: informal barriers to Brazilian public security reform

How can we understand the role of the police in Brazil’s public security system?  In particular, have reforms initiated since the 1985 transition to democracy made the police more accountable to the public? This article addresses those questions. The next section describes the importance of public security as a political issue in Brazil. The article then examines the notion of accountability, and offers a justification of the use of case studies from Recife with which to explore the dilemmas of public security reform. In the following sections, the article analyses the impact of two new accountability mechanisms on policing in Recife – the police ombudsman and community councils. The article argues that so far, the operation of these mechanisms has been marked by informal barriers, barriers that have stymied the enhancement of police accountability to the public. The conclusion summarizes the argument

Neural correlates of performance monitoring during discrete and continuous tasks

Monitoring our actions is a key function of the brain for adaptive and successful behavior. Actions can be discrete such as when pressing a button, or continuous, such as driving a car. Moreover, we evaluate our actions as correct or erroneous (performance monitoring) and this appraisal of performance comes with various levels of confidence (metacognition). However, studies of performance monitoring have focused on discrete actions and are mostly agnostic to metacognitive judgments. The objective of this thesis was to extend the study of performance monitoring to more ecological conditions, in which monitoring occurs during continuous motor tasks under various degrees of error and confidence level. We first investigated the role of actions in performance monitoring together with metacognitive judgments, using simultaneous EEG and fMRI recordings. To dissociate the role of motor actions, we designed an experimental paradigm in which subjects had to rate their confidence level about an action that they had either performed themselves (a button press) based on a decision or passively observed (a virtual hand displayed). We found correlates of confidence in both condition, in the EEG and in the supplementary motor area (SMA). Furthermore, we found that subject showed better metacognitive performances when they were the agents of the action. This difference was further emphasized for subjects that showed higher activations of a network previously linked to motor inhibition and comprising the pre-SMA and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Our results imply that the SMA plays a primary role in the monitoring of performance, irrespectively of a commitment to a decision and the resulting action. Our findings also suggest that the additional neural processes leading to decisions and actions can inform the metacognitive judgments. In the following chapters, we ask whether electrophysiological correlates of performance monitoring can be found in less experimentally constrained paradigms for which motor output continuous unfolds and visual feedback is not segregated into discrete events. By decomposing the unfolding hand kinematics during a visuo-motor tracking task into periodic acceleration pulses âhenceforth referred to as sub-movements, we found three electrophysiological markers that could possibly be linked to performance monitoring. Firstly, we found an ERP in the SMA, time-locked to sub-movements which encoded the deviation of the hand, 110 ms before. Secondly, we found high-gamma activity in the ACC and SMA of epileptic patients, that was phase-locked to sub-movements. Thirdly, we found a transient modulation of mu oscillations over the ipsilateral sensorimotor cortices that depended on sub-movement amplitude. Altogether, these results provide a strong contribution in the understanding of the neurophysiological processes underlying performance monitoring. Our work proposes a methodological framework to study electrophysiological correlates of performance monitoring in less controlled paradigms during which continuous visual feedback has to be constantly integrated into motor corrections. In the conclusion chapter, we propose a way of extending current models of performance monitoring and decision making to explain the findings of this thesis by considering continuous motor tasks as a succession of decision making processes under time pressure and uncertainty