A number of countries in the Global South have adopted anti-China rhetoric in recent years. Here, we seek to assess the relation of such rhetoric to procurement of Chinese digital systems. We use the ...example of Brazil during the Bolsonaro government, examining whether Bolsonaro's anti-China stance impacted procurement of Chinese surveillance technologies by sub-national (state/city) governments, which are the main bodies responsible for public security. We find that there has been broad and sustained procurement of Chinese surveillance technologies across the political spectrum; both among local governments politically allied to Bolsonaro and those from the opposition. Combined with acquisition at federal level, this suggests anti-China rhetoric does not feed through into procurement realities. Nor can China be singularly associated with diffusion of surveillance technologies as Western democracies have also been suppliers.
Resumo A quimbanda, modalidade de culto afro-brasileiro habitualmente apresentada como mera inversão ético-moral da umbanda, preservou-se em rituais com entidades espirituais que supostamente ...contestam ou invertem a ordem moral vigente. Neste estudo acompanharam-se esses rituais e coletaram-se depoimentos de sacerdotes em comunidades religiosas afro-brasileiras, com o objetivo de revisar se de fato há uma pressão exercida por padrões ético-religiosos da sociedade envolvente que poderiam ter moderado ou modificado concepções africanas subjacentes. Na contramão de análises que implicitamente pressupõem a subordinação dos cultos afro-brasileiros a uma única concepção de moralidade, constatou-se que a vivência do sagrado implicada na quimbanda e na umbanda não atrela-se a essa moralidade vigente, e que nenhuma das suas manifestações pode ser corretamente descrita como amoral.
Resumen La Quimbanda, modalidad de culto afrobrasileño y que generalmente se presenta como una mera inversión ético-moral de la Umbanda, conservó sus rituales con entidades espirituales que supuestamente invierten el orden moral vigente o lo contestan. En este estudio se acompañaron estos rituales y se recogieron declaraciones de sacerdotes en comunidades religiosas afrobrasileñas, con el objetivo de revisar si y en qué medida las presiones ejercidas por patrones ético-religiosos de la sociedad circundante podrían haber moderado o modificado las concepciones africanas subyacentes. Al contrario de los análisis que implícitamente presuponen la subordinación de los cultos afrobrasileños a una única concepción de moralidad, se encontró que la experiencia de lo sagrado involucrada en la Quimbanda y en la Umbanda no se vincula a esta moralidad vigente, y que ninguna de sus manifestaciones puede ser correctamente descrita como amoral.
Résumé Le Quimbanda, une modalité de secte afro-brésilienne généralement présenté comme une simple inversion éthique et morale d’Umbanda, conservé dans les rituels avec des entités spirituelles qui sont supposés contester ou inverser l’ordre moral actuelle. Dans cette étude, ces rituels ont été suivis et les témoignages de prêtres ont été recueillis dans des communautés religieuses afro-brésiliennes, afin de vérifier si, en effet, il y a une pression exercée par les normes éthiques et religieuses de la société environnante qui pouvait modérer ou modifier les conceptions africaines sous-jacentes. Contrairement aux analyses qui supposent implicitement la subordination des sectes afro-brésiliens à une seule conception de la moralité, on a été constaté que l’expérience du sacré impliquée dans le Quimbanda et l’Umbanda n’est pas liée à cette moralité actuelle, et qu’aucune de ses manifestations peut être correctement décrit comme immorale.
Abstract Quimbanda is an African-Brazilian religious modality generally presented as a mere ethical and moral inversion of Umbanda that has been preserved through rituals made with spiritual entities that supposedly contest or reverse the prevailing morality. In this study, we followed rituals and collected interviews with priests in African-Brazilian religious communities, aiming to verify if there really is influence of an ethical standard from the surrounding society that could have moderated or modified subjacent African conceptions. Contrary to analyses that implicitly assume African-Brazilian cults as subjected to a single conception of morality, we found that the sacred experience involving Quimbanda and Umbanda is not attached to the prevailing morality, and that none of its manifestations can be properly described as amoral.
Neste artigo busca-se compreender a pluralidade da umbanda, uma tradição afro-brasileira, através de um estudo sobre a biografia de uma dirigente e a transmissão de seus saberes. Para tanto, ...interagiu-se com a comunidade pesquisada em posição de consulente nas cerimônias religiosas de um terreiro da cidade de Pontal, interior de São Paulo. Além disso, foram feitas entrevistas, registros em caderno de campo, fotográficos, de vídeo e de áudio. Encontrou-se que a heterogeneidade e o pluralismo da umbanda, quando examinados numa perspectiva etnopsicológica, evidenciam a insuficiência de algumas categorias acadêmicas que têm sido utilizadas para os compreender: nomeadamente o sincretismo, hibridismo, convergência, conversão e trânsito religioso. A múltipla pertença religiosa, vista como traço da modernidade em oposição ao tradicional, na umbanda parece ser uma condição da sua tradicionalidade, uma vez que a vida social e comunitária é mais determinante que princípios doutrinários em si mesmos. This paper aims to comprehend the plurality of Umbanda, an Afro-Brazilian tradition, through a study about one leader’s biography and the transmission of knowledge. For this purpose, the researcher interacted with the community as a participant in the religious ceremonies in a terreiro in Pontal, in the countryside of São Paulo. The leadership was interviewed, field notes were registered and photos, videos, and audio were collected. It was found that the heterogeneity and the plurality of Umbanda, when analyzed from an ethnopsychological perspective, highlights that some academic categories used are not enough to understand those attributes, such as syncretism, hybridism, religious transit, convergence, and conversion. In this case, the multiple religious belonging, seen as a trace of modernity in opposition to tradition, seems to be in Umbanda the requirement to its traditionalism. Social and communitarian life are more decisive than the doctrine itself.
O presente relatório resulta do trabalho realizado no âmbito da frequência do Mestrado em Ensino de Música, variante Trombone e Música de Conjunto, da Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas do Instituto ...Politécnico de Castelo Branco, nas unidades curriculares de Prática de Ensino Supervisionada e Projeto do Ensino Artístico. A primeira parte aborda a Prática de Ensino Supervisionada, realizada na Escola de Artes do Norte Alentejano – Conservatório de Portalegre, durante o ano letivo 2019/20, onde foi feita uma caracterização do meio envolvente, da escola, da Classe de Trombone e Classe de Conjunto; planificações e respetivos relatórios de aula e uma reflexão crítica do trabalho desenvolvido no decorrer do estágio. Na segunda parte, referente ao Projeto de Ensino Artístico, é exposto o trabalho de investigação desenvolvido “Estratégias cooperativistas na aprendizagem de Trombone”, tendo como objetivo estudar a implementação de estratégias cooperativas na aprendizagem de Trombone. A investigação recai sobre uma investigação-ação, onde foram aplicadas as estratégias a um quarteto de trombone do 1º, 2º e 3º grau. Como instrumentos de recolha de dados, foram utilizados inquéritos por questionário aos alunos participantes no estudo, grelhas de observação e grelhas de autoavaliação. Os resultados obtidos mostram que as estratégias adotadas potenciaram o desenvolvimento de competências sociais, teórico-musicais e técnico-musicais.
Cognitive human error and recent cognitive taxonomy on human error causes of software defects support the intuitive idea that, for instance, mental overload, attention slips, and working memory ...overload are important human causes for software bugs. In this paper, we approach the EEG as a reliable surrogate to MRI-based reference of the programmer's cognitive state to be used in situations where heavy imaging techniques are infeasible. The idea is to use EEG biomarkers to validate other less intrusive physiological measures, that can be easily recorded by wearable devices and useful in the assessment of the developer's cognitive state during software development tasks. Herein, our EEG study, with the support of fMRI, presents an extensive and systematic analysis by inspecting metrics and extracting relevant information about the most robust features, best EEG channels and the best hemodynamic time delay in the context of software development tasks. From the EEG-fMRI similarity analysis performed, we found significant correlations between a subset of EEG features and the Insula region of the brain, which has been reported as a region highly related to high cognitive tasks, such as software development tasks. We concluded that despite a clear inter-subject variability of the best EEG features and hemodynamic time delay used, the most robust and predominant EEG features, across all the subjects, are related to the Hjorth parameter Activity and Total Power features, from the EEG channels F4, FC4 and C4, and considering in most of the cases a hemodynamic time delay of 4 seconds used on the hemodynamic response function. These findings should be taken into account in future EEG-fMRI studies in the context of software debugging.
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is frequently associated with COVID-19, and the need for kidney replacement therapy (KRT) is considered an indicator of disease severity. This study aimed to develop a ...prognostic score for predicting the need for KRT in hospitalised COVID-19 patients, and to assess the incidence of AKI and KRT requirement.
This study is part of a multicentre cohort, the Brazilian COVID-19 Registry. A total of 5212 adult COVID-19 patients were included between March/2020 and September/2020. Variable selection was performed using generalised additive models (GAM), and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression was used for score derivation. Accuracy was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC).
The median age of the model-derivation cohort was 59 (IQR 47-70) years, 54.5% were men, 34.3% required ICU admission, 20.9% evolved with AKI, 9.3% required KRT, and 15.1% died during hospitalisation. The temporal validation cohort had similar age, sex, ICU admission, AKI, required KRT distribution and in-hospital mortality. The geographic validation cohort had similar age and sex; however, this cohort had higher rates of ICU admission, AKI, need for KRT and in-hospital mortality. Four predictors of the need for KRT were identified using GAM: need for mechanical ventilation, male sex, higher creatinine at hospital presentation and diabetes. The MMCD score had excellent discrimination in derivation (AUROC 0.929, 95% CI 0.918-0.939) and validation (temporal AUROC 0.927, 95% CI 0.911-0.941; geographic AUROC 0.819, 95% CI 0.792-0.845) cohorts and good overall performance (Brier score: 0.057, 0.056 and 0.122, respectively). The score is implemented in a freely available online risk calculator ( https://www.mmcdscore.com/ ).
The use of the MMCD score to predict the need for KRT may assist healthcare workers in identifying hospitalised COVID-19 patients who may require more intensive monitoring, and can be useful for resource allocation.
There is a lack of multi-session P300 datasets for Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). Publicly available datasets are usually limited by small number of participants with few BCI sessions. In this ...sense, the lack of large, comprehensive datasets with various individuals and multiple sessions has limited advances in the development of more effective data processing and analysis methods for BCI systems. This is particularly evident to explore the feasibility of deep learning methods that require large datasets. Here we present the BCIAUT-P300 dataset, containing 15 autism spectrum disorder individuals undergoing 7 sessions of P300-based BCI joint-attention training, for a total of 105 sessions. The dataset was used for the 2019 IFMBE Scientific Challenge organized during MEDICON 2019 where, in two phases, teams from all over the world tried to achieve the best possible object-detection accuracy based on the P300 signals. This paper presents the characteristics of the dataset and the approaches followed by the 9 finalist teams during the competition. The winner obtained an average accuracy of 92.3% with a convolutional neural network based on EEGNet. The dataset is now publicly released and stands as a benchmark for future P300-based BCI algorithms based on multiple session data.
The kinetics of antibody production in response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection is not well-defined yet. This study aimed to evaluate the antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 and its ...dynamics during 9-months in a cohort of patients infected during the first phase of the pandemic. As a secondary aim, it was intended to evaluate the factors associated with different concentrations of IgG antibodies.
A prospective cohort study was conducted from June 2020 to January 2021. This study recruited a convenience sample of adult individuals who where recently diagnosed with COVID-19 and were living in mainland Portugal. A total of 1,695 blood samples were collected from 585 recovered COVID-19 patients up to 9 months after SARS-CoV-2 acute infection. A blood sample was collected at baseline and three, 6 and 9 months after SARS-CoV-2 acute infection to assess the concentration of IgG antibody against SARS-CoV-2.
The positivity rate of IgG reached 77.7% in the first 3 months after symptom onset. The IgG persists at all subsequent follow-up time-points, which was 87.7 and 89.2% in the 6th and 9th months after symptom onset, respectively. Three distinct kinetics of antibody response were found within the 9 months after infection. Kinetic 1 (K1) was characterized by a constant low IgG antibody concentration kinetic (group size: 65.2%); kinetic 2 (K2), composed by constant moderate IgG kinetic (group size: 27.5%) and kinetic 3 (K3) characterized by higher IgG kinetic (group size: 7.3%). People with ≥56 years old (OR: 3.33; CI 95%: 1.64; 6.67;
-value: 0.001) and symptomatic COVID-19 (OR: 2.08; CI 95%: 1.08; 4.00;
-value: 0.031) had higher odds of a "Moderate IgG kinetic." No significant association were found regarding the "Higher IgG kinetic."
Our results demonstrate a lasting anti-spike (anti-S) IgG antibody response at least 9 months after infection in the majority of patients with COVID-19. Younger participants with asymptomatic disease have lower IgG antibody positivity and possibly more susceptible to reinfection. This information contributes to expanding knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 immune response and has direct implications in the adoption of preventive strategies and public health policies.
Introduction: Zoonoses represent 75% of emerging diseases. These diseases pose a permanent threat to human health and well-being and have the potential to become increasingly frequent due to habitat ...degradation; land-use changes; and increased global mobility of humans, animals, and animal products. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact ten zoonoses (brucellosis, cysticercosis, echinococcosis, leishmaniasis, leptospirosis, Lyme disease, rabies, toxoplasmosis, trichinellosis, and West Nile fever) had on human hospitalizations between 2002 and 2016 in Portuguese National Health Service hospitals. Material and Methods: A retrospective nationwide study was conducted using hospitalization records gathered by Administração Central do Sistema de Saúde from all Portuguese public hospitals. Results: Between 2002 and 2016, zoonoses caused 181,741 hospitalizations, a total number of hospitalization days of 2,033,125, and 10,611 deaths. The ten studied zoonoses caused 5,183 hospitalizations, 71,548 hospitalization days, and 176 deaths. All, except Lyme disease, showed a trend of decreasing numbers of hospitalizations. Discussion and Conclusion: The impact of each zoonosis in hospitalized patients regarding their age, sex, the severity of disease, and region can be attributed to the specific characteristics of each disease, regarding means of infection, pathogenicity, and geographic distribution. Hospitalizations caused by zoonoses have declined since the beginning of the century in Portugal. They still represent, however, relevant impacts on Public Health. The promotion of trans professional cooperation guided by One Health principles will further aid in the control of these important diseases.
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