The transition and adaptation of students to higher education involve a wide range of challenges that justify some institutional practices promoting skills that enable students to increase their autonomy and to face the difficulties experienced. The requirements for this adaptation were particularly aggravated by the containment and sanitary conditions associated with coronavirus disease 2019. With the aim of promoting academic success and preventing dropout in the first year, a support program was implemented for students enrolled in two courses in the (...) area of education at a public university in northern Portugal during the first semester of 2020/2021. Three sessions of 50/60 min were implemented, namely, the first session focused on the verbalization of the demands, challenges, and difficulties of the transition, and the second and third sessions focused on the difficulties of academic adaptation and academic performance. Data from a dropout risk screening instrument and from the activities performed during sessions were analyzed. The main results point to student satisfaction with the content and the activities of the sessions and their usefulness. Students report not only high satisfaction levels with HE attendance, but also some emotional exhaustion due to academic activities. The continuity of the program is recommended with some improvements in its planning to ensure a more definitive version of the program in the next two years. (shrink)

Resenha de: AGAMBEN, Giorgio. Il regno e il giardino. Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 2019, 123 pp.

RESUMO Um retorno ao ser aparece na contemporaneidade como uma via teórica importante para se pensar as possibilidades de uma política e de uma ética livres das conformações legadas pela história do Ocidente. É nesse sentido que Giorgio Agamben desenvolve em "O uso dos corpos" o que chamará de uma arqueologia da ontologia, buscando verificar se o acesso a uma ontologia ainda é possível nos dias de hoje. Partindo de Aristóteles, passando pela escolástica, até chegar a Heidegger, Agamben evidencia como (...) a divisão binária do ser - em duas experiências contrapostas e ao mesmo tempo dependentes - mantém-se como uma aporia no pensamento e na práxis ocidental. A ontologia, como lugar originário da articulação histórica entre linguagem e mundo, é então percorrida por suas fraturas, levando o filósofo a propor uma nova leitura do ser a partir do que entende como ontologia modal. A partir dessas ideias, busca-se investigar como essa articulação medial entre essência e existência, ser e ente, comum e singular - constituída sempre em devir - propiciaria uma nova perspectiva do ser, na qual ontologia e ética se confundem. ABSTRACT A return to the being emerges in the contemporaneity as an important theoretical way to think about the possibilities of a politics and an ethics free from the legacy bequeathed by the Western history. In this sense, Giorgio Agamben develops, in the book "The use of the bodies", what he calls an archaeology of ontology, seeking to verify if the access to an ontology is still possible nowadays. Starting from Aristotle, passing by the Scholastics, until arriving at Heidegger, Agamben highlights how the binary division of being - in two opposed and, at same time, dependent experiences - remains an aporia in Western thought and praxis. The ontology, as the origin of the historical articulation between language and world, is then traversed by its fractures, leading the philosopher to propose a new reading of the being from what he understands as modal ontology. From these ideas, we intend to investigate how this medial articulation between essence and existence, being and entity, common and singular -always founded in a becoming - would provide a new perspective of the being in which ontology and ethics end up mixed. (shrink)

Analisando a comunicação memética a partir dos pontos de vista da semiologia saussuriana e do dispositivo biopolítico tal como pensado por Foucault e Agamben, bem como estabelecendo conexões entre essas teorias e o uso desse tipo de comunicação na política brasileira contemporânea, foi possível perceber neste artigo que os memes, em especial os memes políticos, em vez de operarem por meio da subjetivação, operam como dispositivos dessubjetivantes.

Thèse d'histoire, ce livre traite des itinéraires humains dans le réseau ferré qui, au début du XXe siècle, se répand et s'avance de l'Ouest de l'Etat de São Paulo vers celui du Mato Grosso, la Bolivie et le Paraguay, dans un projet d'intégration économique régional et de modernisation de l'intérieur du Brésil. Il existe déjà beaucoup d'études sur le chemin de fer et le rail au Brésil, mais ce livre est le seul à évoquer des expériences féminines. Des documents administratifs (...) de la com... (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to identify the relative contribution of individual and contextual predictors to students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism. A group of 324 students from a tertiary institution in New Zealand completed an online survey. The findings indicate that gender, justice sensitivity, and understanding of university policies regarding academic dishonesty were the key predictors of the students’ attitudes toward the acceptability of cheating and plagiarism, both as agents of dishonest conduct and as witnesses (...) of misconduct among their peers. The implications of these findings for the development of policies and initiatives in tertiary institutions are discussed. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the acceptability of downsizing and restructuring measures during a recession. Two hundred and seven participants with various levels of training in economics were presented with a number of realistic scenarios depicting various measures, and were asked to indicate the extent to which they considered them to be acceptable. The scenarios were created by varying three factors likely to have an impact on people’s views: the magnitude of (...) a company’s reduction in net sales, the magnitude of planned downsizing, and the way in which downsizing would be implemented, either through layoffs, job alliances or both. Six qualitatively different personal positions were found. Four of these following positions were expected: never acceptable, mainly depends on the magnitude of downsizing, mainly acceptable and job alliance. Two unexpected positions were also observed: drastic measures and undetermined. (shrink)

Microbiome research shows that human health is foundationally intertwined with the ecology of microbial communities living on and in our bodies. This challenges the categorical separation of organisms from environments that has been central to biomedicine, and questions the boundaries between them. Biomedicine is left with an empirical problem: how to understand causal pathways between host health, microbiota and environment? We propose a conceptual tool – environmentality – to think through this problem. Environmentality is the state or quality of being (...) an environment for something else in a particular context: a fully perspectival proposition. Its power lies partly in what Isabelle Stengers has called the efficacy of the word itself, contrasting the dominant sense of the word environment as something both external and fixed. Through three case studies, we argue that environmentality can help think about the causality of microbiota vis-a-vis host health in a processual, relational and situated manner, across scales and temporalities. We situate this intervention within historical trajectories of thought in biomedicine, focusing on the challenge microbiome research poses to an aperspectival body. We argue that addressing entanglements between microbial and human lives requires that the environment is brought into the clinic, thus shortening the conceptual gap between medicine and public health. (shrink)

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the legitimacy of bonuses for senior executives. Two hundred eight participants, with various levels of training in economics, were presented with a number of concrete scenarios depicting the circumstances in which senior executives have received bonuses of variable amounts, and they were asked to indicate the extent to which such bonuses may be considered as legitimate. The scenarios were created by varying four factors likely to have (...) an impact on people’s views: the extent to which the objectives fixed by the company have been met or not, the global economic context in which the company has performed, the availability of experienced senior executives in the sector under consideration, and the amount of money that has been awarded, in terms of both the euros and multiples of the average worker’s pay. Five qualitatively different personal positions were found. The most common positions were that executive bonuses were either never legitimate or not very legitimate. People without any background in economics were more likely to hold these views than people with a background in economics. The remaining 45 % of the participants supported the awarding of bonus, but their support was conditional, and the main condition was the extent to which the company’s objectives were met. Thus for most participants, the practice of awarding extra pay to senior executives was either never legitimate, or legitimate only when the company’s objectives have been attained, or legitimate only when, even in a time of economic crisis, the company’s objectives have been surpassed. (shrink)

This study investigates whether employees attribute different motives to their organization's corporate social responsibility efforts and if these motives influence employee performance. Specifically, we investigate whether employees could distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motives by surveying 229 employee–supervisor dyads from various industries , and the impact of these perceptions on in-role and extra-role performance of subordinates. We found that employee task performance increases when employees attribute both intrinsic and extrinsic motives for CSR. Moreover, when employees perceive that their organization (...) invests in a CSR practice that is both intrinsic and extrinsic, they also tend to exert extra effort in their work. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed alongside future research directions. (shrink)

Does the interaction between climactic demands, monetary resources, and freedom suggest a more general relationship between the environmental challenges that human societies face and their resources to meet those challenges? Using data on press freedom (Van de Vliert 2011a), we found no evidence of a similar interaction with natural resources (as measured by oil exports) or risk for natural disasters.

What happens when we unexpectedly see an attractive potential partner? Previous studies in laboratory settings suggest that the visualization of attractive and unattractive photographs influences the perception of time. The major aim of this research is to study time perception and attraction in a realistic social scenario, by investigating if changes in subjective time measured during a speed dating are associated with attraction. The duration of the dates was variable and participants had to estimate the time that passed. Among other (...) measures, participants also rated the potential partners in terms of their physical attractiveness before and after the dates and reported if they would like to exchange contact with them. Results showed that, in a real speed dating situation, when there is a perception of the partner as being physically more attractive, women tend to overestimate the duration of that meeting, whereas men tend to underestimate its duration. Such changes may reflect evolutionary adaptations which make the human cognitive system more responsive in situations related to reproductive fitness. (shrink)

It has been proposed that individuals with autism spectrum disorder struggle both with response initiation and with response inhibition, both of which are functions of the executive system. Experimental tasks are unlikely pure measures of a single cognitive domain, and in this study we aim at understanding the contributions of response initiation difficulties to possible deficits in inhibitory control in autism. A sample of adults diagnosed with ASD and a control sample participated in this study. To participants it was asked (...) to perform a sentence-completion task with two different condition: Part A—targeting response initiation and Part B—engaging inhibitory processes. Importantly, we have analyzed the B-A latencies that have been proposed for the removal of the response initiation confound effect. Results show that no differences between the groups were found in accuracy measures, either in Part A nor Part B. However, in both conditions autistic participants were significantly slower to respond than the group of participants with typical development. Critically, we show that when subtracting the response times of Part A from Part B no group differences attributable to inhibitory processes remained. With this study we corroborate the existence of difficulties with response initiation in autism and we question the existence of troubles in inhibition per se. (shrink)

Aquest llibre recull els textos de les reflexions que van tenir lloc en l'encont re internacional SCAN (festival de fotografia), a Internet del 29 de febrer al 1 7 d'abril de 2008, i al Teatre Metropol, el dia 17 d'abril de 2008. Tres teòrics de la imatge de reconegut prestigi internacional -Christian Caujolle, Joan Font cuberta i Radu Stern- van debatre virtualment a internet i posteriorment de form a presencial a Tarragona sobre el paper de la imatge al nostre temps.

O presente estudo revisa o conceito de performatividade desenvolvido nos estudos de Austin e Benveniste, e está dividido em três partes: a primeira é uma síntese crítica das contribuições desses autores, em que se enfatiza os pontos de concordância e discordância entre eles, e os aspectos problemáticos de seus respectivos pontos de vista; a segunda é uma releitura das conceituações, estruturações e problematizações apresentadas pelos autores, e uma proposta própria de compreensão da enunciação e da performance a partir das ideias (...) de diálogo e modalização dialógica; a última corresponde à aplicação dessa proposta teórica ao ritual do sacramento do matrimônio. Na proposta teórica aqui apresentada, a enunciação é considerada como uma relação contratual entre os interlocutores, em que o enunciado figura como seu objeto, e a performatividade, isto é, a caracterização daquela como enunciação-ação, é compreendida como um tipo específico de modalização, denominada entrelocutiva, que se caracteriza pela aposição de um segundo objeto entre os interlocutores, imbricado e comunicado pelo primeiro: o entreposto. O discurso da cerimônia nupcial, por sua vez, é caracterizado pela prolocução, isto é, pela cisão do locutor/enunciador em um Eu-mandante (Eu-Outro) e um Eu-procurador (Eu-Mesmo), e pela translocução, isto é, pela justaposição do alocutário (Tu) e do delocutário (Ele) na posição de enunciatário. (shrink)

O texto apresenta experiências e pedagogias de existências construídas na/com a Rede de Mulheres Negras da Bahia, no âmbito da Pandemia do Sars-Cov2. Trata-se de uma pesquisa em andamento, fundamentada nos estudos do feminismo negro e nas teorias decoloniais. A partir de narrativas inspiradas nas escrevivências de Conceição Evaristo, o estudo aponta o ativismo dos Movimentos de Mulheres Negras da Bahia e a construção de outras epistemologias que rompem com a geopolítica do conhecimento colonizado. O trabalho inscreve as primeiras incursões (...) em uma grafia destas pedagogias de existências produzidas por estas mulheres no contexto de enfrentamento a crise sanitária atual. (shrink)

O presente artigo aborda a Política Nacional de Desenvolvimento Regional (PNDR) a partir do marco de vinte anos da criação do Fórum de Desenvolvimento Integrado e Sustentável da Mesorregião Metade Sul do Rio Grande do Sul (Fórum da Mesosul), no âmbito dos Programas de Desenvolvimento Integrado e Sustentável de Mesorregiões Diferenciadas, do extinto Ministério da Integração Nacional. A questão regional já estava presente na política brasileira desde a República Velha, adquirindo renovada importância a partir da Constituição Federal de 1988 e (...) da retomada do papel do governo federal como promotor de políticas públicas a partir de 2003. O propósito da PNDR era promover uma melhoria na qualidade de vida da população residente nas treze mesorregiões selecionadas, através de fóruns e projetos locais, que promoveriam a gestão das ações propostas pelos Programas. Assim, o presente artigo tem por objetivo analisar a PNDR e a atuação do Fórum da Mesosul em uma perspectiva histórica, pautada na revisão documental e de literatura, contribuindo com subsídios ao debate sobre a retomada de uma política nacional de desenvolvimento regional no Brasil. No contexto da PNDR, o Fórum da Mesosul significou um importante ganho em termos de articulação dos atores regionais, constituindo-se em um espaço de debates e de divulgação de projetos e resultados. Apesar destes avanços, os objetivos de desenvolvimento integral e sustentável da região não foram atingidos, e o Fórum se desintegrou, merecendo investigação mais aprofundada. (shrink)

-/- Irony is an intriguing topic, central to the study of meaning in language. This book provides an introduction to the pragmatics of irony. It surveys key work carried out on irony in a range of disciplines such as semantics, pragmatics, philosophy and literary studies, and from a variety of theoretical perspectives including Grice's approach, Sperber and Wilson's echoic account, and Clark and Gerrig's pretense theory. It looks at a number of uses of irony and explores how irony can be (...) misunderstood cross-culturally, before delving into the key debates on the pragmatics of irony: is irony always negative? Why do speakers communicate via irony, and which strategies do they usually employ? How are irony and sarcasm different? Is irony always funny? To answer these questions, basic pragmatic notions are introduced and explained. It includes multiple examples and activities to enable the reader to apply the theoretical frameworks to actual everyday instances of irony. (shrink)

We are self-conscious creatures thrown into a world which is not of our making. What is the connection between being self-conscious and being related to an objective world? Descartes and Kant, in different ways and with different emphases, argued that self-conscious subjects must be related to an objective world. But many have worried about their starting points. ‘One should say it is thinking, just as one says, it is lightning’, the eighteenth-century philosopher, physicist, and aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg writes. ‘To (...) say cogito is already too much as soon as one translates it as I am thinking. To assume the I, to postulate it, is a practical requirement.’ Lichtenberg raises a question here about our entitlement to think of ourselves as the agent of our thinking. Sometimes thoughts strike us like lightning. When this happens, we are their patient. It is central to our self-conscious lives that this is the exception: we are first and foremost the agents of our thinking. What right do we have to think of ourselves as such? The Practical Self argues that self-consciousness requires faith in ourselves as the agents of our thinking. But faith can be undermined and it can be sustained. And this provides us with a connection to the world since our faith in ourselves as the agents of our thinking is sustained by practices which relate us to other thinkers. Self-conscious subjects must have faith in themselves as thinking agents and it is our relations to the others which sustain this faith. Self-consciousness connects us to a world of others. (shrink)

Irony is acknowledged to be usually critical: the ironic speaker tends to exhibit an apparent positive attitude in order to communicate a negative valuation. The reverse is considered to be also possible though: the ironic speaker can praise by apparent blaming, although it seldom happens. This unbalance between the two sorts of ironic examples is the so-called asymmetry issue of irony. Here I shall deny the possibility of being ironic without criticizing — hence the asymmetry issue is an illusion. By (...) claiming that irony is always critical I suggest an even stronger claim: criticism is what distinguishes irony from the similar phenomenon of metaphor. (shrink)

An extended examination of Libet's works led to a comprehensive reinterpretation of his results. According to this reinterpretation, the Minimum Train Duration of electrical brain stimulation should be considered as the time needed to create a brain stimulus efficient for producing conscious sensation and not as a basis for inferring the latency for conscious sensation of peripheral origin. Latency for conscious sensation with brain stimulation may occurafterthe Minimum Train Duration. Backward masking with cortical stimuli suggests a 125-300 ms minimum value (...) for the latency for conscious sensation of threshold skin stimuli. Backward enhancement is not suitable for inferring this latency. For determining temporal relations between stimuli that correspond to subjects' reports, theendof cerebral Minimum Train Duration should be used as reference, rather than its onset. Results of coupling peripheral and cortical stimuli are explained by a latency after the cortical Minimum Train Duration, having roughly the same duration as the latency for supraliminal skin stimuli. Results of coupling peripheral stimuli and stimuli to medial lemniscus (LM) are explained by a shorter LM latency and/or a longer peripheral latency. This interpretation suggests a 230 ms minimum value for the latency for conscious sensation of somatosensory near-threshold stimuli. The backward referral hypothesis, as formulated by Libet, should not be retained. Long readiness potentials preceding spontaneous conscious or nonconscious movements suggest that both kinds of movement are nonconsciously initiated. The validity of Libet's measures of W and M moments (Libet et al., 1983a) is questionable due to problems involving latencies, training, and introspective distinction of W and M. Veto of intended actions may be initially nonconscious but dependent on conscious awareness. (shrink)

AimThe aim of our study was to analyze physical activity levels, sitting time, physical fitness, and their relationship with depressive symptoms after home confinement in previously active older adults.MethodsThis cross-sectional study sample comprised 68 older adults from a community-based exercise program conducted in Porto, Portugal. After home confinement, participants were assessed in person for lower-body strength, cardiorespiratory fitness, agility/dynamic balance, handgrip strength, and anthropometry. Telephone interviews were performed to evaluate depressive symptoms with the Geriatric Depression Scale – 15 items and (...) physical activity levels through the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Individuals were also asked to self-report changes in their physical activity levels and time spent sitting.ResultsNinety percent of older adults self-reported a decrease in overall physical activity levels, and nearly 65% increased daily sitting time during the home confinement. However, previously active older adults still presented high levels of physical fitness after 11 weeks of home confinement. Overall, 52.9% of participants scored 5 or more points on GDS-15, which is suggestive of depression. Higher levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness were found in the non-depressed group compared with the depressed group. Finally, results from multiple regression analysis revealed that MVPA was negatively associated with depression. This model explained 16.4% of the variability seen in depression score, controlled for age, gender, and education.ConclusionEven reporting a decline in physical activity, older adults who previously participated in a formal exercise program, still presented high levels of physical fitness after 11 weeks of home confinement. However, MVPA, but not physical fitness, seems to be an associated depression score in previously active older adults. These results reinforce the importance of older adults to remain physically active, since higher levels of MVPA may have a protective effect on depressive symptoms and, therefore, mitigate the negative impact of home confinement on mental health. Future longitudinal research studies are needed to ascertain these results. (shrink)

The performance intentions that interfene into public spaces− ‘site-specific performances' – can raise several issues, and this article will debate some of them. From artistic, sociological, cultural and geographic perspectives, urban interventions and performances take place in the artistic scenario and in the development of contemporary space. This article starts with the experience of the Danish group 'Udflugt', that has been in Rio de Janeiro presenting the methodologies and processes which arose after the birth of the concept of 'The Invisible (...) Reality Show' which is used in their work. Through this article I intend to make connections between the perceptive changes of daily space, the processes of sociability, and the artistic experience in the urban context. (shrink)

Los vínculos sociales históricamente construidos entre trabajo, tiempo libre y ocio vienen, desde el final del siglo XIX, estimulando estudios y reflexiones por parte de algunos autores, siendo las investigaciones y pesquisas intensificadas con el paso del siglo XX, evidenciando que el asunto tiene gran complejidad y dinamismo. Así, este artículo tiene como objetivo comprender algunas dimensiones de las temáticas de trabajo, tiempo libre y ocio en la contemporaneidad, destacando algunas de las contradicciones y desafíos verificados en nuestra sociedad. Para (...) contextualizar la discusión, el texto empieza con una relectura del pensamiento de algunos autores que analizan la categoría trabajo. En seguida, cuestiona la tesis de que el tiempo libre está siendo progresivamente ampliado, propone repensar la cuestión de la centralidad del trabajo en la sociedad actual y del papel que el ocio logra desarrollar en nuestra vida social. Estas discusiones son consideradas importantes para la comprensión de las relaciones entre trabajo, tiempo libre y ocio en nuestro contexto, especialmente en las sociedades latinoamericanas de hoy. (shrink)

Resenha de Tible, Jean. Marx Selvagem. Quarta edição, São Paulo: Autonomia Literária, 2020.

The cognitive reserve is widely accepted as the active ability to cope with brain damage, using preexisting cognitive and compensatory processes. The common CR proxies used are the number of formal years of education, intelligence quotient or premorbid functioning, occupation attainment, and participation in leisure activities. More recently, it has employed the level of literacy and engagement in high-level cognitive demand of professional activities. This study aims to identify and summarize published methodologies to assess the CR quantitatively. We searched for (...) published studies on PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science between September 2018 and September 2021. We only included those studies that characterized the CR assessment methodology. The search strategy identified 1,285 publications, of which 25 were included. Most of the instruments targeted proxies individually. The lack of a gold standard tool that incorporates all proxies and cognitive tests highlights the need to develop a more holistic battery for the quantitative assessment of CR. Further studies should focus on a quantitative methodology that includes all these proxies supported by normative data to improve the use of CR as a valid measure in clinical contexts. (shrink)

Early twentieth-century philosophers of perception presented their naïve realist views of perceptual experience in anti-Kantian terms. For they took naïve realism about perceptual experience to be incompatible with Kant’s claims about the way the understanding is necessarily involved in perceptual consciousness. This essay seeks to situate a naïve realist account of visual experience within a recognisably Kantian framework by arguing that a naïve realist account of visual experience is compatible with the claim that the understanding is necessarily involved in the (...) perceptual experience of those rational beings with discursive intellects. The resultant view is middle way between recent conceptualist and non-conceptualist interpretations of Kant, holding that the understanding is necessarily involved in the kind of perceptual consciousness that we, as rational beings, enjoy whilst allowing that the relations of apprehension which constitute perceptual consciousness are independent of acts of the understanding. (shrink)

According to non-conceptualist interpretations, Kant held that the application of concepts is not necessary for perceptual experience. Some have motivated non-conceptualism by noting the affinities between Kant's account of perception and contemporary relational theories of perception. In this paper I argue (i) that non-conceptualism cannot provide an account of the Transcendental Deduction and thus ought to be rejected; and (ii) that this has no bearing on the issue of whether Kant endorsed a relational account of perceptual experience.

Science aims to transform the subjectivity of individual observations and ideas into more objective and universal knowledge. Yet if there is any area in which first-person experience holds a particularly special and delicate role, it is the sciences of the mind. According to a widespread view, first-person methods were largely discarded from psychology after the fall of introspectionism a century ago and replaced by more objective behavioral measures, a step that some authors have begun to criticize. To examine whether these (...) views are sufficiently informed by actual scientific practice, we conducted a review of methodological approaches in the cognitive science literature. We found that reports of subjective experience are in fact still widely used in a broad variety of different experimental paradigms, both in studies that focus on subjective experience, and in those that make no explicit reference to it. Across these studies, we documented a diverse collection of approaches that leveraged first-person reports, ranging from button presses to unstructured interviews, while continuing to maximise experimental reproducibility. Common to these studies were subjects acting as sensors, intentionally communicating their experience to the experimenter, which we termed “second-person” methods. We conclude that, despite views to the contrary, first-person experience has always been and is still central to investigations of the mind even if it is not recognized as such. We suggest that the conversation ought to be reframed: instead of debating whether to accept subjects’ first-person knowledge we should discuss how best to do so. (shrink)