O objetivo geral do presente trabalho foi avaliar como crianças julgam a sensação gustativa e o estado de ânimo provocado pela associação de sabor e música diante de contextos de estímulos congruentes e contrastantes. Estímulos congruentes são aqueles que possuem a mesma valência afetiva entre si. Contrastantes, no entanto, divergem afetivamente entre si. Os participantes eram 83 crianças de 5 a 10 anos de idade, e de ambos os sexos, representando uma amostra da população de nível social médio-baixo. A tarefa dos participantes consistia em experimentar o sabor de soluções supralimiares de sacarose e de cafeína na ausência de música, identificá-lo como doce ou amargo e julgar a sensação gustativa conseqüente classificando-a como gostoso ou não-gostoso mediante a escolha de uma face esquemática indicativa de uma emoção inicial. Após essa situação, a criança realizava a segunda parte da tarefa. Na presença de músicas populares e pré-qualificadas como alegres e tristes, identificava a emoção expressa por cada música e realizava o julgamento gustativo na situação musical. Resultados indicam que as crianças, dessa amostra, souberam discriminar e reconhecer os sabores de doce e de amargo das soluções, e foram também capazes de julgar a sensação e a conseqüente emoção. Deste estudo, conclui-se que o julgamento das crianças sobre os sabores doce e amargo e a emoção pode se alterar após a execução de músicas. Essa mudança acontece quando o sabor é amargo e as músicas são alegres, caso em que a emoção se altera de triste para alegre e quando o sabor é doce e as músicas tristes, a emoção passa de alegre para triste. O estudo demonstrou que a realização de provas sensoriais com crianças pode alcançar bons resultados, na medida em que elas possam ser consideradas como colaboradoras dos detalhes do arranjo experimental. Sugere-se ainda que a variação na escolha do estímulo causador da sensação gustativa e da emoção dependa, dentre outros fatores, do desenvolvimento da sensibilidade gustativa e auditiva característica de uma faixa etária, da maneira como recursos atencionais, mnemônicos e afetivos são utilizados, dos diferentes contextos em que os estímulos sensoriais estão envolvidos, e, das melhoras com a integração sensorial aos 7 anos de idade especificamente na situação de estímulos congruentes. / The aim of the present study was to assess the children’s judgement on the gustatory pleasantness and mood generated by associating the taste and music in congruent and contrast stimulus context. Congruent stimuli had the same affective valence while the contrast stimuli had a divergent affective valence. Eighty three children, males and females, age five to ten were assessed. The participants represented a sample of middle-low social class. The participant were asked to taste the suprathreshold solutions of sucrose and the caffeine in the absence of music, to identify it as sweet or bitter and to make a judgement of the gustatory sensation in terms of pleasing or displeasing by choosing a schematic face representative of the initial mood state. In the second stage of the task, the participants listened to popular music pre-qualified as happy and sad. Initially they were asked to judge the mood transmitted by the music and then while listening to the music went again through the gustative judgement task. The results show that children in this study sample recognized and distinguished the sweet from bitter tastes and were able to judge the gustative pleasantness sensation and the consequent mood. This study also shows that children’s judgement on sweet and bitter taste as well as mood can be changed by the music execution. This change occurred in the presence of a bitter taste and happy music altering the mood judgment from sad to happy. In presence of the sweet taste and sad music the mood was altered from happy to sad. The study showed that the use of sensory tests with children can generate good results and they might be considered a contribution collaborator of details in the experimental arrangements. It is also proposed that the variation in the judgement on the gustative pleasantness sensation and mood is contingent on, among others factors, the development of the gustative and auditory sensitivity along the age groups, the way attention, memory and affective skills are used, the different sensory stimulus context and the improvement of sensory integration at the age of 7, specifically in the case of congruent stimulus.

Ce travail se propose de montrer l’articulation de la nature et de l’artifice au sein de la pensée de Rousseau. Nous verrons que la connaissance de la nature est bornée par une origine qui nous échappe et une puissance de transformation qui ne semble pas avoir de fin. Cela conduit notre auteur à remettre en cause l’existence d’un ordre de la nature sur le plan spéculatif et sur le plan moral.. Dans l’homme la nature va se révéler comme vide. La perfectibilité est l’effet de l’inachèvement de la nature de l’homme. Le devenir social de l’homme sera pensé comme l’effet de la découverte érotique de l’autre. Cette découverte altère le moi absolu de l’homme à l’état de nature et le reconfigure en un moi relatif exposé au manque de l’autre. De cette exposition résultent toutes les formes de la socialité, l’aliénation et la liberté. L’étiologie amoureuse de la dénaturation nous a permis de reconnaitre l’importance de la réflexion sur le goût dans la constitution de la sociabilité. La différence sexuelle apparait comme le résultat d’un processus de différentiation dont le ressort est le désir de plaire. Le désir de plaire sera pour Rousseau un obstacle à l’uniformité de la société. Il préserve les différences qui sont à la fois les conditions du bon goût et de la volonté générale. La dépendance de l’homme devenu social est paradoxalement ce qui fait de la liberté une propriété en puissance de la vie en société. Dans ce cadre, le peuple n’est ni un sujet, ni une instance juridique, il est la forme du lien sociale sous la détermination de la liberté. Il y a peuple lorsque le lien unissant chacun à l’État, et unissant les hommes entre eux sous les conditions de l’égalité et de la liberté, devient un intérêt particulier. / This thesis shows the articulation between nature and artifice in Rousseau's thought. Rousseau argues that the knowledge of nature is limited by an origin that escapes from us and by a transformational power that seems immeasurable. This leads him to interrogate the existence of a natural order, both at speculative and moral levels. The man of nature is interpreted as unfinished with an unlimited changing potency. Rousseau argues that man´s becoming is the result of the erotic discovery of the other. This discovery distorts the absolute I of the man in the natural state and reshapes them in a relative I - exposed to the other's absence. From this recognition stems all forms of sociality, alienation and liberty. “Denaturation”'s amorous aetiology allows us to recognize the centrality of taste in the constitution of sociability. Sexual difference appears as the consequence of a differentiation process guided by the desire to please. For Rousseau, the desire to please challenges society´s uniformity. He argues that both the conditions for the good taste and general shape/foster/configure difference. The dependency of the human – as social being- is what, paradoxically, makes freedom a potential property in social life. In this scenario, “the people” is neither a subject nor a juridical element. It represents the social tie shaped by the conditions of freedom and equality. “The people” emerges under the conditions of equality and liberty and when every individual is tied to the state and to each other reflecting the union of everybody´s particular interests / Naturaleza y artificio en la constitución de la sociabilidad en el pensamiento de Rousseau.Este trabajo se propone mostrar la articulación de la naturaleza y el artificio en el pensamiento de Rousseau. El conocimiento de la naturaleza está para Rousseau limitado por un origen inalcanzable y una potencia de transformación que parece infinita. Lo cual lleva al autor a cuestionar la existencia de un orden de la naturaleza tanto en el plano especulativo como en el plano moral. El hombre de la naturaleza se presenta como un ser inacabado, con una potencia de transformación ilimitada. El devenir social del hombre resulta del descubrimiento erótico del otro. Este descubrimiento altera el yo absoluto del hombre natural y lo reconfigura en un yo relativo expuesto a la falta del otro. De esta exposición resultan todas las formas de sociabilidad, la alienación y la libertad. La etiología amorosa de la desnaturación permite reconocer la importancia del gusto en la constitución de la sociabilidad. La diferencia sexual es el resultado de un proceso de diferenciación cuyo móvil es el deseo de gustar. El deseo de gustar es un obstáculo a la uniformidad de la sociedad. Preserva las diferencias, estas son la condición del buen gusto y de la voluntad general. La dependencia del hombre devenido social es paradójicamente lo que hace que la libertad sea una propiedad en potencia de la vida en sociedad. En este marco, el pueblo no es ni un sujeto, ni una instancia jurídica, es la forma del lazo social determinado por las condiciones de la igualdad y la libertad. Hay pueblo cuando el lazo que une cada uno al Estado, y a los hombres entre sí, bajo la condición de la igualdad y de la libertad, se transforma en el punto de unión de todos los intereses particulares.

O objetivo geral do presente trabalho foi avaliar como crianças julgam a sensação gustativa e o estado de ânimo provocado pela associação de sabor e música diante de contextos de estímulos congruentes e contrastantes. Estímulos congruentes são aqueles que possuem a mesma valência afetiva entre si. Contrastantes, no entanto, divergem afetivamente entre si. Os participantes eram 83 crianças de 5 a 10 anos de idade, e de ambos os sexos, representando uma amostra da população de nível social médio-baixo. A tarefa dos participantes consistia em experimentar o sabor de soluções supralimiares de sacarose e de cafeína na ausência de música, identificá-lo como doce ou amargo e julgar a sensação gustativa conseqüente classificando-a como gostoso ou não-gostoso mediante a escolha de uma face esquemática indicativa de uma emoção inicial. Após essa situação, a criança realizava a segunda parte da tarefa. Na presença de músicas populares e pré-qualificadas como alegres e tristes, identificava a emoção expressa por cada música e realizava o julgamento gustativo na situação musical. Resultados indicam que as crianças, dessa amostra, souberam discriminar e reconhecer os sabores de doce e de amargo das soluções, e foram também capazes de julgar a sensação e a conseqüente emoção. Deste estudo, conclui-se que o julgamento das crianças sobre os sabores doce e amargo e a emoção pode se alterar após a execução de músicas. Essa mudança acontece quando o sabor é amargo e as músicas são alegres, caso em que a emoção se altera de triste para alegre e quando o sabor é doce e as músicas tristes, a emoção passa de alegre para triste. O estudo demonstrou que a realização de provas sensoriais com crianças pode alcançar bons resultados, na medida em que elas possam ser consideradas como colaboradoras dos detalhes do arranjo experimental. Sugere-se ainda que a variação na escolha do estímulo causador da sensação gustativa e da emoção dependa, dentre outros fatores, do desenvolvimento da sensibilidade gustativa e auditiva característica de uma faixa etária, da maneira como recursos atencionais, mnemônicos e afetivos são utilizados, dos diferentes contextos em que os estímulos sensoriais estão envolvidos, e, das melhoras com a integração sensorial aos 7 anos de idade especificamente na situação de estímulos congruentes. / The aim of the present study was to assess the children’s judgement on the gustatory pleasantness and mood generated by associating the taste and music in congruent and contrast stimulus context. Congruent stimuli had the same affective valence while the contrast stimuli had a divergent affective valence. Eighty three children, males and females, age five to ten were assessed. The participants represented a sample of middle-low social class. The participant were asked to taste the suprathreshold solutions of sucrose and the caffeine in the absence of music, to identify it as sweet or bitter and to make a judgement of the gustatory sensation in terms of pleasing or displeasing by choosing a schematic face representative of the initial mood state. In the second stage of the task, the participants listened to popular music pre-qualified as happy and sad. Initially they were asked to judge the mood transmitted by the music and then while listening to the music went again through the gustative judgement task. The results show that children in this study sample recognized and distinguished the sweet from bitter tastes and were able to judge the gustative pleasantness sensation and the consequent mood. This study also shows that children’s judgement on sweet and bitter taste as well as mood can be changed by the music execution. This change occurred in the presence of a bitter taste and happy music altering the mood judgment from sad to happy. In presence of the sweet taste and sad music the mood was altered from happy to sad. The study showed that the use of sensory tests with children can generate good results and they might be considered a contribution collaborator of details in the experimental arrangements. It is also proposed that the variation in the judgement on the gustative pleasantness sensation and mood is contingent on, among others factors, the development of the gustative and auditory sensitivity along the age groups, the way attention, memory and affective skills are used, the different sensory stimulus context and the improvement of sensory integration at the age of 7, specifically in the case of congruent stimulus.

Partindo dos confrontos que atravessam os estudos de sociologia do gosto na Europa e na América do Norte, esta tese trata dos processos de distinção social pelo gosto com ocupantes das mais altas posições na hierarquia social da cidade de São Paulo. Num primeiro momento, aborda os itens simbólicos das hierarquias culturais legítimas e as técnicas da sociabilidade mundana tal como se manifestam em manuais de etiqueta, crônicas da vida mundana e críticas culturais, passando em revista algumas estatísticas de dispersão social dos bens culturais e certas representações do consumo encenadas no material da imprensa paulistana contemporânea. Num segundo momento, o estudo se encaminha para a investigação de como frações das classes altas de duas áreas residenciais de São Paulo (a dos Jardins e a de Alphaville) marcadas por disparidades associadas à estrutura e, sobretudo, à evolução no tempo do volume total do capital - reagem a esses apelos de estilização da vida. A análise de seus confrontos de preferência, realizada com base em entrevistas semi-diretivas, permite afirmar que os processos de distinção e estigmatização seguem se revigorando através das classificações conflitivas que explicitam habitus de classe e se atualizam através das práticas e das escolhas estéticas. / Having as a starting point the controversies that criss-cross the studies in sociology of taste in Europe and North America, the present dissertation tackles the processes of social distinction through taste of people occupying the highest positions within the social hierarchy of the city of São Paulo. In a first stage, it deals with the symbolic items of the legitimate cultural hierarchies as well as the techniques of the worldly sociability as they appear in etiquette handbooks, chronics of the worldly life, and cultural critic. It also surveys statistical data about social dispersion of cultural goods and representations of consumption displayed in the material from present-day press of São Paulo. In a second stage, the study goes into an inquiry about how fractions of high classes inhabiting two residential areas in São Paulo (the Jardins and Alphaville), that are marked by disparities associated with the structure and, above all, the long term evolution of the overall volume of capital, do react to these appeals to stylization of life. An analysis of their confrontations of preferences, carried out on the basis of half-directive interviews, allows affirming that the processes of distinction and stigmatization are reinforced by conflicting classifications that make explicit class habitus and actualize through esthetical practices and choices.

Common methods for determining mineral absorption by the body are invasive and frequently utilize radioisotopes. In experiment one. rats were given a dose of radiolabeled ferrous sulfate. Relative absorption was estimated by changes in serum iron and by appearance of the radiotracer in the serum. There were no differences in relative absorption determined by the methods, although the low overall absorptions by the iron-replete rats may have decreased the sensitivity. In experiments two and three. iron and magnesium supplements were given orally to 12 women age 19-25. Each subject received iron and magnesium supplements once each week for 5 weeks. Blood samples were taken via venous catheter every 30 minutes for 2 hours and 30 minutes following dosing, and a urine sample was taken following the collection time period. Samples were analyzed for serum iron, serum magnesium, hematocrit, ferritin, urinary magnesium, and urinary creatinine. The increase in serum iron was evaluated from both the peak increase in serum iron and from the integrated increase in serum iron over the blood collection time. The data for each supplement were compared by analysis of variance. For the iron supplements. the taste-free iron supplement increased serum iron less than either the Ferrochel or the ferrous sulfate supplements. When the iron absorption was then compared to ferritin stores (low, medium, and high), the relative absorption of Ferrochel was higher in the low ferritin range (0-15 ng/ml) than in the upper ranges (P=.00l for peak and P=.0002 for area). Relative absorption from Ferrochel iron was also higher than the other supplements for subjects with low ferritin stores. Neither serum nor urinary magnesium values differed significantly among the three compounds examined. Serum magnesium values are stable in healthy individuals, and the urinary magnesium data were not evaluated over 24 h as in typical magnesium load tests. In summary, both the ferrous sulfate and Ferrochel supplements were absorbed more efficiently than the taste-free iron supplement. The Ferrochel was also absorbed more efficiently in individuals with low iron stores, demonstrating better regulation by the body than with the other supplements examined.

Conflicts between humans and black bears (Ursus americanus) jeopardize the safety of both humans and bears, especially when bears become food-conditioned to anthropogenic food sources in areas such as campgrounds. Interest in using non-lethal techniques, such as aversive conditioning, to manage such conflicts is growing. I conducted a captive experiment at The Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota and two field experiments in the La Sal Mountains, Utah, to investigate the effects of taste aversion conditioning using thiabendazole (TBZ) with a novel flavor cue and food removal on black bear food consumption and visitation to human food sources. In 2007, I conducted food trials with 6 captive black bears (3 control, 3 treatment). Controls received 1 kg baked goods scented with a peppermint-canola oil mixture and treatments received 1 kg baked goods also scented with a peppermint-canola oil mixture but mixed with 10-20 g TBZ. In the 2007 field experiment, I baited 24 field sites with 300 g of baked goods during a baseline phase for approximately 3 weeks. Half of these sites were then treated with 10 g of TBZ and camphor during a treatment phase for 4 weeks. In 2008, I baited 22 sites with 300 g of baked goods during a baseline phase for approximately 4 weeks. I then removed food and discontinued baiting at half of the sites for 4 weeks. Infrared cameras and barbed-wire hair snags were established at field sites to document bear visitation. I did not establish taste aversion in treated bears in captivity and bears fully consumed food in the majority of trials. Treating food supplies with 10 g TBZ and camphor flavor did not significantly reduce bear visitation (P = 0.615) or food consumption at field sites (P = 0.58). However, I observed a significant reduction in bear activity at sites where food was removed (P = 0.006). Potential reasons for my failure to reduce bear visitation using thiabendazole include insufficient conditioning, reluctance of bears to desist in investigating sites that previously contained untreated food, and masking of a treatment effect due to continued encounters of sites by new individuals.

Three experiments were conducted with five species of tropical fish to investigate the phenomena of taste aversion and food neophobia. In addition, an experiment determined specifically if position in the tank could acquire conditioned aversive properties. In Experiment 1 , four habituated fish were fed novel meat-flavored pellets on the treatment day. Six were made ill within 30, 60, or 90 minutes (2 subjects each) by intragastric administration of syrup or Epicac. The following day all were fed familiar commercial pellets. On the second day after treatment, all were offered the meat-flavored pellets. Results showed longer latencies, more tasting, and decreased consumption of novel pellets. All measures differed significantly for the treatment subjects compared to their own baseline and controls. Experiment II demonstrated food neophobia in four in experienced fish. After habituation they were fed novel meat-flavored pellets but not made ill (day 0). On day 1 and 2 they received familiar diet and were made ill after the feeding on day 2. On day 3 they received familiar food again and no change in approach latency, testing response, or quantity consumed occurred. On day 4, they were offered the novel meat-flavored pellets which they refused. These results indicate that the fish associated the illness with the more "novel" food even though their familiar diet was temporally closer to the illness. In Experiment III five species of naive fish were habituated to 20-gallon tanks and made ill after eating in one end and not in the other. The same food was us ed in both ends. The "illness end" could have taken on discriminitive properties and food consumption there should have decreased, as opposed to the other "safe end". The results indicated that "place" did not acquire aversive discriminitive properties. Food consumption decreased in quantity, food approach latencies increased and length of tasting bouts increased in both ends. These experiments were the first to use these species of fish in this type of research. The results extend the phenomena of taste aversion and food neophobia. In addition, Experiment III systematically replicated the hypothesis of relevant relations between stimuli and showed that it is easier to learn certain consequences with certain cues than with others. In this case illness was quickly associated with taste but "place" was treated as irrelevant.

Ecological modelling problems have characteristics both featured in other modelling fields and specific ones, hence, methods developed and tested in other research areas may not be suitable for modelling ecological problems or may perform poorly when used on ecological data. This thesis identifies issues associated with the techniques typically used for solving ecological problems and develops new generic methods for decision support, especially suitable for ecological data modelling, which are characterised by: (1) adaptive learning, (2) knowledge discovery and (3) accurate prediction. These new methods have been successfully applied to challenging real world ecological problems. Despite the fact that the number of possible applications of computational intelligence methods in ecology is vast, this thesis primarily concentrates on two problems: (1) species establishment prediction and (2) environmental monitoring. Our review of recent papers suggests that multi-layer perceptron networks trained using the backpropagation algorithm are most widely used of all artificial neural networks for forecasting pest insect invasions. While the multi-layer perceptron networks are appropriate for modelling complex nonlinear relationships, they have rather limited exploratory capabilities and are difficult to adapt to dynamically changing data. In this thesis an approach that addresses these limitations is proposed. We found that environmental monitoring applications could benefit from having an intelligent taste recognition system possibly embedded in an autonomous robot. Hence, this thesis reviews the current knowledge on taste recognition and proposes a biologically inspired artificial model of taste recognition based on biologically plausible spiking neurons. The model is dynamic and is capable of learning new tastants as they become available. Furthermore, the model builds a knowledge base that can be extracted during or after the learning process in form of IF-THEN fuzzy rules. It also comprises a layer that simulates the influence of taste receptor cells on the activity of their adjacent cells. These features increase the biological relevance of the model compared to other current taste recognition models. The proposed model was implemented in software on a single personal computer and in hardware on an Altera FPGA chip. Both implementations were applied to two real-world taste datasets.In addition, for the first time the applicability of transductive reasoning for forecasting the establishment potential of pest insects into new locations was investigated. For this purpose four types of predictive models, built using inductive and transductive reasoning, were used for predicting the distributions of three pest insects. The models were evaluated in terms of their predictive accuracy and their ability to discover patterns in the modelling data. The results obtained indicate that evolving connectionist systems can be successfully used for building predictive distribution models and environmental monitoring systems. The features available in the proposed dynamic systems, such as on-line learning and knowledge discovery, are needed to improve our knowledge of the species distributions. This work laid down the foundation for a number of interesting future projects in the field of ecological modelling, robotics, pervasive computing and pattern recognition that can be undertaken separately or in sequence.

<p>Taste, or gustation, has long been considered a primitive, and even non-rational, perceptual sense. Taste, as a subject of academic research, has been given very little attention; especially, when contrasted to other human perceptual senses. The knowledge of how people express and discuss their perceptions and sensations of tastes, and, specifically, the descriptions of tastes of chocolate, is very limited.</p><p>Furthermore, the terminological inconsistency in the vocabulary of chocolate tasting, with the risk of misunderstanding or miscommunication, suggests that a basic method for representing tastes is needed.</p><p>This thesis presents a study of how people actually express the perception or sensation of tasting, and specifically when tasting chocolate. This study also explores the possibility of crafting a method for use when describing the tastes of chocolate.</p><p>The study was carried out by holding two tasting workshops. The first one was concerned with recording conversations about tasting chocolate. Participants were asked to taste different kinds of chocolates and, freely, discuss what they perceived and sensed. In the second workshop the participants were asked to describe the tastes of chocolate using predetermined vocabulary and formatted questionnaires.</p><p>The results of this study are linguistic semantic analyses of the different words that were used, and also a proposal for a prototypical method to use when tasting chocolate.</p>

Thesis (M.Sc. (Dietetics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.