The major purpose of this study is to reveal, by means of comparison, the extent to which environment has influenced the development of the fifth-grade pupils of the Reynolds and Oliver Schools of Stamford, Texas.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / Tobacco smoking remains the largest preventable behavioural cause of chronic disease and premature death. Many people continue to engage in this behaviour, despite the well-known negative health consequences. The most common form of smoking is cigarette smoking, which is a type of risk-taking behaviour that is becoming increasingly prevalent among adolescents. Cigarette consumption rates are increasing among adolescents in various parts of the world; each year nearly a million adolescents start to smoke. This behaviour, if continued into adulthood, may lead to a range of debilitating diseases of lifestyle. In an effort to contribute to the success of adolescent smoking cessation programmes in South Africa, this study looks at the factors that motivate and support adolescents‘ decision to start and continue with their cigarette smoking behaviour. Utilising a qualitative framework, individual interviews were carried out with six boys and six girls from an English-medium high school within Cape Town. The participants‘ ages ranged from 16-18 years. Through the use of thematic analysis, the results show that adolescents smoking are not determined by knowledge, beliefs and attitudes alone, but by social and environmental influences as well. Risk and protective factors for adolescent smoking was identified on a psychological, physical, social/environmental level cross-cuttingly on the different stages of the smoking cycle. Of importance was the adolescents‘ common misinterpretation of 'smoking out of habit‘ for 'addiction‘. Essentially, this study focused on the importance of adolescent health and how it is affected by factors associated with tobacco use in South Africa. Therefore, a key recommendation of this study would be for these underlying risk and protective factors needs to be integrated to strengthen current smoking cessation programmes.

<p>Language cannot be learned without linguistic input. Hence, the environment plays an important role in childrens’ language development. In this paper it is examined how important the environment’s role is. Two views are described: Universal Grammar and Emergentism. They are in this paper considered to represent two basic stances; the innate stance and the “non-innate” stance. The overall aim is to present evidence in favour of either Emergentism or Universal Grammar. It is achieved by a theoretical discussion and the findings from an observation. In the observational study the aim is to see if and, if so, how adults provide clues for children to develop their syntax. This is achieved by looking at target-words and how the adults use context and prosody to supply children with them. The findings show that the adults extensively use context when talking to children. The theoretical discussion together with the findings, are here found to support Emergentism, the non-innate view.</p>

Language cannot be learned without linguistic input. Hence, the environment plays an important role in childrens’ language development. In this paper it is examined how important the environment’s role is. Two views are described: Universal Grammar and Emergentism. They are in this paper considered to represent two basic stances; the innate stance and the “non-innate” stance. The overall aim is to present evidence in favour of either Emergentism or Universal Grammar. It is achieved by a theoretical discussion and the findings from an observation. In the observational study the aim is to see if and, if so, how adults provide clues for children to develop their syntax. This is achieved by looking at target-words and how the adults use context and prosody to supply children with them. The findings show that the adults extensively use context when talking to children. The theoretical discussion together with the findings, are here found to support Emergentism, the non-innate view.

Gray matter (GM) forms the ‘computational engine’ of our brain and plays the key role in brain function. Measures derived from MRI (e.g., structural MRI (sMRI) and diffusion MRI (dMRI)) provide a unique opportunity to non-invasively study GM structure in-vivo and thus can be used to probe GM pathology in development, aging and neuropsychiatric disorders. Investigation of the influence of various factors on MRI measures in GM is critical to facilitate their use for future non-invasive studies in healthy and diseased populations. In this dissertation, GM structure was studied with MRI to understand how it is influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Validation of dMRI- derived measures was conducted by comparing them with histological data from monkeys to better understand the cytoarchitectural features that influence GM measures. First, the influence of genetic and environmental factors was quantified on gray matter macrostructure and microstructure measures using phenotypic modelling of structural and diffusion MRI data obtained from a large twin and sibling population (N = 840). Results of this study showed that in GM, while sMRI measures like cortical thickness and GM volume are mainly affected by genetic factors, advanced dMRI measures of mean squared displacement (MSD) and return to origin probability (RTOP) derived from advanced biexponential model can tap into regionally specific patterns of both genetic and environmental influence in cortical and subcortical GM. Our results thus highlight the potential of these advanced dMRI measures for use in future studies that aim to investigate and follow in healthy and clinical population changes in GM microstructure linked with both genes and environment. Second, using data from a large healthy population (n=550), we investigated changes in sMRI tissue contrast at the gray-white matter boundary with biological development during adolescence to assess how this affects estimation of the developmental trajectory of cortical thickness. Results of this study suggest that increased myelination during brain development contributes to age-related changes in gray-white boundary contrast in sMRI scans causing an apparent shift of the estimated gray-white boundary towards the cortical surface, in turn reducing estimations of cortical thickness and its developmental trajectory. Based on these results, we emphasize the importance of accounting for the effects of myelination on T1 gray-white matter boundary contrast to enable more precise estimation of cortical thickness during neurodevelopment. Finally, we conducted histological validation of dMRI measures in gray matter by comparing dMRI measures derived from two models, conventional Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) model and an advanced biexponential model with histology acquired from the same 4 rhesus monkeys. Results demonstrate differences in the ability of distinct dMRI measures including DTI-derived measures of fractional anisotropy (FA), Trace and advanced Biexponential model-derived measures of MSD and RTOP to capture the biological features of underlying cytoarchitecture and identify the dMRI measures that best reflect underlying gray matter cytoarchitectural properties. Investigation of the contribution of underlying cytoarchitecture (cellular organization) to dMRI measures in gray matter provides validation of dMRI measures of average and regional heterogeneity in MSD & Trace as markers of cytoarchitecture as measured by regional average and heterogeneity in cell area density. This postmortem validation of these dMRI measures makes their use possible for treatment monitoring of various GM pathologies. These studies and their results together demonstrate the utility of imaging measures to investigate the complex relationships between GM cellular organization, brain development, environment and genes.

Esta pesquisa aborda um método adaptativo baseado em regras e aplicado a de informação não supervisionados de fluxo contínuo com a utilização de técnicas inteligentes, utilizando séries históricas de medições. O objetivo principal é identificar medições que podem ser categorizadas de diversas formas, tais como novidades, outliers, anomalias, dentre outras, apesar do método apresentado abordar somente monitoramento e autonomia, o mesmo pode ser utilizado para controle de ações desde que esteja integrado aos dispositivos de campo necessários para atuação de um processo. Para tanto, utiliza uma representação do conhecimento adequada, critérios de busca inteligente, inferência e critérios para a aprendizagem, possibilitando um processo de melhoria contínua. Os estudos realizados com medições possibilitaram ao estabelecimento de processos que conduziram ao surgimento de um Método Adaptativo para a Interpretação de Medições aplicável a sistemas inteligentes e do Método Complementar, capaz de auxiliar na interpretação de resultados obtidos por outros métodos já estabelecidos para identificação de anomalias. Para esse fim, foram consideradas: uma técnica adaptativa, a importância do ambiente de influência relativo ao ponto de medição e a utilização das novidades como referência às mudanças que ocorrem em um ambiente. / This research addresses a rules-based adaptive method applied to unsupervised continuous flow information systems using intelligent techniques using historical series of measurements. The main goal is to identify measurements that can be categorized in different ways, such as novelties, outliers, anomalies, among others, although the presented method only approach monitoring and autonomy, it can be used to control actions since it is integrated with the devices required to perform a process control. To do so, it uses a representation of adequate knowledge, intelligent search criteria, inference and criteria for learning, enabling a process of continuous improvement. The research conducted with real measurements allowed the development of optimized computational routines that guided the development of a new method based on adaptive techniques for measurements interpretation and the Complementary Method, able to assist the interpretation of results obtained by other methods already established to identify non-standard. To this end, we considered: an adaptive technique, the importance of the influence environment relative to the measurement point and the use of the novelties as a reference to the changes that occur in an environment.

Como as pessoas percebem as outras é relevante no processo de ensino aprendizagem e nas interações sociais como um todo. Essas percepções definem a maneira com que as pessoas reagem umas às outras. Em particular, a avaliação da percepção de professores colabora na compreensão das atitudes do professor diante dos comportamentos de seus alunos. O objetivo do presente estudo foi avaliar a percepção de professores sobre a influência genética e ambiental em comportamentos relevantes no processo educacional: personalidade, inteligência, dificuldades de aprendizagem, problemas de comportamento e doenças mentais. Para tanto, o questionário The NatureNurture Question:Teachers perceptions of how genes and the environment influence educationally relevant behavior foi adaptado à língua portuguesa do Brasil e aplicado para 501 professores de todos os níveis de ensino, do estado de São Paulo. Os resultados demonstraram que os professores atribuíram influências genéticas e ambientais em proporções aproximadamente iguais considerando todos os domínios, personalidade e dificuldades e aprendizagem. Atribuíram maior influência genética à inteligência e doenças mentais, bem como maior influência ambiental aos problemas de comportamento. Metade dos participantes afirmou ter estudado aspectos da genética em sua formação para professor. A maioria dos professores declarou que ter um aluno com dificuldade de aprendizagem geneticamente influenciada afetaria seu método de instruí-lo. Os professores percebem que genes e ambiente criação são imprescindíveis nos comportamentos de seus alunos, reconhecendo, inclusive, a interatividade dos dois fatores, informações importantes para o delineamento de ações na formação dos mesmos possíveis intervenções no âmbito educacional. / How people perceive others are important in the educational process and social interactions at all. These perceptions define the way people react to each other. In particular, the evaluation teachers perception collaborates in the comprehension of teacher\'s attitudes towards the behavior of their students. The aim of this study was to evaluate teachers perception on the genetic and environmental influence on relevant behaviors in the educational process: personality, intelligence, learning difficulties, behavioral problems and mental illness. For this purpose, the questionnaire \"The Nature-Nurture Question: Teachers\' perceptions of how genes and the environment influence educationally relevant behavior\" was adapted to the Portuguese language in Brazil and applied to 501 teachers at all levels of education, the state of São Paulo. The results showed that teachers attributed genetic and environmental influences in approximately equal proportions considering all domains, personality difficulties and learning. They attributed greater genetic influence on intelligence and mental illness as well a greater environmental influence to behavior problems. Half of the participants declared to have studied aspects of genetics in their schooling to teacher. Most teachers stated that having a student with genetically influenced learning difficulty would affect his method to instruct. Teachers perceive that genetic and environment are essential for behaviors of their students, recognizing even the interaction of two factors. This information is important for the design of action in teacher education and possible interventions in the education sector.

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2014-09-29T21:16:50Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Priscila Lemes de Azevedo Silva.pdf: 1210517 bytes, checksum: a5b53e383228fc17154950eb552b2001 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2014-09-29T21:43:39Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Priscila Lemes de Azevedo Silva.pdf: 1210517 bytes, checksum: a5b53e383228fc17154950eb552b2001 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-29T21:43:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Priscila Lemes de Azevedo Silva.pdf: 1210517 bytes, checksum: a5b53e383228fc17154950eb552b2001 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02-25 / In most species of anurans, the males vocalizes and through the advertisement call information such as size and physical strength are transmitted in a manner that maintains or increases the relative attractiveness of reproductive females in the household. Thus, males may to engage in competitions acoustic or physical, limiting the acoustic space available for the vocalizations of other males. The goals of this study were to describe the acoustic behavior of Barycholos ternetzi (Miranda-Ribeiro, 1937) study was conducted in October 2009, the National Forest (NF) of Silvânia in the city of Silvânia, the State of Goiás was sampled three environment different in NF: preserved gallery forest, disturbed gallery forest and open area. Males Barycholos ternetzi have wide repertoire, displayed seven distinct vocalizations: advertisement call, aggressive call, three types of fighting call, distress call and mixed call. The advertisement call was the most frequent vocalization. Vocalizations are short and pulsed structure, except for fighting call 1 and distress call, as it had three harmonics. The mixed calls are formed by the emission of two or three notes similar to the advertisement call followed by an aggressive call. The vocalizations were sent to fight in physical combat between two males, while the mixed call was sent in the aggregate at least ten individuals. This suggests that the mixed calls of B. ternetzi could be a graded aggressive call system, which allows male to gradually reduce the number of attractive elements while increasing the aggressiveness of the call. The frequency of the advertisement call was the only acoustic parameter for both the static coefficient of variation for intra and inter. Although, according to the reason CVe /CVi > 1, all parameters are potentially used in individual identification for the advertisement and aggressive calls. The individual discrimination in low density is higher with 41% and 57.5% depending on the call and the acoustic properties of the model. This suggests that there is difference in ranking when compared high and low density for males of B. ternetzi, however, have low individual distinction. For B. ternetzi, the call duration was the most important parameter for the differences between males in the advertisement call. At the aggressive call, dominant frequency was the most important parameter for individuals of B. ternetzi vocalizing in high density, while the call duration to low density. The dominant frequency is influenced by the call duration and the body size, but not by the distance between individuals. B. ternetzi send calls longer and more frequent in low temperature and there is a positive influence on call duration in the repetition rate, indicating that the temporal parameters are more susceptible to fluctuations in temperature while the spectral parameter of the honest old male. Differences in the transmission of the acoustic parameters were seen only between the environments of the disturbed gallery forest and open area, since the reverberation is a common distortion of sound in forests, making the transmission more efficient in the open area. / Na maioria das espécies de anuros, os machos emitem o canto de anúncio, que contém informações como o tamanho e vigor físico. Essas vocalizações são transmitidas de maneira que mantém, ou aumenta a atratividade relativa das fêmeas no agregado reprodutivo. Dessa maneira, os machos podem engajar em competições acústicas ou físicas, limitando o espaço acústico disponível para o canto de outros machos. Com o objetivo de descrever o comportamento acústico de Barycholos ternetzi (MirandaRibeiro, 1937) o estudo foi realizado em outubro de 2009, na Floresta Nacional (Flona) de Silvânia, no município de Silvânia, no Estado de Goiás. Foram amostradas três áreas distintas na Flona: mata de galeria preservada, mata de galeria alterada e área aberta. Machos de B. ternetzi possuem amplo repertório composto por seis tipos de cantos: canto de anúncio, canto agressivo, três tipos de canto de briga e canto de agonia. O canto de anúncio é a vocalização mais freqüente. Os cantos são curtos e de estrutura pulsionada, com exceção do canto de briga 1 e de agonia, também apresentaram três harmônicos. Os cantos de briga foram emitidos no combate físico entre dois machos. B. ternetzi parece combinar canto de anúncio e canto agressivo quando havia pelo menos dez indivíduos na área. Isso sugere que B. ternetzi pode ter um sistema gradativo de agressividade, permitindo que o macho reduza gradualmente o número de elementos atrativos e aumente a agressividade do canto. A freqüência do canto de anúncio foi o único parâmetro acústico estático tanto para os coeficientes de variação intra quanto interindividual. Embora, de acordo com a razão CVe/CVi >1, todos os parâmetros são potencialmente usados na identificação individual para os canto de anúncio e para o canto agressivo. A discriminação individual em baixa densidade é maior com 41% e 57,5% dependendo do canto e das propriedades acústicas do modelo. Isso sugere que existe diferença na classificação quando comparados alta e baixa densidade para os machos de B. ternetzi, porém, têm baixa distinção individual. Para B. ternetzi, a duração do canto foi o parâmetro de maior importância para as diferenças entre machos no canto de anúncio. No canto agressivo, a freqüência dominante foi o parâmetro mais importante para indivíduos de B. ternetzi vocalizando em alta densidade, enquanto que a duração do canto, para baixa densidade. A freqüência dominante é influenciada pela duração do canto e pelo tamanho corporal, mas não pela distância entre os indivíduos. B. ternetzi emite cantos mais longos e mais freqüentes em baixas temperaturas e existe uma influência positiva da duração do canto na taxa de repetição, indicando que os parâmetros temporais são mais susceptíveis às oscilações da temperatura enquanto que os espectrais, um parâmetro honesto da idade do macho. Diferenças na transmissão dos parâmetros acústicos foram percebidas somente entre os ambientes de mata de galeria alterada e área aberta, uma vez que a reverberação é uma distorção comum do som em florestas, tornando a transmissão mais eficiente em área aberta.

Esta pesquisa aborda um método adaptativo baseado em regras e aplicado a de informação não supervisionados de fluxo contínuo com a utilização de técnicas inteligentes, utilizando séries históricas de medições. O objetivo principal é identificar medições que podem ser categorizadas de diversas formas, tais como novidades, outliers, anomalias, dentre outras, apesar do método apresentado abordar somente monitoramento e autonomia, o mesmo pode ser utilizado para controle de ações desde que esteja integrado aos dispositivos de campo necessários para atuação de um processo. Para tanto, utiliza uma representação do conhecimento adequada, critérios de busca inteligente, inferência e critérios para a aprendizagem, possibilitando um processo de melhoria contínua. Os estudos realizados com medições possibilitaram ao estabelecimento de processos que conduziram ao surgimento de um Método Adaptativo para a Interpretação de Medições aplicável a sistemas inteligentes e do Método Complementar, capaz de auxiliar na interpretação de resultados obtidos por outros métodos já estabelecidos para identificação de anomalias. Para esse fim, foram consideradas: uma técnica adaptativa, a importância do ambiente de influência relativo ao ponto de medição e a utilização das novidades como referência às mudanças que ocorrem em um ambiente. / This research addresses a rules-based adaptive method applied to unsupervised continuous flow information systems using intelligent techniques using historical series of measurements. The main goal is to identify measurements that can be categorized in different ways, such as novelties, outliers, anomalies, among others, although the presented method only approach monitoring and autonomy, it can be used to control actions since it is integrated with the devices required to perform a process control. To do so, it uses a representation of adequate knowledge, intelligent search criteria, inference and criteria for learning, enabling a process of continuous improvement. The research conducted with real measurements allowed the development of optimized computational routines that guided the development of a new method based on adaptive techniques for measurements interpretation and the Complementary Method, able to assist the interpretation of results obtained by other methods already established to identify non-standard. To this end, we considered: an adaptive technique, the importance of the influence environment relative to the measurement point and the use of the novelties as a reference to the changes that occur in an environment.

Como as pessoas percebem as outras é relevante no processo de ensino aprendizagem e nas interações sociais como um todo. Essas percepções definem a maneira com que as pessoas reagem umas às outras. Em particular, a avaliação da percepção de professores colabora na compreensão das atitudes do professor diante dos comportamentos de seus alunos. O objetivo do presente estudo foi avaliar a percepção de professores sobre a influência genética e ambiental em comportamentos relevantes no processo educacional: personalidade, inteligência, dificuldades de aprendizagem, problemas de comportamento e doenças mentais. Para tanto, o questionário The NatureNurture Question:Teachers perceptions of how genes and the environment influence educationally relevant behavior foi adaptado à língua portuguesa do Brasil e aplicado para 501 professores de todos os níveis de ensino, do estado de São Paulo. Os resultados demonstraram que os professores atribuíram influências genéticas e ambientais em proporções aproximadamente iguais considerando todos os domínios, personalidade e dificuldades e aprendizagem. Atribuíram maior influência genética à inteligência e doenças mentais, bem como maior influência ambiental aos problemas de comportamento. Metade dos participantes afirmou ter estudado aspectos da genética em sua formação para professor. A maioria dos professores declarou que ter um aluno com dificuldade de aprendizagem geneticamente influenciada afetaria seu método de instruí-lo. Os professores percebem que genes e ambiente criação são imprescindíveis nos comportamentos de seus alunos, reconhecendo, inclusive, a interatividade dos dois fatores, informações importantes para o delineamento de ações na formação dos mesmos possíveis intervenções no âmbito educacional. / How people perceive others are important in the educational process and social interactions at all. These perceptions define the way people react to each other. In particular, the evaluation teachers perception collaborates in the comprehension of teacher\'s attitudes towards the behavior of their students. The aim of this study was to evaluate teachers perception on the genetic and environmental influence on relevant behaviors in the educational process: personality, intelligence, learning difficulties, behavioral problems and mental illness. For this purpose, the questionnaire \"The Nature-Nurture Question: Teachers\' perceptions of how genes and the environment influence educationally relevant behavior\" was adapted to the Portuguese language in Brazil and applied to 501 teachers at all levels of education, the state of São Paulo. The results showed that teachers attributed genetic and environmental influences in approximately equal proportions considering all domains, personality difficulties and learning. They attributed greater genetic influence on intelligence and mental illness as well a greater environmental influence to behavior problems. Half of the participants declared to have studied aspects of genetics in their schooling to teacher. Most teachers stated that having a student with genetically influenced learning difficulty would affect his method to instruct. Teachers perceive that genetic and environment are essential for behaviors of their students, recognizing even the interaction of two factors. This information is important for the design of action in teacher education and possible interventions in the education sector.