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Orientador: Janaina Francisca de Souza Campos Vinha / Resumo: As políticas de transferências de renda no Brasil vieram com a proposta de fazer enfrentamento à fome, à pobreza e à miséria. A principal questão que esta pesquisa buscou responder como a juventude do campo se relacionara com o Programa Bolsa Família (PBF), quais foram suas estratégias ao acessá-lo e o que isso representou para o território camponês. Partimos da hipótese de que a decisão da juventude permanecer ou sair do campo também está associada aos limites e possibilidades das políticas públicas delineadas dentro do território. Portanto, este trabalho empregou uma pesquisa de campo com abordagem qualitativa realizada com a juventude do campo de famílias beneficiárias do PBF, em que considerou uma amostragem de duas comunidades: Taboado de Cima e Marinho, ambas localizadas no município de Boqueirão, situado no território do Cariri Oriental Paraibano. Destacou-se na pesquisa que a juventude quer residir no campo, mas encontra muitos desafios que dificulta a vida no território camponês. Referente às implicações do PBF sobre o território camponês, o mesmo favorece a reprodução do território em sua multidimensionalidade. No aspecto socioeconômico, possibilitou o movimento do mercado local das comunidades e do município, além de possibilitar o acesso aos direitos sociais básicos. Podemos dizer que a juventude do campo estabelece uma relação simbólico-cultural com o território camponês, criando uma identidade sócioespacial, assim, o PBF, a juventude e o território mantém uma li... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The policies of transferences of income in Brasil came from the proposal of making confrontation against the hungry, poverty and misery. The main question that this search tried to answer with the young people of countryside will be related with the Bolsa Familia Program (PBF), which were the strategies to access and what this represented to pleasant territories. We came from the hypothesis that the decision of you people was to leave the countryside also is associated to limits and possibilities of public policies outlined inside of the territory. Therefore, this work employed a field research with qualitative approach performed with young people of countryside of family’s beneficiaries of PBF, in what considerate a sample of two communities: Taboado de Cima e Marinho, both located in the city of Boqueirão, situated in the territory of Oriental Cariri of Paraíba. Standed out in the research that the young people that resided in the countryside, but find challenges that impair the life of pleasant territory. Referring to implications of PBF on the pleasant territory, the same favoring the reproduction of territory in its multidimensionality. In the socioeconomic aspect, enabled the movement of local market of communities and of cities, beside the possibility of access to basic social rights. We can say the young people of countryside stablish a symbolic-cultural relationship the pleasant territory, creating a social spacial identity, thus, the PBF, the young people and the te... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Resumen: Las políticas de transferencias de renta en Brasil vienen como propuesta para enfrentar el hambre, la pobreza y la miseria. La principal cuestión que esta investigación busca responder es como la juventud campesina se relaciona con el Programa Bolsa Familia (PBF), reflexionando sobre cuáles son las estrategias de los jóvenes para acceder al Programa y lo que eso representa para el territorio campesino. Partimos de esa hipótesis de que la decisión de la juventud de permanecer o salir del campo también está asociada a los límites y a las posibilidades de las políticas públicas delineadas dentro del territorio. Por tanto, este trabajo utilizó el trabajo de campo con un abordaje cuanti-cualitativo realizado con la juventud campesina de familias beneficiarias del PBF, considerando una muestra de dos comunidades: Taboado de Cima y Marinho, ambas localizadas en el municipio de Boqueirão en Paraiba. Se destaca dentro de la investigación que la juventud quiere permanecer en el campo, pero encuentra muchos desafíos que dificulta la vida en el territorio campesino. En lo que se refiere a las implicaciones del PBF sobre el territorio campesino, el mismo favorece la reproducción del territorio en su multidimensionalidad. En el aspecto socioeconómico, posibilita el movimiento del mercado local de las comunidades y del municipio, además de posibilitar el acceso a los derechos sociales básicos. Podemos decir que la juventud del campo establece una relación simbólico-cultural con el territori... (Resumen completo clicar acceso eletrônico abajo) / Mestre

This thesis research is concerned with the exploration, design, and validation of novel haptic technologies and signals that feel natural and meaningful in a calm and pleasant way. Our ultimate goal is to expand the possibilities of human-machine interaction by developing a single tactile display and a set of signals through a systematic design approach. It is generally a challenge to evoke a broad range of emotions with vibrotactile stimulation, especially at low signal intensities. During the first part of this thesis research, three types of prototypes were developed and explored using novel haptic technologies. The first was a circular array braille display consisting of eight small six-pin braille modules. The forty-eight pins were arranged in a circular shape to deliver circular tactile information such as time and direction. The second was a braille stick consisting of sixteen six-pin braille modules arranged in a row. The entire display could be easily grasped in the hand so that tactile information can be easily accessible. The third was a 3-by-3 electroactive polymer actuator array driven at high voltages that gives a subtle “tapping” feel on the skin. However, each of the three prototypes suffered from a limited range of expression and was not pursued further.<br> After the initial prototyping efforts, a 2-by-2 vibrotactile display, the palmScape, was conceived and developed. Custom-designed stimulation patterns based on natural phenomena that feel calm and pleasant were designed and implemented with the palmScape. We use text labels to set the context for the vibrotactile icons that attempt to capture and expresses natural metaphors through variations in signal amplitude, frequency, duration, rhythm, modulation, spatial extent, as well as slow movements. Fourteen participants evaluated twenty vibrotactile icons by rating the perceived valence and arousal levels. The twenty stimuli included sixteen custom-designed vibrotactile icons from this thesis research and four reference patterns from two published studies. The results show that our custom-designed patterns were rated at higher valence levels than the corresponding reference signals at similar arousal ratings. Five of the sixteen vibrotactile icons from this research occupied the fourth quadrant of the valence-arousal space that corresponds to calm and pleasant signals. These findings support the validity of the palmScape display and our signal design approach for achieving a calm and pleasant experience and the possibility of reaching a broader range of expressiveness with vibrotactile signals.<br> Future studies will continue with the design of signals that can express a broader range of metaphors and emotions through the palmScape, and build an emotional evaluation database that can be combined with other modalities. Our work can be further expanded to support an immersive experience with naturalistic-feeling vibrotactile effects and broaden the expressiveness of human-computer interfaces in media consumption, gaming, and other communicative application domains.

The word revise means to reconsider or modify as with text. If we think of the suburban landscape as a text, the culture of each era left documentation of their values, policies and way of life in the form of transportation networks and other infrastructure, such as Main Streets, squares and public buildings. While evidence of most of the everyday life of individuals of every era gets erased by the following era, infrastructure investments of each era are adaptively reused and remain to tell the story. This thesis documents the adaptive reuse of these suburban frameworks and develops a proposition for the appropriate next layer to accommodate a new culture of inhabitants. Focusing on second generation suburbs, using Gwinnett County as a case study, this analysis identifies three problems of the current suburban situation: the problem of abandoned strips, a demographic shift, and the need for place. As new strip highways develop, old strips decline leaving abandoned shopping centers and declining property values. New development continues to move north and out of the county, and middle class residents, for which existing auto-oriented suburbs were created, move as well. A new, poorer, and more ethnically diverse population inherits the auto-oriented landscape left behind. This phenomenon is particularly concentrated along the southern portion of the Buford Highway corridor. Those with more money move closer to new development, while those with less money have less choice and are found near declining strips with fewer services, poorer quality housing and lower quality of life. Finally, county officials have expressed a desire for defining "the epicenter of Gwinnett." I believe that there is no one "center" of Gwinnett, but a series of places defined by memory, design or events. I propose to improve the situation of these three problems with a light rail line that connects existing places and creates new walkable, livable places to improve quality of life. This connective piece will serve as a social condenser in lieu of a center, provide links between polar populations, and reactivate declining strips while creating a sustainable infrastructural spine for future growth in the region.

In the last decade, neuroscience and psychology alike have paid increasing attention to the study of affective touch, which refers to the emotional and motivational facets of tactile sensation. Some aspects of affective touch have been linked to a neurophysiologically specialised system, namely the C tactile (CT) system. While the role of this system for affiliation, social bonding and communication of emotions have been investigated, less is known about the potential role of affective touch in the awareness of the body as our own, i.e. as belonging to our psychological 'self'. This thesis attempted to contribute to the knowledge on affective touch and its relation to body awareness, by exploring the potential role of this modality to the way we perceive and make sense of our body as our own. Specifically, this work aimed to advance the current state of knowledge by investigating: 1) the effect of affective touch on the sense of body ownership, which is a fundamental aspect of body awareness; 2) the relation between interoceptive modalities, originating both internally (i.e. cardiac awareness) and peripherally (i.e. affective touch), and exteroception in body awareness; 3) the effect of intranasal oxytocin on the perception of affective touch and bodily awareness; 4) the perception and social modulation of affective touch in psychiatric patients who show difficulties in body awareness, namely patients with Anorexia Nervosa, and 5) the modulating role of self-other distinction and of self-other relation in the perception of affective touch and body awareness. In a first experiment (N = 52) the rubber hand illusion paradigm was used to investigate the role played by CT-optimal, affective touch in the sense of body ownership. The results showed that slow, pleasant touch enhanced the experience of embodiment in comparison to faster, neutral touch, suggesting that affective touch might uniquely contribute to the sense of body ownership. The following study (N = 75), used a similar methodology to test whether interoceptive sensitivity as measured by a heartbeat counting task would modulate the extent to which affective touch influences the multisensory process taking place during the rubber hand illusion. The results could not confirm a systematic relation between interoceptive sensitivity and the perception of affective touch, nor its influence on body ownership. The next study (N = 41) included a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised, cross-over design testing the effect of intranasal oxytocin on the perception of affective touch and body ownership, as measured by means of the rubber hand illusion. There was no evidence supporting the hypothesis that intranasal oxytocin could influence the CT system as tested in this study. The next study (N = 55) applied some of the above methodologies to investigate the perception of CT-optimal touch in patients with anorexia nervosa and its emotional modulation by top-down factors. The results confirmed the hypothesis that people with anorexia nervosa show a reduced perception of affective touch compared to healthy controls, but its perception was not influenced by top-down affective modulation, in the sense that both patients and healthy controls perceived touch as more pleasant when presented concurrently with positive facial expressions compared to neutral and negative faces. Finally, the last two studies (N = 76 and 35 healthy volunteers, respectively) focused on the relationship between affective touch and body awareness in the context of social cognition. These studies used both online and offline social modulation paradigms to investigate the role of self-other distinction and of self-other relation in the perception of affective touch. The results showed that positive top-down social information can enhance the perceived pleasure of tactile stimulation. Taken together, these studies point to the central role of affective touch in body awareness and social cognition. Finally, they also pave the way for future studies examining the role of disruptions of the CT system in the development of neuropsychiatric impairments of body awareness and social cognition.

Introduction : L’altération des systèmes de récompense et de douleur serait impliquée dans le développement et le maintien de la douleur chronique. En contexte expérimental, l’arrêt d’une stimulation douloureuse et désagréable peut déclencher une sensation de plaisir (pleasant pain relief, PPR), mais contrairement aux mécanismes endogène d’inhibition de douleur (ICPM) la variabilité interindividuelle du PPR semble ne jamais avoir été étudiée. Objectifs : Étude 1) Investiguer la variabilité interindividuelle du PPR et de l’ICPM chez des sous-groupes de sujets sains ayant des réponses de douleur dynamiques similaires (analyses de trajectoires) durant un test à l’eau froide (CPT) Étude 2) Mesurer la connectivité au repos de régions du système de récompense en IRMf en lien avec le PPR. Méthode : 1) Une thermode Peltier et un CPT (10 ℃) ont été administrés séquentiellement (N=122). Le PPR a été mesuré pendant quatre minutes après l’arrêt du CPT et, 2) suite à l’application d’un gel froid en imagerie fonctionnelle (N=38). Résultats : 1) Quatre trajectoires ont été identifiées selon les réponses de douleur durant le CPT. Le PPR était corrélé aux trajectoires de douleur, mais pas l’efficacité d’ICPM. 2) Les connexions au repos, significativement corrélées au PPR, étaient les suivantes : noyau accumbens (NAcc) gauche-cortex cingulaire postérieur, NAcc gauche-cortex cingulaire antérieur dorsal, amygdale gauche-cortex préfrontal dorsolatéral, NAcc droit-cervelet crus II gauche et droit et cortex préfrontal ventromédian-cervelet crus II droit. Discussion : La sensibilisation et l’aspect désagréable moyen de douleur durant une stimulation nociceptive tonique ainsi que la connectivité au repos entre des régions modulant le plaisir (récompense) et la cognition affectent le degré de PPR. / Introduction: Alteration of reward and pain systems is related to the development of chronic pain. In experimental settings, the cessation of a painful and unpleasant stimulation has been shown to elicit a pleasant pain relief (PPR), but contrary to inhibitory conditioned pain modulation mechanisms (ICPM) inter-individual variability of PPR appears to have never been studied. Objectives: Study 1) Investigate inter-individual variability of PPR and ICPM in subgroups of healthy subjects with similar dynamic pain responses (trajectory analyses) during a cold pressor test (CPT) Study 2) Measure resting state functional connectivity with regions of the reward system related to PPR. Method: 1) Peltier thermode and CPT (10℃) were administered sequentially (N=122). The PPR was measured for four minutes after CPT offset 2) PPR was measured (N=38) following the application of a cold gel during functional imaging. Results: 1) Four trajectories were identified based on pain responses during CPT. PPR was correlated with pain trajectories, but not the efficacy of ICPM. 2) Resting state connections, significantly correlated with PPR, were the following: left nucleus accumbens (NAcc)-posterior cingulate cortex, left NAcc-dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, left amygdala-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right NAcc-left and right cerebellum crus II and ventromedial prefrontal cortex-right cerebellum crus II. Discussion: Sensitization and average pain unpleasantness during tonic nociceptive stimulation, as well as connectivity between regions modulating pleasure (reward) and cognition, affect the degree of PPR.

"The sick body needs a doctor friend sick souls." (Menandros)