Introduction: Plusieurs indices de qualité alimentaire globale ont été élaborés en misant sur la consommation de certains nutriments ou aliments, ou des groupes d’aliments. Les indices de la qualité alimentaire globale sont en mesure d’évaluer de manière intégrée les aspects recherchés d’une bonne alimentation. C’est dans ce cadre que le Canadian Healthy Eating Index (C-HEI) a été développé pour évaluer le degré auquel les apports alimentaires des individus rencontrent les consignes du guide alimentaire canadien et les Recommandations nutritionnelles canadiennes. Objectif: Evaluer les liens entre l’indice de la qualité alimentaire globale C-HEI calculé à partir de la moyenne de trois rappels alimentaires de 24 heures et des paramètres nutritionnels, anthropométriques et des indicateurs de santé au recrutement (T1) dans l’étude longitudinale québécoise sur la nutrition et le vieillissement réussi (NuAge). Méthodologie: Des analyses bivariées (coefficients de corrélation, tableaux croisés et la statistique khi deux) ont été réalisées afin de déterminer les associations entre le score total C-HEI et certaines variables nutritionnelles, anthropométriques et le nombre de maladies chroniques. Résultats et discussion: Les participants ont rencontré ou dépassé la plupart de leurs apports nutritionnels de référence. Le C-HEI n’a pas été fortement corrélé aux nutriments individuels (rs= 0,14-0,52, p<0,01). Le C-HEI total était significativement associé aux recommandations canadiennes pour l’apport en fibres (rs= 0,51), le % d’énergie provenant des lipides (rs=-0,60) et des acides gras saturés (rs= -0,59), p<0,01. De plus, la suffisance en protéines et en énergie est augmentée lorsqu’on passait du Q1 (plus faible) à Q4 (plus élevé) du C-HEI (p<0,05). De même, les proportions des sujets ayant des mesures anthropométriques associées aux risques accrus pour la santé sont diminuées en passant du Q1 au Q4 (p<0,05), témoignant ainsi des liens entre une alimentation de bonne qualité et la protection des risques de santé associés à l’embonpoint et à l’obésité. Conclusion : Les résultats de cette recherche ont fourni des preuves additionnelles sur le lien entre le score C-HEI et certains paramètres nutritionnels et anthropométriques d’intérêt, et ce, provenant des données alimentaires quantitatives colligées au sein d’une population âgée vivant dans la communauté. / Introduction: Several diet quality indicators have been developed based on nutrient intakes, foods or food groupings, or a combination of nutrient and foods. Measures of overall diet quality consider numerous aspects of dietary intake. It is within this framework that the Canadian Healthy Eating Index (C-HEI) was adapted to Canadian dietary and nutritional guidance using Canada’s Food Guide and Nutrition recommendations for Canadians. Objectives: To determine the links between the C-HEI using the mean of three 24-hour diet recalls, and certain health outcomes at entry into the study (T1). The analyses were carried out using data collected from participants in the Quebec Longitudinal Study on Nutrition and Successful Aging (NuAge). Methodology: Bivariate analyses (Spearman correlation, cross-tabulation and chi-square) were carried out to assess relationships between nutritional and anthropometric variables, the number of chronic disease and the C-HEI. Results and Discussion: Participants met or exceeded most Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI). The C-HEI did not show consistent relationships with individual nutrients (rs= 0.14-0.52, p<0.01). However, selected sub-scores of the C-HEI reflect attainment of Canada’s Food Guide recommendations, showing a strong association with dietary fiber intakes (rs= 0.51) and nutrition recommendations addressing percent energy as fat (rs=-0.60) and as saturated fat (rs= -0.59), p<0.01. Energy and protein adequacy increased from Q1 to Q 4 of C-HEI (p<0.05). In addition, proportions of subjects with anthropometric measures associated with a health risk decreased from quartiles Q1 to Q4 (p<0.05), attesting to links between good diet quality and lower health risks associated with overweight and obesity. Conclusion: The C-HEI discriminates overall diet quality based on dietary data collected from 24HR, providing further evidence on the links between the C-HEI and selected nutritional and anthropometric parameters as applied to quantitative dietary data obtained from community-dwelling older adults.

The thesis reports on specific language impairment (SLI). First part of the thesis summarizes first the current theoretical knowledge about this issue. It reviews terminology, classification, etiology, symptoms, diagnostic, therapy and association SLI with developmental dyslexia. The thesis then refers about search for diagnostic markers of SLI in pre-school age. The empirical part of the thesis summarizes the research conducted. Three groups of children were compared- 19 children with SLI, 19 peers without SLI (AC) and 19 younger language- matched children (LC). Four diagnostic methods were used - picture vocabulary test, number recall, sentence repetition and non-word recall. In all tests children with SLI performed poorly than AC-group and in some of them also poorly than LC-group. Limitation in sentence repetition and non-word recall, omission of prepositions and clitics and also omission of verbs or using of incomplete infinitive forms in sentences were detected as possible relevant diagnostic markers.

The objective of the submitted diploma thesis is to analyze the subject of a direct democracy system in the Czech Republic focusing on the local level of governance. The possibility of being able to participate imminently in the municipal government and thus amending the current representative model became the subject of not only political discussions over the last few years. The thesis is composed of a foreword and five chapters, which are hereafter divided to subchapters for better transparency. Findings and author suggestions concerning the possible future forms of the local democracy are summarized in the conclusion. The introductory chapter presents the direct democracy in a theoretical way and shows how it differs from the representative democracy model. It also contains the definition of the five most respected forms of a direct democracy, which are: referendum, plebiscite, citizen initiative, petition and recall. Following two chapters are focused on the situation in Czech Republic, first in general, then with an emphasis on the municipal scene. Efforts to establish an individual form of a direct democracy can be observed already from the year 1918 with various results, new possibilities appeared later as Czech Republic had entered supranational communities. A local referendum still remains...

Le témoignage oculaire est un élément fondamental de la résolution des enquêtes criminelles. Pour la bonne conduite des enquêtes judiciaires, il apparait primordial d’obtenir des témoignages exhaustifs et exacts. C'est ainsi qu’une équipe de recherche a conçu une méthode basée sur les principes du fonctionnement de la mémoire ayant pour but l’optimisation du recueil des propos du témoin : l’entretien cognitif (Geiselman et al. 1984). Si cette méthode permet d’obtenir des descriptions détaillées sans diminution de la qualité du témoignage, elle est néanmoins marginalement utilisée par les professionnels de la justice. L’objectif de cette thèse est double : il s’agit de proposer une consigne d’entretien qui prend en compte les processus psychologiques en œuvre dans le rappel d’un évènement en mémoire épisodique, et qui soit acceptable du point de vue des pratiques professionnelles. Une première étape a consisté en l’analyse des pratiques professionnelles. L’évaluation d’une formation à l’entretien cognitif auprès d’enquêteurs de police a montré que la méthode est facilement assimilable par les enquêteurs, suggérant que sa non-application sur le terrain ne résiderait pas dans sa difficulté d’utilisation, mais relèverait plutôt de problèmes d’acceptabilité de la part des professionnels. Pour comprendre les objectifs professionnels de l’audition, nous avons ensuite procédé à une analyse des pratiques en termes d’audition. Cette analyse a révélé que les enquêteurs recherchaient de façon prépondérante des informations sur les actions d’une scène criminelle. Sur la base de ces constats, nous avons conçu une consigne dite de reconstitution, qui fait appel aux traces verbatim en mémoire, et vise à apporter des actions générales et spécifiques d’une scène. La consigne a été testée dans un protocole d’entretien et a démontré son efficacité aussi bien quantitative que qualitative, en apportant davantage d’informations correctes sur une scène comparée à d’autres consignes, sans augmentation concomitante du nombre d’erreurs. Il apparait que la consigne de reconstitution répond de façon pertinente au principal objectif d’une enquête de police. / Eyewitness testimony is a fundamental determinant to the resolution of criminal investigations. To conduct criminal investigations effectively, it appears essential to obtain complete and accurate testimony. For this purpose, a research team has developed a method based on the features of human memory, aiming to enhance the eliciting of eyewitness accounts: the cognitive interview (Geiselman et al., 1984). Although this method enables investigators to obtain detailed descriptions without reducing the quality of the testimony, it is still only marginally used by legal professionals. The objective of this thesis is twofold: it aims to provide interviewing instructions which take into account the psychological processes at work in the recalling of events in episodic memory, while simultaneously being acceptable from the standpoint of professional practice. The first step involved conducting an analysis of professional practices. An evaluation of training in cognitive interviewing by police investigators showed that the method is easily learnt and suggests that the lack of implementation in practice does not stem from the difficulties linked to its implementation, but rather arises as a result of a lack of acceptance among professionals. In order to further our understanding of the professional objectives of the hearing, we then conducted an analysis of practices in terms of hearing. This analysis revealed that investigators were essentially seeking out information about the actions which took place during the crime scene. Based on these findings, we designed a re-enactment-alike interviewing instruction, which activates the verbatim traces in memory and is intended to elicit the general and specific actions of a scene. This instruction was tested in an interviewing protocol and demonstrated its quantitative and qualitative effectiveness in providing a greater quantity of correct information compared with other instructions, whilst withstanding a concomitant increase in the number of errors. Re-enactment-alike instruction thus appears highly relevant for reaching the main objective of a police investigation.

Dans le cadre d’une solution de modification de la requête, nous nous intéressons aux différentes façons d’utiliser la sémantique pour mieux exprimer le besoin d’information de l’utilisateur dans un contexte Web. Nous distinguons deux types de concepts : ceux identifiables dans une ressource sémantique comme une ontologie, et ceux que l’on extrait à partir d’un ensemble de documents de pseudo retour de pertinence. Nous proposons une Approche Sémantique Mixte d’Expansion et de Reformulation (ASMER) qui permet de modéliser l’utilisation de ces deux types de concepts dans une requête modifiée. Cette approche considère plusieurs défis liés à la modification automatique des requêtes, notamment le choix sélectif des termes d’expansion, le traitement des entités nommées et la reformulation de la requête finale.Bien que dans un contexte Web la précision soit le critère d’évaluation le plus adapté, nous avons aussi pris en compte le rappel pour étudier le comportement de notre approche sous plusieurs aspects. Ce choix a suscité une autre problématique liée à l’évaluation du rappel en recherche d’information. En constatant que les mesures précédentes ne répondent pas à nos contraintes, nous avons proposé la mesure MOR (Mesure Orientée Rappel), qui permet d’évaluer le rappel en tenant compte de la précision comme importante mais pas prioritaire dans un contexte dirigé rappel.En incluant MOR dans notre stratégie de test, nous avons évalué ASMER sur quatre collections Web issues des campagnes INEX et TREC. Nos expériences montrent qu’ASMER améliore la performance en précision par rapport aux requêtes originales et par rapport aux requêtes étendues par une méthode de l’état de l’art. / As a query expansion and reformulation solution, we are interested in the different ways the semantic could be used to translate users information need into a query. We define two types of concepts : those which we can identify in a semantic resource like an ontology, and the ones we extract from the collection of documents via pseudo relevance feedback procedure. We propose a semantic and mixed approach to query expansion and reformulation (ASMER) that allows to integrate these two types of concepts in an automatically modified query. Our approach considers many challenges, especially selective terms expansion, named entity treatment and query reformulation.Even though the precision is the evaluation criteria the most adapted to a web context, we also considered evaluating the recall to study the behavior of our model from different aspects. This choice led us to handle a different problem related to evaluating the recall in information retrieval. After realizing that actual measures don't satisfy our constraints, we proposed a new recall oriented measure (MOR) which considers the recall as a priority without ignoring the precision.Among other measures, MOR was considered to evaluate our approach ASMER on four web collection from the standard evaluation campaigns Inex and Trec. Our experiments showed that ASMER improves the precision of the non modified original queries. In most cases, our approach achieved statistically significant enhancements when compared to a state of the art query expansion method. In addition, ASMER retrieves the first relevant document in better ranks than the compared approaches, it also has slightly better recall according to the measure MOR.

Utifrån teorin att bristande eller inadekvata uppmärksamhetsfunktioner kan visa sig i form av instabila svarsmönster på testet Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) undersöktes effektiviteten av ett intensivt uppmärksamhetsträningsprogram (APT) genom att studera svarsprotokoll från RAVLT av 60 patienter i det akuta skedet (&lt;1 år) av rehabilitering efter hjärnskada. Tre testtillfällen undersöktes: före träning, efter träning samt som uppföljning sex månader efter avslutad behandling. Hälften av patienterna hade erhållit APT och hälften sedvanlig uppmärksamhetsträning (TAU). Antalet tillagda och tappade ord samt antalet svarsglapp användes för att kartlägga förvärvande och konsolidering i inlärningsdelen av RAVLT. Ingen signifikant skillnad mellan grupperna erhölls för något av måtten vid något av tillfällena, däremot erhölls en signifikant förbättring gällande antal svarsglapp för APT-gruppen från före- och eftertestning till uppföljningstestningen. Antalet svarsglapp framstår som ett användbart mått på stabilitet i svarsmönster på RAVLT, och APT tycks ha en positiv inverkan på denna stabilitet.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:24:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ana Amelia Sanches Costa.pdf: 1005686 bytes, checksum: 790f78d027fac4bf25427aa95d140979 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research aimed to understand the development of the organization of oral narrative in children of 5 years old, from low-income contexts, through children's literature. Stories for children were previously selected to insert, in the context of the classroom, discussions on the values which were explored in the texts and are related to reality in which the students are inserted. The work in the classroom was also mediated by text recalls. Theoretically this investigation is based on the Theory of Socio-Historical-Cultural Activity (Vygotsky, Leontiev, Engeström) and on Bakhtinian dialogism, in order to discuss the shared production of meanings in an activity of language; on Koch & Travaglia s (1990/2008) and Bronckart s studies (1999), in order to observe the questions concerned to text: types of discourse, sequences, coherence, thematic content and lexical choices (nouns, verbs, deictics); on Orsolini (2005), Brookfield & Preskill (1999) e Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2006), in order to analyze the speech turns (quantity and types) during interaction. Critical Research of Collaboration oriented the methodology, which was designed to organize the development of a joint work between researcher and teacher, but, in fact, it did not occur. According to Magalhães (2007a), this approach aims to intervene in the context, transforming it and creating spaces for joint construction, which happened, indeed, between researcher and students. A collaborative-argumentative space was created by building a space of understanding, that involves all participants in a discussion in order to the researcher rethink her choices and to the students reorganize their participation in discussions during the storytelling circle time , led by the researcher. The study was conducted in a public school of early childhood education in Mairiporã. Initially, interviews were conducted with the teacher and the principal to comprehend the context of the institution, the reality of that community and the children s specific needs. The data were collected through audio recordings (interviews to the principal and the classes) and through notes and diaries (conversations with the teacher). Three classes were selected for analysis. The results revealed that both the recall and the discussion of values created a space / context for developing the organization of the narrative, since the creation of a collaborative interactional pattern in which all shared the same object of activity and also showed motivation to work / Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo compreender o desenvolvimento da organização da narrativa oral em crianças de 5 anos de idade oriundas de contextos de baixa renda, por meio da literatura infantil. Histórias infantis foram previamente selecionadas para inserir, no contexto da sala de aula, discussões sobre os valores abordados nos textos e relacionados à realidade em que o(a) aluno(a) se encontra inserido(a). Outro instrumento que mediou o trabalho desenvolvido em sala de aula foi o reconto da história lida. Teoricamente, este estudo baseia-se na Teoria da Atividade Sócio-Histórico-Cultural (Vygotsky, Leontiev, Engeström) e no dialogismo Bakhtiniano, para discutir a produção compartilhada de significados em uma atividade de linguagem; em Koch e Travaglia (1990/2008) e Bronckart (1999), para observar as questões do texto: tipos de discurso, sequencias, coerência, conteúdo temático e escolhas lexicais (substantivos, verbos, dêiticos); e em Orsolini (2005), Brookfield & Preskill (1999) e Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2006), para analisar os turnos de fala na interação (quantidade e tipo). A Pesquisa Crítica de Colaboração orientou a metodologia, a qual é pensada para o desenvolvimento de um trabalho conjunto entre pesquisadora e professora, o que, de fato não ocorreu. De acordo com Magalhães (2007a), esta metodologia tem como objetivo intervir no contexto, transformando-o e criando espaços de construção conjunta, o que, efetivamente, ocorreu na relação entre pesquisadora e alunos. Criou-se um espaço colaborativo-argumentativo ao constituir um espaço de compreensão, envolvendo todos os participantes numa discussão para que a pesquisadora repensasse suas escolhas e para que os alunos reorganizassem sua participação nas discussões e colaborassem no momento da roda de histórias, conduzida por esta pesquisadora. O trabalho foi desenvolvido em uma instituição escolar de educação infantil da rede municipal de Mairiporã. Num primeiro momento, foram realizadas entrevistas com a professora e com a diretora para a compreensão do contexto da instituição escolar, da realidade daquela comunidade e das necessidades específicas das crianças. Os dados foram coletados por meio de gravações em áudio (entrevistas com a diretora e as aulas) e por meio de notas e diários (conversas com a professora). Foram selecionadas três aulas para análise. Os resultados revelaram que tanto o reconto como a discussão dos valores criaram espaço/contexto para o desenvolvimento da organização da narrativa, a partir da constituição de um padrão interacional colaborativo, em que todos compartilhavam o mesmo objeto da atividade e se revelavam motivados ao trabalho

A percepção gestual de três licenciandos em situações de uso de representações estruturais químicas (REQ) foi caracterizada em uma disciplina do curso de licenciatura de Metodologia de Ensino de uma universidade pública. Esta percepção foi construída a partir da análise em entrevistas de Lembrança Estimulada por Vídeo (LEV), de uma enquete e da análise de situações de sala de aula de episódios de ensino. A LEV é uma técnica de origem cognitiva que foi adaptada para o estudo em uma abordagem sociocultural. A comparação de dados nesta pesquisa empregou a multimodalidade como modelo teórico e metodológico para caracterizar as interações multimodais em sala de aula. Na categorização de episódios de ensino, adaptamos algumas categorias de Silva (2008) como as operações epistêmicas, a proxêmica e os suportes. Na análise gestual, utilizamos a categorização de Kendon (2004). A percepção gestual foi construída com categorias inspiradas no funcionalismo de Lemke (2009). Contrastamos a análise de aula com a entrevista e a enquete para validar as respostas da entrevista. Os resultados da comparação entre a percepção dos licenciandos contribuíram para diferenciar como cada sujeito identifica sua performance gestual. / The gestural perception of three pre-service teachers has been characterized when using of chemical structural representations (CSR) from public university in a course of Chemistry Teaching. This perception has been constructed with analysis of Stimulated Recall Interviews (SRI), polls and classroom analysis of teaching episodes. SRI is a technique based on cognitive approach which has adapted to sociocultural perspective. We compared data using multimodality as a theoretical methodological model to characterize multimodal interactions at classroom. In categorization of teaching episodes, we adapted some categories from Silva (2008) like epistemic operations, proxemic and media. In gestural analysis, we used Kendon (2004) categories. The gestural perception has been constructed motivate by functionalist of Lemke (2009). We contrast classroom analysis with interviews and polls to increase the reliability of answers in interviews. Results of comparative between pre-service teacher perceptions is some differences how each subject index their gestural performance.

On pense souvent que notre mémoire nous joue des tours et nous fait défaut. Ces oublis concernent généralement des souvenirs qui ne sont pourtant pas si vieux. Alors quand il s’agit de se rappeler d’informations sensorielles auxquelles nous n’avons pas repensé depuis plusieurs dizaines d’années, pas de doute, il ne reste plus rien… Mais en est-on vraiment sûr? Et si l’information était toujours là, prête à se manifester de manière explicite -comme sous forme de rappel ou de sentiment de familiarité- pour peu que les conditions le lui permettent? A ce jour, très peu d’expériences ont été menées sur ce sujet. L’objectif de ma thèse a donc été d’apporter des premiers éléments de réponse concernant la récupération de mémoires laissées inactives. Ma recherche s’est orientée selon deux axes principaux : une première partie théorique où je montre a) qu’il n’est pas nécessaire de réactiver une trace mnésique pour la maintenir à très long-terme si elle a été suffisamment répétée et b) que la récupération explicite de cette mémoire serait possible grâce à la présentation d’informations qui cibleraient au mieux le souvenir ; une seconde partie expérimentale où je montre a) que des participants sont capables de récupérer de manière explicite des informations laissées en dormance pendant au moins une dizaine d’années et b) que cette trace mnésique pourrait être détectée sur des tracés d’Electroencéphalographie (EEG). Ainsi, et aussi étonnant que cela puisse paraître, dans des conditions favorables à leur réactivation, d’anciennes traces mnésiques que l’on croyait disparues, peuvent de nouveau surgir sous la manifestation de rappel ou de sentiment de familiarité par exemple. Ces résultats soulèvent des questions majeures concernant le stockage neuronal de cette information. / Memory plays tricks on us and fails us even for recent events. So for the retrieval of sensory information that we have not experienced for decades, surely the memories are gone without a trace, but can we be sure of this? What if the information had been there all along ready to be explicitly retrieved through recall or familiarity for example? So far, experimental evidence is lacking. The purpose of my thesis was to shed some light on the retrieval of these inactive memories. To tackle this problem I developed my research around two main axes: For the first part which is theoretical, I suggest that a) reactivations are not necessary to maintain very long-term memories if the memories were sufficiently repeated at first; b) it might be possible to retrieve explicitly remote inactive memories using specific cues; in the second part which is experimental, I show that a) within specific conditions participants are able to retrieve explicitly very long-term memories that were left inactive for decades and b) such memory traces could be found on the Electroencephalography (EEG) signals. Surprisingly, when conditions are met, remote memories that were thought to be lost can again elicit recall or familiarity. With these results, a question remains: How do neurons store such information?

Trata a presente tese de estudo acerca do instituto denominado recall, existente nos Estados Unidos da América do Norte, que constitui mecanismo que permite a destituição de autoridades públicas e a revogação de decisões judiciais, por meio de decisão popular. O ineditismo da tese decorre do aprofundamento que se fez sobre o tema, bem como da análise minuciosa sobre as condições de aplicação desse instituto no Brasil. Para compreensão integral do objeto em análise, inicialmente, buscou-se compreender o fenômeno da representação política, não só sob o aspecto jurídico-formal como também pelo aspecto histórico, político e social. As teorias acerca da representação política são abordadas dentro de uma perspectiva evolutiva, histórica, desde os seus traços primitivos nas sociedades antigas, passando pelas instruções e mandato imperativo do período medieval, até as concepções de Hobbes, Locke, Burke e Siéyès, não deixando de lado as posições mais modernas e os dilemas existentes sobre o tema. Busca-se também a essência desse mecanismo denominado recall. Para tanto, torna-se obrigatória a passagem pelas suas origens e pela sua configuração jurídica, que se encontra relacionada com o princípio federativo, os sistemas eleitorais, sua caracterização como direito político, instituto de democracia participativa e semidireta, bem como seu caráter sancionador e como forma de expressão da oposição política. Faz-se, além disso, uma análise comparativa do recall no direito contemporâneo. Inicialmente focando o instituto nos Estados Unidos da América do Norte, pelo âmbito de aplicação do instituto na Federação norte-americana, as hipóteses e procedimentos de cada Estado-membro (onde se permite o instituto) e os resultados gerais de sua aplicação. Analisar-se-á, outrossim, institutos semelhantes ao recall existentes em outros sistemas jurídicos. Ao final, será tratada a questão relacionada ao recall e o sistema jurídico brasileiro, apresentando-se a história da revogação do mandato político no país, o panorama jurídico pelo aspecto federativo e dos sistemas eleitorais, bem como as condições para viabilizar a aplicação do instituto no Brasil. Tudo isso, para se demonstrar que o recall deve ser um mecanismo democrático a ser utilizado por eleitores responsáveis contra eleitos irresponsáveis. / This dissertation focuses on the mechanism referred to as recall, which exists in the United States of America, and is a mechanism that provides for the removal of public officials and the repeal of judicial decisions by means of public opinion. The originality of this dissertation arises out of the further understanding of the subject, as well as of the thorough analysis of the conditions under which such mechanism could be applied in Brazil. In order to fully understand the analyzed object, it was first necessary to understand the phenomenon of political representation, not only from the formal-legal aspect, but also from the historical, political and social perspectives. The theories on political representation are approached from a historical-developing standpoint, from its primitive traces in ancient societies, to the medieval instruments and imperative mandate, to the ideas of Hobbes, Locke, Burke and Siéyès, in addition to the more modern schools of thought and existing dilemmas on the subject-matter. The dissertation also focuses on the essence of the recall mechanism. In order to do so, it was necessary to examine its origins and its legal configuration, which has to do with the federative principle, the electoral systems, its characterization as public law, participatory and semi-direct democracy, as well as its sanctioning ability and political opposition form of expression. Furthermore, the comparative analysis of recall in contemporary law is also carried out. The assessment is initially focused on the mechanism in the United States of America, as per its application in the North American Federation, the hypotheses and procedures of each Member-State (in which the mechanism is provided for) and the general results of its application. Moreover, similar mechanisms available in other legal systems are also analyzed. Finally, the issue of the recall mechanism and the Brazilian legal system is assessed, through the history of the repeal of political mandates in the country, its legal framework on the federative aspect and the electoral systems, as well as the conditions necessary in order to render the application of the recall mechanism in Brazil feasible. The objective is to demonstrate that the recall mechanism should be a democratic mechanism to be used by responsible voters against irresponsible elected officials.