RCAAP Repository

INTRODUCTION: The quality control (QC) of biomedical equipment is a very important process for the quality assurance of the instruments used in diagnoses and treatments. Ultrasound diagnostic imaging is one of the most widely used techniques for diagnostic imaging in hospitals and medical clinics. However, the time required to complete several B-mode imaging QC tests in ultrasound equipment is very critical for a hospital with a high number of exams. Here, we present a computational tool to assist in the acquisition and storage of data from multiple QC tests in B-mode ultrasound diagnostic equipment to promote an efficient alternative for QC in clinical routines. METHODS: The project was planned and implemented in C++ programming language and compiled for two computing platforms: Windows and Linux. The most common QC routine tests for B-mode ultrasound were combined in a simple graphical user interface. RESULTS: After entering all of the correct QC information in the graphical user interface, a final report in PDF format was created. CONCLUSION: The proposed program has been helpful for students and diagnostic professionals and is a quick and easy application for several QC tests for B-mode ultrasound diagnostic equipment. Our program seeks to help in the dissemination and application of QC tests for B-mode ultrasound equipment in hospitals and clinics and for the technical training of ultrasound professionals.

INTRODUCTION: The human body may interact with the structures and these interactions are developed through the application of contact forces, for instance due to walking movement. A structure may undergo changes in the dynamic behaviour when subjected to loads and human bodies. The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to calibrate a force platform in order to reduce uncertainties in the vertical Ground Reaction Force measurements and positioning of the applied force for the human gait. METHODS: Force platforms have been used to evaluate the pattern of applied human forces and to fit models for the interaction between pedestrians and structures. The designed force platform consists in two force plates placed side by side in the direction of walking. The reference voltages applied to the Wheatstone bridge were used for calibration as the input data to the ANN, while the output data were the estimated values of the standard weights applied to the force platform. RESULTS: It was presented a framework to enhance traditional calibration methods for force platforms (vertical component) using an ANN. The use of ANN shows significant improvements for the measured variables, leading to better results with lower uncertain values that are smaller than those using a simple traditional calibration. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the calibration with the ANN method may be useful in obtaining more accurate vertical Ground Reaction Forces and positioning measurements in a force platform for human gait analysis.

A Revista Brasileira de Estudos do Lazer – RBEL surge como uma ação prioritária da ANPEL, enquanto veículo de difusão das pesquisas temáticas ao lazer. Tal Revista representa assim um singular avanço na disseminação do conhecimento no lazer a exemplo do que já tradicionalmente ocorre com outras relevantes associações similares pelo mundo que também lançaram seus respectivos periódicos, como o Annals of Leisure Research da Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies – ANZALS (Austrália e Nova Zelândia), a Loisir/Leisure da Canadian Association for Leisure Studies – CALS (Canadá), o Leisure Studies Journal da Leisure Studies Association – LSA (Reino Unido) e o World Leisure Journal da World Leisure Organization (Organização das Nações Unidas).

The purpose of this article is to discuss two theoretical and conceptual approaches of leisure. The first was systematized during the twentieth century by authors of different nationalities, mainly European and Americans. It is considered the hegemonic understand because leisure as opposed to work. The other approach, incipient in studies on the subject, sees leisure as human need and dimension of culture. This concept of leisure consists in the articulation of three fundamental elements: playfulness, cultural manifestations and social time / space. While a fundamental human need, leisure can be satisfied in multiple ways, according to the values and interests of individuals, groups and institutions in every historical, social and cultural context. Thus, leisure is a complex social practice that encompasses a multitude of cultural and ludic experiences contextualized and historically situated. The discussions are finalized highlighting the importance of considering a counter-hegemonic leisure and transformational perspective.

The paper presents the first results of a forthcoming book of the author, currently in press, collecting research conducted in the last years. It explains what is to be understood by the term 'valuable leisure', as well as by similar concepts that contribute to the understanding of its process of gestation. In the second part, various reference concepts that help to the study and comprehension of valuable leisure are developed within the paradigm of complex thought.

Some work, called here “devotee work,” is so attractive that it is essentially leisure for those engaging in it. For them the only important difference between their work and what their counterparts in serious leisure do is that devotee workers get paid for their efforts. Occupational devotees turn up chiefly, though not exclusively, in four areas of the economy, providing work there is, at most, only lightly bureaucratized: certain small businesses, the skilled trades, the consulting and counselling occupations, and the public- and client-centered professions. In short, occupational devotees and serious leisure enthusiasts intensely love the same activity, finding there a powerfully attractive work or leisure career. Thus work and leisure are, contrary to conventional wisdom, neither wholly separate nor mutually antagonistic spheres of modern life. The close relationship, examined here between serious leisure and occupational devotion demonstrates that there can be joy in work just as in leisure and that this joy is, at bottom, qualitatively the same in both worlds. In other words such joy is basically a shared sentiment, in that the core activities in work and leisure which are so powerfully attractive – and which foster the joy – are highly similar, and in some instances, literally identical.

O artigo em questão traz uma entrevista realizada com o Professor Chris Rojek. Autor de diversos artigos e livros relacionados à temática do Lazer, o sociólogo britânico descreve seu percurso como pesquisador, sua compreensão do Lazer contemporâneo e suas críticas a esse campo de estudos. As perguntas foram formuladas com o objetivo de trazer à tona conceitos polêmicos desenvolvidos em sua obra, como o “lazer anormal”, e questões da atualidade, como a influência dos meios de comunicação nas relações interpessoais e nos movimentos de resistência espalhados pelo mundo.

This essay will present a reflection on leisure, and the characteristics of contemporary society, illustrating some of the constitutive aspects of contemporary society, such as the desecration of the sacred, the process of rationalization of the world and the commodification of relationships, to develop a definition of leisure. The pleasure, therefore, is a way of knowing the world and its main feature is the free time with fun, playfulness and pleasure. This initial design will be confronted with the issues presented in the film Drained, seeking to highlight aspects such as laziness, guilt and a linear conception of time. Finally, the paper attempts to point out the theoretical contributions of this confrontation between leisure, perceived in the contemporary, and the film in question.

Apresentação do Dossiê sobre “Lazer e Turismo”, bem como dos três artigos que o compõem, que foram elaborados pelos seguintes autores: Luzia Neide Coriolano e Fábio Perdigão Vasconcelos (Universidade Estadual do Ceará), Rafael Chequer Bauer e Alexandre Panosso Netto (Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia de São Paulo e Universidade de São Paulo, respectivamente) e Susana Gastal (Universidade de Caxias do Sul).

This article detaches transformations occurred on contemporary Society, postmodern and flexible in relation to leisure and tourism. It displays leisure in centuries ago as human necessity, realized freely intercalary with labor, as personal activity, creative, volunteer, liberator, fundamental to human realization and as industrial society turning work in a reference creates free time and leisure to recover working force. Capitalist society turns work into alienation, it makes a way of accumulation and exploration of working force and turns leisure into tourism and consumption. It denies leisure transforming it in business. Approaches flexible society that, among services, turns leisure and tourism into new centralities and presents two axles of tourism: the conventional one and the community showing the counterpoints. The text presents leisure and tourism humanized on Milton Santos’ perspective, hence stablishes a parallel between conventional and community tourism, based on the study of traditional communities. It analyzes social individuals facing tourism, as the State that is satisfied in standardize and offer infrastructure, the enterprises that are charges on social an environmental responsibility and the communities that create a new alternative on making tourism.

The article shows the concept of Slow Travel, a travel’s modality based in a new perspective of touristic use considering a slowdown style. In this way, the paper analyses the context of growing and development about Slow Travel, including its ideological matrix based in industrial revolution’s contestation, specially about the acceleration noted at contemporary society and its application inside the leisure and travel universes. At least, shows the main characteristics of Slow Travel, and its perspectives of development, mainly in Brazil.

One of the most important phenomenon in the globalization scenario is the city's expansion and the expansion of the urban mentality beyond their geographical boundaries. Medium cities, however, generally still lack of qualified recreation. Based on these premises, this discussion aims to present that the Urban Imaginary is semanticized by Plaza and the Stage. Both are marked as spaces of being together and of seeing and be seen. So the presence of recreational offerings that mobilize people to get together and to see each other, may contribute to form the urban spirit in the city.

The article presents the research proposal, developed in 2014, with the children of Costa da Lagoa, Azores community, located in Lagoa da Conceição, in Florianópolis (SC). The definition of Costa started from the idea that there are communities that maintain principles of freedom with children, in a way, have the time and space in the natural and cultural environment, to challenge and grow. In this way, the research has as objective the proposal to unravel the meanings found in the relations established by the children living in the Costa da Lagoa, between: being, playing and nature. The methodological definition came from ethnography, with its "look closely and faraway" and his "inside and outside look" and was configured as a path to be followed with a qualitative prevalence and descriptive. The study focuses on children who, in general, are entitled to participate in the social context, according to their wills and their skills, for belonging and part is a right that is won at birth. For data collection were used complementary instruments together: participant observation; notebook; informal conversations; photographs; filming; children's drawings; and participation in community events. Upon completion of the survey, but far from satisfying the concerns as researchers, we conclude that the ethnography provided an opportunity a significant hike the trails and crossings from Costa. Children who live there have the opportunity to carry out activities in the natural environment, among trees, water, land and animals. Children are challenged to overcome fears, to enlarge body movements, to develop self-knowledge and to expand awareness capability.

The society that we living in have postindustrial characteristics, mainly due to technological development that in turn brought great social and environmental transformations.  The reflexes of these transformations can be seeing at different dimensions of people’s life, such as the lack of time and space dedicated to leisure activities, in order to increase awareness of the leisure culture.  The main focus here was to indicate a connection between children’s leisure activities, playfulness and the environment, pointing out that any unbalanced distribution between this three variables, will alter the relationship between social and natural environment, decreasing the importance of the natural resources of our cities around the planet.

Apresentação do Dossiê Lazer e Meio Ambiente, destacando-se os textos elaborados pelos autores especialistas que foram convidados para problematizar e aprofundar conhecimentos sobre essa temática: Miraíra Noal Manfroi e Alcyane Marinho, ambas vinculadas à Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina;  Reinaldo Tadeu Boscolo Pacheco e Sidnei Raimundo, da Universidade de São Paulo, Simone Rechia e Iverson Ladewig, da Universidade Federal do Paraná, Oromar Augusto dos Santos Nascimento e Humberto Luís de Deus Inácio, ambos da Universidade Federal de Goiás.

This study sought to identify the main bodily practices present in the camps mounted in the Araguaia River beaches, as well as evaluate the environmental consciousness and behavior of tourists in these camps. The materials and methods used were the systematized observation together with a questionnaire of closed questions. The materials and methods used were the systematized observation together with a questionnaire of closed questions, called the Responsible Behavior Rating Scale, which went through statistical analysis. The results showed that consciousness and environmental behavior of tourists fitted in the average level. We concluded that there were few bodily practices present in the camps, where most tourists chose the "rest", and that there are contradictions between consciousness and the environmental behavior of tourists.

Urban parks played an important role in the logic of cities, from the mid-nineteenth century. Leisure activities, inserted in the logic of the city, were also re-configured from a social control in the sanitation urban concepts during the centuries XIX and XX to democratization and citizenship processes observed from the last two decades of the twentieth century. This paper discusses leisure approaches in the city examining the relations with urban parks, as instruments and locus of action for the city and leisure rights. We are presenting, as an intervention proposal in urban parks the concept of the environmental animation, as an unfolding of socio-cultural animation, linking their aspects with environmental interpretation principles, which were designed as leisure renovating in urban parks. We also discuss some of the challenges and trends of this approach, linked to interdisciplinarity and intersectionality, in which the recreation professional must be inserted. We conclude the paper with information relating to a leisure research agenda in urban parks in two scales of analysis: a general of the cities, as urban and environmental public policy in which the parks are inserted and another specifically of the public use actions on urban parks.

The text presents a discussion on the genesis of the concept of leisure and the main conceptions of inactivity in human societies. The perspective is to present the senses and conceptions of leisure idea. You can see that the field of leisure studies is founded on valuation practices that can no longer be ignored by normal science, side, peripheral practices, unimportant for the production system or even contradictory to that same system. They are the recreational way through the concepts of practices related to work-leisure dichotomy, with the initial ideas for understanding the genealogy of the concept and the new positioning of the field today. For this, the social character concepts of David Riesman, habitus, of Pierre Bourdieu, and dépense, of Georges Bataille, are used.

No summary/description provided

The Australia and New Zealand Association of Leisure Studies (ANZALS) was established in 1991 with the overall aim to develop leisure research and scholarship. Over the last 25 years ANZALS has regularly delivered a biennial conference, produced a refereed journal and shared information with its members and kindred associations. This article provides information about ANZALS history and explains how it is addressing its objectives. A key feature of ANZALS’s success is the commitment and contributions of its voluntary Board and general membership. Challenges that ANZALS needs to address in the future include more effective administration, better engagement in public policy debates and establishment of special interest groups. Despite these challenges ANZALS is successfully addressing its aim and is in a good position to continue to develop leisure studies in Australia and New Zealand.