Brazilian Set Research Articles

Testing rational expectations in a cointegrated VAR with structural change

The rational expectation hypothesis is widely used in finance and macroeconomics. A research question investigates whether models using this hypothesis can fit the data well. Researchers have been developing econometric procedures to test rational expectation models. Sargent and Hansen (1991) proposed how to test exact rational expectation restrictions. This study aims to achieve three objectives. The first objective is to extend Johansen and Swensen’s framework that test exact rational expectation restrictions to the case where the data-generating process is a cointegrated vector autoregressive model with abrupt structural change (CVAR-SC). The second goal is to highlight that the type of rational expectation restrictions analysed in this paper imply co-breaking, as defined by Hendry and Mizon (1998). Finally, the restrictions on the CVAR-SC parameters implied by the present value model and expectation hypothesis of the interest rate term structure are analysed, derived and tested. Three empirical exercises are reported. The first is Engsted (2002)’s dataset on share prices and dividends, the second uses a Brazilian term structure data set and the third uses a North American term structure dataset.

Screening the General Population for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Model Development and Validation

The prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasing worldwide. Screening the general population for this may help to select appropriate diagnostic and preventive measures before disease progression. We aimed to develop a screening method to identify patients with NAFLD in the general population. We analyzed cross-sectional data from a large Japanese study of NAFLD. Principal component analysis was used to analyze the data. Candidate predictors were patients' demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics. The resulting model was externally validated using three data sets from different populations. Of 15,464 (54.5% men) included patients, 2,741 (17.7%) had NAFLD as determined by ultrasonography. An index was calculated as the arithmetic mean of the scaled body mass index and serum triglyceride levels for both men and women. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, sensitivity, specificity, and false positive rate were 0.875, 0.824, 0.770, and 17.6%, respectively. The mean index values were significantly different between the patients with and without non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (p <0.001). The odds ratio of the index cutoff was 15.6 (95% confidence interval [CI]:14.05, 17.39). The model yielded areas under the curve of 0.828, 0.851, and 0.836 for a Chinese (N = 2,319), an Iranian (N = 2,160), and a Brazilian (N = 45,029) data set, respectively. The proposed composite index demonstrated high performance and generalizability, suggesting its potential use as a screening tool for NAFLD in the general population.

Health inequity assessment in Brazil: is EQ-5D-3L sensible enough to detect differences among distinct socioeconomic groups?

BackgroundMultidimensional health-related quality of life (HRQOL) instruments, such as the EQ-5D, are increasingly used to assess inequalities in health. However, it is necessary to explore the ability of these instruments to capture differences between population groups, especially in low/middle-income countries. This study aimed to investigate whether the EQ-5D-3L instrument can detect differences in HRQOL between groups of different socioeconomic status (SES) in Brazil.MethodsData collection occurred during the Brazilian EQ-5D-3L valuation study and included respondents aged 18 to 64 years enrolled in urban areas. SES was aggregated into three categories: “higher” (A and B), “intermediate” (C) and “lower” (D and E). EQ-5D-3L index was calculated considering the Brazilian value set. A mixed-effects regression model was estimated with random effects on individuals and marginal effects on SES, sex, and educational attainment. Odds ratios for the chance of reporting problems for each EQ-5D dimension were estimated by logistic regression.ResultsA total of 9,148 respondents were included in the study. Mean age was 37.80 ± 13.13 years, 47.4% were men and the majority was ranked as classes B or C (38.4% and 50.7%, respectively). Participants in lower SES classes reported increasingly poorer health compared to individuals in higher classes. The mean EQ-5D-3L index decreased as SES deteriorates being significantly higher for classes A and B (0.874 ± 0.14) compared to class C (0.842 ± 0.15) and classes D and E (0.804 ± 0.17) (p < 0.001). The same was observed for the mean EQ-VAS scores (84.0 ± 13.8 in classes A and B, 81.0 ± 17 in class C and 78.3 ± 18.7 in class C [p < 0.001]). The multivariate analysis confirmed that SES is an independent factor that effects EQ-5D-3L index measures. Participants in intermediate and lower SES classes have a statistically significant lower EQ-5D-3L index compared to participants in classes A and B, regardless of age, sex, and educational attainment.ConclusionIn a Brazilian population sample, the EQ-5D-3L instrument was able to detect important differences between groups with distinct socioeconomic statuses (SES). The EQ-5D-3L is useful for exploring inequities in health.

Frequency and spectrum of CHEK2 variants in a large Brazilian set of germline-tested patients.

e22539 Background: CHEK2 is one of the most commonly affected genes in different cancers. P/LP variants can display differences in phenotype and in penetrance in cancer families. Some of the most frequently described variants largely vary from population to population. CHEK2 variants are distributed in the whole gene sequence and it seems that some functional areas can be critical. Additionally, a significant number of variants detected in CHEK2 are classified as VUS and require appropriate functional testing for accurate classification. Therefore, we decided to contribute with databases presenting the largest cohort of CHEK2 P/LP and VUS detected through NGS panels in many cancer centers throughout Brazil. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study including CHEK2 variant carriers identified by genetic testing ordered by Grupo Oncoclinicas health care professionals from 2017 to 2022. Primary endpoint was to describe the prevalence of CHEK2 P/LP and VUS and variants categories as well as sex at birth, age at diagnosis, phenotype and geographic distribution. Results: A total of 207 carriers of CHEK2 variants were identified, with 96 (46%) classified as P/LP and 111 (54%) as VUS. Majority of patients were female (88%), with median age at diagnosis of 45 years for those with P/LP variants. The most observed phenotype was breast cancer (125 cases, 60%), followed by prostate (11.5%), ovarian (7%), thyroid (2%) and kidney cancer (1%). Approximately 25% of patients either had a less common type of cancer, lacked a reported cancer diagnosis, or did not provide information regarding the specific type of cancer. The most frequent variants were p.Arg117Gly (14.5%) and p.Ile157Thr (7.2%). Despite being predominantly described in association with breast cancer in North American, c.1100del variant was the third most frequent in our population, occurring in 14 (6.7%) cases, with breast cancer being its slightly more common phenotype 57.1% (8/14 patients). Among p.Arg117Gly carriers, breast cancer was also the most frequently observed phenotype, accounting for 23 out of 30 patients (76.7%), whereas among p.Ile157Thr carriers, it represented a lower proportion of cases, 5 out of 15 patients (33.3%). Of the 207 patients, 58.4% were from the Southeast region and 25% were from the South region. Conclusions: This study is the largest cohort of germinative CHEK2 variants reported in Brazil, which showed p.Arg117Gly and p.Ile157Thr to be the most prevalent variants and breast cancer to be the most common phenotype, particularly among carriers of the p.Arg117Gly variant. The significant number of VUS identified, however, represents a challenge for genetic counseling in developing countries and highlights the need for further research to classify these variants as well as for functional testing to improve understanding about their association with cancer.

Does the default pecking order impact systemic risk? Evidence from Brazilian data

The DebtRank approach is a popular metric used to estimate systemic risk in network models. It assumes that the loss distribution of a distressed debtor among its creditors follows a pro-rata fashion, proportional to the loan granted to the debtor. However, the banking literature documents that the loss distribution can be heterogeneous across different creditors. In this study, we extend the DebtRank framework assuming a heterogeneous pattern of the loss distribution, inspired by the default pecking order. Grounded on the empirical literature, we assume distressed debtors employ some criterion (equity, equity-to-assets ratio, out-degree, or loan extended) to rank the creditors they are willing to default on first. Applying this framework to an extensive Brazilian data set, we find that the systemic risk is sensitive to the heuristic adopted for the default pecking order, with the pro-rata pattern serving as a lower bound. We can interpret this result in light of the dual role of financial networks, which can serve as a conduit for both risk-sharing and shock propagation. DPO may affect the balance between these two effects. We find empirical evidence corroborating this hypothesis by assessing the role of interconnectedness (as measured by the network density) in driving systemic risk. When losses are mostly transmitted to the more fragile creditors, the density positively affects systemic risk. In this instance, the financial network serves primarily as a channel for shock propagation rather than risk-sharing.

An efficient credit card fraud detection approach using cost‐sensitive weak learner with imbalanced dataset

AbstractThe usage of credit cards is increasing in the digitization era to purchase goods online or offline, and the number of fraudulent credit card transactions has also increased. Fraudulent transaction detection is a big issue in the credit card domain because the data set is highly imbalanced. The performance of traditional classification techniques has decreased due to this issue. Therefore, a dynamic fraud detection system is required to overcome this issue. This article proposes an efficient cost‐sensitive weak learner approach with a bagging and random forest classifier (CSWLB) to minimize misclassification problems and overcome the class imbalance issue. The proposed CSWLB approach is included in an adaptive algorithmic method (cost‐sensitive) with two weak learner ensembles (bagging‐random forest), which assigns high weight to the fraudulent transactions using the cost‐sensitive learning classifier and generates weight bags using a bagging ensemble classifier. Therefore, the random forest classifier has been implemented on the weight bags to improve classification accuracy. The proposed approach's effectiveness and efficiency have been computed on the Brazilian credit card data set. Its results have been compared with sampling, cost‐sensitive, and machine learning techniques. The proposed CSWLB approach obtained 765 total costs and 97.361% accuracy. The experimental results show that the proposed approach has outperformed compared to other techniques.

Tratamento de pacientes com diagnóstico de tumor ósseo de células gigantes: Experiência de um hospital filantrópico no Piauí, Brasil

Objective To evaluate the treatment of patients with giant cell tumors of bone treated from 2009 to 2019 in a philanthropic hospital, as well as to try and determine the regional clinical and epidemiological profile, aiming to enrich the Brazilian data set and compare our findings with those of the literature. Methods An analytical, observational, and cross-sectional study with retrospective data collection and a quantitative approach, analyzing medical records of patients with giant cell tumors treated at a philanthropic hospital from 2009 to 2019. Results We evaluated 49 medical records; 55.1% of the patients were women, 53.1% were aged between 20 and 40 years, 69.4% of the cases were Campanacci grade III, and 30.6% affected the proximal end of the tibia. The rate of pathological fractures secondary to the tumor and pulmonary metastasis was low. More than 69% of the patients underwent intralesional surgery. Recurrence occurred in 16.3% of the cases. Conclusion The criteria used for the diagnosis, classification, and treatment at our service followed the standards established by the literature, and they can guide further research and improve local prognosis in the future.

New improved Brazilian daily weather gridded data (1961–2020)

AbstractThe demand for meteorological gridded datasets has increased within the last few years to inform studies such those in climate, weather, and agriculture. These studies require those data to be readily usable in standard formats with continuous spatial and temporal coverage. Since 2016, Brazil has a daily gridded meteorological data set with spatial resolution of 0.25° × 0.25° from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 2013 which was well received by the community. The main objective of this work is to improve the Brazilian meteorological data set. We do this by increasing the resolution of the minimum and maximum temperature (Tmax and Tmin) gridded interpolations from 0.25° × 0.25° to 0.1° × 0.1° by incorporating data on topographic relief, and increasing the time period covered (January 1, 1961–July 31, 2020). Besides Tmax and Tmin, we also gridded precipitation (pr), solar radiation (Rs), wind speed (u2), and relative humidity (RH) using observed data from 11,473 rain gauges and 1,252 weather stations. By means of ranked cross‐validation statistics, we selected the best interpolation among inverse distance weighting and angular distance weighting methods. We determined that interpolations for Tmax and Tmin are improved by using the elevation of a query point, that accounts for topographic relief, and a temperature lapse rate. Even though this new version has ≈25 years more data relative to the previous one, statistics from cross‐validation were similar. To allow researchers to assess the performance of the interpolation relative to station data in the area, we provide two types of gridded controls.

A New Class of Cure Rate Survival Models: Properties, Inference and Applications

We propose a new class of survival models for time-to-event data with a cure fraction. This new model is an extension of the promotion time cure rate model. Furthermore, we extend the model to the regression model to evaluate the effect of covariates in the cure fraction. An expectation-maximization algorithm is adopted for estimating the model parameters. A simulation study is conducted in order to assess the proposed model and the computation algorithm. The methodology is illustrated using a real Brazilian bank personal loan portfolio data set.

Strategies to improve the prediction of bulk soil and fraction organic carbon in Brazilian samples by using an Australian national mid-infrared spectral library

At present, organic carbon (OC) levels are measured using techniques that can be very expensive and time-consuming or can generate toxic residue. Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy, which is an inexpensive and safe technique, can be used for OC prediction; however, appropriate modeling is required. This study aimed to evaluate different strategies for MIR modeling calibration in order to improve the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of OC prediction in bulk soils and fractions (e.g., particulate OC, POC; humic OC, HOC; resistant OC, ROC). We used regional topsoil samples (i.e. 0–20 cm) from Brazil (BRreL) and an existing Australian national library (AUnaL) to calibrate different models, which were used to predict OC content in target samples (i.e. subset of the Brazilian sample set). In total, eight strategies were tested, including the use of different soil libraries, different chemometric approaches (i.e. common multivariate regression and local-type modeling), and spiking. The highest accuracy for OC prediction in Brazilian regional target samples for both bulk soils (RPIQ = 5.86; RMSE = 3.17 g kg−1) and fractions (RPIQ = 1.58, 5.72, and 5.21 for POC, HOC, and ROC, respectively) was obtained when the BRreL was used to calibrate a partial least square regression. When AUnaL was used alone as the calibration set, the OC prediction accuracy sharply decreased and even the local-type models Cubist and spectrum-based learning, in general, were not able to achieve high OC predictions accuracy. With this strategy, the averaged RPIQ values (among the three models) were 2.92, 0.55, 2.17, and 0.65 for bulk OC, POC, HOC, and ROC, respectively. However, when 20 Brazilian regional samples (representing 8 and 42% of the original calibration samples used for total and fraction OC, respectively) were spiked to the AUnaL, the OC predictions accuracy markedly improved for all OC pools, regardless of the modeling approach used. With this strategy, the averaged RPIQ values were 4.74, 1.35, 4.49, and 2.29 for bulk OC, POC, HOC, and ROC, respectively. In addition, high OC prediction accuracy (RPIQ = 4.49 for bulk OC; RPIQ = 1.58, 6.87, and 4.26 for POC, HOC, and ROC, respectively) was obtained when models were calibrated with the 20-spiking subset only. Our results suggest that a proper selection of a small calibration set, that could be used alone or to augment an existing library, is critical and could make feasible the OC prediction in bulk soils and fractions by MIR spectroscopy.

A global production network for ecosystem services: The emergent governance of landscape restoration in the Brazilian Amazon

Over the last few decades, numerous initiatives have advanced forest landscape restoration in the Amazon, and in 2015 the Brazilian government set an ambitious, still-valid, target to restore 4.8 million hectares of degraded Amazonian land by 2030. This has contributed to an emergent global restoration network that connects multiple stakeholders and processes for funding, implementing and monitoring restoration actions in such a way that prepares various ecosystem services for market integration. The network arose in tandem with the evolution of an institutional framework that includes regulatory requirements within Brazil, global commitments linked to climate change mitigation, corporate sustainability strategies, and the growth of crowd-sourcing activism. This paper presents restoration activities as embedded within a Global Production Network (GPN) for an ecosystem service, which we use as a heuristic device to inform our understanding of emergent environmental governance structures. The resulting multi-scalar, networked mode of environmental governance is presented as a web-like structure co-created by institutional evolution, actor-specific strategies, and interactions between firms and non-firm actors. The article pays particular attention to a case study of how the restoration network manifests territorially in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon. Despite the strong North-South orientation of dominant funding relationships, network governance is also seen to be relational. This is evident from the dissemination of ideas, supply models and seeding techniques from Upper Xingu to other regions of Brazil. These insights could be applied to improve landscape restoration outcomes, and indeed the provisioning of ecosystem services more broadly.

Efeitos de sentidos no capítulo da telenovela brasileira “Velho Chico”

This work is based on the theory of Discourse Analysis of French matrix. Visa (des) build the image of the black caracter on the scene of the Brazilian television set “Velho Chico”. For the production of the image of black people, we dialogue with the historical-cultural, mediatic and ideological contexts that refer to the images that society produces in relation to ethnic racial issues in discourse. We intend to interpret the performance of the black characters in the telenovela. The work of Courtine (1994), Munanga (2005), Orlandi (2001), has been used as a theoretical basis for research of na interpretative and qualitative nature, the corpus is constituted in chapter ninety-four of the telenovela “Velho Chico” (“Old River”). Red (2005) and Dias (2011). We conclude that these discourses bring to the surface a discursive memory, addressed to black people. Th e telenovela contributed to the discussion about the identity, the sayings produced different effects of senses to the public that watches the telenovela.

TB-EFI, a novel 18-Plex microbead-based method for prediction of second-line drugs and ethambutol resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex

Several diagnostic tests are being developed to detect drug resistance in tuberculosis. In line with previous developments detecting rifampicin and isoniazid resistance using microbead-based systems (spoligoriftyping and TB-SPRINT), we present here an assay called TB-EFI detecting mutations involved in resistance to ethambutol, fluoroquinolones and the three classical injectable drugs (kanamycin, amikacin and capreomycin) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The proposed test includes both wild-type and mutant probes for each targeted locus. Basic analysis can be performed manually. An upgraded interpretation is made available in Excel 2016®.Using a reference set of 61 DNA extracts, we show that TB-EFI provides perfect concordance with pyrosequencing. Concordance between genotypic resistance and phenotypic DST was relatively good (72 to 98% concordance), with lower efficiency for fluoroquinolones and ethambutol due to some untargeted mutations. When compared to phenotypical resistance, performances were similar to those obtained with Hain MTBDRsl assay, possibly thanks to the use of automatized processing of data although some mutations involved in fluoroquinolone resistance could not be included.When applied on three uncharacterized sets, phenotype could be predicted for 51% to 98% depending on the setting and the drug investigated, detecting one extensively drug-resistant isolate in each of a Pakistan and a Brazilian set of 91 samples, and 9 XDR among 43 multi-resistant Kazakhstan samples.By allowing high-throughput detection of second-line drugs resistance and of resistance to ethambutol that is often combined to second-line treatments, TB-EFI is a cost-effective assay for large-scale worldwide surveillance of resistant tuberculosis and XDR-TB control.

Perceptions of primary health care service users regarding dental team practices in Brazil

The Unified Health System (SUS) is the Brazilian set of public health services that offers global access to health care and disease treatments for all citizens. These services have been evaluated by means of a national survey assessing the users' perceptions.AimTo explore and characterize the SUS users' perceptions regarding primary dental team practices in the five Brazilian geographical regions. Descriptive study. The sample consisted of 37 262 subjects. Data were collected by means of the Ministry of Health survey, conducted between 2012 and 2014. Variables used in the present study are associated with SUS users' perspectives of satisfaction, access, and use of services. The study utilized bivariate data analysis, and dichotomous variables were derived for analysis following 95% reliability.FindingsThis study observed similarities and proportionality of perceptions in the Brazilian territory. In most macro-regions, dental teams did not develop an active search for dental treatment absentees. However, the SUS users reported very good and good perceptions, which were homogeneously distributed across five Brazilian regions, thereby showing an overall positive perception of primary dental treatment.

Blue Man Group no ASSIN: Usando Representações Distribuídas para Similaridade Semântica e Inferência Textual

In this paper, we present the methodology and the results obtained by our team, dubbed Blue Man Group, in the ASSIN (from the Portuguese Avaliacao de Similaridade Semântica e Inferencia Textual) competition, held at PROPOR 2016. Our team's strategy consisted of evaluating methods based on semantic word vectors, following two distinct directions: 1) to make use of low-dimensional, compact, feature sets, and 2) deep learning-based strategies dealing with high-dimensional feature vectors. Evaluation results demonstrated that the first strategy was more promising, so that the results from the second strategy have been discarded. As a result, by considering the best run of each of the six participant teams, we have been able to achieve the best accuracy and F1 values in entailment recognition, in the Brazilian Portuguese set, and the best F1 score considering also the Portuguse from Portugal set. In the semantic similarity task, our team was ranked second in the Brazilian Portuguese set, and third considering both sets.

Paulo Moura’s Hepteto and Quarteto

As with American and other well-documented global jazz iterations, the presence of jazz in Brazil may be seen in the context of a story that includes or even initiates from local, regional and national trends in popular and improvised music. This long and complex history seems to require a descriptive label that is more nuanced, and in fact, more based on an equivalency of contribution than the Americo-centric ‘Brazilian jazz’. Through a case study of Paulo Moura’s recordings of 1968–69, this article considers the transmission, appropriation, invention and circulation of musical style and language. Following the work of George E. Lewis and David Ake, the possibility of identifying and defining a particular Brazilian set of approaches to this process is contemplated.

A non-default fraction bivariate regression model for credit scoring: An application to Brazilian customer data

ABSTRACTIn this article, we propose a lifetime model for bivariate survival data with a non-default rate. Our approach enables different underlying activation mechanisms that lead to the event of interest. A number of competing causes which may be responsible for the occurrence of the event of interest are assumed to follow a Poisson distributions, and a positive stable distribution was considered for the frailty component. The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is used in Bayesian inference approach and some Bayesian criteria are used for a comparison. Moreover, we conduct the influence diagnostic through the diagnostic measures in order to detect possible influential or extreme observations that can cause distortions on the results of the analysis. The proposed models are applied to analyze a Brazilian customer data set.

A minimum set of ancestry informative markers for determining admixture proportions in a mixed American population: the Brazilian set.

The Brazilian population is considered to be highly admixed. The main contributing ancestral populations were European and African, with Amerindians contributing to a lesser extent. The aims of this study were to provide a resource for determining and quantifying individual continental ancestry using the smallest number of SNPs possible, thus allowing for a cost- and time-efficient strategy for genomic ancestry determination. We identified and validated a minimum set of 192 ancestry informative markers (AIMs) for the genetic ancestry determination of Brazilian populations. These markers were selected on the basis of their distribution throughout the human genome, and their capacity of being genotyped on widely available commercial platforms. We analyzed genotyping data from 6487 individuals belonging to three Brazilian cohorts. Estimates of individual admixture using this 192 AIM panels were highly correlated with estimates using ~370 000 genome-wide SNPs: 91%, 92%, and 74% of, respectively, African, European, and Native American ancestry components. Besides that, 192 AIMs are well distributed among populations from these ancestral continents, allowing greater freedom in future studies with this panel regarding the choice of reference populations. We also observed that genetic ancestry inferred by AIMs provides similar association results to the one obtained using ancestry inferred by genomic data (370 K SNPs) in a simple regression model with rs1426654, related to skin pigmentation, genotypes as dependent variable. In conclusion, these markers can be used to identify and accurately quantify ancestry of Latin Americans or US Hispanics/Latino individuals, in particular in the context of fine-mapping strategies that require the quantification of continental ancestry in thousands of individuals.

Differences in utility scores obtained through Brazilian and UK value sets: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease associated with several impacts; especially regarding patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQL). EuroQol 5 Dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D) provides self-reported analysis of HRQL and utility scores. Although the British algorithm to convert EQ-5D responses into utility is the most used in the literature, national settings is more appropriate for health policy decision makers. A Brazilian algorithm is available, but not used in MS patients yet. Primarily, this study aimed to address potential differences in utility scores obtained through Brazilian and British value sets. Secondary objective was to determine the role of disability, fatigue and patients socio-demographic and clinical characteristics relevant to MS on the utility scores reported by Brazilian patients.MethodsCross-sectional study with MS patients treated in 8 Brazilian sites. Patients were interviewed about socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, self-reported disability level, HRQL and impact of fatigue on daily living. Disability level, HRQL and impact of fatigue were assessed using the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and the Brazilian versions of EQ-5D-3L and Modified Fatigue Impact Scale (MFIS-BR), respectively. Patients were classified in subgroups according to EDSS (mild: 0–3; moderate: 4–6.5; severe: >7) and the self-perceived impact of fatigue (absent: ≤38 points; low: 39–58; high: ≥59). EQ-5D-3 L data was converted into a utility index using an algorithm developed by a Brazilian research group (QALY Brazil) and also the UK algorithm. Differences between utility scores were analysed through Wilcoxon test.ResultsTwo hundred and ten patients were included in the study. Utility index mean scores of 0.59 (SD = 0.22) and 0.56 (SD = 0.32) for the Brazilian and UK algorithms were observed, respectively, without statistically significant difference for the distribution of data (p = 0.586). However, when utility scores were lower than 0.5, Brazilian algorithm provided higher estimates than UK with a better agreement between the scores found closer to 1. The same trend was observed when data was stratified for EDSS and impact of fatigue, with statistically significant difference between scores in categories of mild/severe disabilities and absent/high impact of fatigue.ConclusionsResults suggest that Brazilian value set provided higher utility scores than the UK, particularly for measures below 0.5.

Criação e normatização de um conjunto brasileiro de estímulos pictóricos

espanolEl objetivo del presente estudio fue crear y estandarizar un conjunto de 89 estimulos pictoricos para personas de adultos y ancianos (40-89 anos). Se seleccionaron 89 conceptos verbales derivadas de los estudios de estandarizacion de asociacion semantica. Todos los conceptos se representaron y evaluados por tres jueces. Para cada estimulo fue estandarizado para los siguientes atributos: el acuerdo conceptual, el acuerdo de nombramiento, la familiaridad conceptual y la complejidad visual. Una gran parte de los estimulos (93,3%) presentaron acuerdo conceptual satisfactorio y los otros atributos presentan indices compatibles con los conjuntos internacionales de estimulos pictoricos. Estos resultados sugieren que la calidad de este conjunto y contribuiran en la elaboracion de un test MAPS (Memoria y Aprendizaje com Pistas Seleccionadas) y otras herramientas de evaluacion psicologica. portuguesO objetivo do presente estudo foi criar e normatizar um conjunto de 89 estimulos pictoricos para brasileiros adultos de idade intermediaria e adultos idosos (40-89 anos). Foram selecionados 89 conceitos verbais de um estudo previo sobre normas de associacao semântica categorica. Todos os conceitos foram representados graficamente e avaliados por tres juizes. Posteriormente, cada estimulo pictorico foi normatizado pelos seguintes atributos: concordância conceitual, concordância de nomeacao, familiaridade conceitual e complexidade visual. Os resultados sugerem que 93,3% (83) dos estimulos apresentaram concordância conceitual satisfatoria. Os demais atributos apresentaram indices de correlacao proximos aos observados nos estudos de normatizacao dos maiores bancos internacionais de estimulos pictoricos. Esses resultados sugeriram a qualidade do conjunto de estimulos e contribuirao tanto para o desenvolvimento do Teste MAPS (Memoria e Aprendizagem atraves de Pistas Seletivas) quanto para a criacao de outros instrumentos de avaliacao psicologica e cognitiva. EnglishThe aim of this study was to create and to standardize a new set of 89 pictorial stimuli for Brazilian middle aged and elderly people (40-89 years). Verbal Concepts (89) were selected from studies that investigated norms semantic association. All concepts are drawn and evaluated by three judges. Thereafter, each pictorial stimulus was standardized on the following attributes: conceptual agreement, naming agreement, conceptual familiarity and visual complexity. At least 93.3% (83) stimuli presented satisfactory conceptual agreement. The other attributes showed correlation coefficients close to those observed in the standardization of the largest international sets pictorial stimuli. These results suggest the quality of this set of pictorial stimuli and will contribute for the development of the test called MAPS (Memory and Learning with Selective Cues) and others psychological assessment tools.