Questões de Inglês

[1] Juliano Pinto, a 29-year-old with complete

paralysis of the lower trunk, performed the

symbolic kick-off at the Corinthians Arena in Sao

Paulo, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Using his

[5] robotic suit, Mr Pinto kicked the official ball a short

distance along a mat laid down by the touchline.

His robotic exoskeleton was created by

a team of more than 150 researchers led by

Brazilian neuroscientist Dr Miguel Nicolelis. The

[10] neuroscientist, who is based at Duke University

in the US, is a leading figure in the field of

brain-machine interfaces. In breakthrough work

published in 2003, he showed that monkeys could

control the movement of virtual arms on an avatar

[15] using just their brain activity.

Dr Nicolelis had been training eight patients

at his lab in Sao Paulo, all of whom were over 20

years of age, with the oldest about 35. "It\'s the first

time an exoskeleton has been controlled by brain

[20] activity and offered feedback to the patients,"

Dr Nicolelis said. "Doing a demonstration in a

stadium is something very much outside our

routine in robotics. It\'s never been done before."

The exoskeleton uses a cap placed on the

[25] patient\'s head to pick up brain signals and relay

them to a computer in the exoskeleton\'s backpack.

This then decodes the signals and sends them to the

legs. The robotic suit is powered by hydraulics, and

a battery in the backpack allows for approximately

[30] two hours of use. "The basic idea is that we are

recording from the brain and then that signal is

being translated into commands for the robot to

start moving," Dr Gordon Cheng, a member of the

team, told the BBC.

[35] Dr Cheng led the development of a form of

artificial skin for the exoskeleton. This skin consists

of flexible printed circuit boards, each containing

pressure, temperature and speed sensors.

It is applied on the soles of the feet and allows

[40] the patient to receive tactile stimulation when

walking with the exoskeleton. When the robotic suit

starts to move and touches the ground, signals are

transmitted to an electronic vibration device on the

patient\'s arm, which stimulates their skin.

[45] After lots of practice, the brain starts associating

the movements of the legs with the vibration in the

arm. In theory, the patient should start to develop

the sensation that they have legs and that they are

walking.

[50] The suit has been named Bra-Santos Dumont,

which combines the three-letter designation for

Brazil and Alberto Santos Dumont, the aviation

pioneer who was born in the country\'s southern

state of Minas Gerais.

MARTINS, Alejandra; RINCON, Paul. Paraplegic in robotic suit kicks off World Cup. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 20 ago. 2015. Adaptado.

 

Fill in the parentheses with T (True) or F (False).

 

About Juliano Pinto, it’s correct to say:

 

( ) He is paralyzed from the waist down.

( ) In order to kick the ball, he wore a robotic suit controlled by his mind.

( ) He needed no special training to perform the experience with the robotic suit.

( ) He managed to kick the ball from one side to the other of the football field.

 

The correct sequence, from top to bottom, is

Why Restoring Nature Could Be the Key to Fighting Climate Change

For decades, scientists and policymakers have focused on changing human behavior to address climate change. Regulations have mandated reduced carbon emissions,subsidies have supported the development of renewable energy and individuals have worked to make their lifestyles more sustainable.

Disponível em: <http://time.com/4070683/nature-climate-change> Acesso em: 20 out. 2015.

The words sustainable and subsidies can be best understood as

Russian LGBT People Could Be Arrested For \'Coming Out\' in Public Under New Legislation

 

Russian parliamentarians are drafting a bill that could mean LGBT people would be fined or face jail for "coming out" or making a "public confession of their non-traditional sexual orientation," state-owned newspaper Izvestia reported on Friday.

The bill is intended as an amendment to the already controversial law banning "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" to minors. The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, passed the original law in 2013 that has been labelled "a tool of discrimination [that] legitimizes anti-LGBT violence" by Human Rights Watch.

According to the proposed amendment to the law, people who are defined as having "non-traditional sexual orientation" could be fined 5,000 roubles ($80) for "demonstrating [their] own expressed sexual preferences in public places." If the same is done in schools, cultural establishments or government buildings, this would be punishable by up to 15 days in jail.

Duma members Ivan Nikitchuk and Nikolay Arefiev, both of whom are members of the Communist Party, drafted the bill saying they believe it will strengthen Russia\'s public morals. "I believe that the problem we have raised is one of the most pressing and topical issues as it addresses the social ills of our society and deals with the moral education of the next generation," Nikitchuk told Izvestia. "In the biological sense, not reproducing is the same as death and in that sense homosexuality is a lethal threat for the whole of humankind."

Nikitchuk told the Russian daily that he believes the existing framework of laws regarding LGBT people is insufficient. A recent poll by Russia\'s independent Levada Center found that the desire to ostracise LGBT people had increased in Russia since the fall of Communism. 37 percent of respondents said LGBT people should be "isolated from society," an increase from 28 percent who thought this in 1989, and higher than the number of Russians who thought the same about drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes. 21 percent said they wanted to "liquidate" LGBT people.

In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the idea that Russia had problems with anti-LGBT hate crime, telling U.S. broadcaster CBS that the issue had been "deliberately exaggerated" by foreign media and there was "no persecution at all" in Russia.

Disponível em: . Acesso em: 23 out. 2015.

 

Select the correct proposition(s).

 

I. The reason to support the new legislation come from the moral education and a biological sense.

II. The past participle of thought in the excerpt “an increase from 28 percent who thought this in 1989” is taught.

III. Should in the excerpt “37 percent of respondents said LGBT people should be isolated from society" can be replaced for ought to.

IV. We can infer that moral principles are more valuable than respect and tolerance for some Russian parliamentarians.

V. The past perfect continuous of the following sentence “"I believe that the problem we have raised is one of the most pressing and topical issues” is: “I believe that the problem we have been raising is one of the most pressing and topical issues”.

Select the appropriate title for the comic.

Economists are Starting to Warn About the Risk of a New U.S. Recession

 

Confronted with disappointing data from around the world,  economists are whispering a word that hasn’t seemed like areal possibility in years: recession. It starts with the slowdown in China, which is already straining the global recovery. The world’s second-largest economy has lost its appetite for the raw materials that fueled its industrial boom, leaving the smaller countries that supplied it with resources stumbling in its wake. Slower growth abroad translates into weaker foreign currencies and a stronger U.S. dollar, which makes American goods harder to sell in the global marketplace.

A growing chorus of prominent economists and analysts are arguing those dynamics could tip the world -- and the United States along with it -- into recession within the next two years. The fear is showing up in the recent wild swings in financial markets, rare outside of broader economic downturns. The pace of U.S. job growth has slowed substantially compared to last year. And though the economic expansion has never quite reached many workers, it has actually lasted longer than the post-war average

“The global economy is uncomfortably close to the edge,” said David Stockton, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. […] Since World War II, recessions have occurred an average of every five years. The current expansion is more than six years old, beginning in July 2009. A recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction, but an official designation is often not made until long after the decline has already begun.

The Great Recession started in December 2007 but was not officially diagnosed until a year later -- after the Dow Jones Industrial average had already fallen roughly 40 percent and more than 3.5 million workers had lost their jobs.

“A recession is inevitable in the fullness of time. The question is when is one likely to occur?” said Jason Thomas, director of research at The Carlyle Group, a financial services and private equity firm.

Thomas said he doesn’t believe one is imminent. But themore important question, he said, is how damaging it would be if it occurred. Most economists, including Thomas, believe the next recession will likely be mild. The problem is that the nation’s top policymakers may have less power to combat it.

If anything, analysts worry that it will be officials in Washington who inadvertently send the economy over the edge. Bitterly divided lawmakers have no clear plan for averting a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt obligations next month or a shutdown of the federal government in December. The hurdle for any stimulus may be insurmountable.

The other backstop during the financial crisis was the Fed. The nation’s central bank slashed its key interest rate to zero in December 2008 and has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy. Seven years later, rates are still at zero and the Fed has maintained a $4.5 trillion balance sheet.

In other words, most of the central bank’s arsenal is already deployed.

Disponível em: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/>. Acesso em: 21 out. 2015. (Adaptado)

Choose the correct alternative according to the text.

Colombian Government and Rebels Agree to Retrieve, ID Remains of Guerrilla War Dead

 

State and rebel leaders in Colombia agreed on Saturday to implement an unprecedented plan to locate, identify and return the remains of the tens of thousands of people who have disappeared in the country’s lengthy ongoing civil conflict, TeleSUR, a South American broadcasting network, reported.

The agreement, between the Colombian government and the left-wing guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), is a milestone in a bloody conflict that has spanned half a century, leaving 220,000 people dead and displacing 6 million more. More than 50,000 people are still missing, according to government approximations.

The FARC and other left-wing extremist groups claim to defend Colombia’s poor against state hostility in the name of communism; right-wing paramilitary groups use force to lash out against the left-wing guerrillas; the government says it merely seeks to establish stability and protect its citizens. Experts say that all three parties have abused human rights by either action or inaction in what has been described as the longest ongoing domestic conflict in the Western hemisphere.

Per the agreement, both FARC and the government will work to identify and retrieve the remains of their victims, with the state facilitating burials in cemeteries located in areas impacted by the conflict. It is the latest advance in a recent concerted effort to establish peace between the guerrillas and the Colombian government. A month ago, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri — known by his nom de guerre Timochenko — symbolically met in Havana to begin a sixmonth period in which a mutual peace accord will be drafted.

Disponível em: <http://time.com/4077682/colombia-farc-disappeared-civil-war> Acesso em: 20 out. 2015.

In paragraph 3, the term “all three parties” refers to