Com o aumento na disponibilidade e considerável redução de custo das tecnologias que permitem a obtenção de dados de objetos móveis, torna-se abundante a oferta de dados de trajetórias. O estudo dessas trajetórias tem por objetivo permitir uma melhor compreensão dos dados, bem como a extração de novo conhecimento utilizando técnicas computacionais. Um tipo de estudo que pode ser realizado é a análise do comportamento das trajetórias de objetos móveis. O foco do estudo de padrões comportamentais em trajetórias tem sido a busca por padrões de aglomeração ou semelhança no deslocamento de entidades no espaço ou espaço-tempo. Este trabalho propõe a formalização de um novo padrão comportamental que indique quando um objeto móvel está evitando determinadas regiões espaciais. Este padrão foi denominado avoidance. A identificação e o estudo de tal comportamento pode ser de interesse de diversas áreas tais como segurança, jogos eletrônicos, comportamento social, entre outros. Inicialmente, este trabalho apresenta uma heurística com base nas observações das ocorrências do evento avoidance. A partir daí, são definidas as formalizações deste novo padrão. É apresentado, também, um algoritmo para identificar automaticamente o padrão comportamental avoidance em trajetórias de objetos móveis. Para avaliar a eficácia deste algoritmo, ao final desta dissertação são apresentados resultados de experimentos realizados em trajetórias coletadas por pedestres e por veículos em diversos locais da cidade de Porto Alegre e Xangri-lá. / With the increasing availability and considerable price reduction of technologies that allow the collection of moving object data, the offering of trajectory data becomes abundant. The study of these trajectories has the objective to allow a better understanding of the data, as well as the extraction of new knowledge using computational techniques. One of the possible studies is the analysis of the behavior of moving objects. The study on behavior patterns in trajectories has focused on agglomeration and similarity of entities moving in space or space and time. This work proposes the formalization of a new behavior pattern that indicates when a moving object is avoiding some determined spatial region, here called avoidance. The study and identification of this behavior may be of interest in many application areas, like security, electronic games, social behavior, and so on. Initially, this work presents an heuristic based on the observations of avoidance events, and based on this heuristic we define the formalization of this new kind of trajectory behavior pattern. This work also presents an algorithm to automatically identify this behavior in trajectories of moving objects. To evaluate the effectiveness of this algorithm, experiments were performed on trajectory datasets, collected by pedestrians in a park, and by vehicles at several places in the cities of Porto Alegre and Xangri-lá.

L’utilisation de systèmes d’imagerie à rayons X lors de chirurgies mini-invasives expose patients et staff médical à des radiations ionisantes. Même si les doses absorbées peuvent être faibles, l’exposition chronique peut causer des effets nocifs (e.g. cancer). Dans cette thèse, nous proposons des nouvelles méthodes pour améliorer la sécurité vis-à-vis des radiations ionisantes en salle opératoire hybride dans deux directions complémentaires. Premièrement, nous présentons des approches pour rendre les cliniciens plus conscients des irradiations grâce à des visualisations par réalité augmentée. Deuxièmement, nous proposons une méthode d'optimisation pour suggérer une pose de l’imageur réduisant la dose au personnel et patient, tout en conservant la qualité de l’image. Pour rendre ces applications possibles, des nouvelles approches pour la perception de la salle grâce à des caméras RGBD et pour la simulation en temps-réel de la propagation et doses de radiation ont aussi été proposées. / The use of X-ray imaging technologies during minimally-invasive procedures exposes both patients and medical staff to ionizing radiation. Even if the dose absorbed during a single procedure can be low, long-term exposure can lead to noxious effects (e.g. cancer). In this thesis, we therefore propose methods to improve the overall radiation safety in the hybrid operating room by acting in two complementary directions. First, we propose approaches to make clinicians more aware of exposure by providing in-situ visual feedback of the ongoing radiation dose by means of augmented reality. Second, we propose to act on the X-ray device positioning with an optimization approach for recommending an angulation reducing the dose deposited to both patient and staff, while maintaining the clinical quality of the outcome image. Both applications rely on approaches proposed to perceive the room using RGBD cameras and to simulate in real-time the propagation of radiation and the deposited dose.

El trabajo consiste en la implementación y análisis de seguridad de un sistema distribuido de respaldo de datos, usando redes punto a punto, resistente ante fallas producto de ataques masivos de virus o gusanos. En la fase inicial del trabajo se estudian dos protocolos de comunicación para el sistema: el protocolo simple (o básico) y el protocolo avanzado. En el protocolo simple, cada usuario, a través de un password, genera claves para cifrar los respaldos y para firmar los mensajes que se envían a los demás participantes. Ambos sistemas permiten garantizar la autenticidad, integridad y confidencialidad de los datos respaldados ante fallas masivas ocasionadas por ataques de virus y gusanos. Sin embargo, este protocolo no es seguro en escenarios donde los virus o gusanos pudieran activamente atacar el sistema de respaldo - por ejemplo, un virus que obtiene las claves y, con ello, realiza falsos respaldos o borra respaldos antiguos. Además, el protocolo alcanza algunas propiedades interesantes de seguridad sólo bajo el supuesto que ciertas condiciones - más bien exigentes - se cumplen, algo difícil de garantizar en todos los escenarios. Es por esto que se propone y analiza un protocolo avanzado, el cual logra evitar las limitaciones del protocolo básico ocupando técnicas criptográficas más sofisticadas aunque potencialmente de mayor costo. Desde un punto de vista formal, la seguridad de ambos protocolos es analizada utilizando el paradigma de composición universal (o Universal Composability en Inglés). El objetivo es realizar una demostración matemática y rigurosa de la seguridad de los protocolos distribuidos propuestos. En este trabajo también se documenta el diseño y desarrollo de una implementación del protocolo básico. La aplicación se implementó usando componentes de manera que sea extensible a incorporar nuevas herramientas y mejoras. Finalmente, se analiza la incorporación de un sistema de reputación al sistema de respaldo propuesto. Con esto se pretende evitar que algunos usuarios hagan mal uso del sistema.

Memoria (licenciado en ciencias jurídicas y sociales) / Para la realización del presente trabajo se ha analizado doctrina, tanto nacional como comparada sobre el contrato internacional de distribución, libre competencia y contratación; y se ha utilizado el análisis práctico de formularios de contratos internacionales de distribución, los cuales se citan, en parte, a través del desarrollo de la primera parte del trabajo. Además, se ha analizado jurisprudencia de nuestras comisiones antimonopolio, como también jurisprudencia de nuestros tribunales ordinarios y jurisprudencia comparada.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Spontaneous cases of chronic poisoning by Pteridium aquilinum in cattle were studied. The clinical forms of the disease were squamous cell carcinoma (SCCs) of the upper digestive tract (UDT) and bovine enzootic hematuria (BEH). The cases were from the midland Region of the Midwest of Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. For the epidemiological study, the profile of the farms was analyzed about herd purpose, main activity of the farm, altitude, and area of plant infestation. No differences were observed among the clinical forms, according to these criteria. Analysis of the ager, gender, and breed of the affected cattle revealed that, in both clinical forms of disease, mixed breed cows (more common in that region) were more affected. In BEH, adult cattle (3-to-7-years-old) were more frequently affected. In the form of UDT SCCs, aged cattle (more than 8- years-old) were more affected. For the clinical study, clinical signs and blood work were evaluated at terminal phase of disease. Cattle with UDT SCCs, had progressive weigth loss, ruminal atony, cough, dysphagia, bloating, and regurgitation. Hematuria was clinically observed in one case of this disease form. In cattle with BEH, hematuria was observed in all cases, followed by progresive weigth loss. Non-regenerative anemia was detected in 33.33% in UDT SCCs form and in 66.66% of BEH form. Changes in white blood count occurred in some cases but drop in lymphocytes was uncommon in both forms of disease. For the morfological study, urinary bladders of 46 UDT SCCs cases and 11 BEH cases were analyzed. Grossly, 16/46 bladders of the UDT SCCs form had gross lesions (vesical red or pale nodules, hemorrhages, and papilomas; red urine in the three cases). In BEH form, the bladder had nodules, large neoplastic masses, red urine, papilomas, and hemorrhages. Pielonephritis and hidronephosis were seen in a few cases. Microscopically, in the UDT SCCs form, 44/46 (95.65%) bladders had 22 different types of morphological changes, caracterized by neoplastic lesions (5/22) and non-neoplastic lesions (17/22), which were subdivided in non-neoplastic epithelial changes (6/17), general changes of the lamina propria (6/17), and inflammatory changes (5/17). The bladder changes in BEH form were of 19 different types, caracterized by neoplastic lesions (5/19) and non-neoplastic lesions (14/19), which were subdivided in non-neoplastic epitelial changes (9/14), general changes of the lamina propria (3/14), and inflammatory changes (2/14). In BEH, mesenchymal neoplasms were more observed than epithelial ones, and most of them were malignant. Immunohistochemistry was utilized to characterize the histogenesis of poorly differentiated neoplasms. In conclusion, the morfological study showed that urinary bladder lesions are very often in cattle with the UDT SCCs form, and were identical to the ones seen in cattle with BEH. / Foram estudados casos espontâneos de intoxicação crônica por samambaia em bovinos nas formas clinicopatológicas de carcinoma de células escamosas (CCE) no trato alimentar superior (TAS) e de hematúria enzoótica bovina (HEB), provenientes da Mesorregião Centro Ocidental do Rio-Grandense e encaminhados ao Laboratório de Patologia Veterinária (LPV) da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM). Para o estudo epidemiológico, foi avaliado o perfil das propriedades quanto à finalidade da criação, principal atividade da propriedade, altitude e área de infestação pela planta. Quanto a esses parâmetros, as propriedades com uma ou outra forma de intoxicação crônica não apresentaram diferenças. Foi determinado o perfil dos bovinos afetados quanto à idade, sexo e raça. Os mais afetados por ambas as formas clínicas foram fêmeas de raça mista (predominante na região). Na HEB houve predomínio de bovinos adultos (três a sete anos) e a forma de CCEs no TAS afetou mais bovinos idosos (mais de oito anos). Para o estudo clínico foram avaliados os sinais clínicos de bovinos com CCEs no TAS e com HEB e realizados hemogramas na fase terminal da doença. Os principais sinais clínicos nos bovinos com CCEs no TAS foram emagrecimento progressivo, atonia ruminal, tosse, disfagia, timpanismo, regurgitação e hematúria, vista em um caso. Nos bovinos com HEB, hematúria foi o principal sinal, observado em todos os casos, seguido de emagrecimento progressivo. No exame hematológico, 33,33% dos bovinos com CCEs no TAS e 66,67% dos bovinos com HEB apresentaram anemia arregenerativa. Alterações no leucograma ocorreram em alguns casos, mas linfopenia foi um achado infreqüente em ambas as formas de intoxicação. Para o estudo morfológico, foram avaliadas as bexigas de 46 casos de CCEs no TAS e de 11 casos de HEB. Macroscopicamente, 16/46 bexigas dos casos de CCEs no TAS apresentaram alterações macroscópicas, que foram nódulos vermelhos ou pálidos, hemorragia e papilomas; urina vermelha foi observada em três casos. Nos casos de HEB, os achados macroscópicos vesicais foram nódulos vermelhos, massas neoplásicas focalmente extensas, urina vermelha, papilomas, hemorragias e ruptura de bexiga; pielonefrite e hidronefrose foram observados em poucos casos. Histologicamente, 44/46 (95,65%) bexigas de bovinos com CCEs no TAS apresentaram 22 tipos diferentes de alterações morfológicas, que foram classificadas em alterações neoplásicas (5/22) e alterações não-neoplásicas (17/22), as quais foram divididas em alterações epiteliais não-neoplásicas (6/17), alterações gerais na lâmina própria (6/22) e alterações inflamatórias (5/17). Os achados histológicos das bexigas dos casos de HEB foram classificados da mesma forma, resultando em 19 tipos diferentes de alterações morfológicas. Dessas, 5/19 eram alterações neoplásicas e 14/19, alterações não-neoplásicas (9/14 alterações epiteliais não neoplásicas, 3/14 alterações gerais na lâmina própria e 2/14 alterações inflamatórias). Na HEB, os neoplasmas mesenquimais foram mais observados que os epiteliais, e a maior parte era maligno. A técnica de imuno-histoquímica foi utilizada para caracterizar os aspectos morfológicos, principalmente dos neoplasmas. Através do estudo morfológico concluiu-se que é muito freqüente a ocorrência de lesões vesicais em bovinos com a forma crônica de CCEs no TAS e que essas são idênticas às encontradas nos bovinos com HEB.

In Tanzania and other developing countries entrepreneurship plays a vital role in the fight against poverty and unemployment. That’s why entrepreneurship should not be underestimated especially in rural areas where poverty is widespread. For instance, in Tanzania rural women entrepreneurs contribute significantly to economic development although their contribution has not been studied in any great depth. This research addressed the following research questions (1) what are the major characteristics of women entrepreneurs and their enterprises? (2) What are the types of income generating activities (IGAs) undertaken by rural women entrepreneurs?, (3) Do women access the traditional forms of capital or funding in starting and maintaining their businesses (i.e. credit unions, bank loans) and what is the role of finance institutions in financing women entrepreneurs?, (4) How do they measure their business success in entrepreneurial performance, and what contributions have they made to Tanzania?, (5) What are the barriers and/or obstacles that female entrepreneurs face in initiating and growth of IGAs entrepreneurial performance?, and (6) What cultural constraints does women’s participation in IGAs face? It is found that women entrepreneurs in Tanzania face a number of challenges compared to men. Even poverty in Tanzania is concentrated more in rural areas and is more wide spread among women than men, as it is in many underdeveloped countries. This has made women getting involved in different activities in the society, and plays a very big role in the informal sectors, waged labour and household production, although they are not included in development planning. Therefore it has been found that there has been very little in the extant literature that examined how women are disadvantaged by the male dominated environment in rural Africa; the main studies examine women’s entrepreneurial activities in urban Africa. Hence, this research examined the barriers to the success of women’s income generating activities in rural Tanzania from a cultural perspective. It looks into Tanzanian women’s place within their traditional culture from a feminist perspective and how this constrains entrepreneurial activity. Also this study uncovered the setbacks and developmental issues related to women’s entrepreneurship in relation to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania. The study was qualitative and adopted an ethnographic research strategy using in-depth-interviews and participant observation techniques to collect primary information from a sample of 24 participants: 20 rural women participating in income generating activities (IGAs) and interviewed 4 officials who were purposively selected. Women in rural areas still run undersized enterprises and most of their businesses are small individual enterprises (SIEs) and not SMEs. Women encounter distinct barriers like lack of financial support, lack of networks, lack of education, limited market, lack of access to MFIs, lack of education and knowledge of running a business and lack of governmental support were uncovered to be the problems in the study. Further cultural barriers were also identified where women still encounter discriminatory treatment in their communities due to their ascribed roles, constraining their entrepreneurial success. Cultural barriers have led them to fear performing entrepreneurial activities which interfere with their household chores, which has been among the major barriers hindering women from performing better in their entrepreneurial activities. Moreover, they lack time to access training and acquire skills on entrepreneurial performance, as well as lacking access to opportunities. Although women work hard, still their SIEs are under-sized with low profits and low growth. Women-owned businesses have limited achievement, causing them not to sustain their enterprises, due to the number of challenges facing them. Characteristics of an entrepreneur, moreover, were seen to differ according to the country; the characteristics in the developed economies are different from those in developing economies. Developed economies were seen to engage in entrepreneurship driven by pull factors, while developing economies were driven by push factors. The study surprisingly revealed lack of education to be one of the characteristics pushing women to enter into the entrepreneurial activities, as they had no other option for sustainability and this adds a new characteristic in the body of knowledge which was not found in the literature. Hence, policies and programmes for the support of women entrepreneurs need to begin with the diagnosis of the motives driving women entrepreneurs to a promising business prospect, aiming at strengthening the push factors, which will constitute a foundation for more practical and innovative entrepreneurial activities. The Tanzanian government should use its schemes to extend microcredit services to women through microcredit schemes like the Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO), women’s development funds and women’s banks. Broad outreach would promote poverty alleviation through the informal sectors which are pursued by the majority of Tanzanian rural women. Hence, a formulation of policies is needed to promote financial help to rural women entrepreneurs, which will be an opportunity to enhance women’s growth.

The development of numerical methods for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations received much attention in the past 50 years. Finite element methods emerged given their robustness and reliability. In our work, we choose the P2-P1 finite element for space approximation which gives 2nd-order accuracy for velocity and 1st-order accuracy for pressure. Our research focuses on the development of several high-order semi-implicit time-stepping methods to compute unsteady flows. The methods investigated include backward difference formulae (SBDF) and defect correction strategy (DC). Using the defect correction strategy, we investigate two variants, the first one being based on high-order artificial compressibility and bootstrapping strategy proposed by Guermond and Minev (GM) and the other being a combination of GM methods with sequential regularization method (GM-SRM). Both GM and GM-SRM methods avoid solving saddle point problems as for SBDF and DC methods. This approach reduces the complexity of the linear systems at the expense that many smaller linear systems need to be solved. Next, we proposed several numerical improvements in terms of better approximations of the nonlinear advection term and high-order initialization for all methods. To further minimize the complexity of the resulting linear systems, we developed several new variants of grad-div splitting algorithms besides the one studied by Guermond and Minev. Splitting algorithm allows us to handle larger flow problems. We showed that our new methods are capable of reproducing flow characteristics (e.g., lift and drag parameters and Strouhal numbers) published in the literature for 2D lid-driven cavity and 2D flow around the cylinder. SBDF methods with grad-div stabilization terms are found to be very stable, accurate and efficient when computing flows with high Reynolds numbers. Lastly, we showcased the robustness of our methods to carry 3D computations.

Some school psychologists have made a practice of using adverse incidents in a child's early development as the basis for diagnosing children's reading difficulties and attributing those incidents to a possible organic base. However, the previous research has not been wholely supportive of a link between developmental history concerns and the acquisition of reading related skills. Thus, this research was intended to determine which incidents in the reported developmental history provided the best predictors of later reading difficulty. The developmental history form from the U.B.C. Education Clinic was used as the data gathering instrument and requested parental information about the child's family background, pregnacy and birthing factors, acquisition of developmental milestones, and health history. This instrument was chosen as it is uniformly completed by the U.B.C. school psychology students. This research was also intended to determine which areas of the form were the most effective in predicting later reading difficulties. Obtained samples of successful reading students (n=28) and delayed readers (n=35) were compared in terms of the significant incidents reported in their developmental histories. Results did substantiate some of the previous research in terms of the family background characteristics, pregnancy and birth concerns, and developmental milestone profile, previously associated with later reading difficulty. No significant incidents were noted in the health history section though it was concluded that valuable information appeared in all sections of the current developmental history form. However, this research design did not allow for predictive statistics as initially intended due to the qualitative nature of the data collected. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

The mythological writings of C.G. Jung provide the basis for a comparative study of two nineteenth-century authors — E.T.A. Hoffmann and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The hero myth is the main interpretive tool, although other aspects of Jungian theory are also included in order to expand the concept of psychic growth. The introductory section sets forth Jung's basic ideas, as well as those of his follower, Erich Neumann. The second chapter offers an analysis of Hoffmann's Der Sandmann. The traumatic experience of the young Nathanael is shown to be the original projection of his psychic dilemma. His development is characterized by a feeling of impotence, as manifest in his fear of losing his eyes. This psychic impotence finally wins the struggle for control when Nathanael commits suicide. Crime and Punishment is also examined in light of the hero myth. Raskolnikov's crime is discussed as a psychic necessity, shifting his motivation from his outer deprivation to his inner impotence. He, too, is plagued by threatening archetypes, but unlike Nathanael he is able to overcome them; he finally recognizes his psychic situation and through this recognition draws closer to a state of psychic wholeness. The final chapter explores the advantages and disadvantages of a Jungian approach to literature, as seen in the analyses of the two works. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Class of 2017 Abstract / Objectives: To determine the cost-effectiveness of proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors with high-intensity statins compared to high-intensity statins alone for the treatment of heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH). Methods: A Markov model was built through TreeAge Pro to model two groups: patients taking PCSK9 inhibitors with high-intensity statins or high-intensity statins alone. For each group, there were five health states that patients could be in: well, unstable angina, myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, or death. The data used in the model were extracted from published clinical trials evaluating PCSK9 inhibitors and statins. Results: For the primary analysis, the overall cost and effectiveness was $31,390.93 and 23.01 for the statin alone group and $362,798.50 and 24.32 for the PCSK9 with statin group, respectively. The incremental cost, incremental QALY, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was $331,407.60, 1.31 QALYs, and $252,833.60/QALY, respectively. Conclusions: Since the calculated ICER was higher than the pre-established threshold of $150,000, the results from our primary analysis suggest that treatment of patients with HeFH with a PCSK9 inhibitor and a high-intensity statin is not cost effective, compared to treatment with a high-intensity statin alone. However, when certain parameters (cost of PSCK9 and mortality rate) were adjusted in the secondary analyses, these agents appear to be cost-effective.