Many robotic systems are remotely operated nowadays that require uninterrupted connection and safe mission planning. Such systems are commonly found in military drones, search and rescue operations, mining robotics, agriculture, and environmental monitoring. Different robotic systems may employ disparate communication modalities such as radio network, visible light communication, satellite, infrared, Wi-Fi. However, in an autonomous mission where the robots are expected to be interconnected, communication constrained environment frequently arises due to the out of range problem or unavailability of the signal. Furthermore, several automated projects (building construction, assembly line) do not guarantee uninterrupted communication, and a safe project plan is required that optimizes collision risks, cost, and duration. In this thesis, we propose four pronged approaches to alleviate some of these issues: 1) Communication aware world mapping; 2) Communication preserving using the Line-of-Sight (LoS); 3) Communication aware safe planning; and 4) Multi-Objective motion planning for navigation. First, we focus on developing a communication aware world map that integrates traditional world models with the planning of multi-robot placement. Our proposed communication map selects the optimal placement of a chain of intermediate relay vehicles in order to maximize communication quality to a remote unit. We also vi propose an algorithm to build a min-Arborescence tree when there are multiple remote units to be served. Second, in communication denied environments, we use Line-of-Sight (LoS) to establish communication between mobile robots, control their movements and relay information to other autonomous units. We formulate and study the complexity of a multi-robot relay network positioning problem and propose approximation algorithms that restore visibility based connectivity through the relocation of one or more robots. Third, we develop a framework to quantify the safety score of a fully automated robotic mission where the coexistence of human and robot may pose a collision risk. A number of alternate mission plans are analyzed using motion planning algorithms to select the safest one. Finally, an efficient multi-objective optimization based path planning for the robots is developed to deal with several Pareto optimal cost attributes.

Over history, the technological development, observed mainly from the nineties onwards, has made possible for private organisations to expose a variety of organizational information through media spaces such as television, newspaper and radio visibility which became known as media visibility. In the present days, Internet and Web facilities, such as the possibility of building organizational Websites, have played an important role in widening the media visibility from these organizations by operationalizing several media strategies. For bearing humanistic, solidarian and environmental concerns usually valued by the audience the information regarding corporate social responsibility has become more and more visible in organizational Websites. Within this reasoning in mind, this research study aims to reflect on the media visibility of organizational social responsibility in private organizations Websites. The empirical corpus was formed by 44 private organizations with headquarters in Rio Grande do Sul State, manufacturing and commercializing shoes and associated to the Brazilian Association of Shoes Industry (Associação Brasileira de Indústrias de Calçados - Abicalçados). The specifics research objectives were: to discover if the selected organizations have Websites; to examine whether the information concerning social responsibility are shown in these Websites; to verify if the expressions social responsibility , environmental responsibility and/or social and environmental responsibility combined together are used in these Websites; to identify and analyze the main strategies for presenting the information concerning social responsibility in the Websites of the studied organizations. The empirical analysis had mainly a qualitative approach in which the descriptive and interpretative method was used. The collecting method comprehended the observation of the Websites from the selected organization. The analysis of the data happened simultaneously to its collection. The main results show that 86% of the organizations, in other words, thirty eight (38) of them have organizational Websites. Within these thirty eight (38) Websites, 42% display information regarding social responsibility and 32% make use of the expressions social responsibility and/or environmental responsibility . The presentation strategies of this information in the Websites were related to seven (7) categories: Company, Social Responsibility, Environmental Responsibility, News, Sponsorship, Support and Activities e Social Report. / No decorrer dos tempos, o desenvolvimento tecnológico, observado principalmente a partir da década de noventa, tem possibilitado às organizações privadas tornarem visíveis suas variadas informações organizacionais, por meio de espaços midiáticos como a televisão, o jornal e o rádio visibilidade que passou a ser chamada de visibilidade midiática. No panorama atual, os artifícios da Internet, ligados principalmente ao sistema da Web, tais como os sites organizacionais, têm tido um papel importante na ampliação da visibilidade midiática das organizações, através da operacionalização de uma série de estratégias midiáticas. Por carregarem consigo questões humanistas, solidárias e ambientais, geralmente valorizadas pelos públicos, as informações referentes à responsabilidade social configuram, hoje, como informações cada vez mais visíveis em sites organizacionais. A partir desse raciocínio, esta pesquisa se dedica a refletir acerca da visibilidade midiática da responsabilidade social organizacional em sites de organizações privadas. O corpus para a pesquisa empírica foi constituído por 44 organizações privadas que fabricam e comercializam calçados, que integram a Associação Brasileira de Indústrias de Calçados (Abicalçados) e possuem sede no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Os objetivos específicos compreendem: descobrir se as organizações integrantes da pesquisa empírica possuem sites; investigar se as informações referentes à responsabilidade social estão presentes nos sites dessas organizações; verificar se as expressões responsabilidade social , responsabilidade ambiental e/ou responsabilidade sócio-ambiental estão presentes nesses sites organizacionais; e identificar e analisar as principais estratégias de apresentação das informações referentes à responsabilidade social nesses sites através da observação das palavras e expressões que sinalizam os links em que estão contidas essas informações. A investigação empírica se caracterizou pela abordagem do tipo qualitativa, por meio do método descritivo e interpretativo e a técnica de coleta de dados foi compreendida pela observação dos sites e ocorreu no mês de julho de 2008. Os resultados apontam que 86% das organizações apresentam sites, 41% apresentam informações referentes à responsabilidade social e 27% utilizam as expressões responsabilidade social e/ou responsabilidade ambiental . As estratégias de apresentação dessas informações nos sites foram relacionadas em sete (7) categorias: Organização, Responsabilidade Social, Responsabilidade Ambiental, Notícias, Patrocínios, Apoios e Ações e Balanço Social. Destaca-se também a estratégia de apresentação no site de figuras de selos que certificam a atuação organizacional socialmente responsável e a estratégia do site específico sobre a responsabilidade social da organização.

Dans les quatre pays dominant le Kurdistan, (Turquie, Iran, Irak et Syrie), la question kurde se traduit avant tout sous forme de visibilité/ invisibilité, autour de la question de la reconnaissance des Kurdes en tant que Nation déniée. Notamment en Turquie, le premier des pays à avoir imposé aux Kurdes son modèle d'Etat-Nation, cette question renvoie aux politiques négationnistes étatiques menées contre la culture et l'identité kurdes, considérées dès 1924, comme des obstacles au processus de création d'une identité nationale turque. Dans ce rapport conflictuel entre le nationalisme turc et le nationalisme kurde, également fruit d'une mémorisation traumatique et d'une longue histoire de résistance kurde dans chaque partie du Kurdistan, l'imaginaire des Kurdes renvoie а une dimension historique devenue spontanément une référence essentielle du traitement cinématographique de la « kurdicité », sous forme d’interaction construite par les Kurdes eux-mêmes ou créée par leurs adversaires politiques.Notre thèse s'efforce de montrer cette influence durable du nationalisme sur le traitement cinématographique de la « kurdicité », principalement dans le cinéma turc traitant les Kurdes sans les designer en tant que Kurdes, puis dans le cinéma kurde au service de la « cause kurde » après les années 1990. / In the four countries dominating Kurdistan (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) the Kurdish question translates first and foremost under the concept of visibility/invisibility, around the problem of the recognition of the Kurds as a denied nation. This is especially apparent in the case of Turkey, the first of the countries which imposed its own nation-state on the Kurds : this question is associated with the negationist state policies on Kurdish culture and identity,which, since 1924, have been considered as obstacles on the path to the creation of a nationalTurkish identity. In this conflictual relation between Kurdish and Turkish nationalisms – the fruit, among others, of a traumatic memory and a long history of Kurdish resistance inrespective sections of Kurdistan – the imagery of the Kurds refers to a historical dimensionwhich has spontaneously become an essential reference of cinematographic treatment of« Kurdishness » under the form of interactions constructed by themselves or by their own political opponents. The present thesis aims at describing that permanent influence of nationalism on the cinematographic treatment of « Kurdishness » in the Turkish cinema which principally treats the Kurds without designating them as Kurds, then in the Kurdish cinema in the service of « Kurdish cause » following the 1990s.

The problem addressed in this thesis is the detection, localisation and tracking of human workers from mobile industrial machinery using a customised vision system developed at Örebro University. Coined the RefleX Vision System, its hardware configuration and computer vision algorithms were specifically designed for real-world industrial scenarios where workers are required to wear protective high-visibility garments with retro-reflective markers. The demand for robust industry-purpose human sensing methods originates from the fact that many industrial environments represent work spaces that are shared between humans and mobile machinery. Typical examples of such environments include construction sites, surface and underground mines, storage yards and warehouses. Here, accidents involving mobile equipment and human workers frequently result in serious injuries and fatalities. Robust sensor-based detection of humans in the surrounding of mobile equipment is therefore an active research topic and represents a crucial requirement for safe vehicle operation and accident prevention in increasingly automated production sites. Addressing the described safety issue, this thesis presents a collection of papers which introduce, analyse and evaluate a novel vision-based method for detecting humans equipped with protective high-visibility garments in the neighbourhood of manned or unmanned industrial vehicles. The thesis provides a comprehensive discussion of the numerous aspects regarding the design of the hardware and the computer vision algorithms that constitute the vision system. An active nearinfrared camera setup that is customised for the robust perception of retroreflective markers builds the basis for the sensing method. Using its specific input, a set of computer vision and machine learning algorithms then perform extraction, analysis, classification and localisation of the observed reflective patterns, and eventually detection and tracking of workers with protective garments. Multiple real-world challenges, which existing methods frequently struggle to cope with, are discussed throughout the thesis, including varying ambient lighting conditions and human body pose variation. The presented work has been carried out with a strong focus on industrial applicability, and therefore includes an extensive experimental evaluation in a number of different real-world indoor and outdoor work environments.

Vid inrättandet av nya farleder är synbarheten en viktig fråga när det handlar om valet av sjömärke. Idag grundar sig detta val på subjektiva metoder eftersom det inte finns någon forskning kring det optiska upptäcktsavståndet till de sjömärken som används i svenska farvatten. Används ett sjömärke med för kort upptäcktsavstånd äventyras säkerheten, samtidigt som ett för effektivt sjömärke innebär högre kostnader. Syftet var att studien ska ligga till grund för skapandet av objektiva metoder vid utmärkning av farleder genom att undersöka det optiska upptäcktsavståndet till olika flytande sjömärken. En metodologisk triangulering genomfördes i form av en fältstudie ombord på fartyg och ett frågeformulär som besvarades av lotsar. Resultatet från fältstudien visade att bojarna generellt hade ett längre upptäcktsavstånd gentemot lysprickarna. Upptäcktsavståndet varierade beroende på sjömärkets form, höjd, bredd, färg, ögonhöjd, ljusvinkel, samt bakgrunden bakom sjömärket. Resultatet visade även intressanta skillnader och likheter bland lotsarnas svar kring de faktorer som ansågs påverka det optiska upptäcktsavståndet. / For the introduction of new waterways visibility is of importance when choosing the appropriate sea mark. Today the choice of sea mark is very subjective due to the lack of research regarding the visual detection distance of the ones used in Swedish waters. Safety is jeopardised if a sea mark is used with a detection distance that is too short, whereas a more effective sea mark leads to higher costs. The purpose was that the study would help in creating objective methods when marking waterways by investigating the visual detection distance of different floating sea marks. A methodological triangulation was performed in the form of a field study on board a ship, and a questionnaire was answered by pilots. The field study revealed that the buoys generally had a further detection distance compared to the light spar buoys. The detection distance varied according to the sea marks shape, height, width, colour, eye height, light angle and also the background behind the sea mark. The result also showed interesting differences and similarities amongst the pilots’ answers regarding the factors which where perceived to affect the visual detection distance.

La survie d’un État dépend de la capacité de ses dirigeants à être informés et à communiquer leurs décisions, puis de contrôler leur exécution. L’information dans l’Antiquité circulait par courrier mais aussi par transmissions de signaux sonores et/ou lumineux. Après une étude documentaire des récits attestant la transmission d’informations par signaux lumineux et sonores au Levant au premier millénaire av. J.-C., nous avons démontré que les logiciels utilisés pour la conception des réseaux actuels de télécommunications peuvent suggérer des sites relais utilisés pour cette transmission. Les limites techniques des moyens de l’époque sont des paramètres déterminants. Nous en avons déduit des modèles de réseaux. Enfin ces hypothèses ont été validées sur le terrain. / The survival of a State depends on the capacity of its leaders to be informed and on their successes to communicate their decisions, then to control their executions. The information in the ancient times circulated by mail, but also by transmissions of sound and/or light signals.After a documentary survey of stories attesting the transmission of informations by light and sound signals in the Near East during the first millennium BCE, we tried to see if the software used for telecommunications networks design and planning can hint repeater sites used for this transmission. The limitations of the technology at that time will determine parameters. Models of networks have been deducted. Finally these hypotheses have been validated on the ground.

[pt] Esta dissertação parte do pressuposto de que os regimes de visibilidade apontados por Jacques Rancierè e o conceito de montagem de Didi-Huberman oferecem instrumentos para a análise do texto Desmedida, de 2006, de Ruy Duarte de Carvalho. O objetivo central desta dissertação é o de evidenciar que esta produção artística se afirma, ao mesmo tempo, como instrumento de escrita interventiva, inspirada por três racionalidades distintas: política, pastoril e fílmica. Para tal fim, percebe-se esta objetivação artística como espaço de resistência, reação e enfrentamento de racionalidades hegemônicas e suas imagens discursivas, produzidas para limitar existências em diferentes etapas da experiência colonial, permanecendo ainda como colonialidades contemporâneas. / [en] This dissertation starts from the Jacques Rancierè s visibility regimes and from the Didi-Huberman s concept of montage to the analysis of the text Desmedida, 2006, by Ruy Duarte de Carvalho. The central objective is to evidence this artistic production like an instrument of interventional writing, inspired by three different logics: political, native communities and cinematographic. For that purpose, it s noted that artistic manifestation as a space of resistance, reaction and confrontation to discursive images generated with the intention of limiting existences in different times of the colonial domination, as well as the contemporary colonialities.

[pt] A dissertação Visões invisíveis: ficcionalidade e representação do anônimo no jornalismo literário de Eliane Brum aborda como a jornalista e escritora Eliane Brum utiliza, em seus textos, estratégias narrativas e ficcionais para dar visibilidade a pessoas invisíveis da cidade. Para atingir seus objetivos, este trabalho analisa, a título de corpus principal, as crônicas-reportagens reunidas no livro A vida que ninguém vê. Trata-se de uma coletânea dos melhores textos publicados na coluna homônima do jornal Zero Hora, ao longo de 1999. Nesta análise, busca-se fazer um diálogo entre as obras de Brum, de outros escritores e de teóricos tais como Jacques Rancière, Georges Perec, Maurice Blanchot, Jean-François Lyotard, entre outros. Os estudos problematizados passam por questões relacionadas ao cotidiano, à ideia de ficcionalidade e a regimes de visibilidade. Uma das conclusões desta dissertação é que Eliane Brum restitui, pela linguagem e por estratégias ficcionais, o caráter de excepcionalidade do anônimo, dando a ver, assim, a vida que ninguém vê. Para isso, é necessário que ela primeiro enxergue verdadeiramente o ordinário da vida comum. / [en] The Invisible Views Essay: The fictionality and representation of the anon-ymous in the literary journalism of Eliana Brum addresses how she utilizes in her texts narrative and fictional strategies to give visibility to invisible people in the city. To accomplish it s goals, this work analizes primordially the essay-reports gathered in the book The Life Nobody Sees. Here we have a collection of the best texts published in the homonymous column in the Zero Hora newspaper published along 1999. In this analysis, one seeks to make a dialogue between the works of Brum, other writers and theoricians like Jacques Rancière, Georges Perec, Mau-rice Blanchot, Jean Françoise Lyotard among others. The problematized studies touch issues related to everyday life, the idea of functionality and visibility re-gimes. One of the conclusions of the essay is that Eliane Brum restores, by lan-guage and by functional strategies, the exceptionality character of the anonymous, making visible, thus, the life noone sees. For that it s necessary that she first truly sees the ordinary of common life.

Dans le présent travail, nous proposons qu'un aperçu plus clair de l'interaction entre la suggestion hypnotique et l'attention aiderait à établir le point précis du chronogramme perceptif auquel les effets de l'hypnose interviennent, comment modulent-ils exactement le contrôle cognitif et dans quelle mesure la réponse hypnotique dépend-elle des ressources attentionnelles. Afin de répondre à ces questions expérimentales, nous avons développé trois projets de recherche: (1) les données normatives sur notre traduction en français pour l'Échelle de Susceptibilité Hypnotique de Groupe Harvard, (2) une évaluation des effets de la suggestion posthypnotique sur l'attention visuo-spatiale et (3) une évaluation sur la capacité de la suggestion hypnotique de moduler l'allocation automatique de l'attention accordée par le Anger Superiority Effect. Les résultats de notre première étude nous ont permis de noter avec fiabilité la susceptibilité hypnotique de plus de 500 participants pour les études qui ont suivi. Les résultats de notre deuxième étude indiquent que, pour les participants hautement susceptibles, la suggestion posthypnotique a perturbé avec succès les mécanismes d'attention précoce nécessaires à la stimulation de l'amorçage, ainsi que des jugements de visibilité subjectifs tardifs. Notre troisième étude a révélé que, grâce à une suggestion hypnotique, les participants hautement hypnotizables ont pu empêcher l'allocation automatique de l'attention vers des expressions de colère par un découplage stratégique du contrôle cognitif, mais seulement lorsque les ressources attentionnelles n'avaient pas été cooptées par des processus concurrents. Ensemble, nos résultats appuient les idées selon lesquelles l'hypnose émet ses effets grâce au contrôle cognitif, qui peut perturber les mécanismes attentionnels précoces et tardifs de manières distinctes et que la disponibilité des ressources attentionnelles détermine l'éventail d'action de l'induction et de la suggestion hypnotiques / In the present work, we posit that a clearer outline of the interaction between hypnotic suggestion and attention would help establishing the precise point in the perceptual timeline at which hypnosis effects intervene, how exactly do they modulate cognitive control, and to what extent is hypnotic responding dependent on attentional resources. In order to tend to these experimental questions, we developed three research projects: (1) the normative data on our French translation for the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, (2) an evaluation of the effects of posthypnotic suggestion on visuospatial attention, and (3) an evaluation on the capability of hypnotic suggestion to modulate the automatic attention allocation granted by the anger-saliency effect. The results from our first study allowed us to reliably score the hypnotic susceptibility of over 500 participants for the studies that ensued. Results from our second study indicated that for highly susceptible participants, posthypnotic suggestion successfully disrupted the early attentional mechanisms necessary for the fostering of priming, as well as late subjective visual awareness judgments. Our third study revealed that, through hypnotic suggestion, highly susceptible participants were able to deflect automatic attention allocation towards targets’ task-irrelevant angry features through strategic decoupling of cognitive control, but only when attentional resources were not coopted by competing processes. Pooled together, our findings support the ideas that hypnosis enacts its effects through cognitive control, that these can disrupt both early and late attentional mechanisms in distinct manners, and that the availability of attentional resources determines the range of action of hypnotic induction and suggestion

Previous studies have shown that bisexual women experience the lowest psychological well-being among the LGBTQ+ community. Bisexuality has been questioned as being a legitimized sexual orientation, both among the heterosexual group, as well within the LGBTQ+ community. Social media has brought on multiple benefits for LGBTQ+ people. One of those benefits is the ability to join groups specifically for LGBTQ+ people and in turn meet other people within the community. However, navigating some platforms have shown to be more problematic. Studies have shown that Facebook pose problems for LGBTQ+ people making their sexual orientation visible because of the different types of people that can partake in the content. The purpose of this study is to investigate potential differences or similarities between bisexual and lesbian women / nonbinary people's sense of security and attitude towards making one's sexual orientation visible on Facebook and Instagram. The study uses a quantitative method in form of a Google Forms survey sent out in Facebook groups, and published on Tumblr as well as on a Reddit forum. Hogan’s exhibitional approach is used as the study’s theoretical framework. The exhibitional approach focuses on how we modify our content on social media in consideration of the consumers, the algorithms and how our data is stored on social media platforms. There was a low response frequency among the respondents which led to a bias between the number of lesbians and bisexuals. The result showed that there wasn’t any statistical correlation between the variables visibility attempts of sexual orientation and being bisexual or lesbian. There was however a correlation between low identity uncertainty and being bisexual or lesbian. Studies on bisexuals show that there is a demand for continuous research on different aspects of bisexual women’s situation in society.