Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T16:58:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 alexandre notari.pdf: 286199 bytes, checksum: 591269af2d5afccbd3071b0fac3cc7e1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2002-10-30 / This research has as objective to get a systematic diagnosis of the main errors and difficulties revealed for pupils of Basic Ensino and Average Ensino in the simplification of arithmetical and algebraic fractions. They had been selected, for the inquiry, one 8ª series of Basic Ensino and one 1ª series of Average Ensino of two public schools of the Region West, of the city of São Paulo. We assume as referencial theoretician the happened ones of research where Algebra, in these levels of education, must search its beddings in the laws of the Arithmetic. However, it does not reduce it to a generalization of these laws, a time that algebraic the conceptual system incorporates elements and Inter-relations with proper characteristics. The data had been gotten by means of period of training in a classroom of each one of the mentioned series, application of a test and interviews. The main conclusions point with respect to one high number of errors in the simplification of algebraic fractions that disclose a incompreensão of the formal rules that regulate these transformations. Between these, a predominance of errors due to a generalization of rules of a situation for another one occurs, without an analysis of the conditions that validate this generalization. They disclose in the treatment of the arithmetical expressions a predominance of automatically carried through computational procedures, without a reflection on the nature of the task proposal; they indicate, still, an absence of integration between the arithmetical and algebraic conceptual domínios / Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo obter um diagnóstico sistemático dos principais erros e dificuldades manifestados por alunos do Ensino Fundamental e do Ensino Médio na simplificação de frações aritméticas e algébricas. Foram selecionadas, para a investigação, uma 8ª série do Ensino Fundamental e uma 1ª série do Ensino Médio de duas escolas públicas da Região Oeste, da cidade de São Paulo. Assumimos como referencial teórico os advindos de pesquisas em que a Álgebra, nesses níveis de ensino, deve buscar seus fundamentos nas leis da Aritmética. Entretanto, não o reduz a uma generalização dessas leis, uma vez que o sistema conceitual algébrico incorpora elementos e inter-relações com características próprias. Os dados foram obtidos por meio de estágio em uma classe de cada uma das séries mencionadas, de aplicação de uma prova e de entrevistas. As principais conclusões apontam para um elevado número de erros na simplificação de frações algébricas que revelam uma incompreensão das regras formais que regulamentam essas transformações. Entre esses, ocorre uma predominância de erros devidos a uma generalização de regras de uma situação para outra, sem uma análise das condições que validam essa generalização. Revelam no tratamento das expressões aritméticas um predomínio de procedimentos computacionais realizados automaticamente, sem uma reflexão sobre a natureza da tarefa proposta; indicam, ainda, uma ausência de integração entre os domínios conceituais aritméticos e algébricos

La présente Thèse en Intelligence Artificielle est basée sur un tout premier concept nommé “Assistant Conversationnel”, lequel est abordé par le fait qu'un utilisateur quelconque souhaitant joindre un interlocuteur doit pouvoir toujours voir sa requête se réaliser, quelque soit le moyen choisi par le terminal et sans que l'utilisateur ait à choisir lui-même le moyen adéquat. Le problème principal à résoudre se définit en conséquence par la modélisation et la conception d'une interface intelligente, personnalisée et praticable par tous les publics sur les terminaux de communication spécialisables accédant à Internet. Nous avons alors créé et développé de nouveaux procédés “intelligents”, chargés entre-autres de rendre les opérations courantes moins fastidieuses sur des applications de messagerie électronique. Pour cela, nous avons établi un état de l'art des divers terminaux de communication disponibles sur le marché mondial, ainsi qu'une classification taxinomique poussée et une nouvelle hiérarchisation efficace des interfaces intelligentes. Puis, nous avons construit un “Modèle Auto-Adaptable d'Utilisateur” sur un apprentissage comportemental, incrémental et évolutif, finalement implémenté en quatre phases : 1. Analyse, représentation et classification des différentes actions réalisées par l'utilisateur. 2. Proposition régulière à l'utilisateur d'effectuer de manière auto-adaptable les actions apprises. 3. Exécution auto-adaptable de ces différentes séquences d'actions répétitives. 4. Simplification auto-adaptable d'éventuelles “erreurs” ou incohérences de manipulation. Ainsi, cette contribution innovante à l'interfaçage homme-machine avancé a permis d'aboutir à la validation complète d'un logiciel intelligent de communication, tout-à-fait autonome et portable, capable d'assister chaque utilisateur, néophyte comme très expérimenté, dans ses divers travaux quotidiens, et ce de manière conviviale et toujours respectueuse de ses préférences.

Mathematical models of signal transduction pathways are characterized by a large number of proteins and uncertain parameters, yet only a limited amount of quantitative data is available. The dissertation addresses this problem using two different approaches: the first approach deals with a model simplification procedure for signaling pathways that reduces the model size but retains the physical interpretation of the remaining states, while the second approach deals with creating rich data sets by computing transcription factor profiles from fluorescent images of green-fluorescent-protein (GFP) reporter cells. For the first approach a model simplification procedure for signaling pathway models is presented. The technique makes use of sensitivity and observability analysis to select the retained proteins for the simplified model. The presented technique is applied to an IL-6 signaling pathway model. It is found that the model size can be significantly reduced and the simplified model is able to adequately predict the dynamics of key proteins of the signaling pathway. An approach for quantitatively determining transcription factor profiles from GFP reporter data is developed as the second major contribution of this work. The procedure analyzes fluorescent images to determine fluorescence intensity profiles using principal component analysis and K-means clustering, and then computes the transcription factor concentration from the fluorescence intensity profiles by solving an inverse problem involving a model describing transcription, translation, and activation of green fluorescent proteins. Activation profiles of the transcription factors NF-κB, nuclear STAT3, and C/EBPβ are obtained using the presented approach. The data for NF-κB is used to develop a model for TNF-α signal transduction while the data for nuclear STAT3 and C/EBPβ is used to verify the simplified IL-6 model. Finally, an approach is developed to compute the distribution of transcription factor profiles among a population of cells. This approach consists of an algorithm for identifying individual fluorescent cells from fluorescent images, and an algorithm to compute the distribution of transcription factor profiles from the fluorescence intensity distribution by solving an inverse problem. The technique is applied to experimental data to derive the distribution of NF-κB concentrations from fluorescent images of a NF-κB GFP reporter system.

Electrical energy is one of the most common forms of energy these days. Consequently, electric power system is an indispensable part of any society. However, due to the deregulation of electricity markets and the growth in the share of power generation by uncontrollable renewable energies such as wind and solar, power system simulations are more challenging than earlier. Thus, new techniques for simplifying these simulations are needed. One important example of such simplification techniques is the power system reduction. Power system reduction can be used at least for four different purposes: a) Simplifying the power system simulations, b) Reducing the computational complexity, c) Compensating the data unavailability, and d) Reducing the existing uncertainty. Due to such reasons, power system reduction is an important and necessary subject, but a challenging task to do. Power system reduction is even more essential when system operators are facing very large-scale power systems and when the renewable energy resources like hydro, wind, and solar have a high share in power generation. This thesis focuses on the topic of large-scale power system reduction with high penetration of renewable energy resources and tries to pursue the following goals: • The thesis first reviews the different methods which can be used for simplifying the power system studies, including the power system reduction. A comparison among three important simplification techniques is also performed to reveal which simplification results in less error and more simulation time decrement. • Secondly, different steps and methods for power system reduction, including network aggregation and generation aggregation, are introduced, described and discussed. • Some improvements regarding the subject of power system reduction, i.e. on both network aggregation and generation aggregation, are developed. • Finally, power system reduction is applied to some power system problems and the results of these applications are evaluated. A general conclusion is that using power system simplification techniques and specially the system reduction can provides many important advantages in studying large-scale power systems with high share of renewable energy generations. In most of applications, not only the power system reduction highly reduces the complexity of the power system study under consideration, but it also results in small errors. Therefore, it can be used as an efficient method for dealing with current bulk power systems with huge amounts of renewable and distributed generations. / <p>The Doctoral Degrees issued upon completion of the programme are issued by Comillas Pontifical University, Delft University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The invested degrees are official in Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden, respectively. QC 20150116</p>

This thesis focuses on improving the SAT solving technology. The improvements focus on two major subjects: sequential SAT solving and parallel SAT solving. To better understand sequential SAT algorithms, the abstract reduction system Generic CDCL is introduced. With Generic CDCL, the soundness of solving techniques can be modeled. Next, the conflict driven clause learning algorithm is extended with the three techniques local look-ahead, local probing and all UIP learning that allow more global reasoning during search. These techniques improve the performance of the sequential SAT solver Riss. Then, the formula simplification techniques bounded variable addition, covered literal elimination and an advanced cardinality constraint extraction are introduced. By using these techniques, the reasoning of the overall SAT solving tool chain becomes stronger than plain resolution. When using these three techniques in the formula simplification tool Coprocessor before using Riss to solve a formula, the performance can be improved further. Due to the increasing number of cores in CPUs, the scalable parallel SAT solving approach iterative partitioning has been implemented in Pcasso for the multi-core architecture. Related work on parallel SAT solving has been studied to extract main ideas that can improve Pcasso. Besides parallel formula simplification with bounded variable elimination, the major extension is the extended clause sharing level based clause tagging, which builds the basis for conflict driven node killing. The latter allows to better identify unsatisfiable search space partitions. Another improvement is to combine scattering and look-ahead as a superior search space partitioning function. In combination with Coprocessor, the introduced extensions increase the performance of the parallel solver Pcasso. The implemented system turns out to be scalable for the multi-core architecture. Hence iterative partitioning is interesting for future parallel SAT solvers. The implemented solvers participated in international SAT competitions. In 2013 and 2014 Pcasso showed a good performance. Riss in combination with Copro- cessor won several first, second and third prices, including two Kurt-Gödel-Medals. Hence, the introduced algorithms improved modern SAT solving technology.

This thesis addresses the problem of the development of Natural Language Processing techniques for the extraction and generalization of compositional and functional relations from specialized written texts and, in particular, from patent claims. One of the most demanding tasks tackled in the thesis is, according to the state of the art, the semantic generalization of linguistic denominations of relations between object components and processes described in the texts. These denominations are usually verbal expressions or nominalizations that are too concrete to be used as standard labels in knowledge representation forms -as, for example, “A leads to B”, and “C provokes D”, where “leads to” and “provokes” both express, in abstract terms, a cause, such that in both cases “A CAUSE B” and “C CAUSE D” would be more appropriate. A semantic generalization of the relations allows us to achieve a higher degree of abstraction of the relationships between objects and processes described in the claims and reduces their number to a limited set that is oriented towards relations as commonly used in the generic field of knowledge representation. / Esta tesis se centra en el del desarrollo de tecnologías del Procesamiento del Lenguage Natural para la extracción y generalización de relaciones encontradas en textos especializados; concretamente en las reivindicaciones de patentes. Una de las tareas más demandadas de nuestro trabajo, desde el punto vista del estado de la cuestión, es la generalización de las denominaciones lingüísticas de las relaciones. Estas denominaciones, usualmente verbos, son demasiado concretas para ser usadas como etiquetas de relaciones en el contexto de la representación del conocimiento; por ejemplo, “A lleva a B”, “B es el resultado de A” están mejor representadas por “A causa B”. La generalización de relaciones permite reducir el n\'umero de relaciones a un conjunto limitado, orientado al tipo de relaciones utilizadas en el campo de la representación del conocimiento.

The opening of Peru to foreign markets in the past 20 years is a consequence of the signature of several Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with our main partners in business, both on a bilateral and multilateral level. In this article, on the one hand, important changes to customs regulations concerning obligations arose from the signature of several FTA will be analyzed and, on the other hand, a comparative analysis regarding regulations about facilitation of commerce and customs procedures contained in FTA signed with our main Asian partners in business will be developed. / La política de apertura comercial que el Perú ha venido impulsando desde hace más de 20 años ha originado la suscripción de sendos acuerdos comerciales con nuestros principales socios comerciales tanto a nivel bilateral como multilateral. En el presente artículo, de un lado, se desarrollan los importantes cambios generados en la normativa aduanera con ocasión de las obligaciones emanadas de la suscripción por parte del Perú de diversos TLC; y, de otro, se efectúa un análisis comparativo de las disposiciones en materia de facilitación del comercio y procedimientos aduaneros contenidas en los TLC suscritos con nuestros principales socios comerciales del Asia.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:33:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carlos Willians Osorio.pdf: 1082658 bytes, checksum: 73921d0f02d430dfae4fa6fce3d3d35c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-08-08 / The small business is one of the main pillars of the economy, both the number of establishments and geographical desconcentration, as its ability to generate jobs statistically proven facts. For this reason, they become deserving of public policies to support and encourage the growth, profitability and business sustainability. From this evidence, the limitation of the study includes understanding the importance of this segment to the country, combined with the effectiveness of public policies intended for, in the context of differential treatment guaranteed by the fundamental rule. / A empresa de pequeno porte constitui um dos principais pilares de sustentação da economia, tanto pelo número de estabelecimentos e desconcentração geográfica, quanto pela sua capacidade de gerar empregos fatos comprovados estatisticamente. Por essa razão, tornam-se merecedoras de políticas públicas de apoio e incentivo ao seu crescimento, rentabilidade e sustentabilidade empresarial. A partir dessa constatação, a limitação do estudo abarca a compreensão da relevância desse segmento para o país, articulada com a efetividade das políticas públicas a ele destinadas, no contexto do tratamento diferenciado garantido pelo Texto Fundamental.

A grande capacidade de disponibilização de informações que a Web possibilita se traduz em múltiplas possibilidades e oportunidades para seus usuários. Essas pessoas são capazes de acessar conteúdos provenientes de todas as partes do planeta, independentemente de onde elas estejam. Mas essas possibilidades não são estendidas a todos, sendo necessário mais que o acesso a um computador e a Internet para que sejam realizadas. Indivíduos que apresentem necessidades especiais (deficiência visual, cognitiva, dificuldade de locomoção, entre outras) são privados do acesso a sites e aplicações web que façam mal emprego de tecnologias web ou possuam o conteúdo sem os devidos cuidados para com a acessibilidade. Um dos grupos que é privado do acesso a esse ambiente é o de pessoas com dificuldade de leitura (analfabetos funcionais). A ampla utilização de recursos textuais nas aplicações pode tornar difícil ou mesmo impedir as interações desses indivíduos com os sistemas computacionais. Nesse contexto, este trabalho tem por finalidade o desenvolvimento de tecnologias assistivas que atuem como facilitadoras de leitura e compreensão de sites e aplicações web a esses indivíduos (analfabetos funcionais). Essas tecnologias assistivas utilizam recursos de processamento de língua natural visando maximizar a compreensão do conteúdo pelos usuários. Dentre as técnicas utilizadas são destacadas: simplificação sintática, sumarização automática, elaboração léxica e reconhecimento das entidades nomeadas. Essas técnicas são utilizadas com a finalidade de promover a adaptação automática de conteúdos disponíveis na Web para usuários com baixo nível de alfabetização. São descritas características referentes à acessibilidade de aplicações web e princípios de design para usuários com baixo nível de alfabetização, para garantir a identificação e entendimento das funcionalidades que são implementadas nas duas tecnologias assistivas resultado deste trabalho (Facilita e Facilita Educacional). Este trabalho contribuiu com a identificação de requisitos de acessibilidade para usuários com baixo nível de alfabetização, modelo de acessibilidade para automatizar a conformidade com a WCAG e desenvolvimento de soluções de acessibilidade na camada de agentes de usuários / The large capacity of Web for providing information leads to multiple possibilities and opportunities for users. The development of high performance networks and ubiquitous devices allow users to retrieve content from any location and in different scenarios or situations they might face in their lives. Unfortunately the possibilities offered by the Web are not necessarily currently available to all. Individuals who do not have completely compliant software or hardware that are able to deal with the latest technologies, or have some kind of physical or cognitive disability, find it difficult to interact with web pages, depending on the page structure and the ways in which the content is made available. When specifically considering the cognitive disabilities, users classified as functionally illiterate face severe difficulties accessing web content. The heavy use of texts on interfaces design creates an accessibility barrier to those who cannot read fluently in their mother tongue due to both text length and linguistic complexity. In this context, this work aims at developing an assistive technologies that assists functionally illiterate users during their reading and understanding of websites textual content. These assistive technologies make use of natural language processing (NLP) techniques that maximize reading comprehension for users. The natural language techniques that this work uses are: syntactic simplification, automatic summarization, lexical elaboration and named entities recognition. The techniques are used with the goal of automatically adapting textual content available on the Web for users with low literacy levels. This work describes the accessibility characteristics incorporated into both resultant applications (Facilita and Educational Facilita) that focus on low literacy users limitations towards computer usage and experience. This work contributed with the identification of accessibility requirements for low-literacy users, elaboration of an accessibility model for automatizing WCAG conformance and development of accessible solutions in the user agents layer of web applications

Une caisse automobile est un ensemble complexe formé de plusieurs éléments qui sont souvent constitués de matériaux différents et assemblés principalement par points soudés, généralement à plus de 80%. Au stade de la conception, plusieurs critères doivent être vérifiés numériquement et confirmés expérimentalement par le prototype de la caisse, dont sa tenue en endurance. Dans le contexte économique actuel, la politique de réduction des dépenses énergétiques ou autres a conduit les constructeurs automobiles à optimiser les performances des véhicules actuels, en particulier en réduisant de façon très conséquente la masse de leur caisse. Des problèmes liés à la tenue structurelle ou à la tenue en fatigue de la caisse sont alors apparus. Afin d'être validé, le prototype de caisse doit avoir une résistance suffisante pour supporter les essais de fatigue. Les tests de validation sur bancs d'essais réalisés en amont sur un prototype sont très coûteux pour l'industriel, en particulier lorsque les tests d'essais en fatigue sur la caisse ne permettent pas de confirmer les zones d'apparition des fissures identifiées par simulations numériques. Le sujet de la thèse se limitera à ce dernier point. Il porte sur l'ensemble des analyses à mettre en oeuvre afin d'étudier la tenue en endurance de caisses automobiles soumises à des profils de mission sévérisés. L'objectif principal est de mettre au point un processus d'analyse en simulation numérique permettant de garantir un bon niveau de prédictivité de tenue en endurance des caisses automobiles. On entend par bon niveau de prédictivité, le fait d'être en mesure de corréler correctement les résultats d'essais associés aux profils de missions sévérisés classiquement utilisés dans les plans de validation de la caisse. Cette thèse a conduit à :_ analyser le comportement mécanique de la caisse et les forces d'excitations appliquées au cours de l'essai de validation,_ établir une nouvelle méthode de réduction d'un chargement pour les calculs en endurance,_ mettre au point une nouvelle modélisation EF des liaisons soudées par points,_ améliorer les modèles de prédiction de durée de vie des PSR. Les études menées ont ainsi permis d'améliorer le niveau de prédiction des calculs en fatigue de la caisse afin :_ d'identifier la majorité des zones réellement critiques sur la caisse,_ d'évaluer de manière fiable de la criticité relative de chacune de ces zones,_ d'estimer de façon pertinente la durée de vie associée à chacune de ces zones / A body-in-white (biw) is a complex structure which consists of several elements that are made of different materials and assembled mainly by spot welds, generally above 80%. At the design stage, several criteria must be verified numerically and experimentally by the car prototype, as the biw durability. In the current economic context, the policy of reducing energy and other costs led automotive companies to optimize the vehicle performances, in particular by reducing very consistently the mass of the biw. As a consequences, some structural design problems appeared. In order to be validated, validation test benches are carried out upstream on a prototype vehicle. They are very costly to the manufacturer, especially when fatigue tests do not confirm the cracks areas identified by numerical simulations. The thesis is focused on numerical biw durability analysis. It covers all the numerical analysis to be implemented to study the biw durability behavior. The main objective is to develop a numerical simulation process to ensure a good level of durability prediction. It means to be able to have a good correlation level between test bench results and numerical fatigue life prediction. This thesis has led to:_ analyze the biw mechanical behavior and the excitation forces applied to the biw during the validation tests,_ establish a new fatigue data editing technique to simplify load signal,_ create a new finite element spot weld model,_ develop a new fatigue life prediction of spot welds. The studies have thus improved the level of biw fatigue life prediction by:_ identifying the majority of critical areas on the full biw,_ reliably assessing the relative criticality of each area,_ accurately estimating the lifetime associated with each of these areas