This thesis considers the problem of how to design an industrial network to reduce cost, increase efficiency, and reduce environmental burdens. A recent approach is further developed that uses analogies with biological food webs to guide industry design. Studying ecological food webs shows that among the metrics in use, critical quantities of interest for industry design include the internal cycling of energy, the ratio of producers to consumers, and the ratio of efficiency to redundancy in the network. Metrics that are calculated using flow based information are also introduced for use in industry, a significant step forward for bio-inspired network design. A comprehensive data set of proposed, operational, and failed eco-industrial parks is compiled for use with structural food web analyses. A data set of biological food webs is also assembled to calculate sustainable benchmark values used as goals for the industrial designs. This research an essential difficulty in bio-inspired design approaches by quantitatively analyzing components of food web design by reconstructing found relationships from science and engineering 1st principles, specifically using thermodynamic 1st law efficiency. Results from this work have the potential to provide industry-wide cost savings, increase efficiency, and reduce environmental burdens through a reduction in raw material consumption and waste disposal. The results also support the view that financial competitiveness and sustainability need not be mutually exclusive: using food web network patterns embodying both economically and environmentally desirable properties, biologically redesigned industrial networks can ease both environmental and economic burdens.

This thesis examines the nature of transition expertise which enables individuals to make repeated successful transitions over the course of their career. It addressed four areas that contribute to transition expertise: 1) cognitive flexibility that enables the generalisation of expert knowledge and processes; 2) inferential and inductive cognitive mechanisms that enable expertise to be generalised; 3) personal intelligences that are used to support transitions; and 4) practical intelligence as it supports performance contextually during transitions. The study used retrospective interviews to gather data from elite performers in three fields who had made successful career transitions: sports people who become national coaches or heads of national bodies; successful musicians who become heads of faculty or principals of a conservatoire; successful business people who become senior vice presidents or CEOs. Participants were able to generalise expert knowledge and processes beyond their primary domains, contrary to widely held views about the domain specificity of expertise. Cognitive flexibility enabled this generalisation and was developed through broad based training, early exposure to multiple domains and the early use of generative cognitive processes during the development of primary domain expertise. Inductive, inferential and analogical cognitive mechanisms were the main tools through which expertise was generalised during transitions. Personal intelligence contributed to transition expertise. Intrapersonal intelligence enabled individuals to understand how their abilities, values and motivations shaped their career progression. Interpersonal intelligence enabled individuals to respond effectively to the requirements of their peers, direct reports, stakeholders and organisational context. Contrary to expectations, self regulatory processes did not play a central role in the management of transitions. Practical intelligence enabled transition expertise. It involved more than applying subject-area and tacit knowledge. It encompassed the abilities to: identify and resolve problems; manipulate environmental objects in the form of administrative tasks, schedules and plans; utilise resources in terms of people and materials; and shape their environment, corporate structures and culture. Transition expertise develops and evolves over the course of a career as it uses convergent and divergent cognitive processes, inductive mechanisms, personal awareness and cognitive pragmatics to address issues of increasing scope and implication. While motivational factors, self belief and personality resiliency are important contributors to transition expertise they did not form part of this study.

Software effort estimation by analogy is a viable alternative method to other estimation techniques, and in many cases, researchers found it outperformed other estimation methods in terms of accuracy and practitioners' acceptance. However, the overall performance of analogy based estimation depends on two major factors: similarity measure and attribute selection & weighting. Current similarity measures such as nearest neighborhood techniques have been criticized that have some inadequacies related to attributes relevancy, noise and uncertainty in addition to the problem of using categorical attributes. This research focuses on improving the efficiency and flexibility of analogy-based estimation to overcome the abovementioned inadequacies. Particularly, this thesis proposes two new approaches to model and handle uncertainty in similarity measurement method and most importantly to reflect the structure of dataset on similarity measurement using Fuzzy modeling based Fuzzy C-means algorithm. The first proposed approach called Fuzzy Grey Relational Analysis method employs combined techniques of Fuzzy set theory and Grey Relational Analysis to improve local and global similarity measure and tolerate imprecision associated with using different data types (Continuous and Categorical). The second proposed approach presents the use of Fuzzy numbers and its concepts to develop a practical yet efficient approach to support analogy-based systems especially at early phase of software development. Specifically, we propose a new similarity measure and adaptation technique based on Fuzzy numbers. We also propose a new attribute subset selection algorithm and attribute weighting technique based on the hypothesis of analogy-based estimation that assumes projects that are similar in terms of attribute value are also similar in terms of effort values, using row-wise Kendall rank correlation between similarity matrix based project effort values and similarity matrix based project attribute values. A literature review of related software engineering studies revealed that the existing attribute selection techniques (such as brute-force, heuristic algorithms) are restricted to the choice of performance indicators such as (Mean of Magnitude Relative Error and Prediction Performance Indicator) and computationally far more intensive. The proposed algorithms provide sound statistical basis and justification for their procedures. The performance figures of the proposed approaches have been evaluated using real industrial datasets. Results and conclusions from a series of comparative studies with conventional estimation by analogy approach using the available datasets are presented. The studies were also carried out to statistically investigate the significant differences between predictions generated by our approaches and those generated by the most popular techniques such as: conventional analogy estimation, neural network and stepwise regression. The results and conclusions indicate that the two proposed approaches have potential to deliver comparable, if not better, accuracy than the compared techniques. The results also found that Grey Relational Analysis tolerates the uncertainty associated with using different data types. As well as the original contributions within the thesis, a number of directions for further research are presented. Most chapters in this thesis have been disseminated in international journals and highly refereed conference proceedings.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

La thèse propose une analyse de la théorie aristotélicienne du temps à partir d'une lecture de Physique IV, 10–14, dans une perspective nouvelle étayée par l'examen du contexte historique et intellectuel dans lequel s'inscrit l'étude du temps chez Aristote, qui permet de présenter une histoire pratique et théorique de la notion χρόνος dans la Grèce antique. Cette analyse s'attache également à comprendre la façon dont Aristote lui-même utilise cette notion dans ses oeuvres dites descriptives. L'Histoire des Animaux occupe donc une place particulière dans cette recherche, dans la mesure où l'examen détaillé de toutes les occurrences de χρόνος qui se trouvent dans cet écrit permet de trouver des éléments corroborant l'interprétation de Physique IV, 10–14, ainsi que la tentative d'Aristote de fournir les bases d'un temps non pas mathématique mais physique. Le but de cette analyse est de montrer que poser la question du temps comme le fait Aristote se présente comme une tentative adéquate pour penser l'unité du temps et du maintenant à partir de la multiplicité à la fois du temps et du maintenant. Cette thèse s'accompagne en outre d'une traduction partielle de l'ouvrage allemand de Gernot Böhme : Zeit und Zahl, Studien zur Zeittheorie Bei Platon, Aristoteles, Leibniz und Kant, 1974, qui est la version publiée de l'Habilitationsschrift de l'auteur. Les parties traduites concernent, outre l'introduction, les chapitres consacrés à Platon et à Aristote. / The dissertation provides an analysis of the Aristotelian theory of time based on Physics IV, 10–14, and does so from a new perspective examining the historical and intellectual context of the study of time in Aristotle's work, which leads to the presentation of a theoretical and practical history of the notion χρόνος in ancient Greece. This analysis is subsequently related to the question as to how Aristotle himself uses this concept in his so-called descriptive works. In this respect, Aristotle's History of Animals occupies a special place in this analysis, to the extent that a detailed examination of all the occurrences of χρόνος in this work provides elements corroborating the interpretation of Physics IV, 10-14 as well as of Aristotle's attempt to provide foundations for a theory of time based on physics and not on mathematics. The objective of this analysis is to show that the question of time as presented by Aristotle amounts to a proper attempt to think of time and present as single concepts based on their respective multiplicities. Furthermore, this dissertation is accompanied by a partial translation of the German work of Gernot Böhme : Zeit und Zahl, Studien zur Zeittheorie Bei Platon, Aristoteles, Leibniz und Kant, 1974, which is the published version of the Habilitationsschrift of the author. The translation concerns, in addition to the introduction, the chapters on Plato and Aristotle.

La philosophie de Husserl est guidée par la volonté d'atteindre une connaissance objective du monde. La description de l'expérience de la conscience qu'elle propose porte en effet d'abord sur l'expérience des vécus par lesquels nous prenons connaissance du monde et sur les différences qu'il existe entre une connaissance authentique et une simple présomption, une croyance ou une illusion. Mais cette priorité de la connaissance objective dans l'ordre de la méthode ne doit pas occulter l'antériorité, dans l'ordre réel, de l'expérience non-conceptuelle et inobjective des biens. En effet, le monde se donne à nous d'abord comme un monde de biens et comme la manifestation sensible de certaines valeurs. Nous voyons de beaux objets, nous trouvons l'espace utile ou pratique, nous sommes attirés par un bruit, gênés par une lumière, etc. Comment concilier ces deux exigences, celle de la méthode et celle de l'expérience ? Cette question porte sur les conditions de possibilité de la phénoménologie elle-même, puisque cette méthode, pour intégrer le nouveau genre de problèmes que posent les valeurs, dans l'ordre esthétique ou éthique, doit s'amender en permanence. Les valeurs touchent en effet aux limites de la description des actes objectivants, car elles relèvent d'une dimension qui n'est pas assimilable à celle de la nature objective des choses. Les valeurs éthiques, plus précisément, touchent aux limites de l'exigence phénoménologique de l'unité de la raison et du strict parallélisme entre les différents types d'actes correspondant aux divers registres de l'expérience (théorique, axiologique et pratique). Ainsi, l'injustice ou la vertu ne se donnent pas à la manière dont se donnent les choses dans la perception sensible et ne sauraient faire l'objet d'une « constitution intentionnelle » depuis les prestations subjectives. Le sens d'une valeur ne dépasse-t-il pas toujours et par principe les possibilités constitutives du sujet ? En d'autres termes, peut-on penser les valeurs éthiques comme des « analoga » des propriétés empiriques des objets, dont il faudrait rendre compte et qu'il faudrait parvenir à connaître de manière objective, ou bien n'y a-t-il pas là un ordre qui échappe à la description, voire au rêve husserlien d'une science de tous les phénomènes et d'une description pure de tous les types d'expérience ? Pour répondre à cette question, nous procédons en deux temps. Le premier s'interroge sur les conditions de possibilité d'une théorie des valeurs élaborée au fil de la méthode phénoménologique, c'est-à-dire au moyen d'un double réquisit – analogique et transcendantal. Le second montre comment la compréhension du sens des valeurs éthiques implique des glissements et des réélaborations de cette méthode qui ont pour fonction de révéler, à la racine des actes d'évaluation et de volition qui se rapportent aux valeurs, la vie et l'œuvre du sujet éthique. / Husserl's philosophy is an attempt to obtain objective knowledge on the world, which offers a description of the cognitive consciousness, in order to distinguish a presumptive or an illusory belief and an authentic knowledge. However, such a methodological precedence of the objective knowledge should not hide the actual priority of a non-objective and pre-predicative experience of the world. Indeed, the world first appears to us as a practical and valuable world. We can see beautiful objects, useful tools, pleasant landscapes. One is drawn by a sound or disturbed by a light. How are these two points of view to be reconciled? May we conciliate the methodological priority of theoretical consciousness and the empirical precedence of values and goods? This question deals with the possibility of phenomenology itself, because this philosophical method has to transform itself in order to take into account the idiosyncratic kinds of problems that raise the experience of values. Values reach the limits of the “objectifying consciousness's” possibilities. Because they do not belong to the realm of nature, values are not one of the empirical properties of things. More precisely, ethical values query the need of unity in Reason and the need of a strict parallelism between different intentional acts. May injustice or virtue appear as do so colours or shapes in the sensible world? Can these values be intentionally constituted? Does the meaning of values ever exceed the constitutive capabilities in the subject? In order to answer these questions, two fields shall be developed. The first one questions the possibility of a value theory, which is brought by the phenomenological method, that is to say, through a demand of analogy and a demand of transcendental constitution. The second one indicates how the understanding of ethical values implies some shifting and new elaborations in the methodology itself, in order to show, behind the rationality of emotional and volitional acts, the life and work of the ethical subject.

Cette thèse propose une modélisation du bruit d'origine aérodynamique, avec une attention particulière aux mécanismes de transfert d'énergie entre l'écoulement et le milieu de propagation. Une première partie aborde le problème de la création et du transport de l'énergie acoustique en milieu aérodynamique. Trois grands courants de pensée sont identifiés : l'approche eulérienne linéarise les équations valables en cas de fluide parfait pour former une loi de conservation ; l'approche dissipative développe les équations de Navier-Stokes, fait intervenir les fluctuations de vorticité comment moteur du mouvement acoustique ou décompose la quantité de mouvement en une théorie potentielle ; l'approche lagrangienne décrit le déplacement lagrangien de la perturbation qui suit le passage de l'onde acoustique. La première est la plus naturelle. La deuxième est la plus complète et la seule à expliquer la création d'énergie par l'aérodynamique. Une théorie générale voyant l'acoustique comme le seul champ généralisé qui se trouve piégé par l'aérodynamique en découle. La dernière est la plus prometteuse pour l'avenir. Dans une deuxième partie, les moyens permettant le calcul du champ acoustique à partir d'une sollicitation surfacique sont présentés. Il s'agit de la méthode d'extrapolation des ondes de Kirchhoff basée sur la pression, la formulation de Ffowcs-Williams & Hawkings basée sur les débits, et l'intégrale de Rayleigh basée sur une vitesse vibratoire. Une troisième partie de la thèse utilise les formalismes d'excitation surfacique pour étudier la réaction du milieu acoustique à des excitations génériques sous formes de paquets d'onde, représentatives de l'aérodynamique instationnaire. La réponse acoustique est caractérisée par la direction d'émission privilégiée du rayonnement et son efficacité, défini comme le taux de transfert d'énergie entre l'excitation et son milieu. On montre notamment que l'introduction d'une dissymétrie amont-aval dans l'excitation augmente fortement son efficacité, de même que la prise en compte d'un milieu de propagation en mouvement uniforme. Dans une dernière partie, ces considérations sont étendues au rayonnement d'une couche de mélange et adaptées en se basant sur l'analogie de Liepmann. Cette approche peu répandue est une intégrale de Rayleigh dont l'excitation est la dérivée temporelle de l'épaisseur de déplacement. Les résultats sont comparés avec la base de données d'une simulation acoustique directe et des deux autres méthodes surfaciques. La directivité n'est pas retrouvée par la modélisation proposée. On montre que la prédiction des niveaux nécessite de modéliser une impédance de rayonnement. / This study proposes a model for the noise generated aerodynamically, while focusing on energy transfer mechanisms between the main flow and the propagating medium. Energy harvest in aerodynamic condition is therefore the subject of a first part. Three general trends may be identified ; the eulerian approach uses linearized Euler's equations for inviscid flows in a form of a conservation law ; the dissipating approach expands Navier-Stokes equations in series, relies on vorticity fluctuations to excite the medium or splits velocity or momentum vectors in a general potential theory ; the lagrangian approach describes the lagrangian displacement of the perturbation inherent to an acoustic wave. The first approach is the most commonly adopted. The second one is the most complete and provides aerodynamical mechanisms for energy generation. A general fashion follows where acoustics is a generalized field, trapped by a hydrodynamic impedance. The last one may be subject of close attention for future considerations. In a second part, computational models are presented with their ability to predict acoustic radiation from a surface excitation. These are the Kirchhoff formalism based on the pressure, the Ffowcs Williams & Hawkings formalism based on the mass flow rate and the Rayleigh integral based on the vibration velocity. These are applied in a third part of the study to investigate the response of the acoustic medium to a generique excitation in the form of a wavepacket, representative of unsteady aerodynamics. Such acoustic response is caracterised by its direction of maximum radiation and its efficiency, defined as the rate of energy transfer between the excitation and its surrounding medium. Introducing an upstream-downstream asymmetry in the excitation is showed to significantly enhance its efficiency, as well as a convection velocity in the propagating medium. Within these general considerations, the last part of this study models acoustic excitation in a mixing layer flow based on Liepmann's analogy. This relatively unexplored theory consists in a Rayleigh integral excited by the temporal derivative of the displacement thickness. Results are compared with direct noise computation database and two other methods of surface excitation. Directivity is likely to be found while pressure amplitude is correctly predicted by using a model for radiation impedance.

La conception des groupes moto-ventilateurs au sein de Valeo Systèmes Thermiques et la prédiction de leurs performances aérauliques reposent majoritairement sur les méthodes de développement virtuel, i.e. la conception assistée par ordinateur et la simulation numérique de la mécanique des fluides. Dans ce cadre, le présent travail propose une méthodologie de prédiction et de minimisation de la composante tonale du bruit d'un groupe moto-ventilateur. L'approche adoptée est hybride et dissocie la génération et la propagation du bruit. La propagation en champ libre est calculée avec une formulation intégrale de l'analogie de Ffowcs-Williams et Hawkings. Dans un premier temps, les termes-sources à la surface du rotor et du stator sont calculés par une simulation numérique instationnaire. La compacité de la pale ainsi que l'influence du maillage acoustique sur la prédiction sont ensuite investiguées. Finalement, les résultats sont comparés aux mesures expérimentales. Dans un deuxième temps, les sources acoustiques à la surface du stator sont calculées avec le modèle de Sears enrichi avec des données extraites d'une simulation stationnaire du rotor complet. Avant de procéder à la prédiction acoustique, l'influence du modèle de turbulence sur les résultats finaux est évaluée à travers une comparaison entre LES et RANS pour l'écoulement autour de profils extrudés. Enfin, la problématique de minimisation du bruit tonal est traitée en tant que problème d'optimisation où la géométrie d'une aube est paramétrée et où la recherche de l'optimum est conduite par un algorithme génétique. Cette optimisation a permis de concevoir un stator moins bruyant et adapté à l'écoulement en aval du rotor étudié. / The design of fan systems at Valeo Thermal Systems and the prediction of their aerodynamic performances rely mainly on virtual development methods, i.e. computer-aided-design and computational fluid dynamics. Within this context, this dissertation develops a methodology for predicting and minimizing the tonal noise of a fan system. The hybrid approach is used, thus separating noise generation and propagation. The free-field propagation is computed via an integral formulation of the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings analogy. In a first step, the source terms located at the surfaces of the rotor and the stator are extracted from an unsteady numerical simulation. The compactness of the blade and the influence of the acoustic mesh on the prediction are then investigated. Finally, the computational results are compared to the experimental ones. In a second step, the acoustic sources at the surface of the stator are computed with Sears' model. Its inputs are extracted from a steady simulation of the whole rotor. Before proceeding to the acoustic prediction, the influence of the turbulence model on the final results is assessed via a comparison between LES and RANS simulations of the flow around airfoils. Finally, minimizing tonal noise is formulated as an optimization problem. The shape of a stator-blade is parametrized and the optimization is conducted with a genetic algorithm. The resulting stator is less noisy and adapted to the flow downstream of the studied rotor.

O presente trabalho trata do uso de analogias em atividades didáticas voltadas às aulas de ciências e, mais especificamente, do uso de analogias em aulas sobre temas de física quântica para alunos do ensino médio. Partimos, então, da aparente contradição que resulta da tentativa de abordar conceitos da física quântica, conceitos estes abstratos e sem relação com a realidade sensível, por meio de um mecanismo representativo que é baseado na comparação entre dois domínios do conhecimento, no qual um deles pertence ao repertório do conhecido (familiar) e o outro diz respeito ao que se deseja conhecer. Nossa principal contribuição, ligada à nossa proposição inicial, se dá na medida em que propomos inicialmente reflexões a respeito do conceito de analogia em três dimensões: a primeira, associada à perspectiva da psicologia cognitiva, na qual a analogia se constitui como elemento central do pensamento e assim da formação dos conceitos em toda a história do sujeito; a segunda, relacionada à epistemologia da ciência, especificamente sob a perspectiva de Henri Poincaré, a partir da qual se apontam basicamente três categorias de analogias (figurativas, mecânicas e matemáticas); a terceira, ligada às atividades didáticas que consideram a analogia como ferramenta de aprendizagem, e que busca, a partir de esforços coletivos presentes na literatura especializada em ensino de ciências, sistematizar o seu uso. A partir de uma ampla leitura das três dimensões supracitadas, propomos uma síntese que nos permita um olhar específico para nosso objeto de pesquisa. A fim de analisar o potencial de nossa síntese teórica, realizamos um ensaio empírico que consistiu na elaboração de episódios criados a partir de aulas de temas de física quântica ministradas a alunos do ensino médio (modelos atômicos, efeito fotoelétrico, dualidade onda-partícula, interpretações da Mecânica Quântica). A metodologia usada na interpretação dos episódios pressupõe que analogias em atividades didáticas podem ser classificadas quanto ao seu nível de elaboração, assim como em aspectos ligados ao seu uso, como o formato de apresentação e de ações prévias. Os resultados nos ajudam a perceber situações de uso de analogias prioritariamente figurativas com alguns casos de analogias mecânicas. A ausência de uso de analogias matemáticas, assim como do formato de apresentação matemático-representativo, nos permite reafirmar o caráter crucial de se investigarem novos \"formatos\" de analogias que sejam adequados à comunicação e ao ensino de conceitos da física quântica. / This work deals with the use of analogies in teaching activities of sciences and, more specifically, with the use of analogies in high school quantum physics courses. Our starting point is the apparent contradiction of attempting to approach the concepts of quantum physics, abstract and deprived of any relation with the sensory reality, through a mechanism of representation based on the comparison of two fields knowledge: a first one which is known and familiar, and a second one which we wish to grasp. Our main contribution lies in our initial proposition to reflect on the concept of analogy from three different perspectives: first, there is the point of view of cognitive psychology, in which analogy appears as central element of thought and therefore of the formation of concepts during the whole history of the subject; second, there is the point of view of epistemology of science, and particularly that of Henri Poincaré who distinguished three basic categories for analogies (figurative, mechanical and mathematical); third, there is the point of view of educational activities, which considers analogies as a learning tool and attempts, through collective efforts manifested in the science education literature, to provide a systematic account of their use. Based on an ample reading along the three aforementioned dimensions, we then propose a synthesis enabling us to adopt a specific look at our object of research. In order to analyse the potential of this theoretical synthesis, we have conducted an empirical test constituted by episodes created within high school quantum physics lectures (atomic models, the photoelectric effect, the wave-particle duality, and the interpretations of Quantum Mechanics). In order to interpret these episodes, the methodology assumes that analogies in teaching activities can effectively be classified according to their level of development and to some aspects of their use, such as the presentation format and the previous actions. The results help us in perceiving how most of the analogies used are figurative, even though there are also some mechanical analogies. The lack of use of mathematical analogies, as well as the absence of the mathematical-representative presentation format, allows us to reaffirm the crucial need of investigating new \"formats\" of analogies, better suited for the communication and teaching of the concepts of quantum physics.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:34:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cassiano Butti.pdf: 1979892 bytes, checksum: 04e8fbeea3525060909a6c07fb484527 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-10-01 / This Dissertation is within the research line of History and Description of the Portuguese Language of the Post-Graduation Studies Program in Portuguese Language of Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo and focuses on the process of senses, attributed to certain lexical units, by children between 3 and 9 years old. Grounded on the principles and presuppositions of Lexicology, as well as the Textual Linguistics of the cognitive-socialinteractive branch, its main purpose is to examine, by means of childish designations, the cognitive strategies developed by these children in situations of particular discursive events. The research is justified by three main reasons: a) there are few works aimed at the study of the processes of construction of lexical senses by the child; b) Lexicology has not yet formulated theoretical-analytical procedures for the treatment of the childish vocabulary; c) the importance of the activation of previous knowledge in the movements of textual production either oral or written by means of inferential procedures has been widely disclosed, but it was not determined how this knowledge is mobilized-demobilizedremobilized, in order to enable the comprehension of the representation models in the human memory. These gaps prevent the recognition of the extensiveness of the order and organization models that guide the speech activities. In the sense, by conceiving the word as a sign by means of which the Man represents his knowledge about the world, it was presented a critical reflection that aimed at establishing a relationship between thinking, language, parole and speech; socialization and sociabilization; imitation as copy and as mimesis; definition and designation, among other aspects. The methodological procedure implied the selection and analysis of a corpus extracted from the work Dicionário de Humor Infantil (Childish Humor Dictionary), by Pedro Bloch (1998). The heterogeneity of designations registered by the author, as well as the complexity of their content, required from the researcher an analysis and synthesis procedure by means of three complementary movements: a) the first one, which would try to locate the designations within the language categories; b) the second one, which would enlarge the previous movement, deciding for a procedure of semantic character; c) the last one, which would focus on the mental representations by means of the cognitive categories Projection, Identification and Transfer: those which ensure, by analogical principles, the identification of the unfamiliar by the familiar . The results obtained showed that, from the point of view of the lexical-grammatical structures, the childish designations are similar to those registered as lexicographic definitions, but are different from the latter in regards to their representation forms: on the one hand, the language dictionary, defining words in accordance with the senses social and culturally institutionalized, and, on the other hand, the child, designing the world in accordance with his/her knowledge built from his/her experiences and daily life experiences. These results point towards a milestone of social cognitions being constructed and to cultural categories of order of knowledge of the world with a high level of flexibility and in an expansion process, given the low level of socialization and high level of sociabilization, within the oral records of speech activities of the child / Esta Dissertação situa-se na linha de pesquisa História e Descrição da Língua Portuguesa, do Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Língua Portuguesa da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo e tematiza os processos de construção de sentidos, atribuídos a determinadas unidades lexicais, por crianças na faixa etária dos 3 aos 9 anos. Fundamentada pelos princípios e pressupostos da Lexicologia, bem como da Lingüística Textual de vertente cognitivo-sócio-interacional, tem-se por objetivo principal examinar, por meio de designações infantis, as estratégias cognitivas elaboradas por essas crianças em situações de eventos discursivos particulares. Justifica-se a pesquisa por três grandes motivos: a) há poucos trabalhados destinados ao estudo dos processos de construção de sentidos lexicais pela criança; b) a Lexicologia ainda não formulou procedimentos teóricoanalíticos para o tratamento do vocabulário infantil; c) divulga-se muito a importância da ativação de conhecimentos prévios nos movimentos de produção textual seja oral ou escrito por meio de procedimentos inferenciais, mas não se tem apontado como esses conhecimentos são mobilizados-desmobilizados-remobilizados, de modo a facultar a compreensão dos modelos de representação na memória humana. Tais lacunas impedem que se reconheça a extensividade dos modelos de ordenação e de organização que orientam as atividades de fala. Nesse sentido, concebendo-se a palavra como um sinal por meio do qual o Homem representa seus conhecimentos de mundo, apresentou-se uma reflexão crítica que buscasse estabelecer uma relação entre pensamento, linguagem, língua e fala; socialização e sociabilização; imitação como cópia e como mimese; definição e designação, entre outros aspectos. O procedimento metodológico implicou a seleção e análise de um corpus extraído da obra Dicionário de Humor Infantil, de Pedro Bloch (1998). A heterogeneidade de designações registradas pelo autor, bem como a complexidade de seus conteúdos, exigiram do pesquisador um procedimento de análise e síntese por meio de três movimentos complementares: a) um primeiro que buscasse situar as designações nas categorias de língua; b) um segundo que ampliasse o movimento anterior, optando-se por um procedimento de caráter semântico; c) um último que focalizasse as representações mentais por meio das categorias cognitivas Projeção, Identificação e Transferência: aquelas que asseguram, por princípios analógicos, identificar o não familiar pelo familiar . Os resultados obtidos indicaram que, do ponto de vista das estruturas léxico-gramaticais, as designações infantis assemelham-se àquelas registradas sob a forma de definições lexicográficas, mas se diferenciam destas quanto às suas formas de representação: o dicionário de língua, definindo vocábulos de acordo com os sentidos sócio-culturalmente institucionalizados e, a criança, designando o mundo de acordo com os conhecimentos construídos a partir de suas experiências e vivências cotidianas. Tais resultados apontam para um marco de cognições sociais em fase de construção e para categorias culturais de ordenação de conhecimentos de mundo com alto grau de flexibilidade e em processo de expansão, devido ao baixo grau de socialização e alto grau de sociabilização, inscritos nos registros verbais das atividades de fala da criança