Trabalho realizado na Santa Casa do Misericórdia do Porto, orientado pelo Engº José Pereira Pinto / Tese de Mestrado Integrado. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012

A casa nobre lousadense do séc. XVIII insere-se nas características definidas por Carlos de Azevedo e adoptada por Joaquim Jaime B. Ferreira-Alves para casa nobre em geral, na sua obra: "A Casa Nobre No Porto na Época Moderna." Os aspectos que a definem centram-se: "no esforço arquitectónico e decorativo concentrado na fachada; no desenvolvimento horizontal, criando longas fachadas, articuladas com pilastras lisas pouco salientes, e acentuadas sobre os telhados, por ornatos (urnas, fogaréus e pináculos); na existência de um piso dominante, o andar nobre, com janelas «quase mais ricas do que no andar térreo»; na acentuação da linha superior do edifício (emprego de frontões); na importância da entrada nobre,«enriquecida com colunas e pilastras», sustentando «balcão com parapeito ou simples grade, continuada por uma janela central de tipo mais rico e rematada pelo brasão de armas de família», criando-se um eixo vertical que divide a fachada em duas zonas iguais (...)." A casa nobre no concelho de Lousada é, igualmente, definida por "fachadas rasgadas por janelas de sacada e janelas de peitoril, com ombreiras, peitoris e lintéis lisos, as portadas são também simples"

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En las paginas de esta tesis se encuentra un analisis deconstructivo de las tecnicas narrativas y el contenido tematico-ideol6gico de la primera novela de la escritora chilena Isabel Allende. Mediante el mismo, se ha tratado de descubrir en La casa de los espiritus una actitud de rebeldia en contra de las formas de poder que se manifiesta en diversos niveles de la vida social, y que, segun el critico uruguayo Angel Rama, caracteriza la obra de algunos escritores hipanoamericanos contemporaneos. Diferentes tecnicas narrativas, quedan analizadas, dando mayor enfasis al uso del realismo magico, el cual crea una oposici6n en la estructura del texto, que va a continuar en su contenido. Esta oposici6n, al igual que las expuestas por el contenido tematico-ideol6gico, queda disipada luego de ser estudiada mas a fondo. Ademas, se enumeraron y analizaron las distintas visiones de instituciones sociales, como la Iglesia, la familia y el gobierno, encontradas en el texto, que logran dar al lector un resumen del contenido ideol6gico que Allende trata de exponer en su obra. Dos perspectivas de la Iglesia, por ejemplo, son expuestas. La Iglesia defensora de ideologias derechistas y la Iglesia que aboga por ideales izquierdistas. Ambas quedan convertidas en una misma; una instituci6n defensora de ideologias basadas en la oposici6n binaria inicial rico/pobre establecida por el poder econ6mico. Ante la incapacidad de la Iglesia como instituci6n para resolverse hacia una forma de vida particular, surgen otras alternativas, otras perspectivas de vida. Estas tienen el efecto de mantener a las masas en un punta media donde sse disminuye la fuerza de cualquier oposici6n verdadera al poder econ6mico. De igual manera, quedan deconstruidas otras instituciones sociales en la novela. En el estudio se constata c6mo, tanto las oposiciones entre tecnicas narrativas, como las oposiciones entre ideologias quedan destruidas en esta obra. Con la destrucci6n de oposiciones binarias, la autora denuncia las injusticias de un sistema social, dominado por el poder econ6mico norteamericano que ha golpeado su patria cruelmente.

There is a high turnover rate among court-appointed special advocates (CASA) in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perception of the retention of CASA volunteers. Maslach'€™s burnout theory and Greene'€™s theory of resilience provided the framework for the study. A sample of9 active and 5 inactive CASA volunteers, one CASA volunteer recruiter, 3 program supervisors, and one administrator were interviewed. The data was organized and coded manually to facilitate auto-coding using qualitative data software. All responses to each question were compiled in one place allowing for thematic analysis based on the frequency of terms and concepts occurring during the interviews. According to study findings, lengthy and complicated processes, restrictive laws and regulations, limited outcomes impact for the children, and unrealistic expectations of the CASA volunteers were the main reasons for the high turnover rate. Support and preparedness were crucial in the CASA volunteers'€™ decision to serve longer. The study findings would be available for decision makers to review and revise policies in order to improve the experience and adjust expectations imposed on CASA volunteers via recruitment and training messaging. Increasing CASA volunteers'€™ retention rate would change the trajectory of more children in foster care by improving their chances for achieving positive outcomes.

The information age has brought with it a dual problem. In the first place, the ready access to mechanisms to capture and store vast amounts of data in all forms (text, audio, image and video), has resulted in a continued demand for ever more efficient means to store and transmit this data. In the second, the rapidly increasing store demands effective means to structure and access the data in an efficient and meaningful manner. In terms of audio data, the first challenge has traditionally been the realm of audio compression research that has focused on statistical, unstructured audio representations that obfuscate the inherent structure and semantic content of the underlying data. This has only served to further complicate the resolution of the second challenge resulting in access mechanisms that are either impractical to implement, too inflexible for general application or too low level for the average user. Thus, an artificial dichotomy has been created from what is in essence a dual problem. The founding motivation of this thesis is that, although the hypermedia model has been identified as the ideal, cognitively justified method for organising data, existing audio data representations and coding models provide little, if any, support for, or resemblance to, this model. It is the contention of the author that any successful attempt to create hyperaudio must resolve this schism, addressing both storage and information management issues simultaneously. In order to achieve this aim, an audio representation must be designed that provides compact data storage while, at the same time, revealing the inherent structure of the underlying data. Thus it is the aim of this thesis to present a representation designed with these factors in mind. Perhaps the most difficult hurdle in the way of achieving the aims of content-based audio coding and information management is that of auditory source separation. The MPEG committee has noted this requirement during the development of its MPEG-7 standard, however, the mechanics of "how" to achieve auditory source separation were left as an open research question. This same committee proposed that MPEG-7 would "support descriptors that can act as handles referring directly to the data, to allow manipulation of the multimedia material." While meta-data tags are a part solution to this problem, these cannot allow manipulation of audio material down to the level of individual sources when several simultaneous sources exist in a recording. In order to achieve this aim, the data themselves must be encoded in such a manner that allows these descriptors to be formed. Thus, content-based coding is obviously required. In the case of audio, this is impossible to achieve without effecting auditory source separation. Auditory source separation is the concern of computational auditory scene analysis (CASA). However, the findings of CASA research have traditionally been restricted to a limited domain. To date, the only real application of CASA research to what could loosely be classified as information management has been in the area of signal enhancement for automatic speech recognition systems. In these systems, a CASA front end serves as a means of separating the target speech from the background "noise". As such, the design of a CASA-based approach, as presented in this thesis, to one of the most significant challenges facing audio information management research represents a significant contribution to the field of information management. Thus, this thesis unifies research from three distinct fields in an attempt to resolve some specific and general challenges faced by all three. It describes an audio representation that is based on a sinusoidal model from which low-level auditory primitive elements are extracted. The use of a sinusoidal representation is somewhat contentious with the modern trend in CASA research tending toward more complex approaches in order to resolve issues relating to co-incident partials. However, the choice of a sinusoidal representation has been validated by the demonstration of a method to resolve many of these issues. The majority of the thesis contributes several algorithms to organise the low-level primitives into low-level auditory objects that may form the basis of nodes or link anchor points in a hyperaudio structure. Finally, preliminary investigations in the representation’s suitability for coding and information management tasks are outlined as directions for future research.

En este trabajo se describe el origen y el funcionamiento de dos instituciones singulares en el tratamiento de la infancia y la juventud delincuente y socialmente conflictiva en la España del siglo XIX: la Cárcel de Jóvenes de Madrid (1840-¿1848?) y la Casa de Corrección de Barcelona (1836-1884). Se trata de dos ensayos notables, por cuanto en el ámbito territorial español apenas se llevaron a cabo iniciativas en el ámbito penitenciario-asistencial destinadas específicamente a la infancia y juventud delincuente o en riesgo. El trabajo está estructurado en tres partes. En la primera parte se dan las claves para entender la problemática social de los menores delincuentes en la España del ochocientos, dando cuenta del marco legal en que se encuadraban, y apuntando las fórmulas punitivas, correctivas, asistenciales y educativas que se destinaron a ellos. En la segunda parte, se aborda el estudio de la Cárcel de Jóvenes de Madrid y de la asociación que impulsó su creación (Sociedad para la mejora del sistema carcelario, correccional y penal de España), siendo Ramón de la Sagra uno de los principales gestores de dicha Cárcel. Debido a la desintegración de la Sociedad entre finales de 1843 y principios de 1844, la Cárcel fue perdiendo los elementos y formas de funcionamiento singulares con que había surgido. La tercera y última parte, acoge el estudio de la Casa de Corrección de Barcelona, que empezaba sus andaduras en 1836, bajo un prisma básicamente represivo, y cuya reapertura en 1856 supondrá un verdadero renacimiento al convertirse desde esa fecha en un centro específicamente pensado para menores delincuentes y predelincuentes. En este viraje tendrá un papel significativo José María Canalejas, que pasaría a dirigir la institución entre 1858 y 1863, introduciendo un sistema de reeducación insólito en las instituciones benéficas y penitenciarias del momento. La falta de recursos económicos y la inadecuación de los edificios en que se ubicó la Casa de Corrección a lo largo de los años fueron una constante en la trayectoria de la institución, que a finales de siglo pasaría a ser gestionada por una congregación religiosa, pasando a convertirse en Escuela de Reforma (1884), y más adelante, recibiendo el nombre de Asilo Toribio Durán (1890), de cuya historia no se ocupa este trabajo. El estudio se completa con bibliografía y varios anexos, entre los que destacan diversas bases de datos en que se recogen los nombres de los internos (incluidas las niñas y mujeres, para el caso del centro barcelonés), con indicación de las fechas de ingreso, de salida, y otros datos vinculados a su procedencia, estancia y salida de la institución. / This work describes the origin and the way to work of two special institutions when managing the childhood and the youth of offenders and those socially conflictive during the XIX century in Spain: the Cárcel de Jóvenes de Madrid (1840-¿1848?) – a Prison for Youths in Madrid- and the Casa de Corrección de Barcelona (1836-1884) – a House for Correction in Barcelona. We are talking about two remarkable essays, as in the Spanish territory few initiatives took place in the field of penitentiary-care that focus on the childhood and youth of offenders of at risk of being one.

Gilberto Freyre's Casa-grande & senzala (1933) (The Masters and the Slaves) and William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (1936) revisit and reevaluate Romantic notions of history, especially national progress and attendant accounts of racial purity and whiteness of "the people." The plantation home emerges in their texts as the common locus of historical and cultural experiences and as the principle symbol and metaphor for the domination of colonial forces. This dissertation explores how Freyre and Faulkner both take up the contemporary issue of miscegenation as the primary theme in their respective works. They elaborate this theme and explore its ramifications through the central, grounding image of the plantation home, which they approach through a historical sensibility and from a historical perspective. Freyre and Faulkner work from within paradigms from Europe to rewrite them, as they re-think the legacies of colonialism and of the plantation organization in non-national, non-ethnic, non-Hegelian, generative, deterministic terms. Their works seek to offer viable and independent counter-discourses to the dominant European cultural models -- new, non-nationalist narratives of historical destiny based on culture and economics rather than on any overarching political-historical destiny, as the epics of Europe's nations had been told in the era. This dissertation hopes to contribute to the scholarship that questions the essentialist notions of race and nation, as they were conceived on the plantation in rural regions of the New World. This project recovers a transnational tradition of political opposition -- a tradition that roots itself in the anthropology of experience rather than in the determinism of origin and inheritance. It will also argue for disciplinary realignments in the literature of the Americas, by proposing that further efforts be made to study the New World plantation and its effective geography. On the basis of the discussion on Faulkner, Southern literature ought to observe a new division between the Upper South and the Lower South, demarcated by the border between North and South Carolina, on the basis of the demographics, economics, and, in turn, self-understanding of these respective regions. / text

This research presents the methodologies used to resolve the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Generic Safety Issue 191. The presented results are specific to South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC). However, the proposed methodologies may be applicable to other nuclear power plants given the appropriate plant-specific frequencies. This research provides important inputs to CASA Grande, a computer program used to model physical phenomena and quantify uncertainties to obtain estimates of failure probabilities for post-loss-of-coolant accident events at the STPNOC containment. We provide modeling and sampling methods for loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) frequencies and break sizes. We focus on a study known as NUREG-1829 (Tregoning et al., 2008), which includes an expert elicitation of quantiles governing the (annual) frequency of a LOCA in boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors. We propose to model LOCA frequencies with bounded Johnson distributions and to sample break sizes using uniform distributions. We then develop a new method to distribute LOCA frequencies to different locations within a plant to account for the location-dependent differences while preserving the NUREG-1829 frequencies. We also propose to linearly interpolate the NUREG-1829 LOCA frequencies to obtain the frequencies for any break sizes other than those from NUREG-1829. In addition, we present a method to obtain the distribution of LOCA frequency within a break-size interval providing important inputs to the probabilistic risk assessment quantification for STPNOC. We review methods of combining the probability distributions of multiple experts to obtain a single probability distribution. More specifically, we describe the relative merits of the arithmetic mean (AM) and geometric mean (GM) as ways of performing this aggregation in the context of probabilities associated with rare events. Examining a set of pressurized water reactor results from NUREG-1829, we conclude that the GM represents a consistently sensible notion of the middle of the opinions expressed by nine experts. We further conclude that the AM is inappropriate for representing the center of the group's opinion for large effective break sizes. Instead, as the break size grows large a single expert's opinion dominates the combination produced by the AM. / text

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