Wireless technology is used daily across the globe. A very common wireless technology is Bluetooth. The Bluetooth technology exists everywhere, from cars to mobile phones and even kitchen appliances. Recently, Bluetooth Low Energy has added support for another physical layer, LE 2M PHY. This physical layer is supposed to be faster and more energy efficient than its predecessor, LE 1M PHY, with a decrease in range. Because of this new physical layer, Bluetooth Low Energy can now compete with Bluetooth Classic during data transmission, in both speed and energy efficiency. This thesis aims to find the breaking point where Bluetooth Low Energy becomes less energy efficient than Bluetooth Classic, in relation to bit rate speed and total amount of bytes sent. Before experiments were conducted, multiple iterations of an artifact had to be done to end up with an artifact that provides valid and reliable data. The experiments were then conducted by changing the bit rate speed and sending different amounts of bytes. The results from the experiments show that Bluetooth Classic is practically both faster and more energy efficient with its fastest modulation than Bluetooth Low Energy is with LE 2M PHY enabled, even though this should not be the case theoretically. Bluetooth Classic is overall more energy efficient than Bluetooth Low Energy and thus the conclusion of this study is that no breaking points between the two technologies exist.

The dissertation examines the political organization of the ancient Maya during the Terminal Classic Period in the Cochuah Region of Quintana Roo. It evaluates the architecture and site layout of the secondary sites of Sacalaca and San Felipe, and tertiary and quaternary sites surrounding them in order to test political models. Our understanding of the ancient Maya political organization largely comes from Classic Period hieroglyphic texts recorded by Maya kings on public monuments. This reliance on only these kinds of data creates a limitation on the interpretation of political organization, and does not address the local scale of political institution within Maya polities. It also creates the illusion of a centralization of political organization and biases towards primary sites where hieroglyphic monuments are located. The alternative data available for the evaluation of political organization are the regional settlement pattern, individual site layouts and site architecture. Certain types of architecture such as acropoli, mortuary temples, formal plazas and ballcourts, are representative of the institutions of rulership permitting to determine the type of political organization. The distribution of this architecture within the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sites will correlate to respective political models. Three models were chosen to be tested after reviewing the various models proposed for the political organization of the ancient Maya. These models are Dynastic Kingship, Mul Tepal, and the Segmentary State. The archaeological correlates of these models are identified and compared with the evidence provided by twenty sites in the Cochuah Region for both the early Terminal Classic Period -the Florescent Phase and the late Terminal Classic Period -the Post Florescent Phase. The conclusion is made that during the Florescent Phase the political organization in the Cochuah Region was a Segmentary State. In the Segmentary State the institution of rulership is found in sites occupying different levels in the settlement hierarchy. Sacalaca and San Felipe and their satellites exhibit a duplication of the institutions of rulership on a smaller scale. During the Post Florescent Phase data indicate the absence of authorities capable of providing order or enforcing laws and perhaps the absence of rulers during this time in the region. This case study demonstrates that some types of political organizations would be only visible through examination of secondary sites and their satellites. Also, this approach addresses the problem of relying on hieroglyphic texts and helps to overcome a bias of centralized political organization created by investigation limited to the primary centers. / Anthropology

Triple oxygen and hydrogen isotope analysis of the structurally-bound water in gypsum can provide a direct measure of past hydrologic variability. This thesis presents the development of the water extraction and isotopic measurement procedures, the calculation of the gypsum-water isotope fractionation factors, and the application of the method to constrain the palaeohydrologic conditions in two temporally and geographically disparate sites. Measurement of the isotopic composition of gypsum hydration water is used to examine the hydrological changes that occurred during the Terminal Classic Drought of the Maya lowlands (~800-1000 CE), coincident with the period when the Classic Maya Civilization of Mesoamerica collapsed. The data provide a complete and direct archive of hydrological conditions that have previously been limited to ice core records. Mean annual rainfall is shown to have decreased by between 41% and 54%, with intervals of up to 70%, compared to present-day conditions. This study has also shown for the first time that relative humidity was 2%-7% lower during the Terminal Classic Drought compared to today. The methodology is also applied to the massive gypsum deposits in the marginal and deep basins of the Mediterranean to interpret the chemical evolution of parent water bodies during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (5.97-5.3 Ma). By combining the measurement of gypsum hydration water with other traditional (e.g. strontium) and novel (e.g. calcium and barium) isotope tracers, the hydrological changes during the deposition of Primary Lower Gypsum units of the Sorbas Basin in southeastern Spain, the Upper Gypsum units of Sicily, and deep basin deposits have been constrained. The results indicate that all deposits experienced a significant freshwater contribution to the mother fluids from which they formed. It is proposed that obliquity-controlled sea level and eccentricity-modulated precession, superimposed on longer-term tectonic restriction of the Mediterranean-Atlantic exchange, together controlled the varying depositional environments during the formation of the Messinian Salt Giant. This thesis demonstrates that the analysis of gypsum hydration water is a powerful tool for palaeoclimate reconstruction. The methodology can be applied to gypsum (and other hydrated minerals) in a wide range of settings across geological space and time, providing a rich source of information about the environmental conditions under which they formed.

My dissertation focuses on an analysis of postmodern narrative strategies in Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (ULB) and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting ( BLF) . By analysing the postmodern ab/use of narrative strategies, I argue that postmodern fiction marks a decided shift from both classical realism and modernism. My dissertation has predominantly been motivated through my contention that postmodern fiction is not elitist as it has been perceived to be. Rather, I suggest that postmodern fiction ab/uses narrative strategies to deconstruct the ontological boundaries between the political and private and fiction and 'fact'. Consequently, postmodern fiction interrogates the contrived intelligibility of History. A further argument that I raise is that postmodern fiction through its (re) appropriation, subversion and use of parodic structures creates.narrative space for the Other. In order not to canonize Kundera's texts, I situate both ULB and BLF as 'nodes' within a diffuse network of intertextual discourse. My analyses of the postmodern narrative strategies in ULB and BLF, attempt to interrogate the diffuse 'nature' of postmodern fiction which resists both authorative analysis and closure. In exploring the relationship between recuperation and postmodern narrative strategies in ULB and BLF and other works and/or texts of fiction, I argue that postmodern fiction does not revel in its narrativity, it constitutes, instead, a political strategy / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / M.A. (Theory of Literature)

À la fin du siècle dernier, lorsque les mouvements féministes secouèrent les milieux intellectuels, les questionnements sur le genre se sont retrouvés au cœur des débats en sciences sociales et en archéologie. L’archéologie maya n’échappa pas à la règle et les femmes, jusque là restées dans l’ombre, retrouvèrent une visibilité. Ce mémoire a pour objectif de dégager la complexité des constructions sociales, symboliques et idéologiques de genre au sein des couches sociales les plus élevées de la société maya classique, en regroupant et en confrontant une bonne partie des données archéologiques, iconographiques, épigraphiques mais aussi ethnohistoriques répertoriées dans la littérature. Nos résultats défendent l’idée selon laquelle les relations et les identités de genres au sein des élites dirigeantes, mais également non dirigeantes, étaient construites autour d'un principe fondamental de la pensée maya : la dualité complémentaire. / At the turn of the century, as feminist movements shook the foundations of academia, questions of gender were pushed to the fore front of debates in social sciences and archaeology. Mayan archaeology has followed this trend, shedding light on the previously neglected role of women in these societies. The goal of this thesis is to capture the complexity underlining the social, symbolic and ideological construction of gender in the upper echelons of classical Mayan society. This objective is pursued by compiling and confronting archaeological, iconographical, epigraphic and ethnohistorical data found in the literature. Our results support the thesis according to which relations and, identities pertaining to gender among the Mayan ruling and non-ruling elites were constructed along the lines of a fundamental principal of Mayan thought and culture: complimentary duality.

This paper is focused on the concept of catharsis in classic Greek tragedy. In the first part, it traces historical context of this term particularly trough the work of Plato; and later, the main effort is devoted to Aristotle. It looks closely in Aristotle's Poetics and Politics, which are the only works where he mentions catharsis. After research of the Aristotle's texts, the study presents variety of interpretations that have arisen over centuries, examines them and derives an elementary understanding of catharsis. The second part of this work tries to trace catharsis in a sample of preserved tragedies of main Greek dramatists. It investigates tragic characters, plot and tragic emotions (i.e. pity and fear). The scope is to compare the Aristotle's theory and practice of dramatists, who lived one century before the theory had rised. Last but not least the study concludes by bringing forward an evaluation of this approach to the theory of Aristotelian catharsis.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma pesquisa de mestrado baseada na busca de esclarecimentos acerca dos possíveis significados que os conceitos de cidadania e de cidadão podem manifestar. No desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, inspirada numa concepção de terapia filosófica de cunho wittgeinsteiniano, considerou-se que os sentidos atribuídos ao conceito de cidadania estariam vinculados a situações de uso deste conceito e que somente nestas situações de uso seus diferentes significados poderiam ser compreendidos. Assim, a pesquisa foi desenvolvida a partir da análise de discursos extraídos de dois ambientes diversos. O primeiro grupo de discursos foi extraído de um ambiente correlato ao senso-comum (discursos veiculados em sites da internet e coletados em dezembro de 2008). O segundo grupo de discursos foi coletado em periódicos acadêmicos da área pedagógica veiculados entre janeiro de 1997 e dezembro de 2007; os periódicos pesquisados foram: Cadernos Cedes (UNICAMP), Cadernos de Pesquisa (Fundação Carlos Chagas) e Educação e Pesquisa (USP). A partir das análises desses discursos, verificou-se as semelhanças e as diferenças que aproximavam ou distanciavam os significados atribuídos ao conceito de cidadania em cada um deles. A partir da reflexão proporcionada pela verificação dessas aproximações e distanciamentos, pelas amostras de discursos analisados, descobrimos que é possível significar o conceito de cidadania a partir de, pelo menos, duas perspectivas: uma perspectiva que foi chamada de cidadania clássica e outra perspectiva que foi chamada de cidadania multicultural. Assim, os discursos coletados como exemplos puderam ser classificados em três diferentes grupos: um grupo de discursos atrelados a uma concepção de cidadania clássica, outro grupo de discursos atrelados a uma concepção de cidadania multicultural e, por fim, um terceiro grupo de discursos classificados como híbridos pelo fato de que, de alguma maneira, transitavam ou procuravam lidar com os pressupostos ou reivindicações de ambos os tipos de cidadanias, com implicações para as propostas correlatas de uma educação para a cidadania. / This M.A thesis presents research based on the search for enlightenment regarding the possible meanings that the concepts of citizenship and citizen may manifest. In the development of this research, inspired by a Wittgensteinian conception of philosophical therapy, it was assumed that the meanings attributed to the concept of citizenship would be bound to situations in which this concept is used, and that its different meanings could be understood only in these situations. Therefore, the research was developed based on the analysis of discourses extracted from two diverse environments. The first group of discourses was extracted from common sense-like sources (discourses published on web sites, collected in December, 2008). The second group of discourses was collected from pedagogical academic journals, published between January, 1997 and December, 2007. The journals were: Cadernos Cedes (UNICAMP), Cadernos de Pesquisa (Fundação Carlos Chagas), and Educação e Pesquisa (USP). The analyses of these discourses pointed at similarities and differences which brought together or kept away the meanings attributed to the concept of citizenship in each of them. Based on the aforementioned material, it is arguable that it is possible to signify the concept of citizenship from at least two perspectives, here named classic citizenship and multicultural citizenship. As a consequence, the discourses in the corpus could be classified into three different groups: the first connected to the concept of classic citizenship; the second to the multicultural one; and a third hybrid group. The third group was called hybrid because its discourses were in between assumptions and claims of the other two groups, or at least tried to address them, with implications for their proposals of citizenship education.

Trata-se de pesquisa teórica, de cunho filosófico-educacional, sobre o modo como Eurípides retrata, discute e problematiza, em sua obra, o debate intelectual e político que marcou a vida cultural de Atenas na segunda metade do século V a.C., assim como os seus desdobramentos no campo moral e educacional. Em virtude da dificuldade de tomarmos, neste estudo, como objeto de análise o conjunto da obra conservada de Eurípides, damos destaque à peça Ifigênia em Áulis. Além de abordar explicitamente o tema da educação, essa obra consta entre as últimas composições do poeta, o que nos permite analisar o amadurecimento de suas reflexões poético-filosóficas. A tragédia, embora com características bastante peculiares, insere-se na Grécia como herdeira da tradição poética grega - a épica e a lírica - e da sua missão educadora. Em face das grandes transformações de caráter político, social e cultural ocorridas na Grécia com o desenvolvimento e a consolidação do modelo de pólis democrática - que tem o seu apogeu no século V a.C., um novo perfil de homem, com características bastante diferentes daquelas projetadas em torno da nobreza aristocrática palaciana, vai ser exigido. Reconfigurando as estruturas do mito e valendo-se dos meios expressivos do teatro, a tragédia vai exercer em Atenas, que se tornara, então, o principal pólo cultural, político e econômico da Grécia, o seu ofício poético-pedagógico de direcionar o olhar dos homens para as questões essenciais da vida na pólis. A posição tradicional da arte dramática parece não satisfazer Eurípides. É certo que não lhe faltava a consciência de sua missão pedagógica. Não a exercia, porém, no mesmo sentido de seus antecessores, mas sim mediante a participação apaixonada nos problemas da política e da vida espiritual de seu tempo. A crítica euripidiana, cuja força purificadora reside na negação do convencional e na revelação do problemático, nos faz olhar para as contradições e as idiossincrasias de uma educação em tempos de crise. Na Ifigênia em Áulis, que ora examinamos, Eurípides põe em questão o próprio paradigma heróico, base da educação tradicional aristocrática, suscitando uma reavaliação do conceito de herói e de seu significado na formação do homem grego. Por outro lado, sempre sob o peso artístico de uma erística ousada e vigorosa, a dinâmica dialética desse drama, complexa e tão bem articulada, ilumina a questão dos limites da ação educativa e de seus fundamentos. E o imponderável, que paira sobre a existência do homem, é lembrado, como o grande obstáculo à elaboração de um modelo definitivo e seguro de educação. / This theoretical research, of philosophic-educational nature, aims to analyze the way as Euripides represents, discusses and brings into question, through his work, the intellectual and political debate which marked the cultural life of Athens in the second half of the 5th Century b. C., as well as its effects in the moral and educational field. Due to difficulty of analyzing, in this study, the whole preserved work of Euripides, we emphasize the play Iphigenia in Aulis. This play approaches the subject of the education and is one of the last compositions of the poet, which allows us to analyze the philosophical-poetic maturing of his reflections. The tragedy, although with a sufficient amount of peculiar characteristics, is inserted in Greece as an heiress of the poetical Greek tradition - the epic and the lyrical ones - and its educational mission. Due to great political, social and cultural transformations that occurred in Greece with the development and the consolidation of the model of pólis democratic - that has its highest point in the 5th century b. C. -, a new profile of man, with sufficiently different characteristics of those projected ones around the aristocratic nobility, would be demanded. Reconfiguring the structures of the myth and using the expressive means of the theater, the tragedy would play in Athens, that became, then, the main cultural, political and economical pole of Greece, its poetical-pedagogical role to conduct the attention of the men to the essential questions of the life in the pólis. The traditional position of the dramatic art seems not to satisfy Euripides. It is certain that he did not lack the conscience of a pedagogical mission. He did not practice it, however, in the direction of his predecessors, but by means of the passionate participation in the problems of the politics and the spiritual life. The euripidian criticism, whose purifying force inhabits in the negation of the conventional and in the revelation of the problematic, makes us look at the contradictions and the idiosyncrasies of an education in times of crisis. In the Iphigenia in Aulis, Euripides questions the heroic paradigm, base of the traditional aristocratic education, causing a revaluation of the concept of hero and of his meaning in the formation of the Greek man. However, under the artistic weight of a daring and vigorous eristic, the dialectical dynamic of this drama, complex and articulated, always illuminates the question of the limits of the educative action and of his bases. And the imponderable, which hovers over the existence of the man, is remembered, like the great obstacle to the preparation of a definite and secure model of education.

O sistema visual é considerado o mais complexo de todos os sistemas sensoriais do ser humano. O objetivo da visão é construir uma representação dos objetos extraindo informações do ambiente, transformando-as em um código neural que origina a percepção. A compreensão dos fatores sensoriais que alteram a percepção é necessária para uma teoria adequada da percepção visual. Evidências sobre os efeitos do contexto ambiental ainda são limitadas, mas sabe-se que alterações no plano de fundo, criação de lacunas e mudanças de textura alteram a percepção de profundidade. Esse estudo teve como objetivo principal investigar quais fatores sensoriais básicos alteram a estimativa de magnitude (EM) de tamanho de círculos nos sujeitos saudáveis, verificando se existiu correlação entre a variação de parâmetros do estímulo físico com os respectivos julgamentos para diferentes condições visuais, além da possibilidade de desenvolver um instrumento para avaliação de algumas psicopatologias. O método da EM se refere a um procedimento no qual o observador faz um julgamento numérico direto de uma magnitude psicológica de uma série de percepções. Para isso, desenvolvemos um programa de computador como uma ferramenta psicofísica para medidas de EM que nos permitiu gerar 15 diferentes condições experimentais separadas em quatro protocolos (P1, P2, P3 e P4). O projeto consistiu em dois blocos: (1) de experimentos básicos, cujo objetivo foi abordar como elementos sensoriais visuais básicos interferiram no julgamento para estímulos simples, usando o P2, cujas variáveis luminância e o P4 no qual a disposição espacial para diferenças na lateralização do processamento visual foram alteradas; e (2) de exploração metodológica, que buscou manipular o valor de referência (P1) e a indução de sensações de profundidade (P3). Foram avaliados 78 indivíduos típicos (m = 27,55, dp = 4,69) com nível superior completo ou incompleto, todos com visão normal ou devidamente corrigida, distribuídos aleatoriamente em os quatro grupos 8 experimentais. Os protocolos 1 e 2 apresentaram os resultados mais satisfatórios que nos permitirão a utilização do programa em indivíduos com psicopatologias para investigação de diferenças da população normal. Ainda que os protocolos 3 e 4 tenham gerado dados controversos, levou-se em consideração que se tratou de um estudo de investigação metodológica, cuja continuidade nos permitirá uma melhor contribuição teórica alcançada com a retomada de estudos no campo da Psicofísica Clássica, principalmente devido a escassez de publicações nas últimas décadas acerca do tema aqui proposto / The visual system is considered the most complex human sensory system. The purpose of the vision is to create a representation of the objects by gathering information of the environment and converting it into a neural code that generates perception. The comprehension of sensory factors that influence the perception is necessary to an adequate theory of visual perception. Evidences about the effects of the context remain still limited, but it is known that some facts such as variations on backgrounds, creation of gaps and texture changes modify the perception of depth. This study aimed to investigate which are the basic sensory factors that change the Magnitude Estimation (ME) of the size of circles in healthy subjects, in order to verify if there was a correlation between parameter variations of physical stimulus and its respective judgments about different visual condition, in addition to the possibility of development of a screening test to assess some psychopathologies. The ME method is the procedure in which the observer makes a direct numeric judgment of a psychological magnitude of a series of perceptions. For this purpose, we developed a computer software which was used as a psychophysical tool in order to measure ME that allowed us to generate 15 different experimental conditions allocated into four protocols (P1, P2, P3 and P4). The project was composed of two blocs: (1) basic experiments, in whichthe objective was to investigate how basic sensory visual elements interfere on the judgment of simple stimulus, using P2 in which the variable luminance was changed and P4 in which spatial position to evaluate differences on lateralization of visual process was altered; and (2) methodological exploration, that aimed to manipulate the reference value (P1) and the induction of depth sensory perception (P3). Seventy-eight healthy subjects were tested (m = 27.55, sd = 4.69), that had a complete or incomplete graduation course, they all had normal or corrected-to-normal visual acuity, and they were randomly distributed into the four experimental groups. The protocols 1 and 2 10 had shown the most satisfactory results that will allow us to use the software in people with psychopathologies in attention to screen differences of the general population. Despite the protocols 3 and 4 had generated controversial data, it is important to consider this as a study about methodological investigation, and its follow up will lead us to an improvement of the theoretical contribution reached by the recovery of Classic Psychophysics experiments, mainly due to the last decades lack of publishing about this purposed topic

Esta dissertação apresenta uma pesquisa de mestrado baseada na busca de esclarecimentos acerca dos possíveis significados que os conceitos de cidadania e de cidadão podem manifestar. No desenvolvimento desta pesquisa, inspirada numa concepção de terapia filosófica de cunho wittgeinsteiniano, considerou-se que os sentidos atribuídos ao conceito de cidadania estariam vinculados a situações de uso deste conceito e que somente nestas situações de uso seus diferentes significados poderiam ser compreendidos. Assim, a pesquisa foi desenvolvida a partir da análise de discursos extraídos de dois ambientes diversos. O primeiro grupo de discursos foi extraído de um ambiente correlato ao senso-comum (discursos veiculados em sites da internet e coletados em dezembro de 2008). O segundo grupo de discursos foi coletado em periódicos acadêmicos da área pedagógica veiculados entre janeiro de 1997 e dezembro de 2007; os periódicos pesquisados foram: Cadernos Cedes (UNICAMP), Cadernos de Pesquisa (Fundação Carlos Chagas) e Educação e Pesquisa (USP). A partir das análises desses discursos, verificou-se as semelhanças e as diferenças que aproximavam ou distanciavam os significados atribuídos ao conceito de cidadania em cada um deles. A partir da reflexão proporcionada pela verificação dessas aproximações e distanciamentos, pelas amostras de discursos analisados, descobrimos que é possível significar o conceito de cidadania a partir de, pelo menos, duas perspectivas: uma perspectiva que foi chamada de cidadania clássica e outra perspectiva que foi chamada de cidadania multicultural. Assim, os discursos coletados como exemplos puderam ser classificados em três diferentes grupos: um grupo de discursos atrelados a uma concepção de cidadania clássica, outro grupo de discursos atrelados a uma concepção de cidadania multicultural e, por fim, um terceiro grupo de discursos classificados como híbridos pelo fato de que, de alguma maneira, transitavam ou procuravam lidar com os pressupostos ou reivindicações de ambos os tipos de cidadanias, com implicações para as propostas correlatas de uma educação para a cidadania. / This M.A thesis presents research based on the search for enlightenment regarding the possible meanings that the concepts of citizenship and citizen may manifest. In the development of this research, inspired by a Wittgensteinian conception of philosophical therapy, it was assumed that the meanings attributed to the concept of citizenship would be bound to situations in which this concept is used, and that its different meanings could be understood only in these situations. Therefore, the research was developed based on the analysis of discourses extracted from two diverse environments. The first group of discourses was extracted from common sense-like sources (discourses published on web sites, collected in December, 2008). The second group of discourses was collected from pedagogical academic journals, published between January, 1997 and December, 2007. The journals were: Cadernos Cedes (UNICAMP), Cadernos de Pesquisa (Fundação Carlos Chagas), and Educação e Pesquisa (USP). The analyses of these discourses pointed at similarities and differences which brought together or kept away the meanings attributed to the concept of citizenship in each of them. Based on the aforementioned material, it is arguable that it is possible to signify the concept of citizenship from at least two perspectives, here named classic citizenship and multicultural citizenship. As a consequence, the discourses in the corpus could be classified into three different groups: the first connected to the concept of classic citizenship; the second to the multicultural one; and a third hybrid group. The third group was called hybrid because its discourses were in between assumptions and claims of the other two groups, or at least tried to address them, with implications for their proposals of citizenship education.