<p>A Test Battery (TB) is a measurement method that is designed to assess a variety of ability constructs. The extent to which TB predicts future pilot performance has important implications for both flying organizations and applicants. The primary emphasis in the existing literature has been on scores of individual ability tests, in contrast to the scores of multiple ability tests that are typically indexed by composites derived from TBs. The selection literature lacks a focus on composite scores, and seldom links to the broad cognitive abilities that predominate TBs. The objective of this study was to investigate how the different broad ability constructs of TBs influence their predictive validities for pilot performance. Six ability groups were identified as the most common ability saturations of pilot selection TBs. On the basis of 89 studies and 118 independent samples, a series of meta-analyses were conducted to determine the criterion-related validity of the six categories of TBs for several criterions of pilot performance.</p> <p>The investigation revealed there was an overall small and positive relationship between TBs and flight performance. The six categories of cognitive ability TBs appeared to be valid predictors of pilot performance, and at least five of them generalize validity across studies and settings. More specifically, three sets of predictor groups were identified according to the magnitude of validity estimates. The highest validity group included <i>Work Sample</i> TBs (<i>r</i>=.34), the second highest validity group included TBs of <i>Acquired Knowledge</i>, <i>General Ability</i>, and <i>Motor Abilities</i> (<i>r</i>=.19, .18, and .17, respectively), and the lowest validity group included TBs of <i>Perceptual Processing</i> and <i>Controlled Attention</i> (<i>r</i>=.14 and .10, respectively).</p> <p>The results also indicated that there was substantial variability in the effect of cognitive abilities on flight performance, with evidence of moderators operating in most cases. Five potential moderator variables were examined that may moderate the TBs-performance relationship in flying. The analysis for the moderator variable of <i>the number of tests in the battery </i>(small battery/large battery), <i>regularity of TB use in pilot selection</i> (commonly used/uncommonly used), and <i>criterion level of measurement</i> (continuous/ordinal/dichotomous/ contingency table) revealed significant moderating effects on the correlations between flight performance and several types of test batteries. Other moderators related to <i>year of publication</i> (1987-1999/2000-2009/2010-2017) and <i>flying organization</i> (USAF/US Navy/Another military/Civilian) did not significantly influence the correlations between TBs and flight performance. The implications of the findings for practice are discussed, and recommendations for future research directions are provided.</p>

A tese apresenta uma contribuição à área da pesquisa educacional, para auxiliar na identificação de perfis cognitivos, utilizando o referencial teórico das Ciências Cognitivas e a instrumentação das Neurociências. O projeto elaborado para atender os objetivos desta tese compreendeu o desenvolvimento de metodologia experimental, apoiada pela técnica estatística de Projetos de Experimentos, juntamente com instrumentos neurocientíficos (uso de eletroencefalografia com técnica ERP – Event Related Potential), para a observação, quantificação e interpretação de evidências neuronais – sinais de eletroencefalografia - relacionadas ao processo cognitivo humano. Buscou, em particular, evidências relacionadas às diferentes demandas de energia despendida na realização de atividades espaciais (identificação, percepção ou atenção espacial de objetos virtuais), com base em instrumentos teóricos e tecnológicos das Neurociências, das Ciências Cognitivas e da Psicologia Cognitiva, para uso na área da pesquisa educacional, visando contribuir para identificação de diferentes perfis de estudantes em diferentes áreas do conhecimento. Na investigação experimental, o objetivo foi buscar indicadores (quantificação de energia alocada em atividade cerebral, medida de tempo de resposta ao estímulo, maior magnitude na faixa de freqüência do ritmo elétrico cerebral, evocados no experimento) dos sinais cerebrais que estejam sincronizados com o exercício proposto e que possam subsidiar a hipótese de que há diferenças significativas entre estudantes de áreas científicas e tecnológicas e estudantes de áreas humanas e sociais, no quesito habilidades espaciais. A proposta contextualiza e fundamenta experimentos com um grupo de alunos voluntários dos cursos de graduação, selecionados para a pesquisa, classificados por idade e sexo e avaliados e selecionados por diagnóstico psicológico indicativo da provável área de aptidão/habilidade cognitiva. O desenvolvimento da proposta investigativa, que visou atender os objetivos relacionados e pertinentes ao processo, foi possível devido a esforços de pesquisadores e cientistas das diferentes áreas de conhecimento, que colaboraram na modelagem do experimento realizado no Laboratório de Biosinais da Universidade de Caxias do Sul, no Campus Universitário da Região dos Vinhedos, junto ao Curso de Engenharia Elétrica. Como parte do processo metodológico experimental está compreendido o desenvolvimento do instrumento de medição: equipamento de eletroencefalografia (EEG) utilizando o sistema de aquisição e conversão de sinal analógico-digital da National Instruments e também, o equipamento conhecido como Gaiola de Faraday, que serviu para a realização das coletas de sinais elétricos cerebrais de baixa freqüência e amplitude, minimizando a presença de ruídos eletromagnéticos interferentes significativamente no sinal coletado. Os dados (sinais elétricos cerebrais) coletados durante o experimento que evocou raciocínio lógico espacial dos participantes foram modelados matematicamente por Fourier e interpretados por análise estatística – UNIVARIATE (análise de variância) e comparados aos resultados obtidos pelos instrumentos de apoio utilizados como forma de validar o processo investigativo: questionário verbal ao final do experimento e teste psicológico - subteste BPR5 – RE. Todos os dados coletados também foram armazenados com o propósito de permitir futura realização de outras simulações, com diferentes métodos de acesso aos conteúdos. Entende-se que os resultados obtidos nesse experimento possam colaborar com a Informática aplicada à Educação no planejamento, desenvolvimento e uso de objetos virtuais em ambientes destinados a mediar à aprendizagem, de acordo com necessidades específicas de cada público-alvo. Nesse sentido, os resultados dessa investigação podem prover dados ou características como medidas indicadoras de esforços cognitivos associados a perfis diferenciados, no caso das áreas de conhecimento, que envolvam processos de raciocínio espacial. O entendimento sobre o esforço manifestado pelo aluno durante o experimento foi interpretado como uma possível medida de um dos itens relacionados ao perfil cognitivo, à luz das Ciências Cognitivas (GARDNER, 1994, 2001), (STERNBERG, 2000), (PINKER, 1998). / The thesis is to contribute for the area of educational research in order to aid on the identification of cognitive profiles, using theoretical references from cognitive sciences and instrumentation from neurosciences. The project designed to meet the objectives of the thesis included the development of experimental methodology, supported by the statistical technique for Experiment Projects, along with neuroscientific instruments (use of electroencephalography with the ERP technique – Event Related Potential), for the observation, quantification, and interpretation of neuronal evidences – electroencephalography signals – related to the human cognitive process. It particularly searched for evidences related to different demands of energy spent to perform spatial activities (identification, perception, or spatial attention of virtual objects), based on theoretical and technological instruments of Neurosciences, Cognitive Sciences and Cognitive Psychology, used in the field of educational research, with the aim to contribute for the identification of different profiles of students in different areas of knowledge. In the experimental investigation, the purpose was to look for indicators (quantification of energy allocated in brain activity, measuring response time to the stimulus, larger magnitude in the frequency band of the brain electrical rhythm, evoked on the experiment) of the brain signals that would be synchronized with the exercise proposed and that could subsidize the hypothesis that there are significant differences between students from scientific and technological fields and students from humanistic and social fields, regarding spatial abilities. The proposal contextualizes and fundaments experiments with a group of volunteer students from the undergraduate programs, selected for the research, classified by age and gender, and evaluated and selected according to a psychological diagnostic indicating a probable area of cognitive ability / aptitude. The development of the investigative proposal that intended to meet the objectives mentioned was possible thanks to efforts of a group of researchers and scientists from different fields of knowledge, pertinent to the process, who collaborated on the modeling of the experiment, carried out at the Biosignal Laboratory of the University of Caxias do Sul, at the University Campus of Região dos Vinhedos, in its Electrical Engineering Program. The development of the measuring instrument was part of the experimental methodological process: the equipment for electroencephalography (EEG) using the system acquisition and conversion of analog to digital signal (manufacturer: National Instruments) and also the equipment known as Faraday’s Cage, which served to the collections of electrical brain signals of low frequency and amplitude, minimizing the presence of electromagnetic noises interfering significantly on the signal collected.The data collected (brain electrical signals) during the experiment that evoked logical spatial reasoning by the participants were mathematically modeled by Fourier and interpreted by statistical analysis – UNIVARIATE (variance analysis) and compared to results obtained by support instruments used as a way of validating the investigative process: a verbal questionnaire at the end of the experiment and a psychological test – subtest BPR5 – RE. All data collected were also saved with the purpose of making it possible to carry out other simulations in the future, with different access methods to the contents. It is understood that the results obtained with this experiment collaborate Informatics applied to Education on planning, developing, and using virtual objects in environments destined to mediate learning according to specific needs of each target public. In that sense, the results of this investigation may provide data or characteristics as measures indicating cognitive efforts associated to differentiated profiles, which are in this case the knowledge fields involving spatial reasoning processes. Understanding the effort manifested by the student during the experiment was interpreted as a possible measure for one of the items related to the cognitive profile, the light of Cognitive Sciences (GARDNER, 1994, 2001), (STERNBERG, 2000), (PINKER, 1998).

Orientador: Maria Candida Soares Del-Masso / Banca: Alfredo Pereira Júnior / Banca: Gustavo Maia Souza / Resumo: É antiga a preocupação do ser humano com as questões relacionadas ao conhecimento, incluindo as discussões sobre a sua origem, seu aprendizado, sobre a nossa capacidade de utiliza-lo e sobre as características específicas da cognição humana. Essa preocupação remonta aos antigos filósofos gregos (2.500 A.C.), desenvolvendo-se posteriormente a partir da abordagem da Epistemologia, originária da Filosofia ocidental, e mais recentemente a partir do Funcionalismo, pertencente aos estudos em Filosofia da Mente e em Ciência Cognitiva. Essa última abordagem, em particular, contribuiu para o surgimento de programas de pesquisas que procuram entender o funcionamento da mente humana com a ajuda do computador. A Ciência Cognitiva possui fortes ligações com as pesquisas em Inteligência Artificial, e ambas vem se desenvolvendo desde a década de 1950. Mais recentemente, a partir da década de 1980, uma nova área de estudos surgiu, formada por pesquisas em Vida Artificial, que trabalha com a possibilidade de síntese de entidades vivas, por meios artificiais, e desde então vem chamando a atenção de pesquisadores interessados no estudo da cognição. Enquanto a Ciência Cognitiva tem ligações estreitas com a Filosofia e a Psicologia, a Vida Artificial tem uma forte inspiração na Biologia. Neste trabalho, procuramos investigar o encontro entre essas disciplinas, e seus programas de pesquisas, considerando as possibilidades de contribuição para o estudo da cognição humana, a partir de uma abordagem conjunta entre essas áreas. / Abstract: It is na old thing the human concern about knowledge related questions, including discussions on its origin, its learning, about our capacity to utilize it and about specific characteristics of the human cognition. That concern remounts to the ancient greek philosophers (2.500 B.C.), developing itself later from the approach of Epistemology, originated in the occidental Philosophy, and more recently from the Functionalism, that makes part of the studies of Philosophy of Mind and of Cognitive Science. This last approach, particularly, contributed to appearing of research programs that try to understand the function of the human mind with the help of the computer. The Cognitive Science has strong relation with research in Artificial Intelligence, and both areas have been growing since the 1950 decade. More recently, from the decade 1980 on, a new area of atudies appeared, formed by researches in Artificial Life, that work with the possibility of synthesis of alive entities, by artificial means, and sice then has been attracting the attention of researchers interested in the study of Cognition. While Cognitive Science has strict relations with the Philosophy and the Psychology, Artifiical life has a strong inspiration in the Biology. In this work, we tried to investigate the meeting between these subjects, and their research programs, considering the possibilities of the contribution to the study of the human cognition, by means of an integrated approach of these areas. / Mestre

The semantic web aims to make the meaning of data on the web explicit and machine processable. Harking back to Leibniz in its vision, it imagines a world of interlinked information that computers `understand' and `know' how to process based on its meaning. Spearheaded by the World Wide Web Consortium, ontology languages OWL and RDF form the core of the current technical offerings. RDF has successfully enabled the construction of virtually unlimited webs of data, whilst OWL gives the ability to express complex relationships between RDF data triples. However, the formal semantics of these languages limit themselves to that aspect of meaning that can be captured by mechanical inference rules, leaving many open questions as to other aspects of meaning and how they might be made machine processable. The Semantic Web has faced a number of problems that are addressed by the included publications. Its germination within academia, and logical semantics has seen it struggle to become familiar, accessible and implementable for the general IT population, so an overview of semantic technologies is provided. Faced with competing `semantic' languages, such as the ISO's Topic Map standards, a method for building ISO-compliant Topic Maps in the OWL DL language has been provided, enabling them to take advantage of the more mature OWL language and tools. Supplementation with rules is needed to deal with many real-world scenarios and this is explored as a practical exercise. The available syntaxes for OWL have hindered domain experts in ontology building, so a natural language syntax for OWL designed for use by non-logicians is offered and compared with similar offerings. In recent years, proliferation of ontologies has resulted in far more than are needed in any given domain space, so a mechanism is proposed to facilitate the reuse of existing ontologies by giving contextual information and leveraging social factors to encourage wider adoption of common ontologies and achieve interoperability. Lastly, the question of meaning is addressed in relation to the need to define one's terms and to ground one's symbols by anchoring them effectively, ultimately providing the foundation for evolving a `Pragmatic Web' of action.

In their native habitat of Central and South America, capuchin monkeys (Cebus) spend 45% to 55% of their day foraging and a further 20% travelling. Once these monkeys are introduced into captive environments their diets are selective, seasonal and presented to them by their keepers. The captive environment often leads to various behavioural abnormalities and compensatory behaviours or stereotypies. To address this issue, environmental enrichment can be employed to reduce, cure or prevent such an occurrence. Enrichment can reduce stress, while increasing animal well-being and health in captivity. Despite previous work a better understanding of enrichment, for most neo-tropical primate species, is necessary, in order to improve their captive lifestyles. Feeding of captive primates is more complex than providing a balanced nutritional diet as it must also meet their ethological needs. The manipulation of the presentation of the diet has been shown to significantly decrease the incidence of resting, while significantly increasing the incidence of playing, grooming, foraging and manual manipulation of dietary items. Eleven capuchin monkeys were presented with four different feeding treatments (i.e. cut food presented in bowls, cut food presented around the enclosure, uncut food presented around the enclosure and novel feeding devices presented around the enclosure) from December 2007 until May 2008. At the start of every month one of three feeding treatments was introduced with the cut food in bowls feeding treatment interleaved between the treatments. The different feeding treatments required the monkeys to search for their food, break-up their food into manageable sizes, and obtain food in touch-, tool- and manipulative-dependent methods in order to allow the monkeys an opportunity to display increased activity more in line with their wild conspecifics. The capuchins displayed a period of intense foraging directly following feeding. This period significantly increased (from 44 to 121 min.), along with foraging events and the proportion of time spent foraging, which was more in line with their wild conspecifics. In addition, the frequency of occurrence and the proportion of time spent on locomotion and resting was shown to decrease. Also, abnormal behaviours ceased to occur during the study. Environmental enrichment is a useful tool for providing stimulation, redistributing activity levels more in line with wild conspecifics and to combat abnormal and compensatory behaviours.

Un modèle tridimensionnel du visage a été élaboré, dans la perspective de contribuer à l'étude de questions importantes sur le contrôle moteur de la production de la parole. Ce modèle est construit sur un maillage constitué d'éléments hexahédraux et de clavettes, qui comporte 3 couches distinctes et est symétrique par rapport au plan medio-sagittal. Les muscles faciaux sont représentés dans le maillage par un sous-ensemble d'éléments contigus. Les propriétés élastiques des éléments du maillage sont décrites par une loi de comportement de type isotrope quasi incompressible et hyperélastique. Dans une première phase de ce travail, pour étudier les conséquences globales de l'activation des muscles oro-faciaux sur les mimiques faciales et les gestes labiaux, et plus particulièrement sur les gestes labiaux en parole, un modèle linéaire de muscle a été élaboré. L'influence des variations de la raideur des tissus mous sur les gestes faciaux a été étudiée. En effet, l'activation des muscles entraîne un raidissement des tissus mous musculaires concernés. Cet effet est pris en compte dans le modèle de muscle par un changement de la loi de comportement hyperélastique avec l'activation musculaire. Une attention particulière a été portée dans cette étude à la production du geste de protrusion/arrondissement des lèvres qui est un geste fondamental dans la production des voyelles arrondies, en particulier en Français. Nous montrons que le raidissement des tissus mous musculaires facilite la production précise de ce geste grâce à l'existence d'un effet de saturation dans la relation entre les activations musculaires et les paramètres géométriques des lèvres qui sont pertinents acoustiquement. Ce résultat souligne l'importance des propriétés dynamiques des articulateurs dans la production des gestes de la parole, et il nous a incités à améliorer encore la modélisation de la source principale de force en production de la parole, c'est-à-dire les muscles. C'est pourquoi, un modèle de muscles plus réaliste a été élaboré qui se fonde sur une loi de comportement transversalement isotrope quasi incompressible et hyperélastique et sur un modèle de muscle de type Hill. Ce modèle a été implémenté dans le logiciel éléments finis ANSYS® grâce à sa fonction de programmation USERMAT. La prise en compte supplémentaire d'une loi caractéristique force-vitesse a permis la modélisation complète d'un modèle de muscle de type Hill. Ceci a été fait sous ANSYS® grâce à sa fonction de programmation USERELEM. Cette loi caractéristique force-vitesse introduit un effet d'amortissement dans le mouvement du muscle du fait d'une atténuation croissante de la force musculaire lorsque la vitesse de compression du muscle augmente. Ce nouvel élément de type muscle a été conçu de manière telle qu'il est possible d'implémenter d'autres modèles de muscles que le modèle de type Hill. C'est pourquoi nous avons aussi implémenté le modèle de Feldman, qui a été utilisé de manière importante à Gipsa-lab dans les dernières années. L'intégration du modèle de Feldman dans une structure à éléments finis a nécessité une reformulation de façon à le rendre compatible avec une modélisation distribuée. Les modèles de Hill et de Feldman ont ensuite été incorporés dans le modèle de visage pour remplacer le modèle linéaire initial. Dans ces conditions les premières simulations du geste de protrusion/arrondissement labial ont donné des résultats réalistes. Finalement une comparaison des résultats obtenus avec le modèle de Hill avec ceux qui génère le modèle de Feldman montrent que les formes labiales finales sont très similaires pour les deux modèles.

Cette thèse relevant du domaine de la Didactique des langues (français langue étrangère) concerne l'apprentissage/enseignement enrichi par les TICE. Elle définit et analyse les stratégies de collaboration pour un écrit interactif, pratiquées par une communauté virtuelle d'élèves blogueurs. Le cadre théorique s'inscrit dans la perspective actionnelle (CECRL), instrumentée des TICE, et il embrasse les réseaux sociaux et leur application dans l'éducation, les caractéristiques de l'écrit interactif en tant que nouveau cybergenre. La méthodologie appliquée est principalement qualitative et relève de la recherche-action et, en particulier, de la recherche-développement appliquée à la conception de ressources multimédia. La construction d'un blogue communautaire a permis le recueil des données pour la partie empirique. Dans cet environnement numérique d'apprentissage, des élèves de 15 à 17 ans de Pologne, Ukraine, Tchéquie et Italie, stimulés par un scénario d'apprentissage, ont réalisé des interactions écrites pendant huit mois. La recherche a montré que les extensions intégrées au blog ont facilité l'émergence d'une communauté d'apprentissage. Elle a également montré comment ces artefacts ont été exploités, en se concentrant notamment sur une analyse des stratégies mobilisées pour l'écrit, ainsi que les caractéristiques de cet écrit interactif produit.

Durant les dernières décennies, l'IRM fonctionnelle a permis de cartographier les différentes fonctions cérébrales et, plus récemment, d'identifier les réseaux fonctionnels qui décrivent les interactions qui peuvent s'établir entre régions cérébrales, proches ou distantes, lors de l'exécution d'une tâche cognitive. Pour identifier ces réseaux, une stratégie récente repose sur une parcellisation préliminaire du cerveau en régions fonctionnellement homogènes, puis sur l'identification des réseaux fonctionnels significatifs depuis une mesure des interactions entre l'ensemble des régions. Ainsi, la première partie de cette thèse propose une nouvelle méthode de parcellisation du cerveau en régions fonctionnellement homogènes. La méthode proposée est exploratoire et multi-niveaux : elle fournit plusieurs niveaux de parcellisation, et nous avons montré que les régions définies par notre méthode se superposent de manière satisfaisante aux structures anatomiques du cortex. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, nous avons proposé une méthode originale d'identification des réseaux fonctionnels. L'approche développée permet la significativité des réseaux étant donné leur taille et le seuil utilisé pour leur détection. Une telle approche permet de détecter des réseaux de faible taille qui impliquent des liens très significatifs, et également des réseaux plus grands impliquant des liens moins significatifs. Enfin, nous avons développé une approche permettant de classer les réseaux obtenus, de manière à réaliser une étude de groupe. L'information disponible sur l'ensemble des sujets permet alors de définir des classes qui synthétisent les caractéristiques des réseaux les plus partagés au sein d'une population de sujets.

<p>The purpose of this project has been to redesign an already existing cook-book. The title of the book <em>(directly translated)</em>, “Season in food – the year around with herbs and spices”, contains what the headline imposes: spices, herbs and food. But when the author tries to entwine these parts and communicate it to the reader it is not working all to well due to a poor and inconsistent graphic design.</p><p>I have followed the theories and values of information design when I redesigned the book layout with the intent to simplify the communication between author and reader. In the progress to make a complete dummie of the book I did multiple literature studies, book analysis, tests and a vast number of drafts.</p><p>In this report I will describe the whole process from start to finish. It is impossible to explain every aspect of every theory and still make it interesting to read. Instead I try to explain the processes in a more comprehensive way. But details are inevitable and at those times it helps to use the appendix.</p> / <p>Mitt examensarbete har inneburit att göra en redesign på en redan befintlig kokbok. På bokensomslag står det: ”Kryddan i maten – året om med örter och kryddor” och den handlar om just detrubriken antyder: örter, kryddor och mat. Tyvärr har författarens syfte, att knyta samman dessa tvåbitar, gått förlorad i bokens inlaga. Detta beror på en inkonsekvent och ostrukturerad formgivning.</p><p>Mitt arbete har varit att med hjälp av informationsdesignens regler och teorier göra om och styraupp bokens layout på ett sånt sätt så att informationen på nytt blir lättillgänglig för användaren. Föratt lyckas med det har jag förutom ett gediget skissarbete även utfört utprovningar, litteraturstudiersamt bokanalyser.I denna rapport avhandlar jag hur hela arbetsprocessen sett ut– från bakgrund till färdigt resultat.</p><p>Rapporten har omöjligt kunnat behandla alla de frågor och tankegångar jag ställts inför utanbehandlar processen på ett mer övergripande sätt. Ibland beskrivs vissa moment detaljerat för attläsaren skall förstå, men genom bilagorna går det att snabbare få en förståelse för vad som menas.</p>

Examensarbetet genomfördes av Philip Wockatz utan stöd och handledning. Detta ledde fram till att Kip Smith tog över som handledare strax innan presentationen.