I detta 10-poängsarbete går jag igenom hur min egenhändigt producerade kvadratrotsalgoritm fungerar praktiskt och teoretiskt. Med denna algoritm kan man för hand räkna ut kvadratrötter som innehåller 50-60 värdesiffror. Med de tidigare kända algoritmerna för kvadratrötter kan man räkna ut 5-6 värdesiffror. Min algoritm fungerar inte på samma sätt som de tidigare använda kvadratrotsalgoritmerna men den är lika korrekt. Stor tyngdvikt i arbetet har därför lagts på att visa på att det finns flera olika korrekta algoritmer för våra vanliga räknesätt. Arbetet innehåller också en kort skildring av den pågående debatten huruvida algoritmräkning i grundskolan hämmar elevernas matematiska tänkande eller inte.

Notre recherche s'intéresse à l'enseignement de la géométrie et de l'espace pour des élèves ayant des incapacités intellectuelles légères. De façon précise, nous proposons de faire évoluer leurs connaissances à propos de la représentation graphique du cube, et certaines de ses propriétés, par le biais d'un jeu de tâches didactiques. L'évolution est montrée par une analyse de protocoles qui tente de cerner de quelle façon s'enchaînent les différentes productions et interactions survenues entre les acteurs des séances d'expérimentation. De plus, l'analyse des tâches expérimentées montre leur potentiel au regard de l'engagement des élèves, tout en précisant certaines de leurs limites relatives à la nature de la tâche (contenu, pertinence, consignes données), au matériel didactique employé et à la chronologie des tâches au sein des séances. Nos résultats montrent que les élèves ayant des incapacités intellectuelles légères peuvent bénéficier de tâches variées et dynamiques pour accéder aux connaissances spatiales et géométriques dans la mesure où le jeu de tâches expérimenté favorise l'investissement mathématique des élèves. Le jeu de tâches se distingue nettement des méthodes typiques d'enseignement direct et répétitif dans les classes d'élèves ayant des incapacités intellectuelles. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Cube, Représentation graphique, Jeu de tâches, Incapacités intellectuelles, Enseignement, Géométrie.

Computers are developed continuously to satisfy the human demands, and typical tools used everywhere for ranging from daily life usage to all kinds of research. Virtual Reality (VR), a virtual environment simulated to present physical presence in the real word and imaginary worlds, has been widely applied to simulate the virtual environment. People’s feeling is limited to visual perception when only computers are applied for simulations, since computers are limited to display visualization of data, while human senses include sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch and so on. Other devices can be applied, such as haptics, a device for sense of touch, to enhance the human perception in virtual environment. A good way to apply VR applications is to place them in a virtual display system, a system with multiply tools displays a virtual environment with experiencing different human senses, to enhance the people’s feeling of being immersed in a virtual environment. Such virtual display systems include VR dome, recursive acronym CAVE, VR workbench, VR workstation and so on. Menus with lots of advantages in manipulating applications are common in conventional systems, operating systems or other systems in computers. Normally a system will not be usable without them. Although VR applications are more natural and intuitive, they are much less or not usable without menus. But very few studies have focused on user interfaces in VR. This situation motivates us working further in this area. We want to create two models on different purposes. One is inspired from menus in conventional system and the sense of touch. And the other one is designed based on the spatial presence of VR. The first model is a two-dimensional pie menu in pop-up style with spring force feedback. This model is in a pie shape with eight options on the root menu. And there is a pop-up style hierarchical menu belongs to each option on the root menu. When the haptics device is near an option on the root menu, the spring force will force the haptics device towards to the center of the option and that option will be selected, and then the sub menu with nine options will pop up. The pie shape together with the spring force effect is expected to both increase the speed of selection and decrease the error rate of selection. The other model is a semiautomatic three-dimensional cube menu. This cube menu is designed with a aim to provide a simple, elegant, efficient and accurate user interface approach. This model is designed with four faces, including the front, back, left and right faces of the cube. Each face represents a category and has nine widgets. Users can make selections in different categories. An efficient way to change between categories is to rotate the cube automatically. Thus, a navigable rotation animation system is built and is manipulating the cube rotate horizontally for ninety degrees each time, so one of the faces will always face users. These two models are built under H3DAPI, an open source haptics software development platform with UI toolkit, a user interface toolkit. After the implementation, we made a pilot study, which is a formative study, to evaluate the feasibility of both menus. This pilot study includes a list of tasks for each menu, a questionnaire regards to the menu performance for each subject and a discussion with each subject. Six students participated as test subjects. In the pie menu, most of the subjects feel the spring force guides them to the target option and they can control the haptics device comfortably under such force. In the cube menu, the navigation rotation system works well and the cube rotates accurately and efficiently. The results of the pilot study show the models work as we initially expected. The recorded task completion time for each menu shows that with the same amount of tasks and similar difficulties, subjects spent more time on the cube menu than on the pie menu. This may implicate that pie menu is a faster approach comparing to the cube menu. We further consider that both the pie shape and force feedback may help reducing the selection time. The result for the option selection error rate test on the cube menu may implicates that option selection without any force feedback may also achieve a considerable good effect. Through the answers from the questionnaire for each subject, both menus are comfortable to use and in good control.

Šis darbas apima vaistinių tinklo klientų duomenų analizės modelio sudarymą ir sukūrimą. Kuriant ir projektuojant duomenų saugyklas, susiduriama su įvairiomis problemomis. Viena didžiausių ir daugiausia laiko užimančių duomenų saugyklų projektavimo ir kūrimo problemų – tai duomenų išgavimas iš esamų sistemų ir jų perkėlimas į analizės sistemas (ETL procesas). Analizuojamoje įmonėje naudojama Oracle duomenų bazė darbiniams duomenims saugoti. Tačiau kuriant duomenų saugyklą, buvo palygintos technologijos ir pačiai saugyklai realizuoti pasirinktos Microsoft SQL Server priemonės. Duomenų saugykla yra skirta vaistinių tinklui, kur be tradicinių pardavimų duomenų, yra ir tik farmacijoje naudojami duomenys (kompensuojamųjų vaistų receptai, draudimo nuolaidos ir pan.). Darbo metu sukurtas OLAP analizės kubas, apimantis vaistinių tinklo pardavimų, nuolaidų kortelių panaudojimo duomenis. Tai leidžia įmonės analitikams efektyviau analizuoti klientų įpročius, paklausiausias prekes ir pasiūlyti klientams tinkamiausius sprendimus, išlaikant esamus klientus ir pritraukiant naujus. Darbo metu realizuotas analizės kubas, nustatyti jo atnaujinimo intervalai, ištestuotas bendras sistemos veikimas. Taip pat nustatytos pagrindinės duomenų saugyklų projektavimo, realizavimo problemos. / This work investigates Pharmacy Data Warehouse model and practice. The development and design of data warehouse is faced with various problems. One of the biggest and most time consuming data warehousing design and development issues - is the data extraction from existing systems, transformations and load (ETL process) to target systems. Analyzed company uses Oracle database as operational data store. Examination of the current situation, the technical base, for the implementation of the data warehouse is selected the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services tools. Because these tools already exist in the company, thus reducing the overall costs needed. During this work is realized the cube of Pharmacy customers analysis, tested overall system performance, in addition, an example schedules for cube updating are created. This enables the analysts to more effectively analyze customer behavior, sales and offer customers the most appropriate solutions, while retaining existing customers and attracting new ones.

There exists considerable debate in the texture community about whether grain interactions are a necessary factor to explain the development of deformation textures in polycrystalline metals. Computer simulations indicate that grain interactions play a significant role, while experimental evidence shows that the material type and starting orientation are more important in the development of texture and microstructure. A balanced review of the literature on face-centered cubic metals shows that the opposing viewpoints have developed due to the lack of any complete experimental study which considers both the intrinsic (material type and starting orientation) and extrinsic (grain interaction) factors. In this study, a novel method was developed to assemble ideally orientated crystalline aggregates in 99.99\% aluminum (Al) or copper (Cu) to experimentally evaluate the effect of grain interactions on room temperature deformation texture. Ideal orientations relevant to face-centered cubic rolling textures, Cube $\{100\}\left<001\right>$, Goss $\{110\}\left<001\right>$, Brass $\{110\}\left<1\bar{1}2\right>$ and Copper $\{112\}\left<11\bar{1}\right>$ were paired in different combinations and deformed by plane strain compression to moderate strain levels of 1.0 to 1.5. Orientation dependent mechanical behavior was distinguishable from that of the neighbor-influenced behavior. In interacting crystals the constraint on the rolling direction shear strains ($\gamma_{_{XY}}, \gamma_{_{XZ}}$) was found to be most critical to show the effect of interactions via the evolution of local microstructure and microtexture. Interacting crystals with increasing deformations were observed to gradually rotate towards the S-component, $\{123\}\langle\bar{6}\bar{3}4\rangle$. Apart from the average lattice reorientations, the interacting crystals also developed strong long-range orientation gradients inside the bulk of the crystal, which were identified as accumulating misorientations across the deformation boundaries. Based on a statistical procedure using quaternions, the orientation and interaction related heterogeneous deformations were characterized by three principal component vectors and their respective eigenvalues for both the orientation and misorientation distributions. For the case of a medium stacking fault energy metal like Cu, the texture and microstructure development depends wholly on the starting orientations. Microstructural instabilities in Cu are explained through a local slip clustering process, and the possible role of grain interactions on such instabilities is proposed. In contrast, the texture and microstructure development in a high stacking fault energy metal like Al is found to be dependent on the grain interactions. In general, orientation, grain interaction and material type were found to be key factors in the development of rolling textures in face-centered cubic metals and alloys. Moreso, in the texture development not any single parameter can be held responsible, rather, the interdependency of each of the three parameters must be considered. In this frame-work polycrystalline grains can be classified into four types according to their stability and susceptibility during deformation. / Thesis (Ph.D, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-25 23:59:11.809

The research designs, develops, validates, and applies an exposure model of productivity-permitted general freight trucking on uncongested highways. Productivity-permitted general freight trucks (long trucks) are multiple trailer configurations, consisting of van trailers, which exceed basic vehicle length limits but operate within basic weight restrictions. The three predominant long trucks in North America are Rocky Mountain doubles (Rockies), Turnpike doubles (Turnpikes), and triple trailer combinations (triples). Long trucks have been used in Canada since the late 1960s. Recent highway investments in the Canadian Prairie Region have effectively completed the network on which long trucks are allowed to operate. Despite widespread use of long trucks for many years and these recent infrastructure investments, there is a knowledge deficiency about long truck exposure. The research uses the transportation systems analysis approach to design, develop, and validate the long truck exposure model. Exposure is expressed as an explanatory variable in three principal dimensions (volume, weight, and cube), which is needed for predicting transportation system impacts of long truck operations. The research applies the model to clarify issues that should be considered in establishing charges for long truck permits, determining long truck safety performance, and developing load spectra for long trucks. The exposure model relies on a unique dataset that integrates output from a classification algorithm, field observations, and industry intelligence. The results indicate that long trucks travelled 67 million kilometres on a 10,000 centreline-kilometre highway network in the Canadian Prairie Region in 2006. The model demonstrates strong temporal and geographic concentration of long truck travel on the network. Application of the results reveals the following findings: • Decisions about establishing long truck permit charges are supported by consideration of options within a revenue adequacy rationale that are sensitive to freight density and the distance travelled by long trucks. • The exposure-based collision rate for Turnpikes is half of the collision rate for Rockies, about one-third of the rate for legal-length articulated trucks, and one-quarter of the rate for triples. • The model provides loading indicators required for pavement and bridge design and evaluation procedures and demonstrates the cubic orientation of long truck operations.

The research designs, develops, validates, and applies an exposure model of productivity-permitted general freight trucking on uncongested highways. Productivity-permitted general freight trucks (long trucks) are multiple trailer configurations, consisting of van trailers, which exceed basic vehicle length limits but operate within basic weight restrictions. The three predominant long trucks in North America are Rocky Mountain doubles (Rockies), Turnpike doubles (Turnpikes), and triple trailer combinations (triples). Long trucks have been used in Canada since the late 1960s. Recent highway investments in the Canadian Prairie Region have effectively completed the network on which long trucks are allowed to operate. Despite widespread use of long trucks for many years and these recent infrastructure investments, there is a knowledge deficiency about long truck exposure. The research uses the transportation systems analysis approach to design, develop, and validate the long truck exposure model. Exposure is expressed as an explanatory variable in three principal dimensions (volume, weight, and cube), which is needed for predicting transportation system impacts of long truck operations. The research applies the model to clarify issues that should be considered in establishing charges for long truck permits, determining long truck safety performance, and developing load spectra for long trucks. The exposure model relies on a unique dataset that integrates output from a classification algorithm, field observations, and industry intelligence. The results indicate that long trucks travelled 67 million kilometres on a 10,000 centreline-kilometre highway network in the Canadian Prairie Region in 2006. The model demonstrates strong temporal and geographic concentration of long truck travel on the network. Application of the results reveals the following findings: • Decisions about establishing long truck permit charges are supported by consideration of options within a revenue adequacy rationale that are sensitive to freight density and the distance travelled by long trucks. • The exposure-based collision rate for Turnpikes is half of the collision rate for Rockies, about one-third of the rate for legal-length articulated trucks, and one-quarter of the rate for triples. • The model provides loading indicators required for pavement and bridge design and evaluation procedures and demonstrates the cubic orientation of long truck operations.

The analytic component of the thesis approaches major questions in Cultural Studies, Philosophy and Social Theory through an investigation of various forms of creative practice. I approach the question of agency, for instance, through a study of stage actors, who must recite set lines, and yet feel empowered precisely by the opportunity to act through them. Investigation of the author's own work as a poet and novelist serves to cast light upon ideology, ie. how one might use a constrained language and yet feel empowered to speak new things through it. I apply these investigations to Althusser, whose famous essay on the total power of ideological interpellation is permeated with theatrical metaphor. I suggest that Althusser is repressing the creative component of everyday life, something social theory has ever found hard to theorise. I proceed to suggest that the place where such processes are analysed is in the philosophy of science. The work of Charles Saunders Peirce on the experimental method is, my investigation uncovers, surprisingly geared toward the investigation of creativity. In science one has a method for, and an extensive literature on, discovering new phenomena. My thesis is that the experimental method of modern scientists, and the creative method of modern writers, both geared toward the production of things that are at once new and true, is largely the same. I use Peircean semiotics to argue that creative composition is about listening to the languages spoken all round you, and transcribing their objective contours. So as to have effect on others. Which is just like science. And in both instances we are endlessly spoken through at every moment by the myriad languages which interpellate us. Whence creativity (for those who are open to it). My three portfolio pieces are: Cube Root of Book: a series of one hundred and thirty two poems set at intervals along the descending spiral of a Fibonacci number sequence. The 14th Floor, an Hypothesis, an experimental novel, written quite literally as an experiment; i.e. having written the novel, I then wrote up a prac-report detailing what I had learnt about the performance of writing, including the above. Unaustralia, a Study of Heads, an attempt to show the relevance of these findings to Cultural Studies and other related practices. It centres on my new reading of Althusser, and is flanked by mini-ethnographies of creative practice, including the above. The poetry is presented as a major new creative work. The experimental novel/ book of philosophy as a substantial contribution to knowledge.

A competitividade no mercado atual, aliado a uma demanda por qualidade e produtividade dos produtos, tem gerado um aumento significativo no emprego de robôs nos processos produtivos das indústrias. Entretanto, estes equipamentos estão sujeitos a apresentar problemas, mais especificamente, erros de exatidão e repetitividade em suas operações. Nesse contexto, a proposta deste trabalho consiste em aperfeiçoar o entendimento da metodologia existente para avaliação de desempenho de robôs industriais, apresentada pela norma ISO 9283, "Manipulating industrial robots - Performance criteria and related test methods", de modo a viabilizar sua aplicabilidade em testes instrumentalizados para robôs industriais. O dispositivo de avaliação de desempenho elaborado consiste num sistema conhecido como cubo-berço, projetado, construído e aplicado em um robô industrial, pertencente ao laboratório de usinagem e robótica da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS. As características de exatidão e repetitividade unidirecionais de posicionamento foram mensuradas experimentalmente com base nos critérios constantes na norma específica. Os dados foram obtidos da medição dos erros tridimensionais entre as posições atingidas nos ensaios e as posições programadas no robô de teste, através de um sistema de medição prático e de baixo custo. O dispositivo de medição é constituído por três relógios digitais, montados ortogonalmente em cada eixo do sistema de coordenadas do robô, sob uma estrutura metálica rígida, e conectados a um sistema informatizado, para a coleta e registro dos dados. Os resultados apresentados se mostraram satisfatórios, viabilizando o uso da metodologia apresentada na norma, assim como, do dispositivo de avaliação de desempenho projetado neste estudo. / The competitiveness in the current market, ally to a demand for quality and productivity of the products, has generated a significant increase in the job of robots in the productive processes of the industries. However, these equipments can present some problems, more specifically, errors precision and repeatability errors in operations. The proposal of this paper consists of perfecting the agreement of the existing methodology for evaluation of industrial robots performance, presented for norm ISO 9283, "Manipulating industrial robots - Performance criteria and related test methods", to make possible its applicability in instrumentation tests for industrial robots. The projected device consists of a known system as cube-cradle, projected, constructed and applied in an industrial robot installed on the robotics laboratory of the Rio Grande do Sul Federal University - UFRGS. The precision and repeatability characteristics of positioning had been experimentally measures on the constant criteria basis in the specific norm. The data had been gotten of the three-dimensional measurement errors between the test positions reached and the robot programmed positions, through a practical measurement system and low cost. The measurement device is constituted by three digital gages, assembled in each axle of the robot coordinate basis system, under a metallic structure, and connected to a electronic system, for the data collection and registers. The presented results had shown satisfactory, making possible the use of the methodology presented in the norm, as well, of the projected device of performance evaluation in this study.

PIM - uma técnica onde elementos computacionais são adicionados perto, ou idealmente, dentro de dispositivos de memória - foi uma das tentativas criadas durante os anos 1990 visando mitigar o notório memory wall problem. Hoje em dia, com o amadurecimento do processo de integração 3D, um novo horizonte para novas arquiteturas PIM pode ser explorado. Para investigar este novo cenário, pesquisadores dependem de simuladores em software para navegar pelo espaço de exploração de projeto. Hoje, a maioria dos trabalhos que focam em PIM, implementam simuladores locais para realizar seus experimentos. Porém, esta metodologia pode reduzir a produtividade e reprodutibilidade. Neste trabalho, nós mostramos o desenvolvimento de um simulador de PIM preciso, modular e parametrizável. Nosso simulador, chamado CLAPPS, visa a arquitetura de memória HMC, uma memória 3D popular, que é amplamente utilizada em aceleradores PIM do estado da arte. Nós desenvolvemos nosso mecanismo utilizando a linguagem de programação SystemC, o que permite uma simulação paralela nativamente. A principal contribuição do nosso trabalho se baseia em desenvolver a interface amigável que permite a fácil exploração de arquiteturas PIM. Para avaliar o nosso sistema, nós implementamos um modulo de PIM que pode executar operações vetoriais com diferente tamanhos de operandos utilizando o proposto conjunto de ferramentas. / PIM - a technique which computational elements are added close, or ideally, inside memory devices - was one of the attempts created during the 1990s to try to mitigate the memory wall problem. Nowadays, with the maturation of 3D integration technologies, a new landscape for novel PIM architectures can be investigated. To exploit this new scenario, researchers rely on software simulators to navigate throughout the design evaluation space. Today, most of the works targeting PIM implement in-house simulators to perform their experiments. However, this methodology might hurt overall productivity, while it might also preclude replicability. In this work, we showed the development of a precise, modular and parametrized PIM simulation environment. Our simulator, named CLAPPS, targets the HMC architecture, a popular 3D-stacked memory widely employed in state-of-the-art PIM accelerators. We have designed our mechanism using the SystemC programming language, which allows native parallel simulation. The primary contribution of our work lies in developing a user-friendly interface to allow easy PIM architectures exploitation. To evaluate our system, we have implemented a PIM module that can perform vector operations with different operand sizes using the proposed set of tools.