The research question was offered by the sponsor of this Ph.D., The National Examining Board of Supervision and Management (NEBS Management). This research is a study of the First Line Management (FLM) role in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the UK and China. Different culture background, management styles, and communication systems, can be expected to affect the roles of managers. The Chinese style of managing the organisation has long been a subject of interest to researchers and practitioners. Research studies on managerial work and managerial roles have been well established in Western countries. Until recently, the cultural and political climate in China was less conducive to research into areas that might have caused too much debate. As a result, those researching management in China tended, until relevantly recently, to be isolated from main stream academic debate. It is believed that this study is unique in focusing on the FLM in China as well as in the UK. In both countries research on the FLM in SMEs is limited. This research attempts to bridge this gap by trying to define, for the first time, the roles, functions and skills required of FLMs in SMEs in the UK and China. The study argues that it is crucial to understand the FLM's role and place it within the organisation. The FLM is a critical link in any organisation because it is at this level that managerial and non managerial employees meet face to face and work in a close relationship with each other. The evidence from the research suggests that the FLM's role in the SME is broader than that of equivalent FLM role in the large organisation. It was found that FLMs in SMEs were seen as 'non-specialist', expected to cope with whatever aspect of work came their way. The implication of this broad 'nonspecialist' role was that they were expected to be a 'master of many trades'. The skills required to perform the FLM role were not perceived, despite their breadth as specialist skills such as finance, quality, purchasing and so on. Rather they were perceived as underpinning generic key skills which could, and should, be further supported by improved training and development. The research revealed that FLMs in SMEs perform a unique and a valuable role.There has been some concern about the extent to which models and practices of supervisory management are capable of being transferred from one country to another. The UK and China have evolved supervisory management styles and systems which are rooted in their respective social, economic and political circumstances but which are now being shaped increasingly by external, international and global patterns, trends and models. The study revealed there was a surprising degree of consistency in certain aspect of the FLM role in both countries. In particular, responsibility for 'organising and managing' was perceived as the core element ·of the FLM role. Differences were reviewed in how this core role was delivered in the two countries. For example, FLMs in the UK favoured a team working approach which was not adopted to the same degree by their Chinese counterparts. Other examples of differences included greater involvement and responsibility for financial matters in China than in the UK. These and other examples arise from different social, cultural and political circumstances and help illuminate the detail differences in both countries. In conclusion, the influence of international and global trends is likely to reduce the level of difference in the future. Summarising the FLM role in the SME, the research suggests that the FLMs are both co-ordinators and human relations engineers.

At the turn of 2010/2011, Sweden went from designing structures according to nationaldesign codes to the new European standards Eurocode. For bridge engineers, this implieda change from a combination of BRO 2004 and BSK 07 to the Eurocode as the maindocuments, complemented by national documents such as TRVK Bro 11. The normtransition did not only change the calculation methods, but also turned a phenomenonthat never was of great importance for road bridges before into something that could limitthe carrying capacity of the structure. This phenomenon is called fatigue, i.e. repeatedload cycles, where each load is much lower than the ultimate limit state capacity, thatfinally results in collapse. This master thesis investigates why fatigue is significant in the design today. This is donethrough a comparison of how the new and old regulations assesses fatigue. A bridge builtin 2011, designed by ELU Konsult AB according to the old regulations, was modelledin the finite element program LUSAS. Several lorry crossings from different fatigue loadmodels were then simulated. The output from LUSAS was then used to calculate theutilization ratios for three critical points along the bridge. The result indicates that both regulations give rise to similar stress ranges, i.e. thedifference between the maximum and minimum stress obtained during a crossing. Thedifferences between the regulations are instead within the fatigue calculations, where themajor difference is the number of lorries crossing the bridge during its lifetime. Theutilization ratio according to the old regulations for the worst exposed point is 27.0 %,corresponding to 9.13 daily crossings by heavy lorries, which is the maximum numberof daily crossings provided by BRO 2004. The lowest utilization ratio according tothe Eurocode is 70.0 %, calculated for 137 daily crossings which is the lowest amountof crossings allowed. An interpretation of the Eurocode, which allows usage of fatigue loadmodel 5 even for smaller bridges, results in a utilization ratio of 56.0% which correspondsto 90.0 daily crossings, i.e. lower than the other fatigue load models provided by theEurocode but clearly above the old regulations. The conclusion is that an alternative way of deciding the number of crossings shouldbe provided by the Eurocode. Today, the classification consists of four steps, which arevery rough. Instead, a proposal is given in this thesis which advocates usage of a linearfunction for deciding the number of design crossings based on the number of daily crossingsby lorries. The proposed alternative design method is between the two regulations withrespect to daily crossings and utilization ratio. / Vid årsskiftet 2010/2011 övergick Sverige från att dimensionera byggnadsverk enligt nationellastandarder till den nya europastandarden Eurokod. För brokonstruktörer innebar dettaen övergång från en kombination av BRO 2004 och BSK 07, till att Eurokod blev dethuvudsakligt styrande dokumentet, med bland annat TRVK Bro 11 som ett dokumentmed tillhörande nationella val. Övergången medförde inte bara att verksamma konstruktörertvingades lära sig förändrade beräkningsmetoder, utan också att ett fenomen som tidigaresällan var dimensionerande för vägbroar nu kunde vara det som ställde högst krav påbärförmågan. Detta fenomen kallas utmattning, dvs. upprepade av- och pålastningar, varoch en betydligt lägre än brons maximala bärförmåga, som i slutändan resulterar i brott. I detta examensarbete utreds det varför utmattning numera är en betydande del avdimensioneringen. Detta sker genom en jämförelse av hur de gamla och nya normernautvärderar utmattning. Som modell har en befintlig bro invigd 2011, dimensioneradav ELU Konsult AB enligt de gamla normerna, använts. Denna bro har modellerats ifinita element programmet LUSAS, varpå en mängd olika lastbilsöverfarter simulerats ochutmattningsutnyttjandet för tre utvalda kritska punkter beräknats. Resultatet indikerar att båda normerna har liknande storlekar på spänningsvidderna,dvs. skillnaden på största och minsta spänningen som uppstår vid en överfart. Däremotråder det skillnader vid utmattningsberäkningarna, där den stora skillnaden är antalettunga fordon som passerar bron under dess livslängd. Enligt de gamla normerna ärutnyttjandegraden för den värst utsatta studerade punkten 27.0 %, vilket är beräknatpå det högsta antalet dagliga passager från tunga fordon som BRO 2004 tillåter, d.v.s.9.13 dagliga passager. Enligt Eurokod uppgår den lägsta utnyttjandegraden till 70.0 %,vilket motsvarar 137 dagliga överfarter vilket är det lägsta Eurokod tillåter. Vid ettalternativt sätt att tolka Eurokod, som tillåter användandet av utmattningslastmodell5 även för mindre broar, fås en utnyttjandegrad på 56.0% vilket motsvarar 90.0 dagligaöverfarter. Detta är något lägre än de andra utmattningslastmodellerna enligt Eurokodmen fortfarande högre än det gamla regelverket. Slutsatsen av uppsatsen är att ett alternativt sätt att bestämma antalet överfarter bordeerbjudas i Eurokod, då indelningen idag består av fyra stora trappsteg vilket ger en väldigtsnäv indelning. I detta examensarbete presenteras ett förslag som innebär att antaletdimensionerande överfarter istället bör bestämmas som en rätlinjig funktion av antaletdagliga överfarter från tung trafik. Det föreslagna sättet ligger mellan de båda normernamed hänsyn till passager och utnyttjandegrad.

Endocrine disruptors are natural or manmade substances which affect hormonal systems of organisms. Biologically relevant concentrations are commonly being detected in the environment. The effluents of wastewater treatment plant present their significant secondary source. Due to their occurence and quantity the interest in mixtures increases. Ecotoxicological assays with genetically modified Saccharomyces cerevisiae were aplied to verify reliability of predictive mathematical models for mixtures of standards (estrone, 17β-estradiol, 17α-ethinylestradiol, estriol, bisphenol A, irgasan, 4-nonylphenol). Chromatographic analysis along with yeast assays were used for the evaluation of real samples of wastewater treatment plant effluents and sediments. Schindler's predictive model and Full logistic model (FLM) were more reliable for predicting the whole dose-response curve compared to Generalized concentration addition (GCA). Predicted values of a parameter EC50 from all three models were comparable to empirical measurements. Three out of four samples exhibited estrogenic activity 0.65 - 1.70 ng/L 17β-estradiol ekvivalent (EEQ) above the limit of detection 0.13 - 0.33 ng/L EEQ. Antiestrogenic activity was detected in one of the samples. Prediction could be carried out only in the case of the sediments...

Relating statistical machine learning approaches to the automatic analysis of multiparty communicative events, such as meetings, is an ambitious research area. We have investigated automatic meeting segmentation both in terms of “Meeting Actions” and “Dialogue Acts”. Dialogue acts model the discourse structure at a fine grained level highlighting individual speaker intentions. Group meeting actions describe the same process at a coarse level, highlighting interactions between different meeting participants and showing overall group intentions. A framework based on probabilistic graphical models such as dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) has been investigated for both tasks. Our first set of experiments is concerned with the segmentation and structuring of meetings (recorded using multiple cameras and microphones) into sequences of group meeting actions such as monologue, discussion and presentation. We outline four families of multimodal features based on speaker turns, lexical transcription, prosody, and visual motion that are extracted from the raw audio and video recordings. We relate these lowlevel multimodal features to complex group behaviours proposing a multistreammodelling framework based on dynamic Bayesian networks. Later experiments are concerned with the automatic recognition of Dialogue Acts (DAs) in multiparty conversational speech. We present a joint generative approach based on a switching DBN for DA recognition in which segmentation and classification of DAs are carried out in parallel. This approach models a set of features, related to lexical content and prosody, and incorporates a weighted interpolated factored language model. In conjunction with this joint generative model, we have also investigated the use of a discriminative approach, based on conditional random fields, to perform a reclassification of the segmented DAs. The DBN based approach yielded significant improvements when applied both to the meeting action and the dialogue act recognition task. On both tasks, the DBN framework provided an effective factorisation of the state-space and a flexible infrastructure able to integrate a heterogeneous set of resources such as continuous and discrete multimodal features, and statistical language models. Although our experiments have been principally targeted on multiparty meetings; features, models, and methodologies developed in this thesis can be employed for a wide range of applications. Moreover both group meeting actions and DAs offer valuable insights about the current conversational context providing valuable cues and features for several related research areas such as speaker addressing and focus of attention modelling, automatic speech recognition and understanding, topic and decision detection.

Este trabalho analisa o cotidiano e os sonhos das crianças imigrantes bolivianas de 2ª geração moradoras da ocupação vertical Prestes Maia, com o intuito de constatar como estes meninos e meninas vivenciam a infância cujas experiências transitam entre Brasil e Bolívia, em ser semteto, frequentar a escola pública e principalmente em expressar as suas brincadeiras e maneiras de habitar a cidade e a moradia ocupada. O objetivo desta pesquisa se amplia ao trazer as narrativas dos familiares das crianças que expõe suas trajetórias como imigrantes, principalmente as dificuldades encontradas na cidade em relação ao trabalho e habitação, levando-os a participar da Frente de Luta por Moradia (FLM). A observação participante e entrevistas semiestruturadas (realizadas com familiares das crianças e uma das coordenadoras da Ocupação Prestes Maia) ocorreram ao longo do ano de 2016. As oficinas que inicialmente começaram na brinquedoteca da Ocupação se expandiram para outros espaços, como escadas, lajes e pátios, consistindo em práticas que envolveram rodas de conversa, brincadeiras, desenhos, fotografias e dobraduras. Os dados coletados e compostos com as crianças foram fundamentais na compreensão desta nova geração de imigrantes que se forma em um cotidiano permeado por dificuldades e sonhos de uma vida melhor, como a aquisição da casa própria. Confirma-se a hipótese de uma infância que em seu cotidiano revela experiências que apontam para a composição de identidades híbridas, transitando entre Brasil e Bolívia e em busca dos seus direitos de crianças, como o brincar e habitar a moradia ocupada. / This work analyzes the daily life and dreams of the bolivian immigrant childrens of second generation living in the vertical occupation Prestes Maia, with the purpose of verifying how these boys and girls live infancy whose experiences transiting between Brazil and Bolivia, in being homeless, attending public school and especially in expressing their joking and ways of inhabiting the city and the occupied dwelling. The objective of this research is extended by bringing the narratives of the families of the children that exposes their trajectories as immigrants, especially the difficulties encountered in the city in relation to work and housing, leading them to participate in the Front for Struggle for Housing (FLM). The participant observation and semi-structured interviews (conducted with family members of the children and one of the coordinators of the Prestes Maia Occupation) occurred throughout 2016. The workshops that initially started in the Ocupação toyroom expanded into other spaces, such as stairs, slabs and patios, consisting of practices involving talk wheels, plays, drawings, photographs and fold of paper. The collected data were fundamental in the understanding of this new generation of immigrants that forms in a daily life permeated by difficulties and dreams of a better life, like the acquisition of the house. We confirm the hypothesis of a childhood that in its daily life reveals experiences that point to the composition of hybrid identities, transiting between Brazil and Bolivia and in search of their rights of children, such as playing and inhabiting the occupied dwelling.

Submitted by SBI Biblioteca Digital (sbi.bibliotecadigital@puc-campinas.edu.br) on 2017-08-30T18:38:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 LUCAS ALVES DE LIMA NIC?SIO.pdf: 34799286 bytes, checksum: addbc267f24556eec3d04519ec6fd916 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-30T18:38:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LUCAS ALVES DE LIMA NIC?SIO.pdf: 34799286 bytes, checksum: addbc267f24556eec3d04519ec6fd916 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-30 / The present study seeks to raise issues relating to the housing rights by observing the actions of social movements in particular in the central area of the city of S?o Paulo (district of Rep?blica) considering its impact on the territory and in society. The condition of vulnerability in the residence is present both in central areas as the edges urban peripheral areas, however, the housing programs need to be subdivided according to the location, because many times does not believe that it comes from different contexts with specific needs. Even the social movements who are fighting for the housing rights still experience ways of dealing with the issue of the centrality and the resistance has been the main instrument for guaranteeing rights and encourage discussion with the various actors (society, real estate market, State) that produce the urban space. The research investigates how the housing of low-income population and its dynamics in central areas is understood, managed, accept and even compelled by society, by the real estate market and by the State and which institutional tools the movements have for the maintenance of guaranteed rights. Take as the object of research the occupations of idle buildings in the center of S?o Paulo in particular "Occupation S?o Jo?o" and the role of the ?Front of Fight for Housing? - the FLM (Frente de Luta pela Moradia) - entered the territory of the district of Rep?blica. / O presente estudo busca levantar quest?es referentes ao direto ? moradia observando a atua??o dos movimentos sociais em especial na regi?o central da cidade de S?o Paulo (distrito da rep?blica) considerando seu impacto no territ?rio e na sociedade. A condi??o de vulnerabilidade na moradia est? presente tanto nas ?reas centrais como nas bordas perif?ricas urbanas, entretanto, os programas habitacionais carecem de distin??o segundo a localiza??o, pois muitas vezes n?o considera que se trata de contextos distintos com necessidades espec?ficas. At? mesmo os movimentos sociais experientes que lutam pelo direito ? moradia ainda experimentam formas de lidar com a quest?o da centralidade e a resist?ncia tem sido a principal instrumento para a garantia de direitos e fomentar a discuss?o com os diferentes atores (sociedade, mercado, Estado) que produzem o espa?o urbano. A pesquisa investiga como a moradia da popula??o de baixa renda e suas din?micas em ?reas centrais ? entendida, gerida, aceita e at? combatida pela sociedade, pelo mercado e pelo Estado e quais ferramentas institucionais os movimentos possuem para a manuten??o da garantia de direitos. Toma-se como objeto da pesquisa as ocupa??es de edifica??es ociosas no centro de S?o Paulo em especial a ?Ocupa??o S?o Jo?o? e a atua??o da Frente de Luta por Moradia ? a FLM ? inseridas no territ?rio do distrito da rep?blica.

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