The diploma work concentrates on the complete development and construction of artillery produced by Skoda factory in Plzen from the beginning of weapon production, development of artillery turrets, artillery fortress guns, naval guns to field guns. The work appropriately combines three main parts: economical development of Skoda factory, the development of fortress and field artillery material and bibliography of a lot of important persons from Skoda factory. The work was divided into two important parts: from the beginning of artillery production at Skoda factory to the end of twenties of the twentieth century and the second part started at the beginning of thirties to the end of the second World War, when there were developed a lot of modern artillery constructions for the Czechoslovak army and German Wehrmacht. This work was is based on the work with primary archive research at Factory Skoda archive at Plzen, Central military archive in Praha and on the work with secondary literature. Since its beginning Skoda factory became the largest producer of artillery material in Austrian monarchy, during the first war they developed a lot of new and progressive constructions at fortress material and at field artillery material including heavy siege artillery. During the first republic period they...

Notadamente um dos escritores russos mais bem-sucedidos na decada de 1990, Victor Pelevin se caracteriza por uma obra pouco convencional no que concerne a construção de personagens e mundos em que elas habitam. A transicão poltica e cultural ocorrida após a queda do governo soviético, em 1991, e um dos fatores que influenciam as obras de grande parte dos autores pós-modernos na Rússia; entretanto, o sucesso de Pelevin se deve também as peculiaridades de sua escrita que, em vez de apenas promover críticas a sociedade que o precedeu, também inclui reflexões filosóficas e metafisicas por vezes consideradas pretensiosas demais pela critica que abordam essa transição. Em A metralhadora de argila, romance de 1996, o autor remonta as batalhas da Guerra Civil Russa, em 1919, colocando-as como um mundo paralelo a uma instituição psiquiátrica em 1991. O interesse, então, e estudar o processo de recriação que Pelevin faz da realidade pré-soviética e como ele a compara ao periodo pos-sovietico, apontando aspectos no romance que identifiquem a nocao de identidade e a mudanca a que este conceito esta sujeito apos as transformacoes sociais nesses periodos da historia recente da Russia. / One of the most renowned Russian writers of the 1990s, Viktor Pelevi distinguishes himself for the construction of characters and worlds in which they inhabit. The political and cultural transition after the end of the Soviet government, in 1991, is one of the factors that have an effect on most of the literary works from Post-Modern authors in Russia; although, Pelevin\'s success as well is due to singularities in his writing, which instead of only criticise the Soviet society before him, also includes philosophical and metaphysical thoughts sometimes viewed as too pretentious by the critics that discuss the transition. In The clay machine-gun, a 1996 novel, Pelevin remembers the battles of the Russian Civil War, in 1919, putting them as a parallel world within a madhouse in 1991. So, the interest in this study is to understand Pelevin\'s recreation of the Pre-Soviet reality and how he compares it to the Post- Soviet period, highlighting elements on the novel that trace the notion of identity and the adjustment it takes after the social transformation in these both recente Russian times.

Notadamente um dos escritores russos mais bem-sucedidos na decada de 1990, Victor Pelevin se caracteriza por uma obra pouco convencional no que concerne a construção de personagens e mundos em que elas habitam. A transicão poltica e cultural ocorrida após a queda do governo soviético, em 1991, e um dos fatores que influenciam as obras de grande parte dos autores pós-modernos na Rússia; entretanto, o sucesso de Pelevin se deve também as peculiaridades de sua escrita que, em vez de apenas promover críticas a sociedade que o precedeu, também inclui reflexões filosóficas e metafisicas por vezes consideradas pretensiosas demais pela critica que abordam essa transição. Em A metralhadora de argila, romance de 1996, o autor remonta as batalhas da Guerra Civil Russa, em 1919, colocando-as como um mundo paralelo a uma instituição psiquiátrica em 1991. O interesse, então, e estudar o processo de recriação que Pelevin faz da realidade pré-soviética e como ele a compara ao periodo pos-sovietico, apontando aspectos no romance que identifiquem a nocao de identidade e a mudanca a que este conceito esta sujeito apos as transformacoes sociais nesses periodos da historia recente da Russia. / One of the most renowned Russian writers of the 1990s, Viktor Pelevi distinguishes himself for the construction of characters and worlds in which they inhabit. The political and cultural transition after the end of the Soviet government, in 1991, is one of the factors that have an effect on most of the literary works from Post-Modern authors in Russia; although, Pelevin\'s success as well is due to singularities in his writing, which instead of only criticise the Soviet society before him, also includes philosophical and metaphysical thoughts sometimes viewed as too pretentious by the critics that discuss the transition. In The clay machine-gun, a 1996 novel, Pelevin remembers the battles of the Russian Civil War, in 1919, putting them as a parallel world within a madhouse in 1991. So, the interest in this study is to understand Pelevin\'s recreation of the Pre-Soviet reality and how he compares it to the Post- Soviet period, highlighting elements on the novel that trace the notion of identity and the adjustment it takes after the social transformation in these both recente Russian times.

Literature, films, and even the daily news often address war, an event that unfortunately has been a constant in modern society. Large scale, modern warfare with global involvement began with the First World War, and following the war, a global war literature boom occurred. Two bestselling novels whose anti-war themes still resound today, Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) by Erich Maria Remarque and Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, emerged from this sea of literature. Both of these novels focus on the pain that is inherent in warfare and its detrimental effects on society as well as on individual soldiers. The graphic imagery and anti-war sentiment that is present in these novels has generated controversy throughout their histories; however, the popularity of both works has prevailed, and Remarque and Trumbo’s novels remain two of the most referenced in academic disciplines as well as in popular culture. This thesis explores the long-lasting success of these two works as anti-war novels, as measured by initial sales and popularity as well as by a plethora of mass cultural adaptations.

This Thesis is an exploration of white fathers in three post-apartheid novels: Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples, Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun, and J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. By examining the link between private white hegemonic masculinity and the apartheid government, the Thesis analyzes the transitional process as these men try to adopt less authoritative identities.

L'imagerie préclinique dans le domaine de la cancérologie est en plein essor. Elle permet grâce à des modèles animaux représentatifs de cancers humains de comprendre les mécanismes de développement des pathologies et d'évaluer l'efficacité thérapeutique d'un nouveau traitement. Le principal objectif de ce travail a été de développer deux modèles orthotopiques de cancer (pancréas et colon) et d'évaluer des traitements de références ainsi qu'une nouvelle stratégie thérapeutique par plasma froid fibré appelée Plasma Gun. Les 2 modèles de cancers développés ont montré une bonne représentativité vis-à-vis des cancers humains, avec l'apparition de métastases à distance et la présence de zones hypoxiques. Le 5-fluorouracile pour le modèle orthotopique de carcinome colorectal HCT116-luc et la gemcitabine pour le modèle d'adénocarcinome pancréatique MIA PaCa2-luc ont induit à faible dose des effets discrets pouvant être mis en évidence grâce aux modalités d'imageries mises en oeuvre. Après validation de nos démarches expérimentales une nouvelle stratégie thérapeutique, le Plasma Gun, a été évaluée et a montré des effets significatifs sur l'inhibition de la croissance tumorale. Le second objectif de ma thèse a été de mettre en oeuvre des outils pour l'induction et la caractérisation des métastases osseuses ainsi que pour l'imagerie haute résolution de la vascularisation. D'une part, les métastases osseuses obtenues par injection de cellules PC3M-luc en intracardiaque ont été évaluées et quantifiées grâce à différentes modalités d'imagerie (bioluminescence, scintigraphie et scanner X). D'autre part, la réalisation d'une imagerie haute résolution de la vascularisation a été possible grâce à la technique de casting qui permet de recréer la structure 3D de l'architecture vasculaire suite à l'injection d'une résine dans la circulation. Les développements réalisés lors de cette thèse ont ainsi permis d'apporter des outils pour l'évaluation préclinique de nouvelles thérapies anticancéreuses.

The United States faces an ever-growing public health concern of gun violence, having the highest rate of homicide by firearm use among Western countries. American leaders on this subject have debated for many years on how to address this issue. Such debate, in turn, has brought up the concern of the mentally ill in possession of firearms, especially in light of mass shootings. The goal of this thesis is to determine the existence of a relationship between gun violence and mental illness. The significance of discerning this relationship is multi-faceted in that gun violence psychologically traumatizes its victims and also has been linked with mental illnesses in a stigmatizing manner, thanks to the spotlight on mass shootings by the media. Through literature analysis of the behaviors of those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and alcohol abuse, it was determined that, although increasing a person’s chances for experiencing at-risk behaviors for violence, intrinsic mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are not statistically associated with gun violence. In fact, not only has it been reported that very few firearm-related acts of violence are linked with those with mental illnesses, but also it has been noted that those with serious psychiatric disorders are victimized more often than a person without mental illness. Consequently, it is critical for physicians, lawmakers, and even the general public to take active measures to ensure that those with mental illnesses are not shamed for their condition and receive the necessary services to lead an ordinary lifestyle among their peers.

Submitted by Fernando Souza (fernandoafsou@gmail.com) on 2017-08-11T14:47:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3075980 bytes, checksum: 34017b499d4b0a096285315cb614b985 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-11T14:47:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 3075980 bytes, checksum: 34017b499d4b0a096285315cb614b985 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-04 / The urban violence has been increasing in almost Brazilian state and in order to face this threat, new technological tools are required by the police authorities in order to support their decisions on how and when the few available resources should be employed to combat criminality. In this context, this work presents an embedded computational tool that is suitable for detecting gun-shots automatically. To provide the necessary knowledge to understand the work, a brief description about impulsive sounds, re guns and the gun-shot characteristics are initially presented. Latter, a system based on modules is proposed to detect and recognize impulsive sound, which are characteristics of gun-shots. However, since the system contain several modules in this work we have focus only on two of them: the module for detecting impulsive sounds and the module for distinguish a gun-shot from any other impulsive sound. For the impulsive detection module, three well-known algorithms were analyzed on the same condition: the fourth derivative of the Root Median Square (RMS), the Conditional Median Filter (CMF) and the Variance Method (VM). The algorithms were tested based on four measured performance parameters: accuracy, precision, sensibility and speci city. And in order to determine the most e cient algorithm for detecting impulsive sounds, a cadence test with impulsive sounds, without or with additional noise (constant or increasing) was performed. After this analysis, the parameters employed on the CMF and VM method were tested in a wide range of con gurations to verify any possibility of optimization. Once this optimal method was determined, the classi cation module to recognize gun-shots started to be implemented. For this, two distinguish methods were compared, one based on the signal wrapped over the time and the other based on most relevant frequencies obtained from the Fourier transform. From the comparison between the two methods it was observed that the wrapped method provided 54% of accuracy in the classi cation of impulsive sounds, while with the frequency analysis this value was 72%. / A violência urbana vem crescendo anualmente em praticamente todos os estados brasileiros e para fazer face a essa amea ca, as autoridades policiais necessitam cada vez mais de ferramentas tecnológicas que os auxiliem na tomada de decisões sobre quando e como empregar os parcos recursos disponíveis a repressão do crime. Neste contexto, e apresentado nesse trabalho uma ferramenta computacional, passível de ser embarcada em dispositivos m oveis, que possibilita realizar a detecção e reconhecimento automático de disparos de armas de fogo. Para tanto, são descritos inicialmente os fundamentos básicos sobre sons impulsivos, armas de fogo e caracter sticas de disparos. Posteriormente, descreve-se uma proposta de um sistema modular de detecção e reconhecimento de disparos. No entanto, devido ao sistema conter diversos m odulos complexos, este trabalho teve foco em dois deles: o modulo de detecção de sons impulsivos e o modulo de classificação, que permite distinguir disparos de armas de fogo de outros sons impulsivos. Para o módulo de detecção de sons impulsivos foram analisados três algoritmos amplamente descritos na literatura: o algoritmo da quarta derivada da RMS, o da Conditional Median Filter (CMF) e o Método da Variância (VM). Os algoritmos foram testados com base nas medidas de desempenho da acurácia, precisão, sensibilidade e especificidade. E a para determinar o método mais e ciente, foram realizados testes de cadências, com sons impulsivos sem adição de ru do sonoro, com adição de ruído constante e com ruído variável. Ao final dessa anáise, os par^ametros preconizados na literatura para os m etodos CMF e VM foram alterados para uma verificação de possibilidade de otimização. De nido o algoritmo de detecção de impulso mais e ciente, iniciou-se o desenvolvimento do módulo de classificação. Para isso, foram propostas duas t ecnicas para o reconhecimento de disparos de armas de fogo, uma utilizando uma compara c~ao da envolt oria do som no dom nio do tempo e outra baseada na comparação de frequências dominantes obtidas por meio da transformada de Fourier. Numa comparação entre as duas técnicas observou-se que com a técnica da envoltória e poss vel identi car 54% dos sons impulsivos, enquanto que com a t ecnica baseada no dom nio da frequ^encia, este percentual foi de 72%.

La motivation qui a initié le projet de recherche ANR « Démonstrateur Gun Launched Micro Air Vehicle » est le besoin d’avoir un engin portatif qui permettrait d’obtenir rapidement des images d’une zone d’intérêt située à quelques centaines de mètres, avec la possibilité de pouvoir observer l’intérieur des bâtiments à travers leurs fenêtres ou en allant les explorer directement. Pour répondre à ce besoin, l’Institut franco-allemand de recherche de St Louis a eu l’idée de lancer un minidrone hélicoptère avec un canon. Le GLMAV, sous la forme d’un projectile, est lancé à partir d‘un tube portable à une distance de 500 m et une altitude de 100 m, où il pourra commencer à transmettre des images de la zone à observer. L’utilisation d’un système hybride projectile/minidrone a deux principaux avantages : cela permet d’augmenter l’autonomie du drone, et les premières images de la zone d’intérêt sont obtenues très rapidement. Au cours de cette thèse, nous nous sommes intéressés à la phase de transition, passer d’un projectile à un mini hélicoptère. Un modèle aérodynamique détaillé du GLMAV a été obtenu sur toute son enveloppe de vol. En prenant en compte les difficultés rencontrées lors de la phase de transition (perturbations des capteurs dues à l’accélération de 2500g au lancement, conditions initiales variables), nous avons développé une stratégie de commande, et une loi de commande en vitesse basée sur la technique du backstepping. Cette stratégie de commande a été validée en simulation. La loi de commande en orientation a été validée sur le prototype du GLMAV. Des travaux sur le flux optique, pour obtenir les vitesses latérales, ont été commencés. / The motivation that initiated the ANR research project "Démonstrateur Gun Launched Micro Air Vehicle" is the need to have a portable system which would permi tto quickly obtain images of an zone of interest placed at some hundred of meters, with the possibility to observe inside buildings either by their windows or by going inside them.To answer this need, the French-German Research Institute of St Louis got the idea o fusing a gun launched rotorcraft-MAV. The GLMAV, in its projectile form, is launched from a portable launching tube to a distance of 500m and a height of 100m, where it will collect and transmit visual information from the scene. The use of a projectile/rotorcraft-MAV hybrid system has two main advantages : it allows extending the MAV range,and the first images of the interest zone are obtained very quickly. During this PhD, we studied the transition phase, the passage from a projectile to a rotorcraft-MAV. A detailed aerodynamic model of the GLMAV has been obtained over his whole flight envelope. Taking into account the difficulties encountered during the transition phase (perturbation of the sensors caused by the 2500g acceleration at the launch, varying initial conditions),we developed a control strategy, and a velocity control law based on the backstepping methodology. This control strategy has been validated in simulation. The attitude control law has been validated on the GLMAV prototype. Studies on optical flow, to obtain the lateral velocities of the GLMAV, have been started.

The discussion regarding the second amendment and gun control in the United States has been a controversial and highly debated topic for many years. However, with the several school shootings taking place, the discussion about gun controls has been taken to a new level. The purpose of this essay is to give an overview of the debate and answer to the main question ”how is the relationship between freedom and rights expressed in the debate about strengthened gun control, in relation to positive and negative liberty, and over time?  In order to achieve the purpose, three different kinds of analyzes have been made. First, two pro-contra analyzes were made on two different occasions. Next, the arguments found was examined through two concepts of liberty: positive and negative liberty. Lastly, a comparison was made between the arguments from the two different occasions. The results show that there are three different core issues in the debate, and that positive liberty is dominating the pro-gun control side, while negative liberty and individual rights are dominating the contra-gun control side. The debate has not been going through a radical change. However, some arguments have grown stronger over the years.