This dissertation builds on work that has applied complex systems thinking to socio-ecological systems as well as on research that explores critical and reflective approaches to planning. A broad, interdisciplinary literature review was undertaken to explore the implications of complex and critical systems thinking and critical social epistemology for environmental management, planning and policy research, governance and social learning. Building on the insights from this review, one of the key contributions of this research is a conceptual framework that explicitly integrates knowledge and learning into an understanding of socio-ecological systems. It is argued that in the highly complex and uncertain realm of environmental policy, planning and governance, we should begin to discuss such systems as socio-ecological-epistemological (SEE) systems. This research addresses the complexity, uncertainty, high decision stakes, power relations and plurality of knowledges involved in the process of social learning in environmental planning and governance. The SEE systems conceptual framework for research and intervention was developed in the form of descriptive (Co-Evolution, Reflexive Uncertainty, Cross-scalar Considerations) and prescriptive (Critical Awareness, Pluralism, Power) principles. Based upon these principles, a critical systems-based approach to planning and policy research was developed and applied to two case studies of innovative, integrated environmental planning and governance: the Oak Ridges Moraine and the Long Point World Biosphere Reserve. A conceptual model for describing and refining the contributions of environmental movement organizations to social learning in the context of environmental governance emerged. The model describes the requirements of social learning as defined along three axes: typology of knowledge; levels of critical reflection; and, a scale axis from individual agent to larger social structures (institutions). Through this work, it is evident that insights from complex and critical systems understanding have influenced thinking in environmental management, planning, governance and social learning. Through the exploratory application of the SEE systems approach to complex environmental planning and governance systems, the SEE systems principles appear to resonate strongly with the experience of environmental movement organizations. In particular, three key findings emerged from the two exploratory, empirical case studies. First, interviewees and workshop attendees in both case study contexts described the importance of various types of knowledge, especially scientific, local technical and governance knowledge in initiating policy change. Second, research participants stressed the importance of understanding the cross-scalar dynamics that affect their ability to influence policy as well as the need to develop policy and governance structures appropriate to the scale of the issue of interest. And finally, the need for individual as well as organizational critical reflection upon policy tools and implementation, policy goals as well as the power differentials embodied in certain policy and governance structures was also highlighted in the qualitative, empirical data generated through interviews and workshops. This research reaffirms the importance of the collaboration and the collective contribution of academic researchers, civil servants and volunteer members of environmental movement organizations to fostering social learning for sustainability in the context of complex SEE systems.

This dissertation builds on work that has applied complex systems thinking to socio-ecological systems as well as on research that explores critical and reflective approaches to planning. A broad, interdisciplinary literature review was undertaken to explore the implications of complex and critical systems thinking and critical social epistemology for environmental management, planning and policy research, governance and social learning. Building on the insights from this review, one of the key contributions of this research is a conceptual framework that explicitly integrates knowledge and learning into an understanding of socio-ecological systems. It is argued that in the highly complex and uncertain realm of environmental policy, planning and governance, we should begin to discuss such systems as socio-ecological-epistemological (SEE) systems. This research addresses the complexity, uncertainty, high decision stakes, power relations and plurality of knowledges involved in the process of social learning in environmental planning and governance. The SEE systems conceptual framework for research and intervention was developed in the form of descriptive (Co-Evolution, Reflexive Uncertainty, Cross-scalar Considerations) and prescriptive (Critical Awareness, Pluralism, Power) principles. Based upon these principles, a critical systems-based approach to planning and policy research was developed and applied to two case studies of innovative, integrated environmental planning and governance: the Oak Ridges Moraine and the Long Point World Biosphere Reserve. A conceptual model for describing and refining the contributions of environmental movement organizations to social learning in the context of environmental governance emerged. The model describes the requirements of social learning as defined along three axes: typology of knowledge; levels of critical reflection; and, a scale axis from individual agent to larger social structures (institutions). Through this work, it is evident that insights from complex and critical systems understanding have influenced thinking in environmental management, planning, governance and social learning. Through the exploratory application of the SEE systems approach to complex environmental planning and governance systems, the SEE systems principles appear to resonate strongly with the experience of environmental movement organizations. In particular, three key findings emerged from the two exploratory, empirical case studies. First, interviewees and workshop attendees in both case study contexts described the importance of various types of knowledge, especially scientific, local technical and governance knowledge in initiating policy change. Second, research participants stressed the importance of understanding the cross-scalar dynamics that affect their ability to influence policy as well as the need to develop policy and governance structures appropriate to the scale of the issue of interest. And finally, the need for individual as well as organizational critical reflection upon policy tools and implementation, policy goals as well as the power differentials embodied in certain policy and governance structures was also highlighted in the qualitative, empirical data generated through interviews and workshops. This research reaffirms the importance of the collaboration and the collective contribution of academic researchers, civil servants and volunteer members of environmental movement organizations to fostering social learning for sustainability in the context of complex SEE systems.

An intelligent agent must be capable of using its past experience to develop an understanding of how its actions affect the world in which it is situated. Given some objective, the agent must be able to effectively use its understanding of the world to produce a plan that is robust to the uncertainty present in the world. This thesis presents a novel computational framework called the Adaptive Modelling and Planning System (AMPS) that aims to meet these requirements for intelligence. The challenge of the agent is to use its experience in the world to generate a model. In problems with large state and action spaces, the agent can generalise from limited experience by grouping together similar states and actions, effectively partitioning the state and action spaces into finite sets of regions. This process is called abstraction. Several different abstraction approaches have been proposed in the literature, but the existing algorithms have many limitations. They generally only increase resolution, require a large amount of data before changing the abstraction, do not generalise over actions, and are computationally expensive. AMPS aims to solve these problems using a new kind of approach. AMPS splits and merges existing regions in its abstraction according to a set of heuristics. The system introduces splits using a mechanism related to supervised learning and is defined in a general way, allowing AMPS to leverage a wide variety of representations. The system merges existing regions when an analysis of the current plan indicates that doing so could be useful. Because several different regions may require revision at any given time, AMPS prioritises revision to best utilise whatever computational resources are available. Changes in the abstraction lead to changes in the model, requiring changes to the plan. AMPS prioritises the planning process, and when the agent has time, it replans in high-priority regions. This thesis demonstrates the flexibility and strength of this approach in learning intelligent behaviour from limited experience.

The Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) algorithm has recently proved to be able to solve difficult problems in the field of optimization as well as game-playing. It has been able to address several problems that no conventional techniques have been able to solve efficiently. In this thesis we investigate possible ways to use MCTS in the field of planning and scheduling. We analyze the problem theoretically trying to identify possible difficulties when using MCTS in this field. We propose the solutions to these problems based on a modification of the algorithm and preprocessing the planning domain. We present the techniques we have developed for these tasks and we combine them into an applicable algorithm. We specialize the method for a specific kind of planning problems - the transportation problems. We compare our planner with other planning system.

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Orientador: Anna Augusta Sampaio de Oliveira / Banca: Sadao Omote / Banca: Lúcia Pereira Leite / Resumo: O presente trabalho caracteriza-se por um estudo de caso que envolve investigação documental e tem como objetivo analisar o Projeto Político Pedagógico (1994) e o Plano de Ensino (1999) do curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências da UNESP - campus de Marília, levantando dados históricos para a constatação do que se perde em termos de formação de professores, com a extinção da Habilitação em Educação Especial oferecida pela referida universidade. Para tal, trazemos um breve histórico sobre o curso de Pedagogia e a Educação Especial no Brasil, tendo como foco a formação docente e o perfil do profissional a ser formado. Apresentamos uma abordagem teórica sobre a importância dos documentos consultados e analisamos as disciplinas oferecidas pela Habilitação em Educação Especial (no período de 1999-2006). Os resultados apontam uma possível queda de qualidade na formação do professor especializado ao substituir a Habilitação em Educação Especial exclusiva do curso de Pedagogia, por cursos de especialização Lato Sensu, oferecidos de modo reducionista, a qualquer tipo de licenciados. Perde-se a figura do professor alfabetizador, com conhecimentos específicos nas séries iniciais do ensino fundamental, para introduzir o professor de outras áreas para atuar junto aos alunos com deficiência nas diferentes modalidades de atendimento educacional especializado. O estudo contribui para a retomada de questões referentes à extinção da Habilitação em Educação Especial do curso de Pedagogia, a partir de 2007, por meio da Resolução nº 01/06 que institui as Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para o curso de Pedagogia / Abstract: This work reports a case study comprising documental investigation. It aims to analyze the Political-Pedagogic Project (1994), and the Teaching Planning (1999) of the Pedagogy course of the Philosophy and Science University, UNESP Marilia campus. It surveyed historical data to notice what has been losing in the issue of teachers' training from the extinction of the Special Education Qualification provided by this university. For this, we reported a brief history of both the Pedagogy course and the Special Education in Brazil, highlighting the teacher's training and the professional profile to be trained. We present a theoretical approach on the importance of the surveyed documents, and analyzed the subjects provided by the Special Education Qualification (in the period from1999 to 2006). The results pointed out a possible failure regarding the quality of the specialized teacher's training when replacing the exclusive Special Education Qualification of the Pedagogy course by the Lato Sensu specialization courses which were offered in a reductionist way to any licentiated kind. The picture of the literacy teacher with specialized knowledge in the initial grades of the elementary education is being lost to introduce the teacher from other areas to perform besides the students with some impairment in different modalities of specialized educational care . The study has contributed to retake questions related to the extinction of the Special Education Qualification of the Pedagogy course from 2007, by means of the Resolution nº 01/06 which prescribes the Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais to the Pedagogy course / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-09-02Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:52:53Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silva_e_me_mar.pdf: 277680 bytes, checksum: 7080e4bbd8f9322e6f81d16b0f9c2f4b (MD5) / O presente trabalho caracteriza-se por um estudo de caso que envolve investigação documental e tem como objetivo analisar o Projeto Político Pedagógico (1994) e o Plano de Ensino (1999) do curso de Pedagogia da Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências da UNESP – campus de Marília, levantando dados históricos para a constatação do que se perde em termos de formação de professores, com a extinção da Habilitação em Educação Especial oferecida pela referida universidade. Para tal, trazemos um breve histórico sobre o curso de Pedagogia e a Educação Especial no Brasil, tendo como foco a formação docente e o perfil do profissional a ser formado. Apresentamos uma abordagem teórica sobre a importância dos documentos consultados e analisamos as disciplinas oferecidas pela Habilitação em Educação Especial (no período de 1999-2006). Os resultados apontam uma possível queda de qualidade na formação do professor especializado ao substituir a Habilitação em Educação Especial exclusiva do curso de Pedagogia, por cursos de especialização Lato Sensu, oferecidos de modo reducionista, a qualquer tipo de licenciados. Perde-se a figura do professor alfabetizador, com conhecimentos específicos nas séries iniciais do ensino fundamental, para introduzir o professor de outras áreas para atuar junto aos alunos com deficiência nas diferentes modalidades de atendimento educacional especializado. O estudo contribui para a retomada de questões referentes à extinção da Habilitação em Educação Especial do curso de Pedagogia, a partir de 2007, por meio da Resolução nº 01/06 que institui as Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais para o curso de Pedagogia / This work reports a case study comprising documental investigation. It aims to analyze the Political-Pedagogic Project (1994), and the Teaching Planning (1999) of the Pedagogy course of the Philosophy and Science University, UNESP Marilia campus. It surveyed historical data to notice what has been losing in the issue of teachers´ training from the extinction of the Special Education Qualification provided by this university. For this, we reported a brief history of both the Pedagogy course and the Special Education in Brazil, highlighting the teacher´s training and the professional profile to be trained. We present a theoretical approach on the importance of the surveyed documents, and analyzed the subjects provided by the Special Education Qualification (in the period from1999 to 2006). The results pointed out a possible failure regarding the quality of the specialized teacher´s training when replacing the exclusive Special Education Qualification of the Pedagogy course by the Lato Sensu specialization courses which were offered in a reductionist way to any licentiated kind. The picture of the literacy teacher with specialized knowledge in the initial grades of the elementary education is being lost to introduce the teacher from other areas to perform besides the students with some impairment in different modalities of specialized educational care . The study has contributed to retake questions related to the extinction of the Special Education Qualification of the Pedagogy course from 2007, by means of the Resolution nº 01/06 which prescribes the Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais to the Pedagogy course