Cyberpropaganda and its Communication Models In this thesis, communication models representing the functioning of communication in a network of social interactions are analyzed. Understanding the communication of new media can contribute to understanding the processes that take place in cyberspace. The aim of this thesis is to decipher the forms of propaganda that operate in it. This work can contribute to the understanding of several forms of current social events, such as public relations, influencing public opinion or political struggle, which have significantly moved into cyberspace. The presentation of cyberspace and new media from several perspectives, together with the complex characterization of the communication that takes place in them, creates its overall image, in which the thesis reveals possible penetrations of propaganda tendencies of targeted manipulation with its members. In this thesis, cyberpropaganda is approached from several points of view. It is about updating propaganda models from the mass media to the emergence of new forms, techniques and tools that have enabled the new media. The starting point of this research is to clarify the complexity of communication, which is not shaped exclusively by its new technical aspects, but is to some extent a continuation of its previous...

In software engineering it is important to consider how a potential user experiences the system during usage. No software user will have a satisfying experience if they perceive the system as slow, unresponsive, unstable or hiding information. Additionally, if the system restricts the users to only having a limited set of actions, their experience will further degrade. In order to evaluate the effect these issues have on a user‟s perceived experience, a measure called Quality of Experience is applied. In this work the foremost objective was to improve how a user experienced a system suffering from the previously mentioned issues, when searching for large amounts of data. To achieve this objective the system was evaluated to identify the issues present and which issues were affecting the user perceived Quality of Experience the most. The evaluated system was a warehouse management system developed and maintained by Aptean AB‟s office in Hässleholm, Sweden. The system consisted of multiple clients and a server, sending data over a network. Evaluation of the system was in form of a case study analyzing its performance, together with a survey performed by Aptean staff to gain knowledge of how the system was experienced when searching for large amounts of data. From the results, three issues impacting Quality of Experience the most were identified: (1) interaction; limited set of actions during a search, (2) transparency; limited representation of search progress and received data, (3) execution time; search completion taking long time. After the system was analyzed, hypothesized technological solutions were implemented to resolve the identified issues. The first solution divided the data into multiple partitions, the second decreased data size sent over the network by applying compression and the third was a combination of the two technologies. Following the implementations, a final set of measurements together with the same survey was performed to compare the solutions based on their performance and improvement gained in perceived Quality of Experience. The most significant improvement in perceived Quality of Experience was achieved by the data partitioning solution. While the combination of solutions offered a slight further improvement, it was primarily thanks to data partitioning, making that technology a more suitable solution for the identified issues compared to compression which only slightly improved perceived Quality of Experience. When the data was partitioned, updates were sent more frequently and allowed the user not only a larger set of actions during a search but also improved the information available in the client regarding search progress and received data. While data partitioning did not improve the execution time it offered the user a first set of data quickly, not forcing the user to idly wait, making the user experience the system as fast. The results indicated that to increase the user‟s perceived Quality of Experience for systems with server-client communication, data partitioning offered several opportunities for improvement. / I programvaruteknik är det viktigt att överväga hur en potentiell användare upplever ett system vid användning. Ingen användare kommer att ha en tillfredsställande upplevelse om de uppfattar systemet som långsamt, icke responsivt, ostabilt eller döljande av information. Dessutom, om systemet binder användarna till ett begränsat antal möjliga handlingar, kommer deras upplevelse vidare försämras. För att utvärdera vilken påverkan dessa problem har på en användares upplevda kvalitet, används mätenheten Upplevd Tjänstekvalitet. I detta arbete var det huvudsakliga syftet att förbättra en användares upplevelse av ett system som led av de tidigare nämnda problemen vid sökning av större datamängder. För att uppnå detta syfte utvärderades systemet för att identifiera befintliga problem samt vilka som mest påverkade användares Upplevda Tjänstekvalitet. Systemet som utvärderades var en mjukvara för lagerhantering som utvecklades och underhölls av Aptean AB‟s kontor i Hässleholm, Sverige. Systemet bestod av flera klienter och en server som skickade data över ett nätverk. Systemet utvärderades med en fallstudie där prestandan anayserades tillsammans med en enkät utförd i samarbete med Apteans personal för att få insikt i hur systemet upplevdes vid sökningar av stora datamängder. Resultaten visade på tre problem som hade störst inverkan på den Upplevda Tjänstekvaliteten: (1) interaktion; begränsade antal möjliga handlingar under en sökning, (2) transparens; begränsad tillgång till information om sökningens progress samt den hämtade datan, (3) körningstid; slutförande av en sökning tog lång tid. Efter att systemet hade analyserats, implementerades hypotetiska teknologiska lösningar för att lösa de identifierade problemen. Den första lösningen delade in datan i ett flertal partitioner, den andra minskade datans storlek som skickades över nätverket genom att tillämpa komprimering och den tredje var en kombination av de två teknologierna. Efter implementationen utfördes en sista uppsättning mätningar tillsammans med enkäten för att jämföra lösningarna baserat på deras prestanda och förbättringar av Upplevd Tjänstekvalitet. Den mest signifikanta förbättringen av Upplevd Tjänstekvalitet kom från datapartitioneringslösningen. Trots att kombinationen av lösningar uppnådde en mindre vidare förbättring, var det primärt tack vare datapartitioneringen, vilket innebar att den teknologin var den mest passande lösningen till de identifierade problemen jämfört med komprimering, vilken visade på endast en liten förbättring av Upplevd Tjänstekvalitet. När data partitionerades kunde flera uppdateringar skickas och användaren tilläts ett större antal möjliga handlingar under en sökning, men också en förbättrad tillgång till information i klienten angående sökningens progress samt den hämtade datan. Trots att datapartitionering inte förbättrade körningstiden, kunde den erbjuda användaren en första mängd data snabbt utan att tvinga användaren att sysslolöst vänta, vilket gjorde att systemet upplevdes som snabbt. För att förbättra den Upplevda Tjänstekvaliteten för system med server-klient kommunikation visade resultaten att datapartitionering är en lösning som erbjöd flera möjligheter för förbättring.

Since artificial intelligence (AI) is growing more prominent it is interesting to look at the methods used to train AI. One such method is reinforcement learning in simulation, where AI can train safely in the confines of a simulation. For this a simulation environment is needed which in turn needs to communicate with a reinforcement learning system. It is therefore interesting to look at how this communication may affect the performance of the system. This study is made to look at this question.  A few different communication protocols are evaluated in a test program using data of the same kind used in reinforcement learning systems, floating point numbers and images. These protocols are sockets, Socket.IO, gRPC, and ZeroMQ. Of the protocols sockets and ZeroMQ are shown to be similar for sending floats, with ZeroMQ being better performing at sending images. For larger amounts of data sockets are however better. ZeroMQ is considered the best choice for an application dealing with floats and images, due to the performance and more built in ease of use functionality compared to sockets.  ZeroMQ is adapted into a working example for reinforcement learning training in simulation using Unreal Engine as a simulation environment, AGX Dynamics for physics simulation, and Stable Baselines3 for reinforcement learning. Performance in the simulation is similar but slower than in the test program. In the small example used the reinforcement learning process is the slowest part of the system, the simulation is the next slowest at a third of the time of the reinforcement learning, communication back and forth stands for half of the simulation time. As the system grows more complexreinforcement learning time and simulation time are expected to grow at a much faster speed than thecommunication. Therefore if optimization is to be made it is likely better to focus at the other part first.

Embedding small wireless sensors into the environment allows for monitoring physical processes with high spatio-temporal resolutions. Today, these devices are equipped with a battery to supply them with power. Despite technological advances, the high maintenance cost and environmental impact of batteries prevent the widespread adoption of wireless sensors. Battery-free devices that store energy harvested from light, vibrations, and other ambient sources in a capacitor promise to overcome the drawbacks of (rechargeable) batteries, such as bulkiness, wear-out and toxicity. Because of low energy input and low storage capacity, battery-free devices operate intermittently; they are forced to remain inactive for most of the time charging their capacitor before being able to operate for a short time. While it is known how to deal with intermittency on a single device, the coordination and communication among groups of multiple battery-free devices remain largely unexplored. For the first time, the present thesis addresses this problem by proposing new methods and tools to investigate and overcome several fundamental challenges.

The specialized hardware remains a key component of the mobile networks, but at the same time, the telecom industry is adapting a vision of a fully programable distributed end-to-end network with cloud style management and Software-Defined Networking. In the specialized hardware programmable network, it will be possible to place workloads across abstracted compute and networking infrastructure. But, whereas virtualization standard compute resources is a mature technology and well supported in cloud management systems such as OpenStack and Kubernetes, this is not the case for specialized hardware with more complex constraints. There is a significant gap in terms of advanced constraints and service level aware schedulers. The main objective of this thesis is that the specialised hardware needs to adapt to the features of edge computing. Edge computing provides the opportunity to explore how technologies can advance industrial processes. To achieve flexibility by choosing where the workload should be processed on the board based on available resources. Utilising this technology, highly intensive applications can be handled at the network’s edge. There is a necessity to virtualize the proprietary hardware and run workloads in VMs and containers. In this thesis, we discuss kernel bypass, PCI passthrough and MPI communication technologies in a virtual environment by considering the hardware constraints and software requirements so that these technologies can be integrated into OpenStack and Kubernetes in future.

Real-time, virtual and mixed reality systems have diverse uses for real-world data visualization, representation, and remote collaboration in distant learning settings, especially in universities. Design of such systems involves challenges in mapping the real world data and physical world structure accurately to digital form of physical space, also called as virtual models. Researchers have created similar systems using multiple cameras, stereo cameras, accelerometers, and motion detectors. This report presents a platform to detect and track real-time locations of people present in buildings and map their location information into virtual models as avatars using omni-directional cameras installed in the physical space. These models were created as part of the Mirror Worlds project. The project infrastructure is funded by National Science Foundation. This infrastructure enables users to connect virtual and physical aspects of the environment through a coordinate-based data networking system to enable interaction with the rest of the system including environment objects and other users. This is an interdisciplinary project where students from various departments have worked on the development of virtual model of the Moss Art Center and Torgersen Hall in Unity / X3D. Some students from the Department of Computer Science have developed a coordinate-based data networking system. The prototype of a detection and tracking algorithm to extract the location information was developed using background subtraction in MATLAB. The proposed approach was developed using the combination of background subtraction and neural networks along with heuristics based on spatial information about the physical space. The system was scaled to work across multiple buildings, extract the location information of people present in the physical space, and map location information into shared virtual space as an avatar. The concept of remote presence was extended to create a collaborative object manipulation application using Leap Motion controller. Effects of fidelity were evaluated to perform the collaborative object manipulation task in shared virtual space based on user study conducted for this application. Since no annotated people video dataset is publicly available with overhead view from omni-directional cameras, three videos were annotated manually to test the performance of the approach. The current approach almost works at near real-time rates. All three video sequences were evaluated to compute frame based detection accuracy. Precision and recall obtained for the first video sequence of people detection is 93.85% and 95.06% respectively. / Master of Science

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-07-11T12:44:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Caetano Nêto.pdf: 11772072 bytes, checksum: 1e7c4d737098470e5ba7ea4945cdcd85 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-11T12:44:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Caetano Nêto.pdf: 11772072 bytes, checksum: 1e7c4d737098470e5ba7ea4945cdcd85 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / In the context of the culture of participation, the number of collective actions is growing every day. The thesis discusses the networked communication processes and the power that emerges in collective actions for social transformation. Our hypothesis is that the meta-plataforms that manage the crowdactions, so called because they are known from the use of the prefix crowd, are systems that favor community empowerment, act on the affective engagement of multiple agents and enable the creative emergence of responses to social problems. The methodology adopted is based on the mapping of poetic maps in cyberspace (Lúcia Leão) and case studies of collaborative meta-plataforms that were developed following different types of management models (bottom-up, middle-out and top-down). The thesis articulates relations with Stuart Hall, Zygmunt Bauman and Michel Maffesoli, who contribute to the problematization about the idea of identity and affective associations in groups. The research is anchored in the perspective of the creation processes of Lúcia Leão and Steven Johnson. As a result, the thesis has shown that meta-platforms are examples of systems founded on the knowledge ecology paradigm. The processes that make up these systems operate through open source structures, whose customization allows for an amplification of the offer of solutions, and create concrete possibilities of social transformation. In addition, systems are examples of knowledge production in the contemporary world as they create spaces for dialogue and favor the articulation of different agents in problem mediation / No contexto da cultura da participação, o número de ações coletivas em rede cresce a cada dia. A presente tese de doutorado discute os processos de comunicação em rede e o poder que emerge nas ações coletivas para a transformação social. Nossa hipótese é que as metaplataformas que gerenciam as crowdactions, assim chamadas por serem conhecidas a partir do uso do prefixo crowd, são sistemas que favorecem o empoderamento da comunidade, atuam no engajamento afetivo de múltiplos agentes e possibilitam a emergência criativa de respostas à problemas de cunho social. A metodologia adotada se baseia na abordagem das cartografias de poéticas no ciberespaço (Lúcia Leão) e foram desenvolvidos estudos de caso de metaplataformas colaborativas com diferentes tipos de modelo de gestão (bottom-up, middle-out e top-down). A tese articula relações com Stuart Hall, Zygmunt Bauman e Michel Maffesoli, que contribuem para a problematização acerca da ideia de identidade e associações afetivas em grupos. A pesquisa está ancorada na perspectiva de processos de criação de Lúcia Leão e Steven Johnson. Como resultado, a tese demonstrou que as metaplataformas são exemplos de sistemas fundados no paradigma da ecologia de saberes. Os processos que compõem esses sistemas operam através de estruturas open source, cuja customização permite uma amplificação da oferta de soluções, e criam possibilidades concretas de transformação social. Além disso, os sistemas são exemplos de produção de conhecimento na contemporaneidade à medida que criam espaços de diálogo e favorecem a articulação de diferentes agentes na mediação de problemas

A pesquisa tem como objeto a comunicação em rede praticada através da Internet em empresas privadas brasileiras e multinacionais com operação no Brasil, privilegiando aspectos e dados relativos a uso de computador e de Internet pelos empregados. Buscou-se compreender, essencialmente, quais são as normas que as empresas estabelecem para esse tipo de atividade uso de Internet , assim como as razões que as levam a normatizar o uso da comunicação em rede. Além de pesquisa qualitativa promovida junto 18 empresas de médio e grande porte em vários segmentos econômicos, utilizou-se dados da mais recente pesquisa do Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, que avaliou o uso dessa tecnologia de comunicação em empresas e lares brasileiros, divulgada em janeiro de 2007. Quanto aos resultados, constatou-se que as tecnologias da informação trouxeram várias inovações às relações comunicacionais e de trabalho, a principal delas o fato de que normas de comportamento antes escritas agora são aplicadas automaticamente pelos sistemas de informação. Além disso, percebeu-se que a comunicação em rede, que muitos julgam ampla, livre e democrática, é apropriada de modo autoritário pela maioria das empresas, que buscam controlá-la através de sistemas de monitoração e vigilância permanentes, destruindo assim o mito de que as técnicas, por si só, modificam o modo como os meios de produção se articulam. / The research has as object the network communication practiced through the Internet in brazilian private companies and multinational companies operating in Brazil, privileging aspects and data on the use of computer and Internet by the employees. The aim was to understand, essentially, what are the standards that firms set for this type of activity use of the Internet as well as the reasons that lead to standardize the use of network communication. In addition to qualitative research promoted with 18 companies of medium and large sizes in various economic sectors, it was used data from the most recent survey of the Management Committee of the Internet in Brazil, which evaluated the use of this technology for communication in brazilian businesses and homes, disclosed in January 2007. As for results, it was found that information technologies have brought several innovations to the communication and working relationships, the main of them the fact that standards of behaviour prior written now are applied automatically by information systems. Moreover, it is realized that network communication, which many believe broad, free and democratic, it is appropriate in an authoritarian way by companies, that seek to control it through monitoring systems and permanent surveillance, thereby destroying the myth that techniques, by itself, alter how the means of production are articulated.

This research examined how college students feel about their professors requesting them to be a Facebook friend. Recognizing the ways in which professors and students communicating through social networking could produce additional educational opportunities for collaboration and instruction, while also causing tension or awkwardness as the process develops. Semistructured interviews were utilized by the researcher to obtain information from the selected participants, and the data were analyzed by comparative methods. Through this study, it was revealed that students are split on the appropriateness of professors as Facebook friends. They prefer little to no self-disclosure from their professors. They do not see Facebook friendships with professors as an invasion of their privacy. Although most students believe Facebook can be an effective educational tool, there are mixed feelings whether using Facebook as an educational tool strips the site of its originally intended social purpose, most students will accept their professor’s Facebook request but only because they feel that they have to. This study extends the limited initial research on Facebook usage in education, namely with students.

A pesquisa tem como objeto a comunicação em rede praticada através da Internet em empresas privadas brasileiras e multinacionais com operação no Brasil, privilegiando aspectos e dados relativos a uso de computador e de Internet pelos empregados. Buscou-se compreender, essencialmente, quais são as normas que as empresas estabelecem para esse tipo de atividade uso de Internet , assim como as razões que as levam a normatizar o uso da comunicação em rede. Além de pesquisa qualitativa promovida junto 18 empresas de médio e grande porte em vários segmentos econômicos, utilizou-se dados da mais recente pesquisa do Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil, que avaliou o uso dessa tecnologia de comunicação em empresas e lares brasileiros, divulgada em janeiro de 2007. Quanto aos resultados, constatou-se que as tecnologias da informação trouxeram várias inovações às relações comunicacionais e de trabalho, a principal delas o fato de que normas de comportamento antes escritas agora são aplicadas automaticamente pelos sistemas de informação. Além disso, percebeu-se que a comunicação em rede, que muitos julgam ampla, livre e democrática, é apropriada de modo autoritário pela maioria das empresas, que buscam controlá-la através de sistemas de monitoração e vigilância permanentes, destruindo assim o mito de que as técnicas, por si só, modificam o modo como os meios de produção se articulam. / The research has as object the network communication practiced through the Internet in brazilian private companies and multinational companies operating in Brazil, privileging aspects and data on the use of computer and Internet by the employees. The aim was to understand, essentially, what are the standards that firms set for this type of activity use of the Internet as well as the reasons that lead to standardize the use of network communication. In addition to qualitative research promoted with 18 companies of medium and large sizes in various economic sectors, it was used data from the most recent survey of the Management Committee of the Internet in Brazil, which evaluated the use of this technology for communication in brazilian businesses and homes, disclosed in January 2007. As for results, it was found that information technologies have brought several innovations to the communication and working relationships, the main of them the fact that standards of behaviour prior written now are applied automatically by information systems. Moreover, it is realized that network communication, which many believe broad, free and democratic, it is appropriate in an authoritarian way by companies, that seek to control it through monitoring systems and permanent surveillance, thereby destroying the myth that techniques, by itself, alter how the means of production are articulated.