p. 1-215 / Submitted by Santiago Fabio (fabio.ssantiago@hotmail.com) on 2013-04-01T17:25:44Z No. of bitstreams: 1 11111.pdf: 1743030 bytes, checksum: 1eb810ccffbaad916f5eee8489869601 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Tatiana Lima(tatianasl@ufba.br) on 2013-04-05T17:21:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 11111.pdf: 1743030 bytes, checksum: 1eb810ccffbaad916f5eee8489869601 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-04-05T17:21:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 11111.pdf: 1743030 bytes, checksum: 1eb810ccffbaad916f5eee8489869601 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2002 / Esta dissertação tem como tema a Avaliação de Desempenho, em que se partiu de uma pesquisa com os segmentos da Comunidade Acadêmica, acerca da importância e aplicabilidade de um Sistema de Avaliação na Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia - UESB. Embora a UESB venha conseguindo uma expansão no desenvolvimento das suas atividades de ensino, pesquisa e extensão e esteja implementando um processo de mudança em sua gestão, alicerçado em um modelo de organização participativa, ainda não dispõe de um Sistema de Avaliação qualitativa de professores e técnicos, que faça jus à relevância e à repercussão social e acadêmica das atividades individuais e coletivas nela realizadas. Em decorrência disso, as atividades são avaliadas apenas em termos quantitativos, desprezando-se a qualidade e a repercussão das ações. O foco central desta dissertação foi o de explorar as possibilidades e potencialidades da avaliação de desempenho do ponto de vista qualitativo, a partir das percepções, opiniões e crenças da comunidade acadêmica. A metodologia utilizada para a realização da pesquisa empírica foi a qualitativa e a técnica empregada foi a dos Grupos Focais, que reuniu 31 pessoas da Comunidade Acadêmica, divididas em 5 grupos (Grupo de Diretores de Departamentos e Coordenadores de Colegiados, Grupo de Docentes, Grupo de Servidores Técnico-Administrativos, Grupos de Discentes e Grupo da Administração Central) que teve como tema para discussão a “Avaliação de Desempenho e o Estágio Probatório”. Uma das conclusões da pesquisa é a de que a Comunidade Universitária está consciente da necessidade de controle sistemático dos processos acadêmico e institucional na UESB, mas isto deverá ser feito a partir da elaboração de um Programa de Avaliação de Desempenho discutido de maneira pública e democrática, como forma de garantir caminhos estratégicos para a expansão e consolidação da Universidade. Fica evidente na pesquisa que, levando-se em conta os argumentos representativos dos componentes dos 5 grupos focais, a avaliação de desempenho na UESB deve ser desenvolvida utilizando a metodologia de avaliação por objetivos onde o foco é o trabalho e as comparações a serem feitas devem estar pautadas no trabalho e seus resultados. Deverão assim ser analisados o fornecimento dos meios e condições necessárias à realização dos trabalhos e padrão de comportamento apresentado pelos servidores em sua realização, a partir de um processo de decisão colegiada que possui como fatores chaves os aspectos comportamentais, aspectos técnicos e de qualidade nos resultados e aspectos de conhecimento e domínio teórico. Dessa forma, e tomando-se como base as informações e as expectativas da Universidade, dos Discentes e dos Servidores que a compõem, devem ser estabelecidos os planos de ação a curto, médio e longo prazos. / Salvador

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:51:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 154942.pdf.jpg: 18952 bytes, checksum: 23e574558dce7d0f2a386af838a81bbe (MD5) 154942.pdf: 506907 bytes, checksum: 04eae2214c9bdd57e0cbeb2bb4459728 (MD5) 154942.pdf.txt: 81444 bytes, checksum: 047630fc773c90c68757120835adddab (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-02-15T00:00:00Z / Mutual funds performance evaluation is, traditionally, made using Sharpe Ratio that considers only the first and the second moments of the return distribution (mean and variance), but it requires assumptions on the normality of the returns distribution and on the investor’s utility function as quadratic. However, it is well known that a quadratic utility function is inconsistent with investor behavior and some funds, like hedge funds, have returns distributions far from a normal distribution Keating and Shadwick (2002a, 2002b) proposed a new measure called Omega that incorporates all the moments of the distribution, and has the advantage of requiring no assumptions on the returns distribution or on the utility function of a risk averse investor. The purpose of this work is to verify if this measure has a greater forecast power than other performance measures, like Sharpe and Sortino Ratios. The empiric study indicated that Omega measure makes a ranking, most of the time, different from the other measures. Despite the portfolios constructed with Omega have had an average return greater than the average return of the portfolios constructed using the other measures, in almost all the tests, this difference of averages of returns was significant only in some cases. In spite of this, there is a light indication that Omega measure is the most appropriate for the use of investors when is made the performance evaluation of mutual funds. / A avaliação de desempenho de fundos de investimentos é, tradicionalmente, realizada utilizando-se o Índice de Sharpe, que leva em consideração apenas os dois primeiros momentos da distribuição de retornos (média e variância), assumindo as premissas de normalidade da distribuição de retornos e função quadrática de utilidade do investidor. Entretanto, é sabido que uma função de utilidade quadrática é inconsistente com o comportamento do investidor e que as distribuições de retornos de determinados fundos, como os hedge funds, estão longe de serem uma distribuição normal. Keating e Shadwick (2002a, 2002b) introduziram uma nova medida denominada Ômega que incorpora todos os momentos da distribuição, e tem a vantagem de não ser necessário fazer premissas sobre a distribuição dos retornos nem da função de utilidade de um investidor avesso ao risco. O objetivo deste trabalho é verificar se esta medida Ômega tem um poder de previsibilidade maior que outras medidas de avaliação de desempenho, como o Índice de Sharpe e o Índice de Sortino. O estudo empírico indicou que a medida Ômega gera um ranqueamento, na maioria das vezes, relativamente diferente das outras medidas testadas. Apesar das carteiras formadas com base na medida Ômega terem gerado um retorno médio maior que o retorno médio das carteiras formadas pelas outras medidas em praticamente todos os testes, esta diferença entre as médias dos retornos só foi significativa em alguns casos. Mesmo assim, há uma leve indicação de que a medida Ômega é a mais apropriada para utilização do investidor ao fazer a avaliação de desempenho dos fundos de investimentos.

Este estudo investiga a influência de diferentes características morfológicas no desempenho e na apropriação de espaços urbanos através de uma análise comparativa entre dois bairros com diferentes configurações espaciais, localizados na cidade de Charqueadas-RS: O Bairro Centro, que representa o modelo tradicional urbano, com traçado retilíneo, altos índices construtivos, diversidade de usos e edificações dispostas no alinhamento da rua; e a Vila Piratini, bairro constituído com as características das cidades jardins: traçado orgânico das ruas, baixos índices construtivos, zoneamento de usos, densa cobertura vegetal e edificações dispostas de forma orgânica em torno de cul-de-sacs limitados por amplas áreas verdes. O estudo pretende contribuir para um melhor entendimento de como diferentes configurações que constituem o espaço da cidade, afetam o uso e influenciam a satisfação e a preferência de usuários. A investigação foi operacionalizada por meio da utilização de métodos qualitativos e quantitativos em duas etapas. A coleta e análise de dados foram feitas a partir de procedimentos metodológicos da área de estudo ambientecomportamento. A primeira etapa incluiu o levantamento de dados primários e secundários e a aplicação de mapas mentais e entrevistas. A segunda etapa consistiu na realização de levantamento físico, observações comportamentais e aplicação de questionários. Os dados obtidos através de múltiplos meios permitiram estabelecer relações entre as características morfológicas, as variáveis definidoras da qualidade do espaço construído - agrupadas em uso, estrutura e aparência - e o desempenho e apropriação dos espaços urbanos. Através deste estudo, foi possível identificar potencialidades e deficiências de espaços públicos com diferentes configurações urbanas, através da avaliação de desempenho feita a partir do ponto de vista do usuário. Os resultados obtidos confirmam que os tipos de usos são afetados pelas características morfológicas dos bairros, que tornam os espaços mais, ou menos propícios para a realização de determinadas atividades. Foi constatado que o desempenho e a apropriação urbana, quando relacionados ao uso, parecem ser favorecidos pela configuração urbana tradicional, principalmente no que se refere a intensidade de interação social em praças e parques, enquanto a configuração urbana das cidades jardins parece favorecer a prática de atividades esportivas, de interação social e a realização de atividades lúdicas em frente às casas. Quanto a estrutura, características da configuração urbana tradicional, em comparação com a configuração urbana das cidades jardins, tende a favorecer a orientação, acessibilidade e permeabilidade, enquanto o traçado orgânico e a vegetação característicos do modelo de cidade jardim, são relevantes para a construção da imagem e para fortalecer a percepção de território e a imageabilidade. Quanto ä aparência, foi confirmado que o desempenho e apropriação urbana são favorecidos mais fortemente pela configuração urbana das cidades jardins, em comparação com a configuração urbana tradicional. Ainda, a aparência visual da configuração urbana das cidades jardins apresentou relevância na preferência de locais para moradia e na predileção por escolhas de locais para a realização de atividades esportivas de deslocamento e a satisfação com a aparência dos espaços públicos apresentou-se diretamente relacionada com a satisfação geral em relação ao bairro de moradia, sendo a configuração do modelo de cidade jardim avaliada mais positivamente em relação ao modelo tradicional de cidade. / This study investigates the influence of different morphological features in performance and appropriation of urban spaces through a comparative analysis between two neighborhoods with different spatial configurations, located in Charqueadas-RS: The Center District, which represents the traditional urban model, with a rectilinear layout, high construction rates, diversity of uses and buildings located in the alignment of the road; and Vila Piratini, which was built according to the characteristics of garden cities: organic layout of the streets, low construction rates, zoning uses, dense vegetation and buildings organically displayed around cul-de-sacs with large green border areas. It intends to contribute for a better understanding on the manner different urban configurations can affect use, influence user satisfaction and preferences. The investigation was implemented through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in two stages. The collection and analysis of data were made through methodological procedures based on the environment-behavior study perspective. The first stage included the collection of primary and secondary data and application of mental maps and interviews. The second stage consisted of physical survey, behavioral observations and questionnaires. The data obtained through multiple means allowed to establish relations among the morphological characteristics, the defining variables of the quality of the built space - grouped in use, structure and appearance – and the performance and the appropriation of urban spaces. The study allowed the identification of potentialities and deficiencies of public spaces with different urban urban configurations by means of performance evaluation carried out through user's point of view. Results confirm that uses are affected by the morphological characteristics of the two neighborhoods, which provide spaces more and less adequate to perform specific activities. It was verified that performance and urban appropriation, when related to activities, seem to be favored by traditional urban configuration, regarding intensity of social interaction in squares and parks, while urban configuration of garden cities seems to favor sport activities, social interaction and playing activities in front of dwellings. Regarding structure, it was found that traditional urban configuration, when compared to garden city urban configuration, tend to favor orientation, accessibility and permeability, while the organic traces and the characteristic vegetation of garden city models can facilitate image construction and intensify user perception of territory and imageability. Regarding appearance, it was confirmed that performance and urban appropriation are positively affected by urban configuration of garden city model, when compared to traditional urban configuration. Yet, visual appearance of garden cities affected preference for place of residence e selection of places to perform sport activities and satisfaction with the appearance of public spaces was related to general satisfaction with the neighborhood of residence, where garden city configuration was more positively evaluated than the traditional urban configuration.

The study sought to investigate the performance measurement practice of retail Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Zimbabwe and to develop a performance measurement framework for monitoring and managing the performance of retail MSMEs in developing countries. The performance measurement framework may enhance the chances of success and survival of these retail MSMEs. The framework was developed based on a review of the literature and an empirical study. Questionnaires were administered to 373 owner/managers of which only 189 responded. Interviews were held with 20 senior employees in the accounts/finance departments of MSMEs. Stratified random sampling was employed to select the 20 senior employees interviewed. Interviews were also held with eight (8) owner/managers who were purposively selected from the 189 MSMEs who participated in the study. It was established that most of the MSMEs do not measure the CSFs identified from the literature review. The study identified innovation, management of costs, and management of customers, management of competitors, market scanning, employee motivation, and management of regulators as the factors that need to be measured and monitored if MSMEs are to succeed. The performance measurement framework which emerged from the study focused more on measurement of non-financial performance rather than financial performance. Most owner/managers interviewed indicated that the proposed performance measurement framework can be used to enhance the performance of MSMEs. The study recommends that a confirmatory study such as structural equation modelling should be carried out in order to test the cause-effect relationship between the CSFs identified in this study. The study also recommends a longitudinal study where the researcher will assess the performance measurement practices of the retail MSMEs over time rather than relying on the perceptions of owner/managers and employees of the MSMEs. Keywords: Critical success factors, MSMEs, performance measurement, / Management Accounting / D. Phil. (Management Accounting)

As with many new technology implementations before, Business Intelligence (BI) implementations have come under scrutiny in terms of the value added to organisations. The latest academic research uses various different ‘traditional financial methods’ such as the Return on Investment (ROI) calculations to determine the value of investments. In some instances customized measurement tools are proposed as a result of empirical studies conducted. The main objective of this study is to perform qualitative investigation on the theoretical value of BI implementations in organisations. If it is assumed that BI does add value to organisations, the primary research question aims to investigate how this value is added. A balanced scorecard second generation approach is used as theoretical framework in order to address the question. This approach is also known as strategy mapping. The research process starts with an extensive literature review on the topic of BI value evaluations and BI related balanced scorecards and strategy maps. As a result, various theoretical and practical research contributions are produced. One of the theoretical contributions includes an inventory of previous academic literature on the topic of BI value evaluations. This inventory is also presented diagrammatically. A preliminary version of the BI balanced scorecard is developed and used as foundation for a semi-structured interview template to investigate the value of BI in organisations.\ The semi-structured interview template was used as primary data generation instrument to gather data for this multiple-case study project. Four organisations participated in the study. The data obtained from the study was analysed and presented using an updated version of the theoretical framework of the study and was labelled as the intermediate version of the scorecard. The intermediate version of the BI balanced scorecard provided valuable input towards investigating how value was achieved as a result of BI implementations. These results were verified as part of a final verification process through a consultation process with the same study participants. A final version of the BI balanced scorecard is presented and included in a complete BI value solution. This version of the balanced scorecard is also a valuable practical contribution of the study. The verified results of the investigation indicated the following:- (1) BI adds value to organisations in all four perspectives of the organisation, namely the business value perspective, user orientation perspective, operational excellence perspective as well as the future orientation perspective. (2) Furthermore, the study confirmed that BI adds value to organisations through a number of benefits including an increase in sales and compliance to regulatory requirements (to name a few). (3) However, the study also indicated that value-related studies must adopt a holistic approach in an attempt to cater for the many facets of the topic. (4) Despite the challenge of implementing BI in organisations, the perceived value of BI implementations amongst senior management remained positive. This was supported by the continuous implementation of new BI projects in organisations. (5) There was a definite relationship between BI implementations and organisational performance. This is evident through the positive impact on sales figures, risk and compliance management and operational management. The study contributes to the broader field of Information Systems (IS) in numerous ways. Firstly the research discovers gaps in existing research, then proposes a method to investigate the research question as a result of the gaps identified, and -iiiuses this method as a tool to investigate the problem. The main contribution of the study is to contribute to the body of knowledge by investigating the value of business intelligence to organisations. / College of Engineering, Science and Technology / D. Litt et. Phil. (Information Systems)

SpaceWire est un standard de réseau embarqué promu par l'Agence Spatiale Européenne qui envisage de l'utiliser comme réseau bord unique dans ses futures satellites. SpaceWire utilise un mécanisme de routage Wormhole pour réduire la consommation mémoire des routeurs et les coûts associés. Cependant,le routage Wormhole peut engendrer des blocages en cascade dans les routeurs et, par conséquent,d'importantes variations des délais de livraison des paquets.Comme le réseau doit être partagé par des flux critiques et non-critiques, les concepteurs réseau ont besoin d'un outil leur permettant de vérifier le respect des contraintes temporelles des messages critiques. Pour réaliser cet outil, nous avons choisi comme métrique une borne supérieure sur le délai pire-cas de bout en bout d'un paquet traversant un réseau SpaceWire. Au cours de la thèse, nous avons proposé trois méthodes permettant de calculer cette borne. Les trois méthodes utilisent des hypothèses différentes et ont chacune des avantages et des inconvénients. D'une part, les deux premières méthodes sont très générales et ne nécessitent pas d'hypothèses restrictives sur le trafic en entrée du réseau. D'autre part, la troisième méthode nécessite des hypothèses plus précises sur le trafic en entrée. Elle est donc moins générale mais donne la plupart du temps des bornes plus serrées que les deux autres méthodes. Dans cette thèse, nous avons appliqué ces différentes méthodes à une architecture de référence fournie par Thales Alenia Space afin d'en comparer les résultats. Nous avons également appliqué ces méthodes à des exemples plus simples afin de déterminer l'influence de différents paramètres sur les bornes fournies par nos méthodes. / The SpaceWire network standard is promoted by the ESA and is scheduled to be used as the sole onboard network for future satellites. SpaceWire uses a wormhole routing mechanism to reduce memoryconsumption and the associated costs. However, wormhole routing can lead to packet blocking in routerswhich creates large variations in end-to-end delays. As the network will be shared by real-time and nonreal-time traffic, network designers require a tool to check that temporal constraints are verified for allthe critical messages. The metric we chose for this tool is an upper-bound on the worst-case end-to-enddelay of a packet traversing a SpaceWire network. This metric is simpler to compute than the exact delayof each packet and provide enough guarantee to the network designers. During the thesis, we designed three methods to compute this upper-bound. The three methods use different assumptions and have different advantages and drawbacks. On the one hand, the first two methods are very general and do not require strong assumptions on the input traffic. On the other hand, the third method requires more specific assumptions on the input traffic. Thus, it is less general but usually gives tighter bounds than the two other methods. In the thesis, we apply those methods to a case study provided by Thales Alenia Space and compare the results. We also compare the three methods on several smaller networks to study the impact of various parameters on their results.

Données Liées est un terme pour définir un ensemble de meilleures pratiques pour la publication et l'interconnexion des données structurées sur le Web. A mesure que le nombre de fournisseurs de Données Liées augmente, le Web devient un vaste espace de données global. La fédération de requêtes est l'une des approches permettant d'interroger efficacement cet espace de données distribué. Il est utilisé via un moteur de requêtes fédéré qui vise à minimiser le temps de réponse du premier tuple du résultat et le temps d'exécution pour obtenir tous les tuples du résultat. Il existe trois principales étapes dans un moteur de requêtes fédéré qui sont la sélection de sources de données, l'optimisation de requêtes et l'exécution de requêtes. La plupart des études sur l'optimisation de requêtes dans ce contexte se concentrent sur l'optimisation de requêtes statique qui génère des plans d'exécution de requêtes avant l'exécution et nécessite des statistiques. Cependant, l'environnement des Données Liées a plusieurs caractéristiques spécifiques telles que les taux d'arrivée de données imprévisibles et les statistiques peu fiables. En conséquence, l'optimisation de requêtes statique peut provoquer des plans d'exécution inefficaces. Ces contraintes montrent que l'optimisation de requêtes adaptative est une nécessité pour le traitement de requêtes fédéré sur les données liées. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons d'abord un opérateur de jointure adaptatif qui vise à minimiser le temps de réponse et le temps d'exécution pour les requêtes fédérées sur les endpoints SPARQL. Deuxièmement, nous étendons la première proposition afin de réduire encore le temps d'exécution. Les deux propositions peuvent changer la méthode de jointure et l'ordre de jointures pendant l'exécution en utilisant une optimisation de requêtes adaptative. Les opérateurs adaptatifs proposés peuvent gérer différents taux d'arrivée des données et le manque de statistiques sur des relations. L'évaluation de performances dans cette thèse montre l'efficacité des opérateurs adaptatifs proposés. Ils offrent des temps d'exécution plus rapides et presque les mêmes temps de réponse, comparé avec une jointure par hachage symétrique. Par rapport à bind join, les opérateurs proposés se comportent beaucoup mieux en ce qui concerne le temps de réponse et peuvent également offrir des temps d'exécution plus rapides. En outre, le deuxième opérateur proposé obtient un temps de réponse considérablement plus rapide que la bind-bloom join et peut également améliorer le temps d'exécution. Comparant les deux propositions, la deuxième offre des temps d'exécution plus rapides que la première dans toutes les conditions. En résumé, les opérateurs de jointure adaptatifs proposés présentent le meilleur compromis entre le temps de réponse et le temps d'exécution. Même si notre objectif principal est de gérer différents taux d'arrivée des données, l'évaluation de performance révèle qu'ils réussissent à la fois avec des taux d'arrivée de données fixes et variés. / Linked Data is a term to define a set of best practices for publishing and interlinking structured data on the Web. As the number of data providers of Linked Data increases, the Web becomes a huge global data space. Query federation is one of the approaches for efficiently querying this distributed data space. It is employed via a federated query engine which aims to minimize the response time and the completion time. Response time is the time to generate the first result tuple, whereas completion time refers to the time to provide all result tuples. There are three basic steps in a federated query engine which are data source selection, query optimization, and query execution. This thesis contributes to the subject of query optimization for query federation. Most of the studies focus on static query optimization which generates the query plans before the execution and needs statistics. However, the environment of Linked Data has several difficulties such as unpredictable data arrival rates and unreliable statistics. As a consequence, static query optimization can cause inefficient execution plans. These constraints show that adaptive query optimization should be used for federated query processing on Linked Data. In this thesis, we first propose an adaptive join operator which aims to minimize the response time and the completion time for federated queries over SPARQL endpoints. Second, we extend the first proposal to further reduce the completion time. Both proposals can change the join method and the join order during the execution by using adaptive query optimization. The proposed operators can handle different data arrival rates of relations and the lack of statistics about them. The performance evaluation of this thesis shows the efficiency of the proposed adaptive operators. They provide faster completion times and almost the same response times, compared to symmetric hash join. Compared to bind join, the proposed operators perform substantially better with respect to the response time and can also provide faster completion times. In addition, the second proposed operator provides considerably faster response time than bind-bloom join and can improve the completion time as well. The second proposal also provides faster completion times than the first proposal in all conditions. In conclusion, the proposed adaptive join operators provide the best trade-off between the response time and the completion time. Even though our main objective is to manage different data arrival rates of relations, the performance evaluation reveals that they are successful in both fixed and different data arrival rates.

Les progrès technologiques permettent aujourd'hui l’intégration à bas coût d'objets multi-capteurs hétérogènes communicants sans fil notamment pour la surveillance dans les environnements considérés à risques ou non accessibles. Le but de ces travaux de thèse est de contribuer à la sécurisation des personnes et de leur environnement de vie par la mise en réseau de dispositifs multi-capteurs de mesures sans fil. Ceux-ci doivent être spécifiés et configurés pour rendre par exemple l'environnement qu'ils surveillent intelligent et sécurisé. Le travail effectué porte sur la conception et le prototypage réel d’un réseau composé de dispositifs hétérogènes autonomes en énergie. Nos contributions comportent trois volets essentiels :Le premier volet concerne la conception d’un modèle de réseau ambiant adapté : nous avons proposé un modèle qui repose sur une architecture multi-niveaux caractérisée par des nœuds hétérogènes dont le captage (détection), le traitement et le stockage des données sont distribués par niveau. Cette architecture hiérarchique offre plusieurs avantages par rapport aux architectures linéaires classiques en termes d’évolutivité, de faible coût, de meilleure couverture, de hautes fonctionnalités et de fiabilité. Nous avons défini le comportement adapté pour chaque nœud dans le modèle et montré l’avantage de la solution par la simulation.Le deuxième volet concerne la proposition originale d’un protocole d’accès au médium efficace en énergie nommé « T-TMAC » et adapté à l’application, permettant d'organiser les échanges des messages dans l’architecture du réseau retenu. L’originalité du protocole est qu’il est composé de mécanismes de maintenance performants permettant la gestion de la mobilité et la reconfiguration du réseau (ajout et suppression d’un capteur). Pour cela, une adaptation et un paramétrage du standard IEEE 802.15.4 sont proposés.Le dernier volet présente l’évaluation et l’analyse de performances du protocole développé dans le cadre de scénarios de tests. Nous avons étudié en particulier l’impact de la taille des données et la périodicité de transfert sur l’énergie et le délai. Le protocole est validé à l’aide d’un modèle analytique dont les résultats ont été comparés à ceux obtenus par prototypage matériel. / Today technological advances allow low-cost deployment of wireless heterogeneous sensors in specific environments such as those considered risky or not accessible. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for health-care monitoring. Currently the integrated sensors must be specified and configured to make the monitored environment intelligent and secured. Our work focuses on the design of this network and the prototyping of the real devices that constitute it. Our contributions include three key components:The first part concerns the design of an ambient adapted network: we proposed a model based on a network architecture characterized by multiple tiers with heterogeneous nodes distributed: sensing, processing and data storage. This architecture offers more advantages than classical single tier architecture in terms of scalability, low cost, coverage, functionality and reliability. We have defined the appropriate behavior for each node in this network model and we showed the advantages of our solution through simulation.The second part deals with the proposition of an energy efficient medium access protocol named "T-TMAC": the protocol is adapted to the application requirements. It permits to organize the data exchange in the chosen network architecture. The originality of this protocol is that it includes efficient maintenance mechanisms that allow managing mobility and network reconfiguration (addition of a sensor, removing a sensor). In this way an adaptation and a parameterization of the IEEE 802.15.4 Standard are proposed.The final part of this work presents the performance evaluation and analysis of the proposed MAC protocol in use cases. We studied the impact of packets size and dissemination interval parameters on energy and delay. The protocol is validated by an analytical model. We proposed a reel evaluation by prototyping. A comparison of results obtained from the different approaches is finally presented.

A pesquisa teve como objetivo resgatar e analisar a trajetória de implementação e os principais desdobramentos do Programa de Avaliação de Desempenho vigente no Tribunal de Contas do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. A relevância do estudo se apoia na atualidade do tema e no papel social desta Instituição no cenário do estado em relação à gestão pública. A questão orientadora do estudo propôs a identificação de aspectos referentes à experiência deste órgão na construção das atuais políticas e práticas de gestão do desempenho, sistematizando o legado deste Programa para a Instituição. A metodologia se apoiou na realização de um estudo de caso de caráter qualitativo, abarcando o período de existência do Programa, desde sua criação, em 2006, até o ano de 2016, em uma análise longitudinal. De maneira a abarcar os aspectos teóricos, fáticos e críticos desta realidade, foram pesquisados elementos contextuais, humanos, teóricos e legais que contribuíram para a proposição de tal Programa. Como procedimentos para coleta de dados, realizou-se análise documental, a observação participante, além de entrevistas com pessoas-fonte, vinculadas à trajetória do Programa desde sua concepção. A revisão da literatura contemplou as transformações da administração pública brasileira, a gestão do desempenho, a meritocracia e a gestão por competências, com levantamento tanto de trabalhos clássicos nestas áreas como de estudos mais recentes sobre o tema nas bases de dados de trabalhos científicos e acadêmicos. Como principais conclusões, o estudo destaca a iniciativa dos gestores da Instituição à época, propondo um Programa inovador do ponto de vista das instituições públicas, evidenciando que, quando de sua implementação, o Programa causou reações semelhantes às comumente descritas na literatura no que se refere ao receio dos servidores em relação às consequências do processo de avaliação. O levantamento de dados apontou que o Programa já passou por algumas transformações ao longo de sua trajetória e está atualmente inserido na rotina e cultura institucionais. Os entrevistados foram unânimes em reconhecer o legado positivo do Programa analisado, o que afirma a importância de sua existência; contudo foram identificados alguns indicativos de que o Programa ainda necessitaria passar por revisões e ajustes para uma melhor efetivação de seus objetivos e adequação da cultura institucional. E tratando de instituição pública, a revisão da evolução da legislação vigente ao longo dos anos, juntamente com os respectivos registros documentais internos, foram de grande valia ao traçar paralelos com a produção teórica e acadêmica acerca da temática. / The purpose of this research was to retrieve and analyze the implementation path and main outcomes of the Performance Management Program of the Audit State Court of Rio Grande do Sul. The relevance of the study is based on the current theme and on the social role of this Institution in the state scenario in relation to public management. The guiding question of the study proposed the identification of aspects related to the experience of this government office in the construction of the current policies and practices of performance management, systematizing the legacy of this Program to the Institution. The methodology was based on a qualitative case study, covering the period of existence of the Program, from its inception in 2006, through 2016, in a longitudinal analysis. To encompass the theoretical, factual and critical aspects of this reality, contextual, human, theoretical and legal elements that contributed to the proposal of such a Program were researched. As procedures for data collection, documentary analysis, participant observation, and interviews with relevant people were carried out, linked to the trajectory of the Program since its conception. The literature review included changes in Brazilian public administration, performance management, meritocracy, and competency management, with a review of both classical works in these areas and more recent studies on the subject in the databases of scientific and academic works. As main conclusions, the study highlights the initiative of the Institution's managers at the time, proposing an innovative Program from the point of view of public institutions, showing that, when implemented, the Program caused similar reactions to those commonly described in the literature regarding to the fear of the employees regarding the consequences of the evaluation process. The data collection pointed out that the Program has undergone some transformations throughout its trajectory and is currently inserted in institutional routine and culture. The interviewees were unanimous in recognizing the positive legacy of the Program under review, which affirms the importance of their existence; however, some indicators were identified that the Program would still need to undergo revisions and adjustments to the better achievement of its objectives and adequacy of the institutional culture. As a public institution, the review of the evolution of the legislation over the years, together with the respective internal documentary records, was of great value in drawing parallels with the theoretical and academic production on the subject.

Nesta tese é apresentado um novo workflow de simulação para avaliar o desempenho do balanceamento de carga dinâmico baseado em sobre-decomposição aplicado a aplicações paralelas iterativas. Seus objetivos são realizar essa avaliação com modificações mínimas da aplicação e a baixo custo em termos de tempo e de sua necessidade de recursos computacionais. Muitas aplicações paralelas sofrem com desbalanceamento de carga dinâmico (temporal) que não pode ser tratado a nível de aplicação. Este pode ser causado por características intrínsecas da aplicação ou por fatores externos de hardware ou software. Como demonstrado nesta tese, tal desbalanceamento é encontrado mesmo em aplicações cujo código não aparenta qualquer dinamismo. Portanto, faz-se necessário utilizar mecanismo de balanceamento de carga dinâmico a nível de runtime. Este trabalho foca no balanceamento de carga dinâmico baseado em sobre-decomposição. No entanto, avaliar e ajustar o desempenho de tal técnica pode ser custoso. Isso geralmente requer modificações na aplicação e uma grande quantidade de execuções para obter resultados estatisticamente significativos com diferentes combinações de parâmetros de balanceamento de carga Além disso, para que essas medidas sejam úteis, são usualmente necessárias grandes alocações de recursos em um sistema de produção. Simulated Adaptive MPI (SAMPI), nosso workflow de simulação, emprega uma combinação de emulação sequencial e replay de rastros para reduzir os custos dessa avaliação. Tanto emulação sequencial como replay de rastros requerem um único nó computacional. Além disso, o replay demora apenas uma pequena fração do tempo de uma execução paralela real da aplicação. Adicionalmente à simulação de balanceamento de carga, foram desenvolvidas técnicas de agregação espacial e rescaling a nível de aplicação, as quais aceleram o processo de emulação. Para demonstrar os potenciais benefícios do balanceamento de carga dinâmico com sobre-decomposição, foram avaliados os ganhos de desempenho empregando essa técnica a uma aplicação iterativa paralela da área de geofísica (Ondes3D). Adaptive MPI (AMPI) foi utilizado para prover o suporte a balanceamento de carga dinâmico, resultando em ganhos de desempenho de até 36.58% em 288 cores de um cluster Essa avaliação também é usada pra ilustrar as dificuldades encontradas nesse processo, assim justificando o uso de simulação para facilitá-la. Para implementar o workflow SAMPI, foi utilizada a interface SMPI do simulador SimGrid, tanto no modo de emulação, como no de replay de rastros. Para validar esse simulador, foram comparadas execuções simuladas (SAMPI) e reais (AMPI) da aplicação Ondes3D. As simulações apresentaram uma evolução do balanceamento de carga bastante similar às execuções reais. Adicionalmente, SAMPI estimou com sucesso a melhor heurística de balanceamento de carga para os cenários testados. Além dessa validação, nesta tese é demonstrado o uso de SAMPI para exploração de parâmetros de balanceamento de carga e para planejamento de capacidade computacional. Quanto ao desempenho da simulação, estimamos que o workflow completo é capaz de simular a execução do Ondes3D com 24 combinações de parâmetros de balanceamento de carga em 5 horas para o nosso cenário de terremoto mais pesado e 3 horas para o mais leve. / In this thesis we present a novel simulation workflow to evaluate the performance of dynamic load balancing with over-decomposition applied to iterative parallel applications at low-cost. Its goals are to perform such evaluation with minimal application modification and at a low cost in terms of time and of resource requirements. Many parallel applications suffer from dynamic (temporal) load imbalance that can not be treated at the application level. It may be caused by intrinsic characteristics of the application or by external software and hardware factors. As demonstrated in this thesis, such dynamic imbalance can be found even in applications whose codes do not hint at any dynamism. Therefore, we need to rely on runtime dynamic load balancing mechanisms, such as dynamic load balancing based on over-decomposition. The problem is that evaluating and tuning the performance of such technique can be costly. This usually entails modifications to the application and a large number of executions to get statistically sound performance measurements with different load balancing parameter combinations. Moreover, useful and accurate measurements often require big resource allocations on a production cluster. Our simulation workflow, dubbed Simulated Adaptive MPI (SAMPI), employs a combined sequential emulation and trace-replay simulation approach to reduce the cost of such an evaluation Both sequential emulation and trace-replay require a single computer node. Additionally, the trace-replay simulation lasts a small fraction of the real-life parallel execution time of the application. Besides the basic SAMPI simulation, we developed spatial aggregation and applicationlevel rescaling techniques to speed-up the emulation process. To demonstrate the real-life performance benefits of dynamic load balance with over-decomposition, we evaluated the performance gains obtained by employing this technique on a iterative parallel geophysics application, called Ondes3D. Dynamic load balancing support was provided by Adaptive MPI (AMPI). This resulted in up to 36.58% performance improvement, on 288 cores of a cluster. This real-life evaluation also illustrates the difficulties found in this process, thus justifying the use of simulation. To implement the SAMPI workflow, we relied on SimGrid’s Simulated MPI (SMPI) interface in both emulation and trace-replay modes.To validate our simulator, we compared simulated (SAMPI) and real-life (AMPI) executions of Ondes3D. The simulations presented a load balance evolution very similar to real-life and were also successful in choosing the best load balancing heuristic for each scenario. Besides the validation, we demonstrate the use of SAMPI for load balancing parameter exploration and for computational capacity planning. As for the performance of the simulation itself, we roughly estimate that our full workflow can simulate the execution of Ondes3D with 24 different load balancing parameter combinations in 5 hours for our heavier earthquake scenario and in 3 hours for the lighter one.