Productivity of automotive manufacturing production systems have been an area of study among researchers since the industrial revolution. Automotive manufacturing production systems that are implemented properly increase productivity in production environments. Researchers have demonstrated that productivity can be improved through modeling the Toyota production system. However, researchers have not established how implementing Mercedes Benz production system (MBPS) impacted Mercedes-Benz cars' productivity between 1999 and 2017. The purpose of this quantitative research study was to examine the effect of implementing the Mercedes-Benz Production System (MBPS). A survey was administered to 35 Mercedes-Benz employees that consisted of operation managers, plant managers, manufacturing engineers, and shop workers. The study used Spearman's correlations to analyze the strength of the associations between the dependent variable of productivity and the three independent variables of cycle-time variation, employee-headcount variation, and key performance indicators. The results showed no statistically significant relationship, supporting that implementing the MBPS was not sufficient enough to reject the null hypothesis the research questions. The social change implications for this research may promote positive social change by its emphasis on the implementation of manufacturing production systems. Such implementations may then stimulate increased economic efficiencies, quality, and profitability for society.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Increasingly discusses the importance of professionals from all areas perform their work more effectively with an ability to solve interdisciplinary problems. The Biophysics is one such area involving related and contextualized knowledge of Biology, Physics, Anatomy, Physiology, Kinesiology, and that give healthcare professionals a more complete and dynamic understanding of the processes of the human body systems and operating devices increasingly complex. In order to provide the best conditions, we have investigated which are the contributions of Robert Gagné methodology for teaching Biophysics, through planning and implementation of sequences of diverse teaching four classes in the course of Physical Therapy, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM). Each sequence had a set of external events planned according to the profile of the physiotherapist proposed by the Federal Council of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy (COFFITO). The sequences focused, respectively, the traditional teaching, the insertion of content revisions from high school and practical activities, problem solving and inserting Culture Circles of Freire in the first three external events. The quantitative evaluation results showed that the group who received the teaching sequence with the insertion of Culture Circles as motivator showed better performances for the content of Electromagnetic Radiation, Ultrasonography and Biophysics of Circulation and Respiration, provided by the menu of discipline. Other facts were noted that external events such as gaining attention, cause, assess performance and improve retention and transfer could not be developed successfully because of the need for more reliable instruments motivational analysis and workload favoring their implementation. These classes also questionnaires interests and behaviors were applied, in order to better understand how they think and what their attitudes to the General Physics and Biophysics discipline. However, the project developed guiding elements has had discussions that may contribute to teachers of Biophysics able to develop jobs more effectively utilizing instructional methodology with Gagné Culture Circles, allowing students to develop cognitively through a sequence well structured and based on the main difficulties of them investigated in discussion forums external events . / Cada vez mais se discute a importância de que profissionais de todas as áreas desempenhem seu trabalho de forma mais efetiva com uma capacidade de resolver problemas interdisciplinarmente. A Biofísica é uma dessas áreas que envolvem conhecimentos relacionados e contextualizados de Biologia, Física, Anatomia, Fisiologia, Cinesiologia; e que proporcionam aos profissionais da área da saúde um entendimento mais completo e dinâmico sobre os processos dos sistemas do corpo humano e o funcionamento de aparelhos cada vez mais complexos. A fim de proporcionar melhores condições, investigou-se quais as contribuições da metodologia de Robert Gagné para o ensino de Biofísica, através do planejamento e implementação de sequências de ensino diversificadas em quatro turmas do curso de Fisioterapia da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM). Cada sequência teve um conjunto de eventos externos planejados de acordo com o perfil do fisioterapeuta proposto pelo Conselho Federal de Fisioterapia e Terapia Ocupacional (COFFITO). As sequências focalizavam, respectivamente, o ensino tradicional, a inserção de revisões de conteúdo de ensino médio e atividades práticas, resolução de problemas e com a inserção de Círculos de Cultura de Freire nos três primeiros eventos externos. Os resultados quantitativos das avaliações mostraram que a turma que recebeu a sequência de ensino com a inserção dos Círculos de Cultura como elemento motivador, apresentou melhores desempenhos para os conteúdos de Radiações Eletromagnéticas, Ultrassografia e Biofísica da Circulação e Respiração, previstos pela ementa da disciplina. Outros fatos constatados foram que os eventos externos como ganhar a atenção, provocar, avaliar o desempenho e melhorar a retenção e a transferência não puderam ser desenvolvidos com êxito devido a necessidade de instrumentos mais confiáveis de análise motivacional e carga horária que favorecesse sua implementação. Nessas turmas também foram aplicados questionários de interesses e comportamentos, com a finalidade de conhecer melhor como pensam e quais as atitudes com relação à Física Geral e à disciplina de Biofísica. Contudo, o projeto desenvolvido surtiu elementos norteadores de discussões que podem contribuir para que professores de Biofísica consigam desenvolver os trabalhos de forma mais efetiva, utilizando a metodologia instrucional de Gagné com os Círculos de Cultura, permitindo que os alunos se desenvolvam cognitivamente através de uma sequência de eventos externos bem estruturados e baseados nas principais dificuldades deles investigadas em fóruns de debate.

O ato de investir recursos vem se tornando uma tarefa que exige cada vez mais atenção por parte dos investidores. As alternativas de investimento vêm aumentando, oferecendo aos investidores muitas opções em termos de risco, retorno e liquidez. Uma dessas alternativas é o fundo de investimento, uma indústria cujo patrimônio tem crescido muito ao longo do tempo. Atualmente, há mais de R$ 200 bilhões aplicados nas diversas modalidades de fundos oferecidos pelas instituições administradoras de recursos. Escolher qual fundo investir não é tarefa simples, nem mesmo para grandes investidores. As alternativas são inúmeras e as informações nem sempre estão facilmente disponíveis. Oferecer um método que possibilite avaliar e classificar fundos de investimento é o objetivo maior deste trabalho. Busca-se, aqui, um método que contemple, além de variáveis quantitativas, variáveis qualitativas, bem como aspectos relacionados à instituição administradora do fundo. Para alcançar tal objetivo, desenvolveu-se a pesquisa em duas etapas. Na primeira, foram levantadas e agrupadas, através de pesquisa bibliográfica, as variáveis que poderiam vir a fazer parte do método. A segunda etapa foi dedicada à obtenção da ponderação que cada variável e grupo de variável deveria ter no método. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa de campo junto a determinados grupos de investidores e consultores. O resultado permite que um avaliador dê notas às variáveis e, seguindo o método, obtenha uma nota final para o fundo de investimento analisado. Por fim, sugere-se um modo de classificação de fundos de investimento que procura ser de fácil entendimento, mesmo para aqueles investidores que não são especialistas em mercado financeiro. / Investing money has becoming a task that demands always more attention by investors. Investment alternatives has been growing, offering investors many options in terms of risk, return and liquidity. One of these alternatives is mutual fund, an industry whose assets have been growing a lot during the last years. Nowadays, there are more than R$ 200 billions invested in mutual funds, offered by asset managers. Choosing a fund to invest is not a simple task, even for main investors. There are many alternatives and information is not easily available. Offering a method that permits evaluate and rate mutual funds is the main purpose of this research. This method includes quantitative and qualitative variables, as well as aspects related to its asset manager. To attain this objective, this research was developed in two steps. Firstly, it was selected variables that could be part of the method, by bibliographic search. Secondly, it was obtained weights for both the variables and their group. This goal was achieved through a questionnaire sent to specific investors and consultants. The final result permits an analyst to give a grade to each variable and, using the method, to obtain a final classification for the analyzed fund. This dissertation suggests also a method for ranking mutual funds which intents to be easily comprehended, even to those investors that are not specialized in investment market.

Eye-tracking devices can tell us where on the screen a person is looking. Researchers frequently analyze eye-tracking data manually, by examining every frame of a visual stimulus used in an eye-tracking experiment so as to match 2D screen-coordinates provided by the eye-tracker to related objects and content within the stimulus. Such task requires significant manual effort and is not feasible for analyzing data collected from many users, long experimental sessions, and heavily interactive and dynamic visual stimuli. In this dissertation, we present a novel analysis method. We would instrument visualizations that have open source code, and leverage real-time information about the layout of the rendered visual content, to automatically relate gaze-samples to visual objects drawn on the screen. Since such visual objects are shown in a visualization stand for data, the method would allow us to necessarily detect data that users focus on or Data of Interest (DOI). This dissertation has two contributions. First, we demonstrated the feasibility of collecting DOI data for real life visualization in a reliable way which is not self-evident. Second, we formalized the process of collecting and interpreting DOI data and test whether the automated DOI detection can lead to research workflows, and insights not possible with traditional, manual approaches.

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Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a disease in which the body has "turned on itself", with its immune system attacking mobility. In RA, an immune mechanism attacks and destroys the joints and limits mobility, in some circumstances to the point of needing replacement of joints. The aim of this research is the development of a less costly, widely accessible, passive sensing technology that provides a quantitative assessment of RA and that monitors the therapeutic effectiveness on joint-debilitating diseases. The proposed solution relies on a quantitative evaluation of human gestures. Such a quantitative assessment supports the comparison between the motion capabilities of a patient and that of a healthy person, using a kinematic model of the human skeleton. Criteria for the classification of severity were established, and tables were generated to classify the levels of severity as a function of the measurements extracted from processed videos of a subject performing predefined movements. This research project, while contributing a new tool to the process of classification of RA level of severity, opens the way for using widely accessible digital imaging for diagnosing and monitoring the evolution of the illness. Replacing MRI or HRUS with a cheaper and more accessible technology would have a major impact on health care services. From the clinical point of view, the proposed techniques based on digital images processing combined with a monitoring approach based on infrared images that was previously developed may provide a utility of care for patients with RA, as well as an alternative and automated approach for early detection of RA and active inflammation at a critical time.

The aim of this master's thesis is to ascertain knowledge of Czech students in secondary schools, or more precisely in Grammar school, about the issue of forced labour during World War II. The master's thesis is based primarily on literature and own research and is divided into two parts. The first part is the theoretical part where is briefly introduced the history of forced labour in the general level (definition, type of work, working conditions, division of workers, etc.) and the second part where is conduct social research which is oriented only to Czech students. This research is conducted through a questionnaire survey that has the form of mixed research (questions and its evaluation is both quantitative and qualitative). Based on this research is evaluated both the overall state of knowledge of this issue (it compares the first-years students and fourth -years students of secondary schools), and is also taken account of the issue of the topic processing in secondary school textbooks.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a disease in which the body has "turned on itself", with its immune system attacking mobility. In RA, an immune mechanism attacks and destroys the joints and limits mobility, in some circumstances to the point of needing replacement of joints. The aim of this research is the development of a less costly, widely accessible, passive sensing technology that provides a quantitative assessment of RA and that monitors the therapeutic effectiveness on joint-debilitating diseases. The proposed solution relies on a quantitative evaluation of human gestures. Such a quantitative assessment supports the comparison between the motion capabilities of a patient and that of a healthy person, using a kinematic model of the human skeleton. Criteria for the classification of severity were established, and tables were generated to classify the levels of severity as a function of the measurements extracted from processed videos of a subject performing predefined movements. This research project, while contributing a new tool to the process of classification of RA level of severity, opens the way for using widely accessible digital imaging for diagnosing and monitoring the evolution of the illness. Replacing MRI or HRUS with a cheaper and more accessible technology would have a major impact on health care services. From the clinical point of view, the proposed techniques based on digital images processing combined with a monitoring approach based on infrared images that was previously developed may provide a utility of care for patients with RA, as well as an alternative and automated approach for early detection of RA and active inflammation at a critical time.

X-Ray Computed Tomography is irreplaceable medical imaging system. Quantitative evaluation is day to day routine used for clean run of this imaging system. The master’s thesis is focused on quantitative evaluation of first and third generation X-Ray CT. First of all is about subjective and objective evaluation of space and energetic resolution. Space resolution is evaluated in space and frequency domain. Energetic resolution is represent by low contrast resolution method. Application “Kvantitativní hodnocení kvality CT RTG zobrazení” created for this thesis is used for creation of reconstruction image and quantitative evaluation. This application was created with consideration of its usage in subjects about image processing. The master’s thesis contains results of quantitative evaluation X-Ray CT created with this application and proposal of lab work.

The work deals with physical principles of X-ray generation and development of image during projection and projection reconstruction. A proposal of user’s application in a Matlab – Guide is given, which can be used as a laboratory exercise of the simulation of the projection- and projection image reconstruction. The computer program involves an evaluation of a X-ray quality of CT RTG ZS – quantitative assessment of spatial resolution and as well as the acquisition contrast as a function on an object size. The main aim of the work was the comparison of the acquisition contrast at various acquisition projection and projection-reconstruction parameters. Also, the work is illustrated by some results achieved.