Over the first half of the present study the Mini-Mult (MM1), a brief form of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), was compared with the standard MMPI in relation to eleven criteria classifications. These criteria were composed of the profile analysis classifications of Marks and Seeman (1963). Pearson product-moment correlations between the MM1 and MMPI failed to reach statistical significance for any of the eleven criteria. As based on the information gained, a correction factor was devised and added to the MM1. Subsequently, the second half of the study involved a comparison between the HMPI and the revised MM. This revised test was termed the MM2. In only two of eleven criteria cases did the correlation between the MM2 and MMPI reach statistical significance. However, for nine of the eleven criteria the MM2 did obtain a higher positive correlation with the MMPI than did the MM1. Such results indicate that the proposed correction factor is a step in the right direction and deserving of continued investigation. Although the MM2 as it presently stands cannot be validy substituted for the MMPI, continued research in the area of modifying its correction factor can yield it a useful clinical tool.

O alto nível de ansiedade pode interferir no desempenho de diversas funções cognitivas. Nesse sentido, pessoas portadoras de transtorno de ansiedade são mais vulneráveis à presença de déficits cognitivos. Por meio de testagens neuropsicológicas, é possível mensurar o desempenho e, por conseguinte, descrever potenciais alterações de funções cognitivas. Estudos mostram déficits nos processos de atenção, memória e funções executivas. Uma vez que não existem dados suficientes na literatura sobre o funcionamento cognitivo de jovens com transtornos de ansiedade, objetivou-se com este estudo avaliar o funcionamento cognitivo em crianças e adolescentes com transtorno de ansiedade, pré e pós-tratamento medicamentoso. Para isso, foram estudados sujeitos (7 a 17 anos) diagnosticados com transtorno de ansiedade generalizada, transtorno de ansiedade de separação e/ou fobia social. Incluíram-se 30 portadores de ao menos um transtorno de ansiedade, avaliados antes do início do tratamento farmacológico, e 34 controles saudáveis. Dezoito sujeitos com transtornos de ansiedade foram reavaliados após terem sido aleatoriamente divididos (por meio de tabela de números aleatórios) em três grupos [clomipramina (n=5), fluoxetina (n=5) e placebo (n=8)] e submetidos a tratamento por um período de seis meses. Da mesma maneira, dez sujeitos do grupo controle foram reavaliados após o mesmo intervalo de tempo. Os instrumentos utilizados nas avaliações neuropsicológicas foram: \"Wechsler Abbreviated Sacale of Intelligence\", \"Trail Making Test\", \"Stroop Card Test\", \"Matching Familiar Figures Test-20\", testes de fluência verbal para letras (\"FAS\") e para categoria (\"animais\"), \"Wisconsin Card Sorting Test\", \"Torre de Hanói\", \"Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning-2\", \"Figura Complexa de Rey\". Para a avaliação de sintomas ansiosos, utilizou-se a \"Escala Multidimensional de Ansiedade para Crianças\". A partir dos dados obtidos, realizaram-se comparações estatísticas em dois momentos distintos: antes e depois do tratamento dos sujeitos diagnosticados com transtornos de ansiedade. Os resultados da avaliação pré-tratamento sugerem desempenho significativamente inferior nas atividades que medem atenção, memória visual, memória verbal e funções executivas entre sujeitos do grupo com transtorno de ansiedade em comparação ao do grupo controle. Em relação à sintomatologia ansiosa, conforme medida pela \"Escala Multidimensional de Ansiedade para Crianças\", o grupo com transtornos de ansiedade apresentou escores significativamente mais elevados que os observados entre os controles. Os resultados da avaliação pós-tratamento sugerem que, a partir de qualquer das intervenções realizadas (através de medicações ou placebo), o desempenho nos processos atencionais, mnésticos e executivos das crianças do grupo com transtorno de ansiedade melhora. Conclui-se, assim, que sintomas ansiosos nas crianças e adolescentes com transtorno de ansiedade interferem no desempenho das funções cognitivas / The high level of anxiety may interfere with the performance of various cognitive functions. Thus, people with anxiety disorders are more vulnerable to the presence of cognitive deficits. Through neuropsychological testings, it is possible to measure performance and, therefore, to describe potential changes in cognitive functions. Studies have pointed to deficits in attentional processes, memory and executive functions. Since there are insufficient data in the literature on the cognitive functioning of young people with anxiety disorders, the aim of this study is to evaluate cognitive functioning in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders, before and after pharmacological treatment. The sample consisted of subjects (7-17 years) diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder and / or social phobia. Thirty subjects with at least one anxiety disorder, assessed before the beginning of pharmacological treatment, and 34 healthy controls. Eighteen subjects with anxiety disorders were reassessed after they have been randomly assigned (by table of random numbers) into three groups [clomipramine (n = 5), fluoxetine (n = 5) and placebo (n = 8)] and submitted to treatment for a period of six months. Likewise, ten subjects in the control group were evaluated after the same interval of time. The instruments used in the neuropsychological tests were \"Wechsler Abbreviated Sacal of Intelligence,\" \"Trail Making Test,\" \"Card Stroop Test, Matching Familiar Figures Test-20\", tests of verbal fluency for letters (FAS) and category (animals), \"Wisconsin Card Sorting Test\", \"Tower of Hanoi\", \"Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning-2\", \"Rey Complex Figure\". For the assessment of anxiety symptoms, the \"Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children\" was utilized. From the data observed, statistical comparisons were performed at two different times: before and after treatment of subjects with diagnoses of anxiety disorders. Results from the pre-treatment evaluation suggest that subjects from the anxiety disorder group when compared to the control group showed significantly lower performance in activities that measure attention, visual memory, verbal memory and executive function. In relation to anxiety symptoms, as measured by the \"Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children\", the group with anxiety disorders had significantly higher scores than those observed among controls. Results from the post-treatment evaluation suggest that, no matter which interventions have been used (either medications or placebo), performance on attentional, memory and executives processes of the group of children with anxiety disorder improved. We, therefore, conclude that anxious symptomatology in children and adolescents with anxiety disorder interferes with the performance of cognitive functions

O presente estudo buscou fazer um levantamento de como as empresas tratam a reavaliação de ativos quanto à sua realização, tributação e periodicidade e quais os impactos dessa ação nas demonstrações contábeis. Impactos esses analisados à luz dos mais tradicionais índices de análise das demonstrações contábeis, contemplando seu tripé básico: liquidez, endividamento e rentabilidade. A pesquisa utilizou abordagem bibliográfica quanto às teorias contábeis e legislações pertinentes. No aspecto empírico, o trabalho foi feito por meio de levantamento documental a partir de demonstrações publicadas por 120 empresas que operam no Brasil e fazem parte da base de dados utilizada pela Revista Melhores e Maiores, publicada pela Editora Abril, em conjunto com a FIPECAFI. Nessas demonstrações, apurou-se qual o tratamento dado pelas empresas para a reavaliação de ativos e, também, foram calculados os indicadores das empresas, considerando os valores com reavaliação. Posteriormente, expurgando os efeitos da reavaliação, os índices foram recalculados, sendo, então, submetidos ao teste estatístico de Wilcoxon, com o fim de analisar se existiam diferenças significativas entre as duas situações. Os resultados encontrados mostraram que muitas das empresas pesquisadas não atendem o que prescreve a legislação quanto ao tratamento dado à reavaliação. As práticas levantadas apontaram para indícios de que a reavaliação foi feita com fins especulativos e oportunistas, quando a empresa necessitava melhorar sua imagem perante o mercado em que atua. Também, as diferenças encontradas entre os indicadores antes e depois da reavaliação foram relevantes e podem causar avaliações equivocadas da situação das empresas, caso o analista não esteja atento a seus efeitos. / The present study aimed at conducting a survey on how companies deal with the reevaluation of assets, concerning their realization, taxation, periodicity and which are the impacts of this action on the accounting statements. Impacts which analyzed at the light of the most traditional indexes of analysis of accounting statements, regarding your basic tripod: liquidity, indebtedness and profitability. The research applied the bibliographical approach concerning the accounting theories and pertinent legislations. In the empirical aspect, the work was performed by means of documental survey from statements published by 120 companies that operate in Brazil and constitute the database used by the magazine "Melhores e Maiores", published by Abril Publishing House together with FIPECAFI. In these statements it was investigated the treatment given by companies for the reevaluation of assets and it was also calculated the companies indicators, considering the values with reevaluation. Later, excluding the effects of the reevaluation the indexes have been recalculated, being then submitted to the statistical test of Wilcoxon, with the objective of analyzing if there are significant differences between the two situations. The results found showed that many of the searched companies do not observe what is prescribed by legislation concerning the treatment given to the reevaluation. The practices investigated point to clues that the reevaluation is made with speculative and opportunistic objectives, when the company needs to improve its image in the presence of the market in which it performs. The differences found among the indicators before and after the reevaluation are also relevant and can cause mistaken evaluations of the companies situation, in the case the analyst is not attentive to its effects.

O presente estudo buscou fazer um levantamento de como as empresas tratam a reavaliação de ativos quanto à sua realização, tributação e periodicidade e quais os impactos dessa ação nas demonstrações contábeis. Impactos esses analisados à luz dos mais tradicionais índices de análise das demonstrações contábeis, contemplando seu tripé básico: liquidez, endividamento e rentabilidade. A pesquisa utilizou abordagem bibliográfica quanto às teorias contábeis e legislações pertinentes. No aspecto empírico, o trabalho foi feito por meio de levantamento documental a partir de demonstrações publicadas por 120 empresas que operam no Brasil e fazem parte da base de dados utilizada pela Revista Melhores e Maiores, publicada pela Editora Abril, em conjunto com a FIPECAFI. Nessas demonstrações, apurou-se qual o tratamento dado pelas empresas para a reavaliação de ativos e, também, foram calculados os indicadores das empresas, considerando os valores com reavaliação. Posteriormente, expurgando os efeitos da reavaliação, os índices foram recalculados, sendo, então, submetidos ao teste estatístico de Wilcoxon, com o fim de analisar se existiam diferenças significativas entre as duas situações. Os resultados encontrados mostraram que muitas das empresas pesquisadas não atendem o que prescreve a legislação quanto ao tratamento dado à reavaliação. As práticas levantadas apontaram para indícios de que a reavaliação foi feita com fins especulativos e oportunistas, quando a empresa necessitava melhorar sua imagem perante o mercado em que atua. Também, as diferenças encontradas entre os indicadores antes e depois da reavaliação foram relevantes e podem causar avaliações equivocadas da situação das empresas, caso o analista não esteja atento a seus efeitos. / The present study aimed at conducting a survey on how companies deal with the reevaluation of assets, concerning their realization, taxation, periodicity and which are the impacts of this action on the accounting statements. Impacts which analyzed at the light of the most traditional indexes of analysis of accounting statements, regarding your basic tripod: liquidity, indebtedness and profitability. The research applied the bibliographical approach concerning the accounting theories and pertinent legislations. In the empirical aspect, the work was performed by means of documental survey from statements published by 120 companies that operate in Brazil and constitute the database used by the magazine "Melhores e Maiores", published by Abril Publishing House together with FIPECAFI. In these statements it was investigated the treatment given by companies for the reevaluation of assets and it was also calculated the companies indicators, considering the values with reevaluation. Later, excluding the effects of the reevaluation the indexes have been recalculated, being then submitted to the statistical test of Wilcoxon, with the objective of analyzing if there are significant differences between the two situations. The results found showed that many of the searched companies do not observe what is prescribed by legislation concerning the treatment given to the reevaluation. The practices investigated point to clues that the reevaluation is made with speculative and opportunistic objectives, when the company needs to improve its image in the presence of the market in which it performs. The differences found among the indicators before and after the reevaluation are also relevant and can cause mistaken evaluations of the companies situation, in the case the analyst is not attentive to its effects.

O alto nível de ansiedade pode interferir no desempenho de diversas funções cognitivas. Nesse sentido, pessoas portadoras de transtorno de ansiedade são mais vulneráveis à presença de déficits cognitivos. Por meio de testagens neuropsicológicas, é possível mensurar o desempenho e, por conseguinte, descrever potenciais alterações de funções cognitivas. Estudos mostram déficits nos processos de atenção, memória e funções executivas. Uma vez que não existem dados suficientes na literatura sobre o funcionamento cognitivo de jovens com transtornos de ansiedade, objetivou-se com este estudo avaliar o funcionamento cognitivo em crianças e adolescentes com transtorno de ansiedade, pré e pós-tratamento medicamentoso. Para isso, foram estudados sujeitos (7 a 17 anos) diagnosticados com transtorno de ansiedade generalizada, transtorno de ansiedade de separação e/ou fobia social. Incluíram-se 30 portadores de ao menos um transtorno de ansiedade, avaliados antes do início do tratamento farmacológico, e 34 controles saudáveis. Dezoito sujeitos com transtornos de ansiedade foram reavaliados após terem sido aleatoriamente divididos (por meio de tabela de números aleatórios) em três grupos [clomipramina (n=5), fluoxetina (n=5) e placebo (n=8)] e submetidos a tratamento por um período de seis meses. Da mesma maneira, dez sujeitos do grupo controle foram reavaliados após o mesmo intervalo de tempo. Os instrumentos utilizados nas avaliações neuropsicológicas foram: \"Wechsler Abbreviated Sacale of Intelligence\", \"Trail Making Test\", \"Stroop Card Test\", \"Matching Familiar Figures Test-20\", testes de fluência verbal para letras (\"FAS\") e para categoria (\"animais\"), \"Wisconsin Card Sorting Test\", \"Torre de Hanói\", \"Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning-2\", \"Figura Complexa de Rey\". Para a avaliação de sintomas ansiosos, utilizou-se a \"Escala Multidimensional de Ansiedade para Crianças\". A partir dos dados obtidos, realizaram-se comparações estatísticas em dois momentos distintos: antes e depois do tratamento dos sujeitos diagnosticados com transtornos de ansiedade. Os resultados da avaliação pré-tratamento sugerem desempenho significativamente inferior nas atividades que medem atenção, memória visual, memória verbal e funções executivas entre sujeitos do grupo com transtorno de ansiedade em comparação ao do grupo controle. Em relação à sintomatologia ansiosa, conforme medida pela \"Escala Multidimensional de Ansiedade para Crianças\", o grupo com transtornos de ansiedade apresentou escores significativamente mais elevados que os observados entre os controles. Os resultados da avaliação pós-tratamento sugerem que, a partir de qualquer das intervenções realizadas (através de medicações ou placebo), o desempenho nos processos atencionais, mnésticos e executivos das crianças do grupo com transtorno de ansiedade melhora. Conclui-se, assim, que sintomas ansiosos nas crianças e adolescentes com transtorno de ansiedade interferem no desempenho das funções cognitivas / The high level of anxiety may interfere with the performance of various cognitive functions. Thus, people with anxiety disorders are more vulnerable to the presence of cognitive deficits. Through neuropsychological testings, it is possible to measure performance and, therefore, to describe potential changes in cognitive functions. Studies have pointed to deficits in attentional processes, memory and executive functions. Since there are insufficient data in the literature on the cognitive functioning of young people with anxiety disorders, the aim of this study is to evaluate cognitive functioning in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders, before and after pharmacological treatment. The sample consisted of subjects (7-17 years) diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder and / or social phobia. Thirty subjects with at least one anxiety disorder, assessed before the beginning of pharmacological treatment, and 34 healthy controls. Eighteen subjects with anxiety disorders were reassessed after they have been randomly assigned (by table of random numbers) into three groups [clomipramine (n = 5), fluoxetine (n = 5) and placebo (n = 8)] and submitted to treatment for a period of six months. Likewise, ten subjects in the control group were evaluated after the same interval of time. The instruments used in the neuropsychological tests were \"Wechsler Abbreviated Sacal of Intelligence,\" \"Trail Making Test,\" \"Card Stroop Test, Matching Familiar Figures Test-20\", tests of verbal fluency for letters (FAS) and category (animals), \"Wisconsin Card Sorting Test\", \"Tower of Hanoi\", \"Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning-2\", \"Rey Complex Figure\". For the assessment of anxiety symptoms, the \"Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children\" was utilized. From the data observed, statistical comparisons were performed at two different times: before and after treatment of subjects with diagnoses of anxiety disorders. Results from the pre-treatment evaluation suggest that subjects from the anxiety disorder group when compared to the control group showed significantly lower performance in activities that measure attention, visual memory, verbal memory and executive function. In relation to anxiety symptoms, as measured by the \"Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children\", the group with anxiety disorders had significantly higher scores than those observed among controls. Results from the post-treatment evaluation suggest that, no matter which interventions have been used (either medications or placebo), performance on attentional, memory and executives processes of the group of children with anxiety disorder improved. We, therefore, conclude that anxious symptomatology in children and adolescents with anxiety disorder interferes with the performance of cognitive functions

Réaliser des variations d'un même modèle est un besoin en expansion dans de nombreux domaines de modélisation (architecture, archéologie, CAO, etc.). Mais la production manuelle de ces variations est fastidieuse, il faut donc faire appel à des techniques permettant de rejouer automatiquement tout ou partie du processus de construction du modèle, après spécification des modifications. La majorité des approches dédiées à la réalisation du rejeu sont basées sur un système de modélisation paramétrique, composée d’un modèle géométrique et d’une spécification paramétrique permettant d’enregistrer la succession d’opérations l’ayant créé ainsi que leurs paramètres. On peut ensuite faire varier ces paramètres ou éditer cette liste d’opérations afin de modifier le modèle. On utilise pour cela un système de nommage persistant, introduit dans les années 90, et permettant d’identifier et d’apparier les entités d’une spécification initiale et celles d'une spécification rejouée. L’objectif de cette thèse est de proposer un système de nommage persistant général, homogène et permettant de gérer l’édition de spécification paramétriques (déplacer, ajouter et supprimer des opérations). Nous nous basons sur la bibliothèque Jerboa, qui repose sur des règles de transformation de graphes, tant pour utiliser ces règles dans la réalisation de la méthode de nommage que pour lier les notions de spécification paramétrique à ces règles de transformations de graphes. Nous décrivons ensuite comment exploiter notre méthode de nommage pour rejouer et éditer des spécifications paramétriques d’opérations, puis nous la comparons avec les approches de la littérature. / In many modelling fields, such as architecture, archaeology or CAD, performing many variations of the same model is an expanding need. But building all those variations manually takes time. It is therefore needed to use automatic technics to revaluate some parts of a model, or even an entire model, after the user specifies the modifications. Most of the existing approaches dedicated to revaluating models are based on a system called parametric modelling. It is made of two parts, a geometric model and a parametric specification, which allows to record the series of operation that created the model, and the different parameters of those operations. This way, the user can change some parameters, or edit the list of operations to modify the model. To do so, we use a system called persistent naming, introduced during the 90ies, that allows us to identify and match the entities of an initial specification and the ones of a revaluated specification. In this thesis, our goal is to propose a persistent naming system that would be general, homogeneous and that would allow the user to edit a parametric specification (which means move, add, or delete some operations). We base our system on the Jerboa library, which uses graph transformation rules. This way, we will be able to use those rules to create our naming system, while also linking the notions of graph transformation rules and parametric specification. We will then describe how to use our naming method to revaluate or edit parametric specifications. Finally, we will compare our method with the other ones from the literature.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Cláudio Nogueira de Meneses / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação, 2018. / Diversos problemas da area de otimização combinatoria podem ser convertidos, em tempo polinomial, para o problema de Programação Quadratica Binaria Irrestrita (UBQP). Neste problema, desejamos encontrar um vetor solução binario x, de dimensão n, tal que a função objetivo f(x) = x|Qx tenha valor mínimo, onde Q é uma matriz com coeficientes racionais. Em termos de complexidade computacional, o problema UBQP pertence a classe NP-difícil. A importancia deste problema, tanto pratica quanto teorica, tem motivado muitos pesquisadores a dedicarem uma quantidade razoavel de tempo tentando projetar tecnicas de resolução exatas e heuristicas para este problema. Durante o processo de resolução do problema UBQP, estas tecnicas necessitam reavaliar muitas vezes o valor da função objetivo. Dependendo da maneira como esta reavaliação é realizada, pode ser preciso executar um numero relativamente grande de operações elementares (atribuições, adições, subtrações e comparações). Isto pode consumir muito tempo de processamento quando n é grande. Nesta pesquisa, propomos formulas que requerem poucas operações para efetuar a reavaliação. Na literatura do problema UBQP, formulas de reavaliação são aplicadas, normalmente, quando há ate duas alterações nos componentes do vetor solução. As formulas que deduzimos podem ser usadas para efetuar qualquer quantidade de alterações. Analisamos uma das nossas formulas de maneira teorica e deduzimos funções que podem ser adotadas para indicar o melhor momento para aplicar essa formula. Ademais, projetamos algoritmos com estas formulas de reavaliação e verificamos a praticidade destes algoritmos conduzindo experimentos computacionais usando implementações de heurísticas de busca local e Variable Neighborhood Search. Nesses experimentos comparamos o desempenho dessas implementações ao resolver instancias da literatura para o problema UBQP. Os resultados experimentais evidenciaram que as formulas de reavaliação, propostas, podem propiciar reduções relativamente grandes nos tempos de processamento, mesmo quando o numero de diferenças entre soluções é moderadamente grande. / Several combinatorial optimization problems can be reformulated, in polynomial time, to the Unconstrained Binary Quadratic Programming (UBQP) problem. In this problem, we are interested in finding an n-dimensional binary solution vector, x, that minimizes the objective function f(x) = x|Qx, where Q is a matrix with rational coecients. In terms of computational complexity, the UBQP problem belongs to the NP-hard class. The practical and theoretical importance of this problem has motivated many researchers to dedicate a reasonable amount of time developing exact and heuristic solution techniques to solve this problem. During the resolution process of the UBQP problem, these techniques need to evaluate many times the objective function value. Depending on how it is made, it may be necessary to execute a relatively large number of elementary operations, such as assignments, additions, subtractions and comparisons. For n large, this may be time consuming. In this research, we propose formulas to perform the reevaluation requiring lesser operations than the simple evaluation of the objective function. In the literature of the UBQP problem, it is common to use reevaluation formulas only when there are at most two- ip moves that simultaneously change the values of two components. The formulas we have deduced can be used to evaluate any number of ip moves. We analyzed one of our reevaluation formulas and deduced functions that can be used to suggest the best moment to apply this formula. In addition, we designed algorithms with these reevaluation formulas and verified the practicality of these algorithms by conducting computational experiments using implementations of local search and Variable Neighborhood Search heuristics. In these experiments, we compared the performance of these implementations by solving benchmark instances for the UBQP problem. The experimental results showed that the reevaluation formulas we created can provide relatively large reductions in processing times, even when the number of ip moves is moderately large.

L’étiquette « Art Déco » apparaît au milieu des années 1960 pour désigner des créations mobilières et architecturales de l’entre-deux-guerres. Les contours donnés au style évoluent cependant considérablement au fil des années, si bien qu’il est possible de distinguer trois grandes vagues de discours.La première, centrée autour de la France et de l’Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes de 1925, traite surtout du mobilier. Elle oppose souvent Art Déco et Modernisme et voit dans le premier le signe d’une société décadente, incapable de penser le monde de l’époque et de répondre à ses défis. L’Art Déco est condamné comme un prolongement anachronique du principe décoratif. Toutefois certains auteurs voient au contraire en lui « un dernier instant de bonheur ».La deuxième vague, essentiellement anglophone et américaine (alors que la première était plutôt italienne et française), repose sur une logique tout à fait différente. Apparaissant elle aussi dans les années 1960, elle accorde davantage de place à l’architecture. Elle fait de l’Art Déco une modernité alternative, un autre moderne, et rejoint les théories postmodernes qui se développent à partir des années 1970.La troisième, enfin, plus tardive, puisqu’elle commence dans les années 1980, se situe dans le prolongement de la deuxième. Elle se fonde sur les notions de malléabilité et d’hybridité et considère l’Art Déco comme une grammaire commune susceptible d’être adaptée dans des contextes très différents les uns des autres. Reposant sur un mouvement patrimonial puissant, elle s’observe aussi bien au sujet de Miami Beach que de Bombay/Mumbai ou Napier (Nouvelle-Zélande). Dans le monde francophone, cependant, cette approche de l’Art Déco reste relativement marginale et entre parfois en concurrence avec la notion d’architecture coloniale, même si des publications récentes portant sur Casablanca se situent indéniablement dans cette perspective. / The "Art Deco" label appeared in the middle of the nineteen sixties to designate furniture and architectures from the interwar period. The style's outlines evolved considerably over time, and it is thus possible to distinguish three different waves of description.The first one is centered around France and the 1925 Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, and focuses mainly on furniture. It often presents Art Deco and Modernism as two opposites, and views the former as the sign of a decadent society, unable to understand the realities of the period and face its challenges. Art Deco is condemned by most authors as an anachronistic prolongation of the decorative principle, while some, on the contrary, see it as a last "moment of happiness".The second wave is essentially anglophone and American (whereas the first one was mostly French and Italian) It also appeared in the nineteen sixties, and gives preeminence to architecture rather than artefacts. Its foundation is completely different from the first wave since Art Deco is viewed as the "other modern" or an alternative modernity, a new definition very much influenced by the developing postmodern theories.Lastly, the third wave, which is more recent, appears to be a prolongation of the second one. It is a based on notions such as hybridity or malleability and views Art Deco as a grammar which can be easily adapted in very different contexts. Powered by a strong heritage movement, it concerns places such as Miami Beach, Bombay/Mumbai or Napier (New Zealand). In the French speaking world, however, this approach remains relatively rare, and concurrent notions such as that of colonial architecture are often preferred, even though recent publications about Casablanca constitute an exception.

In this thesis, we address some of the challenges involved in developing a robust writer-independent, lexicon-free system to recognize online Tamil words. Tamil, being a Dravidian language, is morphologically rich and also agglutinative and thus does not have a finite lexicon. For example, a single verb root can easily lead to hundreds of words after morphological changes and agglutination. Further, adoption of a lexicon-free recognition approach can be applied to form-filling applications, wherein the lexicon can become cumbersome (if not impossible) to capture all possible names. Under such circumstances, one must necessarily explore the possibility of segmenting a Tamil word to its individual symbols. Modern day Tamil alphabet comprises 23 consonants and 11 vowels forming a total combination of 313 characters/aksharas. A minimal set of 155 distinct symbols have been derived to recognize these characters. A corpus of isolated Tamil symbols (IWFHR database) is used for deriving the various statistics proposed in this work. To address the challenges of segmentation and recognition (the primary focus of the thesis), Tamil words are collected using a custom application running on a tablet PC. A set of 10000 words (comprising 53246 symbols) have been collected from high school students and used for the experiments in this thesis. We refer to this database as the ‘MILE word database’. In the first part of the work, a feedback based word segmentation mechanism has been proposed. Initially, the Tamil word is segmented based on a bounding box overlap criterion. This dominant overlap criterion segmentation (DOCS) generates a set of candidate stroke groups. Thereafter, attention is paid to certain attributes from the resulting stroke groups for detecting any possible splits or under-segmentations. By relying on feedbacks provided by a priori knowledge of attributes such as number of dominant points and inter-stroke displacements the recognition label and likelihood of the primary SVM classifier linguistic knowledge on the detected stroke groups, a decision is taken to correct it or not. Accordingly, we call the proposed segmentation as ‘attention feedback segmentation’ (AFS). Across the words in the MILE word database, a segmentation rate of 99.7% is achieved at symbol level with AFS. The high segmentation rate (with feedback) in turn improves the symbol recognition rate of the primary SVM classifier from 83.9% (with DOCS alone) to 88.4%. For addressing the problem of segmentation, the SVM classifier fed with the x-y trace of the normalized and resampled online stroke groups is quite effective. However, the performance of the classifier is not robust to effectively distinguish between many sets of similar looking symbols. In order to improve the symbol recognition performance, we explore two approaches, namely reevaluation strategies and language models. The reevaluation techniques, in particular, resolve the ambiguities in base consonants, pure consonants and vowel modifiers to a considerable extent. For the frequently confused sets (derived from the confusion matrix), a dynamic time warping (DTW) approach is proposed to automatically extract their discriminative regions. Dedicated to each confusion set, novel localized cues are derived from the discriminative region for their disambiguation. The proposed features are quite promising in improving the symbol recognition performance of the confusion sets. Comparative experimental analysis of these features with x-y coordinates are performed for judging their discriminative power. The resolving of confusions is accomplished with expert networks, comprising discriminative region extractor, feature extractor and SVM. The proposed techniques improve the symbol recognition rate by 3.5% (from 88.4% to 91.9%) on the MILE word database over the primary SVM classifier. In the final part of the thesis, we integrate linguistic knowledge (derived from a text corpus) in the primary recognition system. The biclass, bigram and unigram language models at symbol level are compared in terms of recognition performance. Amongst the three models, the bigram model is shown to give the highest recognition accuracy. A class reduction approach for recognition is adopted by incorporating the language bigram model at the akshara level. Lastly, a judicious combination of reevaluation techniques with language models is proposed in this work. Overall, an improvement of up to 4.7% (from 88.4% to 93.1%) in symbol level accuracy is achieved. The writer-independent and lexicon-free segmentation-recognition approach developed in this thesis for online handwritten Tamil word recognition is promising. The best performance of 93.1% (achieved at symbol level) is comparable to the highest reported accuracy in the literature for Tamil symbols. However, the latter one is on a database of isolated symbols (IWFHR competition test dataset), whereas our accuracy is on a database of 10000 words and thus, a product of segmentation and classifier accuracies. The recognition performance obtained may be enhanced further by experimenting on and choosing the best set of features and classifiers. Also, the word recognition performance can be very significantly improved by using a lexicon. However, these are not the issues addressed by the thesis. We hope that the lexicon-free experiments reported in this work will serve as a benchmark for future efforts.