This thesis investigates the design of sociable technologies and is divided into three main parts described below. In the first part, we introduce sociable technologies. We review our the definition of technology and propose categories of technologies according to the motivation underlying their design: improvement of control, improvement of communication or improvement of cooperation. Sociable technologies are then presented as an extension of techniques to improve cooperation. The design of sociable technologies are then discussed leading to the observation that acquisition of social common sense is a key challenge for designing sociable technologies. Finally, polite technologies are presented as an approach for acquiring social common sense. In the second part, we focus on the premises for the design of sociable technologies. A key aspect of social common sense is the ability to act appropriately in social situations. Associating appropriate behaviour with social situations is presented as a key method for implementing polite technologies. Reinforcement learning is proposed as a method for learning such associations and variation of this algorithm are experimentally evaluated. Learning the association between situation and behaviour relies on the strong assumption that mutual understanding of social situations can be achieved between technologies and people during interaction. We argue that in order to design sociable technologies, we must change the model of communication used by our technologies. We propose to replace the well-known code model of communication, with the ostensive-inferential model proposed by Sperber and Wilson. Hypotheses raised by this approach are evaluated in an experiment conducted in a smart environment, where, subjects by group of two or three are asked to collaborate with a smart environment in order to teach it how to behave in an automated meeting. A novel experimental methodology is presented: The Sorceress of Oz. The results collected from this experiment validate our hypothesis and provide insightful information for the design. We conclude by presenting, what we believe are, the premises for the design of sociable technologies. The final part of the thesis concerns an infrastructure for the design of sociable technologies. This infrastructure provides the support for three fundamental components. First, it provides the support for an inferential model of context. This inferential model of context is presented; a software architecture is proposed and evaluated in an experiment conducted in a smart-environment. Second, it provides the support for reasoning by analogy and introduces the concept of eigensituations. The advantage of this representation are discussed and evaluated in an experiment. Finally, it provides the support for ostensive-inferential communication and introduces the concept of ostensive interface. / This thesis investigates the design of sociable technologies and is divided into three main parts described below. In the first part, we introduce sociable technologies. We review our the definition of technology and propose categories of technologies according to the motivation underlying their design: improvement of control, improvement of communication or improvement of cooperation. Sociable technologies are then presented as an extension of techniques to improve cooperation. The design of sociable technologies are then discussed leading to the observation that acquisition of social common sense is a key challenge for designing sociable technologies. Finally, polite technologies are presented as an approach for acquiring social common sense. In the second part, we focus on the premises for the design of sociable technologies. A key aspect of social common sense is the ability to act appropriately in social situations. Associating appropriate behaviour with social situations is presented as a key method for implementing polite technologies. Reinforcement learning is proposed as a method for learning such associations and variation of this algorithm are experimentally evaluated. Learning the association between situation and behaviour relies on the strong assumption that mutual understanding of social situations can be achieved between technologies and people during interaction. We argue that in order to design sociable technologies, we must change the model of communication used by our technologies. We propose to replace the well-known code model of communication, with the ostensive-inferential model proposed by Sperber and Wilson. Hypotheses raised by this approach are evaluated in an experiment conducted in a smart environment, where, subjects by group of two or three are asked to collaborate with a smart environment in order to teach it how to behave in an automated meeting. A novel experimental methodology is presented: The Sorceress of Oz. The results collected from this experiment validate our hypothesis and provide insightful information for the design. We conclude by presenting, what we believe are, the premises for the design of sociable technologies. The final part of the thesis concerns an infrastructure for the design of sociable technologies. This infrastructure provides the support for three fundamental components. First, it provides the support for an inferential model of context. This inferential model of context is presented; a software architecture is proposed and evaluated in an experiment conducted in a smart-environment. Second, it provides the support for reasoning by analogy and introduces the concept of eigensituations. The advantage of this representation are discussed and evaluated in an experiment. Finally, it provides the support for ostensive-inferential communication and introduces the concept of ostensive interface.

Simplifier notre interaction avec les entités informatiques interconnectées de notre environnement et faciliter l'exploitation des informations générées par celles-ci est l'objectif des environnements et applications ubiquitaires. Le comportement des applications ubiquitaires dépend de l'état et de la disponibilité des entités (logicielles ou dispositifs) qui compose l'environnement ubiquitaire dans lequel ils évoluent, ainsi que des préférences et localisation des utilisateurs. Développer et exécuter des applications ubiquitaires est un véritable défi que notre approche essaie de relever au travers de l'environnement d'exécution ApAM. Considérant que l'environnement d'exécution est imprévisible, nous partons du principe qu'une application ubiquitaire doit disposer d'une grande flexibilité dans le choix de ses composants et que cette composition doit être automatique. Nous proposons une description abstraite et implicite de la composition (où les composants et les liens entre eux ne sont pas décrits explicitement), ce qui permet de construire l'application incrémentalement pendant la phase d'exécution. La plate-forme d'exécution ApAM implémente ces mécanismes de composition incrémentale et s'en sert pour conférer aux applications ubiquitaires la capacité de « résister » et de s'adapter aux changements imprévisibles de l'environnement d'exécution. Cette propriété dite de résilience est au cœur de notre approche car elle permet aux programmeurs de développer « simplement » des applications « résilientes » sans avoir à décrire les diverses adaptations à réaliser, et même sans connaitre toutes les perturbations de l'environnement auquel elles seront soumises. Notre proposition offre le moyen de développer et d'exécuter des applications ayant un haut niveau de résilience vis-à-vis des évolutions de leur contexte d'exécution, grâce à des mécanismes automatiques capables de construire et de modifier à l'exécution l'architecture logicielle des applications ubiquitaire. Les mécanismes fournis sont génériques mais peuvent être étendus et spécialisés pour s'adapter plus finement à certaines applications ou à des domaines métiers spécifiques. / The goal of ubiquitous environments and applications is to simplify our interaction with interconnected software and hardware entities, and to allow the exploitation of the information that they gather and generate. The behavior of ubiquitous applications depends on the state and the availability of the software and hardware entities that compose the ubiquitous environment in which they are constantly evolving, as well as, the preferences and locations of users. Developing and executing ubiquitous applications is a difficult challenge that our approach attempts to address with the creation of the ApAM execution environment. Knowing that the execution environment is unpredictable, we believe that ubiquitous applications require a large amount of flexibility in choosing the components that compose the application, and that the composition should be automated. We propose an abstract and implicit description of the composition, where components and bindings are not explicitly described. This allows to incrementally building an application at runtime. The ApAM execution platform implements the mechanisms to achieve incremental composition and uses them to provide ubiquitous applications with the resilience and adaptability necessary to face unpredictable changes that originate in the execution environment. Resilience is a core property of our approach because it allows developers to easily build applications without the need to either describe nor predict the multiple adaptations required to support environmental disturbances which the applications will encounter. Our proposal offers the means of developing and executing applications with a high level of resilience in regards to their continuously evolving context. This is possible thanks to the mechanisms described in this dissertation that allow building and changing, at runtime, ubiquitous applications. These mechanisms are generic but can be extended or specialized in order to solve domain or application-specific issues.

Durant ces dernières années, nous avons assisté à une forte émergence de nouvelles technologies et environnements informatiques tels que le cloud computing, l'informatique ubiquitaire ou les réseaux de capteurs. Ces environnements ont permis d'élaborer de nouveaux types d'applications avec une forte valeur ajoutée pour les usagés. Néanmoins, ils ont aussi soulevés de nombreux défis liés notamment à la conception, au déploiement et à la gestion de cycle de vie des applications. Ceci est dû à la nature même de ces environnements distribués, caractérisés par une grande flexibilité, un dynamisme accru et une forte hétérogénéité des ressources. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de fournir une solution générique, réutilisable et extensible pour l'auto-gestion de ces applications. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur la fourniture d'un support logiciel permettant de gérer à l'exécution les architectures et leur cycle de vie, notamment pour les applications à base de composants s'exécutant dans des environnements dynamiques, distributes et à grande échelle. De façon à atteindre cet objectif, nous proposons une solution synergique – le framework Cube – combinant des techniques issues de domaines de recherche adjacents tels que l'auto-organisation, la satisfaction de contraintes, l'auto-adaptation et la reflexion fondée sur les modèles architecturaux. Dans notre solution, un ensemble de gestionnaires autonomiques décentralisés s'auto-organise de façon à construire et gérer une application cible en s'appuyant sur une description partagée des buts de l'application. Cette description formelle, appelé Archetype, prend la forme d'un graphe orienté exprimant les différents éléments de l'architecture et un ensemble de contraintes. Un prototype du framework Cube a été implanté dans le domaine particulier de la médiation. Des expériences ont été conduites dans le cadre de deux projets de recherché nationaux: Self-XL et Medical. Les résultats obtenus démontrent la validité de notre approche pour créer, réparer et adapter des applications à base de composants s'exécutant dans des environnements distribués, dynamiques et hétérogènes. / In recent years, the world has witnessed the rapid emergence of several novel technologies and computing environments, including cloud computing, ubiquitous computing and sensor networks. These environments have been rapidly capitalised upon for building new types of applications, and bringing added-value to users. At the same time, the resulting applications have been raising a number of new significant challenges, mainly related to system design, deployment and life-cycle management during runtime. Such challenges stem from the very nature of these novel environments, characterized by large scales, high distribution, resource heterogeneity and increased dynamism. The main objective of this thesis is to provide a generic, reusable and extensible self-management solution for these types of applications, in order to help alleviate this stringent problem. We are particularly interested in providing support for the runtime management of system architecture and life-cycle, focusing on applications that are component-based and that run in highly dynamic, distributed and large-scale environments. In order to achieve this goal, we propose a synergistic solution – the Cube framework – that combines techniques from several adjacent research domains, including self-organization, constraint satisfaction, self-adaptation and self-reflection based on architectural models. In this solution, a set of decentralised Autonomic Managers self-organize dynamically, in order to build and administer a target application, by following a shared description of administrative goals. This formal description, called Archetype, contains a graph-oriented specification of the application elements to manage and of various constraints associated with these elements. A prototype of the Cube framework has been implemented for the particular application domain of data-mediation. Experiments have been carried-out in the context of two national research projects: Self-XL and Medical. Obtained results indicate the viability of the proposed solution for creating, repairing and adapting component-based applications running in distributed volatile and evolving environments.

Les domaines de recherche actuels, tels que l'informatique ubiquitaire et l'informatique en nuage (cloud computing), considèrent que ces environnements d’exécution sont en changement continue. Les applications dynamiques, où les composants peuvent être ajoutés et supprimés pendant l'exécution, permettent à un logiciel de s'adapter et de s'ajuster à l'évolution des environnements, et de tenir compte de l’évolution du logiciel. Malheureusement, les applications dynamiques soulèvent des questions de conception et de développement qui n'ont pas encore été pleinement explorées.Dans cette thèse, nous montrons que le dynamisme est une préoccupation transversale qui rompt avec un grand nombre d’hypothèses que les développeurs d’applications classiques sont autorisés à prendre. Le dynamisme affecte profondément la conception et développement de logiciels. S'il n'est pas manipulé correctement, le dynamisme peut « silencieusement » corrompre l'application. De plus, l'écriture d'applications dynamiques est complexe et sujette à erreur. Et compte tenu du niveau de complexité et de l’impact du dynamisme sur le processus du développement, le logiciel ne peut pas devenir dynamique sans (de large) modification et le dynamisme ne peut pas être totalement transparent (bien que beaucoup de celui-ci peut souvent être externalisées ou automatisées).Ce travail a pour but d’offrir à l’architecte logiciel le contrôle sur le niveau, la nature et la granularité du dynamisme qui est nécessaire dans les applications dynamiques. Cela permet aux architectes et aux développeurs de choisir les zones de l'application où les efforts de programmation des composants dynamiques seront investis, en évitant le coût et la complexité de rendre tous les composants dynamiques. L'idée est de permettre aux architectes de déterminer l'équilibre entre les efforts à fournir et le niveau de dynamisme requis pour les besoins de l'application. / Current areas of research, such as ubiquitous and cloud computing, consider execution environments to be in a constant state of change. Dynamic applications—where components can be added, removed and substituted during execution—allow software to adapt and adjust to changing environments, and to accommodate evolving features. Unfortunately, dynamic applications raise design and development issues that have yet to be fully addressed. In this dissertation we show that dynamism is a crosscutting concern that breaks many of the assumptions that developers are otherwise allowed to make in classic applications. Dynamism deeply impacts software design and development. If not handled correctly, dynamism can silently corrupt the application. Furthermore, writing dynamic applications is complex and error-prone, and given the level of complexity and the impact dynamism has on the development process, software cannot become dynamic without (extensive) modification and dynamism cannot be entirely transparent (although much of it may often be externalized or automated). This work focuses on giving the software architect control over the level, the nature and the granularity of dynamism that is required in dynamic applications. This allows architects and developers to choose where the efforts of programming dynamic components are best spent, avoiding the cost and complexity of making all components dynamic. The idea is to allow architects to determine the balance between the efforts spent and the level of dynamism required for the application's needs. At design-time we perform an impact analysis using the architect's requirements for dynamism. This serves to identify components that can be corrupted by dynamism and to—at the architect's disposition—render selected components resilient to dynamism. The application becomes a well-defined mix of dynamic areas, where components are expected to change at runtime, and static areas that are protected from dynamism and where programming is simpler and less restrictive. At runtime, our framework ensures the application remains consistent—even after unexpected dynamic events—by computing and removing potentially corrupt components. The framework attempts to recover quickly from dynamism and to minimize the impact of dynamism on the application. Our work builds on recent Software Engineering and Middleware technologies—namely, OSGi, iPOJO and APAM—that provide basic mechanisms to handle dynamism, such as dependency injection, late-binding, service availability notifications, deployment, lifecycle and dependency management. Our approach, implemented in the Robusta prototype, extends and complements these technologies by providing design and development-time support, and enforcing application execution consistency in the face of dynamism.

Submitted by Izabel Franco (izabel-franco@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-06T18:00:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DissMHP.pdf: 3604162 bytes, checksum: 5844b74d634a30ad629fc36c26706ee1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-12T13:56:27Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissMHP.pdf: 3604162 bytes, checksum: 5844b74d634a30ad629fc36c26706ee1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marina Freitas (marinapf@ufscar.br) on 2016-09-12T13:56:40Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DissMHP.pdf: 3604162 bytes, checksum: 5844b74d634a30ad629fc36c26706ee1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-12T13:57:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissMHP.pdf: 3604162 bytes, checksum: 5844b74d634a30ad629fc36c26706ee1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-06-08 / Não recebi financiamento / Autonomous mobile robots are a special category of robots designed for performing tasks without the intervention of human beings. Some robots are designed to perform tasks in completely inhospitable environments such as the earth´s subsurface, the ocean depths or spatial exploration. In order to consider a robot as autonomous, a fundamental premise is to have self-adaptation capabilities. Over the last years, the advances in technology allow the development of self-adaptive systems, which are able to manage themselves to recuperate from faults or even change their behavior and structure in order to improve the quality of the delivered service. A critical point when building any software is its architecture, i.e., its structural organization in a set of interacting components. In this context, reference architecture is a technique that is well known for combining the best practices, patterns and strategies for building and standardizing domain specific software. Nowadays, there is a lack of studies presenting reference architectures for structuring self-adaptive software of mobile robots in order to decrease maintenance efforts. A number of studies claim that self-adaptive systems are based on the control theory and, more specifically, on the use of control loops in their architecture to perform adaptations. Therefore, this master thesis proposes SARAMR, a control loop-based reference architecture whose goal is to make maintenance activities a more productive task. The employment of the architecture divides the whole system in two modules; base application and adaptation module. The adaptation module encompasses the control loops and the base application is further divided into three other components: environment, behaviors and the electromechanical part. SARAMR was qualitatively evaluated by means of the development of two applications: a self-adaptive wall follower mobile robot and another conventional one to performing monitoring in in-door environments. Next, some maintenance activities were created to investigate the effort of applying them. We have observed that the separation of concerns of our architecture allows new components to be added causing less impacts than in systems developed in an adhoc way. / Robôs móveis autônomos fazem parte de uma categoria especial de robôs projetados para realizar tarefas sem a intervenção de seres humanos. Alguns robôs são projetados para realizar tarefas em ambientes completamente inóspitos à vida humana como no subsolo terrestre, nas profundezas de oceanos ou na exploração espacial. Para que um robô seja considerado autônomo, uma premissa fundamental é possuir capacidades de autoadaptação. Nos últimos anos, os avanços da tecnologia possibilitaram o desenvolvimento de sistemas robóticos autoadaptativos, que são capazes de gerenciarem a si próprios, se recuperarem de falhas e também de alterarem seu comportamento e estrutura com o objetivo de otimizar e/ou manter a qualidade do serviço (QoS) oferecido. Uma questão crítica para a concepção e construção de qualquer sistema de software é sua arquitetura, isto é, sua organização estrutural em um conjunto de componentes que interagem. Nesse contexto, a utilização de arquiteturas de referência é uma abordagem conhecida atualmente por combinar as melhores práticas, padrões e estratégias para a construção e padronização de sistemas de software para um determinado domínio. Atualmente, nota-se uma carência de estudos que apresentem arquiteturas de referência para estruturar o software de robôs móveis autoadaptativos de forma a facilitar atividades de manutenção nesses sistemas. Muitos estudos apontam que sistemas autoadaptativos são baseados na teoria do controle e mais especificamente na utilização de loops de controle em sua arquitetura para realizar as adaptações. Diante disso, este trabalho propõe a arquitetura de referência SARAMR, uma arquitetura de referência baseada em loops de controle cujo objetivo é facilitar atividades de manutenção no software desses sistemas. A utilização da arquitetura divide o sistema em dois módulos: aplicação base e módulo de adaptação. O módulo de adaptação envolve os loops de controle e a aplicação base ainda é subdividida em três componentes: ambiente, comportamentos e a parte eletromecânica. SARAMR foi avaliada de forma qualitativa mediante o desenvolvimento duas aplicações: um robô autoadaptativo seguidor de paredes e um outro convencional de patrulhamento. Depois disso, algumas manutenções evolutivas foram idealizadas no sentido de averiguar o esforço de aplicá-las. Constatou-se que a separação de interesses existente na arquitetura permite que novos componentes possam ser adicionados com impacto menor do que em sistemas que não usam essa arquitetura.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:56:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 EinsteinGS_DISSERT.pdf: 2235729 bytes, checksum: c7975deebdcccbba6d5c03bbecc7084d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-01-23 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / We propose in this work a software architecture for robotic boats intended to act in diverse aquatic environments, fully autonomously, performing telemetry to a base station and getting this mission to be accomplished. This proposal aims to apply within the project N-Boat Lab NatalNet DCA, which aims to empower a sailboat navigating autonomously. The constituent components of this architecture are the memory modules, strategy, communication, sensing, actuation, energy, security and surveillance, making these systems the boat and base station. To validate the simulator was developed in C language and implemented using the graphics API OpenGL resources, whose main results were obtained in the implementation of memory, performance and strategy modules, more specifically data sharing, control of sails and rudder and planning short routes based on an algorithm for navigation, respectively. The experimental results, shown in this study indicate the feasibility of the actual use of the software architecture developed and their application in the area of autonomous mobile robotics / Propomos neste trabalho uma arquitetura de software para barcos rob?ticos destinados a atuarem em ambientes aqu?ticos diversos, de forma totalmente aut?noma, realizando telemetria com uma esta??o-base e desta recebendo miss?es a serem realizadas. Tal proposta visa aplicar-se dentro do projeto N-Boat do laborat?rio Natalnet-DCA, que tem como objetivo principal capacitar um veleiro a navegar autonomamente. Os componentes constituintes dessa arquitetura s?o os m?dulos de mem?ria, estrat?gia, comunica??o, sensoriamento, atua??o, energia, seguran?a e supervis?o, formando estes os sistemas do barco e da esta??o-base. Para sua valida??o foi desenvolvido um simulador implementado na linguagem C e utilizando recursos da API gr?fica OpenGL, cujos principais resultados foram obtidos na implementa??o dos m?dulos de mem?ria, de atua??o e de estrat?gia, mais especificamente no compartilhamento de dados, no controle das velas e do leme e no planejamento de rotas curtas baseado em um algoritmo de navega??o, respectivamente. Os resultados dos experimentos realizados, mostrados no presente trabalho, indicam a viabilidade da utiliza??o real da arquitetura de software desenvolvida e sua aplica??o na ?rea da rob?tica m?vel aut?noma

The software is a key differentiator and driver of innovation in the automotive industry. The major challenges for software development are increasing in complexity, shorter time-to-market, increase in development cost and demand of quality assurance. The complexity is increasing due to emission legislations, variants of product and new communication technologies being interfaced with the vehicle. The shorter development time is due to competition in the market, which requires faster feedback loops of verification and validation of developed functionalities. The increase in development cost is contributed by two factors; the first is pre-launch cost, this involves the cost of error correction in development stages. Another is post-launch cost; this involves warranty and guarantees cost. As the development time passes the cost of error correction also increases. Hence it is important to detect the error as early as possible. All these factors affect the software quality; there are several cases where Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) have callbacks their product because of the quality defect. Hence, there is increased in the requirement of software quality assurance. The solution for these software challenges can be the early quality evaluation in continuous integration framework environment. The most prominent in today\'s automotive industry AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture (AUTOSAR) reference architecture is used to describe software component and interfaces. AUTOSAR provides the standardised software component architecture elements. It was created to address the issues of growing complexity; the existing AUTOSAR environment does have software quality measures, such as schema validations and protocols for acceptance tests. However, it lacks the quality specification for non-functional qualities such as maintainability, modularity, etc. The tool is required which will evaluate the AUTOSAR based software architecture and give the objective feedback regarding quality. This thesis aims to provide the quality measurement tool, which will be used for evaluation of AUTOSAR based software architecture. The tool reads the AUTOSAR architecture information from AUTOSAR Extensible Markup Language (ARXML) file. The tool provides configuration ability, continuous evaluation and objective feedback regarding software quality characteristics. The tool was utilised on transmission control project, and results are validated by industry experts.

Submitted by Liliane Ferreira (ljuvencia30@gmail.com) on 2018-11-26T13:24:36Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Gabriel da Silva Vieira - 2018.pdf: 13740412 bytes, checksum: ddb7d4353e4f2d7650b087dd0d4bd796 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2018-11-26T13:43:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Gabriel da Silva Vieira - 2018.pdf: 13740412 bytes, checksum: ddb7d4353e4f2d7650b087dd0d4bd796 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-26T13:43:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Gabriel da Silva Vieira - 2018.pdf: 13740412 bytes, checksum: ddb7d4353e4f2d7650b087dd0d4bd796 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-10-05 / Outro / Disparity maps are key components of a stereo vision system. Autonomous navigation, 3D reconstruction, and mobility are examples of areas of research which use disparity maps as an important element. Although a lot of work has been done in the stereo vision field, it is not easy to build stereo systems with concepts such as reuse and extensible scope. In this study, we explore this gap and it presents a software architecture that can accommodate different stereo methods through a standard structure. Firstly, it introduces some scenarios that illustrate use cases of disparity maps and it shows a novel architecture that foments code reuse. A Disparity Computation Framework (DCF) is presented and we discuss how its components are structured. Then we developed a prototype which closely follows the proposal architecture and we prepared some test cases to be performed. Furthermore, we have implemented disparity methods for validation purposes and to evaluate our disparity refinement method. This refinement method, named as Segmented Consistency Check (SCC), was designed to increase the robustness of stereo matching algorithms. It consists of a segmentation process, statistical analysis of grouping areas and a support weighted function to find and to fill in unknown disparities. The experimental results show that the DCF can satisfy different scenarios on-demand. Besides, they show that SCC method is an efficient approach that can make some enhancements in disparity maps, as reducing the disparity error measure. / Mapas de disparidade são elementos cruciais em sistemas de visão estéreo. Navegação autônoma, reconstrução 3D e mobilidade são exemplos de área de pesquisa que utilizam mapas de disparidade como elementos-chave. Embora muitos trabalhos têm sido feitos na área de visão estéreo, ainda assim, não é trivial construir sistemas estéreos com aplicação de conceitos como reutilização e escopo extensível. Neste estudo, exploramos essa lacuna e apresentamos uma arquitetura de software capaz de acomodar diferentes métodos de visão estéreo através de uma estrutura bem definida. Inicialmente, cenários que ilustram usos de mapa de disparidade são introduzidos e uma arquitetura que fomenta reutilização de código é apresentada. Dessa forma, um Framework de Cálculo de Disparidade (FCD) é apresentado e seus componentes são discutidos a fim de especificar a sua estrutura. Em seguida, um protótipo que segue a arquitetura proposta é apresentado e alguns casos de teste são preparados e executados. Além disso, métodos de cálculo de disparidade foram implementados para propostas de validação e para avaliar o método de refinamento de disparidade proposto pelos autores. Esse método de refinamento, chamado de Checagem de Consistência de Segmento (CCS), foi projetado para aumentar a robustez de algoritmos de combinação estéreo. Trata-se de um método que utiliza um processo de segmentação preliminar, análise estatística de áreas definidas e função ponderada de suporte para encontrar e preencher disparidades marcadas como desconhecidas. Os resultados dos experimentos realizados apontam que o FCD pode satisfazer diferentes cenários sob demanda. Além disso, os resultados mostram que o método CCS é uma abordagem eficiente que pode trazer certos melhoramentos em mapas de disparidade, como reduzir a medida de erro no cálculo de correspondências estéreo.

Nos últimos tempos, um dos aspectos da tecnologia de informação (TI) que tem recebido destaque é o da arquitetura de TI, entendida como o conjunto de políticas e escolhas técnicas de padronização e integração para viabilizar as estratégias de negócios da empresa. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar o processo de gestão e examinar as influências sobre as decisões de arquitetura de TI sob as lentes da teoria institucional e da teoria da escolha estratégica através de estudos de casos comparados. A influência institucional pode ser proveniente de uma ação externa ou de algo interno à organização, enquanto a influência estratégica está relacionada com a ação voluntária dos gestores. O caso de uma empresa de grande porte, que possui maior formalização de suas políticas, foi comparado com outra de médio porte, que está em um estágio de maturidade de arquitetura menos avançado. As duas organizações, apesar de haver diferenças em relação ao uso da arquitetura de TI, apresentaram resultados semelhantes relacionados à atuação dessas duas influências. Ambas as influências agem em conjunto, a estratégica foi a mais mencionada pelos entrevistados e a institucional apareceu pontualmente em alguns tipos de decisões. / Recently, information technology (IT) architecture has been in the spotlight as it is considered a set of policies and technical choices that reflects integration and standardization requirements for assisting enterprise business strategies. The aim of this study is to analyze its management and to examine the influences on IT architecture decisions by viewing it through the lens of institutional theory and strategic choice theory using case study methodology. Institutional influence can be the result of an external action or the output of something embedded within the formal organizational structure whereas strategic influence is related to voluntary behavior of managers. A large company with extensive internal policy formalization was compared to a midsize company with a less mature architecture level. In spite of their differences in architecture purposes, similar findings appeared in both organizations. These two types of influences act together. The strategic ones are more mentioned during interviews whereas the institutional ones appear in specific decisions types.

Submitted by Nayara Passos (nayara.passos@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-13T12:46:27Z No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE Vanilson André Burégio.pdf: 5741012 bytes, checksum: a2ab30e7c8f1596c3ee84269aa93ebe7 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Daniella Sodre (daniella.sodre@ufpe.br) on 2015-03-13T13:20:40Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE Vanilson André Burégio.pdf: 5741012 bytes, checksum: a2ab30e7c8f1596c3ee84269aa93ebe7 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-13T13:20:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE Vanilson André Burégio.pdf: 5741012 bytes, checksum: a2ab30e7c8f1596c3ee84269aa93ebe7 (MD5) license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / A abordagem aberta e distribuída da Web, bem como a prevalência de relacionamentos entre aplicações e serviços estão transformando tanto a forma como desenvolvemos software quanto como eles funcionam e interagem uns com os outros. Como resultado, uma nova geração de aplicações está emergindo e consequentemente novos modelos mentais se fazem necessários para lidar elas. Neste contexto, Máquinas Sociais aparecem como um modelo promissor para o desenvolvimento de software. Entretanto, é um tema novo, com conceitos e definições provenientes de diferentes campos de pesquisa, o que torna o entendimento unificado do conceito um esforço desafiador. Nesta tese, nós fornecemos uma base conceitual mais coerente para entender máquinas sociais como um paradigma unificado para descrever, projetar e implementar aplicações e serviços sociais emergentes. Para isso, primeiramente revisitamos o conceito de relacionamento e estendemos a noção de máquinas sociais como um modelo de abstração comum a ser utilizado para fundir elementos computacionais e sociais em software. Em segundo lugar, para descrever máquinas sociais, apresentamos diretrizes para a análise que abordam algumas questões relacionadas com o exercício de engenharia de sistemas existentes. Em terceiro lugar, definimos a Social Machine-oriented Architecture (SoMAr) - um estilo arquitetural híbrido para projetar máquinas sociais através da combinação de diferentes princípios da prática atual da engenharia de software. Por fim, discutimos as experiências e lições aprendidas com a aplicação do paradigma de máquinas sociais em diferentes contextos. / The open, distributed approach of the Web and the relationship’s prevalence of applications and services are transforming both the way we develop software and how they operate and interact with each other. As a result, a novel breed of applications is emerging, and consequently new mental models are needed to deal with them. In this context, Social Machines appear as a promising model for developing software. However, it is a fresh topic, with concepts and definitions coming from different research fields, making a unified understanding of the concept a somewhat challenging endeavor. In this thesis we provide a more coherent conceptual basis for understanding Social Machines as a unified paradigm to describe, design and implement emerging social applications and services. To do that, we revisited the concept of relationship and extend the notion of Social Machines to establish a common abstraction model that is used for blending computational and social elements into software. Second, to describe social machines, this proposal presents an analysis guideline that addresses some issues related to the engineering exercise of existing systems. Third, we provide the Social Machine-oriented Architecture (SoMAr) - a hybrid style to design social machines through the combination of different principles from current software engineering practice. Finally, we discuss the experiences and lessons learned from applying the social machines paradigm in different contexts.