Orientadores: Roberto Funes Abrahão, Mauro José Andrade Tereso / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Agricola / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-09T17:13:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Braga_CelsodeOliveira_M.pdf: 3029826 bytes, checksum: 206451bcec273e9a42df53573d3a3a39 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: A exigência por produtos com boa qualidade e segurança alimentar faz com que o beneficiamento pós-colheita se constitua numa atividade em grande expansão no Brasil. A tomaticultura representa um dos maiores mercados agrícolas brasileiros. O Brasil produz cerca de três milhões de toneladas por ano, sendo dois milhões de toneladas de tomate de mesa. Mais de dez mil produtores e sessenta mil famílias de trabalhadores estão envolvidos nesta produção, o que pode significar duzentos mil empregos diretos. Após a colheita dos tomates, a maior parte da produção é limpa, classificada e embalada em unidades de beneficiamento. Este estudo teve como objetivo a avaliação das exigências laborais nas unidades de beneficiamento de tomate de mesa sob o ponto de vista da ergonomia. Foram selecionadas 06 unidades de beneficiamento de tomate de mesa por amostragem intencional. Aplicou-se o método da Análise Ergonômica do Trabalho para identificação dos postos de trabalho com as maiores exigências laborais no processo de produção. Na pesquisa de campo envolvendo 57 operadores, utilizou-se o Método NASA TLX e o Questionário de Avaliação Visual (QAV), um questionário baseado na Escala de Likert, para avaliar, respectivamente, as exigências mentais e físicas e as exigências visuais das tarefas. Os resultados mostraram exigência mental elevada para 54,3% e exigência física alta para 20,0% dos operadores. Na avaliação da exigência visual constatou-se que 16,3% dos operadores pesquisados apresentaram fadiga visual. Comprovou-se que as exigências laborais, nos postos de trabalho estudados, estão relacionadas ao nível tecnológico dos equipamentos, grau de mecanização no processo de produção, projeto e layout do galpão, aos fatores ambientais e à organização do trabalho nas UB / Abstract: The requirement for good quality products and food safety makes of the processing after harvest an activity in great expansion in Brazil. Tomato cropping represents one of the biggest agricultural markets in Brazil. The country produces about three million tons of tomatoes per year, two million of which are intended for fresh consumption. More than ten thousand producers and sixty thousand families of workers are involved in this production, what may represent two hundred and thousand jobs. After the harvest of tomatoes, the biggest part of the production is cleaned, classified and packed in packing house units. The aim of this research was to evaluate the labor demands in the packing house units of fresh market tomatoes under the point of view of ergonomics. Six packing house units of fresh market tomatoes were selected by intentional sampling technique. It was applied the Ergonomic Analysis of Work method in order to identify the workplaces with the biggest labor demands in the production process. In the field research involving 57 workers, it was applied the NASA TLX method along with a questionnaire based on the Likert Scale in order to evaluate both mental and physical demands as well as visual demands of the tasks. The results showed high mental demand for 54.3% of the workers and high physical demand for 20.0% of them. Concerning to visual demand, it was evidenced that 16.3% of the workers presented visual fatigue. It was evidenced that the workload of the studied workplaces is related to the technological level of the equipment, mechanization degree of the production process, layout and project of the processing house, environmental factors as well as the work organization of the packing house / Mestrado / Planejamento e Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável / Mestre em Engenharia Agrícola

Nuclear receptors constitute a large family of transcription factors that are powerful regulators of animal tissue metabolism, homeostasis, tissue maintenance and development. They are particularly attractive for their ability to respond to the binding of hormones, metabolites, xenobiotics and artificially prepared molecules and transmit the interaction with these small lipophylic molecules to specific regulatory potential. In search for nuclear receptors that are likely to be critical for neural tissues in invertebrates and conserved during the evolution of animals, we have identified a close homologue of vertebrate TLX in a planarian Schmidtea mediterranea. Planaria represent very promising biological model systems for studies on tissue maintenance and regeneration. Planaria are able to resorb their tissues and use them as sources of energy during fasting and they re-build their bodies from neoblasts when food is plentiful. Our search in Schmidtea mediterranea's publicly accessible genome sequencing data indicated that planarian genome contains at least one gene with a high degree of similarity to vertebrate TLX. We cloned full length CDS (coding DNA sequence of cDNA) and characterized the gene functionally. This showed that the planarian and vertebrate NR2E1 are highly similar...

This paper investigates the potential of augmented reality (AR) as a navigational aid for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), offering innovative solutions to the evolving challenges of AD care. As the disease progresses, patients often require more assistance and may transition to care centers, resulting in reduced independence. Prior to this, home-based care aims to stimulate cognitive functions and preserve autonomy. To enhance their freedom and mobility, it is proposed to leverage AR technology to create a first-person navigational aid addressing the unique needs of AD patients. The research confronts two primary challenges: firstly, exploring the design of AR navigational aids customized for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease adapted to outdoor use. Then, it aims to develop an outdoor localization system for the HoloLens 2 and evaluate its performance. Despite limitations induced by the approximate positioning, various types of aids compatible with the technical constraints faced have been envisioned. A set of features was implemented using the optical see-through AR headset HoloLens 2. These features included two distinct types of holograms (Arrow and Wind) and the ability to catch user attention prior to turns, allowing us to explore the effectiveness of these design choices. They were evaluated through a user study involving 15 healthy participants. Usability and task load were measured with Nasa-TLX and SUS questionnaires. An approximate positioning for outdoor use of the HoloLens 2 was elaborated using a smartphone as a GPS receiver, and a Kalman filter for filtering and fusion with IMU data. This enables to reach positioning accuracy at the meter level. This research demonstrates the promising utility of AR in assisting navigation in outdoor environments. Despite few significant results, the Arrow hologram appears to be a better fit for usability and users’ personal preferences. Further research is needed to get significant results on the impact of adaptive aids. The outdoor use of AR navigational aids is still limited by the poor visibility of holograms outdoors and low positioning accuracy. / Denna artikel utforskar potentialen hos förstärkt verklighet (AR) som navigationshjälpmedel för personer med Alzheimers sjukdom (AD) och erbjuder innovativa lösningar inom AD-vård. När sjukdomen fortskrider behöver patienterna mer hjälp och kan övergå till vårdcentraler, vilket minskar deras självständighet. Hemvård strävar efter att stimulera kognitiva funktioner och bevara autonomi. Vi föreslår utnyttja AR-teknologi för en skräddarsydd navigeringshjälp i första person för AD-patienters behov. Forskningen möter två utmaningar: att utforska AR-navigeringshjälpmedel för personer med Alzheimers sjukdom och anpassade för utomhusanvändning. Vi strävar efter att utveckla utomhuslokaliseringssystem för HoloLens 2 och utvärdera prestanda. Trots begränsningar på grund av ungefärlig positionering kan vi föreställa oss hjälpmedel som är kompatibla med tekniska begränsningar. Vi använde HoloLens 2 med funktioner som två hologramtyper och användaruppmärksamhetsfångst före svängar, utvärderat med 15 deltagare. Vi skapade ungefärlig positionering för HoloLens 2 utomhus med en smartphone som GPS-mottagare, med Kalman-filtrering och IMU-fusion för meter-noggrannhet. Forskningen visar AR:s lovande nytta i utomhusnavigering. Trots få signifikanta resultat verkar pilhologrammet passa användbarhet och preferenser bättre. Mer forskning behövs för att bedöma adaptiva hjälpmedels effekter. Användningen av AR-navigeringshjälpmedel utomhus begränsas av dålig synlighet och låg positionsnoggrannhet. / Cet article explore le potentiel de la réalité augmentée (RA) comme aide à la navigation pour les personnes atteintes de la maladie d’Alzheimer (MA), offrant une solution novatrice aux défis en constante évolution des soins liés à la MA. À mesure que la maladie progresse, les patients ont souvent besoin d’une assistance accrue et sont transférés dans des centres de soins, ce qui diminue leur indépendance. Avant cela, les soins à domicile visent à stimuler leurs fonctions cognitives et à préserver leur autonomie. Dans cette optique, nous proposons d’utiliser la RA pour créer une aide à la navigation à la première personne adaptée aux besoins spécifiques des patients atteints de la MA. La recherche aborde deux défis principaux : la conception d’aides à la navigation en RA pour les personnes atteintes de la MA, adaptées à une utilisation en extérieur, et le développement d’un système de localisation en extérieur pour HoloLens 2, suivi de son évaluation. Malgré les limitations liées au positionnement approximatif, nous avons envisagé différents types d’aides compatibles avec ces contraintes techniques. Nous avons mis en place un ensemble de fonctionnalités en utilisant le casque de RA HoloLens 2. Ces fonctionnalités incluent deux types d’hologrammes (Flèche et Vent) et la capacité à attirer l’attention de l’utilisateur avant les virages, nous permettant d’explorer l’efficacité de ces choix de conception. Ils ont été évalués lors d’une étude avec 15 participants en bonne santé. Nous avons élaboré une méthode de positionnement approximatif pour une utilisation en extérieur de l’HoloLens 2 en utilisant un smartphone comme récepteur GPS, avec un filtre de Kalman pour le filtrage et la fusion avec des données inertielles, permettant d’atteindre une précision de positionnement au mètre. Cette recherche démontre l’utilité prometteuse de la RA dans l’assistance à la navigation en extérieur, bien que des recherches supplémentaires soient nécessaires pour obtenir des résultats significatifs sur l’impact des aides adaptatives. L’utilisation des aides à la navigation en RA en extérieur est encore limitée par la visibilité réduite des hologrammes en extérieur et la faible précision du positionnement.

With improvements to miniaturization technologies, the ratio between operators required per UAV has become increasingly smaller at the cost of increased workload. Workload is an important factor to consider when designing the multi-UAV systems of tomorrow as too much workload may decrease an operator's performance. This study proposes the use of text to speech combined with an emphasis on a single screen design as a way of improving situational awareness and perceived workload. A controlled experiment consisting of 18 participants was conducted inside a simulator. Their situational awareness and perceived workload was measured using SAGAT and NASA-TLX respectively. The results show that the use of text to speech lead to a decrease in situational awareness for all elements inside the graphical user interface that were not directly handled by a text to speech event. All of the NASA-TLX measurements showed an improvement in perceived workload except for physical demand. Overall an improvement of perceived workload was observed when text to speech was in use.

Command and control (C2) environments are complex, dynamic and rich in information. Thus, measuring the performance of an agent in a C2-system, in this case a platoon commander, poses a challenging task for the researcher. To measure the performance of a platoon commander in this thesis, the OODA loop is used as a model for representing the four processes in which the platoon commander is engaged in during a military C2 mission. In accordance with these processes, performance measurements for the platoon commander are identified. The relevance of the performance measurements, to the C2 tasks and goals of the platoon commander, are tested through three studies conducted in a simulated warfare scenario, and two workshops, one with a platoon commander and one with two scientists. As a result of the studies and workshops, an assessment tool for measuring the C2 tasks and goals of the platoon commander, is developed. This assessment tool consists of modified versions of the Crew Awareness Rating Scale (CARS), the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) and the NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX), as well as generic performance measurements measuring fratricide, deaths and completion of overarching goal.

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Worker fatigue has been the focus of research for many years. However, there is limited research available on the evaluation and measurement of fatigue for prolonged mentally demanding activities. The objectives of the study are (1 )to evaluate fatigue for prolonged, mentally demanding work-tasks by considering task-dependent, task-independent and personal factors, (2) to identify effective subjective and objective fatigue measures, (3) to establish a relationship between time and factors that affect fatigue (4) to develop models to predict fatigue. A total of 16 participants, eight participants with western cultural backgrounds and eight participants with eastern cultural backgrounds, currently employed in mentally demanding work-tasks (e.g., programmers, computer simulation experts, etc.) completed the study protocols. Each participant was evaluated during normal working hours in their workplace for a 4-hour test session, with a 15-minute break provided after two hours. Fatigue was evaluated using subjective questionnaires (Borg Perceived Level of Fatigue Scale and the Swedish Occupational Fatigue Index (SOFI)); and objective measures (change in resting heart rate and salivary cortisol excretion). Workload was also assessed using the NASA-TLX. Fatigue and workload scales were collected every 30 minutes, cortisol at the start and finish of each 2-hour work block, and heart rate throughout the test session. Fatigue significantly increased over time (p-value <0.0001). All measures, except cortisol hormone, returned to near baseline level following the 15-minute break (p-value <0.0001). Ethnicity was found to have limited effects on fatigue development. Poor to moderate (Rho = 0.35 to 0.75) significant correlations were observed between the subjective and objective measures. Time and fatigue load (a factor that impacts fatigue development) significantly interact to explain fatigue represented by a hyperbolic relationship. Predictive models explained a maximum of 87% of the variation in the fatigue measures. As expected, fatigue develops over time, especially when considering other factors that can impact fatigue (e.g. hours slept, hours of work), providing further evidence of the complex nature of fatigue. As the 15-minute break was found to reduce all measures of fatigue, the development of appropriate rest breaks may mitigate some of the negative consequences of fatigue.

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