Submitted by Luiza Maria Pereira de Oliveira (luiza.oliveira@ufpe.br) on 2015-05-18T13:25:09Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) TESE Celia Cristina Clemente Machado.pdf: 7869413 bytes, checksum: 1d8a85b8d2e9123615ded2ce3823088b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-18T13:25:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) TESE Celia Cristina Clemente Machado.pdf: 7869413 bytes, checksum: 1d8a85b8d2e9123615ded2ce3823088b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-09 / CNPq / O Parque Nacional do Catimbau (PNC), Pernambuco - Brasil, até o momento da finalização deste trabalho, carece de um plano de manejo, apresenta uma grave deficiência de infraestrutura e uma alienação da população perante as necessárias atividades de conservação. Assim, esta Tese de Doutorado tem por objetivo geral a detecção de alterações no uso e cobertura do solo no PNC, através de imagens TM Landsat 5 e do uso de técnicas de sensoriamento remoto, bem como, analisar a influência humana sobre essas alterações. Para isso, utilizaram-se os indicadores ambientais selecionados pelo Programa de Inventário e Monitoramento (I&M), criado nos Estados Unidos da América. Esses indicadores incluem parâmetros biofísicos associados aos balanços de energia, evapotranspiração (ET) e produtividade primária bruta (PPB). Uma calibração prévia do índice de área foliar (IAF) foi realizada para melhorar as estimativas deste índice de vegetação (IV), que é parte integrante do cômputo dos indicadores ambientais analisados. Para avaliar qual o algoritmo mais adequado para estimativa do saldo de radiação e da evapotranspiração diária (Rn24h e ET24h), compararam-se as estimativas realizadas com o METRIC e com o SEBAL com dados de estação meteorológica, sendo que o primeiro apresentou melhores resultados. O saldo de radiação (Rn) revelou ser o parâmetro mais adequado para o estudo da variação espaço-temporal do uso e cobertura do solo no PNC. A análise das alterações espaço-temporais ocorridas à superfície utilizando este parâmetro, demonstrou uma clara diminuição de seus valores, entre 1990 e 2010, em resultado da substituição da vegetação arbórea fechada, por uma vegetação arbustiva e por áreas de influência antrópica, como pastagens, solo exposto e zonas urbanas. Essas mudanças ocorreram, principalmente, nas proximidades dos limites do parque devido à pressão das localidades presentes na zona de amortecimento. Esse mesmo padrão de mudança foi detectado nas análises dos fluxos de energia, água e carbono realizadas. A Caatinga demonstrou contribuir de forma significativa para o sequestro de carbono no Nordeste, aumentando a importância de sua preservação e da criação de unidades de conservação como o PNC, face às atuais preocupações relacionadas com o aumento dos gases do efeito estufa (GEE) na atmosfera e, consequente aquecimento global. Para inferir sobre a influência humana sobre as alterações ocorridas no PNC, uma análise socioeconômica foi realizada tendo-se concluído que a elaboração de um plano de manejo, inexistente até a data de conclusão deste trabalho, assim como, o esclarecimento e a integração da população local nas atividades de conservação, é fundamental. Assim, se propõe a alteração da categoria de UC em vigor no PNC (Parque Nacional) para Monumento Natural (Monumento Natural do Catimbau - MNC), possibilitando a integração das muitas famílias residentes no interior e no entorno do parque, nos planejamentos de conservação para melhor gerenciamento do espaço, considerado de preservação ambiental e cultural.

With the rapid development in electronic packaging due to product miniaturisation, the size of solder joints is decreasing considerably, thus the failure of solder interconnects induced by electro-migration (EM) and thermo-migration (TM) became a reliability concern. The incorporation of foreign reinforcement can effectively improve properties of the solder alloys. However, this presents an imperative need for a further investigation to elaborate the underlying fundamentals associated with the reliability of reinforced solders. In this study, the Sn-Ag-Cu (SAC) based solder alloy powders as matrix were incorporated with Fullerene (FNS), TiC and Ni-coated graphene (NG) reinforcements to form composite solders through powder metallurgical method. These composite solders were then characterised in terms of their microstructure, physical property, solderability, followed by a systematic investigation of their performance under isothermal ageing, current stressing and large thermal gradient, respectively. The results showed that three types of reinforcements were successfully incorporated into the solder matrix; with all reinforcements added being embedded in the solder matrix or around the intermetallic compounds (IMC). The average loss of FNS and TiC particles in the solders was approximately 80% after the initial reflow, while this was only 40% for NG particles. It has been observed that β-Sn and Ag3Sn in the SAC solder alloys can be refined by adding appropriate amount of FNS and TiC, which is beneficial to the wettability with a reduced coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) with the minimal influence on the melting point and electrical resistivity of solder alloys. For the SAC alloys without reinforcements, obvious extrusion of interfacial IMC at the anode was present after 360 hours of current (1.5×104 A/cm2) stressing, while the changes of surface profiles of all reinforced solders were unnoticeable. Under the current stressing regimes, a continuous increase of interfacial IMCs at the anode of the original SAC alloys was observed, but decreased at the cathode with stressing time. For the composite solders, both anode and cathode showed a continuous growth of interfacial IMCs; the growth rates of IMCs at the anode were greater than that at cathode. In addition, NG and TiC were found to be most effective to retard the growth of Cu3Sn IMC under current stressing. A gradient in hardness across the stressed SAC joints was present, where it was harder at anode. However, no such obvious gradient was found in SAC/FNS and SAC/NG solder joints. FNS and NG were proven to be beneficial to prolong the service life of solder joints up to approximately 7.6% and 10.4% improvements, respectively. Thermal stressing made the interfacial IMC in the original SAC joints to grow at the cold end considerably; causing serious damage at the hot end after 600 hours under temperature gradient of 1240K/cm stressing; a large number of IMCs, cracks and voids appeared in the SAC solder joints. However, a uniform increase of IMCs at both sides in the composite solders was observed without apparent damages at the interfaces under the same thermal stressing conditions, indicating an effective reduction of the elemental migration in the reinforced solders. Although there were also some voids and IMCs formed in the composite solder joints after a long-term thermal stressing, the integrity of the composite solder joints was enhanced compared with the SAC alloys. During thermal stressing, the dissolution rate of Cu atom into the SAC solder joints was estimated to be 3.1×10-6 g/h, while the values for SAC/FNS, SAC/NG and SAC/TiC were only 1.22×10-6 g/h, 1.09×10-6 g/h and 1.67×10-6 g/h, respectively.

The genotoxicity of energetic compounds (i.e., explosives) that are known to be present in contaminated soils at military training sites has not been extensively investigated. Thus, the Salmonella mutagenicity and Muta(TM)Mouse assays were employed as in vitro assays to examine the mutagenic activity of twelve explosive compounds, as well as three soil samples from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. Salmonella analyses employed strains TA98 (frameshift mutations) and TA100 (base-pair substitution mutations), as well as the metabolically-enhanced YG1041 (TA98 background) and YG1042 (TA100 background), with and without exogenous metabolic activation (S9). For Salmonella analyses, the results indicate that ten of the explosive compounds were mutagenic, and consistently elicited direct-acting, base-pair substitution activity. All three soil samples were also observed to be mutagenic, eliciting direct-acting, frameshift activity. Mutagenic potencies were significantly higher on the metabolically-enhanced strains for all compounds and soil samples. For Muta(TM)Mouse analyses on FE1 cells, the results indicate that the majority of explosive compounds did not exhibit mutagenic activity. All three soil samples elicited significant positive responses (PET 1 and PET 3 without S9, and PET 2 with S9), and although there is some evidence of a concentration-related trend, the responses were weak. Correspondence of the mutagenic activity observed with the two assay systems, for both the explosive compounds and soil samples, was negligible. The differential response is likely due to differences in metabolic capacity between the two assay systems. Furthermore, it is likely that there are unidentified compounds present in these soil samples that are, at least in part, responsible for the observed mutagenic activity. Additional testing of other explosive compounds, as well as soil samples from other military training sites, using a variety of in vitro and in vivo assays, is warranted in order to reliably estimate mutagenic hazard and subsequently assess risk to human health.

Environmental degradation is a burgeoning problem owing to the continual expansion of industrial production and high-levels of energy and material consumption world-wide. CP (CP) is a preventive environmental approach, aimed at increasing resource efficiency and reducing the generation of pollution and waste at source, which is being implemented globally and in South Africa. CP is not just an environmental initiative; it also supports other productivity-oriented programmes and strategies. This report deals with the development of an assessment model for CP to support the business process of a company using TM. A conceptual model for CP assessment including TM assessment of identified CP improvement options is derived. The research investigates the possibility of improving the understanding of CP by using TM frameworks. Through direct participation data was collected to compile case studies with in the South African automotive industry. Case studies identify CP focus areas and improvement techniques. Results from the CP assessments were used to forecast cost saving through the implementation of the CP techniques. The CP improvement options were assessed using three different TM methods. The main reason behind the TM assessment of CP technologies was to develop a better understating of CP from a TM perspective. Results derived from the TM assessment were used to suggest strategies to benefit managers of companies and other stake holders. The research provides a different approach towards the understanding of CP technologies and improvement options. The study attempts to link the CP process to the business process in a company using TM methods. The study contributes towards the understanding and growth of CP technologies in the South African automotive sector and states the challenges with regards to the implementation of CP in South Africa. Based on the TM assessment results, technologies strategies for CP implementation were proposed. / Dissertation (MEng (Technology Management))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / MEng / unrestricted

This project deals with usage of programming languages and compilers in computer games. Purpose of this project is to give young people motivation for programming, which isn't always done by usual work in Pascal at high school. This idea was applied on a developed computer game with has a few integrated languages which can be used for creation of the game's content (adventures, campaigns and objects in them). This computer game was based on a RPG desk game Dragon's Lair (a Czech equivalent of D&D) from ALTAR(TM) publishing company.

Seit Ende 2006 ist die interdisziplinäre Suchplattform „Trismegistos“ (Universität zu Köln / Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) unter http://www.trismegistos.org freigeschaltet, die alle Texte aus Ägypten zwischen der frühen 25. Dynastie und dem Verschwinden des Koptischen als Amtssprache im zweiten nachchristlichen Jahrtausend umfasst. Mit diesem Beitrag soll das neueste Teilprojekt, TM-Magic, vorgestellt werden – eine Zusammenstellung von Metadaten von religiösen, rituellen, magischen und divinatorischen Texten (http://www.trismegistos.org/magic). Dies beinhaltet u.a. Liturgien, Gebete, Orakel oder Amulette.

Translation of technical manuals is expensive, especially when a larger company needs to publish manuals for their whole product range in over 20 different languages. When a text segment (i.e. a phrase, sentence or paragraph) is manually translated, we would like to reuse these translated segments in future translation tasks. A translated segment is stored with its corresponding source language, often called a language pair in a Translation Memory System. A language pair in a Translation Memory represents a Translation Entry also known as a Translation Unit. During a translation, when a text segment in a source document matches a segment in the Translation Memory, available target languages in the Translation Unit will not require a human translation. The previously translated segment can be inserted into the target document. Such functionality is provided in the single source publishing software, Skribenta developed by Excosoft. Skribenta requires text segments in source documents to find an exact or a full match in the Translation Memory, in order to apply a translation to a target language. A full match can only be achieved if a source segment is stored in a standardized form, which requires manual tagging of entities, and often reoccurring words such as model names and product numbers. This thesis investigates different ways to improve and optimize a Translation Memory System. One way was to aid users with the work of manual tagging of entities, by developing Heuristic algorithms to approach the problem of Named Entity Recognition (NER). The evaluation results from the developed Heuristic algorithms were compared with the result from an off the shelf NER tool developed by Stanford. The results shows that the developed Heuristic algorithms is able to achieve a higher F-Measure compare to the Stanford NER, and may be a great initial step to aid Excosofts’ users to improve their Translation Memories. / Översättning av tekniska manualer är väldigt kostsamt, speciellt när större organisationer behöver publicera produktmanualer för hela deras utbud till över 20 olika språk. När en text (t.ex. en fras, mening, paragraf) har blivit översatt så vill vi kunna återanvända den översatta texten i framtida översättningsprojekt och dokument. De översatta texterna lagras i ett översättningsminne (Translation Memory). Varje text lagras i sitt källspråk tillsammans med dess översättning på ett annat språk, så kallat målspråk. Dessa utgör då ett språkpar i ett översättningsminnessystem (Translation Memory System). Ett språkpar som lagras i ett översättningsminne utgör en Translation Entry även kallat Translation Unit. Om man hittar en matchning när man söker på källspråket efter en given textsträng i översättningsminnet, får man upp översättningar på alla möjliga målspråk för den givna textsträngen. Dessa kan i sin tur sättas in i måldokumentet. En sådan funktionalitet erbjuds i publicerings programvaran Skribenta, som har utvecklats av Excosoft. För att utföra en översättning till ett målspråk kräver Skribenta att text i källspråket hittar en exakt matchning eller en s.k. full match i översättningsminnet. En full match kan bara uppnås om en text finns lagrad i standardform. Detta kräver manuell taggning av entiteter och ofta förekommande ord som modellnamn och produktnummer. I denna uppsats undersöker jag hur man effektivt implementerar en optimering i ett översättningsminnessystem, bland annat genom att underlätta den manuella taggningen av entitier. Detta har gjorts genom olika Heuristiker som angriper problemet med Named Entity Recognition (NER). Resultat från de utvecklade Heuristikerna har jämförts med resultatet från det NER-verktyg som har utvecklats av Stanford. Resultaten visar att de Heuristiker som jag utvecklat uppnår ett högre F-Measure jämfört med Stanford NER och kan därför vara ett bra inledande steg för att hjälpa Excosofts användare att förbättra deras översättningsminnen.

The emergence of Multi/Many-core systems signified an increasing need for parallel programming. Transactional Memory (TM) is a promising programming paradigm for creating concurrent applications. At current date, the design of Distributed TM (DTM) tailored for non coherent Manycore architectures is largely unexplored. This thesis addresses this topic by analysing, designing, and implementing a DTM system suitable for low latency message passing platforms. The resulting system, named SC-TM, the Single-Chip Cloud TM, is a fully decentralized and scalable DTM, implemented on Intel’s SCC processor; a 48-core ’concept vehicle’ created by Intel Labs as a platform for Many-core software research. SC-TM is one of the first fully decentralized DTMs that guarantees starvation-freedom and the first to use an actual pluggable Contention Manager (CM) to ensure liveness. Finally, this thesis introduces three completely decentralized CMs; Offset-Greedy, a decentralized version of Greedy, Wholly, which relies on the number of completed transactions, and FairCM, that makes use off the effective transactional time. The evaluation showed the latter outperformed the three.

The purpose of this study was to explore students' perceptions of library services offered at Walters State Community College. This research involved LibQUAL+™, a nationally known academic library assessment instrument that measures three dimensions on a scale of approximately 22 aspects of service, divided into 6 groups (Heath, Kyrillidou, & Askew, 2004, p.264). These 3 dimensions are the following: Affect of Service (AS), Information Control (IC), and Library as a Place (LP). Responses of 666 students at Walters State Community College, Morristown, Tennessee, indicated the students' perceptions of acceptable minimum level of service, perceived levels of service, and desired levels of service. Each dimension was assessed by mean scores and p values to determine students' level of satisfaction with the library. Independent samples t tests were conducted to analyze the association between perceived means of the 3 service quality dimensions for the following: (1) Walters State Community College compared to 4 other community colleges, (2) male and female students at Walters State Community College, (3) traditional students 22 years old and younger and nontraditional students over age 22 at Walters State Community College. Pearson's correlation was conducted to analyze the relationship between library budgets and library services. Based on the findings of this study, Walters State Community College Library's mean scores were higher than the other 4 community college's in the 3 service quality dimensions. However, Walters State Community College's results indicated substantial room for improvement in the Affect of Service dimension. The mean scores between male and female students at Walters State College showed no differences among the 3 service quality dimensions. The findings also indicated that nontraditional students over age 22 rated Affect of Service and Information Control higher than did traditional students age 22 and younger. In addition, findings indicated a fairly strong relationship between library budget and the Information Control dimension for the 5 community colleges studied. The data offered in this study provided useful information for library self-study and ideas for improving the college's library services.

Talent Management (TM) is of growing interest within academia and in the strategic HRM literature in particular. Despite many attempts to study TM from different perspectives, it remains an ambiguous and elusive concept that is difficult to define and hence challenging to explore and address. Studies on TM are based within Western contexts and therefore it is questionable whether TM models and theories are transferable to other nations and contexts. This research examines the nature of TM in the Middle Eastern context of Oman, from the perspective of Institutional Theory. Through a qualitative, multiple case-study approach, data was collected from four banking and petroleum-sector organisations through semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that the different influences of institutional pressures (e.g. nationalisation, competition, organisational characteristics) have significantly shaped TM in these organisations. The findings show that TM effectiveness and sustainability depends upon a range of factors including: generational differences, employee expectations, the role of expatriates and national culture. Thus, TM and its approach has to be understood and framed within the context of institutions which interact with organisational characteristics; this shapes the way in which the organisations define their TM approach in order to seek legitimacy, business continuity and effectiveness. / Ministry of Manpower (Singapore)