<p>Standard dosing of chemotherapy based on body surface area (BSA) results in large individual differences in toxicity due to a large inter-patient variability in pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD). This results in under-dosing in certain patients with a potentially weaker antitumoral effect.</p><p>Three clinical studies of individually tailored dosing of chemotherapy, based on haematological toxicity were conducted. In the first study, 26 women with metastatic breast cancer were treated with tailored and dose-escalated 5-fluorouracil, epirubicin and cyclophosphamide, supported by G-CSF (dFEC). In the second study 525 patients with high-risk primary breast cancer were randomised between dFEC and high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone-marrow transplantation. The feasibility of a FEC regimen with doubled cyclophosphamide dose to mobilise peripheral stem cells was investigated. In the third study, 44 metastatic patients were treated with tailored epirubicin and docetaxel (ET). PK and PD were also investigated in these patients. The potential effects of G-CSF on MRI tumour evaluation were studied in 18 patients with skeletal metastases.</p><p>Toxicity-based dosing entailed an evenly distributed two- to three-fold range of tolerated doses in all three studies. Efficacy and toxicity were not correlated to tolerated dose-levels. Tailored dFEC resulted in a response rate of 81% and the same regimen resulted in fewer breast cancer relapses compared with standard FEC followed by high-dose therapy. Toxicity was manageable except for an increased rate of secondary leukaemia. The modified FEC could safely mobilise sufficient numbers of stem-cells. Tailored ET resulted in a response rate of 63%. The inter-individual variability in drug clearance was larger than the inter-occasion variability and a semi-physiological model of PK and PD could predict leukocyte nadir and duration. An increased diffuse MR signal in the long TE IR-TSE sequence was observed in normal bone-marrow during G-CSF treatment; this could be mistaken as disseminated metastatic disease and could obscure focal metastases.</p><p>In conclusion, the concept of individually tailored toxicity-based dosage of chemotherapy was equally feasible in primary and metastatic breast cancer, in two different chemotherapy regimens and in treatment with or without G-CSF support and may provide a pragmatic way of overcoming the shortcomings of standard BSA-based dosing.</p>

Standard dosing of chemotherapy based on body surface area (BSA) results in large individual differences in toxicity due to a large inter-patient variability in pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD). This results in under-dosing in certain patients with a potentially weaker antitumoral effect. Three clinical studies of individually tailored dosing of chemotherapy, based on haematological toxicity were conducted. In the first study, 26 women with metastatic breast cancer were treated with tailored and dose-escalated 5-fluorouracil, epirubicin and cyclophosphamide, supported by G-CSF (dFEC). In the second study 525 patients with high-risk primary breast cancer were randomised between dFEC and high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone-marrow transplantation. The feasibility of a FEC regimen with doubled cyclophosphamide dose to mobilise peripheral stem cells was investigated. In the third study, 44 metastatic patients were treated with tailored epirubicin and docetaxel (ET). PK and PD were also investigated in these patients. The potential effects of G-CSF on MRI tumour evaluation were studied in 18 patients with skeletal metastases. Toxicity-based dosing entailed an evenly distributed two- to three-fold range of tolerated doses in all three studies. Efficacy and toxicity were not correlated to tolerated dose-levels. Tailored dFEC resulted in a response rate of 81% and the same regimen resulted in fewer breast cancer relapses compared with standard FEC followed by high-dose therapy. Toxicity was manageable except for an increased rate of secondary leukaemia. The modified FEC could safely mobilise sufficient numbers of stem-cells. Tailored ET resulted in a response rate of 63%. The inter-individual variability in drug clearance was larger than the inter-occasion variability and a semi-physiological model of PK and PD could predict leukocyte nadir and duration. An increased diffuse MR signal in the long TE IR-TSE sequence was observed in normal bone-marrow during G-CSF treatment; this could be mistaken as disseminated metastatic disease and could obscure focal metastases. In conclusion, the concept of individually tailored toxicity-based dosage of chemotherapy was equally feasible in primary and metastatic breast cancer, in two different chemotherapy regimens and in treatment with or without G-CSF support and may provide a pragmatic way of overcoming the shortcomings of standard BSA-based dosing.

People generally want to engage in a healthy lifestyle, to live in harmony with the environment, to contribute to social causes, and to avoid behaviours that are harmful for themselves and others. However, people often find it difficult to motivate themselves to engage in these beneficial behaviours. Even adopting a healthy lifestyle, such as healthy eating, physical activity, or smoking cessation, is hard despite being aware of the benefits. The increasing adoption and integration of technologies into our daily lives present unique opportunities to assist individuals to adopt healthy behaviours using technology. As a result, research on how to use technology to motivate health behaviour change has attracted the attention of both researchers and health practitioners. Technology designed for the purpose of bringing about desirable behaviour and attitude changes is referred to as Persuasive Technology (PT). Over the past decade, several PTs have been developed to motivate healthy behaviour, including helping people with addictive behaviour such as substance abuse, assisting individuals to achieve personal wellness, helping people manage diseases, and engaging people in preventive behaviours. Most of these PTs take a one-size-fits-all design approach. However, people differ in their motivation and beliefs about health and what constitutes a healthy life. A technology that motivates one type of person to change her behaviour may actually deter behaviour change for another type of person. As a result, existing PTs that are based on the one-size-fits-all approach may not be effective for promoting healthy behaviour change for most people. Because of the motivational pull that games offer, many PTs deliver their intervention in the form of games. This type of game-based PTs are referred to as persuasive games. Considering the increasing interest in delivering PT as a game, this dissertation uses persuasive games as a case study to illustrate the danger of applying the one-size-fits-all approach, the value and importance of tailoring PT, and to propose an approach for tailoring PTs to increase their efficacy. To address the problem that most existing PTs employ the one-size-fits-all design approach, I developed the Model-driven Persuasive Technology (MPT) design approach for tailoring PTs to various user types. The MPT is based on studying and modelling user’s behaviour with respect to their motivations. I developed the MPT approach in two preliminary studies (N = 221, N = 554) that model the determinants of healthy eating for people from different cultures, of different ages, and of both genders. I then applied the MPT approach in two large-scale studies to develop models for tailoring persuasive games to various gamer types. In the first study (N = 642), I examine eating behaviours and associated determinants, using the Health Belief Model. Using data from the study, I modelled the determinants of healthy eating behaviour for various gamer types. In the second study (N = 1108), I examined the persuasiveness of PT design strategies and developed models for tailoring the strategies to various gamer types. Behavioural determinants and PT design strategies are the two fundamental building blocks that drive PT interventions. The models revealed that some strategies were more effective for particular gamer types, thus, providing guidelines for tailoring persuasive games to various gamer types. To show the feasibility of the MPT design approach, I applied the model to design and develop two versions of a Model-driven Persuasive Game (MPG) targeting two distinct gamer types. To demonstrate the importance of tailoring persuasive games using the MPG approach, I conducted a large-scale evaluation (N = 802) of the two versions of the game and compared the efficacy of the tailored, contra-tailored, and the one-size-fits-all persuasive games condition with respect to their ability to promote positive changes in attitude, self-efficacy, and intention. To also demonstrate that the tailored MPG games inspire better play experience than the one-size-fits-all and the contra-tailored persuasive games, I measure the gamers’ perceived enjoyment and competence under the different game conditions. The results of the evaluation showed that while PTs can be effective for promoting healthy behaviour in terms of attitude, self-efficacy, and intention, the effectiveness of persuasion depends on using the right choice of persuasive strategy for each gamer type. The results showed that one size does not fit all and answered my overarching research question of whether there is a value in tailoring PT to an individual or group. The answer is that persuasive health interventions are more effective if they are tailored to the user types under consideration and that not tailoring PTs could be detrimental to behaviour change.

Esta dissertação propõe um método de análise dos eventos de aceleração dos motores e dissipação de energia através do uso dos freios aerodinâmicos na fase de descida das aeronaves Boeing 737 NG da VRG Linhas Aéreas, baseando-se nos conceitos de energia, de aproximações em descidas contínuas e desenho dos procedimentos de chegadas, revisando as bases das práticas de conservação de combustível e dos sistemas de garantia da qualidade das operações de vôo. Foram analisadas mais de 130.000 descidas em um período de nove meses, durante a operação normal da empresa, através de leitura de dados dos gravadores de vôo que resultaram, após aplicação de algoritmos matemáticos simples e filtros, em mais de 314.000 eventos isolados. Estes eventos foram tratados com uma visão estatística, permitindo a quantificação financeira dos eventos através da proporcionalidade da variação de combustível consumido e energia agregada ou dissipada da aeronave. Os resultados obtidos através do método apresentado permitiram apontar as famílias, séries e prefixos de aeronaves com diferentes desempenhos nas descidas, as cidades de destino e rotas com desempenho baixo quanto a conservação de combustível e energia, assim apontando os possíveis caminhos para a empresa focar esforços na redução do custo de combustível. / This paper proposes a method of analysis of fuel consumption and energy dissipation events, as a consequence of engines acceleration and the use of speed brakes during the Boeing 737 NG descent segment of VRG Linhas Aéreas, based on the concepts of energy, continuous descent approaches and design of arrivals procedures, reviewing the basics of fuel conservation practices and flight operations quality assurance systems.There were analyzed more than 130,000 descents in a period of nine months, during the company normal operation, by reading data from flight recorders that resulted in, after the application of simple mathematical algorithms and filters, more than 314,000 individual events. These events were treated with a statistical view, to quantify the financial impact of this events through the proportionality of the variation in fuel consumption and energy added or dissipated by the aircraft.The results obtained using this method allowed to understand families, series and tail numbers of aircrafts with different performances on the descent phase, the destination cities and routes with poor performance in energy and fuel conservation, thus indicating a possible focus to enhance efforts to reduce total fuel costs.

Esta tese descreve métodos interativos para estimar e compensar erros de refração (NETRA) e opacidades ópticas (CATRA) em sistemas de imageamento usando telas de campos de luz programáveis, de alta resolução e alto contraste. Os novos métodos para oftalmologia computacional descritos aqui podem avaliar câmeras e olhos se o usuário do sistema estiver consciente do modelo de interação. A solução combina elementos ópticos baratos, interfaces interativas e reconstrução computacional. Uma tela de campos de luz, posicionada perto do olho, cria objetos virtuais em profundidades pré-definidas através de várias seções do olho. Via esta plataforma, cria-se uma nova gama de aplicações interativas que é extremamente sensível a aberrações ópticas. A capacidade de focar em um objeto virtual, alinhar padrões exibidos na tela e detectar suas variações de forma e brilho permite ao sistema estimar a função de propagação de ponto de luz para o olho e a acomodação da lente. Enquanto os sistemas convencionais requerem formação especializada, dispositivos caros, procedimentos de segurança sensíveis e normalmente não são móveis, esta tese simplifica o mecanismo, colocando o paciente no centro do teste. Ao final, a resposta do usuário calcula a condição de refração em termos de poderes esférico e cilíndrico, o eixo de astigmatismo, o poder de acomodação da lente e mapas para a opacidade, atenuação, contraste e função de espalhamento de um ponto de luz. O objetivo é permitir que o público em geral opere um sistema de iluminação portátil e obtenha uma compreensão de suas próprias condições visuais. Esta tese apresenta projetos ópticos para software e hardware para oftalmologia computacional. Avaliações com usuários e com câmeras com lentes modificadas são realizadas. Os dados compilados são usados para reconstruir visão afetada do indivíduo, oferecendo uma nova abordagem para capturar informações para o rastreio, diagnóstico e análises clínicas de anomalias visuais. / This thesis proposes light-field pre-warping methods for measuring and compensating for optical aberrations in focal imaging systems. Interactive methods estimate refractive conditions (NETRA) and model lens opacities (CATRA) of interaction-aware eyes and cameras using cost-efficient hardware apps for high-resolution screens. Tailored displays use stereo-viewing hardware to compensate for the measured visual aberrations and display in-focus information that avoids the need of corrective eyeglasses. A light-field display, positioned very close to the eye, creates virtual objects in a wide range of predefined depths through different sectors of the eye’s aperture. This platform creates a new range of interactivity that is extremely sensitive to spatially-distributed optical aberrations. The ability to focus on virtual objects, interactively align displayed patterns, and detect variations in shape and brightness allows the estimation of the eye’s point spread function and its lens’ accommodation range. While conventional systems require specialized training, costly devices, strict security procedures, and are usually not mobile, this thesis simplifies the mechanism by putting the human subject in the loop. Captured data is transformed into refractive conditions in terms of spherical and cylindrical powers, axis of astigmatism, focal range and aperture maps for opacity, attenuation, contrast and sub-aperture point-spread functions. These optical widgets carefully designed to interactive interfaces plus computational analysis and reconstruction establish the field of computational ophthalmology. The overall goal is to allow a general audience to operate portable light-field displays to gain a meaningful understanding of their own visual conditions. Ubiquitous, updated, and accurate diagnostic records can make private and public displays show information in a resolution that goes beyond the viewer’s visual acuity. The new display technology is able to compensate for refractive errors and avoid light-scattering paths. Tailored Displays free the viewer from needing wearable optical corrections when looking at it, expanding the notion of glasses-free multi-focus displays to add individual variabilities. This thesis includes proof-of-concept designs for ophthalmatic devices and tailored displays. User evaluations and validations with modified camera optics are performed. Capturing the daily variabilities of an individual’s sensory system is expected to unleash a new era of high-quality tailored consumer devices.

Esta dissertação propõe um método de análise dos eventos de aceleração dos motores e dissipação de energia através do uso dos freios aerodinâmicos na fase de descida das aeronaves Boeing 737 NG da VRG Linhas Aéreas, baseando-se nos conceitos de energia, de aproximações em descidas contínuas e desenho dos procedimentos de chegadas, revisando as bases das práticas de conservação de combustível e dos sistemas de garantia da qualidade das operações de vôo. Foram analisadas mais de 130.000 descidas em um período de nove meses, durante a operação normal da empresa, através de leitura de dados dos gravadores de vôo que resultaram, após aplicação de algoritmos matemáticos simples e filtros, em mais de 314.000 eventos isolados. Estes eventos foram tratados com uma visão estatística, permitindo a quantificação financeira dos eventos através da proporcionalidade da variação de combustível consumido e energia agregada ou dissipada da aeronave. Os resultados obtidos através do método apresentado permitiram apontar as famílias, séries e prefixos de aeronaves com diferentes desempenhos nas descidas, as cidades de destino e rotas com desempenho baixo quanto a conservação de combustível e energia, assim apontando os possíveis caminhos para a empresa focar esforços na redução do custo de combustível. / This paper proposes a method of analysis of fuel consumption and energy dissipation events, as a consequence of engines acceleration and the use of speed brakes during the Boeing 737 NG descent segment of VRG Linhas Aéreas, based on the concepts of energy, continuous descent approaches and design of arrivals procedures, reviewing the basics of fuel conservation practices and flight operations quality assurance systems.There were analyzed more than 130,000 descents in a period of nine months, during the company normal operation, by reading data from flight recorders that resulted in, after the application of simple mathematical algorithms and filters, more than 314,000 individual events. These events were treated with a statistical view, to quantify the financial impact of this events through the proportionality of the variation in fuel consumption and energy added or dissipated by the aircraft.The results obtained using this method allowed to understand families, series and tail numbers of aircrafts with different performances on the descent phase, the destination cities and routes with poor performance in energy and fuel conservation, thus indicating a possible focus to enhance efforts to reduce total fuel costs.

Esta tese descreve métodos interativos para estimar e compensar erros de refração (NETRA) e opacidades ópticas (CATRA) em sistemas de imageamento usando telas de campos de luz programáveis, de alta resolução e alto contraste. Os novos métodos para oftalmologia computacional descritos aqui podem avaliar câmeras e olhos se o usuário do sistema estiver consciente do modelo de interação. A solução combina elementos ópticos baratos, interfaces interativas e reconstrução computacional. Uma tela de campos de luz, posicionada perto do olho, cria objetos virtuais em profundidades pré-definidas através de várias seções do olho. Via esta plataforma, cria-se uma nova gama de aplicações interativas que é extremamente sensível a aberrações ópticas. A capacidade de focar em um objeto virtual, alinhar padrões exibidos na tela e detectar suas variações de forma e brilho permite ao sistema estimar a função de propagação de ponto de luz para o olho e a acomodação da lente. Enquanto os sistemas convencionais requerem formação especializada, dispositivos caros, procedimentos de segurança sensíveis e normalmente não são móveis, esta tese simplifica o mecanismo, colocando o paciente no centro do teste. Ao final, a resposta do usuário calcula a condição de refração em termos de poderes esférico e cilíndrico, o eixo de astigmatismo, o poder de acomodação da lente e mapas para a opacidade, atenuação, contraste e função de espalhamento de um ponto de luz. O objetivo é permitir que o público em geral opere um sistema de iluminação portátil e obtenha uma compreensão de suas próprias condições visuais. Esta tese apresenta projetos ópticos para software e hardware para oftalmologia computacional. Avaliações com usuários e com câmeras com lentes modificadas são realizadas. Os dados compilados são usados para reconstruir visão afetada do indivíduo, oferecendo uma nova abordagem para capturar informações para o rastreio, diagnóstico e análises clínicas de anomalias visuais. / This thesis proposes light-field pre-warping methods for measuring and compensating for optical aberrations in focal imaging systems. Interactive methods estimate refractive conditions (NETRA) and model lens opacities (CATRA) of interaction-aware eyes and cameras using cost-efficient hardware apps for high-resolution screens. Tailored displays use stereo-viewing hardware to compensate for the measured visual aberrations and display in-focus information that avoids the need of corrective eyeglasses. A light-field display, positioned very close to the eye, creates virtual objects in a wide range of predefined depths through different sectors of the eye’s aperture. This platform creates a new range of interactivity that is extremely sensitive to spatially-distributed optical aberrations. The ability to focus on virtual objects, interactively align displayed patterns, and detect variations in shape and brightness allows the estimation of the eye’s point spread function and its lens’ accommodation range. While conventional systems require specialized training, costly devices, strict security procedures, and are usually not mobile, this thesis simplifies the mechanism by putting the human subject in the loop. Captured data is transformed into refractive conditions in terms of spherical and cylindrical powers, axis of astigmatism, focal range and aperture maps for opacity, attenuation, contrast and sub-aperture point-spread functions. These optical widgets carefully designed to interactive interfaces plus computational analysis and reconstruction establish the field of computational ophthalmology. The overall goal is to allow a general audience to operate portable light-field displays to gain a meaningful understanding of their own visual conditions. Ubiquitous, updated, and accurate diagnostic records can make private and public displays show information in a resolution that goes beyond the viewer’s visual acuity. The new display technology is able to compensate for refractive errors and avoid light-scattering paths. Tailored Displays free the viewer from needing wearable optical corrections when looking at it, expanding the notion of glasses-free multi-focus displays to add individual variabilities. This thesis includes proof-of-concept designs for ophthalmatic devices and tailored displays. User evaluations and validations with modified camera optics are performed. Capturing the daily variabilities of an individual’s sensory system is expected to unleash a new era of high-quality tailored consumer devices.

Esta tese descreve métodos interativos para estimar e compensar erros de refração (NETRA) e opacidades ópticas (CATRA) em sistemas de imageamento usando telas de campos de luz programáveis, de alta resolução e alto contraste. Os novos métodos para oftalmologia computacional descritos aqui podem avaliar câmeras e olhos se o usuário do sistema estiver consciente do modelo de interação. A solução combina elementos ópticos baratos, interfaces interativas e reconstrução computacional. Uma tela de campos de luz, posicionada perto do olho, cria objetos virtuais em profundidades pré-definidas através de várias seções do olho. Via esta plataforma, cria-se uma nova gama de aplicações interativas que é extremamente sensível a aberrações ópticas. A capacidade de focar em um objeto virtual, alinhar padrões exibidos na tela e detectar suas variações de forma e brilho permite ao sistema estimar a função de propagação de ponto de luz para o olho e a acomodação da lente. Enquanto os sistemas convencionais requerem formação especializada, dispositivos caros, procedimentos de segurança sensíveis e normalmente não são móveis, esta tese simplifica o mecanismo, colocando o paciente no centro do teste. Ao final, a resposta do usuário calcula a condição de refração em termos de poderes esférico e cilíndrico, o eixo de astigmatismo, o poder de acomodação da lente e mapas para a opacidade, atenuação, contraste e função de espalhamento de um ponto de luz. O objetivo é permitir que o público em geral opere um sistema de iluminação portátil e obtenha uma compreensão de suas próprias condições visuais. Esta tese apresenta projetos ópticos para software e hardware para oftalmologia computacional. Avaliações com usuários e com câmeras com lentes modificadas são realizadas. Os dados compilados são usados para reconstruir visão afetada do indivíduo, oferecendo uma nova abordagem para capturar informações para o rastreio, diagnóstico e análises clínicas de anomalias visuais. / This thesis proposes light-field pre-warping methods for measuring and compensating for optical aberrations in focal imaging systems. Interactive methods estimate refractive conditions (NETRA) and model lens opacities (CATRA) of interaction-aware eyes and cameras using cost-efficient hardware apps for high-resolution screens. Tailored displays use stereo-viewing hardware to compensate for the measured visual aberrations and display in-focus information that avoids the need of corrective eyeglasses. A light-field display, positioned very close to the eye, creates virtual objects in a wide range of predefined depths through different sectors of the eye’s aperture. This platform creates a new range of interactivity that is extremely sensitive to spatially-distributed optical aberrations. The ability to focus on virtual objects, interactively align displayed patterns, and detect variations in shape and brightness allows the estimation of the eye’s point spread function and its lens’ accommodation range. While conventional systems require specialized training, costly devices, strict security procedures, and are usually not mobile, this thesis simplifies the mechanism by putting the human subject in the loop. Captured data is transformed into refractive conditions in terms of spherical and cylindrical powers, axis of astigmatism, focal range and aperture maps for opacity, attenuation, contrast and sub-aperture point-spread functions. These optical widgets carefully designed to interactive interfaces plus computational analysis and reconstruction establish the field of computational ophthalmology. The overall goal is to allow a general audience to operate portable light-field displays to gain a meaningful understanding of their own visual conditions. Ubiquitous, updated, and accurate diagnostic records can make private and public displays show information in a resolution that goes beyond the viewer’s visual acuity. The new display technology is able to compensate for refractive errors and avoid light-scattering paths. Tailored Displays free the viewer from needing wearable optical corrections when looking at it, expanding the notion of glasses-free multi-focus displays to add individual variabilities. This thesis includes proof-of-concept designs for ophthalmatic devices and tailored displays. User evaluations and validations with modified camera optics are performed. Capturing the daily variabilities of an individual’s sensory system is expected to unleash a new era of high-quality tailored consumer devices.

Orientador: Sergio Tonini Button / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-07T01:24:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Caldin_Renato_M.pdf: 3510420 bytes, checksum: 7632c444a9b61c552c640c1faec863a9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Em virtude do número crescente de veículos automotores e uma legislação ambiental cada vez mais rigorosa, as indústrias automobilísticas e os centros de pesquisas avançados buscam desenvolver novos materiais e processos de fabricação que visam à produção de peças com maior resistência mecânica, melhor conformabilidade do material e a redução das espessuras dos materiais empregados na fabricação, sem comprometer a rigidez e estabilidade estrutural das carroçarias. Esse conceito tem por objetivo minimizar os custos de produção, aumentar a segurança e reduzir o peso total do conjunto montado, diminuindo os índices de emissões de poluentes lançados no meio ambiente, em decorrência da melhor relação peso x potência do veículo e proporcionando melhores condições de conforto e dirigibilidade aos usuários. Baseado nessas características, o objetivo deste estudo foi viabilizar a utilização simultânea de dois processos de fabricação não convencionais: Hidroconformação de "Tailored Welded Blank:' (TWB). Para tanto, comparou-se a conformabilidade do TWB submetido à estampagem convencional e a hidroconformação, empregando-se o Diagrama Limite de Conformação, obtido a partir do ensaio Nakazima modificado, para determinar o limite de conformação da matéria­prima, e a Frente Máxima de Deformação (FMD) para determinar a deformação máxima ocorrida nos produtos. Para isso, foi desenvolvido um ferramental híbrido que possibilita a fabricação de peças pelos métodos da estampagem convencional e da hidroconformação, a partir de chapas de aço ST -06 e ST -07 com espessuras 1,5 e 0,9mm respectivamente, soldadas a laser para compor o TWB. Com a análise comparativa entre a CLC da matéria-prima e a FMD dos produtos estampados convencionalmente e hidroconformados, foi possível identificar que a hidroconformação de chapas supera a estampagem convencional em relação a conformabilidade dos "Tailored Welded Blanks", pois permitiu obter produtos com domos mais elevados e regulares, com uma menor redução de espessura e sem o aparecimento de falhas / Abstract: The increasing number of vehic1es and a more rigorous environmental legislation, are forcing automobile industries and research centers to develop new materials and manufacturing processes to the production of parts with higher mechanical properties, better formability and sheet thickness reduction, without comprirnising the rigidity and structural stability of the auto bodies. The main objective is to minimize the production costs, to increase the safety and to reduce vehic1e weight, reducing pollutants emissions, resulting in a best relation weight x power and providing better conditions of comfort and driveability. Based in these characteristics, the objective of this work was to study the simultaneous use of two not conventional manufacturing processes: hydroforming of Tailored Welded Blank (TWB). Therefore it was compared the formability of TWB in conventional stamping and hydroforrning, from the Forming Limit Diagram (FLD), plotted from the modified Nakazima test, to determine the forming limit of the raw material, and the Maximum Front of Deformation (MFD) to determine the maximum deformation in the products. A hybrid tool was designed and assembled to manufacture parts by conventional stamping and hydroforming steel plates ST -06 and ST-07 com thickness 1,5 and 0,9mm respectively, welded by laser to form the TWBs. With the comparative analysis between FLD of the raw material and MFD of the products conventionally stamped and hydroformed, it was possible to identify that hydroforming overcomes the conventional stamping in respect to the formability of Tailored Welded Blanks, and therefore it was possible to form products with higher and regular domes, with lower reduction of thickness, and without any failures / Mestrado / Materiais e Processos de Fabricação / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’ouvrir la voie à la démonstration de l’amplification parabolique à 2 μm en format tout fibré. La théorie sur l’amplification d’impulsions auto-similaires est d’abord présentée. Il en découle que le meilleur amplificateur tout fibré à 2 μm devra s’appuyer sur une fibre dopée aux ions Tm3+ présentant à la fois une forte dispersion normale et une grand aire effective. L’amplification parabolique ne peut pas être réalisée dans des fibres monomodes à base de silice à 2 μm du fait de la forte dispersion anormale présentée par le matériau. Afin de surmonter cette limitation, une fibre dont le mode LP02 présente à la fois une forte dispersion normale et une grande aire effective à 2 μm a été conçue et réalisée. Un convertisseur spatial de lumière dédié à la génération du mode LP02 a également été conçu et réalisé. La pureté d’excitation par ce convertisseur du mode LP02 de la fibre passive a été évaluée à 99,9% par la technique interférométrique d’imagerie spatialement et spectralement résolue. Une source d’impulsions ultrabrèves (100 fs) et accordable en longueur d’onde de 1,6 μm à 2 μm a été créée pour générer le signal de l’amplificateur. Cette source a en outre permis de mesurer la dispersion du mode LP02 de la fibre passive à la longueur d’onde de 1,95 μm, celle-ci vaut -106 ps/(nm.km) en excellent accord quantitatif avec les résultats numériques. Des modélisations numériques de l’amplificateur nonlinéaire basé sur la version active de cette fibre indiquent que des impulsions présentant une puissance crête de l’ordre du MW à 1,9 μm sont envisageables en sortie de l’amplificateur parabolique. / The goal of this PhD thesis is to pave the way towards the demonstration of parabolic amplification at 2 μm in an all-fiber format. The physical theory on self-similar pulse amplification is first presented. The best all-fiber amplifier at 2 μm would need a special Tm-doped fiber with both high normal dispersion and large effective area. Parabolic amplification is however prohibited in silica based singlemode fiber working at 2 μm due to the large anomalous dispersion of silica. To overcome this limitation, a four-mode fiber in which the LP02 mode exhibits high normal dispersion combined with large effective area at 2 μm was designed and manufactured. A dedicated mode converter has also been designed and manufactured. Using the spatially- and spectrally-resolved imaging technique the purity of excitation of the LP02 mode in the passive fiber was evaluated to 99.9%. An ultrashort pulse (100 fs) source tunable from 1.6 μm to 2 μm was implemented to seed the amplifier. This source allowed to measure the LP02 mode dispersion of the passive fiber at the wavelength of 1.95 μm: D = -106 ps/(nm.km) in excellent quantitative agreement with the simulations. Numerical modeling of a nonlinear amplifier based on the realized active fiber shows that MW peak power class pulses centered at 1.9 μm can be obtained at the output of the parabolic amplifier.