Thesis (D. Min.)--Reformed Theological Seminary, 2004. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-307).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Reformed Theological Seminary, 2004. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-307).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Reformed Theological Seminary, 2004. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 295-307).

This thesis investigates the questions of where to grasp and how to grasp a given object with an articulated robotic grasping device. To this end, aspects of grasp synthesis and hand motion planning and control are investigated. Grasp synthesis is the process of determining a palm pose with respect to the target object, as well as a hand joint configuration and/or grasp contact points such that a successful grasp execution is allowed. Existing methods tackling the grasp synthesis problem can be categorized in analytical and empirical approaches. Analytical approaches are based on geometric, kinematic and/or dynamic formulations, whereas empirical methods aim at mimicking human strategies.An overarching idea throughout this thesis is to circumvent the curse of dimensionality, which is inherent in high-dimensional planning problems, by incorporating empirical data in analytical approaches. To this end, tools from the field of constrained optimization are used (i) to synthesize grasp families based on available prototype grasps, (ii) to incorporate heuristics capturing human grasp strategies in the grasp synthesis process and (iii) to encode demonstrated grasp motions in primitive motion controllers.The first contribution is related to the computation and analysis of grasp families which are represented as Independent Contact Regions (ICR) on a target object’s surface. To this end, the well-known concept of the Grasp Wrench Space for a single grasp is extended to be applicable for a set of grasps. Applications of ICR include grasp qualification by capturing the robustness of a grasp to position inaccuracies and the visual guidance of a demonstrator in a teleoperating scenario. In the second main contribution of this thesis, it is shown how to reduce the grasp solution space during the synthesis process by accounting for human approach strategies. This is achieved by imposing appropriate constraints to a corresponding optimization problem. A third contribution in this dissertation is made to reactive motion planning. Here, primitive controllers are synthesized by estimating the free parameters of corresponding dynamical systems from multiple demonstrated trajectories. The approach is evaluated on an anthropomorphic robot hand/arm platform. Also, an extension to a Model Predictive Control (MPC) scheme is presented which allows to incorporate state constraints for auxiliary tasks such as obstacle avoidance.

Le paysage urbain contemporain de la ville de Tunis, caractérisé par une forte hétérogénéité référentielle, interroge quant aux facteurs de son émergence. L'histoire récente du pays, marquée par l'indépendance en 1956, suggère l'existence d'un rapport étroit entre ce moment de prise d'autonomie politique, économique, mais surtout culturelle, et la portée qu'il a eu sur la détermination du langage des architectures à édifier.Cette recherche soulève donc la problématique de l'évolution des références de la production architecturale savante en Tunisie indépendante entre 1956 et 2011. Il s'agit d'explorer comment, dans le cadre de la construction de l'État indépendant, une architecture est fabriquée, et dans quelles mesures elle traduit sa stratégie culturelle pour en devenir l'image même.En partant de l'hypothèse que l'interaction entre la commande officielle et la conception architecturale a induit la pluralité référentielle du paysage urbain actuel, Tunis est ainsi exploré dans une perspective historique interrogeant l'architecture édifiée dans le processus commande-conception-communication. L'hétérogénéité des architectures de la ville découlerait surtout de la disparité des postures officielles, mais aussi savantes, dans la définition d'une tunisianité contemporaine culturelle, et donc architecturale, cloisonnée dans le clivage modernité-tradition.un détour par les différents supports de communication de l'architecture entre 1956 et 2011, a été nécessaire pour mener à bien cette recherche. Un corpus diversifié a ainsi été sélectionné et analysé.La lecture croisée de ce corpus fait ressortir trois types de discours véhiculés: un discours par, de et sur l'architecture. Le premier est perceptible aussi bien dans la revue de presse officielle que dans les représentations architecturales sur les billets de banque, les timbres et quelques cartes postales depuis l'indépendance. Son exploration a permis de dégager les images que l'État fabrique d'une architecture "emblématique" comme réalisation officielle. Le discours de l'architecture reflète, quant à lui, la représentation que le concepteur propose pour définir l'architecture tunisienne. La recherche dans les fonds d'archives des documents graphiques rend compte de l'évolution du langage architectural proposé. L'analyse des profils des architectes relève l'importance de leur culture architecturale dans le modelage du paysage urbain actuel. Enfin, le discours sur l'architecture, matérialisé par l'examen des articles des périodiques d'architecture et de la revue de presse indépendante, dépeint la réception des œuvres. Il permet de voir la production architecturale au delà du discours officiel du maître d'ouvrage et de celui du maître d'oeuvre. Les représentations caricaturales d'un paysage urbain hétéroclite, ainsi que d'une architecture "moderniste" rhabillée par une enveloppe ornementale "historiciste" caractérisent essentiellement ce dernier discours.La référence architecturale des édifices paraît évoluer à l'image de la fondation de l'État et de la définition de ce qui est désormais "tunisien". L'analyse des discours relevés dans l'étude du corpus nous a permis de dégager trois imaginaires différents. Un imaginaire de développement caractérise les premières décennies de l'État indépendant. Il opère par une esthétique allusive qui s'aligne sur les tendances architecturales des grandes métropoles occidentales. Un imaginaire historique émerge par la suite. Il se construit, entre autres, à travers un héritage dont on cultive l'image et qu'on promeut au rang de patrimoine. Ainsi, la vénération du modèle "médinal" et plus récemment la revendication de l'héritage "protectorial", procurent à certains édifices un statut référentiel quant aux conceptions à venir. Enfin, un imaginaire syncrétique, oscille entre la modernisation du traditionnel et la traditionalisation du moderne en vue d'un idéal de fusion d'influences qui définirait l'architecture tunisienne contemporaine. / The high heterogeneity of the Tunisian cityscape raises important questions about the context of its emergence. A historical analysis of the country's last decades seems to be necessary towards understanding its origins. Since the State independence in 1956, several political, economical, and especially cultural evolutions have occurred. These have seemingly a great impact on the language of the contemporary architectural production.The present research focuses on the evolution of the references behind the Tunisian architecture from the independence until 2011. It mainly explores how an architecture was produced during the independent State establishment, and to what extent this architecture reflects the State's cultural policy.The main explored hypothesis concerns the impact of the interaction between the constructions initiated by the State and the architectural design on the current country's cityscape. Most of the project initiated by the independent State were built in the capital. Thus, Tunis is studied from a historical standpoint and buildings are analyzed in the triple process of architectural order, design, and communication, in order to understand the emergence circumstances of the current referential heterogeneity. A cross-reading of architecture publications highlights the different speeches that shape several imaginaries so to define contemporary Tunisian specificities, between modernity and tradition.Answering such a question implies a deep knowledge of the main State's projects during this period, but also the profiles of the different architects behind these projects design. A diverse corpus including graphical representations of the considered projects, general and specialized press publications, bank notes, stamps, and postcards, were selected for analysis. Besides its historical dimension, such a corpus enables observing the Architecture as a mean of communication from a cultural perspective.The cross-reading of this corpus brings out three types of speeches: a speech by, of, and on Architecture. The former, is observable on the official press, on the architectural representations of bank notes, on stamps and some postcards. Its analysis helped to determine the image that the State gives about its architectural realizations. The second type of speeches reflects the perception of the architect, as a designer of the Tunisian architecture. Research on graphical representations in public archives show the evolution of the architectural language. Moreover, the analysis of the diverse background of the architects, practicing during the period under study, shows the great impact of their architectural culture on the Tunisian cityscape. Finally, the last type of speech observed in specialized architectural magazines and private press, enables to extract receptions about the realized projects.References behind architectural realizations in Tunis seems to evolve together with the State evolution and the different definition of what is «Tunisian» at each moment. The study of the identified speeches led to three different imaginaries. The first is a progress imaginary, which characterizes the first decades of the independent State. It operates through an esthetic allusion following architectural inclination of great occidental metropolis. The second is a historical imaginary that emerges later and which mainly refers to a legacy architecture transformed into a protected heritage. Hence, the worship of the « medinal » architecture and recently the french protectorat legacy provide to some artefacts a status of reference for upcoming constructions. Finally, the third imaginary is syncretic and fluctuates between modernizing tradition and traditionalizing modernity towards a perfect fusion that eventually defines contemporary Tunisian architecture.

Problématique: Devant les recommandations de concevoir des interventions éducatives en santébucco-dentaire intégrées dans des modèles de promotion de la santé (Petersen, 2010), le constat est fait, aprèsune recension qualitative des écrits en s’adossant au modèle Precede-Proceed (Green et Kreuter, 1991) qu’ilexiste peu d’études sur les représentations cognitives en santé bucco-dentaire des personnes âgées autonomes enparticulier sur la maladie carieuse, la gingivite, la mobilité dentaire, la sécheresse buccale et le bruxisme.Objectif : Identifier les représentations cognitives, selon Meunier (2002), exprimées dans le comportement desanté bucco-dentaire. Méthode: Suivant la méthode qualitative de la théorisation ancrée, l’analyse des verbatimest réalisée de l’étape de codification à l’étape de mise en relation (Paillé,1994). L’échantillon, non représentatif,repose sur 12 répondants volontaires (5 hommes et 7 femmes, de 66 ans à 90 ans). Les entretiens semi-directifssont menés à l’aide d’un guide d’entretien, préalablement testé, qui s’appuie sur plusieurs concepts dont leHealth Belief Model. Il comprend : un état de santé déclaré, une description de sa propre santé bucco-dentaire etune description du répondant et de ses ressources. Résultats : Les représentations cognitives, favorables ou non,sont proportionnellement plus présentes au niveau de l’attribution causale et du mécanisme d’apparition desmaladies bucco-dentaires. Les répondants expriment une proportion importante de « je ne sais pas» concernantles maladies en santé orale sauf pour la maladie carieuse. Ils ne se perçoivent pas comme malade. La notion debonne santé orale est difficile à définir autrement que par opposition à une mauvaise santé orale. Enfin, alors queles thèmes ne sont pas questionnés dans le guide d’entretien, l’esthétique et les préoccupations financièresoccupent une place importante dans les discours. Discussion : Ces résultats font émerger des obstaclesreprésentationnels vis-à-vis de la santé orale et mettent en exergue les différentes caractéristiques d’uncomportement en santé orale. Ils semblent confirmer que l’étape du diagnostic éducatif est incontournable dansla conception d’un programme d’éducation en santé orale car elle permet, entre autre, de faire émerger lesreprésentations cognitives, les connaissances déjà acquises et les nombreuses incertitudes. Il est à noter que touteintervention en éducation doit prévoir une définition positive de la santé orale. Conclusion : La poursuite derecherche s’avère nécessaire afin de répondre aux objectifs d’une intervention éducative. Un des principauxenjeux est l’adoption par l’individu d’un raisonnement basé sur l’acquisition de connaissances et de savoir luipermettant de prendre des décisions plus favorables à sa santé. / Premise: Given the need to develop educational programmes integrated into more generalmodels to promote oral health (Petersen, 2010), we observe that there are few studies on the cognitiverepresentations of the independent elderly on oral health. This observation is made after an qualitative review ofthe literature drawing on the Precede-Proceed model (Green et Kreuter, 1991). The lack of studies on this topicis especially apparent regarding tooth decay, gingivitis, dental mobility, dry mouth and bruxism. Aims: Toidentify the cognitive representations, defined by Meunier (2002), present in oral health behaviour. Method:According to the qualitative method of Grounded theory, the verbatim’s analysis is realized from the codingstage up to the integrating stage (Paillé, 1994). The sample, non-representative, is based on 12 voluntaryrespondents (5 men and 7 women, aged from 66 years to 90 years). The semi-directive interviews are led with aninterview guide based on the reference design of the Health Belief Model. Data includes reported health status,reported description of the respondent and their resources and reported description of their own oral health.Results: The categories of causal attribution and mechanism of appearance include most of cognitiverepresentations, either positive or negative. The respondents express an important proportion of “ I don’t know”regarding diseases in oral health, with the exception of cavities. They do not perceive themselves as sick persons.They define a good oral health only as opposed to poor oral health. Finally, while these topics are not addressedin the interview guide, aesthetics and financial concerns occupy an important place in the discourses.Discussion: These results reveal the representational barriers to improved oral health behaviour and stress thevarious characteristics of it. The results contribute to structuring a relevant educational diagnosis that isnecessary to prior in an education programme. Every health educational programme must include a positive oralhealth definition. Conclusion: There is a need for further research to address the objectives of educationalprogrammes. The main stake is to bring people to adopting knowledge based on reasoning yielding improvedoral health decisions.

The aim of the diploma theses is to find out if the study in a form of an e-learning course is more beneficial to the student than the isolated study text. To find the benefits, the research among nineth grade students from two different schools was done. A study text called Functions for the nineth grade was prepared together with a collection of solved and unsolved problems. Based on this text an e-learning course called Functions for the nineth grade was prepared. The e-learning course was placed on the website linked http://funkcepro9r.maweb.eu/. For the communication of the students and the tutor of the course, for the completion of the compulsory tasks and for the carrying out the study agenda, the modul iTřída on the web link itrida.dumy.cz was selected. Both forms of the study materials were tested by the nineth grade students on two selected schools. The efectivity of both of the forms was tested by the written test. The evaluation of the both forms was done by the electronic questionnaire. According to the results of the written test, the students which used the isolated study text were more succesful than the students studying the e-learning course. The results of the questionnaire verified that the study text was more acceptable for the students. The e-learning course did not suit the...

Around the world Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is on the rise. Previous studies have shown the default mode network (DMN) sees changes with AD progression as the disease erodes away cortical areas. Aerobic exercise with significant increases to cardiorespiratory fitness could show neuro-protective changes to delay AD. This study will explore if functional connectivity changes in the DMN can be seen in a young adult sample by using group independent component analysis through FSL MELODIC. The young adult sample of 19 were selected from a larger study at the Brain Plasticity and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Boston University. The participants engaged in a twelve-week exercise intervention in either a strength training or aerobic training group. They also completed pre-intervention and post-intervention resting-state fMRI scans to evaluate change in functional connectivity in the default mode network. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed using a modified Balke protocol with pre-intervention and post-intervention VO2 max percentiles being used. Through two repeated-measure ANOVA analyses, this study found no significant increase in mean functional connectivity or cardiorespiratory fitness in the young adult sample. While improvements in mean VO2 max percentile and functional connectivity would have been seen with a larger sample size, this study adds to the literature by suggesting if fitness does not improve significantly, neither will functional connectivity in the default mode network.

xvi, 436 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This study examined the cultural political economic significance of the physical "brick and mortar" independent record store in the digital era. The research was built upon two critical frameworks -- the political economy of communication and critical cultural studies. The political economy of communication situated the independent record store within the dominant music industry, and was concerned with the corporate structuring and standardization of music culture. The study analyzed the extreme market concentration involving the "big four" major record labels (in terms of vertical and horizontal integration, diversification and product synergy), their interconnectedness to the major corporate music retailers, and the implications for the manufacturing of popular musical artists. The independent record store (to varying degrees) counters these tendencies by offering greater cultural diversity in terms of "independent," local, used and obscure music. However, the independent record store is influenced by the policies and practices of the major label system, distribution channels, big box chain retailers, and on-line commerce. The study examined the dominant industry policies and practices, including buying (centralized versus localized), music as a loss leader, co-op advertising, retail "payola," retail censorship, and the overall range of musical diversity, vis-à-vis the practices and semi-autonomous nature of the independent record store. This project was equally invested in the cultural aspects of the independent record store in terms of communities and scenes. Various subcultures gather and connect with each other at independent record stores, where anti-corporate and counter-hegemonic narratives circulate, and individuals learn about the depths of musical history and culture. This project explored the physical atmosphere and vernacular culture associated with the stores, as well as the cultural significance of vinyl record collecting. However, these cultural attributes are framed in terms of the harvesting of commodification, where the perception of "independence" is rendered problematic in terms of the economic realities associated with the logic of capital. The primary ethnographic field sites for this study included the House of Records in Eugene, Oregon; Music Millennium in Portland, Oregon; and Amoeba Music in San Francisco, California. Numerous specialty independent record stores within these geographic areas were also included in the study. / Committee in charge: Janet Wasko, Chairperson, Journalism and Communication; Carl Bybee, Member, Journalism and Communication; Leslie Steeves, Member, Journalism and Communication; Julianne Newton, Member, Journalism and Communication; Douglas Blandy, Outside Member, Arts and Administration

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Ricardo Suyama / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia da Informação, 2017. / O metodo estatistico de Independent Component Analysis (ICA) e um dos mais amplamente utilizados para solucionar o problema de Blind Source Separation (BSS) que, junto a outros metodos de processamento de sinais, sao colocados a prova com o aumento do numero das fontes de sinais e amostras disponiveis para processamento, e sao a base de aplicacoes com requisitos de desempenho cada vez maiores. O objetivo deste trabalho e realizar o estudo do metodo ICA e analise dos algoritmos FastICA e Joint Approximate Diagonalization of Eigen-matrices (JADE) implementados em Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) e seu comportamento quando variamos o numero de amostras das misturas e os numeros de iteracoes ou updates. Outros trabalhos de pesquisa ja foram realizados com o objetivo de demonstrar a viabilidade da implementacao de tais algoritmos em FPGA, mas pouco apresentam sobre o metodo utilizado para definir detalhes de implementacao como numero de amostradas utilizados, a razao da representacao numerica escolhida e sobre o thoughtput alcancado. A analise que este trabalho propos realizar, num primeiro momento, passa por demonstrar o comportamento do core dos algoritmos quando implementados utilizando diferentes representacoes numericas de ponto flutuante com precisao simples (32 bits) e ponto fixo com diferentes numeros de amostras e fontes a serem estimadas, por meio de simulacoes. Foi verificada a viabilidade desses serem utilizados para atender aplicacoes que precisam resolver o problema de BSS com boa acuracia, quando comparados com implementacoes dos mesmos algoritmos que se utilizaram de uma representacao numerica de ponto flutuante com precisao dupla (64 bits). Utilizando o Simulink R¿e a biblioteca DSP Builder R¿da Altera R¿para implementar os modelos de cada algoritmo, foi possivel analisar outros aspectos importantes, em busca de demonstrar a possibilidade da utilizacao de tais implementacoes em aplicacoes com requisitos de tempo real, que necessitam de alto desempenho, utilizando FPGA de baixo custo, como: a quantidade de recursos de FPGA necessarios na implementacao de cada algoritmo, principalmente buscando minimizar a utilizacao de blocos DSP, a latencia, e maximizar o throughput de processamento. / Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is one of the most widely used statistical method to solve the problem of Blind Source Separation (BSS), which, along with other signal processing methods, faces new challenges with the increasing the number of signal sources and samples available for processing, being the base of applications with increasing performance requirements. The aim of this work is to study the FastICA and the Joint Approximate Diagonalization of Eigen-matrices (JADE) algorithms and implement them in Field- Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Other researches have already been carried out with the objective of demonstrating the feasibility of implementing such algorithms in FPGA, but they present little about the methodology used and implementation details such as the number of samples used, why the numerical representation was chosen and the obtained thoughtput. The analysis carried out in this work demonstrates the behavior of the core of the algorithms when implemented using different representations, such as singleprecision floating-point (32 bits) and fixed point with different numbers of samples and sources to be estimated. It was verified these immplementations are able to solve the BSS problem with good accuracy when compared with implementations of the same algorithms that exmploy a double-precision floating-point representation (64 bits). Using the Simulink R¿ and Alterafs R¿ DSP Builder R¿ library to implement the models of each algorithm, it was possible to analyze other important aspects, in order to demonstrate the possibility of using such implementations in applications with real-time requirements that require high performance, using low cost FPGA, such as: the necessary FPGA resources in the implementation of each algorithm, mainly seeking to minimize the use of DSP blocks, latency, and to maximize the processing throughput.