Um dos motivos para o crescente desenvolvimento da área de mineração de dados encontra-se no aumento da quantidade de documentos gerados e armazenados em formato digital, estruturados ou não. A Web contribui sobremaneira para este contexto e, de forma coerente com esta situação, observa-se o surgimento de técnicas específicas para utilização nesta área, como a mineração de estrutura, de conteúdo e de uso. Pode-se afirmar que esta crescente oferta de informação na Web cria o problema da sobrecarga cognitiva. A Hipermídia Adaptativa permite minorar este problema, com a adaptação de hiperdocumentos e hipermídia aos seus usuários segundo suas necessidades, preferências e objetivos. De forma resumida, esta adaptação é realizada relacionando-se informações sobre o domínio da aplicação com informações sobre o perfil de usuários. Um dos tópicos importantes de pesquisa em sistemas de Hipermídia Adaptativa encontra-se na geração e manutenção do perfil dos usuários. Dentre as abordagens conhecidas, existe um contínuo de opções, variando desde cadastros de informações preenchidos manualmente, entrevistas, até a aquisição automática de informações com acompanhamento do uso da Web. Outro ponto fundamental de pesquisa nesta área está ligado à construção das aplicações, sendo que recursos da Web Semântica, como ontologias de domínio ou anotações semânticas de conteúdo podem ser observados no desenvolvimento de sistemas de Hipermídia Adaptativa. Os principais motivos para tal podem ser associados com a inerente flexibilidade, capacidade de compartilhamento e possibilidades de extensão destes recursos. Este trabalho descreve uma arquitetura para a aquisição automática de perfis de classes de usuários, a partir da mineração do uso da Web e da aplicação de ontologias de domínio. O objetivo principal é a integração de informações semânticas, obtidas em uma ontologia de domínio descrevendo o site Web em questão, com as informações de acompanhamento do uso obtidas pela manipulação dos dados de sessões de usuários. Desta forma é possível identificar mais precisamente os interesses e necessidades de um usuário típico. Integra o trabalho a implementação de aplicação de Hipermídia Adaptativa a partir de conceitos de modelagem semântica de aplicações, com a utilização de recursos de serviços Web, para validação experimental da proposta. / One of the reasons for the increasing development observed in Data Mining area is the raising in the quantity of documents generated and stored in digital format, structured or not. The Web plays central role in this context and some specific techniques can be observed, as structure, content and usage mining. This increasing information offer in the Web brings the cognitive overload problem. The Adaptive Hypermedia permits a reduction of this problem, when the contents of selected documents are presented in accordance with the user needs, preferences and objectives. Briefly put, this adaptation is carried out on the basis of relationship between information concerning the application domain and information concerning the user profile. One of the important points in Adaptive Hypermedia systems research is to be found in the generation and maintenance of the user profiles. Some approaches seek to create the user profile from data obtained from registration, others incorporate the results of interviews, and some have the objective of automatic acquisition of information by following the usage. Another fundamental research point is related with the applications construction, where can be observed the use of Web semantic resources, such as semantic annotation and domain ontologies. This work describes the architecture for automatic user profile acquisition, using domain ontologies and Web usage mining. The main objective is the integration of usage data, obtained from user sessions, with semantic description, obtained from a domain ontology. This way it is possible to identify more precisely the interests and needs of a typical user. The implementation of an Adaptive Hypermedia application based on the concepts of semantic application modeling and the use of Web services resources that were integrated into the proposal permitted greater flexibility and experimentation possibilities.

Kinyarwanda, like many other languages in contact, has adapted foreign words to meet the needs of its daily life vocabulary and activity. In addition to the lexical need filling, Kinyarwanda borrowed foreign words not only out of need for foreign words but also for prestige. This thesis is based on two hypotheses: Kinyarwanda has borrowed foreign words out of need in various areas; loanwords have been allocated to Kinyarwanda noun class system. This work has discussed and analysed how French and English loanwords have been allocated to key areas of influence and the nominal class system of Kinyarwanda. The data were collected from various sources, including publications, conversation, newspapers, Bible literature, school text books, commercial posters, hoardings. The study has analysed loanwords from French/English deceptive cognates in a bilingual context. This is a challenging task for other researchers who will have to deal with the complexity of deceptive cognate loanwords. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

This study uses a predominantly quantitative approach to explore the effect of different error correction feedback mechanisms on students’ English as a Second Language writing (narrative and descriptive) amongst high school students in Botswana. A longitudinal, quasi-experimental design is used, with a control group that received no correction feedback while the experimental groups received direct, coded and uncoded feedback. Three hypotheses define the study in terms of fluency, correction success and accuracy development over time. No significant increases in fluency were found between the pretests and posttests. Correction success achieved by the three treatment groups when rewriting texts reflected the explicitness of the feedback, with the direct group highest, followed by the coded and uncoded groups. Findings were mixed on the important issue of accuracy development, although they strongly suggest that for spelling, any type of feedback is significantly better than none and that coded feedback is better than direct feedback despite the latter being more explicit. Students from all the treatment groups expressed similarly positive opinions on correction feedback. / Applied Language / M.A. (Spec. in Applied Linguistics)

In higher education institutions, virtual learning systems (VLSs) have been adopted, and are becoming increasingly popular among educators. However, despite this ubiquity of VLS use, there has not been widespread change in pedagogic practice to take advantage of the functionality afforded by VLSs. Knowledge of the actual usage of e-learning systems is limited in terms of what specific feature sets are deemed useful, and how this influences system usage. VLSs have a suite of tools with associated functions/features and properties, as well as non-functional system characteristics. In addition, these systems incorporate pedagogic features to cater for online teaching. Educators in higher education, who are the chief agents of e-learning, are confounded by system-related, pedagogic, organisational, user difference and demographic factors that influence VLS usage. Virtual learning system usage involves system feature usage extent and frequency, total system usage and usage clusters. The aim of this study is to develop a model representing the factors that influence usage of VLSs in higher education. The links between system usage and system-related factors, pedagogic factors, organisational factors, user-difference and demographic factors is researched. This research incorporated a literature study, a pilot study, interviews and surveys. A case study research strategy was combined with a mixed methods research design. The results of the qualitative analysis was triangulated with the findings of the quantitative analysis and compared to the findings of the literature study. The study was conducted at two residential higher education institutions (HEI), namely, University of KwaZulu-Natal and Durban University of Technology. The main contribution of this study is the Virtual Learning System Usage Model (VLSUM) representing the factors that influence VLS usage in residential higher education institutions. The proposed VLSUM is based on the empirical results of this study. VLSUM can be used by managers of educational technology departments and instructional designers to implement interventions to optimize usage. The constructs of VLSUM confirmed existing theories, replicated and synthesised theories from different fields, and extended existing models to produce a new model for understanding the factors that influence VLS usage in higher education. / Computing / D. LITT. et. Phil. (Information Systems)

Volvo Group Trucks Technology has found a need for a new way to present the battery status and electricity consumption of their on-board batteries in combustion engine trucks. Many battery related issues the drivers are facing could be prevented if a tool was developed that could assist with energy planning in an intuitive way. In many cases, the climate control system will constitute the bulk of the energy supplied by the battery. In addition, the climate system energy demand is dependent on both user settings and factors beyond the driver’s control. This work describes the process of developing a grey-box Simulink model able to predict the battery charge depletion rate based on signals already sampled by many Volvo truck versions. The resulting model is able to estimate the time remaining until the battery state of charge (SOC) is getting close to the crankability (starting engine) limit or risks causing battery damage. The settings of the climate system are shown to have great impact on the battery charge depletion rate. Predicting the time until the battery will reach a critical limit, and adjusting the climate system settings accordingly, can make the difference between the battery charge lasting overnight or not. A way to implement additional influences, such as sunlight, are discussed and recommendations are given.

Dado o uso crescente de tecnologias não autorizadas e não suportadas pelo departamento de TI nas organizações, chamadas de Shadow IT, o papel da TI e a forma tradicional de gerenciar tecnologia estão mudando dentro das organizações. Shadow IT refere-se ao uso de tecnologias utilizadas pelos funcionários sem a autorização ou o suporte formal da TI para realizar as tarefas de trabalho. Motivada por este contexto, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo verificar os fatores antecedentes ao comportamento de uso da Shadow IT e a relação deste comportamento com o desempenho individual dos usuários de TI. Para alcançar tal objetivo, foi realizada uma pesquisa survey com 286 usuários de TI da área administrativa. Estes usuários são funcionários de três diferentes empresas: um órgão público, uma empresa de educação profissional e uma cooperativa de crédito, as quais compõe a amostra. Esta pesquisa obteve como resultados que os fatores Experiência do Usuário, Utilidade Percebida e Influência Social têm relação positiva significante com o uso da Shadow IT, bem como o uso da Shadow IT tem relação positiva significante com o desempenho individual do usuário de TI. Este trabalho traz implicações teóricas e práticas. Para a teoria, esta pesquisa ampliou o conhecimento sobre o uso da Shadow IT a nível individual. Ademais, um instrumento para medir o comportamento de uso da Shadow IT foi desenvolvido, o qual pode ser aplicado nas organizações para conhecer o comportamento do usuário de TI com relação ao uso destas tecnologias. A partir do conhecimento dos antecedentes do comportamento de uso da Shadow IT e qual é a sua relação com o desempenho individual do usuário de TI, os gestores podem elaborar políticas de gestão que reduzam os riscos associados a esse fenômeno, bem como potencializar os seus benefícios. / Given the increasing use of unauthorized technologies by employees in organizations, called Shadow IT, the traditional way to manage technology is changing. Shadow IT is the use of an unauthorized technology by employees, changing, thus, the role of IT is changing within organizations. Motivated by this context, this research aims to verify the antecedents factors behind Shadow IT usage behavior and the relationship of this behavior with the individual performance of IT users. To reach this goal, we performed a survey research with 286 IT users of from the administrative area. These users are employees of three different companies: a public agency, a professional education company and a financial cooperative. As results, we found that User Experience, Perceived Usefulness and Social Influence has positive relationship with Shadow IT usage, as well as the use of Shadow IT has a positive relationship with the individual performance of the IT user. This research has theoretical and practical implications. To the academia, this research has extended knowledge about Shadow IT usage at individual level. Furthermore, we also has developed an instrument to measure the Shadow IT usage behavior, which can be applied to the IT users of companies in order to know their Shadow IT usage behavior. To know the antecedents of Shadow IT usage and what is its relationship with individual performance of IT user is also important to companies. Managers must know what drives users to use Shadow IT, as well as what is the outcome of this use in terms of individual performance in order to develop policies and strategies that reduce the risks associated with this phenomenon and maximize its benefits.

Egypt in the early Byzantine period was a bilingual country where Greek and Egyptian (Coptic) were used alongside each other. Historical studies as well as linguistic studies of the phonology and lexicon of early Byzantine Greek in Egypt testify to this situation. In order to describe the linguistic traces the language-contact situation left behind in individuals' linguistic output, this thesis analyses the syntax of early Byzantine Greek texts from Egypt. The primary object of interest is bilingual interference in the syntax of verbs, adverbial phrases, discourse organising devices and formulaic sections. The thesis is based on a corpus of Greek and Coptic private letters on papyrus, all of which date from the fourth to mid-seventh centuries, originate from Egypt and belong to bilingual, Greek-Coptic, papyrus archives. The data is analysed with a particular focus on three interrelated questions: (1) What kinds of deviations from the standard pattern appear and to what extent can language-internal confusion account for them? (2) How are instances of language-internal confusion and bilingual interference distributed over the selected syntactic domains? (3) Do deviations from the standard accumulate in certain letters or archives belonging to the corpus and do they correlate with additional indicators of bilingualism such as code-switching or circumstantial information about writers? In addition to answering these questions, the thesis seeks to explain the observed distributions. The results obtained from this study suggest that bilingual interference is linked to the way writers assimilated structures. In fact, there is a marked difference between deviating syntactic structures in non-formulaic and formulaic contexts. The study further suggests that bilingual interference does not affect every domain of syntax to the same degree. The degree of complexity of the syntactic structure in question as well as the degree of divergence from the corresponding Coptic structure seem to play a role.

The thesis contains transliteration of 32 moralizing exempla written in 1681 by lay monk Konstantin Fridrich Levý in monastery of Zlatá Koruna. This manuscript presents a material base for our analysis of its orthography together with another 50 already transliterated exempla. The aim of our thesis is to contribute to the research of scribal orthography used in a period after the Battle of White Mountain. Results of our iquiry were summed up in statistical charts and graphs.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-11-24Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:54:20Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 benini_sm_me_prud.pdf: 4272257 bytes, checksum: 6fc977e5e1e6b1d3e84f757fa5b02565 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / A presente pesquisa teve como objetivo a construção do conceito de áreas verdes públicas que servisse de subsídio à análise geográfica do espaço urbano, considerando os tipos de uso e ocupação do solo, índice áreas verdes públicas (IAVP) e a qualidade destes espaços. A pesquisa foi realizada a partir das seguintes etapas: discussão teórica sobre o conceito, características e importância das áreas verdes; construção de um conceito de áreas verdes públicas; na análise da evolução urbana da cidade de Tupã, considerando os loteamentos aprovados e implantados entre o período de 1929 a 2007; na identificação, quantificação e qualificação das áreas verdes públicas; na análise comparativa do índice de áreas verdes públicas (IAVP); no desenvolvimento metodológico para quantificar e avaliar as áreas verdes públicas da cidade de Tupã. Para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa qualitativa, foram adotados procedimentos metodológicos que tiveram como base lógica de investigação dividida em três fases: aberta ou exploratória, coleta de dados e análise e interpretação sistemática dos dados. A pesquisa teve os seguintes resultados: a cidade de Tupã deveria apresentar um IAVP dos loteamentos aprovado de 28,00 m²/h, entretanto, durante o processo de urbanização houve uma perda real de 16,02 m²/h desses espaços por conjunturas políticas da administração municipal; o IAVP atual da cidade é de 11,98 m²/h, todavia deste valor somente 1,75 m²/h foram urbanizados e compõem o patrimônio paisagístico da cidade com 34 jardins públicos distribuídos em 20 loteamentos; a avaliação qualitativa destas 34 áreas verdes públicas demonstrou que 60% destes espaços tiveram resultados positivos, contra 25% que foram classificados como ruins; e, no tocante ao conforto ambiental... / The objective of the present research has been the concept formation of the public green areas which can be used to analyze the urban space geographically, considering the kinds of usage and occupancy of the land, public green areas rate (IAVP – Índice de Areas Verdes Publicas) as well as their quality. The research was done following these steps: a theoretical discussion about the concept; the features and the importance of the green areas; the formation of a concept of the public green areas; the analyzes of the urban development in the city of Tupã, considering the approved and implemented lots between 1929 and 2007; the identification, quantification and qualification of the public green areas; the comparative analyzes of the public green areas rate; the methodological method to quantify and to evaluate the public green areas in the city of Tupã. In order to have this qualitative research done, methodological procedures were adopted which were based in a logic investigation divided in three phases: the open or exploratory, the data collection and their systematic interpretation. The final results of this research were: the city of Tupã should present a public green area rate of the approved lot of 28,00 m²/h; however, there was a real loss of 16,02 m²/h within these areas during the urbanization process, due to the political concurrence of city management; the actual public green area rate is 11,98 m²/h, although only 1,75 m²/h of this total were urbanized and are part of the city landscape heritage, which has 34 public parks distributed among 20 lots; the qualitative evaluation of these 34 public green areas has shown that 60% of this space had a positive result, on the other hand, 25% were classified as bad ones; and, it was verified that, related to... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:33:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-11-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:04:40Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 bovo_mc_dr_prud.pdf: 6955522 bytes, checksum: 383406aaf2c8d6c01c9ca11c4570d7c4 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / A manutenção das áreas verdes urbanas sempre foi justificada pelo seu potencial em proporcionar qualidade ambiental à população. Essas áreas interferem diretamente na qualidade de vida por meio das funções ecológico-ambiental, estética, paisagística, climática, psicológica e também recreativa que elas exercem para amenização das consequências negativas da urbanização. Neste sentido, a presente pesquisa tem por objetivo caracterizar e analisar as áreas verdes urbanas de Maringá/PR, destacando seus aspectos paisagísticos e sua infraestrutura a fim de compreender a qualidade ambiental desses espaços públicos e propor medidas que auxiliem no seu planejamento e gerenciamento. Para tanto, foram realizadas análises investigativas das 104 praças existentes em Maringá, de 09 parques urbanos e de 01 cemitério parque. Para a análise realizou-se trabalho de campo com base em dois formulários. O primeiro deles visava à avaliação qualitativa e quantitativa da vegetação e se constituiu dos seguintes itens: nome da área verde, sua localização, sua altitude, a vegetação nela existente, o porte e a densidade da vegetação, a cobertura do solo, as condições de relevo, aspectos físicos e sanitários da vegetação, tipo de ocupação das proximidades e qualidade paisagísticas das praças, dos parques e do cemitério parque. O segundo formulário teve como objetivo fazer o levantamento dos aspectos quantitativos e qualitativos dos equipamentos e estruturas existentes em cada logradouro... / The maintenance of urban green areas has always been justified by its potential to provide quality environment for people. These areas directly affect the quality of life through ecological functions, environmental, aesthetic, landscape, climate, psychological and recreational they have for alleviating the negative consequences of urbanization. Accordingly, this research aims to characterize and analyze the areas of urban green Maringá / PR, highlighting the landscape aspects and its infrastructure in order to understand the quality of the environmental public spaces and propose measures to assist in their planning and management. This way, it was investigated for analysis of existing in Maringá, 104 squares,09 parks and 01 cemetery. For the analysis it was carried out the fieldwork in two forms. The first one aimed at qualitative and quantitative assessment of vegetation and consisted of the following: name of the green area, its location, its altitude, the vegetation in that area, the size and density of vegetation, soil cover, the conditions for relief , physical and health of vegetation, type of occupation of the nearby landscape and quality of parks, the parks and the cemetery park. The second form aimed to make the lifting of quantitative and qualitative aspects of equipment and structures in each street addresses. Accordding to the results found the lack of infrastructure and lack of criteria adopted in the spatial distribution of the squares, and the neglect of the public, about the replacement of equipment and facilities to be located in squares, whichever the greater investment in the central part and in the absence periphery. As the squares of the predominant vegetation and tree trick in 49.03%, then, the squares formed by the vegetation... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)