Esta investigação teve como objetivo principal examinar os registros dos professores do Ensino Fundamental, anos finais, e do Ensino Médio, de uma escola particular, do município de Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul, num curso de capacitação para utilizar um Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem (AVA) e relacionálas com possíveis mudanças nas práticas pedagógicas. O trabalho se propôs a realizar uma pesquisa de natureza qualitativa baseada nos dados obtidos através dos registros dos professores-alunos nos espaços do AVA. Foram convidados para serem os sujeitos na pesquisa oito professores da Educação Básica, anos finais do Ensino Fundamental e Ensino Médio. O corpus da pesquisa constituiu-se dos registros presentes nos espaços de comunicação do ambiente (fórum, lições, correio eletrônico). O desenvolvimento do curso de capacitação que serviu de cenário para constituição do corpus, foi planejado sob o ponto de vista da aprendizagem a partir da teoria vigotskiana, assim como estimular os participantes a refletirem sobre o fazer pedagógico buscando a prática pedagógica inovadora sob a visão de Moran (2007; 2008). A análise do corpus foi feita à luz de Moraes e Galiazzi (2007) com análise textual discursiva, a qual é constituída por três ciclos denominado pelos autores como: desconstrução e unitarização; processo de categorização e produção de um texto descritivo-interpretativo (metatexto). A partir da análise foi possível identificar possíveis mudanças no fazer pedagógico futuro dos professores-alunos, caracterizadas por estratégias e intervenções pedagógicas que remetem a construção de conhecimentos através da interação e colaboração entre os pares. / This study had as objective to examine the records of the teachers of Primary and final year of High School, a private school in the city of Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul, a training course to use a virtual learning environment (VLE) and relate them to possible changes in teaching practices. The study proposes to conduct a qualitative research based on data obtained through the records of studentteachers in the spaces of VLE. Were invited to be the subjects in the study were eight teachers of Basic Education, the final years of Primary and Secondary Education. The corpus consisted of records present in the space communication environment (forum, lessons, electronic mail). The development of the training course that provided the backdrop for the constitution of the corpus, was planned from the viewpoint of learning from Vigotski theory as well as encourage participants to reflect on the pedagogical seeking innovative pedagogical practice from the perspective of Moran (2007, 2008). The corpus analysis was made in light of Moraes and Galiazzi (2007) with discursive textual analysis, which consists of three cycles called by the authors as deconstruction and unitarization; categorization process and production of an interpretive-descriptive text (metatext). From the analysis it was possible to identify possible changes in pedagogical future of student-teachers, characterized by pedagogical strategies and interventions that lead to knowledge construction through interaction and collaboration among peers.

A desktop virtual reality environment of a campus area (called Silcton) was used to examine how instructing participants on performing exploration in an unfamiliar environment impacts the acquired spatial knowledge. Participants explored the Silcton virtual environment, after having received differing instructions on what to do. Two instruction conditions were tested: (i) the participant was provided with instructions to freely explore the Silcton virtual environment for at least 10 minutes (ii) the individual explored the environment while being instructed to pay specific attention to the environment’s layout. By providing different types of instructions before exploring an unfamiliar environment, we can learn more about how the instructions' wording impacts the acquired spatial knowledge, especially when aiming for a particular behavior or memory effects. We also tested for participants’ spatial abilities and observed differences between genders and based on individual differences. The present study shows no statistically significant differences in pointing and model-building scores between any of the tested groups, namely, the different instruction groups, gender, and groups with 'low' and 'high' spatial abilities. Time spent in the environment and pointing error showed a significant negative correlation, which indicates that as experience with the environment increases, participants become better at pointing to targets in the environment. The lack of significant results might be attributed to the overall small sample sizes and/or the distribution of men and women in the two instruction groups. Therefore, for future research a close monitoring of the experimental process and a larger retainment of participants are required to provide solid evidence and draw any general conclusion. / En stationär virtuell verklighetsmiljö på ett campusområde, kallad Silcton, användes för att undersöka hur instruktioner för deltagare relaterat till att utforska okänd miljö påverkar den förvärvade rumsliga kunskapen. Deltagarna utforskade Silctons virtuella miljö, efter att ha fått olika instruktioner om vad de ska göra. Två instruktionsförhållanden testades: (i) deltagaren fick instruktionen att fritt utforska Silctons virtuella miljö i minst 10 minuter (ii) deltagaren fick instruktionen att utforska miljön samtidigt som han skulle ägna särskild uppmärksamhet åt miljöns design. Genom att tillhandahålla olika typer av instruktioner innan vi utforskar en okänd miljö kan vi lära oss mer om hur instruktionernas formulering påverkar den förvärvade rumsliga kunskapen, särskilt när man siktar på ett visst beteende eller visa minneseffekter. Vi testade också för deltagarnas rumsliga förmågor och observerade skillnader mellan könen och individuella skillnader. Resultatet för studien visar inga statistiskt signifikanta skillnader i pek- och modellbyggande poäng mellan någon av de testade grupperna, nämligen de olika instruktionsgrupperna, kön och grupper med "låga" och "höga" rumsliga förmågor. Tid i miljön och pekfel visade en signifikant negativ korrelation, vilket indikerar att när erfarenheten med miljön ökar blir deltagarna bättre på att peka på mål i miljön. Bristen på signifikanta resultat kan hänföras till de övergripande små urvalsstorlekarna och/eller fördelningen av män och kvinnor i de två instruktionsgrupperna. Därför krävs för framtida forskning en noggrann övervakning av den experimentella processen och ett större antal deltagare för att tillhandahålla solida bevis och dra några allmänna slutsatser.

The aim of the thesis is conceptual design of robotic workplace with its subsequent simulation. The current workplace for manufacturing and deburring parts for automotive industry is operated manually. The plan is overall automation and replacement of operators by robots. The thesis deals with the concept of layout of elements in the cell, and the procedure of their selection or design. Process simulation is performed in the Process Simulate software from Siemens. For the purposes of the work is used RCS module, which on the basis of dynamic conditions can calculate the cycle of production very close to the reality. The production cycle is compared to the current workplace. The work also deals with the economic evaluation of the proposed workplace.

In this project, two tests were performed. On the first test, Mininet-WiFi was used to simulate a Software Defined Network to demonstrate Mininet-WiFi’ s ability to be used as the Software Defined Network emulator which can also be integrated to the existing network using a Network Virtualized Function (NVF). A typical organization’s computer network was simulated which consisted of a website hosted on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) virtual machine, and an F5 application delivery controller (ADC) which provided load balancing of requests sent to the web applications. A website page request was sent from the virtual stations inside Mininet-WiFi. The request was received by the application delivery controller, which then used round robin technique to send the request to one of the web servers on the LAMP virtual machine. The web server then returned the requested website to the requesting virtual stations using the simulated virtual network. The significance of these results is that it presents Mininet-WiFi as an emulator, which can be integrated into a real programmable networking environment offering a portable, cost effective and easily deployable testing network, which can be run on a single computer. These results are also beneficial to modern network deployments as the live network devices can also communicate with the testing environment for the data center, cloud and mobile provides. On the second test, a Software Defined Network was created in Mininet using python script. An external interface was added to enable communication with the network outside of Mininet. The amazon web services elastic computing cloud was used to host an OpenDaylight controller. This controller is used as a control plane device for the virtual switch within Mininet. In order to test the network, a webserver hosted on the Emulated Virtual Environment – Next Generation (EVENG) software is connected to Mininet. EVE-NG is the Emulated Virtual Environment for networking. It provides tools to be able to model virtual devices and interconnect them with other virtual or physical devices. The OpenDaylight controller was able to create the flows to facilitate communication between the hosts in Mininet and the webserver in the real-life network. / Electrical and Mining Engineering

Abstract in English / Mathematical modeling of the spread of infectious diseases in a population has always been recognized as a powerful tool that can help decision-makers understand how a disease evolves over time. With the evolution of science and humanity, it has become evident that Mathematical models are too simplistic and have some limitations in modeling environmental phenomena, such as the spread of epidemics in a population, when they are applied without combining them with other sciences. In understanding the dynamics of epidemics in a population, the weakness of these models is their difficulty in grasping the complexity inherent in the spread of diseases in real life because, life is supported by human interactions and behaviors that are understood through networks of social and spatial interactions. Modeling the spread of epidemics which takes this reality into account requires the implementation of new tools to refine the results already obtained by mathematical models. The aim of this thesis is to explore and attempt to extend new developments in mathematical modeling of the spread of infectious diseases by proposing new tools based on mathematical models from differential equations and agent-based models from intelligent agents derived from artificial intelligence. To achieve this objective, the study starts from a comparative study of two ways of modeling and simulation of the spread of infectious diseases in the population, namely mathematical modeling and agent-based modeling with a concrete case study of the spread of tuberculosis based on data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Then comes a coupling study of these two approaches in a single model and its implementation in a multi-scale environment. The results show that the coupled model is more realistic compared to mathematical models generally implemented in the literature. Four case studies are presented in this thesis. Mathematical modeling based on differential equations is used in the first and second cases. The third case is based on intelligent agents model while the last one is based on the coupling of mathematical models and agent-based models. Application of implemented models to the spread of tuberculosis reveals that detection of people with latent tuberculosis and their treatment are among the actions to be taken into account in addition to those currently carried out by the Congolese health system. The models assert that the current TB situation in DRC remains endemic and that the necessary measures need to be taken to reduce the burden of TB, especially to control it, through the tuberculosis elimination strategy and its elimination in the future in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals. Our hybrid model benefiting from the advantages of EBM and ABM confirms that taking the individual into account as a fully-fledged entity and managing their behavior gives the microscopic aspect of the model set up and brings it closer as much as possible to reality. Mathematical management of the spread of the disease in cities gives a macroscopic aspect to the model. Numerical simulations of this last model on a multi-scale virtual environment affirm that the mobility of individuals from city to city has a significant impact on the spread of tuberculosis in the population. Controlling the rate of population mobility from one city to another is one of the most important measures for large-scale disease control. This model therefore draws its richness from this dynamic at two different scales (two time scales modeling approaches: at the microscopic/individual level (ABM) and macroscopic/city level (ODE)), which gives the emergence of the model at the global level. As a result, it seems that the coupling of mathematical models to agent-based models should be applied when the dynamics of the complex system under consideration is at different scales. Based on our research results, it seems that the choice of an approach must depend on how the modeler would like to achieve the expected results. Mathematical models remain essential due to their analytical and synthetic aspect, but their coupling with intelligent agent-based models makes it possible to refine known results and thus reflect the reality of real life, because the resulting model integrate interactions of individuals and their heterogeneous behaviors that are necessary for understanding the spread of infectious diseases in the population that only mathematical models based on differential equations can not capture. / Mathematical Sciences / Ph D. (Applied Mathematics)

Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt sich mit den Möglichkeiten problemorientierten Lernens in kollaborativen virtuellen Umgebungen am Beispiel eines Mock-Trial-Trainings in der OpenSim-basierten Virtual Learning World auseinander. Ausgangspunkt der Auseinandersetzung stellen die Motivation des Einsatzes virtueller Trainings und grundsätzliche Handlungsangebote kollaborativer virtueller Umgebungen einschließlich ihrer Potentiale aus bildungstheoretischer Perspektive dar. Bestehende Mehrwerte und Herausforderungen beim Einsatz virtueller Trainingsumgebungen werden anschließend anhand einer empirischen Untersuchung, die im Rahmen der Entwicklung eines Mock-Trial-Trainings durchgeführt wurde, aufgezeigt und diskutiert.

[pt] Nesse trabalho, nós apresentamos novas aplicações para alguns controladores robustos, tais como as abordagens SMC e STA. O principal objetivo é conseguir executar uma navegação autônoma precisa em campos agrícolas, usando robôs móveis com rodas, equipados com uma câmera monocular fixa. Primeiro, nós projetamos uma abordagem de controle robusto baseado em servo-visão, a fim de lidar com imprecisões do modelo e perturbações da trajetória no espaço da imagem. Além disso, uma abordagem de controle robusto baseada em cascata, é aplicada, na qual, a malha de realimentação externo está conectada com uma malha de realimentação interna para lidar com os efeitos de todas as fontes de perturbação. Desse modo, uma abordagem robusta de rastreamento de trajetória, baseada em super-twisting, é aplicada para estabilização de movimento afim de garantir o sucesso da tarefa de seguir uma linha de cultivo considerando os efeitos de derrapagem das rodas e derrapagem lateral do veículo. A plataforma ROS-Gazebo, um simulador de robótica de código aberto, foi utilizada para realização de simulações computacionais 3D usando um robô móvel do tipo differentialdrive e um ambiente ad-hoc projetado para cultivo em linha. A eficácia e a viabilidade dos controladores robustos são avaliadas analisando simulações numéricas e métricas de desempenho, tais como: (i) o Erro Quadrático Médio (EQM) e (ii) o Desvio Absoluto Médio (DAM). Além disso, nós veremos nos resultados, que em geral, só é possível ter estabilidade, utilizando os controladores rosbustos. / [en] In this work, we present a new application for some robust controllers, such as SMC and STA approaches. The main idea is to perform autonomous navigation in agricultural fields accurately using wheeled mobile robots, equipped with a fixed monocular camera . Here, we consider the existence of uncertainties in the parameters of the robot-camera system and external disturbances caused by high driving velocities, sparse plants, and uneven terrains. First, we design a robust image-based visual servoing approach to deal with model inaccuracies and trajectory perturbations in the image space. In addition, a cascade-based robust control approach is applied, in which the outer vision feedback loop is connected with an inner pose feedback loop to deal with the effects of all disturbances sources. Then, a robust trajectory tracking approach based on the super-twisting algorithm is applied for motion stabilization to ensure the successful execution of row crop following tasks under wheel slippage and vehicle sideslip. ROSGazebo platform, an open-source robotics simulator, was used to perform 3D computer simulation using a differential-drive mobile robot and an adhoc designed row-crop environment. The effectiveness and feasibility of the robust controllers are evaluated by analyzing numerical simulations and performance metrics, such as: (i) the root-mean square error (RMSE) and (ii) the mean-absolute deviation (MAD). Furthermore, we will see in results, that in general, it is only possible to have stability, using robust controllers.

In recent years, the edges between reality and virtual reality have been further smudged as today’s software and hardware allows for wireless immersive experiences. In an attempt to solve locomotion as the last piece of the puzzle of perfecting immersive virtual realities, impossible spaces have been developed to support natural locomotion. This in-between subject study investigated the effects of the combination of climbing and free walking on immersion in an impossible space environment with 20 participants. Users tended to greatly underestimate the distance climbed (which contradicts a previous study), concentrate, lose track of time, describe their experience more positively and differently than the controls group. Signs of spatial, emotional, cognitive and tactical immersion were shown in aspects of concentration, time, feelings of freedom, narrative, presence, safety, mental stimulation and locomotion user strategies to name a few. Minimal cues may have been present while future studies might fully confirm and define the immersive potential of vertical locomotion in impossible spaces. / De senaste årens utveckling har fortsatt sudda ut kanterna mellan verklighet och virtuell verklighet då dagens teknik stödjer trådlösa immersiva verkligheter. I ett försök att lösa locomotion som det sista biten av pusslet för att göra virtuella verkligheter perfekta har s.k impossible spaces utvecklats för att stödja naturlig locomotion. Den här A/B-gruppsstudien undersökte effekter på immersion med kombinationen av naturlig och vertikal locomotion i en impossibel space miljö med 20 deltagare. Användare tenderade att grovt underskatta längden de klättrade (vilket motsäger en tidigare studie), koncentrera sig, tappa tidsuppfattningen, beskriva deras upplevelsen mer positivt och annorlunda än kontrollgruppen. Tecken på rumslig, emotionell, kognitiv och taktil immersion visade sig i form av koncentration, tid, känslor av frihet, narrativ, närvaro, säkerhet, mental stimulation och locomotion- användarstrategier för att nämna några. Minimala element kan ha uppnåtts medan framtida studies kan bekräfta och definiera den immersiva potentialen med vertikal locomotion i impossibel spaces till fullo.

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Object of the study - development of an environment for training an agent controlling the actions of a robotic manipulator model. Subject of the study - application of Unity ML-Agent technology for training an agent controlling the actions of a robotic manipulator model. The purpose of the work is to develop a system for training the Unity ML-Agents agent controlling the robotic manipulator model to achieve the target object. Research methods: mathematical modeling, data analysis, experimental method. The result of the master's thesis is the successful creation of a machine learning system for controlling a robotic arm in the Unity virtual environment. / Объект исследования – разработка среды для обучения агента, управляющего действиями модели робота-манипулятора. Предмет исследования – применение технологии Unity ML-Agent для обучения агента, контролирующего действия модели робота-манипулятора. Цель работы – разработка системы для обучения агента Unity ML-Agents, управляющего моделью робота-манипулятора, достижению целевого объекта. Методы исследования: математическое моделирование, анализ данных, экспериментальный метод. Результатом магистерской работы является успешное создание системы машинного обучения для управления роботом-манипулятором в виртуальной среде Unity.