In this paper we have introduced a concept of analyzing the performance of dynamic network organization (NO) in response to multiple input objectives of network organization (NO) and input set of unpredictable external environment, and we have correlated plasticity of NO with this performance measure. A three stage conceptual model of the process has been described which comprised of dynamic system of multi-agent network, multiple objectives and input goals of network driver (S n), unpredictable external environment (ϵ). Dynamic system of the network organization takes through its two phase and processes this based on time and system response variables. Processing of input information by the system variables gives a ratio of system response variable and input. Further analysis is based on the value of this performance values. This model suggests a performance measuring technique which takes an input set of objectives from network driver of the NO, a set of input from external environment (ϵ) state and processes this input based on the existing state of the dynamic system in the NO. This process output shows dynamic system performance in dynamic environment and how this performance coefficient correlates with the Plasticity of network organization. We have presented several examples, mathematical models and graph by analyzing true scenarios on UAV patrolling zone.

Cette thèse s'intéresse a l'apprentissage du comportement des avions dans le ciel. À partir de ces comportements l'objectif est de pouvoir générer du trafic aérien de manière autonome, légère et flexible pour alimenter une simulation. Les méthodes actuelles de simulation aériennes demandent beaucoup de préparation avant la simulation pour concevoir le scénario et d'interventions humaines pendant la simulation pour que le trafic aérien soit réaliste. Générer du trafic est une tâche complexe car le comportement des avions dépend de beaucoup de variables et des décisions de plusieurs d'acteurs : le contrôleur aérien décide de la trajectoire à suivre parmi toutes les possibilités qu'il perçoit, puis le pilote réagit plus ou moins rapidement de façon plus ou moins strict. Un système multi-agent adaptatif observe des trajectoires d'avions réelles pour apprendre comment les avions se comportent dans la réalité. Les différents agents impliquées coopèrent et modifient les liens qui les relient. Ce réseau entre les agents fini par représenter le comportement global de l'ensemble des avions et peut être interrogé par des agents avions en simulation pour savoir ce qu'ils doivent faire en fonction de leur situation courante. Nous présentons EVAA (Environnement Virtuel Auto-Adaptatif) capable d'apprendre le comportement des avions et de générer du trafic en fonction de ces comportements de manière totalement autonome. / This thesis is about learning the behavior of the aircrafts in the sky. With those behaviors the goal is to generate traffic in an autonomous and flexible way into a simulation. The current methods of air traffic simulation need to prepare the scenario before the simulation and the interventions of humans during the simulation to make the traffic realistic. Traffic generation is a complex task because the behaviors of the planes depends on many variables and several actors : the air traffic controller decide what trajectory to follow among many possibilities, then the pilot react , more or less promptly, to this order in a, more or less rigorous, way. An adaptive multi-agent system monitors trajectories of real aircrafts to learn how the planes behave in the real sky. The agents involved in this process cooperate and update the links between them to create a network representing the global behavior of all aircrafts. This network can then be queried by an aircraft agent in a simulation to know what it should do according to its current situation. We present EVAA (Self-Adaptive Virtual Environment) able to learn the behavior of aircrafts and to generate air traffic by using those behaviors in a autonomous way.

Este trabalho trata da relação entre competição, estrutura e agência nas Relações Internacionais. Ele se estrutura em três partes. A primeira parte contextualiza o estudo na agenda de pesquisa dos Estudos Estratégicos Internacionais. Para tanto, discute-se a pertinência do debate agente–estrutura, bem como delimitam-se os pressupostos ontológicos que nortearão o restante do trabalho. A segunda parte é o artigo. Analisam-se os efeitos da competição no processo de evolução dos sistemas políticos internacionais, sistemas políticos nacionais e estados. Por conta disso, discute-se a ontologia de cada objeto de análise e, em seguida, busca-se os mecanismos causais que conectam suas respectivas trajetórias evolutivas. De acordo com os atores e meios envolvidos, três dimensões de competição social são identificadas: competição internacional; construção do estado; e concorrência regulada. A hipótese de trabalho é que os resultados das interações entre as estratégias escolhidas pelos agentes para enfrentar o tipo de competição com que se deparam causam mudanças na estrutura dos sistemas políticos internacionais, nacionais e nas características das organizações políticas estatais. Na terceira parte, discute-se as implicações teóricas e práticas decorrentes do trabalho, bem como são assinaladas perspectivas para a continuação da agenda de pesquisa. Sugere-se que a incorporação de conceitos e categorias desenvolvidas pela literatura de Teoria de Sistemas e da Complexidade é fundamental para a superação de dicotomias ontológicas e epistemológicas nas ciências sociais. Ademais, argumenta-se que o aperfeiçoamento das organizações políticas é indissociável da compreensão de que a busca por defesa e segurança pelos estados não é apenas uma força destruidora, mas também pode produzir efeitos que potencializam a coesão social e expandem direitos fundamentais. Logo, propõe-se que a agenda de pesquisa decorrente desse trabalho deverá se debruçar sobre a questão de quais são as condições em que interações competitivas contribuem para o surgimento de organizações políticas capazes de sobreviverem e atuarem no sistema político internacional contemporâneo, bem como proverem segurança, bem-estar e direitos políticos para seus cidadãos. / This paper deals with the relationship among competition, structure and agency in International Relations. The study is structured in three parts. The first part contextualizes the work in the research agenda of the International Strategic Studies. Therefore, we discuss the relevance of the agent-structure debate, and delimit the ontological assumptions and that will guide the rest of the study. The second part is the article. It analyzes the effects of competition in the process of evolution of international political systems, national political systems and states. On that account, discusses the ontology of each object of analysis, and then seeks the causal mechanisms that connect their evolutionary trajectories. According to the actors and means involved three dimensions of social competition are identified: international competition; construction of state; and regulated competition. The working hypothesis is that the results of the interactions among the strategies chosen by agents to cope with the kind of competition they encounter cause changes in the structure of international political systems, national political systems and in the characteristics of the state political organizations. In the third part, it is discussed theoretical and practical implications resulting from study, and also prospects for the continuation of the research agenda. It is suggested that the incorporation of concepts and categories developed by Systems and Complexity Theory is fundamental to overcoming ontological and epistemological dichotomies in the social sciences. Moreover, it is argued that the improvement of our political organizations is inseparable from the understanding that the search for security and defense by states is not only a destructive force, but can also produce effects that enhance social cohesion and expansion of fundamental rights. Therefore, it is proposed that the research agenda derived from the study should lean over the question of what are the conditions under which competitive interactions contribute to the emergence of political organizations able not only to survive and act in the contemporary international political system, but also provide security, welfare, and political rights to its citizens.

Human language is both a cognitive and a cultural phenomenon. Any evolutionary account of language, then, must address both biological and cultural evolution. In this thesis, I give a mainly cultural evolutionary answer to two main questions: firstly, how do working systems of learned communication arise in populations in the absence of external or internal guidance? Secondly, how do those communication systems take on the fundamental structural properties found in human languages, i.e. systematicity at both a meaningless and meaningful level? A large, multi-disciplinary literature exists for each question, full of apparently conflicting results and analyses. My aim in this thesis is to survey this work, so as to find any commonalities and bring this together in order to provide a minimal account of the cultural evolution of language. The first chapter of this thesis takes a number of well-established models of the emergence of signalling systems. These are taken from several different fields: evolutionary linguistics, evolutionary game theory, philosophy, artificial life, and cognitive science. By using a common framework to directly compare these models, I show that three underlying commonalities determine the ability of any population of agents to reliably develop optimal signalling. The three requirements are that i) agents can create and transfer referential information, ii) there is a systemic bias against ambiguity, and iii) some mechanism leading to information loss exists. Following this, I extend the model to determine the effects of including referential uncertainty. I show that, for the group of models to which this applies, this places certain extra restrictions on the three requirements stated above. In the next chapter, I use an information-theoretic framework to construct a novel analysis of signalling games in general, and rephrase the three requirements in more formal terms. I then show that we can use these 3 criteria as a diagnostic for determining whether any given signalling game will lead to optimal signalling, without the requirement for repeated simulations. In the final, much longer, chapter, I address the topic of duality of patterning. This involves a lengthy review of the literature on duality of patterning, combinatoriality, and compositionality. I then argue that both levels of systematicity can be seen as a functional adaptation which maintains communicative accuracy in the face of noisy processes at different levels of analysis. I support this with results from a new, minimally-specified model, which also clarifies and informs a number of long-fought debates within the field.

A inexistência de uma regra única que discipline a prevalência de norma constitucional federal sobre norma constitucional estadual, e vice-versa, no sistema federativo brasileiro, é tratada aqui enfocando tão somente os vínculos que dizem respeito aos agentes públicos. Embora as normas constitucionais federais devessem, em princípio, aterem-se à estrutura estatal, à divisão de competências e prerrogativas dos poderes, e às garantias individuais e sociais, os constituintes brasileiros preocuparam-se em regular matérias que recebem o status de constitucionais porque foram guindadas a tanto, seja pela força dos fatos sociais ou, até mesmo, por mero fisiologismo. Nesse terreno, mais próprio da legislação comum, é que está o epicentro das Emendas Constitucionais que têm reflexos nas Constituições Estaduais e em toda a legislação. Cuida-se aqui deste fenômeno e das suas conseqüências nas normas que regulam a Administração Pública e seus agentes. / The fact that there is not an unique rule about the predominance of the precept of the Federal Constitution over the State Constitution and vice versa in the brazilian federative system, is here treated focusing only the public agents relations. Although the federal constitutional rules should mainly deal with State structure, competence division and prerogatives, as well as individual and social garanties, brazilian constituent worried about themes that received the status of constitutional norms because they were turned to it, either by the social facts force, either by pure physiologism. In this field, peculiar to ordinary law, is situated the epicenter of the constitutional amendment that reflects in the State Constitutions and in all the ordinary law. Here this phenomenon is treated as well as its consequences in the laws that regulate Public Administration and its agents.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-04-25Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:19:28Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 ferreira_vm_me_botfm.pdf: 2052087 bytes, checksum: cae344bb559b3635f36496a11baca629 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O Agente Comunitário de Saúde (ACS), considerado protagonista do atual cenário de reorganização da atenção primária à saúde no Brasil, é o elemento de integração entre as equipes e a comunidade onde reside. O envelhecimento populacional faz com que saber entender e relacionar-se com os idosos se torne um desafio para esse personagem na boa execução de suas funções. Assim, é fundamental sabermos o que os ACS pensam e conhecem sobre o idoso e sobre o envelhecimento. Nosso estudo tem os objetivos de descrever e analisar o perfil sociodemográfico, a experiência de convivência e trabalho com idosos, as atitudes em relação à velhice e os conhecimentos que os ACS de Marília-SP têm sobre o envelhecimento. Foi realizado um estudo transversal, de caráter descritivo onde se entrevistaram os 213 agentes comunitários das 12 Unidades Básicas de Saúde (UBS) e 29 Unidades de Saúde da Família (USF) de Marília. Os dados foram coletados através de um questionário sociodemográfico e dois instrumentos: uma escala de atitudes em relação à velhice e um questionário para avaliar conhecimentos gerontológicos. Os resultados mostraram que o quadro de ACS de Marília é formado predominantemente por adultos jovens, do sexo feminino, casados, com mais de 12 anos de escolaridade e inseridos nesta atividade há mais de 6 anos. Verificamos que a maioria dos profissionais relatou experiência com grupo de idosos e convivência intra-domiciliar com pessoas desta faixa etária, porém menos da metade referiu capacitação no tema “envelhecimento”. Comparando UBS e USF, nas primeiras, onde a população idosa é maior, os ACS são de faixa etária mais alta, têm mais tempo de trabalho, maior convivência intra-domiciliar com idosos, mais experiência com grupos de idosos e referem mais capacitação em envelhecimento. Quanto às atitudes em relação à velhice, as avaliações... / Community Health Agents (CHAs), considered to be protagonists in the present scenario of primary health care reorganization in Brazil, are the elements of integration between the teams and the community where they reside. Population ageing makes knowing, understanding and relating to the elderly a challenge to these players in the performance of their duties. Hence, it is fundamental to know what CHAs think and know about the elderly and ageing. Our study aimed at describing and analyzing the socio-demographic profile of CHAs, their experience of being and working with the elderly, their attitudes in relation to old age and the knowledge that CHAs from Marília-SP have about ageing. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in which the 213 community agents from the 12 primary care units (UBS) and the 29 Family Health Units (UFS) in Marília were interviewed. Data were collected by means of a socio-demographic questionnaire and two instruments: a scale of attitudes in relation to old age and a questionnaire to evaluate gerontological knowledge. Results showed that the team of CHAs predominantly comprises young adults who are married, have attended school for longer than 12 years and have worked in this activity for over 6 years. It was observed that most of the professionals reported to have experience with the group of elderly people as well as intradomiciliary contact with individuals at that age range. However, fewer than half of the CHAs reported to have been trained on the topic of “ageing”. By comparing UBSs and USFs, in the former, where the elderly population is larger, the CHAs are older, have been working longer, have more intradomicilary contact with the elderly and more experience with elderly groups. They also report to have been better trained on ageing. Concerning attitudes in relation to old age, the CHA’s positive evaluations occurred particularly in ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Este trabalho trata da relação entre competição, estrutura e agência nas Relações Internacionais. Ele se estrutura em três partes. A primeira parte contextualiza o estudo na agenda de pesquisa dos Estudos Estratégicos Internacionais. Para tanto, discute-se a pertinência do debate agente–estrutura, bem como delimitam-se os pressupostos ontológicos que nortearão o restante do trabalho. A segunda parte é o artigo. Analisam-se os efeitos da competição no processo de evolução dos sistemas políticos internacionais, sistemas políticos nacionais e estados. Por conta disso, discute-se a ontologia de cada objeto de análise e, em seguida, busca-se os mecanismos causais que conectam suas respectivas trajetórias evolutivas. De acordo com os atores e meios envolvidos, três dimensões de competição social são identificadas: competição internacional; construção do estado; e concorrência regulada. A hipótese de trabalho é que os resultados das interações entre as estratégias escolhidas pelos agentes para enfrentar o tipo de competição com que se deparam causam mudanças na estrutura dos sistemas políticos internacionais, nacionais e nas características das organizações políticas estatais. Na terceira parte, discute-se as implicações teóricas e práticas decorrentes do trabalho, bem como são assinaladas perspectivas para a continuação da agenda de pesquisa. Sugere-se que a incorporação de conceitos e categorias desenvolvidas pela literatura de Teoria de Sistemas e da Complexidade é fundamental para a superação de dicotomias ontológicas e epistemológicas nas ciências sociais. Ademais, argumenta-se que o aperfeiçoamento das organizações políticas é indissociável da compreensão de que a busca por defesa e segurança pelos estados não é apenas uma força destruidora, mas também pode produzir efeitos que potencializam a coesão social e expandem direitos fundamentais. Logo, propõe-se que a agenda de pesquisa decorrente desse trabalho deverá se debruçar sobre a questão de quais são as condições em que interações competitivas contribuem para o surgimento de organizações políticas capazes de sobreviverem e atuarem no sistema político internacional contemporâneo, bem como proverem segurança, bem-estar e direitos políticos para seus cidadãos. / This paper deals with the relationship among competition, structure and agency in International Relations. The study is structured in three parts. The first part contextualizes the work in the research agenda of the International Strategic Studies. Therefore, we discuss the relevance of the agent-structure debate, and delimit the ontological assumptions and that will guide the rest of the study. The second part is the article. It analyzes the effects of competition in the process of evolution of international political systems, national political systems and states. On that account, discusses the ontology of each object of analysis, and then seeks the causal mechanisms that connect their evolutionary trajectories. According to the actors and means involved three dimensions of social competition are identified: international competition; construction of state; and regulated competition. The working hypothesis is that the results of the interactions among the strategies chosen by agents to cope with the kind of competition they encounter cause changes in the structure of international political systems, national political systems and in the characteristics of the state political organizations. In the third part, it is discussed theoretical and practical implications resulting from study, and also prospects for the continuation of the research agenda. It is suggested that the incorporation of concepts and categories developed by Systems and Complexity Theory is fundamental to overcoming ontological and epistemological dichotomies in the social sciences. Moreover, it is argued that the improvement of our political organizations is inseparable from the understanding that the search for security and defense by states is not only a destructive force, but can also produce effects that enhance social cohesion and expansion of fundamental rights. Therefore, it is proposed that the research agenda derived from the study should lean over the question of what are the conditions under which competitive interactions contribute to the emergence of political organizations able not only to survive and act in the contemporary international political system, but also provide security, welfare, and political rights to its citizens.

abstract: The Hohokam of central Arizona left behind evidence of a culture markedly different from and more complex than the small communities of O'odham farmers first encountered by Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries A.D. Archaeologists have worked for well over a century to document Hohokam culture history, but much about Pre-Columbian life in the Sonoran Desert remains poorly understood. In particular, the organization of the Hohokam economy in the Phoenix Basin has been an elusive and complicated subject, despite having been the focus of much previous research. This dissertation provides an assessment of several working hypotheses regarding the organization and evolution of the pottery distribution sector of the Hohokam economy. This was accomplished using an agent-based modeling methodology known as pattern-oriented modeling. The objective of the research was to first identify a variety of economic models that may explain patterns of artifact distribution in the archaeological record. Those models were abstract representations of the real-world system theoretically drawn from different sources, including microeconomics, mathematics (network/graph theory), and economic anthropology. Next, the effort was turned toward implementing those hypotheses as agent-based models, and finally assessing whether or not any of the models were consistent with Hohokam ceramic datasets. The project's pattern-oriented modeling methodology led to the discard of several hypotheses, narrowing the range of plausible models of the organization of the Hohokam economy. The results suggest that for much of the Hohokam sequence a market-based system, perhaps structured around workshop procurement and shopkeeper merchandise, provided the means of distributing pottery from specialist producers to widely distributed consumers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results of this project are broadly consistent with earlier researchers' interpretations that the structure of the Hohokam economy evolved through time, growing more complex throughout the Preclassic, and undergoing a major reorganization resulting in a less complicated system at the transition to the Classic Period. / Dissertation/Thesis / NetLogo code, software, and model initialization data. / Ph.D. Anthropology 2013

Context. Agent based models are used to simulate complex systems by using multiple agents that follow a set of rules. One such model is the boid model which is used to simulate movements of synchronized groups of animals. Executing agent based models partially or fully on the GPU has previously shown to increase performance, opening up the possibility for larger simulations. However, few articles have previously compared a full GPU implementation of the boid model with a multi-threaded CPU implementation. Objectives. The objectives of this thesis are to find how parallel execution of boid model performs when executed on the CPU and GPU respectively, based on the variables frames per second and average boid computation time per frame. Methods. A performance benchmark experiment will be set up where three implementations of the boid model are implemented and tested. Results. The collected data is summarized in both tables and graphs, showing the result of the experiment for frames per second and average boid computation time per frame. Additionally, the average results are summarized in two tables. Conclusions. For the largest flock size the GPGPU implementation performs the best with an average FPS of 42 times over the single-core implementation while the multi-core implementation performs with an average FPS 6 times better than the single-core implementation. For the smallest flock size the single-core implementation is most efficient while the GPGPU implementation has 1.6 times slower average update time and the multi-cor eimplementation has an average update time of 11 times slower compared to the single-core implementation.

A inexistência de uma regra única que discipline a prevalência de norma constitucional federal sobre norma constitucional estadual, e vice-versa, no sistema federativo brasileiro, é tratada aqui enfocando tão somente os vínculos que dizem respeito aos agentes públicos. Embora as normas constitucionais federais devessem, em princípio, aterem-se à estrutura estatal, à divisão de competências e prerrogativas dos poderes, e às garantias individuais e sociais, os constituintes brasileiros preocuparam-se em regular matérias que recebem o status de constitucionais porque foram guindadas a tanto, seja pela força dos fatos sociais ou, até mesmo, por mero fisiologismo. Nesse terreno, mais próprio da legislação comum, é que está o epicentro das Emendas Constitucionais que têm reflexos nas Constituições Estaduais e em toda a legislação. Cuida-se aqui deste fenômeno e das suas conseqüências nas normas que regulam a Administração Pública e seus agentes. / The fact that there is not an unique rule about the predominance of the precept of the Federal Constitution over the State Constitution and vice versa in the brazilian federative system, is here treated focusing only the public agents relations. Although the federal constitutional rules should mainly deal with State structure, competence division and prerogatives, as well as individual and social garanties, brazilian constituent worried about themes that received the status of constitutional norms because they were turned to it, either by the social facts force, either by pure physiologism. In this field, peculiar to ordinary law, is situated the epicenter of the constitutional amendment that reflects in the State Constitutions and in all the ordinary law. Here this phenomenon is treated as well as its consequences in the laws that regulate Public Administration and its agents.