Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este estudo tem como objetivos analisar a trama de relações e vivências entre as diversas instâncias (sujeitos, mantenedora e comunidade social ou contextual) que constituem as escolas comunitárias da Rede Sinodal de Educação (RSE), da Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil (IECLB), no Vale do Taquari, contribuir para o desenvolvimento de competências necessárias para a gestão participativa, dentro de um contexto de transformações da modernidade para a pós-modernidade. As escolas comunitárias ligadas à RSE surgiram no contexto da imigração alemã, que trouxe sua herança educacional das primeiras comunidades cristãs e do movimento da Reforma de Martim Lutero. Ao longo da história as contribuições das escolas comunitárias foram fundamentais no desenvolvimento educacional do país. Com o advento da pós-modernidade, assim como outras instituições, também elas têm sofrido um processo de secularização que afeta o modo de fazer e as relações dentro das escolas. Nesse sentido, a gestão participativa tornou-se o modelo desafiador para as instituições que desejam manter a sua continuidade em tempos de pós-modernidade em que a fragilidade das relações humanas é uma constante. Superar a prática individualista no interior da escola através do trabalho coletivo, da ampliação de espaços de participação e da co-responsabilidade dos diferentes sujeitos nas tomadas de decisão é o grande desafio da gestão atual dessas escolas. Diante de tudo isso, justifica-se a relevância do estudo no contexto do Vale do Taquari, região em que a comunitariedade e a participação, até a pouco essencial no cotidiano das pessoas devido a herança cultural, estão ameaçadas por influência das conseqüências da pós-modernidade. Deseja-se, portanto, auxiliar as escolas comunitárias da RSE do Vale do Taquari para o aperfeiçoamento da gestão escolar a partir de um processo participativo, bem como no desenvolvimento de habilidades e competências dos gestores. / This research aims at investigating the relations and experiences plots among many instances (subjects, support and social or context community) that are the community schools from Rede Sinodal de Educação (RSE), of Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil (IECLB), in Taquaris Valley. We wish to contribute to the development of competences needed to the participative management, inside a context of moderns transformations to the before modern. The community schools connected to the RSE showed up in the Germanys immigration that brought their educational inheritance from the first Christian communities and the Martin Luthers Reform movement. During the history, the community schools contributions were fundamental to the countrys educational development. With the before modern, as many other institutions, also them have suffered a centurys process that affects the way of doing and the relations inside the schools. In this way, the participative management has became a challenge model to the institutions that wish to keep their continuous in times of before modern which human relations fragile is constant. Overcoming the individualism practice inside the school through collective work, extending the participations spaces and the co-responsibility from the different subjects in the decisions is the biggest challenge from the current management of these schools. With all of these, we justify the relevance of the research in the Taquaris Valley, a region where community and the participation, until a few time so essential in peoples life due to their cultural inheritance, they are threaten by the influence of the consequences of the before modern. Therefore, we wish to assist the community schools of RSE in Taquaris Valley to improve the scholar management with a participative process, as well in the development of the skills and competences managers.

abstract: Tracking a time-varying number of targets is a challenging dynamic state estimation problem whose complexity is intensified under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or high clutter conditions. This is important, for example, when tracking multiple, closely spaced targets moving in the same direction such as a convoy of low observable vehicles moving through a forest or multiple targets moving in a crisscross pattern. The SNR in these applications is usually low as the reflected signals from the targets are weak or the noise level is very high. An effective approach for detecting and tracking a single target under low SNR conditions is the track-before-detect filter (TBDF) that uses unthresholded measurements. However, the TBDF has only been used to track a small fixed number of targets at low SNR. This work proposes a new multiple target TBDF approach to track a dynamically varying number of targets under the recursive Bayesian framework. For a given maximum number of targets, the state estimates are obtained by estimating the joint multiple target posterior probability density function under all possible target existence combinations. The estimation of the corresponding target existence combination probabilities and the target existence probabilities are also derived. A feasible sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) based implementation algorithm is proposed. The approximation accuracy of the SMC method with a reduced number of particles is improved by an efficient proposal density function that partitions the multiple target space into a single target space. The proposed multiple target TBDF method is extended to track targets in sea clutter using highly time-varying radar measurements. A generalized likelihood function for closely spaced multiple targets in compound Gaussian sea clutter is derived together with the maximum likelihood estimate of the model parameters using an iterative fixed point algorithm. The TBDF performance is improved by proposing a computationally feasible method to estimate the space-time covariance matrix of rapidly-varying sea clutter. The method applies the Kronecker product approximation to the covariance matrix and uses particle filtering to solve the resulting dynamic state space model formulation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2015

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-06-10Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:16:34Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 duarte_dj_me_jabo.pdf: 646154 bytes, checksum: 6c15911c4bb3a0a97a92a9d46a1e98e8 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Um dos mais importantes fatores que afetam negativamente o crescimento, produtividade e qualidade do produto da soja é a interferência proporcionada pelas plantas daninhas. Assim, este trabalho foi conduzido com o objetivo de estudar a evolução fitossociológica da comunidade infestante crescendo em convivência com a cultura da soja por diferentes períodos, a determinação do PAI e estudar a dominância relativa dos macronutrientes por parte das plantas daninhas e da soja para as condições experimentais. O experimento foi instalado sobre Latossolo Vermelho eutrófico típico de textura argilosa, no delineamento experimental em blocos ao acaso com doze repetições e, como tratamentos, foram avaliados os períodos de convivência desde a emergência da soja até 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 56, 70 dias do ciclo e até a colheita. A cultivar da soja foi a M-SOY 8045RR, o espaçamento de 0,45 m entre linhas e uma população de 400.000 plantas/ha. Os resultados refletiram as relações competitivas entre a cultura da soja e uma comunidade infestante em que Acanthospermum hispidum foi a população de maior importância relativa devido sua predominância numérica e na massa seca acumulada e que apresentou equilíbrio na diversidade e equitabilidade durante todo o ciclo, embora ocorresse dois grupos distintos de similaridade na evolução desta vegetação. O primeiro grupo englobou as avaliações realizadas até os 21 dias e foi caracterizado por um relativo equilíbrio numérico entre as principais populações. O segundo grupo de similaridade foi caracterizado pela ampla predominância da população de A. hispidum. A dominância relativa da soja quando comparado com a soma de todas as plantas daninhas para massa seca, nitrogênio, fósforo, cálcio e magnésio apresentou um decréscimo dos valores da soja até 35 – 42 dias e, depois a... / The weed interference is one the major factors affecting the growth, productivity a soybean grain quality. So, this research was carried out aiming to evaluate the effects of crescent weed periods, since the soybean emergence, on soybean productivity, estimate the PAI value and study the dominance of nutrients from weeds and soybean for the experimental conditions. The experiment was conducted on “Latossolo Vermelho eutrófico típico de textura argilosa” soil, and arranged in a completely randomized blocks experimental design with twelve replications. The treatments consisted in different weedy periods beginning in the soybean emergence until 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 56, 70 days and until the crop harvesting. The soybean cv. “M-SOY 8045RR”, was sowed in row spacing of 0.45m and reaching a population of 400.000 plants/ha. The weed community had the Acanthospermum hispidum as the major relative importance population, due to it numeric and biomass relevance. The community showed the similar values of diversity and equitability index through out the soybean cycle, although there was two similarity groups in the weed community evolution. The first group was composed by evaluations realized until 21 days and was characterized by the relative equilibrium involving the main populations. The second group had a clear predominance of Acanthospermum hispidum population and involved the evaluations realized at 28, 35, 42, 56, 70 days and at the soybean harvesting. The soybean dry mass, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium relative dominance was reduced until 35 – 42 days comparing to weeds. Afterwards, the crop increased those relative dominances, keeping high predominance on nutrients uptake. The sulfur relative dominance was highly predominant in soybean comparing to weeds, but it was intensively decreased between seven and 28 days, increasing it... (Complete abstract, click electronic access below)

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Civil Engineering / Sunanda Dissanayake / Lane-departure crashes are the most predominant crash type in Kansas which causes very high number of motor vehicle fatalities. Therefore, the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) has implemented several different types of countermeasures to reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities associated with lane-departure crashes. This research was conducted to estimate the safety effectiveness of commonly used lane-departure countermeasures in Kansas on all crashes and lane-departure crashes using Crash Modification Factors (CMFs). Paved shoulders, rumble strips, safety edge treatments and median cable barriers were identified as the commonly used lane-departure countermeasures on both tangent and curved road segments while chevrons and post-mounted delineators were identified as the most commonly used lane-departure countermeasures on curved road segments. This research proposes a state-of-art method of estimating CMFs using cross-sectional data for chevrons and post-mounted delineators. Furthermore, another state-of-art method is proposed in this research to estimate CMFs for safety edge treatments using before-and-after data. Considering the difficulties of finding the exact date of implementation of each countermeasure, both cross-sectional and before-and-after studies were employed to estimate the CMFs. Cross-sectional and case-control methods, which are the two major methods in cross-sectional studies were employed to estimate CMFs for paved shoulders, rumble strips, and median cable barriers. The conventional cross-sectional and case-control methods were modified when estimating CMFs for chevrons and post-mounted delineators by incorporating environmental and human behaviors in addition to geometric and traffic-related explanatory variables. The proposed method is novel and has not been used in the previous cross-sectional models available in the literature. Generalized linear regression models assuming negative binomial error structure were used to develop models for cross-sectional method to estimate CMFs while logistic regression models were used to estimate CMFs using case-control method. Results showed that incorporating environmental and human-related variables into cross-sectional models provide better model fit than in conventional cross-sectional models. To validate the developed models for cross-sectional method, mean of the residuals and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) were used. For the case-control method, Receiver Operational Characteristic (ROC) was used to evaluate the predictive power of models for a binary outcome using classification tables. However, it was seen that the case-control method is not suitable for estimating CMFs for all crashes since the range of the crash frequency is wide in each road segment. A regression-based method of estimating CMFs using before-and-after data was proposed to estimate CMFs for safety edge treatments. This method allows researchers to identify the safety effectiveness of an individual CMFs on road segments where multiple treatments have been applied at the same time. Since this method uses road geometric and traffic-related characteristics in addition to countermeasure information as the explanatory variables, the model itself would be the Safety Performance Function (SPF). Therefore, developing new SPF is not necessary. Finally, the CMFs were estimated using before-and-after Empirical Bayes method to validate the results from the regression-based method. The results of this study can be used as a decision-making tool when implementing lane-departure countermeasures on similar roadways in Kansas. Even though there are readily available CMFs from the national level studies, having more localized CMFs will be beneficial due to differences in traffic-related and geometric characteristics on different roadways.

LL.D. / This thesis critically evaluates the position of pregnant women (and women who have recently given birth) in the context of South African Labour Law and social security law, from both a comparative and a South African perspective. The fact that women fall pregnant and give birth to children, while men do not, raises issues of theoretical and practical importance in regard to equality issues. Pregnancy has historically been both the cause of and the occasion for the exclusion of many women from the workplace because of the practical difficulties many women face in reconciling the demands of paid work with family responsibilities – although there is no logical reason why women’s giving birth to children necessarily means that they should have primary responsibility for childcare. The underlying premise which underpins the subject matter of this thesis is that pregnant women are unfairly discriminated against in the workplace. While it cannot be denied that men and women are different and that the biological fact of pregnancy is a state unique to women, this “difference” has resulted in gender discrimination, and, more germane to this thesis, in pregnancy discrimination in the jurisdictions to be considered, namely, the United Kingdom, the European Union, SADC and South Africa. This thesis concentrates on various issues pertaining to pregnancy and maternity protection and emphasises the seemingly irreconcilable dichotomy between the desire to recognise and accommodate women’s unique role as child-bearers and the desire to achieve parity between the sexes in regard to conditions of employment, remuneration and general benefits. The central dilemma is whether women can be treated as equal to men in regard to opportunities, entry to the workplace and remuneration, on the one hand, and yet be treated in a special way when it concerns childbearing and childrearing, on the other. In this thesis it is argued that men and women are different and that social justice cannot therefore be achieved by equal treatment. In facing this challenge, legislatures and courts have become ensnared in the dichotomy of equality and distinction, and the question considered here is whether South Africa is fulfilling its constitutional and international obligations regarding the equal treatment, and the granting to them of equal opportunities and reasonable accommodation. This thesis develops an appropriate and relevant paradigm for pregnant women in the workplace. It identifies and highlights the existing deficiencies and lacunae in the South African legal system inherent in both labour law and social security law, and develops proposals for the possible amendment of the existing legislative framework by drawing largely on international, supranational, foreign and regional jurisdictions and by critically evaluating the current South African maternity terrain, particularly in the light of South Africa’s developing constitutional jurisprudence.

Cricket umpiring is demanding. In today’s world where so much technology is available to television viewers, they expect perfect umpiring, forgetting that what they see on their television screens is not available to the umpires standing in the middle of the field making the decisions. This study aimed to examine cricket umpires on-field decisions during the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup. Examining leg before wicket (LBW) and caught behind decisions, in particular. The researcher made use of a notational analysis program known as Umpirestat to collect the necessary data on each umpire. The umpires were examined in two groups Elite and International umpires (groupings defined by the ICC) and were compared to a base line in the form of Hawk-Eye for LBW decisions and TV replays for caught behind decisions. The umpire groups were compared to each other and then to the base line, an individual umpire comparison was then done within each grouping. The data was statistically analysed using percentages, chi squared and modelling for the Elite Umpires. For LBW decisions there was a difference of 2.02% between Elite and International umpires, showing a similarity between the two groups. The difference between Elite Umpires and Hawk-Eye was 18.83% and between International umpires and Hawk-Eye was 16.81%, showing difference between the three groups. It was found that there was a difference of 3.63% for caught behind decisions between Elite and International umpires, showing a similarity between the two groups. The difference between Elite Umpires and TV replays was 2.99% and between International umpires and TV replays there was 0.64%, showing similarities between the three groups. In conclusion, for LBW appeals there is a similarity between Elite and International umpire groupings however a difference exists between Hawk-Eye and both groupings of umpires. For the individual umpires LBW comparison the following was seen for the International umpires; no real conclusions could be drawn due to limited amounts of data collected on them. However, variances in individual performances were seen within the International umpire grouping. For Elite Umpires, it is clearly seen in the model that the umpires expected number of dismissals got closer together and almost group together at around four appeals. This indicates a strong consensus amongst umpires when dealing with four, five and six appeals during a match. This consensus is more pronounced for four and five appeals. In conclusion, for caught behind appeals there is a similarity between Elite and International umpires as well as a similarity between replays and both groups of umpires. For the individual umpires caught behind comparison the following was seen for the International umpires; as with the LBW results there was limited amount of data available for the caught behind results. Thus no real conclusions could be drawn for International umpire caught behind decisions, although when examining the percentage data, differences can be seen. For the individual umpires caught behind comparison the following was seen for the Elite Umpires, no consensus is seen between the umpires - they all appear to have different expected dismissals to one another. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Biokinetics, Sport and Leisure Sciences / unrestricted

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2018-04-05T18:54:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Lascane Neto.pdf: 1163728 bytes, checksum: a278d7e1606bb03ec2721ecc0e66e730 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-05T18:54:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Lascane Neto.pdf: 1163728 bytes, checksum: a278d7e1606bb03ec2721ecc0e66e730 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-26 / The dissertation aims at the examination of the decisions given by the Supremo Tribunal Federal that allowed the beginning of the prison penalty involving deprivation of liberty just after the decision of second instance instead of after the final judgment of the criminal case, according to the fifth article, item LVII, of the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988 -, moderating, in this form, the extension of the constitutional presumption of innocence, to the extent that as the provision textually in the norm consecrating the presumption of innocence doesn’t admit this abbreviation of the cessation of the state of innocent and consequently the arrest of person who does not have against him a finally decision. / A dissertação visa ao exame das decisões prolatadas pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal que permitiram o cumprimento da pena segregativa da liberdade a partir da decisão de 2ª instância, e não mais a partir da sentença penal transitada em julgado, conforme dispõe o artigo 5º, inciso LVII, da Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988 - CR/88 -, mitigando, dessa forma, a extensão do princípio constitucional da presunção de inocência e promovendo uma mutação inconstitucional na medida em que o disposto textualmente na norma consagradora da presunção de inocência não admite esse abreviamento da cessação do estado de inocente e, consequentemente, o encarceramento de pessoa que não tem contra si uma decisão condenatória transitada em julgado.

Financial arbitrator This diploma thesis focuses on the institute of financial arbitrator, both from a theoretical point of view, i.e. on the institute of financial arbitrator in the sense of legislation, the meaning of its introduction and issues of proceedings before a financial arbitrator, and from a practical point of view, i.e. on decision-making in individual types of proceedings, whether it is the most widespread agenda of the financial arbitrator, which are disputes over consumer loans, as well as disputes such as loans and similar financial services. Its aim is to comprehensively describe the issue of proceedings before the financial arbitrator and the means used by the financial arbitrator in these proceedings, but the aim is also to point out the individual proceedings, resolving disputes under a specific legal title. Author has set himself the goal of dealing with both the person of the financial arbitrator and the proceedings before the financial arbitrator, but the aim of this work is also to try to bring the decision-making practice of the financial arbitrator closer to the general public. Author set himself the goal not only to describe the institute of financial arbitrator from a professional point of view and to deal with some legally more complex issues, but also the second goal,...

In traditional EFL classrooms, teachers often tend to relay on textbooks where the reading material is a text usually followed by reading activities. Consequently, this material does not really provide students with the reading strategies necessary to become succesful readers. Successful readers should posess the ability to apply appropriate kinds of reading and reading strategies and to do that the teacher needs to provide the students with the right teaching material. Therefore, this degree project analyses three EFL textbooks for upper secondary school in the Swedish context, namely Context 2, Pick & Mix 2 and Viewponts 2. The present study explores if the reading activities in the textbooks provide learners with the opportunity to develop their reading skills by including different kinds of reading and reading strategies. Moreover, the researchers use a qualitative content analysis and criteria to conduct their study. The results reveal that the textbooks do consist of reading activities which allow for different kinds of reading. Two of the textbooks analysed, Pick & Mix 2 and Context 2, entail activities which require the readers to be able to use the majority of different kinds of reading. One textbook, however, shows lack of activities that allow learners to train their skimming ability. Finally, the textbooks do not provide learners with sufficient reading activities that include the three processes: before-, during- and after- reading.

Soil fauna provides processes of crucial importance for ecosystem functions, but our ability to observe their actions often depend on destructive methods where the integrity of the studied environment (the soil) is compromised. In this study, I develop and test a new generation of environmental monitoring tools that utilize vibrations made by soil macrofauna to inform about their performance and health. Three hypotheses were tested on forest ants (Formica sp.): (i) vibrations on a naturally occurring substrate can be used to measure the activity of ants, (ii) the vibrational signature of ants can inform us about the ants’ health, and (iii) behavior (locomotory activity, foraging etc.) of ants is correlated to specific vibrational signal characteristics. Vibrational signals from ant sub-populations (5 individuals/sample) were recorded on natural substrates (leaves) before and after exposure to sub-lethal levels of a contaminant with known negative effects on ants (imidacloprid). Activity was successfully detected from the inferred vibration oscillograms. However, neither the number of vibrational signals captured, or the signal characteristics changed after imidacloprid exposure, indicating that either the exposure was too low to generate a change in behavior or that the technique was unable to detect subtle changes in behavior. Signals of short duration and amplitude were generated by locomotory activity, but their intensity was dependent on the distance to the vibrometers laser focus point. Longer signal segments were either continuous, random, or rhythmic in their distribution. I suggest that these signals are a result of methodological artifacts, movement of multiple ants, and stridulation/drumming on the substrate, respectively. My findings suggest that this advanced monitoring tool is sensitive enough to capture activity from only a few ants, but the characteristics and number of captured signals are strongly affected by the measured substrate