The complex co-evolutionary systems approach -CCeSA - provides a well-suited framework for analysing agricultural systems, serving as a bridge between physical and socioeconomic sciences, alowing for the explaination of phenomena, and for the use of metaphors for thinking and action. By studying agricultural systems as self-generated, hierarchical, complex co-evolutionary farming systems - CCeFSs -, one can investigate the interconnections between the elements that constitute CCeFSs, along with the relationships between CCeFSs and other sytems, as a fundamental step to understanding sustainability as an emergent property of the system. CCeFSs are defined as human activity systems emerging from the purposes, gestalt, mental models, history and weltanschauung of the farm manager, and from his dynamic co-evolution with the environment while managing the resources at his hand to achieve his own multiple, conflicting, dynamic, semi-structured, and often incommensurable and conflicting purposes while performing above thresholds for failure, and enough flexibility to dynamically co-evolve with its changing biophysical and socioeconomic environment for a given future period. Fitness and flexibility are essential features of sustainable CCeFSs because they describe the systems' dynamic capacity to explore and exploit their dynamic phase space while co-evolving with it. This implies that a sustainable CCeFS is conceived as a set of dynamic, co-evolutionary processes, contrasting with the standard view of sustainability as an equilibrium or steady-state. Achieving sustainable CCeFSs is a semi-structured, constrained, multi-objective and dynamic optimisation management problem, with an intractable search space, that can be solved within CCeSA with the help of a multi-objective co-evolutionary optimisation tool. Carnico-ICSPEA2, a co-evolutionary navigator - CoEvoNav -used as a CCeSA's tool for harnessing the complexity of the CCeFS of interest and its environment towards sustainability, is introduced. The software was designed by its end-user - the farm manager and author of this thesis - as an aid for the analysis and optimisation of the San Francisco ranch, a beef cattle enterprise running on temperate pastures and fodder crops in the Central Plateau of Mexico. By combining a non-linear simulator and a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm with a deterministic and stochastic framework, the CoEvoNav imitates the co-evolutionary pattern of the CCeFS of interest. As such, the software was used by the farm manager to navigate through his CCeFS's co-evolutionary phase space towards achieving sustainability at farm level. The ultimate goal was to enhance the farm manager's decision-making process and co-evolutionary skills, through an increased understanding of his system, the co-evolutionary process between his mental models, the CCeFS, and the CoEvoNav, and the continuous discovery of new, improved sets of heuristics. An overview of the methodological, theoretical and philosophical framework of the thesis is introduced. Also, a survey of the Mexican economy, its agricultural sector, and a statistical review of the Mexican beef industry is presented. Concepts such as modern agriculture, the reductionist approach to agricultural research, models, the system's environment, sustainability, conventional and sustainable agriculture, complexity, evolution, simulators, and multi-objective optimisation tools are extensively reviewed. Issues concerning the impossibility of predicting the long-term future behaviour of CCeFSs, along with the use of simulators as decision support tools in the quest for sustainable CCeFSs are discussed. The rationale behind the simulator used for this study, along with that of the multi-objective evolutionary tools used as a makeup of Carnico-ICSPEA2 are explained. A description of the San Francisco ranch, its key on-farm sustainability indicators in the form of objective functions, constraints, and decision variables, and the semi-structured, multi-objective, dynamic, constrained management problem posed by the farm manager's planned introduction of a herd of bulls for fattening as a way to increase the fitness of his CCeFS via a better management of the system's feed surpluses and the acquisition of a new pick-up truck are described as a case study. The tested scenario and the experimental design for the simulations are presented as well. Results from using the CoEvoNav as the farm manager's extended phenotype to solve his multi-objective optimisation problem are described, along with the implications for the management and sustainability of the CCeFS. Finally, the approach and tools developed are evaluated, and the progress made in relation to methodological, theoretical, philosophical and conceptual notions is reviewed along with some future topics for research.

The complex co-evolutionary systems approach -CCeSA - provides a well-suited framework for analysing agricultural systems, serving as a bridge between physical and socioeconomic sciences, alowing for the explaination of phenomena, and for the use of metaphors for thinking and action. By studying agricultural systems as self-generated, hierarchical, complex co-evolutionary farming systems - CCeFSs -, one can investigate the interconnections between the elements that constitute CCeFSs, along with the relationships between CCeFSs and other sytems, as a fundamental step to understanding sustainability as an emergent property of the system. CCeFSs are defined as human activity systems emerging from the purposes, gestalt, mental models, history and weltanschauung of the farm manager, and from his dynamic co-evolution with the environment while managing the resources at his hand to achieve his own multiple, conflicting, dynamic, semi-structured, and often incommensurable and conflicting purposes while performing above thresholds for failure, and enough flexibility to dynamically co-evolve with its changing biophysical and socioeconomic environment for a given future period. Fitness and flexibility are essential features of sustainable CCeFSs because they describe the systems' dynamic capacity to explore and exploit their dynamic phase space while co-evolving with it. This implies that a sustainable CCeFS is conceived as a set of dynamic, co-evolutionary processes, contrasting with the standard view of sustainability as an equilibrium or steady-state. Achieving sustainable CCeFSs is a semi-structured, constrained, multi-objective and dynamic optimisation management problem, with an intractable search space, that can be solved within CCeSA with the help of a multi-objective co-evolutionary optimisation tool. Carnico-ICSPEA2, a co-evolutionary navigator - CoEvoNav -used as a CCeSA's tool for harnessing the complexity of the CCeFS of interest and its environment towards sustainability, is introduced. The software was designed by its end-user - the farm manager and author of this thesis - as an aid for the analysis and optimisation of the San Francisco ranch, a beef cattle enterprise running on temperate pastures and fodder crops in the Central Plateau of Mexico. By combining a non-linear simulator and a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm with a deterministic and stochastic framework, the CoEvoNav imitates the co-evolutionary pattern of the CCeFS of interest. As such, the software was used by the farm manager to navigate through his CCeFS's co-evolutionary phase space towards achieving sustainability at farm level. The ultimate goal was to enhance the farm manager's decision-making process and co-evolutionary skills, through an increased understanding of his system, the co-evolutionary process between his mental models, the CCeFS, and the CoEvoNav, and the continuous discovery of new, improved sets of heuristics. An overview of the methodological, theoretical and philosophical framework of the thesis is introduced. Also, a survey of the Mexican economy, its agricultural sector, and a statistical review of the Mexican beef industry is presented. Concepts such as modern agriculture, the reductionist approach to agricultural research, models, the system's environment, sustainability, conventional and sustainable agriculture, complexity, evolution, simulators, and multi-objective optimisation tools are extensively reviewed. Issues concerning the impossibility of predicting the long-term future behaviour of CCeFSs, along with the use of simulators as decision support tools in the quest for sustainable CCeFSs are discussed. The rationale behind the simulator used for this study, along with that of the multi-objective evolutionary tools used as a makeup of Carnico-ICSPEA2 are explained. A description of the San Francisco ranch, its key on-farm sustainability indicators in the form of objective functions, constraints, and decision variables, and the semi-structured, multi-objective, dynamic, constrained management problem posed by the farm manager's planned introduction of a herd of bulls for fattening as a way to increase the fitness of his CCeFS via a better management of the system's feed surpluses and the acquisition of a new pick-up truck are described as a case study. The tested scenario and the experimental design for the simulations are presented as well. Results from using the CoEvoNav as the farm manager's extended phenotype to solve his multi-objective optimisation problem are described, along with the implications for the management and sustainability of the CCeFS. Finally, the approach and tools developed are evaluated, and the progress made in relation to methodological, theoretical, philosophical and conceptual notions is reviewed along with some future topics for research.

[pt] Esta dissertação investiga o uso de Algoritmos Genéticos Co-evolucionários na automatização do processo de desenvolvimento de Sistemas de Software Orientados a Objetos. A qualidade final do software depende principalmente da qualidade da modelagem desenvolvida para o mesmo. Durante a fase de modelagem, diversos modelos são desenvolvidos antecipando diversas visões do produto final, e possibilitando a avaliação do software antes mesmo que ele seja implementado. A síntese de um modelo de software pode, portanto, ser vista como um problema de otimização onde se busca uma melhor configuração entre os elementos contemplados pelo paradigma de orientação a objetos, como classes, métodos e atributos, que atenda a critérios de qualidade de design. O objetivo do trabalho foi estudar uma forma de sintetizar modelagens de maior qualidade através da evolução por Algoritmos Genéticos Co- evolucionários. Para avaliar a modelagem do software, foram investigadas métricas de qualidade de software tais como: Reutilização, Flexibilidade, Inteligibilidade, Funcionalidade, Extensibilidade e Efetividade. Essas métricas foram aplicadas na função de avaliação, que por sua vez, foi definida objetivando a síntese de uma modelagem de software orientado a objetos com uma maior qualidade. Neste problema, deseja-se contemplar mais de um objetivo ao mesmo tempo. Para isso, foi utilizada a técnica de Pareto para problemas multi- objetivos. Os resultados obtidos foram comparados com modelagens produzidas por especialistas e as suas características analisadas. O desempenho do AG no processo de otimização foi comparado com o da busca aleatória e, em todos os casos, os resultados obtidos pelo modelo foram sempre superiores. / [en] This work investigates the use of Co-evolutionary Genetic Algorithms in the automation of the development process of object-oriented software systems. The software final quality depends mainly on the design quality developed for the same. During the design phase, different models are developed anticipating various visions of the end product, thus making possible the software evaluation before it is implemented. The synthesis of a software model can, therefore, be seen as an optimization problem where it seeks a better configuration between the contemplated elements for the object-oriented paradigm, as classes, methods and attributes, which follows the quality design criteria. The work goal was to study a way to synthesize designs of better quality through its evolution by Coevolutionary Genetic Algorithms. In order to assess the software quality, it was also investigated software quality metrics, such as: Reusability, Flexibility, Understandability, Functionality, Extensibility and Effectiveness. These metrics were applied in an evaluation function that, in turn, was defined aiming at the object-oriented design synthesis with a better quality. In this problem, it is desired to contemplate more than one objective at a time. For this, the Pareto technique for multi-objective problems was used. The results were compared with designs produced by specialists and its characteristics analyzed. The GA performance in the optimization process was compared with the exhaustive search and, in all cases, the model results were superior.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:42:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 1356987 bytes, checksum: 030b61d243d62bcfe2b52e6110cb33b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-31 / The angular leaf spot, incited by the fungus Pseudocercospora griseola (Sacc.) Crous & U. Braun is one of the major diseases that affect the culture of the bean, can be found in all producing regions, especially when the culture is subjected to condition of mild temperatures in irrigated crops. This condition coupled with the use of susceptible cultivars favors the occurrence of the disease causes losses in production reaching 80%. An option to control the disease is the use of resistant cultivars. However, the efficiency in the use of resistance depends on knowledge of pathogenic variability and geographical distribution of the pathogen. Several studies have shown the extensive pathogenic variability of P. griseola and their co-evolution with the Andean and Mesoamerican gene pools of common bean. By the process of co-evolution, populations of P. griseola can also be divided into two gene pools: Andean (P. griseola formae griseola) that had parallel evolution with varieties of Andean origin beans, being able to bring the disease only in Andean beans; and Mesoamerican (P. griseola formae mesoamericana) that had parallel evolution with varieties of Mesoamerican origin beans, being able of inciting disease in Mesoamerican beans and also in some Andean beans. The main objectives of this study were characterized isolates of P. griseola, from nine cities in three regions of Minas Gerais State - Brazil, using the differential varieties; evaluate sources of resistance to the pathogen used by the Beans Improvement Program of BIOAGRO/UFV against these isolates; and, through the ITS region (ITS1-5,8S-ITS2) of the rDNA gene cluster, to characterize the genetic diversity of 48 isolates of P. griseola, using the universal primers ITS1 and ITS4. With the support of differential varieties were characterized 31 isolates monosporic of P. griseola, obtaining 15 distinct pathotypes, which demonstrates the highvariability of this pathogen. The pathotype 63-63 was the most frequent with 12 of the 31 isolates characterized and was detected in seven of the nine cities visited. The pathotype 63-23 occurred in three cities with the frequency of three isolates, the pathotypes 63-7, 15-7 and 47-39 occurred in two cities each with a frequency of two isolates and the other occurred in a single city with the frequency of one isolate. The fact that several isolates were characterized as pathotype 63-63, in other words, which present reaction of compatibility with all differential varieties, suggests that the differential series needs to be revised, possibly with the inclusion of new varieties and/or exclusion of certain vatieties, in order to better discrimination in pathotypes. All isolates showed reaction compatibility with the of Andean and Mesoamerican varieties, which classifies them as belonging to the Mesoamerican group. Varieties Mexico 54, BAT 332, Cornell 49-242, AND 277 and MAR-2, used by the Beans Improvement Program of BIOAGRO/UFV, were resistant, respectively, 11, 10, 11, 10 and 8 of the 15 pathotypes characterized. Nevertheless, none of the sources used was resistant to pathotype 63-63 characterized from isolates identified as A18, A212, AJ12, B146, B750, C11, SM17, SM20 and SM211 showing the need to seek new access that offer resistance to angular leaf spot. Another finding is that some isolates characterized as the same pathotype provided differing responses when inoculated into sources of resistance, showing that there are differences in relation to pathogenicity. The analysis of the inoculations in this differential series also showed that the varieties Don Timoteo, G11796 and Bolón Bayo are not relevant in discrimination of pathotypes. These two findings provide, once again, support for the proposed revision of the genotypes used in the differential series of angular leaf spot. The genetic variability of P. griseola is also examined through several other types of analysis involving morphological and molecular characters. In this work, through analysis of the ITS region (ITS1-5,8S-ITS2) of rDNA, using the universal primers ITS1 and ITS4, held a study on the genetic diversity of isolates of P. griseola, obtained in the State of Minas Gerais (Brazil) and elsewhere in the world, showing the efficiency of the ITS region for this purpose. It was found that there are five different haplotypes, grouped by the existence of five mutations among the sequences studied. These haplotypes formed two haplogroups: one consisting by all isolates ofMesoamerican origin (three haplotypes) and other consisting by isolates of Andean origin and isolates that do not have information about the gene pool (two haplotypes). This result indicates that the isolates that lack the gene pool defined, possibly belonging to the collection of Andean P. griseola. The finding that all isolates obtained in State of Minas Gerais belong to the Mesoamerican gene pool proves the existence of co-evolution between Phaseolus vulgaris and Pseudocercospora griseola, since in Brazil predominate the cultivation of beans Mesoamerican gene pool. / A mancha angular, incitada pelo fungo Pseudocercospora griseola (Sacc.) Crous & U. Braun é uma das principais doenças que acometem a cultura do feijoeiro, podendo ser encontrada em todas as regiões produtoras, principalmente quando a cultura é submetida à condição de temperaturas amenas em cultivos irrigados. Esta condição aliada ao uso de cultivares suscetíveis favorece a ocorrência da doença ocasionando perdas na produção que atingem 80%. Uma opção de controle da enfermidade é o uso de cultivares resistentes. No entanto, a eficiência no uso da resistência depende do conhecimento sobre a variabilidade patogênica e distribuição geográfica do patógeno. Diversos trabalhos têm mostrado a ampla variabilidade patogênica de P. griseola e a sua co-evolução com os pools gênicos Andino e Mesoamericano do feijoeiro. Pelo processo de co-evolução, populações de P. griseola também podem ser divididas em dois pools gênicos: Andino (P. griseola formae griseola) que tiveram evolução paralela com variedades de feijão de origem Andina, sendo capazes de incitar a doença apenas em feijões Andinos; e Mesoamericano (P. griseola formae mesoamericana) que tiveram evolução com variedades de feijão de origem Mesoamericana, sendo capazes de incitar a doença em feijões Mesoamericanos e também em alguns feijões Andinos. Os principais objetivos deste estudo foram: caracterizar isolados de P. griseola, provenientes de nove cidades de três regiões do Estado de Minas Gerais - Brasil, utilizando as variedades diferenciadoras da mancha angular; avaliar fontes de resistência ao patógeno utilizadas pelo Programa de Melhoramento do Feijoeiro do BIOAGRO/UFV frente a estes isolados; e através da região ITS (ITS1-5,8S-ITS2) do cluster gênico do rDNA caracterizar a diversidade genética de 48 isolados de P. griseola, utilizando os primers universais ITS1 e ITS4. Com o auxílio das variedades diferenciadoras, foramcaracterizados 31 isolados monospóricos de P. griseola, obtendo-se 15 patótipos distintos, o que demonstra a alta variabilidade deste patógeno. O patótipo 63-63 foi o mais frequente com 12 dos 31 isolados caracterizados e foi detectado em sete das nove cidades visitadas. O patótipo 63-23 ocorreu em três cidades com a frequência de três isolados; os patótipos 63-7, 47-39 e 15-7 ocorreram em duas cidades cada um, com a frequência de dois isolados e os demais patótipos ocorreram em uma única cidade com a frequência de um isolado. A constatação de que vários isolados foram caracterizados como patótipo 63-63, ou seja, apresentam reação de compatibilidade com todas as variedades diferenciadoras, sugere que a série diferenciadora necessita ser revista, possivelmente, com a inclusão de novas variedades e/ou exclusão de determinadas variedades, visando melhor discriminação em patótipos. Todos os isolados apresentaram reação de compatibilidade com as variedades Andinas e Mesoamericanas, o que os classifica como pertencentes ao grupo Mesoamericano. As variedades México 54, BAT 332, Cornell 49-242, AND 277 e MAR-2, utilizadas pelo Programa de Melhoramento do Feijoeiro do BIOAGRO/UFV, foram resistentes, respectivamente, a 11, 10, 11, 10 e 8 dos 15 patótipos caracterizados. Apesar disso, nenhuma das fontes utilizadas foi resistente ao patótipo 63-63 caracterizado a partir dos isolados identificados como A18, A212, AJ 12, B1 46, B7 50, C11, SM 17, SM 20 e SM211 evidenciando a necessidade de se buscar novos acessos que ofereçam resistência à mancha angular. Outra constatação é que alguns isolados caracterizados como um mesmo patótipo proporcionaram reações diferenciadas quando inoculados nas fontes de resistência, mostrando que existem diferenças em relação à patogenicidade. As análises das inoculações na série diferenciadora ainda evidenciaram que as variedades Don Timóteo, G11796 e Bolón Bayo não estão sendo relevantes na discriminação dos patótipos. Estas duas constatações oferecem, mais uma vez, suporte para a proposta de revisão dos genótipos utilizados na série diferenciadora da mancha angular. A variabilidade genética de P. griseola tem sido examinada também através de diversos outros tipos de análises envolvendo caracteres morfológicos e moleculares. Neste trabalho, através de análises da região ITS (ITS1-5,8S-ITS2) do rDNA, utilizando os primers universais ITS1 e ITS4, realizou-se um estudo acerca da diversidadegenética de isolados de P. griseola, obtidos no Estado de Minas Gerais (Brasil) e em outras localidades do mundo, evidenciando a eficiência da região ITS para este propósito. Verificou-se a existência de cinco haplótipos distintos, agrupados pela existência de cinco mutações entre as sequências estudadas. Estes haplótipos formaram dois haplogrupos: um constituído por todos os isolados de origem Mesoamericana (três haplótipos) e outro constituído por isolados de origem Andina e por isolados que não possuem informações acerca do pool gênico (dois haplótipos). Este resultado indica que os isolados que não possuem o pool gênico definido, possivelmente, pertencem ao acervo Andino de P. griseola. A constatação de que todos os isolados obtidos no Estado de Minas Gerais pertencem ao pool gênico Mesoamericano comprova a existência de co-evolução entre Phaseolus vulgaris e Pseudocercospora griseola, já que no Brasil predomina o cultivo de feijão do pool gênico Mesoamericano.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:53:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MariaESFS_DISSERT.pdf: 1543853 bytes, checksum: 6ecedac5804f98e8e3a7ea12041ea4f7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-06-18 / The Federal Institution for Education, Science and Technology, in its historical path, has been living different changes. The transformations occurred along the way have been determined by coercive forces from the institutional environment, which has became more and more broad and complex throughout the time, obtaining diverse characteristics and new elements such as non institutional factors1 which started to contribute with the other changes. In this context, this work aims to study the isomorphic practices of the managers in the institutional changes process of the IFRN in 1998 and 2008, as of a theoretical coevolutionary perspective (CHILD; RODRIGUES; LEWIN; CARROL; VOLBERDA, 2003). This theory brings a new point of view for the organization analysis to the organizational studies, since it offers a non deterministic and non linear lection of the evolution process, which means, a coevolution. Thus, the organizations and their institutional and non institutional environment auto evolve, auto organize and auto reproduce. Therefore, the institutional and non institutional factors of the macro environment keep a continuous interdependence relationship with the organizations. For the means of this study, it is important to understand that is impossible to comprehend the object, the isomorphic practices, without considering that the previous institutional changes and its evolutions, its continuations and discontinuations, important in the coevolution process. As such, to call upon the institutional historical track is a fundamental aspect to materialize this study, for the recursive movement is indeed present in the coevolution. Another important point to make this research effective is that it is not possible to abdicate from the hologramatic view2 of this study, which considers the object, the isomorphic practices, part of the whole and this whole is also in the parts, therefore it is impossible to comprehend the object of study outside the context where it belongs. With this, as of the objective previously proposed, it is necessary to describe the characteristics of coevolution of the institutional changes related in 1998 and 2008; analyze the dynamic of the isomorphic mechanisms in its respective institutional change process; and describe the lessons learned which the isomorphic practices left to the IFRN, regarding its benefits and difficulties. All these transformations happened through coercive forces3 of the institutional environment. As of the Nineties, these forces became stronger, the environment became broader and more complex, with the emergency of new environmental factors. This study proposed to study the managing process and its practices, related to the micro environment, although it is required to articulate these actions, the demands and requirements from the macro environment. To make this research effective, semi structured interviews have been conducted with the managers who participated in both institutional change processes. In the results analysis, it has been possible to verify the particularity of each change, the one from 1998 with a strong normative action of the managers against coercive forces from the government for the search of recognition and the institutional legitimation and the one in 2008, which has been characterized by the normative action by managers in agreement with the coercive forces from the government, in favor of the government policy for the technological professional education. However, the results analysis it is possible to notice the evidence of a belonging feeling from the interviewed managers / O Instituto Federal de Educa??o, Ci?ncia e Tecnologia, em sua trajet?ria hist?rica, tem vivenciado diversas mudan?as. As transforma??es ocorridas ao longo do tempo foram determinadas por for?as coercitivas do ambiente institucional, que ao longo do tempo foi se tornando complexo e amplo, adquirindo caracter?sticas diversas e novos elementos como os fatores n?o-institucionais1 que passaram a contribui com as demais mudan?as. Nesse contexto, este trabalho objetiva estudar as pr?ticas isom?rficas dos gestores nos processos de mudan?as institucionais no IFRN nos per?odos de 1998 e 2008, partindo de uma perspectiva te?rica coevolutiva (CHILD; RODRIGUES; LEWIN; CARROL; VOLBERDA, 2003). Essa teoria traz para os estudos organizacionais uma nova ?tica de an?lise das organiza??es, pois oferece uma leitura n?o determinista e n?o linear do processo de evolu??o, significando uma co-evolu??o. Nesse sentido as organiza??es e seus ambientes institucionais e n?o institucionais se autoevoluem, se autoorganizam e se autoreproduzem. E, dessa forma, os fatores institucionais e os n?o-institucionais do ambiente macro mant?m uma rela??o de interdepend?ncia cont?nua com as organiza??es. Para fins desse estudo, se faz importante entender que ? imposs?vel compreender o objeto, as pr?ticas isom?rficas, sem considerar as mudan?as institucionais anteriores e suas evolu??es, suas continuidades e descontinuidades, importantes no processo coevolutivo. Para tanto, recorrer ? trajet?ria hist?rica institucional ? um aspecto fundamental para a concretiza??o do estudo, pois o movimento recursivo faz-se presente na coevolu??o. Outro aspecto ? que n?o se pode abdicar da vis?o de hologram?tica2, que considera o objeto, as pr?ticas isom?rficas, parte constituinte de um todo e que esse todo, tamb?m est? nas partes, sendo imposs?vel compreender o objeto, descolado do contexto do qual faz parte. Com esse entendimento, partindo do objetivo proposto, ? necess?rio, descrever as caracter?sticas de co-evolu??o das mudan?as institucionais referentes aos per?odos de 1998 e 2008; analisar a din?mica dos mecanismos isom?rficos nos respectivos processos de mudan?a institucional; e descrever o aprendizado que as pr?ticas isom?rficas deixaram para o IFRN. Todas essas transforma??es se deram por for?as coercitivas3 do ambiente institucional. A partir da d?cada de 90 essas for?as se intensificaram, o ambiente se tornou mais amplo e complexo, com a emerg?ncia de novos fatores ambientais. No entanto, prop?e-se estudar o processo de gest?o e suas pr?ticas, referentes ao ambiente micro, embora necessite articular essas a??es, ?s demandas e exig?ncias do ambiente macro. Para a efetiva??o da pesquisa foram feitas entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os gestores que participaram dos dois processos de mudan?as institucionais. Nas an?lises dos resultados foram constatadas as particularidades de cada mudan?a, a de 1998 com uma forte a??o normativa dos gestores contra as for?as coercitivas do Estado na busca do reconhecimento e legitimidade institucional e a de 2008, que se caracterizou pela a??o normativa dos gestores em conson?ncia com as for?as coercitivas do Estado, em favor da pol?tica do governo para a educa??o profissional tecnol?gica. Na an?lise dos resultados percebe-se a evid?ncia de um sentimento de pertencimento por parte dos gestores entrevistados

Computational Intelligence has found a challenging testbed for various paradigms in the financial sector. Extensive research has resulted in numerous financial applications using neural networks and evolutionary computation, mainly genetic algorithms and genetic programming. More recent advances in the field of computational intelligence have not yet been applied as extensively or have not become available in the public domain, due to the confidentiality requirements of financial institutions. This study investigates how co-evolution together with the combination of par- ticle swarm optimisation and neural networks could be used to discover competitive security trading agents that could enable the timing of buying and selling securities to maximise net profit and minimise risk over time. The investigated model attempts to identify security trend reversals with the help of technical analysis methodologies. Technical market indicators provide the necessary market data to the agents and reflect information such as supply, demand, momentum, volatility, trend, sentiment and retracement. All this is derived from the security price alone, which is one of the strengths of technical analysis and the reason for its use in this study. The model proposed in this thesis evolves trading strategies within a single pop- ulation of competing agents, where each agent is represented by a neural network. The population is governed by a competitive co-evolutionary particle swarm optimi- sation algorithm, with the objective of optimising the weights of the neural networks. A standard feed forward neural network architecture is used, which functions as a market trend reversal confidence. Ultimately, the neural network becomes an amal- gamation of the technical market indicators used as inputs, and hence is capable of detecting trend reversals. Timely trading actions are derived from the confidence output, by buying and short selling securities when the price is expected to rise or fall respectively. No expert trading knowledge is presented to the model, only the technical market indicator data. The co-evolutionary particle swarm optimisation model facilitates the discovery of favourable technical market indicator interpretations, starting with zero knowledge. A competitive fitness function is defined that allows the evaluation of each solution relative to other solutions, based on predefined performance metric objectives. The relative fitness function in this study considers net profit and the Sharpe ratio as a risk measure. For the purposes of this study, the stock prices of eight large market capitalisation companies were chosen. Two benchmarks were used to evaluate the discovered trading agents, consisting of a Bollinger Bands/Relative Strength Index rule-based strategy and the popular buy-and-hold strategy. The agents that were discovered from the proposed hybrid computational intelligence model outperformed both benchmarks by producing higher returns for in-sample and out-sample data at a low risk. This indicates that the introduced model is effective in finding favourable strategies, based on observed historical security price data. Transaction costs were considered in the evaluation of the computational intelligent agents, making this a feasible model for a real-world application. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Computer Science / unrestricted

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Cette thèse s'est déroulée dans le cadre du projet ANR FOSTER, "FOuille de données Spatio-Temporelles : application à la compréhension et à la surveillance de l'ERosion" (ANR-2010-COSI-012-02, 2011-2014). Dans ce contexte, nous nous sommes intéressés à la modélisation de données spatio-temporelles dans des graphes enrichis de sorte que des calculs de motifs sur de telles données permettent de formuler des hypothèses intéressantes sur les phénomènes à comprendre. Plus précisément, nous travaillons sur la fouille de motifs dans des graphes relationnels (chaque noeud est identifié de fa\c con unique), attribués (chaque noeud du graphe est décrit par des attributs qui sont ici numériques), et dynamiques (les valeurs des attributs et les relations entre les noeuds peuvent évoluer dans le temps). Nous proposons un nouveau domaine de motifs nommé motifs de co-évolution. Ce sont des triplets d'ensembles de noeuds, d'ensembles de pas de temps et d'ensembles d'attributs signés, c'est à dire des attributs associés à une tendance (croissance,décroissance). L'intérêt de ces motifs est de décrire un sous-ensemble des données qui possède un comportement spécifique et a priori intéressant pour conduire des analyses non triviales. Dans ce but, nous définissons deux types de contraintes, une contrainte sur la structure du graphe et une contrainte sur la co-évolution de la valeur des attributs portés par les noeuds. Pour confirmer la spécificité du motif par rapport au reste des données, nous définissons trois mesures de densité qui tendent à répondre à trois questions. À quel point le comportement des noeuds en dehors du motif est similaire à celui des noeuds du motif ? Quel est le comportement du motif dans le temps, est-ce qu'il apparaît soudainement ? Est-ce que les noeuds du motif ont un comportement similaire seulement sur les attributs du motif ou aussi en dehors ? Nous proposons l'utilisation d'une hiérarchie sur les attributs comme connaissance à priori de l'utilisateur afin d'obtenir des motifs plus généraux et adaptons l'ensemble des contraintes à l'utilisation de cette hiérarchie. Finalement, pour simplifier l'utilisation de l'algorithme par l'utilisateur en réduisant le nombre de seuils à fixer et pour extraire uniquement l'ensemble des motifs les plus intéressants, nous utilisons le concept de ``skyline'' réintroduit récemment dans le domaine de la fouille de données. Nous proposons ainsi trois algorithmes MINTAG, H-MINTAG et Sky-H-MINTAG qui sont complets pour extraire l'ensemble de tous les motifs qui respectent les différentes contraintes. L'étude des propriétés des contraintes (anti-monotonie, monotonie/anti-monotonie par parties) nous permet de les pousser efficacement dans les algorithmes proposés et d'obtenir ainsi des extractions sur des données réelles dans des temps raisonnables. / This thesis was conducted within the project ANR FOSTER, ``Spatio-Temporal Data Mining: application to the understanding and monitoring of erosion'' (ANR-2010-COSI-012-02, 2011-2014). In this context, we are interested in the modeling of spatio- temporal data in enriched graphs so that computation of patterns on such data can be used to formulate interesting hypotheses about phenomena to understand. Specifically, we are working on pattern mining in relational graphs (each vertex is uniquely identified), attributed (each vertex of the graph is described by numerical attributes) and dynamic (attribute values and relations between vertices may change over time). We propose a new pattern domain that has been called co-evolution patterns. These are trisets of vertices, times and signed attributes, i.e., attributes associated with a trend (increasing or decreasing). The interest of these patterns is to describe a subset of the data that has a specific behaviour and a priori interesting to conduct non-trivial analysis. For this purpose, we define two types of constraints, a constraint on the structure of the graph and a constraint on the co-evolution of the value worn by vertices attributes. To confirm the specificity of the pattern with regard to the rest of the data, we define three measures of density that tend to answer to three questions. How similar is the behaviour of the vertices outside the co-evolution pattern to the ones inside it? What is the behaviour of the pattern over time, does it appear suddenly? Does the vertices of the pattern behave similarly only on the attributes of the pattern or even outside? We propose the use of a hierarchy of attributes as an a priori knowledge of the user to obtain more general patterns and we adapt the set of constraints to the use of this hierarchy. Finally, to simplify the use of the algorithm by the user by reducing the number of thresholds to be set and to extract only all the most interesting patterns, we use the concept of ``skyline'' reintroduced recently in the domain of data mining. We propose three constraint-based algorithms, called MINTAG, H-MINTAG and Sky-H-MINTAG, that are complete to extract the set of all patterns that meet the different constraints. These algorithms are based on constraints, i.e., they use the anti-monotonicity and piecewise monotonicity/anti-monotonicity properties to prune the search space and make the computation feasible in practical contexts. To validate our method, we experiment on several sets of data (graphs) created from real-world data.

由於資訊科技的發展，提供顧客商品與服務的溝通等價值觀也隨之改變，新興服務業是依賴網際網路和資訊技術所發展而來的，全球產業結構呈現出“工業型經濟”向“服務型經濟”轉型的總趨勢，服務逐步被重視。人類社會第四次的革命“服務革命”，就是服務科學，社會和技術共同演進的科學，以資訊科技為基礎改革服務整體。加上網路效應，讓人們可以透過共同設計思考，為世界帶來創意及新事物的催化劑，將跨領域的人才結合起來，利用群策群力及不同領域的思考藝術互相激盪，激發出創意。將這些觀點整合起來，提出一個共同創造服務的架構，讓人們在獲得服務的同時，也參與創造服務，得到服務的最佳化。本研究透過服務科學的服務組成、服務流程、以及服務價值三方面來探討，並採用結合協同式共同演化基因演算法、互動式基因演算法所組合成的協同互動式共同演化基因演算法，以共同演化的方式，達到使用者的設計需求。系統共分四大模組：設計問題定義模組、設計建議模組、協同互動式共同演化模組、評估模組，將設計思考、共同創作並演化的概念，並透過互動式基因演算法修正適應函數評估的偏差，讓顧客設計過程中，得到最佳化的服務。本系統之預期貢獻分為：(1)利用服務科學創新設計服務e化傳遞。(2)為服務科學提供應用典範與原件發展方向。 / The notion of service science addresses the use of information technology to reform services in terms of designing thinking and value co-production, bringing the catalyst of the innovation to the service world. This paper proposes a novel e-service platform about interior design featuring (semi-)automated mutualism of co-produced values. This platform encompasses a few autonomous cognitive learning components to guarantee effective accomplishment of reaching a user's design demand. These components include models of interior design concepts, cooperative co-evolutionary genetic algorithm (CGA) and interactive genetic algorithm (IGA). The intended contributions of this platform are two-folds: (1) Showcase an intelligent service design as characterized by the sixth quadrant of Figure1. (2) Provide some intelligent service design components (e.g., CICGA) for unfolding future systematic service innovation in service science.

La thèse aborde différentes questions de chimie prébiotique dans le contexte de l’origine de la vie par une approche de chimie systémique. La première partie est dédiée à l’étude de processus d’activation chimique important non seulement pour la formation de polymères, mais aussi pour alimenter le système en énergie de manière à le maintenir dans un état éloigné de l’équilibre, un prérequis pour l’auto-organisation. Il a été suggéré que les intermédiaires 5(4H)-oxazolones formés par l’activation de l’extrémité C-terminale des peptides pourrait être impliquée dans l’auto-organisation du vivant. Dans ce but, nous avons évalué la réactivité de réactifs pertinents dans un contexte prébiotique et décrits dans la littérature comme capables d’activer des acides α-aminés. Aucun d’entre eux n’a manifesté une activité satisfaisante pour l’activation C-terminale des peptides, montrant qu’une voie possible pour alimenter un protométabolisme des peptides en énergie n’est pas identifiée à ce jour à l’exception notable des N-carboxyanhydrides (NCA) qui peuvent être formé par des voies prébiotiquement plausibles. Nous avons par ailleurs démontré que les carbodiimides sont aussi efficaces pour l’activation des N-carbamoylamino acides que pour celle du carboxyle terminal des peptides en milieu aqueux dilué. La seconde partie du document expose de nouveaux résultats en faveur d’un processus de coévolution peptides-nucléotides. D’abord, une étude de la réactivité d’agents d’aminoacylation de l’extrémité 3’ de l’ARN est présentée. Ensuite, nous évaluons des co-polymères acides α-aminés-nucléotides liés par des enchaînements phosphoramidate et esters comme partenaires éventuels de l’évolution chimique. La pertinence cinétique de ces structures est démontrée ainsi que des voies chimiques permettant leur formation. / The thesis addresses several issues in prebiotic chemistry in the context of the origins of life through a systems chemistry approach. The first part is devoted to the study of chemical activation processes that are not only important in the formation of polymers, but also to feed the system with energy in order that a far from equilibrium state is maintained, a prerequisite for self-organization. It has been suggested that 5(4H)-oxazolones intermediates formed by C-terminus peptide activation could be involved in self-organization of life. To this aim, we have checked the reactivity of relevant prebiotic reagents previously proposed to activate α-amino acids. None of them led to a satisfactory C-terminus activation of peptides, showing that no general process for feeding a protometabolism of peptides with energy is identified yet, with the notable exception of N-carboxyanhydrides (NCAs) that can be formed through prebiotically relevant pathways. Additionally, we demonstrated that carbodiimides reagents are as efficient in the activation of N-carbamoyl amino acids as in that of the C-terminus of peptides in diluted aqueous media. The second part of the dissertation discloses new results in support of a process of coevolution of peptides and nucleotides. Firstly, a study of non-enzymatic aminoacylation reagents of the 3’-terminus of RNA is presented. Secondly, we assessed co-polymers of α-amino acids and nucleotides bound by phosphoramidate and ester linkages as potential players in chemical evolution. The kinetic relevance of these structures was demonstrated as well as potential chemical processes that allow their formation.