The rapid rate of urbanisation, which is characteristic of the current South African context, could have important consequences for the psychological and physiological health of individuals (Malan et al., 2008; Vorster et al., 2000). Communities in transition face challenges that influence every component of human functioning (Choabi & Wissing, 2000; Malan et al., 2008; Van Rooyen et al., 2002; Vorster et al., 2000). Self-efficacy and collective efficacy are among constructs that have been shown to contribute to psychological well-being, and can serve as buffers that could make this process of adaption easier for communities in the process of urbanisation (Bandura, 1997; Karademas, 2006; Sui, Lu, & Spector, 2007). Previously, a variety of studies have focused on self-efficacy and collective efficacy in other Western and Eastern contexts. There is however little information on the impact that these constructs have within an African context, and• especially on the well-being of individuals finding themselves in these communities in transition. As it has been demonstrated that contextual and cultural factors may influence the manifestation of psychological well-being (Cohen, Inagami, & Finch, 2008; Temane & Wissing, 2008; Wissing, & Temane, 2008; Wissing, Wissing, Du Toit, & Temane, 2006), more context-specific research is called for. Increased knowledge of self-efficacy and collective efficacy and how it manifests the African context could help with the promotion of the psychological well-being of groups in transition. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the differential influence of self-and collective efficacy on the psychological well-being of :individuals within a community in transition. Participants were selected from a traditionally more collectivistic South-African cultural context. The research sample consisted of 1050 Setswana-speaking participants from both urban and rural areas. They completed measures including Community Collective Efficacy Scale (abridged) (CCES) (Carroll, Rosson, & Zhou, 2005), the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1993), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) and the Affectometer 2 (short version) (AFM) (Kammann & Flett, 1983). The SWLS and AFM were used to measure the psychological well-being on cognitive judgemental and affective levels respectively. Descriptive statistics shed some light on the levels of self efficacy, collective efficacy and psychological well-being within this community. Correlation analysis was done to test the relationship between self-efficacy, collective efficacy and psychological well-being, and regression analysis was conducted to show the degree to which self-efficacy and collective efficacy successfully predict the levels of psychological wellbeing in rural and urban contexts. Available literature (e.g., Klassen, 2004) suggests that collective values and shared beliefs would be more important to individuals within rural areas because of assumed traditional collectivistic orientation, and that individuals from urban areas will take on more individualistic values as urbanisation takes place. To test this assumption, it was hypothesized that collective efficacy would be a better predictor of psychological well-being than self-efficacy in the rural context, and that self-efficacy will be a better predictor of psychological well-being than collective efficacy in the urban context. The results indicated that although the group as a whole experience slightly lower psychological well-being than that reported in previous studies, it seemed that psychological well-being might actually increase as urbanisation takes place. Satisfaction with life (SWL) seemed to be more strongly associated with urbanisation than affective well-being. The rural group's considerably lower SWL could possibly be explained by the perception of these individuals that people living in an urban environment have a better quality of life. While the level of self-efficacy reported for the group as a whole was found to be comparable, albeit lower than results from previous studies, there were no relevant studies with which to compare our participant group's level of collective efficacy. Individuals living in an urban setting reported higher levels of self-efficacy and collective efficacy compared to the rural group This might indicate that individuals who move from a rural to an urban setting do not necessarily adopt individualistic values at the cost of their collectivistic cultural orientation, and in fact have more confidence in their individual and conjoint capabilities to achieve their goals. It was found that a significant relationship seemed to exist between self-efficacy, collective efficacy and the measures of psychological well-being, which suggests a dynamic interplay between these two constructs. Results showed that these individuals' beliefs in their individual ability, self-actualization and personal identity are important for their maintained well-being, and is strongly linked to their shared beliefs in the group's conjoint capabilities. Results from the regression analysis showed that, in contradiction to the above hypothesis, self-efficacy had a significant influence on the prediction of psychological well-being for the group as a whole as well as in the rural context. Interestingly, collective efficacy had a significant influence on the variance in psychological well-being in the urban area. The effect of efficacy .beliefs on affective well-being seemed to stay the same irrespective of the context, while collective efficacy gained importance in the prediction of SWL in the urban context. This indicates that individuals from the urban context might attach even more value to their collective orientation when they move from the traditional collectivistic setting to a more individualised setting where collectivism is not a given anymore and they have to consciously work towards it. In conclusion it can be said that efficacy beliefs remain important factors in the prediction of psychological well-being for individuals irrespective of the process of urbanisation or in which context they find themselves. The practical implication is that raising either self-efficacy or collective efficacy will lead to increased psychological well-being and possibly better adjustment during the urbanisation process. Although these results provided some answers, a number of questions were raised about widely held assumptions regarding the cultural orientation of individuals and the effect of urbanisation on cultural value systems. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

The work presented in this thesis discusses various formal language formalisms that extend classical formalisms like regular expressions and context-free grammars with additional abilities, most relating to order. This is done while focusing on the impact these extensions have on the efficiency of parsing the languages generated. That is, rather than taking a step up on the Chomsky hierarchy to the context-sensitive languages, which makes parsing very difficult, a smaller step is taken, adding some mechanisms which permit interesting spatial (in)dependencies to be modeled. The most immediate example is shuffle formalisms, where existing language formalisms are extended by introducing operators which generate arbitrary interleavings of argument languages. For example, introducing a shuffle operator to the regular expressions does not make it possible to recognize context-free languages like anbn, but it does capture some non-context-free languages like the language of all strings containing the same number of as, bs and cs. The impact these additions have on parsing has many facets. Other than shuffle operators we also consider formalisms enforcing repeating substrings, formalisms moving substrings around, and formalisms that restrict which substrings may be concatenated. The formalisms studied here all have a number of properties in common. They are closely related to existing regular and context-free formalisms. They operate in a step-wise fashion, deriving strings by sequences of rule applications of individually limited power. Each step generates a constant number of symbols and does not modify parts that have already been generated. That is, strings are built in an additive fashion that does not explode in size (in contrast to e.g. Lindenmayer systems). All languages here will have a semi-linear Parikh image. They feature some interesting characteristic involving order or other spatial constraints. In the example of the shuffle multiple derivations are in a sense interspersed in a way that each is unaware of. All of the formalisms are intended to be limited enough to make an efficient parsing algorithm at least for some cases a reasonable goal. This thesis will give intuitive explanations of a number of formalisms fulfilling these requirements, and will sketch some results relating to the parsing problem for them. This should all be viewed as preparation for the more complete results and explanations featured in the papers given in the appendices. / Denna avhandling diskuterar utökningar av klassiska formalismer inom formella språk, till exempel reguljära uttryck och kontextfria grammatiker. Utökningarna handlar på ett eller annat sätt omordning, och ett särskilt fokus ligger på att göra utökningarna på ett sätt som dels har intressanta spatiala/ordningsrelaterade effekter och som dels bevarar den effektiva parsningen som är möjlig för de ursprungliga klassiska formalismerna. Detta står i kontrast till att ta det större steget upp i Chomsky-hierarkin till de kontextkänsliga språken, vilket medför ett svårt parsningsproblem. Ett omedelbart exempel på en sådan utökning är s.k. shuffle-formalismer. Dessa utökar existerande formalismer genom att introducera operatorer som godtyckligt sammanflätar strängar från argumentspråk. Om shuffle-operator introduceras till de reguljära uttrycken ger det inte förmågan att känna igen t.ex. det kontextfria språket anbn, men det fångar istället vissa språk som inte är kontextfria, till exempel språket som består av alla strängar som innehåller lika många a:n, b:n och c:n. Sättet på vilket dessa utökningar påverkar parsningsproblemet är mångfacetterat. Utöver dessa shuffle-operatorer tas också formalismer där delsträngar kan upprepas, formalismer där delsträngar flyttas runt, och formalismer som begränsar hur delsträngar får konkateneras upp. Formalismerna som tas upp här har dock vissa egenskaper gemensamma. De är nära besläktade med de klassiska reguljära och kontextfria formalismerna. De arbetar stegvis, och konstruerar strängar genom successiva applikationer av individuellt enkla regler. Varje steg genererar ett konstant antal symboler och modifierar inte det som redan genererats. Det vill säga, strängar byggs additivt och längden på dem kan inte explodera (i kontrast till t.ex. Lindenmayer-system). Alla språk som tas upp kommer att ha en semi-linjär Parikh-avbildning. De har någon instressant spatial/ordningsrelaterad egenskap. Exempelvis sättet på vilket shuffle-operatorer sammanflätar annars oberoende deriveringar. Alla formalismerna är tänkta att vara begränsade nog att det är resonabelt att ha effektiv parsning som mål. Denna avhandling kommer att ge intuitiva förklaring av ett antal formalismer som uppfyller ovanstående krav, och kommer att skissa en blandning av resultat relaterade till parsningsproblemet för dem. Detta bör ses som förberedande inför läsning av de mer djupgående och komplexa resultaten och förklaringarna i de artiklar som finns inkluderade som appendix.

The rapid rate of urbanisation, which is characteristic of the current South African context, could have important consequences for the psychological and physiological health of individuals (Malan et al., 2008; Vorster et al., 2000). Communities in transition face challenges that influence every component of human functioning (Choabi & Wissing, 2000; Malan et al., 2008; Van Rooyen et al., 2002; Vorster et al., 2000). Self-efficacy and collective efficacy are among constructs that have been shown to contribute to psychological well-being, and can serve as buffers that could make this process of adaption easier for communities in the process of urbanisation (Bandura, 1997; Karademas, 2006; Sui, Lu, & Spector, 2007). Previously, a variety of studies have focused on self-efficacy and collective efficacy in other Western and Eastern contexts. There is however little information on the impact that these constructs have within an African context, and• especially on the well-being of individuals finding themselves in these communities in transition. As it has been demonstrated that contextual and cultural factors may influence the manifestation of psychological well-being (Cohen, Inagami, & Finch, 2008; Temane & Wissing, 2008; Wissing, & Temane, 2008; Wissing, Wissing, Du Toit, & Temane, 2006), more context-specific research is called for. Increased knowledge of self-efficacy and collective efficacy and how it manifests the African context could help with the promotion of the psychological well-being of groups in transition. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the differential influence of self-and collective efficacy on the psychological well-being of :individuals within a community in transition. Participants were selected from a traditionally more collectivistic South-African cultural context. The research sample consisted of 1050 Setswana-speaking participants from both urban and rural areas. They completed measures including Community Collective Efficacy Scale (abridged) (CCES) (Carroll, Rosson, & Zhou, 2005), the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1993), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) and the Affectometer 2 (short version) (AFM) (Kammann & Flett, 1983). The SWLS and AFM were used to measure the psychological well-being on cognitive judgemental and affective levels respectively. Descriptive statistics shed some light on the levels of self efficacy, collective efficacy and psychological well-being within this community. Correlation analysis was done to test the relationship between self-efficacy, collective efficacy and psychological well-being, and regression analysis was conducted to show the degree to which self-efficacy and collective efficacy successfully predict the levels of psychological wellbeing in rural and urban contexts. Available literature (e.g., Klassen, 2004) suggests that collective values and shared beliefs would be more important to individuals within rural areas because of assumed traditional collectivistic orientation, and that individuals from urban areas will take on more individualistic values as urbanisation takes place. To test this assumption, it was hypothesized that collective efficacy would be a better predictor of psychological well-being than self-efficacy in the rural context, and that self-efficacy will be a better predictor of psychological well-being than collective efficacy in the urban context. The results indicated that although the group as a whole experience slightly lower psychological well-being than that reported in previous studies, it seemed that psychological well-being might actually increase as urbanisation takes place. Satisfaction with life (SWL) seemed to be more strongly associated with urbanisation than affective well-being. The rural group's considerably lower SWL could possibly be explained by the perception of these individuals that people living in an urban environment have a better quality of life. While the level of self-efficacy reported for the group as a whole was found to be comparable, albeit lower than results from previous studies, there were no relevant studies with which to compare our participant group's level of collective efficacy. Individuals living in an urban setting reported higher levels of self-efficacy and collective efficacy compared to the rural group This might indicate that individuals who move from a rural to an urban setting do not necessarily adopt individualistic values at the cost of their collectivistic cultural orientation, and in fact have more confidence in their individual and conjoint capabilities to achieve their goals. It was found that a significant relationship seemed to exist between self-efficacy, collective efficacy and the measures of psychological well-being, which suggests a dynamic interplay between these two constructs. Results showed that these individuals' beliefs in their individual ability, self-actualization and personal identity are important for their maintained well-being, and is strongly linked to their shared beliefs in the group's conjoint capabilities. Results from the regression analysis showed that, in contradiction to the above hypothesis, self-efficacy had a significant influence on the prediction of psychological well-being for the group as a whole as well as in the rural context. Interestingly, collective efficacy had a significant influence on the variance in psychological well-being in the urban area. The effect of efficacy .beliefs on affective well-being seemed to stay the same irrespective of the context, while collective efficacy gained importance in the prediction of SWL in the urban context. This indicates that individuals from the urban context might attach even more value to their collective orientation when they move from the traditional collectivistic setting to a more individualised setting where collectivism is not a given anymore and they have to consciously work towards it. In conclusion it can be said that efficacy beliefs remain important factors in the prediction of psychological well-being for individuals irrespective of the process of urbanisation or in which context they find themselves. The practical implication is that raising either self-efficacy or collective efficacy will lead to increased psychological well-being and possibly better adjustment during the urbanisation process. Although these results provided some answers, a number of questions were raised about widely held assumptions regarding the cultural orientation of individuals and the effect of urbanisation on cultural value systems. / Thesis (M.Sc. (Clinical Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

This thesis develops a generalized approach for decoupling how a context model is defined and executed from how context-aware data is acquired and managed within a given middleware system. Decoupling the model specification from the data will likely provide more avenues of context-aware investigations due to an increased flexibility in the choice of a middleware system for handling context data. We provide a detailed description of the approach developed for this decoupling task, called Inspect, Adapt, Model, and Integrate (IAMI). By engaging the steps we show that a context model need not be specifically tied to a given context-aware middleware. This successful decoupling will likely add to the future development of context-aware systems by allowing researchers to build upon existing frameworks as opposed to repeatedly engaging in ground-up development. Moreover, we submit that this decoupling is important in that the number of possible ways of representing and expressing a context model is potentially infinite, but the choice of context-aware middleware systems is limited.

Context-aware computing has been a rapidly growing research area, however its uses have been predominantly targeted at pervasive applications for smart spaces such as smart homes and workplaces. This research has investigated the use of location and other context data in access control policy, with the purpose of augmenting existing IP and application-layer security to provide fine-grained access control and effective enforcement of security policy. The use of location and other context data for security purposes requires that the technologies and methods used for acquiring the context data are trusted. This thesis begins with the description of a framework for the analysis of location systems for use in security services and critical infrastructure. This analysis classifies cooperative locations systems by their modes of operation and the common primitives they are composed of. Common location systems are analyzed for inherent security flaws and limitations based on the vulnerability assessment of location system primitives and the taxonomy of known attacks. An efficient scheme for supporting trusted differential GPS corrections is proposed, such that DGPS vulnerabilities that have been identified are mitigated. The proposal augments the existing broadcast messaging protocol with a number of new messages facilitating origin authentication and integrity of broadcast corrections for marine vessels. A proposal for a trusted location system based on GSM is presented, in which a model for tamper resistant location determination using GSM signaling is designed. A protocol for association of a user to a cell phone is proposed and demonstrated in a framework for both Web and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) applications. After introducing the security issues of existing location systems and a trusted location system proposal, the focus of the thesis changes to the use of location data in authorization and access control processes. This is considered at both the IP-layer and the application-layer. For IP-layer security, a proposal for location proximity-based network packet filtering in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs is presented. This proposal details an architecture that extends the Linux netfilter system to support proximity-based packet filtering, using methods of transparent location determination through the application of a pathloss model to raw signal measurements. Our investigation of application-layer security resulted in the establishment of a set of requirements for the use of contextual information in application level authorization. Existing network authentication protocols and access control mechanisms are analyzed for their ability to fulfill these requirements and their suitability in facilitating context-aware authorization. The result is the design and development of a new context-aware authorization architecture, using the proposed modifications to Role-based Access Control (RBAC). One of the distinguishing characteristics of the proposed architecture is its ability to handle authorization with context-transparency, and provide support for real-time granting and revocation of permissions. During the investigation of the context-aware authorization architecture, other security contexts in addition to host location were found to be useful in application level authorization. These included network topology between the host and application server, the security of the host and the host execution environment. Details of the prototype implementation, performance results, and context acquisition services are presented.

Aplicações cientes de contexto precisam de mecanismos para recuperar informações sobre o seu contexto de execução. Com base no contexto atual, tais aplicações são capazes de se autoadaptar para fornecer informações e serviços adequados aos seus usuários. A abordagem comum para infraestruturas de apoio às aplicações sensíveis ao contexto fornece serviços para a descoberta de recursos através da utilização de pares <chave-valor> e motores que executam apenas correspondência sintática. Esta abordagem não considera as possíveis relações semânticas entre as palavras-chave usadas. Portanto, a sua expressividade semântica limitada, leva a um serviço de descoberta que provê baixa taxa de recuperação e baixa acurácia. Este trabalho apresenta a utilização de uma outra abordagem para o serviço de contexto e descoberta, que utiliza ontologias para representar os recursos do contexto de execução e capturar a semântica da consulta do usuário, melhorando assim o processo de descoberta para a autoadaptação de sistemas sensíveis ao contexto. A abordagem proposta oferece também pontos de extensão para as aplicações clientes através da utilização de outras ontologias. Esta abordagem foi integrada à infraestrutura CDRF, de forma a adicionar semântica aos serviços desenvolvidos neste projeto. Exemplos de aplicações são também propostos para demonstrar a utilização dos novos serviços. / Context-aware applications demand ways of retrieving context information from the environment. Based on the current context, such applications are able to self-adapt to provide the correct information and services to its users. The usual approach for supporting infrastructures for context-aware applications provides facilities for resource discovery using <key-value> pairs and discovery engines that perform syntactic matching. This approach does not consider the possible semantic relations between the keywords used. So its limited semantic expressiveness often leads to poor discovery results. This paper presents the use of a different approach for service discovery that uses ontologies to represent resources and capture the semantics of the users query, improving the discovery process for self-adaptation of context-aware systems. The proposed approach also offers extension hooks to the client applications through the use of other ontologies. This approach is integrated into the CDRF framework and adds semantics to the services developed in that project. Example applications are also proposed to demonstrate the use of the new services.

Factors affecting the use of research evidence by nurses in long-term care (LTC) settings are largely unknown. In this thesis nurses referred to registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs). A secondary analysis of data (n=756 nurses) from the Translating Research in Elder Care program was performed to construct Generalized Estimating Equation models of the predictors of nurses' self-reported instrumental, conceptual and persuasive research use. Positive attitudes towards research and better access to structural and electronic resources predicted all three kinds of research use. Additional statistically significant predictors suggest that individual variables play a more prominent role than contextual variables in predicting conceptual and persuasive use of research evidence, while instrumental research use is predicted equally by individual and organizational variables.

Este estudo objetivou verificar o impacto e a persistência de um Programa de Intervenção Motora com enfoque no contexto Motivacional para a Maestria no cotidiano das crianças participantes. Foi avaliado o desempenho motor (habilidades motoras fundamentais), a descrição dos contextos familiar e escolar e as medidas antropométricas (IMC e circunferência abdominal). A amostra desta pesquisa foi composta por 40 crianças (20 do grupo controle e 20 do grupo interventivo) participantes do Programa realizado no ano de 2008, na Escola de Educação Física da UFRGS, e de uma Escola Estadual do município de Porto Alegre. Para as avaliações das crianças foram utilizados: (1) o Teste de Desenvolvimento Motor Grosso (TDMG) de (ULRICH, 2000), adaptado e validado para a população do RS (VALENTINI; VILLWOCK; BARBOSA; PICK; SPESSATO; BALBINOTTI, 2008) para avaliar o desempenho motor bem como a descrição do contexto familiar (questionário (BERLEZE, 2002) adaptado de (SERRANO; NETO, 1997) e do contexto escolar (entrevista semi-estruturada) para melhor discutir o desempenho motor e; (2) as medidas da circunferência abdominal e, peso e estatura para cálculo do IMC, para a análise antropométrica. As crianças foram avaliadas em 03 momentos distintos: pré e pós-intervenção e 18 meses após o termino da intervenção (período de manutenção). O Programa de Intervenção Motora foi desenvolvido em 28 semanas, implementando os pressupostos da estrutura TARGET à aprendizagem das habilidades motoras básicas. Os resultados demonstraram que: (1) no desempenho motor, as crianças do grupo interventivo apresentaram ganhos na pós-intervenção e permaneceram com estes durante o período de manutenção (55% na categoria “Média”) enquanto que as crianças do grupo controle permaneceram com o mesmo desempenho em todos os períodos avaliados (60% na categoria “Muito Pobre”); (2) na análise antropométrica, ambos os grupos apresentaram a maior parte de seus participantes na categoria “Eutrófico” (70% interventivo; 60% controle) da pré para a pós-intervenção e no período de manutenção; (3) as avaliações antropométricas de IMC (p=0,795) e circunferência abdominal (p=0,751) apresentaram-se com resultados não significantes no período de manutenção bem como na interação com o desempenho motor no mesmo período. Conclui-se que as experiências proporcionadas em um ambiente adequado com a implementação de climas motivacionais apropriados contribui para o aumento do nível de interesse e desempenho final nas habilidades adquiridas, revelando assim, o impacto positivo do Programa Interventivo, bem como, a manutenção em mudanças positivas nas variáveis analisadas. / This study aimed to verify the impact and persistence of an intervention program focusing on the Motor Motivational context of Mastery in everyday life of the participants. We assessed motor performance (fundamental movement skills), the description of the family and school contexts, and anthropometric measurements (BMI and waist circumference). The sample in this study comprised 40 children (20 in the control group and 20 of the interventional group) participating in the program conducted in 2008, the School of Physical Education at UFRGS, and a state school in the city of Porto Alegre. For assessments of children were used: (1) Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD) of (Ulrich, 2000), adapted and validated for the population of RS (VALENTINI; VILLWOCK; BARBOSA; PICK; SPESSATO; BALBINOTTI, 2008) to evaluate motor performance and a description of the family context (questionnaire (BERLEZE, 2002) adapted from (SERRANO; NETO, 1997) and the school context (semi-structured interview) to discuss the best motor performance and (2) measurements of waist circumference and, weight and height for BMI calculation, for anthropometric analysis. The children were evaluated in 03 separate stages: pre-and post-intervention and 18 months after the end of intervention (maintenance period). The Motor Intervention Program was developed in 28 weeks, implementing the assumptions of the structure of TARGET learning basic motor skills. The results showed that: (1) in motor performance, the children of the interventional group showed gains in postintervention and remained with them during the maintenance (55% in category "Medium") while children in the control group remained the same performance in all evaluated periods (60% in category "Very Poor"), (2) anthropometric analysis, both groups showed a Most of the participants in the "eutrophic" (70% interventional and 60% control) from pre-to post-intervention and in the maintenance period, (3) anthropometric assessments of BMI (p = 0.795) and waist circumference (p = 0.751) were non-significant results in the maintenance period as well as interaction with the motor performance in the same period. We conclude that the experiences provided in a suitable environment with the implementation of appropriate motivational climate contributes to the increased level of interest and ultimate performance in the acquired skills, thus revealing the positive impact of the Intervening Program, as well as the maintenance of positive changes in the variables analyzed.

A presente tese analisa a maneira como a probabilidade influencia a formação da decisão sobre os fatos (contexto de descobrimento), bem como a motivação acerca dessas decisões (contexto justificativo). Mediante prévia análise da relevância da verdade no processo judicial, demonstra-se também que no terreno processual somente é possível falar em probabilidade, o que implica a ideia de um modelo probabilístico do juízo de fato, cujo núcleo é o módulo da escolha entre as alternativas possíveis. Portanto, são oferecidos critérios para a escolha das alternativas, os quais são denominados como diretrizes probatórias. De outro lado, a fim de que o convencimento do juiz a respeito dos fatos seja o mais racional possível, também é examinada a obrigatoriedade da motivação das decisões judiciais. Para tanto, é realizada abordagem à luz do Estado Constitucional e, ao final, demonstra-se que a probabilidade igualmente conforma o contexto justificativo, pois faz com que a motivação seja um discurso probatório racional. / This thesis examines how probability influences the fact-finding process (context of discovery) and the motivation about the trial of facts (context of justification). Considering the analysis of the relevance of truth in the judicial process, also in the procedural field only probability is taken into account, which implies the idea of a probabilistic model of factual judgment, whose core is the module of choice among the possible alternatives. Therefore, guidelines are offered for the choice of alternatives, which are called as evidentiary guidelines. On the other hand, in order to achieve the most rational conviction of the trier, mandatory legal motivation is also examined. The approach focuses on the Constitutional State and, in the end, is shown that the probability also conforms the context of justification, in order to make the legal motivation as a rational evidence speech.

Aplicações cientes de contexto precisam de mecanismos para recuperar informações sobre o seu contexto de execução. Com base no contexto atual, tais aplicações são capazes de se autoadaptar para fornecer informações e serviços adequados aos seus usuários. A abordagem comum para infraestruturas de apoio às aplicações sensíveis ao contexto fornece serviços para a descoberta de recursos através da utilização de pares <chave-valor> e motores que executam apenas correspondência sintática. Esta abordagem não considera as possíveis relações semânticas entre as palavras-chave usadas. Portanto, a sua expressividade semântica limitada, leva a um serviço de descoberta que provê baixa taxa de recuperação e baixa acurácia. Este trabalho apresenta a utilização de uma outra abordagem para o serviço de contexto e descoberta, que utiliza ontologias para representar os recursos do contexto de execução e capturar a semântica da consulta do usuário, melhorando assim o processo de descoberta para a autoadaptação de sistemas sensíveis ao contexto. A abordagem proposta oferece também pontos de extensão para as aplicações clientes através da utilização de outras ontologias. Esta abordagem foi integrada à infraestrutura CDRF, de forma a adicionar semântica aos serviços desenvolvidos neste projeto. Exemplos de aplicações são também propostos para demonstrar a utilização dos novos serviços. / Context-aware applications demand ways of retrieving context information from the environment. Based on the current context, such applications are able to self-adapt to provide the correct information and services to its users. The usual approach for supporting infrastructures for context-aware applications provides facilities for resource discovery using <key-value> pairs and discovery engines that perform syntactic matching. This approach does not consider the possible semantic relations between the keywords used. So its limited semantic expressiveness often leads to poor discovery results. This paper presents the use of a different approach for service discovery that uses ontologies to represent resources and capture the semantics of the users query, improving the discovery process for self-adaptation of context-aware systems. The proposed approach also offers extension hooks to the client applications through the use of other ontologies. This approach is integrated into the CDRF framework and adds semantics to the services developed in that project. Example applications are also proposed to demonstrate the use of the new services.