In a modern world software systems are literally everywhere. These should cope with very complex scenarios including the ability of context-awareness and self-adaptability. The concept of roles provide the means to model such complex, context-dependent systems. In role-based systems, the relational and context-dependent properties of objects are transferred into the roles that the object plays in a certain context. However, even if the domain can be expressed in a well-structured and modular way, role-based models can still be hard to comprehend due to the sophisticated semantics of roles, contexts and different constraints. Hence, unintended implications or inconsistencies may be overlooked. A feasible logical formalism is required here. In this setting Description Logics (DLs) fit very well as a starting point for further considerations since as a decidable fragment of first-order logic they have both an underlying formal semantics and decidable reasoning problems. DLs are a well-understood family of knowledge representation formalisms which allow to represent application domains in a well-structured way by DL-concepts, i.e. unary predicates, and DL-roles, i.e. binary predicates. However, classical DLs lack expressive power to formalise contextual knowledge which is crucial for formalising role-based systems. We investigate a novel family of contextualised description logics that is capable of expressing contextual knowledge and preserves decidability even in the presence of rigid DL-roles, i.e. relational structures that are context-independent. For these contextualised description logics we thoroughly analyse the complexity of the consistency problem. Furthermore, we present a mapping algorithm that allows for an automated translation from a formal role-based model, namely a Compartment Role Object Model (CROM), into a contextualised DL ontology. We prove the semantical correctness and provide ideas how features extending CROM can be expressed in our contextualised DLs. As final step for a completely automated analysis of role-based models, we investigate a practical reasoning algorithm and implement the first reasoner that can process contextual ontologies.

Au cours de la précédente décennie et avant la crise financière de l’automne 2008, les marchés financiers internationaux ont connu un développement considérable et l’émergence d’une véritable industrie de l’investissement institutionnel. Au sein de cette industrie, les analystes financiers sell side employés par les sociétés de courtage apparaissent comme des acteurs majeurs, autour desquels se forment l’évaluation des sociétés cotées et les recommandations d’investissement à destination de leurs clients gestionnaires de fonds amenés à passer leurs ordres de bourse auprès de ces sociétés de courtage. La recherche présentée vise à identifier les modes de gestion des analystes financiers dans le champ de l’industrie de l’investissement institutionnel et l’influence qu’ils exercent sur les représentations, pratiques et productions des analystes. La première partie de cette thèse, après avoir étudié la construction du métier d’analyste et son contexte, met en débat les cadres de références théoriques et les disciplines qui s’impliquent dans l’analyse de la gestion du travail de quelques-uns des principaux acteurs de la finance, en général, et des analystes financiers en particulier. La seconde partie mobilise une approche contextualiste, interdisciplinaire et multi-méthodes au service d’une investigation empirique. Celle-ci met en relief le rôle du droit dans des dimensions coercitives et normatives très prégnantes, encourageant aussi bien la concurrence entre structures que l’homogénéisation et la standardisation de l’organisation du travail. Elle montre comment, sous l’effet de la concurrence des banques d’investissement anglo-saxonnes et de l’introduction d’un nouveau mode de financement de l’analyse financière par les volumes de courtage, les sociétés de « brokerage » ont adopté des stratégies de niche et intégré dans leurs configurations organisationnelles plutôt professionnelles de fortes dimensions mécanistes. Enfin, elle constate une uniformisation des modes de gestion des quatre principales sociétés de courtage françaises filiales de banques d’investissement. Les analystes français sont soumis à des modes de gestion qui privilégient clairement les dimensions marketing du métier qu’il s’agisse des modalités d’organisation du travail, des pratiques de recrutement, de communication interne, d’évaluation et de rémunération. Un des rôles essentiels assigné aux analystes consiste alors à accroitre les volumes de courtage ce qui les conduit à privilégier les activités aval de leur fonction. Mais cette dimension marketing qui caractérise la production des analystes doit être relativisée. En fonction de leur histoire professionnelle et des ressources qu’ils peuvent mobiliser, les analystes développent en effet des stratégies et des identités au travail différenciées. / Over the last decade and before the October 2008 credit crunch, international financial markets have witnessed a considerable development with the emergence of an important industry of institutional investment. Within this industry, financial analysts hired by brokerage firms play a major role while contributing to the assessment of listed companies through investment recommendations to asset managers, thereby obtaining from these clients orders for execution. The objective of this research is to pinpoint the role played by research analysts in the financial industry, and their influence over the representations and practices. The first part of this study, once constructed the analyst’s activity as a category, challenges the referential and theoretical grounds, as well as the fields involved in the work of some financial functions, and draws the attention to research analysts. The second part focuses on a contextual, multidisciplinary and multi-methodological approach to support an empirical investigation, which highlights the role played by law in both its coercive and prescriptive aspects, whether stimulating competition between structures or promoting the homogenization and standardization of work arrangements. We demonstrate how competition from Anglo-Saxon investment banks, as well as the adoption of a new business model resting on commissions generated by trading volumes, has led to the development of niche strategies, and introduced an important mechanistic dimension to the organizational configurations of brokerage firms. Lastly, it sheds light on the standardization of the managerial modes of the four main French brokerage firms, which are all subsidiaries of investment banks. French analysts are subject to management modes which clearly favor the marketing dimensions of the activity, as can be seen through the way their work is organized, the recruitment practices, the internal communication flows, their assessments and salaries. One of the roles assigned to analysts is thus to generate higher brokerage volumes, which as a consequence drives them towards marketing activities. This marketing dimension however needs to must be into perspective. Depending on their professional backgrounds and the resources they access, research analysts develop specific strategies and differentiated identities.

Human-Computer Interaction migrates from the classic perspective to a more natural environment, where humans are able to use natural language to exchange knowledge with a computer. In order to fully "understand" the human's intentions, the computer should be able to detect emotions and reply accordingly. This thesis focuses on several issues regarding the human affects, from various detection techniques to their integration into a Distributed Interactive System. Emotions are a fuzzy concept and their perception across human individuals may vary as well. Therefore, this makes the detection problem very difficult for a computer. From the affect detection perspective, we proposed three different approaches: an emotion detection method based on Self Organizing Maps, a valence classifier based on multi-modal features and Support Vector Machines, and a technique to resolve conflicts into a well known affective dictionary (SentiWordNet). Moreover, from the system integration perspective, two issues are approached: a Wizard of Oz experiment in a children storytelling environment and an architecture for a Distributed Interactive System.

Submitted by Rodrigo Yoshio Tamae (rytamae@yahoo.com.br) on 2018-05-09T20:50:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tamae_ry_dr_prud.pdf: 8732958 bytes, checksum: adaebfe74540ed474f93e923e81fb527 (MD5) / Rejected by ALESSANDRA KUBA OSHIRO ASSUNÇÃO (alessandra@fct.unesp.br), reason: Solicitamos que realize correções na submissão seguindo as orientações abaixo: Números de página aparecem duas vezes nas folhas a partir da 140. Agradecemos a compreensão. on 2018-05-10T19:58:40Z (GMT) / Submitted by Rodrigo Yoshio Tamae (rytamae@yahoo.com.br) on 2018-05-10T20:25:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 tamae_ry_dr_prud.pdf: 8721951 bytes, checksum: 02e3bd0d2ad16ca569a7507cc1c1583d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ALESSANDRA KUBA OSHIRO ASSUNÇÃO (alessandra@fct.unesp.br) on 2018-05-11T11:39:17Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 tamae_ry_dr_prud.pdf: 8721951 bytes, checksum: 02e3bd0d2ad16ca569a7507cc1c1583d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-11T11:39:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tamae_ry_dr_prud.pdf: 8721951 bytes, checksum: 02e3bd0d2ad16ca569a7507cc1c1583d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-16 / Esta pesquisa de doutorado está vinculada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Estadual Paulista "Júlio de Mesquita Filho" (FCT/Unesp), campus de Presidente Prudente-SP, na linha de pesquisa "Processos Formativos, Ensino e Aprendizagem", nas áreas de Educação a distância (EaD) e Formação de Professores. O grande avanço das Tecnologias Digitais da Informação e da Comunicação (TDIC) tem provocado inúmeras mudanças em todas as áreas da ciência. Na Educação ocorre a ampla adoção e utilização dos Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem (AVA), os quais podem contribuir para a utilização de TDIC, metodologias ativas de aprendizagem e que favorecem a abordagem Construcionista, Contextualizada e Significativa (CCS). A abordagem CCS é aquela em que o cursista utiliza a tecnologia como instrumento para produzir algo que parte da sua vivência e realidade, e ao se deparar com os conceitos curriculares, o professor atua como mediador para ajudá-lo a formalizar esses conceitos. Nesse contexto, a Internet e os dispositivos móveis passaram a ser utilizados em escala crescente, e tem contribuído para a proliferação de grande quantidade de dados em formato digital que, por sua vez, ainda são pouco utilizados para gerar a descoberta de conhecimento em contextos educacionais. É onde destaca-se a área de mineração de dados educacionais (MDE), que consiste no desenvolvimento de métodos e técnicas orientados a explorar tais dados digitais para melhor compreender o comportamento dos cursistas e em quais condições eles aprendem. Assim, "como utilizar técnicas de MDE para identificar indícios da abordagem CCS nos cursos da modalidade híbrida?" é a questão que norteia esta pesquisa de doutorado, pois mesmo professores qualificados para atividades docentes, muitas vezes, não possuem proficiência suficiente quanto ao uso de recursos computacionais, tais como linguagens de programação e ferramentas de banco de dados, e muito menos, quanto ao uso de técnicas de mineração de dados aplicadas à contextos educacionais. A pesquisa fez uso tanto da abordagem quantitativa quanto qualitativa, com base no delineamento metodológico Ex Post Facto ou Pesquisa não-experimental, pois o estudo foi realizado após a conclusão dos fatos. Para responder as questões norteadoras, o curso de Educação Especial na Perspectiva Inclusiva do programa Redefor/Unesp foi analisado a partir das categorias CCS (contexto do cursista, espiral de aprendizagem e ciclo de ações, aprendizagem em rede, papel do professor e formalização de conceitos) definidas com base nas indicações de Schlünzen (2000; 2015), Santos (2015) e Valente (2005). Foi utilizado o modelo de mineração de dados proposto por Fayad, Piatetsky-Shapiro e Smyth (1996) e as fases que consomem maior esforço repetitivo possibilitaram o mapeamento de padrões a serem seguidos, e para minimizar os esforços e maximizar os resultados, foi proposto e implementado um protótipo de software denominado EDMXP (Educational Data Mining eXPeriment) em linguagem de programação Java para o suporte às atividades de seleção, pré-processamento, mineração e análise de dados. As tarefas de mineração de dados utilizadas foram as de agrupamento e classificação representadas pelos algoritmos Simple KMeans, VSM e J48. Os resultados foram compilados em uma linguagem que possibilita aos profissionais de Educação melhor compreenderem os resultados (tabelas e gráficos), além de um quadro de indicadores de desempenho (dashboard). Ao final, foi possível constatar que a MDE pode ser um fator transformador em Educação a partir do momento que possibilita que se tome decisões com base em dados e em fatos, e não apenas de forma intuitiva ou por meio de experiências vivênciadas. Representa, portanto, uma nova forma de fazer e pensar a Educação. / This doctoral research is bound to the Graduate Program in Education of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the São Paulo State University "Júlio de Mesquita Filho" (FCT / Unesp), Campus of Presidente Prudente-SP, in the research line "Formative Processes, Teaching and Learning", in the areas of Distance Education (D-Learning) and Teacher Training. The great advance of the Digital Technologies of Information and Communication (DTIC) has caused fullness changes in all areas of science. In Education there is a widespread adoption and use of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), which can contribute to the use of DTIC, active learning methodologies and favoring the Constructionist, Contextualized and Significative (CCS) approach. The CCS approach is that in which student uses technology as an instrument to produce something that arise in your own experience and reality, and when he came across with curricular concepts, teacher acts as mediator to help him to formalize these concepts. In these context, the Internet and mobile devices started to be used on a growing scale and have contributed to the proliferation of large amounts of data in digital format, which in turn are little used to generate the knowledge discovery in educational contexts. It's where stands out the area of Educational Data Mining (EDM), which consists in the development of methods and techniques designed to exploit such digital data to better understand students behavior's and in what conditions they learn. Thus, "how to use EDM techniques to identify evidence of CCS approach in hybrid mode courses?" it's the issue that guides this doctoral research, because even qualified teachers for teaching activities often lack sufficient proficiency in the use of computational resources, such as programming languages and database tools, much less regarding the use of data mining techniques applied to educational contexts. The research made use of both quantitative and qualitative approach, based on the methodological design Ex Post Facto or non-experimental research, once this study was conducted after the completion of the facts. To answer the leading questions, the Special Education course in the Inclusive Perspective of the Redefor / Unesp program was analyzed from the CCS categories (student's context, learning spiral and cycle of actions, learning network, teacher role and concepts formalization) defined according to the indications of Schlünzen (2000; 2015), Santos (2015) and Valente (2005). It was used the data mining model proposed by Fayad, Piatetsky-Shapiro and Smyth (1996) and the phases that consume most repetitive effort allowed the mapping of patterns to be followed, and to minimize efforts and to maximize results, was proposed and implemented a software prototype named EDMXP (Educational Data Mining eXPeriment) in Java programming language to support selection, preprocessing, mining and data analysis activities. The data mining tasks used were clustering and classification tasks represented by the Simple KMeans, VSM and J48 algorithms. The results were compiled in a language that enables Education professionals to better understand results (tables and graphs), as well as a dashboard of performance indicators. Finally, it was possible to verify that EDM can be a transforming factor in Education from the moment that allows decisions based on data and facts, and not only in an intuitive way or by lived experiences. It represents, therefore, a new way of doing and thinking Education.

To make mathematics more significant for the beneficiaries, the problem studied in this thesis is to investigate how to connect mathematical daily practices with educational contexts. The overarching aim is to investigate how to contextualise school mathematics within Rwandan cultural mathematics practices. The content of the thesis reports on the characteristics of mathematical organisations in three workplace settings (taxi driving, house construction and restaurant management) which in turn serve as source for the design of contextualised mathematical activities for student teachers in a teacher education programme. Three levels of mathematical practices are described: (1) mathematical practices that are performed by workers within their respective workplaces, (2) mathematical practices that are performed by student teachers while solving and posing contextualised mathematical tasks for secondary school students, (3) mathematical practices that are carried out by secondary school students. Data gathered from individual and group interviews, transcripts of group discussions and students’ written reports of mathematical work were analysed from the perspective of both activity theory and anthropological theory of didactics. Findings from workplace settings revealed that mathematical organisations performed by workers are characterised by techniques which are functional to the problem at hand, the cultural constraints and the educational background of the workers. As long as they are pragmatic towards the goals of the activity no further justification of the techniques used is needed, resulting in a mathematical organisation with undeveloped know-why (logos). On the contrary, at university and secondary school settings, students justified the used techniques throughout the related taught content of the subject mathematics. Also from each category of mathematical practice, it is shown that while connecting workplaces and educational settings the didactic transposition process was much influenced by the institutional conditions and constraints. / För att göra matematiken betydelsefull för avnämarna är problemområdet som studeras i denna avhandling hur den matematik som finns i samhället kan överbryggas till en undervisningskontext. Syftet med avhandlingen är att undersöka hur man kan kontextualisera skolmatematik i kulturella praktiker i Rwanda. I avhandlingen belyses först matematisk organisation på tre arbetsplatser – i en taxiverksamhet, hos en byggmästare och hos en restaurangägare. Matematik i dessa verksamheter utgör underlag för att konstruera uppgifter för lärarstudenter inom ämnet matematik som först löser uppgifterna och sedan i sin tur konstruerar uppgifter för elever motsvarande årskurs nio i grundskolan. Uppgifterna konstrueras med utgångspunkt i den information studenterna fått om de tre verksamheterna. Datainsamlingen skedde med hjälp av individuella intervjuer, gruppintervjuer och bandinspelade gruppdiskussioner samt studenters och elevers nedtecknade lösningar på respektive uppgifter. Data analyserades med hjälp av aktivitetsteori och antropologisk didaktisk teori. Resultaten från arbetsplatserna visade att matematisk organisation kännetecknades av tekniker som är funktionella för de problem som behövde lösas, de kulturella villkor som förelåg och deltagarnas utbildningsbakgrund. Så länge som teknikerna ledde till önskade mål för verksamheten fanns inga behov att utveckla tekniken som kännetecknades av en matematisk organisation med outvecklad logos. I kontrast till denna strategi sågs studenter och elever i respektive miljöer redovisa de tekniker som användes och motivera dem i enlighet med vad som krävs inom matematikämnet. Den matematiska transpositionsprocessen som utfördes av deltagarna i de olika miljöerna influerades i hög grad av rådande institutionella villkor och begränsningar.

L’Interaction Humain-Machine a évolué d’une perspective classique vers un environnement plus naturel, dans lequel les humains peuvent utiliser la langue naturelle pour échanger des connaissances avec un ordinateur. Pour bien “comprendre” les intentions de l’humain, l’ordinateur doit être capable de détecter les émotions et de répondre en conséquence. Cette thèse porte sur plusieurs aspects de la détection des émotion humaines, en partant de différentes techniques de détection jusqu’à leur intégration dans un Système Interactif Distribué. Les émotions sont un concept flou et leur perception par des individus humains peut aussi varier. Par conséquent, cela rend le problème de détection très difficile en informatique. Du point vue de la détection de l’affect, nous avons proposé trois approches différentes : une méthode à base de Cartes Auto-Organisatrices (Self Organizing Maps- SOM), un classifieur de la valence basé sur des caractéristiques multi-modales et un Séparateur à Vaste Marge (Support Vector Machines - SVM) et une technique pour résoudre les conflits dans un dictionnaire affectif (SentiWordNet). En outre, du point de vue de l’intégration aux systèmes, deux questions sont abordées : une expérience de type Magicien d’Oz dans un environnement de narration d’histoires pour enfants et une architecture de Système Interactif Distribué. / Human-Computer Interaction migrates from the classic perspective to a more natural environment, where humans are able to use natural language to exchange knowledge with a computer. In order to fully “understand” the human’s intentions, the computer should be able to detect emotions and reply accordingly. This thesis focuses on several issues regarding the human affects, from various detection techniques to their integration into a Distributed Interactive System. Emotions are a fuzzy concept and their perception across human individuals may vary as well. Therefore, this makes the detection problem very difficult for a computer. From the affect detection perspective, we proposed three different approaches: an emotion detection method based on Self Organizing Maps, a valence classifier based on multi-modal features and Support Vector Machines, and a technique to resolve conflicts into a well known affective dictionary (SentiWordNet). Moreover, from the system integration perspective, two issues are approached: a Wizard of Oz experiment in a children storytelling environment and an architecture for a Distributed Interactive System.

PhD (English) / Department of English / See the attached abstract below