O principal objetivo desta tese foi identificar como empresas de vigilância patrimonial privada legalmente constituídas participam do sistema de prestação de serviços de segurança, estabelecendo mecanismos de incentivo, controle, treinamento e busca de informações para a promoção da qualidade dos serviços. A importância do estudo surge da necessidade de averiguar se empresas de vigilância, reguladas e fiscalizadas, podem promover a eficiência no sistema de prestação de serviços. Foram coletados dados secundários sobre o setor e, com base nos fundamentos teóricos da Nova Economia Institucional (NEI), foi aplicado questionário à amostra aleatória de empresas de segurança patrimonial na cidade de São Paulo. Essas informações foram analisadas com maior profundidade por meio de dois métodos multivariados, análise de correspondência e de conglomerados, para obter o perfil da segurança privada em São Paulo a partir do agrupamento das empresas com características semelhantes. Detectouse que a presença de assimetria de informações leva ao emprego de processos de filtragem, identificação de sinais de qualidade emitidos pelos trabalhadores, e a utilização de incentivos e monitoramento para assegurar o comportamento adequado. De maneira geral, houve distinção clara entre empresas que atendem o setor público, priorizando mais o preço que a qualidade dos serviços, e as que atendem clientes do setor privado, em que fatores de qualidade podem permitir a cobrança de preços maiores para os serviços. Embora a remuneração do vigilante aparenta ser superior à de ocupações alternativas no mercado, empresas diferiram na prática de remunerações, seguindo o interesse do contratante de serviços em pagar ou não pelo diferencial de qualidade. A idéia de salário de eficiência pode funcionar para algumas circunstâncias, mas a função de monitoramento do trabalhador é mantida intensa. A promoção da qualidade nesta forma de governança híbrida incluiria um esforço de controle sobre o trabalhador por parte do prestador de serviços, que confere menor capacidade adaptativa ao contratante sobre as atividades do vigilante. Conclui-se que a forma híbrida de governança, com a contratação da empresa de vigilância, pode promove a qualidade dos serviços ao garantir que pré-requisitos legais sejam respeitados na contratação, o treinamento e a reciclagem sejam oferecidos, os trabalhadores sejam selecionados e monitorados e a estrutura de incentivos via remunerações maiores que alternativas de mercado seja estabelecida. Contudo, verificou-se comportamentos particulares que impedem a generalização deste resultado para todos os casos, especialmente no caso de contratantes preferirem menores preços à maior qualidade, como contratantes do setor público. / The main objective of this thesis was to identify how firms in the security system services for private properties, which are legally constituted, participate of the security system services, establishing mechanisms for incentive, control and training of their employees, besides searching for information to promote the quality of its services. The importance of the study is related to the need to evaluate if monitoring firms, regulated and fiscalized, can promote efficiency in the service sector. Secondary data about the sector was collected and a questionnaire, based on the theoretical fundaments of the New Institutional Economics (NIE), was applied to a random sample of companies that provide security services for private properties in the city of Sao Paulo. This information was analyzed through two multivariate methods, analysis of correspondence and of conglomerates, to obtain a profile of the private insurance in Sao Paulo, based on a group of companies with similar characteristics. The study results indicated that information asymmetry lead to the employment of filtering, identification of the quality signs of the workers and the use of incentive for monitoring and assuring adequate behavior. In general, there was a clear distinction between the companies that provided services to the public sector and those that provide services for the private sector. The former seemed to prioritize prices instead of quality of the services, while the later could charge higher prices for high quality services. Although the remuneration of the security officer seems to be higher than those in other activities, companies differ with respect to remuneration, according to the interest of the customers in paying for differentiated services. The efficiency wage idea can work in some circumstances although the function of monitoring the worker is intense. Quality promotion in this form of hybrid governance includes efforts to control the employee by the service provider, improving the service quality as it guarantees legal requisites are in the contract that confers less adaptive capacity to the contractor over the activities of the security officers. It can be concluded that a hybrid governance, contracting the security firm, com promote service quality guaranteeing that legal pre-requisites are respected in hiring, training and recycling be provided, personnel be selected and monitored and the incentives above market value be established. However, specific behavior that prevent the generalization of these results for all cases was observed, specially in case where contractors preferred lower prices to higher quality, as in public sector contractors.

The conformal bootstrap method is a non-perturbative method that uses the symmetry in a conformal field theory to constrain and solve for the observables in the theory. We consider a conformal field theory with the symmetry group SU(N) and four general scalar fields as the only low dimensional operators. The four-point correlation function of a quartic interaction of four general scalar fields in a conformal field theory can be written as a sum over primary operators. In order to study the four-point correlator a large-N expansion is made, where N comes from the symmetry group SU(N). Using the conformal bootstrap method the anomalous dimension of the primary operators in the four-point correlator is calculated. Using the AdS/CFT correspondence the anomalous dimension of the primary operators is also calculated using Witten diagrams. / Konform fältteori är en kvantfältteori med konform symmetri. Konform symmetri är en symmetri som bevarar vinklar och lokalt ser ut som en kombination av en rotation och en förändring i skala. En metod för att beräkna de observerbara kvantiteterna i en konform fältteori är metoden "conformal boostrap". Denna metod går ut på att använda symmetrin i en konform fältteori för att begränsa och beräkna värdet på de observerbara kvantiteterna i teorin.En av de observerbar kvantiteterna i en fältteori är en korrelationsfunktion. Korrelationsfunktioner beskriver interaktionerna mellan partiklarna i en fältteori.  I detta arbete studerar vi en interaktion mellan fyra skalärfält genom att studera fyra-punkts korrelationsfunktionen för denna interaktion. Metoden vi använder är "conformal bootstrap" men vi testar också om AdS/CFT dualiteten håller för våra beräkningar. AdS/CFT dualiteten är en ekvivalens av två olika teorier, en strängteori i ett (d+1)-dimensionellt anti-de Sitter (AdS) rum och en konform fältteori (CFT) i den d-dimensionella gränsen av anti-de Sitter rummet. Enligt denna dualitet kan en observerbar kvantitet beräknas från båda dessa två teorier och ge samma resultat. Teorin vi studerar har symmetrigrupp SU(N) och vi arbetar i dimension två. Vi arbetar också med att N, matrisrangen i teorin, är stort då detta är den gräns där AdS/CFT dualiteten gäller. Enligt konform fältteori så kan en fyra-punkts korrelationsfunktion av fyra skalärer beskrivas som en summa över vad som kallas primära fält. Genom att använda "conformal bootstrap" metoden beräknas den anormala dimensionen, vilket är en korrektion av första icke-triviala ordning till dimensionen, av dessa primära fält. Samma kvantitet beräknas också från strängteorisidan av AdS/CFT dualiteten genom användandet av så kallade Witten diagram. Resultatet från båda sidor av dualiteten visas stämma överens.

[pt] Este trabalho examina a correspondência entre Guimarães Rosa e seus tradutores alemão, italiano e norte-americana, com vistas à depreensão e análise de perspectivas rosianas sobre o simbolismo sonoro. Examinam-se as reflexões sobre o tema que se podem depreender (a) das considerações gerais que Rosa faz no corpo das cartas enviadas a seus tradutores; e (b) das detalhadas instruções que ele acrescenta em anexos, para dirimir dúvidas específicas colocadas pelos tradutores. Mostra-se, pela análise das epístolas, que a criação linguística rosiana tende a abarcar de forma deliberada e até certo ponto calculada a sonoridade sugestiva, por meio de singulares onomatopeias, aliterações, assonâncias e padrões rítmicos, resultando em um simbolismo sonoro. Conferindo carga expressiva, força e plasticidade ao texto, o simbolismo sonoro é um importante aliado nas estratégias rosianas de privar o leitor da bengala dos lugares comuns (carta a Harriet de Onis) e de convidá-lo a ter com a língua uma relação que não seja unicamente lógico-reflexiva (Carta a Edoardo Bizzarri). Mostra-se ainda que, no que tange às formas como dialogam com as teorias linguísticas, as reflexões e atitudes tradutórias de Rosa, tendendo à recusa do princípio da arbitrariedade do signo, apresentam convergências parciais com discursos teóricos que sustentam o simbolismo sonoro, em especial os de Jespersen e Jakobson. / [en] This work examines the letters exchanged between Guimarães Rosa and his German, Italian and American translators,aiming to apprehend and analyse Rosa s perspectives on sound symbolism. It examines the reflections on the theme that can be inferred from (a) the general considerations that Rosa elaborates in the body of the letters sent to his translators, and (b) the detailed instructions he adds in attachments to resolve specific questions posed by them. It is shown, by analysis of the epistles, that Rosa’s linguistic creation tends to encompass suggestive sonority in a deliberate and somewhat calculated manner, by means of singular onomatopoeias, alliterations, assonances and rhythmic patterns, resulting in a sound symbolism. Charging the texts with expressiveness, strength and plasticity, sound symbolism is an important ingredient in Rosa s strategy to deprive the reader of the walking stick of common place (letter to Harriet de Onis) and to invite him to engage in a relationship with language that might go over the strictly logical-reflexive plane (letter to Edoardo Bizzarri). The study shows, moreover, that Rosa’s reflections and attitudes as a translator can be related to linguistic theories that tend to refuse the principle of the arbitrariness of the sign, also showing partial convergences with theoretical discourses that defend sound symbolism, especially those of Jespersen and Jakobson.

<p>Bounded rationality is the study of how human cognition with limited capacity is adapted to handle the complex information structures in the environment. This thesis argues that in order to understand the bounded rationality of decision processes, it is necessary to develop decision theories that are computational process models based upon basic cognitive and perceptual mechanisms. The main goal of this thesis is to show that models of perceptual categorization based on the storage of exemplars and retrieval of similar exemplars whenever a new object is encountered (D. L. Medin & M. M. Schaffer, 1978), can be an important contribution to theories of decision making. Study I proposed, PROBEX (PROBabilities from Exemplars), a model for inferences from generic knowledge. It is a “lazy” algorithm that presumes no pre-computed abstractions. In a computer simulation it was found to be a powerful decision strategy, and it was possible to fit the model to human data in a psychologically plausible way. Study II was a theoretical investigation that found that PROBEX was very robust in conditions where the decision maker has very little information, and that it worked well even under the worst circumstances. Study III empirically tested if humans can learn to use exemplar based or one reason decision making strategies (G. Gigerenzer, P. Todd, & the ABC Research Group, 1999) where it is appropriate in a two-alternative choice task. Experiment 1 used cue structure and presentation format as independent variables, and participants easily used one reason strategies if the decision task presented the information as normal text. The participants were only able to use exemplars if they were presented as short strings of letters. Experiment 2 failed to accelerate learning of exemplar use during the decision phase, by prior exposure to exemplars in a similar task. In conclusion, this thesis supports that there are at least two modes of decision making, which are boundedly rational if they are used in the appropriate context. Exemplar strategies may, contrary to study II, only be used late in learning, and the conditions for learning need to be investigated further.</p>

This paper describes the problem of three-dimensional object correspondence and presents an algorithm for matching two three-dimensional colored surfaces using polygon reduction and the minimization of an energy function. At the core of this algorithm is a novel data-dependent multi-resolution pyramid for polygonal surfaces. The algorithm is general to correspondence between any two manifolds of the same dimension embedded in a higher dimensional space. Results demonstrating correspondences between various objects are presented and a method for incorporating user input is also detailed.

<p>This thesis examines a sample of Pitted Ware pottery from the Gotlandic site of Ajvide in regard to the spatial and temporal relationship of the shards. Ajvide Stone Age site have been extensively excavated over the past 25 years and the most recent analysis of pottery was carried out by Inger Österholm in 1987 and new analyses of the material are therefore greatly needed. Pottery from three sample areas was analysed in regard to their distribution, decoration, fragmentation, part of pot and quality of the goods. To analyse the material in a contextual way a multivariate statistical analysis called correspondence analysis was used. Two areas denominated “dark areas”, which Österholm defined previously, as possible ritual sites, and one reference area with mixed material were chosen for the analysis. By including two of these “dark areas” the study also examine if similarities or differences could be seen among the shard distribution how these areas have been defined and possibly re-defined.</p>

Bounded rationality is the study of how human cognition with limited capacity is adapted to handle the complex information structures in the environment. This thesis argues that in order to understand the bounded rationality of decision processes, it is necessary to develop decision theories that are computational process models based upon basic cognitive and perceptual mechanisms. The main goal of this thesis is to show that models of perceptual categorization based on the storage of exemplars and retrieval of similar exemplars whenever a new object is encountered (D. L. Medin &amp; M. M. Schaffer, 1978), can be an important contribution to theories of decision making. Study I proposed, PROBEX (PROBabilities from Exemplars), a model for inferences from generic knowledge. It is a “lazy” algorithm that presumes no pre-computed abstractions. In a computer simulation it was found to be a powerful decision strategy, and it was possible to fit the model to human data in a psychologically plausible way. Study II was a theoretical investigation that found that PROBEX was very robust in conditions where the decision maker has very little information, and that it worked well even under the worst circumstances. Study III empirically tested if humans can learn to use exemplar based or one reason decision making strategies (G. Gigerenzer, P. Todd, &amp; the ABC Research Group, 1999) where it is appropriate in a two-alternative choice task. Experiment 1 used cue structure and presentation format as independent variables, and participants easily used one reason strategies if the decision task presented the information as normal text. The participants were only able to use exemplars if they were presented as short strings of letters. Experiment 2 failed to accelerate learning of exemplar use during the decision phase, by prior exposure to exemplars in a similar task. In conclusion, this thesis supports that there are at least two modes of decision making, which are boundedly rational if they are used in the appropriate context. Exemplar strategies may, contrary to study II, only be used late in learning, and the conditions for learning need to be investigated further.

As the number of surveillance cameras and mobile platforms with cameras increases, automated detection and tracking of objects on these systems gain importance. There are various tracking methods designed for stationary or moving cameras. For stationary cameras, correspondence based tracking methods along with background subtraction have various advantages such as enabling detection of object entry and exit in a scene. They also provide robust tracking when the camera is static. However, they fail when the camera is moving. Conversely, histogram based methods such as mean shift enables object tracking on moving camera cases. Though, with mean shift object&rsquo / s entry and exit cannot be detected automatically which means a new object&rsquo / s manual initialization is required. In this thesis, we propose a dual-mode object tracking system which combines the benefits of correspondence based tracking and mean shift tracking. For each frame, a reliability measure based on background update rate is calculated. Interquartile Range is used for finding outliers on this measure and camera movement is detected. If the camera is stationary, correspondence based tracking is used and when camera is moving, the system switches to the mean shift tracking mode until the reliability of correspondence based tracking is sufficient according to the reliability measure. The results demonstrate that, in stationary camera mode, new objects can be detected automatically by correspondence based tracking along with background subtraction. When the camera starts to move, generation of false objects by correspondence based tracking is prevented by switching to mean shift tracking mode and handing over the correct bounding boxes with a seamless operation which enables continuous tracking.

One of the main topics in the modern String Theory are the conjectured string/gauge (AdS/CFT) dualities. Proving such conjectures is extremely difficult since the gauge and string theory perturbative regimes do not overlap. In this perspective, the discovery of infinitely many conserved charges, i.e. the integrability, in the planar AdS/CFT has allowed us to reach immense progresses in understanding and confirming the duality.The first part of this thesis is focused on the gravity side of the AdS5/CFT4 duality: we investigate the quantum integrability of the type IIB superstring on AdS5 x S5. In the pure spinor formulation we analyze the operator algebra by computing the operator product expansion of the Maurer-Cartan currents at the leading order in perturbation theory. With the same approach at one loop order, we show the path-independence of the monodromy matrix which implies the charge conservation law, strongly supporting the quantum integrability of the string sigma-model. We also verify that the Lax pair field strength remains well-defined at one-loop order being free from UV divergences. The same string sigma-model is analyzed in the Green-Schwarz formalism in the near-flat-space (NFS) limit. Such a limit remarkably simplifies the string world-sheet action but still leaving interesting physics. We use the NFS truncation to show the factorization of the world-sheet S-matrix at one-loop order. This property defines a two-dimensional field theory as integrable: it is the manifestation of the higher conserved charges. Hence, we have explicitly checked their presence at quantum level. The second part is dedicated to the AdS4/CFT3 duality: in particular the type IIA superstring on AdS4 x CP3. We compute the leading quantum corrections to the string energies for string configurations with a large but yet finite angular momentum on CP3 and show that they match the conjectured all-loop Bethe Ansatz equations.

1. Seed bank and seed rain represent dispersal in time and space. They can be important sources of diversity in the rural landscape, where fragmented habitats are linked by their histories. 2. Seed bank, seed rain and above-ground vegetation were sampled in four habitat types (abandoned semi-natural grassland (ABA), grazed former arable field (FAF), mid-field islet (MFI) and grazed semi-natural grassland (SNG)) in a rural landscape in southern Sweden, to examine whether community patterns can be distinguished at large spatial scales and whether seed bank and seed rain are best explained by current, past or intended future vegetation communities. 3. We counted 54 357 seedlings of 188 species from 1190 seed bank and 797 seed rain samples. Seed bank, seed rain and above-ground vegetation communities differed according to habitat. Several species characteristic of managed grassland vegetation were present in the seed bank, seed rain and vegetation of the other habitats. 4. The seed banks of SNGs and the seed rain of the FAFs were generally better predicted by the surrounding above-ground vegetation than were the other habitat types. The seed rain of the grazed communities was most similar to the vegetation in the FAFs, while the seed banks of the abandoned grasslands most resembled the vegetation in SNGs. 5. Gap availability and seed input could be limiting the colonisation of target species in FAFs, while remnant populations in the seed bank and the presence of grassland specialists in the above-ground vegetation indicate that abandoned grasslands and mid-field islets could be valuable sources of future diversity in the landscape after restoration. 6. Synthesis and applications. SNG communities are able to form seed banks which survive land-use change, but their seed rain does not reflect their above-ground communities. It is important that grassland plants set seed. By connecting existing grasslands with restoration targets, increased disturbance in the target habitats would allow for colonisation via the seed bank or seed rain, while decreased grazing intensity would benefit seed production in the source grasslands. Otherwise, landscape-wide propagule availability might increase with a more varied timing and intensity of management.