CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / In this dissertation the problem of channel estimation in cooperative MIMO systems is investigated. More specifically, channel estimation techniques have been developed for a communication system assisted by relays with amplify-and-forward (AF) processing system in a three-hop scenario. The techniques developed use training sequences and enable, at the receiving node, the estimation of all the channels involved in the communication process. In an initial scenario, we consider a communication system with N transmit antennas and M receive antennas and between these nodes we have two relay groups with R1 and R2 antennas each. We propose protocols based on temporal multiplexing to coordinate the retransmission of the signals. At the end of the training phase, the receiving node estimates the channel matrices by combining the received data. By exploiting the multilinear (tensorial) structure of the sets of signals, we can model the received data through tensor models, such as PARAFAC and PARATUCK2 . This work proposes the combined use of these models and algebraic techniques to explore the spatial diversity. Secondly, we consider that the number of transmit and receive antennas at the relays may be different and that the data can travel in a bidirectional scheme (two-way). In order to validate the algorithms we use Monte-Carlo simulations in which we compare our proposed models with competing channel estimation algorithms, such as, the PARAFAC and Khatri-Rao factorization based algorithms in terms of NMSE and bit error rate. / Nesta dissertaÃÃo o problema de estimaÃÃo de canal em sistemas MIMO cooperativos à investigado. Mais especificamente, foram desenvolvidas tÃcnicas para estimaÃÃo de canal em um sistema de comunicaÃÃo assistida por relays com processamento do tipo amplifica-e-encaminha (do inglÃs, amplify-and-forward) em um cenÃrio de 3 saltos. As tÃcnicas desenvolvidas utilizam sequÃncia de treinamento e habilitam, no nà receptor, a estimaÃÃo de todos os canais envolvidos no processo de comunicaÃÃo. Em um cenÃrio inicial, consideramos um sistema de comunicaÃÃo com N antenas transmissoras e M antenas receptoras e entre esses nÃs temos dois grupos de relays com R1 e R2 antenas cada um. Foram desenvolvidos protocolos de transmissÃo baseado em multiplexaÃÃo temporal para coordenar as retransmissÃes dos sinais. Ao final da fase de treinamento, o nà receptor faz a estimaÃÃo das matrizes de canal atravÃs da combinaÃÃo dos dados recebidos. Explorando a estrutura multilinear (tensorial) dos diversos conjuntos de sinais, podemos modelar os dados recebidos atravÃs de modelos tensoriais, tais como: PARAFAC e PARATUCK2. Este trabalho propÃe a utilizaÃÃo combinada desses modelos e de tÃcnicas algÃbricas para explorar a diversidade espacial. Em um segundo momento, consideramos que o nÃmero de antenas transmissoras e receptoras dos relays podem ser diferentes e ainda que os dados podem trafegar em um esquema bidirecional (do inglÃs, two-way). Para fins de validaÃÃo dos algoritmos utilizamos simulaÃÃes de Monte-Carlo em que comparamos os modelos propostos com outros algoritmos de estimaÃÃo de canal, tais como os algoritmos baseados em PARAFAC e FatoraÃÃo de Khatri-Rao em termos de NMSE e taxa de erro de bit.

Estudar a estrutura de remuneração de um país é importante por várias razões. Talvez uma das principais seja porque a remuneração pode afetar a atratividade da carreira e a habilidade dos profissionais que exercem a função de professor. O presente trabalho buscou comparar a diferença do salário-hora entre professores e não professores graduados em carreiras tipicamente relacionadas à profissão docente: Ciências da Educação, Formação de Professores, Língua Materna, Matemática, Biologia e Química. O objetivo era entender como profissionais recém-graduados escolheram diferentes ocupações (docente versus não docente) levando ao aparecimento de um diferencial salarial importante já nos primeiros anos de vida profissional. Desta análise, sob a hipótese de ignorabilidade e a hipótese de preferências semelhantes antes do ingresso no ensino superior corretamente especificadas, pode-se concluir que aqueles que exercem a profissão de professor, tanto na média, quanto no quantil 10 e na mediana, possuem um diferencial de salário hora positivo com relação aos que não são docentes. Já no quantil 90, não há diferença de salário entre os grupos. Os resultados mostram também que a diferença é explicada majoritariamente pelo retorno às características que determinam o salário e menos por diferenças nos níveis de tais características. Existem duas implicações desses resultados. Primeiro, considerando-se salário como proxy para habilidade, pode-se inferir que os professores já são os mais habilidosos da amostra analisada. Sendo assim, aumentar o salário dos docentes não atrairia profissionais mais habilidosos para a profissão, dentro das carreiras estudadas, pois já são os profissionais mais habilidosos que são docentes. Uma alternativa seria capacitar esses profissionais de forma a aumentar a habilidade destes. Segundo, outra forma de aumentar a habilidade dos professores seria compreender como esse diferencial salarial afeta a decisão de ingresso na carreira docente, e buscar atrair profissionais mais habilidosos para o magistério antes da escolha da carreira a ser cursada no ensino superior. Isso poderia possibilitar que indivíduos com maior habilidade se interessassem pelo magistério. Em ambos os casos, para que seja efetivo para a geração de capital humano, um aumento salarial do cargo de professor deve estar atrelado à criação de condições para o aumento da habilidade dos profissionais que ocupam tal posição. / Studying the compensation structure of a country is important for several reasons. Perhaps the most important of them is because the compensation can affect the attractiveness of the teaching profession and the professional skill of performing the job. This study aimed to compare the difference in hourly wage between teachers and teachers in undergraduate careers typically related to the teaching profession: Education Sciences, Teacher Training, First Language, Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry. The objective was to understand how newly graduated professionals chose different occupations (teaching versus non-teaching) leading to the appearance of a major wage differential in the first years of working life. This analysis, under the hypothesis and the hypothesis ignorabilidade similar preferences before entering higher education properly specified, one can conclude that those who exercise the teaching profession, both on average and in 10 quantile and median of a positive differential hourly wage with respect to non-teachers. You quantile 90, there is no difference in pay between groups. The results also show that the difference is largely explained by the return of the characteristics that determine wages and less by differences in the levels of these characteristics. There are two implications of these results. First, considering salary as textit proxy for skill, it can be inferred that teachers are already the most skilled of the sample analyzed. Thus, increasing teacher salaries would attract more skilled professionals for the profession within the careers studied because they are already the most skilled professionals who are teachers. One such alternative would enable professionals to increase the ability of these. Second, another way to increase the ability of teachers would understand how this wage gap affects the decision of entering the teaching career, and seek to attract more skilled professionals for teaching before the choice of higher education. This could enable individuals with greater ability to be interested by the magisterium. In both cases, to be effective for the generation of human capital, a raise from his professorship should be linked to the creation of conditions for increasing the ability of professionals who hold such a position.

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:55:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:06:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / O estudo do comportamento de materiais poliméricos em relação ao intemperismo (calor, luz UV, umidade, radiação de alta energia, ataque químico e poluentes) é de fundamental importância para se avaliar a estabilidade do material. Os termoplásticos avaliados foram os HMS-PPs sintetizados, a partir do iPP estabilizado e não estabilizado, por meio de irradiação gama (g) em atmosfera de acetileno. A caracterização das amostras degradadas foi estabelecida por ensaios mecânicos, espectroscopia no infravermelho por transformada de Fourrier (FTIR), análise termogravimétrica (TGA), calorimetria exploratória diferencial (DSC), microscopia óptica (MO), microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV) e reometria de placas paralelas. O HMSPP, obtido a partir de esferas, nas condições de envelhecimento natural e acelerado sob radiação UV, evidencia a formação de cristais defeituosos que se organizam em diferentes estruturas. Na condição de termooxidação em estufa, apesar da cisão de cadeias, a fase cristalina diminui. O HMSPP 20 kGy parece ser mais estável às reações de cisão de cadeia nos testes que envolvem a radiação UV. A reologia indica que as ramificações com acetileno são mais estáveis à radiação ultravioleta. No HMSPP, obtido a partir de grãos, devido à eficiência dos aditivos como capturadores de espécies oxidadas e supressores de peróxido radicais, foram propiciadas mais as reações de cisão que a formação de cristais irregulares e isso conduziu ao aumento da cristalinidade tanto sob envelhecimento natural quanto térmico ou sob radiação ultravioleta (UV). As propriedades físicas sob tração mostraram que a diferença superior da tensão de ruptura inicial do HMS 20 kGy é perdida durante exposição a diversos envelhecimentos. / Dissertação (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP

Orientador: Hélio Pedrini / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T14:03:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lima_Vitorde_M.pdf: 2877007 bytes, checksum: 6ad47f821cd5730035e715cb48102877 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: Vídeos são sequências de imagens estáticas representando cenas em movimento. Transmitir e armazenar essas imagens sem nenhum tipo de pré-processamento necessitaria de enormes larguras de banda nos canais de comunicação e uma quantidade massiva de espaço de armazenamento. A fim de reduzir o número de bits necessários para tais dados, foram criados métodos de compressão com perda. Esses métodos geralmente consistem em um codificador e um decodificador, tal que o codificador gera uma sequência de bits que representa uma aproximação razoável do vídeo através de um formato pré-especificado e o decodificador lê essa sequência, convertendo-a novamente em uma série de imagens. A transmissão de vídeos sob restrições extremas de largura de banda tem aplicações importantes como videoconferências e circuitos fechados de televisão. Neste trabalho são abordados dois métodos destinados a essa aplicação, decomposição usando representações esparsas e compressão fractal. A ampla maioria dos codificadores tem como mecanismo principal o uso de transformações inversíveis capazes de representar imagens espacialmente suaves com poucos coeficientes não-nulos. Representações esparsas são uma generalização dessa ideia, em que a transformação tem como base um conjunto cujo número de elementos excede a dimensão do espaço vetorial onde ela opera. A projeção dos dados pode ser feita a partir de uma heurística rápida chamada Matching Pursuit. Uma abordagem combinando essa heurística com um algoritmo para gerar a base sobrecompleta por aprendizado de máquina é apresentada. Codificadores fractais representam uma aproximação da imagem como um sistema de funções iterativas. Para isso, criam e transmitem uma sequência de comandos, chamada colagem, capazes de obter uma representação da imagem na escala original dada a mesma imagem em uma escala reduzida. A colagem é criada de tal forma que, se aplicada a uma imagem inicial qualquer repetidas vezes, reduzindo sua escala antes de toda iteração, converge em uma aproximação da imagem codificada. Métodos simplificados e rápidos para a criação da colagem e uma generalização desses métodos para a compressão de vídeos são apresentados. Ao invés de construir a colagem tentando mapear qualquer bloco da escala reduzida na escala original, apenas um conjunto pequeno de blocos é considerado. O método de compressão proposto para vídeos agrupa um conjunto de quadros consecutivos do vídeo em um fractal volumétrico. A colagem mapeia blocos tridimensionais entre as escalas, considerando uma escala menor tanto no tempo quanto no espaço. Uma adaptação desse método para canais de comunicação cuja largura de banda é instável também é proposta / Abstract: A video is a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion. A video is a sequence of extremely similar images separated by abrupt changes in their content. If these images were transmitted and stored without any kind of preprocessing, this would require a massive amount of storage space and communication channels with very high bandwidths. Lossy compression methods were created in order to reduce the number of bits used to represent this kind of data. These methods generally consist in an encoder and a decoder, where the encoder generates a sequence of bits that represents an acceptable approximation of the video using a certain predefined format and the decoder reads this sequence, converting it back into a series of images. Transmitting videos under extremely limited bandwidth has important applications in video conferences or closed-circuit television systems. Two different approaches are explored in this work, decomposition based on sparse representations and fractal coding. Most video coders are based on invertible transforms capable of representing spatially smooth images with few non-zero coeficients. Sparse representations are a generalization of this idea using a transform that has an overcomplete dictionary as a basis. Overcomplete dictionaries are sets with more elements in it than the dimension of the vector space in which the transform operates. The data can be projected into this basis using a fast heuristic called Matching Pursuits. A video encoder combining this fast heuristic with a machine learning algorithm capable of constructing the overcomplete dictionary is proposed. Fractal encoders represent an approximation of the image through an iterated function system. In order to do that, a sequence of instructions, called a collage, is created and transmitted. The collage can construct an approximation of the original image given a smaller scale version of it. It is created in such a way that, when applied to any initial image several times, contracting it before each iteration, it converges into an approximation of the encoded image. Simplier and faster methods for creating a collage and a generalization of these methods to video compression are presented. Instead of constructing a collage by matching any block from the smaller scale to the original one, a small subset of possible matches is considered. The proposed video encoding method creates groups of consecutive frames which are used to construct a volumetric fractal. The collage maps tridimensional blocks between the different scales, using a smaller scale in both space and time. An improved version of this algorithm designed for communication channels with variable bandwidth is presented / Mestrado / Ciência da Computação / Mestre em Ciência da Computação

Abstract In northernmost Fennoscandia, grazing by reindeer (Rangifer tarandus L.) has a substantial impact on the vegetation of boreal forests and arctic-alpine tundra heaths, which are reflected in below-ground processes, such as nutrient mineralization and soil organic matter decomposition. In the present thesis, the effects of reindeer grazing on soil nutrient cycling were studied by comparing grazed situation with an ungrazed control area in ten boreal forests and six arctic-alpine tundra heaths. In boreal forests, reindeer grazing reduced microbial respiration in both the oligotrophic and mesotrophic study areas, indicating a deficiency of labile substrates for the soil microbes due to reindeer grazing. Simultaneously, there was heterogeneity in the impact on nitrogen mineralization rates as at some sites, mineralization was enhanced by grazing. The fertilization effect of urine and faeces can therefore be strong enough a factor to outweigh a reduction in quality of soil organic matter. In the oligotrophic forests, low soil moisture content in the grazed areas could sometimes limit the mineralization rates even when the potential for mineralization was enhanced by grazing. In the tundra ecosystems, there was spatial variation in the impact of grazing on microbial respiration and nitrogen mineralization. Low grazing intensity occurring outside the growing season had a retarding impact on nutrient cycling in both unfertilized, nutrient-poor and fertilized, nutrient-rich conditions. In contrast, a relatively high grazing intensity enhanced the mineralization rates in two nutrient-poor and two nutrient-rich tundra heaths. When three different grazing intensities were compared in one oceanic, nutrient-rich and one continental, nutrient-poor tundra heath, the strongest positive effect of grazing on soil nutrient cycling occurred in the heavily grazed areas. The data do not support the assumption that soil nutrient availability regulates whether herbivores enhance or retard nutrient cycling in the soil. Instead, the net effect of grazing is determined by the balance between the underlying mechanisms that may work at opposite directions. The most important of these mechanisms are the grazer-mediated impact on the decomposability of the dominant vegetation and fertilization by urine and faeces. The duration, intensity and seasonal timing of the grazing seem to be important factors that regulate whether reindeer grazing enhances or retards soil nutrient cycling in each specific area. Due to the high spatial and temporal variation in the effects of grazing observed in this study, it is not possible to generalize the overall impact of grazing. Further study is required in order to determine the exact conditions under which grazing enhances or it retards soil nutrient cycling.

This thesis studies methane hydrate crystal formation and decomposition at 1.0, 4.0 and 7.0°C in a new apparatus. Hydrate was formed in the interstitial space of a variable volume bed of silica sand particles with an average diameter equal to 329μm (150 to 630μm range). The initial pressure inside the reactor was 8.0MPa for all the formation experiments. Three bed sizes were employed in order to observe the effects of the silica sand bed size on the rate of methane consumption (formation) and release (decomposition). The temperature at various locations inside the silica sand bed was measured with thermocouples during formation and decomposition experiments. For the decomposition experiments, two different methods were employed to dissociate the hydrate: thermal stimulation and depressurization. It was found that more than 74.0% of water conversion to hydrates was achieved in all hydrate formation experiments at 4.0°C and 1.0°C starting with a pressure of 8.0MPa. The dissociation of hydrate was found to occur in two stages when thermal stimulation was employed whereas three stages were found during depressurization. In both cases, the first stage was strongly affected by the changing bed size whereas it was not found to depend on the bed size afterwards. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Chemical and Biological Engineering, Department of / Graduate

Introduction In recent years, domain decomposition methods have been used extensively to efficiently solve boundary value problems for partial differential equations in complex{form domains. On the other hand, multilevel techniques on hierarchical data structures also have developed into an effective tool for the construction and analysis of fast solvers. But direct realization of multilevel techniques on a parallel computer system for the global problem in the original domain involves difficult communication problems. I this paper, we present and analyze a combination of these two approaches: domain decomposition and multilevel decomposition on hierarchical structures to design optimal preconditioning operators.

Dimethylsilene, generated from the thermal gas phase reaction of 1,1-dimethyl-1-silacyclobutane, reacts with alkynes to produce silacyclobutenes or acyclic silanes. The temperature dependence of the product ratios have been determined and the relative reactivities of three different alkynes toward the 1,1-dimethylsilene has been determined. 1-Hydrido-1-methylsilene has been generated by gas phase thermal decomposition from three different precursors. Trapping studies with butadiene and trimethylsilane lead to products expected from dimethylsilylene. The most plausible explanation for these observations is that hydridomethylsilenes undergo a facile isomerization to divalent dimethylsilylene. Cycloaddition of 1,1-dimethylsilene to allene at 600°C in a flow vacuum pyrolysis system affords the first synthesis of 2-methylene-1,1-dimethylsilacyclobutane and smaller amounts of six other products. For static pyrolysis at 421°C, the 2-methylene-1,1-dimethyIsilacyclobutane isomerizes to 1,1-dimethylsilacyclopentenes. The kinetics of gas phase thermal decomposition of cyclopropyltrimethylsilane has been studied over the temperature range, 689.6-751.1 K at pressures near 14 torr. The Arrhenius parameters for formation of allyltrimethylsilane are k_1(sec^-1)=10^14.3 ± 0.1 exp(-56.5 ± 0.2 kcal mol^-1/RT) and those for the formation of E- and Z-1-propenyltrimethyIsilane are k_2(sec^-1)=10^14.9 ± 0.3 exp(-61.9 ± 0.8 kcal mol^-1/RT). The difference between activation energies has been interpreted in terms of anchimeric assistance or the β effect of the silicon atom. The syntheses of 3-trimethylsilyl-1-pyrazoline and 1-trimethyl-2-pyrazoline are described. The thermal decomposition of either pyrazoline affords four different products along with elimination of a nitrogen molecule. It was suggested that the relative rates of methylene-hydrogen migration to radical centers α and γ to silicon are approximately equal. The thermal isomerization of 3-trimethylsilyl-1-pyrazoline to 1-trimethylsilyl-2-pyrazoline has been investigated kinetically at 65°C by proton NMR spectroscopy and the reverse reaction has been detected by gas phase pyrolysis.