Fatores psicossociais não são rotineiramente identificados na avaliação fisioterapêutica e podem influenciar no prognóstico de pacientes com dor lombar. O questionário STarT Back Screening Tool (SBST) foi criado para distinguir subgrupos dentre pacientes com dor lombar em relação ao prognóstico no tratamento considerando fatores físicos e psicossociais, classificando-os em baixo, médio e alto risco de mau prognóstico. Objetivo: Traduzir e adaptar transculturalmente o SBST para Língua Portuguesa do Brasil, testar a confiabilidade e validade de construto. Métodos: A primeira etapa consistiu na tradução, síntese, retro-tradução, revisão pelo grupo de tradução, pré-teste e avaliação dos documentos pelo Comitê. A versão pré-final foi aplicada em duas amostras de 52 pacientes cada, com dor lombar, ambos os sexos, idade acima de 18 anos e níveis educacionais variados. Para verificação da confiabilidade intra-avaliador, foram realizadas duas entrevistas em outra amostra de 50 pacientes, e os resultados analisados pelo Kappa ponderado quadrado. Também foram calculados a consistência interna usando de Cronbach (n=105), o erro padrão da medida (n=50) e a validade de construto (n=151), correlacionando o SBST-Brasil com as versões brasileiras do Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), Rolland Morris (Brasil- RM) e Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire para trabalho (FABQ-Work) e atividade física (FABQ-Phys). Resultados: O consenso foi atingido nas etapas de tradução e retrotradução, apenas o item 6 não foi compreendido e depois de reformulado foi reaplicado em outros 52 pacientes que não tiveram mais dúvida. A confiabilidade foi considerada substancial (0,79 - 95% IC 0,63 0,95), a consistência interna aceitável (0,74 pontuação total e 0,72 da subescala psicossocial), e o valor do erro de padrão da medida muito bom (1,9%). Em relação à validação, a pontuação total do SBST- Brasil mostrou alta correlação com o Brasil-RM (r=0,61), moderada correlação com o ODI (r = 0,56) e FABQ-Work (r=0,3) e fraca correlação com o FABQ-Phys (r = 0,18). Já a subescala psicossocial mostrou correlação moderada com o Brasil-RM (r =0,49) e ODI (r =0,47) e fraca correlação com o FABQ-Work (r =0,24) e FABQ-Phys (r =0,21). Além disso, a estratificação dos grupos de risco do SBST-Brasil foi compatível com os valores de classificação do ODI, Brasil-RM e FABQ-Phys para risco de mau prognóstico. Conclusão: O SBST-Brasil mostrou-se confiável e válido para avaliar a influência de fatores psicossociais em pacientes com dor lombar. / Psychosocial factors are not usually identified on physiotherapy assessment, what influences on low back pain prognosis. The questionnaire STarT Back Screening Tool\" (SBST) was created to identify patients with potentially treatment modifiable prognostic influenced by physical and psychosocial indicators which are relevant to initial decision making, classifying them into low, medium and high risk categories. Aim: Translation and cross-culturally adaptation of the SBST into Brazilian-Portuguese, assess its reliability and construct validity. Methods: The translation and cross-cultural adaptation process involved the steps of Translation, Synthesis, Back-translation, Committee Revision, Pretesting and Submission the documents to the Committee. The pre-final version was applied to two samples of 52 patients each, with low back pain, both sexes, aged over 18 years, from different education levels. After that, two interviews assessed intra-rater reliability on a different sample of 50 patients, and the quadratic weighted Kappa was used for statistical analysis. The Cronbach´s alpha was also calculated for internal consistency (n=105), standard error measurement (n=50) and construct validity (n=151) analyzing the correlation between the SBST-Brasil and the Brazilian version of Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), Rolland Morris (Brasil- RM) and Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire for work (FABQ-Work) and physical activity (FABQ-Phys). Results: Consensus was found on translations and back-translations processes, and only the item 6, which patients had some difficulty in understanding, was reviewed and re-applied to 52 additional subjects with no difficulties being reported. The reliability was classified as substantial (0.79 - 95% CI 0.63 0.95), the internal consistency acceptable (0.74 for total score and 0.72 for psychosocial subscale score) and a very good standard measurement error (1.9%). The correlation between the SBST-Brasil total score and Brasil- RM was high (r =0.61), moderate with ODI (r = 0.56) and with FABQ-Work (r = 0.3), and low correlation with FABQ-Phys (r = 0,18). Moderate correlation was found with SBST psychosocial subscale score and Brasil-RM (r = 0.49), also with ODI (r = 0.47), and low correlation with FABQ-Work (r = 0.24) and FABQ-Phys (r = 0.21). After that, the stratification of SBST-Brasil risk groups was compatible with ODI, Brasil-RM and FABQPhys classification for risk of poor prognosis. Conclusion: The SBST-Brasil has shown a reliable and valid tool to screen and identify low back pain patients influenced by psychosocial factors.

On-machine inspection (OMI) via on-machine probing (OMP) is a technology that has the potential to provide a step change in the manufacturing of high precision products. Bringing product inspection closer to the machining process is very attractive proposition for many manufacturers who demand ever better quality, process control and efficiency from their manufacturing systems. However, there is a shortness of understanding, experience, and knowledge with regards to efficiently implementing OMI on industrially-based multi-axis machine tools. Coupled with the risks associated to this disruptive technology, these are major obstacles preventing OMI from being confidently adopted in many high precision manufacturing environments. The research pursued in this thesis investigates the concept of enabling high precision machine tools as measurement devices and focuses upon the question of: “How can traceable on-machine inspection be enabled and sustained in an industrial environment?” As highlighted by the literature and state-of-the-art review, much research and development focuses on the technology surrounding particular aspects of machine tool metrology and measurement whether this is theory, hardware, software, or simulation. Little research has been performed in terms of confirming the viability of industrial OMI and the systematic and holistic application of existing and new technology to enable optimal intervention. This EngD research has contributed towards the use of industrial machine tools as traceable measurement systems. Through the test cases performed, the novel concepts proposed, and solutions tested, a series of fundamental questions have been addressed. Thus, providing new knowledge and use to future researchers, engineers, consultants and manufacturing professionals.

Dans le domaine des matériaux métalliques, les techniques d’assemblage par soudageconduisent à des réductions de masse et de coûts importantes susceptibles d’intéresserles industries aéronautiques. Néanmoins, les procédés de soudage classiquespar fusion ne s’appliquent pas aux dernières générations d’alliages d’aluminium aéronautiques.Dans ce contexte, le procédé de soudage Friction Stir Welding présentedes atouts considérables, de nature à rendre compétitives les structures métalliquesface à la montée en puissance des matériaux composites.L’objectif de cette thèse est double. Il s’agit d’une part d’améliorer notre compréhensiondu procédé de soudage Friction Stir Welding Bobbin Tool puis dans undeuxième temps de proposer une méthodologie visant à prédire les paramètres desoudage optimaux.Afin de mener à bien ces objectifs, des essais de soudage ont été menés pour troisalliages d’aluminium aéronautique, incluant deux alliages d’aluminium-lihtium, etdeux épaisseurs, représentatives d’une jonction de peau de fuselage. Les résultatsd’essais ont par la suite été exploités et ont permis de mettre en évidence des corrélationsentre paramètres de soudage, température, puissance et malaxage du noyausoudé.Dans un troisième temps, afin de supporter la démarche expérimentale, des outilsde simulation ont été utilisés. Un modèle thermo-fluide local a été développé afinde simuler les phénomènes de malaxage dans le noyau soudé. A l’échelle globale, unmodèle thermique a permis de reproduire fidèlement les phénomènes de diffusion dela chaleur dans la structure. Enfin, le couplage des deux modèles a montré qu’il étaitpossible de simuler puis de prédire un domaine de soudabilité. / In the field of metallic materials, welding technologies can provide significantmass reductions and cost savings to aircraft industries. Nevertheless, classical fusionwelding processes can not be applied to last generations of aeronautical aluminiumalloys. In this context, Friction Stir Welding offers many advantages and can helpmetallic parts to face the build up of composite materials.This thesis has mainly two objectives. We aim first at improving our understandingof Friction Stir Welding with Bobbin Tool and then at proposing a kind ofmethodology able to predict optimal welding parameters.Welding trials were carried out using three aeronautical aluminium alloys includingtwo aluminium lithium and two thicknesses representative of a fuselagejunction. Results were analyzed and some correlations were found between weldingparameters, temperature and stirring of the weld nugget.This work was also supported by several modeling tools. A local thermo-fluidapproach has been used to simulate stirring of the material in the weld nugget. Aglobal thermal model has been used to simulate heat diffusion in the structure. Then,a coupled approach of these previous modeling tools shows that it was possible tonumerically predict a processing window.

Le recours aux prescriptions sans ou hors AMM, dû principalement au manque d’essais cliniques, est très largement répandu en pédiatrie en particulier chez le nouveau-né. Les prescriptions hors AMM constituent un facteur de risque dans la survenue des effets indésirables médicamenteux (EIM). La pharmacovigilance est indispensable mais insuffisante afin d’évaluer le rapport bénéfice/risque des traitements en particulier lorsque les prescriptions hors AMM sont fréquentes. En combinant plusieurs approches pharmacoépidémiologiques, méta-analytiques et pharmacométriques, ce travail de thèse a pour objectifs de décrire les prescriptions hors AMM en néonatologie et explorer des approches qui permettront d’aboutir à mieux estimer le rapport bénéfice/risque des médicaments pour les enfants. Nous avons confirmé que le taux de prescription hors AMM en néonatologie est important (46%). Même en absence de soins de réanimation, plus de deux tiers des nouveaux-nés reçoivent au moins un médicament hors AMM pendant leur hospitalisation. En utilisant une approche méta-analytique explorant le rapport bénéfice risque du fluconazole en néonatologie en fonction du risque de base dans chaque étude (taux d’infection <10%), nous avons montré que la prophylaxie ciblée sur le risque de base serait plus bénéfique que la prophylaxie systématique des infections fongiques invasives. Nos travaux en pharmacovigilance pédiatrique, ont montré que les deux méthodes de détection actives (collaboration entre pharmaciens et cliniciens et le « trigger tool »), utilisant les dossiers patients informatisés, sont faisables et plus efficaces que la notification spontanée / Many drugs used to treat children in hospitals are either not licensed for use in children or are prescribed outside the terms of their product license (off-label prescribing) because of the lack of clinical trials in this population, and practical difficulties to involve children in clinical research. Drugs used within the specifications of the product license should therefore be less likely to cause ADRs compared to drugs that are either unlicensed or off-label for use in children. With different approaches such as pharmacoepidemiologic, meta-analytic and pharmacometrics, we sought to improve the estimate of the benefit risk ratio of medicines used for treating children. Our observational prospective study in a neonatal unit demonstrated that the prescriptions of unlicensed or off-label drugs in neonatal unit is common (46%). We also used meta-analytic approach in order to estimate the benefit risk ratio of the prophylactic use of fluconazole as a function of the baseline risk. Our results suggest that “systematic fluconazole prophylaxis for all VLBW in NICUs is not warranted by the available evidence and should be adapted to the baseline risk. We also showed that active drug monitoring by using electronic patient files by targeting review chart with a trigger tool in neonates and with close collaboration between the pharmacovigilance center, pharmacologists, and clinicians was necessary and feasible for improving the detection of ADRs in children

The process of taking a solid model and producing a machined part requires the time and skillset of a range of professionals, and several hours of part review, process planning, and production. Much of this time is spent creating a methodical step-by-step process plan for creating the part from stock. The work presented here is part of a software package that performs automated process planning for a solid model. This software is capable of not only greatly decreasing the planning time for part production, but also give valuable feedback about the part to the designer, as a time and cost associated with manufacturing the part. In order to generate these parameters, we must simulate all aspects of creating the part. Presented here are models that replicate these aspects. For milling, an automatic tool selection method is presented. Given this tooling, another model uses specific information about the part to generate a tool path length. A machining simulation model calculates relevant parameters, and estimates a time for machining given the tool and tool path determined previously. This time value, along with the machining parameters, is used to estimate the wear to the tooling used in the process. Using the machining time and the tool wear a cost for the process can be determined. Other models capture the time of non-machining production times, and all times are combined with billing rates of machines and operators to present an overall cost for machining a feature on a part. If several such features are required to create the part, these models are applied to each feature, until a complete process plan has been created. Further post processing of the process plan is required. Using a list of available machines, this work considers creating the part on all machines, or any combination of these machines. Candidates for creating the part on specific machines are generated and filtered based on time and cost to keep only the best candidates. These candidates can be returned to the user, who can evaluate, and choose, one candidate. Results are presented for several example parts. / text

In der Dissertation wurde der Stand der Technik zum Fertigungsverfahren Druckgießen mit dem Fokus auf die Druckgießwerkzeuge recherchiert und strukturiert aufbereitet. Der Stand der Technik mündet in der Systematik zur Optimierung des Druckgießens. Darin wurde die Problematik ganzheitlich aufgearbeitet, konkretisiert und wesentliche Handlungsfelder, wie das Temperierkonzept, der Werkstoff sowie die Auslegung, herausgearbeitet. Das Handlungsfeld Temperierkonzept wurde fokussiert und daraus das Konzept des mehrteiligenWerkzeuges erarbeitet. DiesesWerkzeugkonzept ermöglicht durch seinen Aufbau eine Maximierung der Wärmeübertragungsfläche, eine Reduzierung des Abstandes der Temperierung zum Gussteil und eine Erhöhung des Wärmeübergangskoeffizienten. Der mehrteilige Aufbau wurde in einem Versuchswerkzeug für das Druckgießen umgesetzt, sukzessive ausgelegt und virtuell abgesichert. Abschließend zeigte die thermische Simulation des Prozess Druckgießen ein Potential zur Reduzierung der Zykluszeit von 12,9s (14%) mit dem mehrteiligen Werkzeug auf. Im Dauerbetrieb konnte prozesssicher, reproduzierbar und dauerhaft eine Zykluszeitreduzierung um 20,5s (23%) nachgewiesen werden.

In der Dissertation wurde der Stand der Technik zum Fertigungsverfahren Druckgießen mit dem Fokus auf die Druckgießwerkzeuge recherchiert und strukturiert aufbereitet. Der Stand der Technik mündet in der Systematik zur Optimierung des Druckgießens. Darin wurde die Problematik ganzheitlich aufgearbeitet, konkretisiert und wesentliche Handlungsfelder, wie das Temperierkonzept, der Werkstoff sowie die Auslegung, herausgearbeitet. Das Handlungsfeld Temperierkonzept wurde fokussiert und daraus das Konzept des mehrteiligen Werkzeuges erarbeitet. Dieses Werkzeugkonzept ermöglicht durch seinen Aufbau eine Maximierung der Wärmeübertragungsfläche, eine Reduzierung des Abstandes der Temperierung zum Gussteil und eine Erhöhung des Wärmeübergangskoeffizienten. Der mehrteilige Aufbau wurde in einem Versuchswerkzeug für das Druckgießen umgesetzt, sukzessive ausgelegt und virtuell abgesichert. Abschließend zeigte die thermische Simulation des Prozess Druckgießen ein Potential zur Reduzierung der Zykluszeit von 12,9s (14%) mit dem mehrteiligen Werkzeug auf. Im Dauerbetrieb konnte prozesssicher, reproduzierbar und dauerhaft eine Zykluszeitreduzierung um 20,5s (23%) nachgewiesen werden.

RTFC is a multichannel publishing tool which has been designed to convert text documents into several accessible formats. You can produce books in common file formats like plain text, HTML and HTML Help as well as large print, Braille, web Braille and DAISY. It implements a standard for e-books which was created at German schools for the blind. This standard makes it possible to get the most out of DAISY even though desktop publishing software often has no capabilities to mark up optional content like annotations or sidebars. Therefore RTFC is especially suitable to convert school books and other non-fiction literature.

<p>This master thesis investigates the principal capability of artificial evolution to produce tool use behavior in adaptive agents, excluding the application of life-time learning or adaptation mechanisms. Tool use is one aspect of complex behavior that is expected from autonomous agents acting in real-world environments. In order to achieve tool use behavior an agent needs to identify environmental objects as potential tools before it can use the tools in a problem-solving task. Up to now research in robotics has focused on life-time learning mechanisms in order to achieve this. However, these techniques impose great demands on resources, e.g. in terms of memory or computational power. All of them have shown limited results with respect to a general adaptivity. One might argue that even nature does not present any kind of omni-adaptive agent. While humans seem to be a good example of natural agents that master an impressive variety of life conditions and environments (at least from a human perspective, other examples are spectacular survivability observations of octopuses, scorpions or various viruses) even the most advanced engineering approaches can hardly compete with the simplest life-forms in terms of adaptation. This thesis tries to contribute to engineering approaches by promoting the application of artificial evolution as a complementing element with the presentation of successful pioneering experiments. The results of these experiments show that artificial evolution is indeed capable to render tool use behavior at different levels of complexity and shows that the application of artificial evolution might be a good complement to life-time approaches in order to create agents that are able to implicitly extract concepts and display tool use behavior. The author believes that off-loading at least parts of the concept retrieval process to artificial evolution will reduce resource efforts at life-time when creating autonomous agents with complex behavior such as tool use. This might be a first step towards the vision of a higher level of autonomy and adaptability. Moreover, it shows the demand for an experimental verification of commonly accepted limits between qualities of learned and evolved tool use capabilities.</p>

Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / The main goal of this work is the development of techniques for application of acoustic emission signal in tool wear monitoring in face milling operation. In this work a Sensis (DM 42) equipment for acquisition of the acoustic emission signal was used during the milling of a high strength low alloy steel (Din 38MnS6). A milling cutter with 125 mm diameter for eight inserts with specification R245 125Q40-12M was used. The ISO specification of the inserts were SEMN 12 04 AZ TiN coated. The tests were divided into two parts. In the first part, wear and some other machining phenomena were monitored through the construction of a luminous intensity map. For these tests it was used one, two, four or eight inserts simultaneously. In this stage the acoustic emission signal was evaluated using the RMS values. In the second part of this work the acoustic emission raw signal was used. Amongst the statistical parameters that correlate to tool wear extracted from the raw signal, the best fit ones were selected to train and validate a Probabilistic Neural Network. The results of the PNN indicate that the acoustic emission signal can be used to recognition of tool wear levels in the milling process. / O principal objetivo deste trabalho é o desenvolvimento de técnicas para a aplicação da emissão acústica no monitoramento de desgaste de insertos de metal duro no fresamento frontal. Neste trabalho foi utilizado um equipamento da Sensis (DM 42) para aquisição do sinal de emissão acústica durante o fresamento frontal de um aço microligado perlítico de forja (Din 38MnS6). Foi utilizada uma fresa com especificação R245 125Q40-12M, de 125 mm de diâmetro e com possibilidade de montagem de até oito insertos. Os insertos utilizados são de metal duro R245-12 T3 M-PM 4030 revestidos com TiN. A fresa e os insertos foram fabricados pela Sandvik Coromant. Os testes foram divididos em duas partes. A primeira consistiu no monitoramento do desgaste e também de alguns fenômenos que ocorrem na usinagem através da construção de um mapa de intensidade luminosa. Nestes testes foram utilizados um, dois, quatro e oito insertos simultaneamente. Nesta etapa foi empregado o sinal RMS da emissão acústica. Na segunda etapa dos ensaios utilizou-se o sinal bruto de emissão acústica. Foram estimados parâmetros estatísticos destes sinais e destes foram escolhidos os que melhor se relacionavam com o fenômeno estudado. Este procedimento foi realizado através da ferramenta estatística boxplot. Finalmente, os parâmetros escolhidos foram usados para treinar e validar uma Rede Neural Probabilística, que teve a função de reconhecer e classificar os estágios de desgaste da ferramenta. Os índices de acerto nas classificações da rede indicam que a emissão acústica apresenta bons resultados no reconhecimento de níveis de desgaste das ferramentas na operação de fresamento. / Doutor em Engenharia Mecânica