O ensino das disciplinas de fundamentos de programação e teste de software não é trivial. Várias iniciativas têm sido investigadas a fim de amenizar os problemas associados a essa atividade. Uma dessas iniciativas é o ensino conjunto de conceitos básicos de programação e de teste de software em disciplinas introdutórias dos cursos de Ciências da Computação. Este trabalho insere-se nessa perspectiva, tendo como principal objetivo fornecer subsídios para o ensino integrado de fundamentos de programação OO e teste de software. Para atingir esse objetivo, foi desenvolvido um módulo educacional integrado de fundamentos de programação OO e teste de software, utilizando uma abordagem integrada para modelagem de conteúdos educacionais. Ênfase é dada na modelagem dos aspectos conceituais, instrucionais e didáticos dos domínios de conhecimento envolvidos. Além disso, também foi desenvolvido um ambiente, denominado ProgTest, baseado na Web e na concepção de software livre, para submissão e avaliação de trabalhos práticos dos alunos. O ambiente foi integrado com ferramentas de teste de modo que a avaliação dos trabalhos seja realizada com base em atividades de teste. Os programas e os resultados são avaliados com base em padrões de consistência, eficácia e eficiência uniformes. Os professores também podem ter uma redução na sua carga de trabalho, uma vez que o sistema avalia automaticamente tanto os casos de teste quanto o código do programa. / The teaching of fundamentals of programming and software testing is not trivial. Many attempts have been investigated in order to reduce the problems associated to this activity. One of these initiatives is the teaching of basic concepts and techniques of programming in conjunction with software testing in introductory courses of the Computer Science. In this sense, this work aims at providing mechanisms to the integrated teaching of fundamentals of OO programming and software testing. To achieve this goal, we developed an integrated educational module of fundamentals of OO programming and software testing, using an integrated approach to model the educational contents. We focus on conceptual, instructional and didactic modeling of the knowledge domains. Furthermore, an open source Web-based environment, named ProgTest, was also developed for the submission and evaluation of practical assignments to the students. The environment was integrated with testing tools, so the evaluation of the assignments is performed based on testing activities. The assignments and the results are evaluated based on the uniform standards in terms of consistence, efficacy and efficiency. The professors can have their workload reduced with this environment, once the system automatically evaluates both the code of the assignment as well as its test cases.

O ensino da matemática aglutina uma série de questões abertas, em parte, compartilhadas e transversais ao complexo mundo da educação e, em parte, específicas. Por exemplo, uma experiência bastante comum entre professores de matemática é ouvir dos próprios alunos a seguinte pergunta: Mas para que serve isso?. Nem sempre a resposta consiste em mostrar esta utilidade, mas, com certeza, sempre o(a) professor(a) tem que se preocupar com o sentido daquilo que está ensinando. A pergunta, então, é: como construir esse sentido ao trabalhar os tópicos da matemática? Nas últimas décadas (e com precursores que rementem ao final do século XIX), a história da matemática como elemento importante (central?) para construir a atividade de ensino- aprendizagem ganhou força em âmbito acadêmico, segundo várias (e complementares) vertentes: anedotas, reconstrução do contexto, redescobrir técnicas e métodos, analisar e comparar diferentes concepções, etc. À luz disso, o caminho que a presente pesquisa, de cunho teórico e baseada em pesquisa bibliográfica, explora é analisar quais contribuições a história da matemática pode propiciar visando à construção de significado em sala de aula. Para contextualizar esta pesquisa, são analisados os conceito de sentido e significado: assim, o sentido é percebido no âmbito de uma visão construtivista, em que os conceitos e as ideias se interligam numa rede de conhecimentos, e por meio da qual se dá uma relação dialética entre os vários sentidos pessoais e individuais, que pode levar à emergência de algo compartilhado, o significado. A construção do sentido se dá por meio de narrações, que constituem o lugar em que a construção e o entrelaçamento de ideias acontecem; além disso, tais narrações nunca acontecem no vácuo, mas são sempre situadas social e historicamente (o trabalho de Paulo Freire é seminal a este respeito). Ademais, são exploradas algumas possibilidades que a história da matemática proporciona ao ensino, destacando-se, dentre outros fatores, a importância das ideias fundamentais e a perspectiva de interdisciplinaridade (a este respeito, o trabalho de Bento de Jesus Caraça é considerado marco fundamental). Por fim, são elaborados dois critérios para avaliar o papel que, numa determinada construção de narrativa, desempenha a história da matemática: o potencial narrativo e o potencial histórico. O primeiro aspecto remete ao enredo que um fato histórico apresenta e ao interesse que ele pode desempenhar em sala de aula; o segundo remete ao quanto uma abordagem histórica pode permitir explorar relações tanto com outros assuntos da matemática quanto com outras questões exteriores a ela (transdisciplinaridade). Independentemente dessas duas vertente, existe sempre a possibilidade de vasculhar a história em busca das ideias fundamentais que caracterizam a descoberta de um novo assunto. Três casos de estudos são propostos para ilustrar estes aspectos: o jovem Gauss e a soma das parcelas de uma progressão aritmética; o nascimento dos logaritmos; e a análise de círculo e esfera feita por Arquimedes. Um último caso o surgimento da lei de gravitação universal proposta por Newton é levado em conta para destacar vários elementos, dentre os quais, o papel do experimento mental e o processo de unificação. / Research on mathematics education shows a number of open problems, some of them shared with the general issue of education and, others, specific of mathematics education. For example, an experience very usual among mathematical teachers is to listen some students ask: But, what is the use of this?. Not always the answer is to show some use, but, surely, always the teacher have to care about the meaning of what hes teaching. So, the question is: how to build up this meaning working with mathematical topics? In the lasts decades (and with precursors in the end of the XIX century), the history of mathematics as a important (maybe central) element to plan and build up educational activities gain strength in academic researches, accordingly some different (and complementary) slopes: anecdotes, context reconstruction, technics and method discovery, discussion among different conceptions,, etc. So, this theorethical and bibliographical research is about to analyze what kind of contribution mathematical history can provide, looking for building up the meaning with the students. To give a context to this study, the concept of meaning and signification are analyzed: so, the meaning is perceived in a constructivist scope, in witch concept and ideas are related each other in a network of knowledges. By a dialectic interaction among of different personal meanings, there is the hope that something shared by all may be appear: the signification. The construction of meaning happens by narrations, that are the scenario where the construction and linking of ideas take place; besides, such narrations never occur in the void, but always in a social end historic defined context (the research of Paulo Freire are seminal about this). In addition, some possibilities about history of mathematics and teaching relations are discussed, underlining, among various elements, the relevance of fundamental ideas and interdisciplinary subjects,(about this, Bento de Jesus Caraça researches are considered a milestone). Finally, two criteria are elaborated to discuss the role that have history of mathematics in the construction of a narrative in the classroom: narrative potential and historical potential. The first one is about the plotline that an historical fact has and how much it could be interesting for pupils; the second one is about the possibility to perceive, by historical analysis, the relations with other topics of mathematics and the relations with topic external to mathematics (transdisciplinary). Independently of this two slopes, always exist the possibility to research history looking for fundamentals ideas embedded in the born of a mathematical concept. Three cases of study are presented to illustrate such aspects: young Gauss who discover how to sum the terms of arithmetic progression; the born of logarithm; and the analyses of circle and sphere proposed by Archimedes. There is one last case the born of Universal Gravity Law by Newton discussed to show the importance of a number of fundamental ideas, such as, the mental experiment and the aim of unification.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Issues pertaining to the misalignment of exchange rate have become central in the analysis of open economy macroeconomics for developing countries. This is at least due to two reasons: first persistent overvaluation of currency is seen as a powerful early warning of potential currency crisis and second protracted periods of exchange rate misalignment are highly associated with poor economic performance in a number of developing countries. Owing to this fact, economists are in concession that aligning real exchange rates towards their equilibrium values is an important component of macroeconomic policy adjustments in order to achieve and maintain a sustainable development. For this purpose the estimation of the degree of the real exchange rate misalignment has become pivotal. However, despite the concession among economists regarding the need to minimize the frequency and magnitude of exchange rate misalignment, the estimation of the equilibrium exchange rate (hence the misalignment) has been among the most controversial and challenging issues in modem macroeconomics. For several decades, the Purchasing power parity (PPP) approach-which is based on the law of one price-has been the most widely used methodology for the estimation of the equilibrium exchange rate in both developed and developing countries. In South Africa some attempts have been made to estimate the misalignment of the rand against major currencies on the basis of the PPP approach. However, large numbers of empirical studies show that PPP does not hold except in the 'ultra' long run. In addition, PPP's assumption of a constant equilibrium exchange rate makes it ill-fitted to serve as a bench-mark for the analysis of the exchange rate in countries such as South Africa that experience substantial structural changes. As a result a number of macro-econometric models underlying on the macroeconomic determinants of exchange rate have been developed, albeit with little applicability in developing countries. In this study, we have used Edwards' (1989) intertemporal general equilibrium model of a small open economy in order to estimate the degree of the real exchange rate misalignment and its impact on the international trade competitiveness of the South African economy for the period 1985:1-2000:4. For this purpose a dynamic single equation error correction model of a first order autoregressive distributed lag model, ADL (1,1), and five years moving average technique have been employed to estimate the exchange rate misalignment. Whereas impulse response analysis and variance decomposition techniques of a cointegrated VAR (vector auto regression) have been established to assess the impact of the misalignment on trade competitiveness. The fmdings of the study reveal that the real exchange rate had been consistently overvalued during the period' 1988:3-1998:2 but undervalued during periods 1998:3- 2000:4. For most of the periods during 1985:1-1988:2 the rand had been undervalued. More over the study discloses that exchange rate misalignment debilitates South Africa's international trade competitiveness accounting for 20 percent of the variation in competitiveness.

The purpose of this study is to document the history and the contributing factors that led to the formation of the Current Teaching Emphasis (2003), the Objective (2009), and the Gospel Teaching and Learning Handbook (2012) within Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (S&I) for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The analysis of this history, contained herein, clearly identifies the principles that have driven the changes in S&I's description of teaching and learning, describes how these adjustments differ from previous approaches, illustrates the significance of this shift, and presents the contemporary issues that influenced the increased clarity and direction from senior Church leaders to S&I.

This dissertation consists of three essays, each examining distinct dimensions of cross-sectional variation in exchange rate changes and currency returns conditional on macroeconomic variables. Chapter 2: Protectionism, Bilateral Integration, and the Cross-Section of Ex-change Rate Returns in US Presidential Debates We study the impact of US presidential election TV debates on intraday exchange rates of 96 currencies from 1996 to 2016. Expectations about protectionist measures are the main transmission channel of debate outcomes. Currencies of countries with high levels of bilateral foreign trade with the US depreciate if the election probability of the protectionist candidate increases during the debate. We rationalize our results in a model where a debate victory of a protectionist candidate raises expectations about future tariffs and reduces future net exports to the US, resulting in relative depreciation of currencies with high bilateral trade integration. Chapter 3: Global Portfolio Network and Currency Risk Premia External portfolio investments of countries can explain cross-sectional variation in currency risk premia. Using bilateral portfolio holdings of 26 countries from 2001 to 2021, I construct a network centrality measure where a country is central if it is integrated with key countries that account for a large share in the supply of tradeable financial assets. I find that currency excess returns and interest rates decrease in network centrality. The network centralities are persistent over time and offer a country-specific economic source of risk that are able to explain robust differences in currency risk premia. Empirical asset pricing tests show that the derived risk factor is priced in a cross-section of currency portfolios. Further, negative global shocks cause currencies of central countries to appreciate, while currencies of peripheral countries depreciate. I discuss the findings with implications of a consumption-based capital asset pricing model where central countries have lower consumption growth in high marginal utility states, resulting in an appreciation of their currencies. Chapter 4: FX Dealer Constraints and External Imbalances We study the impact of FX dealer banks' financial health on the cross-sectional variation of exchange rates. Using individual balance sheet information of 39 dealers, we derive an intermediary constraints index that captures the risk-bearing capacity of intermediaries. A deterioration of the solvency of dealer banks impairs their risk-bearing capacity and increases their marginal value of wealth. We test the theoretical prediction of Gabaix and Maggiori (2015) that tightening financial constraints of intermediaries are associated with increasing currency risk premia in the cross-section of the riskiness of currencies, as measured by the net foreign assets of countries. We combine dealer-specific risks to macroeconomic fundamentals of a cross-section of currencies, i.e., the indebtedness to foreigners measured by countries' net foreign assets. We show that currency excess returns increase with a country's external imbalances when constraints are relaxed, but debtor currencies experience a depreciation when constraints tighten.

<p dir="ltr">Nanoparticles have seen immense development in the past several decades due to their intriguing physicochemical properties. The modern chemist is interested not only in methods of synthesizing nanoparticles with tunable properties but also in the chemistry that nanoparticles can drive. While several methods exist to synthesize nanoparticles, it is often advantageous to put nanoparticles on a variety of conductive substrates for multiple applications (such as energy storage and conversion). Despite enjoying over 200 years of development, the electrodeposition of nanoparticles suffers from a lack of control over nanoparticle size and morphology. Understanding that structure-function studies are imperative to understand the chemistry of nanoparticles, new methods are necessary to electrodeposit a variety of nanoparticles with control over macro-morphology but also microstructure. When a nanodroplet full of a metal salt precursor is incident on the electrode biased sufficiently negative to drive electroplating, nanoparticles form at a shocking rate (on the order of microseconds to milliseconds). We start with the general nuts-and-bolts of the experiment (nanodroplet formation and methods for electrodeposition). The deposition of new nanomaterials often requires one to develop new methods of measurement, and we detail new measurement tools for quantifying nanoparticle porosity and nanopore tortuosity within single nanodroplets. Owing to the small size of the nanodroplets and fast mass transfer, the use of nanodroplets also allows the electrodeposition of high entropy alloy nanoparticles at room temperature. Electrodeposition in aqueous nanodroplets can also be combined with stochastic electrochemistry for a variety of interesting studies. We detail the quantification of the growth kinetics of single nanoparticles in single aqueous nanodroplets. Nanodroplets can also be used as tiny reactors to trap only a few molecules, and the reactivity of those molecules can be electrochemically probed and evaluated with time. Overall, this burgeoning synthetic tool is providing unexpected avenues of tunability of metal nanoparticles on conductive substrates. Moreover, there is little understanding of how ion transfer can affect the fundamental of nanoparticle synthesis with nanodroplet-mediated electrodeposition. This thesis details different experiments performed to study the role of ion transfer during the nucleation and growth of nanoparticles.</p>

This thesis investigates the market rules of the European carbon market (EU ETS) during 2005-2007. We provide theoretical and empirical analyses of banking and borrowing provisions, price drivers and risk hedging strategies attached to tradable quotas, which were introduced to cover the CO2 emissions of around 10,600 installations in Europe.In Chapter 1, we outline the economic and environmental effects of banking and borrowing on tradable permits markets. More specifically, we examine the banking and borrowing provisions adopted in the EU ETS, and the effects of banning banking between Phases I and II on CO2 price changes. We show statistically that the low levels of CO2 prices recorded until the end of Phase I may be explained by the restriction on the inter-period tranfer of allowances, besides the main explanations that were identified by market observers.In Chapter 2, we identify the carbon price drivers since the launch of the EU ETS on January 1, 2005. We emphasize the central role played by the 2005 yearly compliance event imposed by the European Commission in revealing the net short/long position at the installation level in terms of allowances allocated with respect to verified emissions. The main result of this study features that price drivers of CO2 allowances linked to energy market prices and unanticipated weather events vary around institutional events. Moreover, we show the influence of the variation of industrial production in three sectors covered by the EU ETS on CO2 price changes by applying a disentangling analysis, that has also been extended at the country-level.In Chapter 3, we focus on the risk hedging strategies linked to holding CO2 allowances. By using a methodology applied on stock markets, we recover the changes in investors' average risk aversion. This study shows that, during the time period considered, risk aversion has been higher on the carbon market than on the stock market, and that the risk is linked to an increasing price structure after the 2006 compliance event. With reference to Chapter 1, we finally evaluate how banking may be used as a risk management tool in order to cope with political uncertainty on a tradable permits market. We detail an optimal risk-sharing rule, and discuss the possibility of pooling the risk linked to allowance trading between agents.Overall, this thesis highlights the inefficiencies following the creation of the European carbon market that prevented the emergence of a price signal leading to effective emissions reductions by industrials. However, in a changing institutional environment, these inefficiencies do not seem to have been transfered to the period 2008-2012.

Dans ce mémoire, je cherche à expliquer comment politiquement intégrer les générations futures et les animaux non humains. Pour ce faire, je revisite les débats en philosophie concernant la valeur intrinsèque, les théories de justice, les droits et la représentation politique. J’avance que ce qui a été réalisé concernant les générations futures peut servir à la cause des animaux non humains, et inversement. J’analyse ainsi ce qui rassemble ces sans-voix. Après leur avoir accordé une valeur intrinsèque et politique, je leur reconnais des droits à l’intégrité physique, la vie et la liberté. Je propose finalement les solutions qui peuvent servir à contourner le problème de leur non audibilité en démocratie. / In this M.A. research, I try to understand how to politically admit future generations and nonhuman animals. To do this, I analyze debates in philosophy about intrinsic value, theories of justice, rights and political representation. I suggest that what has been accomplished about future generations can serve to the animal cause and conversely. I review what brings together this voices-less. After I allowed them an intrinsic and political value, I recognize them with rights to physically integrity, life and liberty. Finally, I suggest solutions to by-pass the problem of non-audibility in democracy.

Ce mémoire présente une exploitation additionnelle du catalogue LSPM comportant deux grandes parties, soit la poursuite du relevé des naines blanches à l'intérieur d'un rayon de 40 pc et l'étude de la contrepartie SDSS de ce catalogue. La première consiste à utiliser les critères basés sur des diagrammes de mouvements propres réduits établis dans des travaux antérieurs afin de dresser une liste de candidates naines blanches. Quelques modifications quant à l'ordre de priorité ainsi que le critère basé sur les magnitudes photographiques seront apportées. Une approche de moindres carrés non-linéaire appliquée aux magnitudes observées dans les systèmes photométriques disponibles permet ensuite de déterminer la distance des objets sélectionnés par comparaison avec les plus récents modèles de naines blanches disponibles. Un second critère est appliqué en se basant sur la qualité de l'ajustement résultant de la procédure. Ceci mènera à l'identification de 31 nouvelles naines blanches, dont 11 situées vraisemblablement à moins de 40 pc. Une nouvelle liste de candidates a aussi pu être établie pour la poursuite du relevé. La seconde partie consiste à utiliser tous les objets du 7e relevé du SDSS identifiés dans le catalogue LSPM pour l'étude statistique des naines blanches, essentiellement via la détermination de leur fonction de luminosité. Pour ce faire, un critère basé sur les diagrammes de mouvements propres réduits sera encore une fois utilisé. La distance des objets sélectionnés sera déterminée selon la même procédure, mais cette fois en ne se limitant pas à 40 pc. La méthode de pondération selon le volume observable (1/v_max) est utilisée afin de compenser pour le biais introduit par la sensibilité du catalogue à la magnitude. Cependant, d'autres facteurs viennent influencer la détermination de la fonction de luminosité et une analyse de ceux-ci est finalement présentée. / We present an additional exploitation of the Lépine \& Shara Proper Motion catalog (LSPM) divided in two main parts: a follow up and some improvements on the census or northern white dwarfs within 40 pc of the Sun and a study of the SDSS white dwarfs component in the LSPM survey. The former consists in the use of criteria previously established in order to create a list of white dwarf candidates with an associated priority. The priority order has been enriched and one of the criteria has been slightly modified. We then use a non-linear least square method to the observed magnitudes in each available photometric system simultaneously in order to determine the atmospheric parameters and, in particular, the distance of each white dwarf candidate. This approach allows a second criteria to be applied on our sample based on the goodness of the fit. This will lead us to the identification of 31 new white dwarfs, from which 11 are likely to remain within 40 pc of the Sun. A new list of 340 candidates has also been established for eventual observations. The latter consists in the use of all the objects from the 7th data release of the SDSS that have a counterpart in the LSPM catalog to elaborate a statistical study of white dwarfs, in this case by calculating the white dwarf luminosity function. To do so, one of the same criterion mentioned above will be used to make a first selection of presumed white dwarfs. Afterwards, the distance will be determined by the same least-square method, but without any restriction on the distance. To balance the effect due to the sensibility in magnitude of the survey, we used a ponderation method based on the maximum observable volume (1/v_max). However, other factors come to affect our results and the last part of this work concentrates on their identification.

The main task of my master's thesis is to identify the function of the code of conduct in multinational corporations, it's real gain in the proces of solving various situations and the measure of it's implementation into the supply chain. Through the comparison of two codes of conduct of multinational corporations is shown the measure of involvement and efficiency of standards stated in these codes applicable in real business environment. Theoretical part is an introduction needed to gain an overall knowledge about this theme. Main part is dedicated to code of conduct, it's content, categories and meaning in business. Also the business ethics is involved and the demand for implementation it's principals into business practices of multinational corporations. Practical part uses the knowledge gained from my bachelor's thesis about influence of globalisation on multinational corporation Nike, Inc, which are extended by up-to-date information. The choice of european corporation IKEA has the contribution to comparison and evaluation of codes of conduct of two different companies in wide range of aspects. The main effort is according to the collected information and their further analysis to evaluate the purpose and efficiency of code of conduct in everyday use of companies.