Autismo é um transtorno do neurodesenvolvimento caracterizado por uma díade de sintomas que inclui anormalidades na comunicação, interação social e padrões restritos de comportamentos e interesses, numa idade precoce. Na ausência de um marcador biológico para o transtorno do espectro autista, são exploradas definições cognitivo-comportamentais que expliquem esse quadro. Um modelo cognitivo recente sugere a teoria da empatia-sistematização que explica as dificuldades sociais e de comunicação no autismo em virtude de um atraso e deficit na empatia e explica as aptidões em virtude de uma habilidade intacta ou superior em sistematização. O teste de física intuitiva é um instrumento utilizado para avaliar sistematização. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar evidências de validade do teste em crianças brasileiras e verificar o desempenho de autistas de alto funcionamento neste teste e na bateria de provas de raciocínio. A análise da consistência interna do teste de física intuitiva revelou um coeficiente considerado insatisfatório. Entre os 330 participantes de escolas, observou-se diferença das pontuações estatisticamente significativa entre gêneros, com desempenho superior em meninos, assim como um incremento na pontuação conforme idade, série escolar e tipo de escola. Os participantes da escola particular apresentaram melhor desempenho. Já entre o grupo clínico (composto por 28 participantes com diagnóstico de autismo de alto funcionamento) e o grupo controle (composto por 28 estudantes de escola particular), observou-se melhor desempenho deste último no teste de física intuitiva, assim como na prova de raciocínio mecânico da Bateria de Provas de Raciocínio. As propriedades psicométricas do teste indicam baixo índice de precisão. O desempenho entre os participantes de escolas modificou-se de acordo com o desenvolvimento, resultado que pode refletir não apenas o desenvolvimento cognitivo da criança, mas também sua experiência diária e aprendizado escolar. Por outro lado, os pacientes com autismo de alto funcionamento não obtiveram melhor desempenho no teste, em relação ao grupo controle / Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by symptoms that includes deficits in social interaction, communication and narrow interests and repetitive stereotyped behavior, in an early age. In the absence of a biological marker of the autism spectrum disorders cognitive-behavioral definitions are necessary for these conditions. A recent cognitive model suggests the empathizing-systemizing theory that explains the social and communication difficulties in autism spectrum disorders by reference to delays and deficits in empathy, whilst explaining the areas of strength by reference to intact or even superior skill in systemizing. The intuitive physics test is an instrument developed to assess systemizing. The aim of this study is to analyze the evidences of validity of this test in Brazilian children and to measure the performance of high functioning autists in this test and the Battery of Reasoning Tests. The analysis of the internal consistency of the intuitive physics test disclosed an unsatisfactory coefficient. Among the 330 schoolchildren there was observed statistically significant difference between the scores of the two genders, with superior performance in boys, as well as an increment in scores in accordance with age, grade in school and type of school. The best performance occurred in the children of private school. Between the clinical group (composed of 28 high functioning autism individuals) and the control group (composed of 28 from private schoolchildren), the latter showed the best performance in the intuitive physics test as well as in the mechanical reasoning test. The psychometric properties of the test showed a low consistency index. The performance among school participants changed according to the development, which may reflect not only cognitive development but also their everyday experience and school education. Otherwise, the high functioning autists didn´t have better performance in the intuitive physics test when compared with the control group

Nos últimos anos, ampliaram-se significativamente os espaços de produção em história da educação no Brasil, provavelmente, em decorrência do crescente número de pesquisadores voltados a estudos que abarquem universos educacionais e escolares. Um balanço das pesquisas mais recentes nesse campo permite observar que as discussões historiográficas sobre a educação se estendem para além das fronteiras dos fatos e dados históricos e evidencia o grande interesse sobre temas voltados a desvendar práticas que constituíram o arcabouço do nosso sistema educacional e pedagógico contemporâneo. Um recurso investigativo reside na análise de materiais didáticos manipulados por professores e alunos que, por estarem presentes no interior das salas de aula, oferecem indícios do que acontecia na escola além do discurso. Desse modo, o trabalho aqui apresentado, pretende analisar Livros de Leitura produzidos entre os anos de 1907 e 1945 basicamente em duas perspectivas: como objeto de estudo e como fonte. No domínio da investigação que considera os materiais didáticos de leitura como objeto de estudo, propõe-se como uma das possibilidades de aprofundamento a melhor compreensão da sua materialidade, destacando o lugar do autor e do editor no contexto de sua produção e circulação. No que diz respeito à análise de conteúdos, firmam-se dois objetivos. O primeiro consiste em verificar e atribuir sentidos às imbricações entre o modelo pedagógico contemplado nas Primeiras Lições de Coisas (de Norman Allison Calkins, traduzido por Rui Barbosa) e uma possível permanência da sua perspectiva epistemológica nos materiais mencionados, visto que os Livros de Leitura podem ser considerados manuais escolares produzidos com o objetivo de oferecer subsídio ao professor no exercício da docência sob a égide de uma nova proposta educacional: a educação pelos sentidos ou método intuitivo. O segundo reside na análise de grupos de conteúdos presentes nos Livros de Leitura selecionados para a análise, são eles: Leitura, Nossa terra/nossa gente, Ensino religioso/ensino moral e Corpo Humano. A pesquisa se faz importante na medida em que verifica a pouca produção sobre a inserção dos livros didáticos de leiturana escola, seus autores, sua produção e circulação, seus preceitos epistemológicos, sobretudo, no que pode contribuir para a compreensão/constituição do campo da História do Ensino de Leitura no Brasil. / The last few years a significant increase in the amount of time has been devoted to research on Brazilian History of Education, probably, as a result of the increasing numbers of researches focusing on educational environment. An overview of the most recent researches in this field, allows us to observe the historiographical discussions about extension beyond the factual border, as well as historical data showing a great interest in themes related to discovering new practices, which constitute our contemporary educational and pedagogical system. One investigative resource can be found in didactic materials used by teachers and students, once they are present in the classrooms, so that they offer signals to what actually happens in the school apart from the discourse. Thus, this paper intends to analyze Reading Books produced between 1907 up to 1945 basically in two different perspectives: as the subject of the study and as the source of it. In the investigative area which considers material for reading as a subject of study, it is proposed, as one of the possibilities for fully understanding the materiality, highlighting the authors place and the editor in the context for their production and circulation. Referring to the analysis of the context, there are two main objectives: the first consists in verifying and attributing meaning to the imbrications between the pedagogical model contemplated in Primeiras Lição de Cousas (by Norman Allison Calkins translated by Rui Barbosa) and a possible permanence of its epistemological perspective in the above mentioned materials, pondering that the Reading Books might be considered school manuals produced aiming at offering support to teachers exercising their profession under a new pedagogical proposal: education by intuition or intuitive method. The second lies in the analysis of contextual groups presented in the Reading Books previously selected which are: Reading, Our land/our people, Religious education/teaching moral e Human body. The importance of this research shows the poor production in the insertion of didactical Reading Books in schools, its authors, production, circulation and epistemological pretenses mainly in what we can contribute in comprehension/constitution in the field of Reading Education in Brasil.

As decisões racionais ou intuitivas delimitam a vida das pessoas, gerando boas ou más consequências. São as decisões que geram oportunidades, desafios e incertezas. Até pouco tempo, a teoria gerencial era embasada nas premissas, de que, por critérios de racionalidade poderíamos dominar a vida e o destino das empresas. No entanto, em virtude de limitações envolvidas no processo decisório, como falta de tempo, excesso de informações, mudanças constantes e instabilidade tanto econômica quanto política, fizeram com que métodos suportados pela racionalidade, busquem apoio em conhecimentos gerados pela experiência acumulada pelo indivíduo. Esta dissertação visa abordar a tomada de decisão dos empreendedores, juntando aspectos da administração e da psicologia. Primeiramente uma abordagem da evolução do pensamento sobre a tomada de decisão é repassada, com conceitos que dão conta da racionalidade limitada e também de que o nível de incerteza e a complexidade inerente às decisões aumentaram. Após evidências teóricas mostrando como a intuição influencia a tomada de decisão, esperasse demonstrar como os empreendedores entrevistados utilizam a intuição para a tomada de decisões. Através de estudo de caso com oito empreendedores, foi possível apresentar aspectos que influenciam o comportamento dos empreendedores no exercício do processo decisório, demonstrando que suas decisões nem sempre seguem um processo racional descrito na literatura, mas respaldam-se muitas vezes em formas intuitivas e criativas que dependem muito mais de sua experiência e de sua percepção sobre oportunidades ou ameaças que propriamente uma planilha estatística. Como resultado, verificou-se que a intuição tem papel importante na formação da solução percebida pelos empreendedores, e como outros autores já colocaram, há uma grande dificuldade em colocar todos os elementos que compõem a tomada de decisão nos processos decisórios, fazendo com que o empreendedor recorra em muitas decisões, a fontes mais informais, como é o caso da intuição, que respondendo ao objetivo principal desta dissertação, constatou-se que possivelmente a experiência e a intuição sejam os elementos que mais auxiliam a tomada de decisão, principalmente na primeira e na terceira geração, conforme será demonstrado nesta dissertação. / Intuitive and rational decisions put a limit on people’s lives, resulting in good and bad consequences. The decisions generate opportunities, challenges and uncertainties. Until recently, management theory was grounded in assumptions that, by rational criteria we could dominate life and companies’ fate. However, due to limitations involved in the decision-making process, such as lack of time, information overload, constant changes and instability both economic and political made methods supported by rationality, seek support in knowledge generated by the accumulated individual experience. This work seeks to address the entrepreneurs’ decision-making, combining aspects of management and psychology. First of all an approach to thought evolving on the decision-making is checked on through concepts that take into account bounded rationality and also that the level of uncertainty and the inherent complexity of decisions increased. After theoretical evidences showing how the intuition influences the decision making-process, it is expected to demonstrate how interviewed entrepreneurs use intuition to make decisions. Through a case study with eight entrepreneurs, it was possible to present aspects that influence entrepreneurs’ behavior in the exercise of decision-making by demonstrating that their decisions do not always follow a rational process described in the literature, but often they are supported in intuitive and creative ways, which rely more heavily on their experience and their perception of opportunities or threats, than in a exactly statistical spreadsheet. As a result, it was found that intuition plays an important role in forming the solution perceived by entrepreneurs, and as others have already put, there is great difficulty in putting all the elements that make up the decision-making into decision-making processes, making the entrepreneur refers, in many decisions, the more informal sources, such as the intuition case, that responding to the main objective of this abstract , it was found that perhaps the experience and intuition are the factors that most help the decision making, especially in the first and in the third generations, as will be shown in this work.

The importance of trust in Electronic Commerce (EC) has been addressed for about two decades and various theories have been applied to investigate the issue. In spite of a consensus among researchers of trust in a website being a risky decision, they have neither applied decision making theories (e.g. two systems of reasoning) in the context nor created a risky situation when examining their hypotheses about trust in EC. Instead, the decision is implicitly assumed to be deliberative although not enough evidences have been collected to support the assumption. An in-lab experiment was conducted to investigate the above shortcomings in the literature. Findings show that unlike the current belief, intuition (and not deliberation), is the dominant decision making process when trusting an unknown website in a risky situation. The level of trust is significantly different when risk is not involved. In addition, one of the well-established constructs, “situational decision making to trust”, was not confirmed by the collected data in the risky situation. The results conflict with EC and trust literature and clarify the crucial role of risk in decision making to trust. Hence, the studies that have measured and validated trust and related constructs without the actual risky situation might need to be reconsidered.

In this thesis, we study the scattering problem of a vertically offset dielectric slab waveguide, using continuous radiation modes. The calculation of radiation modes of an arbitrarily layered waveguide has been thoroughly investigated in the literature. Most approaches were based on launching two incident waves: one from above and one from below, resulting in two transmitted waves and two reflected waves. Radiation modes were obtained by algebraic adjustments of each incident wave¡¦s amplitude and phase. These radiation modes formed standing waves in both the substrates and superstrates. This implies that walls are located an infinite distance far from the first and the last interfaces. In addition to physical conflicts of simultaneous existence of the incident wave and the walls, the derivation details are complicated and non-intuitive. In our thesis, with a given propagation constant for an arbitrarily layered dielectric waveguide, we propose an intuitive method to obtain two independent radiation mode solutions. We also construct a specific procedure to orthogonalize and normalize these two radiation modes. The second part of this thesis is focused on applying these radiation modes into a customized coupled transverse mode integral equation formulation (CTMIE), to the study of vertically offset slab waveguides. CTMIE requires two artificial boundaries placed in the substrate and superstrate. We choose to compute discretized radiation modes with the periodic boundary conditions. Under these circumstances, modes correspond to different spatial frequencies and thereby do not inter-couple. This means the matrix of the overlap integral between these two groups of modes (slightly vertically shifted) are block-diagonally dominated. The off-diagonal elements are two orders of magnitude smaller than the diagonal ones. As a result, when the two artificial boundaries are pushed towards infinity in the CTMIE formulation, we may obtain an exact inverse of the Greene¡¦s matrix without relying on numerical inversion.

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Cranes occupy a crucial role within the industry. They are used throughout the world in thousands of shipping yards, construction sites, and warehouses. However, payload oscillation inherent to all cranes makes it challenging for human operators to manipulate payloads quickly, accurately, and safely. Manipulation difficulty is also increased by non-intuitive crane control interfaces. Intuitiveness is characterized by ease of learning, simplicity, and predictability. This thesis addresses the issue of intuitive crane control in two parts: the design of the interface, and the design of the controller. Three novel types of crane control interface are presented. These interfaces allow an operator to drive a crane by moving his or her hand freely in space. These control interfaces are dependent on machine vision and radio-frequency-based technology. The design of the controller based on empirical means is also discussed. Various control architectures were explored. It was concluded that a controller with an input shaper within a Proportional Derivative feedback loop produced the desirable crane response. The design of this controller is complemented with a structured design methodology based on root locus analysis and computer numerical methods. The intuitive crane control systems were implemented on a 10-ton industrial bridge crane; simulation and experimental results are presented for validation purposes.

Everyday technologies are intended for use by everyone with no specific training and minimal instructions. Prior research (e.g., Norman, 2002; Polson&Lewis, 1990) suggests that these technologies are usable if users can leverage their prior experience. However, different users will leverage difference experiences to operate the same technologies (Blackler, Popovic,&Mahar, 2003a). This dissertation systematically examined use of prior knowledge in the operation of everyday technology by diverse users, specifically users of different ages and experience levels. In Study 1 encounters with everyday technologies were self-reported by younger adults, older adults with low technology experience, and older adults with high technology experience. Comparisons of technology repertoires for each participant group indicated similar usage between younger adults and high tech older adults that differed in expected domains. Low tech older adults used fewer technologies, but overall they used more than expected across domains. Prior experience generally helped participants have successful encounters, but in some cases introduced problems. In Study 2 video recorded observations were made during participant interactions with exemplar everyday technologies. Participants with more relevant experience generally performed better. Older adults exhibited more inter-individual variability in their performance levels. Appropriate use of prior experience, an unassuming approach to the interaction, and using information on the technology generally led to more successful performance. Results from both studies can provide theoretical and practical support for more effective design that reflects how the target population will use their prior experience.

Self-rated religiosity has been studied alongside intelligence for nearly 100 years. The predominant finding is a negative relationship between measures of self-rated religiosity and individual measures of intelligence. That is, as intelligence increases, the degree of self-rated religiosity decreases; as intelligence scores decrease, self-rated religiosity tends to increase. Spirituality has been studied intermittently as a separate theoretical construct since the 1970’s and there has been a recent empirical drive to consider and refer to these concepts separately. Valid and reliable measures of intelligence have not yet been examined alongside empirically validated, individual, self-rated measures of spirituality. In this study, 44 undergraduate students from the University of Saskatchewan completed the Shipley-2 abbreviated test of intelligence and the Spiritual Well Being Questionnaire (SWBQ). Due to the nature of religiosity relative to spirituality, as well as individual differences in characteristic propensities to engage in logical reasoning, it was hypothesized that when compared to past research examining measured intelligence relative to self-endorsed measures of religiosity, a relatively weak relationship would be observed. The nature and strength of the relationship between self-rated measures of spirituality and measured intelligence was nearly identical to a recent meta-analysis study examining the relationship between self-rated religiosity and measured intelligence. However, a relatively strong negative relationship was observed between the transcendent factor of the SWBQ – the factor most closely associated with notions of a God, religion, or religiosity – and intelligence. This finding supports the hypothesis and suggests that perhaps it is the notion of a God or other sentient being that is driving or inflating the widely observed negative relationship between self-rated religiosity and intelligence.

The importance of trust in Electronic Commerce (EC) has been addressed for about two decades and various theories have been applied to investigate the issue. In spite of a consensus among researchers of trust in a website being a risky decision, they have neither applied decision making theories (e.g. two systems of reasoning) in the context nor created a risky situation when examining their hypotheses about trust in EC. Instead, the decision is implicitly assumed to be deliberative although not enough evidences have been collected to support the assumption. An in-lab experiment was conducted to investigate the above shortcomings in the literature. Findings show that unlike the current belief, intuition (and not deliberation), is the dominant decision making process when trusting an unknown website in a risky situation. The level of trust is significantly different when risk is not involved. In addition, one of the well-established constructs, “situational decision making to trust”, was not confirmed by the collected data in the risky situation. The results conflict with EC and trust literature and clarify the crucial role of risk in decision making to trust. Hence, the studies that have measured and validated trust and related constructs without the actual risky situation might need to be reconsidered.