Para o cidadão solicitar serviços de governo através de um portal que centralize o atendimento e não requeira conhecimento prévio da estrutura administrativa que organiza esses serviços, é necessário que o governo se atente a uma questão desafiadora: Quais são as poucas áreas na integração com sistemas legados cujo tratamento inadequado implicará necessariamente no fracasso na implementação do portal? Uma vez que sistemas de informação estão fortemente ligados aos processos de negócio da organização que atendem, a resposta dessa pergunta não tem natureza unicamente tecnológica. Buscou-se, nesse trabalho, a identificação das poucas áreas críticas para o sucesso na integração com sistemas legados no governo e explicações que ajudassem a entender por que elas assim são. Conhecer e entender os resultados obtidos contribui para a superação de barreiras que residem no desafio de implantar o portal centralizador que facilitará o autoatendimento dos cidadãos e contribuirá para o avanço do governo eletrônico. A estratégia utilizada para atingir os objetivos foi a de estudo de caso da organização pública Serviço Federal de Processamento de Dados (SERPRO). Este estudo teve uma natureza exploratória e descritiva e a organização é relevante porque atende demandas de sistemas de informação para o governo nas esferas municipal, federal e estadual há quase cinco décadas. O estudo de caso se desenvolveu em duas fases: (1) survey para identificar os fatores críticos de sucesso, incluindo análise fatorial para identificar as dimensões críticas que resumem os fatores encontrados e; (2) entrevistas semiestruturadas aplicadas a dez profissionais escolhidos pelo critério de representarem percepções extremas e opostas em relação à percepção média sobre cada dimensões crítica encontrada. Todas as entrevistas foram transcritas e categorizadas por análise temática. Foram obtidos 106 respondentes do survey e mais de 12 horas de conteúdo transcrito para as análises. Os resultados obtidos foram que o sucesso da integração de sistemas de informação com sistemas legados no governo está fortemente ligado a quatro dimensões: (1) efetividade dos recursos tecnológicos e humanos, porque a complexidade do sistema legado foi identificada como a causa de fracasso mais relevante em projetos dessa natureza; (2) processo minimizador de incertezas, porque as distorções na comunicação e os imprevistos que surgem ao longo do projeto requisitam altíssima qualidade de comunicação; (3) poder de prioridade, porque conflitos de interesse são frequentes e é crítico que se tenha poder e recursos para resolver questões como falta de prioridade de uma equipe externa; e (4) clareza da necessidade do negócio, porque essa clareza dá à equipe de desenvolvimento a segurança necessária sobre a consistência da solução de integração de sistemas. / For the citizen requesting government services through a centralized portal service which does not require prior knowledge of the government administrative structure organizing these services, it is necessary that the government pay attention to a challenging question: What are the few areas in integration with legacy systems in which inadequate treatment results necessarily in failure to the portal implementation? Since information systems have a strong link to the business processes, the question has not only a technological nature answer. In this work, we sought to identify the few critical areas for successful integration with legacy systems in government environment. We also pursued to find possible explanations that help to understand the reason why they are critical. To know and to understand the results obtained in this work contributes to overcoming barriers that reside on the challenge of promoting centralized interface that will facilitate self-service for citizens and will promote the electronic government. The strategy used for the achievement of the objectives was a case study of the public organization Serviço Federal de Processamento de Dados (SERPRO). This study was of exploratory and descriptive nature and this organization is important because it meets the demands of information systems for the government at the municipal, state and federal levels to nearly five decades. This case study had two phases. First, we identified critical success factors with a survey and found dimensions that summarize the identified factors with a factor analyses. Second, we conducted a sequence of ten semi-structured interviews applied to experienced professionals. The criterion used to select these professionals were their perceived perception about the importance of the critical dimensions that we found. The selected perception should be extreme and opposite in relation to the average perception of the dimension. We transcribed and categorized all the interviews with a thematic analysis. As results, we got 106 survey respondents and 12 hours of transcribed interviews. We found four critical dimensions to the successful integration of information systems with legacy systems in government. The first is the effectiveness of technological and human resources because we identified that the complexity of legacy system in projects of system integration as the most important cause of failures. The second is to minimize process uncertainty because of the risk of distortions in communication and the need of contingencies that may arise during the project. The third is critical dimension is the priority force because conflicts of interest are common and it is critical to have the power and the necessary resources to solve them. The last dimension is the clarity of the business need, because this clearly gives the development team the necessary security about the consistency of the solution of systems integration.

<p>3Gsim is a load generator for traffic simulation in a WCDMA (WidebandCode Division Multiple Access) network. It is developed at Ericsson AB inLinköping. Tests are run daily and the results are evaluated by testers. Whenerrors or abnormalities are found, the testers write trouble reports and thedescribed problems are handed over to designers whose task is to fix them.In order to save time, Ericsson wished to improve the efficiency.This study has focused on a specific part of the process of the developmentof 3Gsim, namely the process of evaluating test results. The goal has beento investigate if and how the process of evaluating 3Gsim test results can bemade more efficient.The daily work of the testers has been studied at close hand by the author.The testers answered a questionnaire with questions about their work andtheir opinions about the tools being used. The answers were evaluated andfocus was laid on the main problems.It was found that a lot of time is wasted on searching for trouble reports.A big part of the test result evaluation process consists of going throughsummary logs with error print-outs. Unfortunately no mapping betweenerror print-outs and trouble reports is performed. When going through thesummary logs the testers have to determine which errors have already beenreported and which ones that haven’t. Another major problem is the factthat most tests fail. On the webpage where the test results are displayed,this is indicated by a coloured field showing red. This is believed to have anegative effect on the work attitude.A lot of time can be saved by mapping error print-outs to trouble reportsand automatically comparing new error print-outs with old ones. The mappingwill also help preventing the creation of duplicated trouble reports. Thissolution will have the greatest impact on the improvement of the efficiency.Another way to enhance the efficiency is to develop a more advanced colourcoding scheme than the one used today. This coding scheme will help thetesters making the right priorities when processing the test results. Furthermore,these two solutions will have a positive effect on the work attitude. Aprototype implementing the first solution has been created. This prototypegives Ericsson AB the possibility to test the solution idea in practice.</p>

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic chemicals that can be found in various matrices in all corners of the planet, including remote areas such as the Arctic.  Several POPs are known and monitored but given the abundance of new chemicals in commerce about which little is known, chemicals that may be new POPs are constantly being screened for. The use of flame retardants, particularly brominated flame retardants (BFRs), has been increasing for decades. PBDEs and HBCDDs are two types of BFRs that have historically been used in large volumes but recently faced legislative restrictions. However, in order to meet fire safety standards, these BFRs have been replaced by a variety of emerging flame retardants (EFRs) about which little is known especially concerning their toxicity, production volumes, and environmental behavior. The main purpose of this thesis was to investigate the occurrence and fate in indoor and outdoor environments of several EFRs and compare them with PBDEs, HBCDDs, and legacy POPs. Several indoor environments in the city of Stockholm, Sweden were sampled for dust, indoor air, and ventilation system air (Paper II).  Results from these samples revealed a number of EFRs that humans are exposed to and that are emitted from buildings through ventilation systems. These included DDC-CO, DBE-DBCH, PBT, HBB, EHTBB, and BEH-TEBP. PBDE levels seem to be declining compared to previous studies in Stockholm.  Outdoor air and soil were sampled across transects of Stockholm (Paper II) and Birmingham, United Kingdom (Paper III).  Results from these samples showed the presence of many of the same EFRs in the outdoor environment that were found in indoor environments.  Urban pulses in air were discovered for PBDEs in both cities and for some EFRs in Stockholm, indicating that the cities are sources of EFRs to the outdoor environment.  Atmospheric deposition samples were taken at two sites in northern Sweden (Paper I).  Three EFRs (DDC-CO, DBE-DBCH, and BTBPE) and two current-use pesticides (trifluralin and chlorothalonil) were identified, indicating these compounds’ potential for long range transport and global contamination.  Other legacy POPs such as HCH, PCBs, and PBDEs were measured in the deposition samples as well.  The bulk of deposition was comprised of HCH and PCBs with only minor contributions from PBDEs, chlordanes, and emerging compounds.  Finally, passive and active air sampling methods were compared for BFRs in offices in Beijing, China.  Some EFRs were identified in indoor air from China; however, BDE-209 was the most predominant compound found (Paper IV).  Air samples collected with passive samplers generally had measured FR concentrations within a factor of 2-3 of those collected with active samplers. The use of a GFF in the passive samplers resulted in concentrations of particle-bound contaminants such as BDE-209 that were more comparable to those in active samples. The positioning of the PUF in the passive samplers affected the sampling rates for gaseous compounds and particle retention on PUFs was shown to be a large source of uncertainty in passive sampling. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p><p> </p>

In Canada, more than 35 million kilograms of pesticide active ingredients are applied annually on agricultural land with about 84% of this mass applied in the Canadian Prairies Provinces. Pesticide residues may become airborne through post-volatilization losses from land, water or vegetative surfaces, via wind-eroded soil, and by spray drift during pesticide application. Once in the air, pesticides may be dispersed and transported as parent molecules or as degradation products. Currently used and legacy pesticide air concentrations were measured in the agricultural region of the Prairie Provinces and the northern subarctic and arctic regions of Canada in 2005 and 2007. More intensive air sampling was conducted across the province of Manitoba in 2008 and 2009. Separate wet versus dry atmospheric deposition samples and wetland water samples were also taken in these years. In general, pesticides were detected in the monitored environmental media as mixtures with the frequency and concentrations detected being largest for pesticides that were applied on-site. Although the most commonly used herbicides in western Canadian agriculture were frequently present in the air in the regions where they are applied, they appeared infrequently and at low levels in the Canadian Subarctic, Arctic, and remote sites far from agricultural pesticide applications. Results also indicated that the concentrations of legacy pesticides such as lindane (γ-HCH) and its manufacturing by-product prior to 1971 (α-HCH) continued to decrease over time in the Canadian environment. Air concentrations of pesticides in agricultural regions, and subsequent wet and dry atmospheric deposition, contaminated surface water following periods of pesticide application. Dry deposition contributed 12–51% of the total deposition. Calculations were performed to predict wetland water column pesticide concentrations based on total atmospheric deposits alone. The estimated concentrations were closest to actual concentrations for MCPA and predictions were also reasonable for a range of other herbicides, but a source other than atmospheric deposition was clearly relevant to the detection of clopyralid in the wetland water-column. Individual herbicide concentrations did not exceed Canadian water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life.

This study reports on the quantitative evaluation of a set of state-of-the-art feature detectors and descriptors in the context of repeat photography. Unlike most related work, the proposed study assesses the performance of feature detectors when intra-pair variations are uncontrolled and due to a variety of factors (landscape change, weather conditions, different acquisition sensors). There is no systematic way to model the factors inducing image change. The proposed evaluation is performed in the context of image matching, i.e. in conjunction with a descriptor and matching strategy. Thus, beyond just comparing the performance of these detectors and descriptors, we also examine the feasibility of feature-based matching on repeat photography. Our dataset consists of a set of repeat and historic images pairs that are representative for the database created by the Mountain Legacy Project www.mountainlegacy.ca. / Graduate

Information systems are used by most organisations today and are critical to the business. Many organisations got one or more legacy systems which have been used for a long period of time. Failures and disruption in these systems can lead to great consequences and it is important to test the systems to avoid them. Manual testing requires much resources. To automate the tests are a possibility and our partner in this study, Stora Enso Skog, wanted to look into the possibilities.The purpose of this study is to describe what challenges you meet when automating tests for legacy systems. The purpose is also to describe what factors you need to consider when implementing test automation. To do this we have used a case study and gathered data through interviews and study of documents. The interviews have been conducted with experienced experts within the testing area.Our conclusions shows that there are a number of challenges to consider when automating tests for legacy systems. The challenges include problems trying to automate some sort of tests for legacy systems due to the code being unstructured and not prepared for tests. There’s also a risk of spending too much resources in automating the tests instead of improving the systems.A number of factors to consider when implementing automated tests for legacy systems have also been found. Examples given are that automating tests can never fully compensate for a bad architecture and design. Focus should also be on the most important tests and start automating small parts. Also to improve the possibility to test in legacy systems instead of just adopting the testing tool to the system is to be considered.Finally we have noted that there are different types and levels of legacy systems and because of that challenges and factors to consider when automating tests may vary. Many challenges and factors presented in this study also applies to systems not considered legacy. / Informationssystem används idag av de flesta organisationer och är kritiska för att verksamheten skall fungera väl. Många organisationer har ett eller flera så kallade legacysystem som funnits i verksamheten en tid. Fel i systemen kan leda till stora konsekvenser och för att undvika detta är det viktigt att de testas. Att manuellt testa är resurskrävande. Möjligheter finns att automatisera tester i informationssystem vilket vår samarbetspartner Stora Enso Skog velat undersöka.Syftet med detta examensarbete är att beskriva vilka utmaningar som finns vid automatisering av tester för legacysystem. Syftet är vidare att beskriva vilka faktorer som behöver beaktas vid implementering. Arbetet har genomförts som en fallstudie och datainsamling har skett genom intervjuer och dokument. Intervjuer har genomförts med erfarna och kunniga inom testområdet.Slutsatserna är att det finns ett antal utmaningar vid automatisering av test av legacysystem. Exempel på utmaningar är att det kan vara svårt att automatisera vissa typer av test då koden i legacysystem ofta är ostrukturerad och inte förbered för test. Det finns också risk att man lägger för mycket resurser på automatiserade tester istället för att förbättra informationssystemet.Faktorer att beakta vid implementering är bland annat att automatisering av test aldrig kan kompensera för en dålig arkitektur och design. Man bör också fokusera på det viktigaste delarna och börja i mindre omfattning. Att utveckla testbarheten i legacysystem istället för att bara anpassa testverktyg efter systemet är en annan faktor.Vi har slutligen konstaterat att det finns olika typer eller nivåer av legacysystem och beroende på det kan utmaningar och faktorer vid automatisering av test variera. Många av de utmaningar och faktorer som presenteras i examensarbetet gäller även system som inte klassas som legacysystem.

abstract: The focus of this research is to investigate methods for material substitution for the purpose of re-engineering legacy systems that involves incomplete information about form, fit and function of replacement parts. The primary motive is to extract as much useful information about a failed legacy part as possible and use fuzzy logic rules for identifying the unknown parameter values. Machine elements can fail by any number of failure modes but the most probable failure modes based on the service condition are considered critical failure modes. Three main parameters are of key interest in identifying the critical failure mode of the part. Critical failure modes are then directly mapped to material properties. Target material property values are calculated from material property values obtained from the originally used material and from the design goals. The material database is searched for new candidate materials that satisfy the goals and constraints in manufacturing and raw stock availability. Uncertainty in the extracted data is modeled using fuzzy logic. Fuzzy member functions model the imprecise nature of data in each available parameter and rule sets characterize the imprecise dependencies between the parameters and makes decisions in identifying the unknown parameter value based on the incompleteness. A final confidence level for each material in a pool of candidate material is a direct indication of uncertainty. All the candidates satisfy the goals and constraints to varying degrees and the final selection is left to the designer's discretion. The process is automated by software that inputs incomplete data; uses fuzzy logic to extract more information and queries the material database with a constrained search for finding candidate alternatives. / Dissertation/Thesis / Collection of Images used in Thesis / M.S. Mechanical Engineering 2011

Hardware evolves faster than software. While a hardware system might need replacement every one to five years, the average lifespan of a software system is a decade, with some instances living up to several decades. Inevitably, code outlives the platform it was developed for and may become legacy: development of the software stops, but maintenance has to continue to keep up with the evolving ecosystem. No new features are added, but the software is still used to fulfil its original purpose. Even in the cases where it is still functional (which discourages its replacement), legacy code is inefficient, costly to maintain, and a risk to security. This thesis proposes methods to leverage the expertise put in the development of legacy code and to extend its useful lifespan, rather than to throw it away. A novel methodology is proposed, for automatically exploiting platform specific optimisations when retargeting a program to another platform. The key idea is to leverage the optimisation information embedded in vector processing intrinsic functions. The performance of the resulting code is shown to be close to the performance of manually retargeted programs, however with the human labour removed. Building on top of that, the question of discovering optimisation information when there are no hints in the form of intrinsics or annotations is investigated. This thesis postulates that such information can potentially be extracted from profiling the data flow during executions of the program. A context-aware data dependence profiling system is described, detailing previously overlooked aspects in related research. The system is shown to be essential in surpassing the information that can be inferred statically, in particular about loop iterators. Loop iterators are the controlling part of a loop. This thesis describes and evaluates a system for extracting the loop iterators in a program. It is found to significantly outperform previously known techniques and further increases the amount of information about the structure of a program that is available to a compiler. Combining this system with data dependence profiling improves its results even more. Loop iterator recognition enables other code modernising techniques, like source code rejuvenation and commutativity analysis. The former increases the use of idiomatic code and as a result increases the maintainability of the program. The latter can potentially drive parallelisation and thus dramatically improve runtime performance.

One of the major challenges for agriculture today is to manage soil properties and their spatial distribution to optimize productivity and minimize environmental impacts, such as diffuse pollution. To identify best management practices, the effects of different agricultural management practices on pollutant sources, mobilization, transfer and delivery to water bodies need to be understood. Grasslands managed for dairy and meat production, despite being widespread, have received less research attention than other agricultural land uses. Therefore, this thesis studies the effects of different grassland management practices on soil properties and their spatial distribution and the mobilization and delivery of multiple diffuse pollutants. As a grassland case study, monitoring for this thesis was conducted across three fields (6.5 – 7.5 ha) on the North Wyke Farm Platform, a grassland experimental farm in the UK. First, the effects of permanent grassland management (permanent for at least 6 years, but different grassland management > 6 years ago) were characterized as a baseline, followed by quantifying the short-term effects of ploughing and reseeding of permanent grassland fields. Throughout those management periods, i) a range of soil physical (bulk density [BD]) and chemical (soil organic matter [SOM], total N [TN], total phosphorus [TP], total carbon [TC]) soil properties and their spatial distribution were sampled and analysed by geostatistics, and ii) hydrological characteristics and multiple pollutant fluxes (suspended sediment [SS] and the macronutrients: total oxidized nitrogen-N [TONN], total phosphorus [TP], and total carbon [TC]) were monitored at high temporal resolution (monitoring up to every 15 minutes). The permanent grassland fields (or areas within fields) can be considered to be functioning differently. Past management legacy (more than 6 years ago) has affected soil properties and their distribution with subsequent effects on sediment and macronutrient delivery from the fields to surface waters. Overall, permanent grasslands were found to contribute significantly to agricultural diffuse pollution. The estimated erosion and macronutrient losses were similar to or exceeded the losses reported for other grasslands, mixed land use and even arable sites, and sediment and TP concentrations exceeded those recommended by EU / UK water quality guidelines. Ploughing and reseeding did not homogenize spatial variation and did not override past management effects. Long-term management differences affected soil properties and altered soil processes, so that the fields subsequently responded differently to ploughing and reseeding. All nutrient concentrations were significantly reduced in the older grassland field (no ploughing for 20 years), but not in the younger grassland field (no ploughing for 6 years). Ploughing and reseeding significantly accelerated the losses of sediment and macronutrients and sediment, TP and TONN exceedance frequencies of EU / UK water quality guidelines increased. Additionally, ploughing and reseeding caused a shift in the relative importance of nutrients, by increasing the relative importance of N. Such large sediment and nutrient losses from intensively managed grasslands should be acknowledged in land management guidelines and advice for future compliance with surface water quality standards. The between-field and within-field variation highlights the importance of baseline characterization and paired catchment studies. The long-term effects of management still acting on soil properties and subsequently water quality indicates how long it may take to see soil and water quality improvements after implementing mitigation measures. Therefore, long-term management history always has to be included when interpreting soil and water quality data.

Esta dissertação tem com tema central o legado do ensino do esporte na escola. O objetivo é compreender como os professores de Educação Física analisam sua própria trajetória com o esporte, e que relações podem ser estabelecidas entre as experiências adquiridas no decorrer dessa trajetória e a noção de esporte que desejam transmitir a seus alunos na escola. O trabalho está sustentado nos pressupostos da metodologia qualitativa, e para dar conta da questão central, utilizo como método a narrativa e como instrumento de pesquisa a entrevista episódica. Estas entrevistas foram realizadas com doze professores formados entre os anos de 1999 e 2009 e que trabalham com o ensino médio em escolas estaduais de Porto Alegre. Já o referencial teórico foi organizado em três capítulos – O Esporte na/da Escola: Por uma “virada” de perspectiva na Educação Física brasileira; Saberes Acadêmico-profissionais dos professores de Educação Física sobre o esporte; Saberes Experienciais: um marcador dos saberes docentes – cujas discussões empreendidas serviram para compreender o modo como o esporte se incorporou à trajetória de vida dos professores formando suas concepções sobre este conteúdo da Educação Física na escola e quais efeitos vem sendo produzidos por essa herança no seu fazer docente. Para a construção dos pontos analíticos, organizei inicialmente quatro grandes eixos, sendo o último deles transversal aos demais: experiências com o esporte anteriores à graduação; experiências com o esporte durante a formação acadêmica; experiências com o esporte durante a prática docente na escola; noções de esporte que os professores desejam deixar para os seus alunos ao concluírem o ensino médio. A partir desses eixos, foram estruturados os seguintes pontos de análise: esporte na escola: entre o rendimento e o “banho de sol na prisão”; b) “terceirização” como consequência do vácuo conceitual das aulas de Educação Física na escola; c) o conceito de teoria em esporte e a hipertrofia de um saber fazer na graduação; d) Uni-duni-tê: organização do conteúdo esporte nas aulas de Educação Física; e) Noções de esporte na escola que se leva para a vida. A forma como organizei a pesquisa e a partir das análises que empreendi me permitiram constatar que as noções de saúde, valores, conhecimento crítico e “saber se virar” representam o legado sobre esporte que os professores desejam deixar para seus alunos. Entretanto, verifiquei que este legado não é algo palpável, ou que está inscrito e visível nos relatos de vida dos professores. Esse legado “paira” no imaginário dos professores. / This master dissertation has as central theme the legacy of teaching sports at school. The main goal is to understand how Physical Education teachers analyze their own sports trajectory and what links can be settled among these experiences and the sports ideas they want to transmit to their students at school. The study is supported by qualitative methodological assumptions. To answer the central question, it was used the narrative as a method and the episodical interview as a research instrument. It was interviewed twelve Physical Education teachers who concluded the undergraduate course from 1999 to 2009. They work in high school level at public state schools in Porto Alegre. The theoretical references were organized in three chapters: Sport in/of school: for a turn of perspective in Brazilian Physical Education; Academic-professional knowledge about sportS of Physical Education teachers; Experience-based knowledge: a marker of teaching knowledge. The discussions served to understand how sports became part of their lives and shaped their ideas about this matter of Physical Education at school and which effects has been produced by this legacy in their own teaching practice. Four big axes have defined the initial configuration for building analytical points: sport experiences before the undergraduate course; sport experiences during the undergraduate course; sport experiences during teaching practice at school; sport ideas the teachers want to give to the students at the end of high school. From these axis, the following analytical points were constructed: a) Sport at school: between the performance and “the sunbathing at prison”; b) “Outsourcing” as an answer for the conceptual vacuum in Physical Education classes at school; c) The concept of theory about sport and the hypertrophy of know-how in graduation course; d) Uniduni- tê: organization of sport as a matter in Physical Education classes; d) Sport ideas at school which were took to the life. The form as I organized the investigation and from the analysis I checked that conceptions of health, values, critical knowledge and “knowing practice” represent the legacy of sport that teachers want their students take for life. However, I found that this legacy isn‟t palpable or visible in the reports of teachers‟ lives. That legacy is “on the minds” of teachers.