Les représentations des divinités féminines hindoues mises au jour au Bengale, stèles et statues de pierre ou de métal, ont été analysées à partir d'un corpus d'un peu plus de trois cents œuvres que nous avons collectées dans les musées indiens, bangladais et occidentaux, mais aussi dans les catalogues, études et publications diverses. L'étude iconographique sera faite par une mise en perspective des images, de l'épigraphie, de la littérature et des concepts théologiques exprimés dans les textes sacrés. La première partie de cette recherche est une étude chronologique consacrée (1) à l'étude des plaques de terre cuite produites au Bengale entre le IIIᵉ siècle av. notre ère et le IIᵉ après qui représentent divers personnages féminins portant déjà pour certains les caractéristiques iconographiques de la divinité telles qu'on les trouvera sur les images ultérieures, et (2) à l'apparition et au développement de la parèdre de Śiva dans son rôle d'épouse : à partir du IXᵉ siècle et jusqu'au XIIᵉ siècle, c'est en effet la Déesse, śakti du dieu, qui est omniprésente. Les déesses viṣṇuites n'occupent qu'une infime partie du corpus. Dans la deuxième partie, ce sont les formes redoutables de la Déesse śivaïte, Durgā siṃhavāhinī, Mahiṣāsuramardinī et Cāmuṇḍā/Kālī qui sont analysées. Les déesses serpents gardent leur spécificité malgré leur intégration dans le panthéon śivaïte. L'étude stylistique des images permet d'identifier le développement des différentes écoles de la région avec, à partir des XIᵉ et XIIᵉ siècles, une différence notable entre les stèles à la décoration foisonnante du nord-ouest du Bengale et celles dépouillées et empreintes de spiritualité de la région de Dhaka devenue le centre du pouvoir sous les Sena. Cette étude iconographique permet de constater que de la bhakti apparue à l'époque des Épopées, aux cultes tantriques ésotériques les plus transgressifs, le Bengale médiéval a beaucoup développé les cultes śākta en l'honneur de la Déesse Suprême rattachée au panthéon śivaïte : les courants orthodoxes, kaula et Trika non dualistes, et peut-être Nātha ont pu être identifiés. Mais quelle que soit la voie choisie, le but de l'adepte reste le même, la libération, mokṣa, et la fusion avec la Déesse Suprême. / The production in Bengal of stone stelae and stone and metal statues representing Hindu Goddesses, dated from prehistory up to the twelfth century was assembled in a collection of more than three hundred pieces from the museums in India, Bangladesh and Western countries, from catalogues and from other scholar research publications. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is the analysis of the collection.The first part of this research is a chronological approach. Between the third century B.C. and the second century A.D., there was an important production of terracotta plaques with feminine figurines but it is difficult to say whether they were modeled for decoration or for cult purposes. Later, other than some beautiful terracotta statues representing Mahiṣāsuramardinī and snake goddesses dated around the fifth century, there is a paucity of images until the eighth century. The pieces dating from the ninth up to the twelfth century in the collection are quite all images of the Goddess, Śiva's śakti and wife, and the stelae are quite all narratives and dedicated to orthodox cults.The second part of the research is a more detailed analysis of the fearsome forms of the Goddess: Durgā siṃhavāhinī, Mahiṣāsuramardinī, Cāmuṇḍā; the snake goddesses, although being incorporated within the Śaiva pantheon, keep a specific role.Stylistic elements facilitate the identification of several schools of sculpture, with, by the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a substantial difference between the abundance of decorative elements on the stelae from North-West of Bengal and the bare style of those conceived in the area of Dhaka.From a religious point of view, an evolution from the narrative to the esoteric tantric images shows different types of beliefs and śākta cults: orthodox, non dualist kaula and Trika, and may be Nātha, being understood that whichever way is chosen, the goal remains the same: mokṣa and merge within the Supreme Goddess.

Neste trabalho examinamos os efeitos do controle e governança familiar nas decisões de fusões e aquisições (M&A). Analisamos 420 empresas não-financeiras listadas na BM&FBovespa entre 1997 e 2007 e encontramos que empresas controladas por famílias empresarias por meio de excesso de direitos de voto são mais propensas a se engajar em atividades de M&A. Encontramos também que empresas cujo presidente do conselho de administração é um membro da família controladora, a probabilidade de crescimento via M&A diminui. Finalmente, encontramos que as atividades de M&A em empresas controladas por famílias prejudicam o desempenho operacional de longo prazo. Em conjunto, mecanismos de excesso de controle parecem atenuar a restrição de recursos financeiros das famílias para perseguir o crescimento via M&A, entretanto, esta estratégia de crescimento gera resultados operacionais inferiores. Estes resultados têm importantes implicações para a literatura de governança e para a prática empresarial em países emergentes como o Brasil. / We examine the effect of family control and governance on merge and acquisitions (M&A) decisions. We analyze 420 Brazilian non-financial firms from 1997 to 2007 and found that family-controlled firms with excess of control rights are more likely to engage in M&A transactions. We unravel that family chairman reduces the likelihood of family firms to grow through M&As. We also find that M&A activities in family controlled firms are detrimental to their operational performance in the long-run. Overall, family control enhancing mechanism seems to attenuate family limited resources to expand through M&A, where institutions are weak and the capital market is not developed, but this growth strategy leads to poor operational performance. Altogether, these results have important implications for corporate governance research and practice in emerging economies like Brazil.

A novel system was developed that provides drivers lane merge advisories, using vehicle trajectories obtained through Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC). It was successfully tested on a freeway using three vehicles, then targeted for further testing, via simulation. The failure of contemporary simulators to effectively model large, complex urban transportation networks then motivated further research into distributed and parallel traffic simulation. An architecture for a closed-loop, parallel simulator was devised, using a new algorithm that accounts for boundary nodes, traffic signals, intersections, road lengths, traffic density, and counts of lanes; it partitions a sample, Tennessee road network more efficiently than tools like METIS, which increase interprocess communications (IPC) overhead by partitioning more transportation corridors. The simulator uses logarithmic accumulation to synchronize parallel simulations, further reducing IPC. Analyses suggest this eliminates up to one-third of IPC overhead incurred by a linear accumulation model.

Data-flow analysis is an integral part of any aggressive optimizing compiler. We propose a framework for improving the precision of data-flow analysis in the presence of complex control-flow. We initially perform data-flow analysis to determine those control-flow merges which cause the loss in data-flow analysis precision. The control-flow graph of the program is then restructured such that performing data-flow analysis on the resulting restructured graph gives more precise results. The proposed framework is both simple, involving the familiar notion of product automata, and also general, since it is applicable to any forward or backward data-flow analysis. Apart from proving that our restructuring process is correct, we also show that restructuring is effective in that it necessarily leads to more optimization opportunities. Furthermore, the framework handles the trade-off between the increase in data-flow precision and the code size increase inherent in the restructuring. We show that determining an optimal restructuring is NP-hard, and propose and evaluate a greedy heuristic. The framework has been implemented in the Scale research compiler, and instantiated for the specific problems of Constant Propagation and Liveness analysis. On the SPECINT 2000 benchmark suite we observe an average speedup of 4% in the running times over Wegman-Zadeck conditional constant propagation algorithm and 2% over a purely path profile guided approach for Constant Propagation. For the problem of Liveness analysis, we see an average speedup of 0.8% in the running times over the baseline implementation.

Research on analogies in science education has focussed on student interpretation of teacher and textbook analogies, psychological aspects of learning with analogies and structured approaches for teaching with analogies. Few studies have investigated how analogies might be pivotal in students’ growing participation in chemical discourse. To study analogies in this way requires a sociocultural perspective on learning that focuses on ways in which language, signs, symbols and practices mediate participation in chemical discourse. This study reports research findings from a teacher-research study of two analogy-writing activities in a chemistry class. The study began with a theoretical model, Third Space, which informed analyses and interpretation of data. Third Space was operationalized into two sub-constructs called Dialogical Interactions and Hybrid Discourses. The aims of this study were to investigate sociocultural aspects of learning chemistry with analogies in order to identify classroom activities where students generate Dialogical Interactions and Hybrid Discourses, and to refine the operationalization of Third Space. These aims were addressed through three research questions. The research questions were studied through an instrumental case study design. The study was conducted in my Year 11 chemistry class at City State High School for the duration of one Semester. Data were generated through a range of data collection methods and analysed through discourse analysis using the Dialogical Interactions and Hybrid Discourse sub-constructs as coding categories. Results indicated that student interactions differed between analogical activities and mathematical problem-solving activities. Specifically, students drew on discourses other than school chemical discourse to construct analogies and their growing participation in chemical discourse was tracked using the Third Space model as an interpretive lens. Results of this study led to modification of the theoretical model adopted at the beginning of the study to a new model called Merged Discourse. Merged Discourse represents the mutual relationship that formed during analogical activities between the Analog Discourse and the Target Discourse. This model can be used for interpreting and analysing classroom discourse centred on analogical activities from sociocultural perspectives. That is, it can be used to code classroom discourse to reveal students’ growing participation with chemical (or scientific) discourse consistent with sociocultural perspectives on learning.

The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey North (GOODS-N) field, first surveyed by the HST, has been observed across numerous wavebands revealing populations of both Star Forming Galaxies (SFG) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) over wide ranges of luminosities. It has been surmised that the evolution in the star forming population appears to diverge from that in the AGN population leading to a domination of SFGs at low flux densities. The number of starbursts can only be disentangled from the entire population if each source can be classified individually, which usually requires high angular resolution imaging. This is the motivation behind the e-MERLIN Galaxy Evolution survey, e-MERGE, which expands the depth of high resolution radio imaging in the GOODS-N field to increase the number of potentially classifiable sources. By use of wide-field imaging techniques, including a new high-speed mapping tool, together with a new semi-empirical primary beam-shape model for the e-MERLIN array, a deep wide-field high-resolution map is derived. This is the widest and deepest contiguous imaging yet obtained from e-MERLIN and JVLA observations, and yet contains less than 25% of the e-MERLIN data so far observed. The majority of the objects are shown to exhibit extended structure, and the angular size distribution place the median size around 1.2 arcsec, peaking between 0.5 and 0.7 arcsec. Automated algorithms are utilised to facilitate a new probabilistic classification tool based on multi-parameter correlations. 248 sources could be classified using the tool, each deriving a probability of AGN or SFG rather than forcing a binary category. Linear sizes of star-formation dominated sources are determined to lie in a range of 4 - 11 kpc, within the optical extent of galaxies. Differential source counting based on probabilistic classifications reveals that an increase in the luminosity evolution of SFGs is likely, although an apparent upturn in AGN may also exist to some lesser degree at low flux densities. The thesis establishes a clear roadmap for the remainder of the e-MERGE survey and a path to determine the star formation rate history of the Universe.

In this thesis report, an approach to use Microsoft Kinect to scan an object and providea 3D model for further processing has been proposed. The additional requiredhardware to rotate the object and fully expose it to the sensor, the drivers and SDKsused and the implemented software are discussed. It is explained how the acquireddata is stored and an efficient storage and mapping method requiring no specialhardware and memory is introduced. The solution proposed circumvents the PointCloud registration task based on the fact that the transformation from one frame tothe next is known with extremely high precision. Next, a method to merge theacquired 3D data from all over the object into a single noise-free model is proposedusing Spherical Transformation and a few experiments and their results aredemonstrated and discussed.

Neste trabalho examinamos os efeitos do controle e governança familiar nas decisões de fusões e aquisições (M&A). Analisamos 420 empresas não-financeiras listadas na BM&FBovespa entre 1997 e 2007 e encontramos que empresas controladas por famílias empresarias por meio de excesso de direitos de voto são mais propensas a se engajar em atividades de M&A. Encontramos também que empresas cujo presidente do conselho de administração é um membro da família controladora, a probabilidade de crescimento via M&A diminui. Finalmente, encontramos que as atividades de M&A em empresas controladas por famílias prejudicam o desempenho operacional de longo prazo. Em conjunto, mecanismos de excesso de controle parecem atenuar a restrição de recursos financeiros das famílias para perseguir o crescimento via M&A, entretanto, esta estratégia de crescimento gera resultados operacionais inferiores. Estes resultados têm importantes implicações para a literatura de governança e para a prática empresarial em países emergentes como o Brasil. / We examine the effect of family control and governance on merge and acquisitions (M&A) decisions. We analyze 420 Brazilian non-financial firms from 1997 to 2007 and found that family-controlled firms with excess of control rights are more likely to engage in M&A transactions. We unravel that family chairman reduces the likelihood of family firms to grow through M&As. We also find that M&A activities in family controlled firms are detrimental to their operational performance in the long-run. Overall, family control enhancing mechanism seems to attenuate family limited resources to expand through M&A, where institutions are weak and the capital market is not developed, but this growth strategy leads to poor operational performance. Altogether, these results have important implications for corporate governance research and practice in emerging economies like Brazil.

Submitted by Sónia Pilar Casaleiro Ramos (pilar.c.ramos@gmail.com) on 2013-12-04T12:30:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Pilar Ramos_2013.pdf: 5471744 bytes, checksum: 008407b9db5af4c4d55d13afceb3957a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2013-12-10T11:37:21Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Pilar Ramos_2013.pdf: 5471744 bytes, checksum: 008407b9db5af4c4d55d13afceb3957a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2013-12-16T15:57:46Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Pilar Ramos_2013.pdf: 5471744 bytes, checksum: 008407b9db5af4c4d55d13afceb3957a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-12-16T15:57:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Pilar Ramos_2013.pdf: 5471744 bytes, checksum: 008407b9db5af4c4d55d13afceb3957a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-03 / The objective of the present study is to put in perspective the M&A occurred in Brazil on the telecommunications sector and was based on a qualitative analysis of five events, using the methodology of event studies and their impact over the stock prices returns and their historic records. According with the five analysed events 3 showed abnormal negative returns and 2 abnormal positive returns for both companies (target and acquiror). The used methodology showed that the 3 events demonstrated evidences of value depreciation for the companies involved. / O presente trabalho teve como objetivo contextualizar as F&A ocorridas no Brasil no setor das telecomunicações e fundamentou-se numa análise qualitativa de 5 eventos recorrendo à metodologia de estudo de eventos e o seu impacto sobre o valor das ações. De acordo com os 5 eventos analisados, 3 apresentaram retornos anormais acumulados negativos e 2 eventos com retornos anormais positivos para ambas as empresas (adquirente e adquirida), pelo que podemos inferir que esses 3 eventos de F&A não geraram valor às firmas envolvidas.

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