Includes links to web sites for additional information. / Cover title.

O estudo dos centros geradores de padrão, CPGs, ´e um excelente exemplo das limitações do método reducionista, na tentativa de explicar um comportamento de ordem mais global. Não queremos, com isso, relegar a descrição esmiuçada dos mecanismos biofísicos e moleculares ao ostracismo. Muito pelo contrário, iremos nos apropriar de um subconjunto desses conceitos, na forma do modelo de Hodgkin & Huxley, para construir um sistema de simulação computacional de redes neurais, em pequena escala, passível de realizar duas métricas. Uma destinada a medir a complexidade da geração de informação circulante interna a rede, enquanto a outra traz dados relativos ao consumo energético das células neurais. Espera-se, com isso, alguma resposta para a seguinte questão: existe algum mecanismo, algum princípio básico em redes que oscilam, capaz de mapear um mínimo de uma grandeza física externa em algum outro mínimo interno a rede? Ao que tudo indica a resposta é afirmativa. Apresentaremos um tal ponto de minimização, juntamente com um formalismo, ainda em desenvolvimento, que justifica os resultados / The study of central pattern generators is a great example of the limitations in a reductionist approach, to achieve global knowledge about a system. We are not neglecting the importance of biophysical and molecular mechanisms. Quite the contrary, we will apply some of this concepts by means of Hodgkin & Huxley formalism, to build up a small form factor neural network software simulator. This platform will be able to perform two measurements, informational complexity and metabolic consumption with the aim of answer the question: is there some mechanism, some basic principle in oscillatory networks, capable of mapping a minimum in an external physical quantity into another minimum internal to the network? It seems that the answer is affirmative. We will present this minimization point, together with an under development formalism, to embase the results

Dissertação(mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Programa de Pós- Graduação em Educação em Ciências: Química da Vida e Saúde, Instituto de Educação, 2010. / Submitted by EDUARDO PENA (edupenaa@hotmail.com) on 2012-10-22T20:18:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 BIOSSEGURANÇA.pdf: 2144485 bytes, checksum: 3dd09c0a0a532d481fed6b7337b7c0e7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Bruna Vieira(bruninha_vieira@ibest.com.br) on 2012-11-09T17:32:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 BIOSSEGURANÇA.pdf: 2144485 bytes, checksum: 3dd09c0a0a532d481fed6b7337b7c0e7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-11-09T17:32:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 BIOSSEGURANÇA.pdf: 2144485 bytes, checksum: 3dd09c0a0a532d481fed6b7337b7c0e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / A Biossegurança pode ser definida como um conjunto de ações voltadas para a prevenção, minimização ou eliminação de riscos inerentes às atividades de pesquisa, produção, ensino, desenvolvimento, tecnologia e prestação de serviços, visando à saúde do homem, à preservação do meio ambiente e à qualidade dos resultados. A biossegurança nos laboratórios didáticos das universidades muitas vezes ocupa um lugar secundário, mas que merece um destaque e um olhar mais investigativo com o propósito de minimizar possíveis riscos à saúde e ao meio ambiente. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar quantitativamente e qualitativamente o estado e as práticas de biossegurança existentes nos laboratórios de ensino e pesquisa da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande – FURG. Um questionário foi aplicado aos técnicos em educação, alunos de graduação, alunos de pósgraduação e professores. O questionário foi dividido em grupos de análise e envolveu temas como: conceitos em biossegurança, riscos químicos, físicos e biológicos, riscos ergonômicos, boas práticas de laboratório, equipamentos de proteção individual e coletiva e o manuseio, controle e descarte de resíduos químicos e biológicos. Os resultados em relação aos riscos físicos, químicos e biológicos encontrados durante esta pesquisa reafirmam a necessidade de se minimizar inconformidades encontradas nos laboratórios e de se reavaliar as práticas de biossegurança. Destaca-se o caráter interventivo desta pesquisa que pode trazer benefícios associados à elaboração de um manual educativo, com normas de biossegurança para as atividades de ensino e pesquisa nos laboratórios da FURG. Outras possibilidades incluem a criação de um programa de educação continuada em biossegurança e a indução de uma responsabilidade (ética) ambiental. / Biosafety can be defined as a group of actions aimed to minimize or eliminate risks associated to research activities, production, teaching, development, technology and services with the goal of preserve human health, environment and results quality. Biosafetyusually posses a secondary role in teaching laboratories at the universities, a situation that needs to change in order to minimize eventual risks to health and to the environment. The objective of this study was to analyze in a quantitative and qualitative way the issue of biosafety in teaching and research laboratories at the Federal University of Rio Grande – FURG. A query of biosafety issues was apply to education technicians, undergraduate and graduate students and professors. The query was divided in groups involving different topics as biosafety concepts, chemical, physical and biological risks, ergonomic risks, good laboratory practices, use of individual and collective protection equipments and the handling, control and discharge of chemical and biological residues. The obtained results related to physical, chemical and biological risks stress the need to correct several problems found in the laboratories as was well as some practices that need reevaluation. It is important to note the interventive nature of present research that should bring associated benefits such as the elaboration of an educative manual for biosafety norms to be applied in teaching and research activities at the laboratories at FURG. Other possibilities include the creation of a continued education program and to generate ethical environment responsibility.

Orientador: Egle Novaes Teixeira / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T10:47:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Henrique_OtavioSperchi_M.pdf: 3861292 bytes, checksum: 57038f1738bdb9fc7f880ec1bb3864df (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: O resíduo químico apresenta destaque entre os tipos de resíduo gerado devido, muitas vezes, ao seu alto grau de periculosidade. Neste trabalho foi realizado um inventário do resíduo químico ativo gerado em laboratórios de quatro Unidades da UNICAMP. Foram inventariadas as quantidades de resíduo geradas por análises realizadas nos laboratórios que mais geram resíduo nas Unidades selecionadas. Além disto, é apresentada também a situação de manejo do resíduo químico desde sua geração até seu destino final. Também foram realizadas comparações entre o gerenciamento de resíduo químico nos laboratórios selecionados com as recomendações das normas de gerenciamento de resíduo de cada Unidade selecionada e das recomendações do Programa de Gerenciamento de Resíduos Químicos Biológicos e Radioativos da Unicamp (PGRBQR). Por fim foi realizada uma avaliação da disposição final do resíduo químico gerado, onde foram apresentadas também algumas sugestões de ações de tratamento e minimização do resíduo químico na fonte geradora. / Abstract: The chemical waste has emphasize among the generated waste types due, many times, to its high hazard degree. In this work an inventory of chemical waste active generated in laboratories of four UNICAMP Units was realized. It was inventoried and valuated the chemical waste generation from analysis realized in laboratories that more generate waste in Units selected. Besides the quantities and waste generated characteristics it was presented also in the inventory the waste chemical handling situation, since its generation until its final destination. There were realized comparations between the chemical waste management in selected laboratories with the recommendations of management rules of each selected Units and also with those from the UNICAMP Program Management of Chemical, Biology and Radioactive Waste. At last an evaluation chemical waste final disposition generated in selected laboratories was realized, and some suggestions of minimization and treatment actions of chemical waste in the source generated were presented. / Mestrado / Saneamento e Ambiente / Mestre em Engenharia Civil

Orientador: Egle Novaes Teixeira / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T04:06:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nagle_ElizabethCamargo_M.pdf: 5086545 bytes, checksum: 5c6c4c2a956d9e08cd7d649d79ad6390 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2004 / Resumo: Com o crescimento urbano e a mudança dos padrões de consumo, houve o aumento da quantidade e qualidade do material descartado. Desta forma, com a produção de material cada vez mais complexo e a composição do resíduo sendo freqüentemente alterada, a estratégia de gestão e gerenciamento para solucionar o problema, fica mais difícil. A tendência mundial, em relação aos problemas provenientes do resíduo sólido, é a busca contínua de formas adequadas para dispô-lo e, com a consciência ambiental sendo fortemente incentivada, deve-se buscar minimizá-lo, como princípio. A realidade do futuro sustentável do ambiente traz como premissas, a redução, reutilização e reciclagem, ou seja, a Minimização de Resíduo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o potencial de Minimização do Material Biodegradável de Alimentação contido no Resíduo Sólido Domiciliar de Municípios da Região Metropolitana de Campinas. Identificou-se o que estava presente no resíduo sólido domiciliar, através de caracterização (determinação da composição gravimétrica), adaptada para a minimização, que foi realizada durante o período de um ano, nos domicílios dos municípios de Valinhos, Vinhedo e na macrozona três do município de Campinas. Escolheu-se os bairros e trinta domicílios por município, considerando-se a classe social. Em cada dia pré estabelecido, coletou-se o resíduo diretamente nas casas, perfazendo um total de 480 amostras no período analisado. Após o tratamento dos dados, foi calculado o potencial de minimização do material biodegradável de alimentação, que apresentou valores acima de 50%, indicando que muito tem para ser feito. As possibilidades de minimização do resíduo foram avaliadas e para cada tipo de desperdício são apresentadas maneiras para viabilizá-lo. No âmbito de gerenciamento integrado de resíduo dos municípios, esta pesquisa fornece parâmetros científicos para embasar ações e mecanismos de planejamento que incentivem e conduzam a população ao desenvolvimento consciente, à melhor utilização dos produtos/ material, sem desperdício e levando em consideração a esgotabilidade do ambiente / Abstract: An increase of the amount and quality of the discarded material has arisen as a result of the urban growth and the change of consumption standards. With the production of material each day more complex and the composition of the waste being frequent1y modified, the treatment to this problem becomes more difficult. The worldwide trend, in relation to the problems associated with solid waste, is the continuous search for adequate forms for its disposal, and with the environment conscience being strongly stimulated; one must pursue means to minimize it, as a principle. The reality of the sustainable future of the environment brings as premises, the reduction, reutilization and recycling, or either, the Waste Minimization. The objective of this work was to evaluate the potential of Minimization of the Food Biodegradable Material contained in the Domiciliary Solid Waste in Cities of the Metropolitan Region of Campinas. It was identified what was present in the domiciliary solid waste, through the characterization, determination of the gravimetrical composition, that was carried through during the period of one year, in Valinhos, Vinhedo and in the macro zone three of Campinas, choosing the regions and the thirty domiciles, collecting the residue direct1y in these and considering its social standards. After the treatment of the data, the potential of the minimization of the biodegradable food material, which was found to be above 50%, was calculated and the possibilities of minimization were evaluated taking into account viable mechanisms to make it. Within the scope of the integrated municipal solid-waste management plan, the current research provides scientific parameters to support actions and mechanisms that stimulate and lead the population to the conscientious development, better use of the materials, without wastefulness and taking in consideration the environment exhaustion / Mestrado / Saneamento e Ambiente / Mestre em Engenharia Civil

M.Tech. (Operations Management) / The research is about the application of lean manufacturing tool known as manufacturing kaizen in order to improve a work process at . The company is based in Kempton Park, South Africa, used as a case study to evaluate the benefit of manufacturing kaizen at a specific industrial concern. The research demonstrated how manufacturing kaizen when used appropriately can help APSAP PTY LTD to eliminate waste, have better inventory control, short process cycle times, and better overall financial and operational procedures. The goal was to reduce the identified waste using manufacturing kaizen tool. Waste reduction eventually reduced the cycle time of the work process. The primary objective of the thesis was to study and analyze the cylinder preparation process in APSAP PTY LTD. The process activities were captured, then analyzed using the process map. The secondary objective was to identify waste in the process. Major businesses in South Africa have been trying to adopt new business initiatives in order to stay competitive. One way to increase this is to apply proper manufacturing strategy and use of lean manufacturing or continuous improvement tools to achieve business objective which is to stay competitive and to increase profit. The research addresses the application of a lean manufacturing tool called manufacturing kaizen. Manufacturing kaizen refers to a technique used for improving a work process by the eliminating waste within that process in the organization. It is one of the improvement tools that focus on cost reduction by eliminating non-value added activities. Kaizen achieves the elimination of waste by empowering people with tools and a process to uncover improvement opportunities and make change. Participants are key aspect in implementing the manufacturing kaizen event, since they are the people directly involved. Identifying the key people that will be used in the manufacturing kaizen event is very crucial for the success of the event. Any changes or improvements of the process will have direct impact to the people. It is important that people who are directly affected by change become part of the process and feel empowered. Kaizen understands waste to be any activity that is not value adding from the perspective of the customer. The research unpacks manufacturing Kaizen and looks into its qualitative nature and its application within a working environment and how it influence productivity. It also investigates how this tool can be applied in a process or chemical industry and the benefits it can provide to an organization. The initial step in the approach was to outline data collected and examining techniques used to collect the data. The researcher carried out direct observation as he was physically present, and personally monitored what was taking place. The results show that labor productivity can be improved over time after the introduction of manufacturing kaizen. It concludes that with the introduction of manufacturing kaizen, transformation at workplace can be established leading to productivity improvement within an organization. The research has shown that with the proper use of manufacturing kaizen , waste reduction can be achieved.

Over the past several decades, we have experienced tremendous growth of real-time systems in both scale and complexity. This progress is made possible largely due to advancements in semiconductor technology that have enabled the continuous scaling and massive integration of transistors on a single chip. In the meantime, however, the relentless transistor scaling and integration have dramatically increased the power consumption and degraded the system reliability substantially. Traditional real-time scheduling techniques with the sole emphasis on guaranteeing timing constraints have become insufficient. In this research, we studied the problem of how to develop advanced scheduling methods on hard real-time systems that are subject to multiple design constraints, in particular, timing, energy consumption, and reliability constraints. To this end, we first investigated the energy minimization problem with fault-tolerance requirements for dynamic-priority based hard real-time tasks on a single-core processor. Three scheduling algorithms have been developed to judiciously make tradeoffs between fault tolerance and energy reduction since both design objectives usually conflict with each other. We then shifted our research focus from single-core platforms to multi-core platforms as the latter are becoming mainstream. Specifically, we launched our research in fault-tolerant multi-core scheduling for fixed-priority tasks as fixed-priority scheduling is one of the most commonly used schemes in the industry today. For such systems, we developed several checkpointing-based partitioning strategies with the joint consideration of fault tolerance and energy minimization. At last, we exploited the implicit relations between real-time tasks in order to judiciously make partitioning decisions with the aim of improving system schedulability. According to the simulation results, our design strategies have been shown to be very promising for emerging systems and applications where timeliness, fault-tolerance, and energy reduction need to be simultaneously addressed.

Lean philosophy is based on the continuous quest to improve the organisation‟s processes by creating a culture and operating principles which eliminate all non value adding activities within organisation„s processes. Manufacturing firms consider the adoption of the Lean tools as basic requirements for achieving World Class operational excellence or Best Practice. For some time, lean has been used by the manufacturing organizations. Most organizations understand that lean will help them survive global competition and stay in business. The objective of this study is to investigate how lean manufacturing tools can be used to improve efficiency and enhance the embedding of a continuous improvement culture in the South African Revenue Service Enforcement Audit Port Elizabeth. The activities that took place in Enforcement Audit Port Elizabeth from September 2010 until 31 October 2011 were observed. During the study, an introductory presentation by the researcher was made to Regional Enforcement Management and staff in general, the presentation was to introduce the study highlighting different Lean tools. Thereafter the Port Elizabeth audit staff members were engaged formally, using surveys to assess their underlying mindset and behaviour as well as informally, using unstructured interviews to solicit more information on activities taking place and the reasoning behind certain actions. The results of the survey and observations are analysed and interpreted.

This is a quantitative study. The primary research objective is to investigate the importance of hospital management’s involvement when implementing lean elements in healthcare. In reality, incidents and quality problems are prime reasons why healthcare leaders are calling for redesign in healthcare delivery and systems. This paper presents a proposal for developing a lean culture in healthcare facilities equipped with managers who will be able to drive the implementation of lean elements from the top down, making use of multidisciplinary teams, including physicians, to deliver value-added services. This study ultimately endeavors to indicate the importance of management, multidisciplinary teams and physician involvement in implementing lean principles in healthcare successfully. “If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.” – Stephen Covey. The reasons why lean management is a particularly important strategy in healthcare currently, includes the following: •The need to reduce waste in healthcare cost; •The need to improve quality and on-time processes; •Fast-paced technological changes; •Ever-increasing patient expectations; and •The need to standardise processes and systems to get the high-quality results anticipated (Chalice, 2010).

Les problèmes traités et les résultats obtenus dans ce travail s'inscrivent essentiellement dans le domaine de la théorie des automates, la logique mathématique et leurs applications. Dans un premier temps on utilise les automates finis pour démontrer l'automaticité de plusieurs structures logiques sur des mots finis écrits dans un alphabet infini dénombrable. Ceci nous permet de déduire la décidabilité des théories logiques associées à ces structures. On a considéré par exemple la structure $X=(Sigma^*;prec,clone)$ où $Sigma^*$ désigne l'ensemble des mots finis sur l'alphabet infini dénombrable $Sigma$, $prec$ désigne la relation de préfixe et $clone$ désigne le prédicat qui est vrai pour un mot se terminant par deux lettres identiques. On a démontré l'automaticité de la structure $X$ et la décidabilité de sa théorie du premier ordre et de sa théorie monadique du second ordre. On a aussi considéré des extensions de la structure $X$ obtenues en ajoutant des prédicats comme $sim$ qui est vrai pour deux mots de même longueur. Nous avons en particulier démontré la $M$-automaticité de la structure $(Sigma^*;prec,clone,sim)$, d'où la décidabilité de sa théorie du premier ordre. On a par ailleurs étudié des structures qui comportent le prédicat $diff$ qui est vrai pour un mot dont les lettres sont toutes distinctes. En particulier on a démontré l'automaticité de la structure $D=(Sigma^*;prec,clone,diff)$ et la décidabilité de sa théorie du premier ordre et de sa théorie monadique du second ordre. On a également obtenu, par interprétation logique, des résultats de décidabilité et des résultats d'indécidabilité pour plusieurs variantes des structures $X$ et $D$, ainsi que pour des familles de structures appelées emph{structure d'applications exclusives} et emph{structure de décomposition}.Dans un deuxième temps on s'est intéressé au problème de la réduction du nombre de transitions dans les automates finis. On a commencé par étendre le concept de emph{Common Follow Sets} d'une expression régulière aux automates finis homogènes. On a montré comment établir une liaison assez directe entre des systèmes de CFS spécifiques et les arbres binaires complets. Ce lien est prouvé en utilisant un objet combinatoire appelé emph{triangle d'Ératosthène - Pascal}. Cette correspondance permet de transformer la valeur qui nous intéresse (le nombre de transitions) en une valeur assez naturelle associée aux arbres (le poids d'un arbre). En effet, construire un automate ayant un minimum de transitions revient à trouver un arbre de poids minimal. On a montré, d'une part, que ce nombre de transitions est asymptotiquement équivalent à $n(log_2 n)^2$ (la borne inférieure). D'autre part, les tests expérimentaux montrent que pour les petites valeurs de $n$, les automates minimaux en nombre de transitions coïncident (en nombre et en taille) avec ceux obtenus par notre construction. Cela nous mène à suggérer que notre réduction est finalement une minimisation pour les automates triangulaires. Dans un dernier temps on a présenté une étude expérimentale concernant l'application des automates à trous dans le domaine de la recherche approchée de motif dans les dictionnaires de mots. Contrairement aux complexités théoriques, temps de recherche et espace de stockage exponentiels, nos expérimentations montrent la linéarité de l'automate à trous / This work deals mainly with automata theory, mathematical logic and their applications. In the first part, we use finite automata to prove the automaticity of several logical structures over finite words written in a countable infinite alphabet. These structures involve predicates like $pred$, $clone$ and $diff$, where $x pred y$ holds if $x$ is a strict prefix of $y$, $clone(x)$ holds when the two last letters of $x$ are equal, and $diff(x)$ holds when all letters of $x$ are pairwise distinct. The automaticity results allow to deduce the decidability of logical theories associated with these structures. Other related decidability/undecidability results are obtained by logical interpretation. In the second part, we generalize the concept of Common Follow Sets of a regular expression to homogeneous finite automata. Based on this concept and a particular class of binary trees, we devise an efficient algorithm to reduce/minimize the number of transitions of triangular automata. On the one hand, we prove that the produced reduced automaton is asymptotically minimal, in the sense that for an automaton with $n$ states, the number of transitions in the reduced automaton is equivalent to $n(log_2 n)^2$ , which corresponds at the same time to the upper and the lower known bounds. On the other hand, experiments reveal that for small values of $n$, all minimal automata are exactly those obtained by our reduction, which lead us to conjecture that our construction is not only a reduction but a minimization. In the last part, we present an experimental study on the use of special automata on partial words for the approximate pattern matching problem in dictionaries. Despite exponential theoretical time and space upper bounds, our experiments show that, in many practical cases, these automata have a linear size and allow a linear search time