Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T21:01:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 24 / Nenhuma / Historicamente, a condição animal tem sido tratada, com pequenas variações, à luz do perfeccionismo moral nascido com Aristóteles e desenvolvido por Tomás de Aquino. Os animais ocupam espaço no mundo para servirem ao homem. A reação à concepção perfeccionista, em nossos dias, tem alcançado destaque nas vozes de Peter Singer e de Tom Regan, filósofos dedicados ao exame da questão animal. Tanto as proposições de Singer, quanto as de Regan, porém, têm sido alvo de objeções que, muitas vezes, as põem em dificuldades. Uma abordagem da condição animal que possa, ao mesmo tempo, reagir à altura ao perfeccionismo moral e escapar às objeções opostas a Singer e Regan, não é tarefa fácil. Tem-se, porém, que a ética pensada a partir da alteridade, na qual a responsabilidade assume o papel primordial, pode apresentar-se como um bom caminho. Sobressaem, nesse contexto, os nomes de Kierkegaard e de Lévinas, filósofos que pensaram a alteridade e a responsabilidade de formas inovadoras. Neste estudo, então, o que se pretende / Historically the condition of the animal has been treated by the light of moral perfectionism developed by Aristotle and Aquinas with small variations. Animals have a place in the world in order to serve man. The reaction to the perfectionist conception has become prominence in the Peter Singer’s and Tom Regan’s voices. They are philosophers dedicated to the exam of the animal condition. However, Singer’s propositions like Regan’s have been criticized by arguments that sometimes put them in trouble. An approach about animal condition which can at the same time to react to the moral perfectionism and to escape from the objections against Singer and Regan is not an easy task. Nevertheless, ethics can be thought from alterity on – in which responsibility assumes the main role – and it can be showed as a good way. In this context, stand out the names of Kierkegaard and Lévinas, philosophers that thought alterity and responsibility in an innovating ways. So, what is intended to analyze in this study are the perspe

Nearest neighbour methods are a classical approach in nonparametric statistics. The k-nearest neighbour classifier can be traced back to the seminal work of Fix and Hodges (1951) and they also enjoy popularity in many other problems including density estimation and regression. In this thesis we study their use in three different situations, providing new theoretical results on the performance of commonly-used nearest neighbour methods and proposing new procedures that are shown to outperform these existing methods in certain settings. The first problem we discuss is that of entropy estimation. Many statistical procedures, including goodness-of-fit tests and methods for independent component analysis, rely critically on the estimation of the entropy of a distribution. In this chapter, we seek entropy estimators that are efficient and achieve the local asymptotic minimax lower bound with respect to squared error loss. To this end, we study weighted averages of the estimators originally proposed by Kozachenko and Leonenko (1987), based on the k-nearest neighbour distances of a sample. A careful choice of weights enables us to obtain an efficient estimator in arbitrary dimensions, given sufficient smoothness, while the original unweighted estimator is typically only efficient in up to three dimensions. A related topic of study is the estimation of the mutual information between two random vectors, and its application to testing for independence. We propose tests for the two different situations of the marginal distributions being known or unknown and analyse their performance. Finally, we study the classical k-nearest neighbour classifier of Fix and Hodges (1951) and provide a new asymptotic expansion for its excess risk. We also show that, in certain situations, a new modification of the classifier that allows k to vary with the location of the test point can provide improvements. This has applications to the field of semi-supervised learning, where, in addition to labelled training data, we also have access to a large sample of unlabelled data.

The Methodist Mission Northern has provided social services to the community since 1851. The underpinning philosophy of Methodist Mission Northern’s service provision is that of being a Good Neighbour. The concept of Good Neighbour derives from the Old and the New Testaments of the Holy Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures and also public policy. A defining moment in the emergence of Christian universalism comes when the neighbour is asserted to include everyone, … while the Levite and the Cohen pass by the injured man… the Good Samaritan comes to his aid and proves himself the true neighbour of his (injured) neighbour [Zizek, Santner, & Reinhard, 2005, p. 6]. What does Good Neighbour entail in the context of so many people suffering owing to poverty, injustice and social exclusion? This study set out to examine how the concept of Good Neighbour has been put into practice and how that is relevant in contemporary public policy setting. This research was undertaken using phenomenological enquiry approach which explored the experiences of the key stakeholders namely the Board of Governors, the staff and the clients or service recipients of the Methodist Mission Northern to understand the impact of service delivery on clients. This was done through a review of the Minutes of the Board Meetings and Annual Reports over a twenty year period from 1986 to 2006. The study found that for the greater part of the history the operation of the concept of Good Neighbour by Methodist Mission Northern tended to focus on the charity model which provides for the day to day needs of the clients such as providing food, clothing and shelter and other immediate needs. For Methodist Mission Northern’s concept of Good Neighbour to reflect its underpinning philosophy more effectively the practice needs to move beyond the charity model into a community development model focussed on social change and transformation. This means meeting the needs of clients in ways that empower them to move towards independence and interdependent self sustainability.

<p>This licentiate thesis is written at the multi-disciplinary research school Identity and Pluralism−and also within the subject of Church History−at the Department of Culture and Communication, University of Linkoping, Sweden.</p><p>In the thesis the rise of the Cell Group Church is explained. Further the Cell Group Church is analyzed with help of questions regarding identity and pluralism. The author conceives a basis of identity, an approach to define cell-structured churches. This basis can in turn constitute a premise for continued research. Furthermore adequate criteria to evaluate the movement are put forth.</p><p>The dissertation poses three main questions. How was the Cell Group Church formed? Is it possible to identify the Cell Group Church with help of identity markers? What criteria are appropriate to use for an evaluation of the Cell Group Church?</p><p>The concept of the Cell Group Church was coined by Dr. Ralph W. Neighbour and it is he and his book ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ which are the eye-catchers in this thesis. In what way might Neighbour’s own personal development have affected the design? The intention is not to make a psychological study of Neighbour’s persona, but to weigh in some decisive events that are found in Neighbour’s own biography and that might have affected the design of the Cell Group Church. But influence also has occurred from the outside. What has happened when the Cell Group Church has met the congregations of reality in Korea, Singapore, The Ivory Coast and Columbia? What has Neighbour modified and what in the Cell Group Church has endured? Within the given frame, 1965-2006, there has been an interaction going on between Neighbour and his personal development on the one side and his encounters with reality on the other. In this tension a process of reform is growing. The author will highlight what is lasting in this process, what stands for continuity, and what means a change of identity. The method is to begin with historically descriptive but devolves into being analytical.</p><p>This thesis contributes to the basic research in the field of the Cell Group Church. The movement of the Cell Church is a part of a forceful global course of events within Christianity. There are historians of religion and sociologists of religion who mean that a new kind of Christianity is forming in our times. The manner in which the Cell Group Church relates to its contemporary period is interesting both from international as well as Swedish conditions. Is the Cell Group Church an alternative that will replace the churches of old? Can the Cell Group Church contribute to the survival of the churches of old?</p>

This paper presents a study of the computer game ”Minesweeper”. The aim of the game is to search through a rectangular area of mined squares without hitting any mines. By using a strategy based on making every operation as safe as possible, series of the game have been simulated. The size of the playground is four times four squares. The si- mulations indicate how often the game will succeed and which square is the best one to start at. The strategy demands advanced mathematical calculations. The account of these is the ma- jor part of my work. My investigation shows that if there are three hidden mines the game will succeed about two times out of three. It also shows that the best startingpoint is a corner.

Tese de Mestrado Integrado. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2013

Reljefo atvaizdavimas naudojamas geodezijoje, geoinformacinėse sistemose, kompiuteriniuose žaidimuose ir kitur. Dažniausiai išmatuoti reljefo duomenys nėra pakankamai tikslūs, ir su jais atvaizduojami paviršiai atrodo nenatūraliai. Šiame darbe aptariami trys pagrindiniai, viešai prieinami viso Žemės paviršiaus aukščių duomenų šaltiniai: GTOP30, ASTER GDEM ir SRTM. Nagrinėjami populiariausi reljefo interpoliavimo metodai tokie kaip bitiesinis, bikubinis, atvirkščiai proporcingo atstumo ir natūralių kaimynų. SRTM duomenų interaktyviai peržiūrai buvo sukurtas ArcGrid Viewer įrankis, leidžiantis peržiūrėti ArcGrid formatu išsaugotus reljefus. Interpoliavimo metodų tyrimui buvo sukurtas atskiras GeoSG įrankis. Su juo vienu metu galima stebėti kelis paviršius ir atlikti paviršių interpoliavimą bitiesiniu, bikubiniu, atvirkščiai proporcingo atstumo ir natūralių kaimynų metodais. Su šiuo įrankiu atliktas interpoliavimo metodų tikslumo įvertinimas. Nustatyta, kad geriausiai interpoliuoja bikubinis metodas, o blogiausiai – atvirkščiai proporcingo atstumo metodas. / Terrain rendering is used in geodesy, geographic information systems, computer games and other fields. Usually measured terrain data isn’t sufficiently precise, and if used for rendering, the result looks unnatural. This paper analyzes three main topographic data sources of planet Earth, that are publicly available: GTOP30, ASTER GDEM and SRTM. It compares the most often used methods for terrain data: bilinear, bicubic, inverse distance weighted and natural neighbor interpolation. To monitor SRTM data interactively an ArcGrid Viewer tool was created. It can be used to see terrain files in ArcGrid format. To study interpolation methods, a separate GeoSG tool was created. It can display several terrains at once and interpolate terrain data using bilinear, bicubic, inverse distance weighted and natural neighbor methods. This tool is used to evaluate interpolation methods. Results showed, that the best method for interpolation is the bicubic interpolation method, the worst – inverse distance weighted interpolation method.

In response to the continuing challenges of homelessness in Victoria, BC, a variety of homeless-serving agencies are active in the region. Community concerns about these services have given rise to the practice of developing Good Neighbour Agreements (‘GNA’) and forming Good Neighbour Groups (‘GNG’) with local community members to monitor the social services, mitigate conflict, and prevent undesired impacts on the neighbourhoods. Based in an interpretive description methodology using interviews and document analysis, the purpose of this research is to explore the involvement of the street community in the development of one GNA and subsequent governance activities of the associated GNG. Findings demonstrate that individuals from the street community generally have not been directly involved but instead represented by a local homeless-serving agency, a model of representation that has important limitations. Despite the lack of formal involvement, people from the street community continued to engage independently in neighbourhood matters, undertaking ongoing advocacy work that in turn helped to yield greater participation of the street community in the GNG. / Graduate / 0617 / 0452 / 0615 / crossgeoff@yahoo.ca

This thesis examines a wide collection of frequency assignment problems. One of the largest topics in this thesis is that of L(2,1)-labellings of outerplanar graphs. The main result in this topic is the fact that there exists a polynomial time algorithm to determine the minimum L(2,1)-span for an outerplanar graph. This result generalises the analogous result for trees, solves a stated open problem and complements the fact that the problem is NP-complete for planar graphs. We furthermore give best possible bounds on the minimum L(2,1)-span and the cyclic-L(2,1)-span in outerplanar graphs, when the maximum degree is at least eight. We also give polynomial time algorithms for solving the standard constraint matrix problem for several classes of graphs, such as chains of triangles, the wheel and a larger class of graphs containing the wheel. We furthermore introduce the concept of one-close-neighbour problems, which have some practical applications. We prove optimal results for bipartite graphs, odd cycles and complete multipartite graphs. Finally we evaluate different algorithms for the frequency assignment problem, using domination analysis. We compute bounds for the domination number of some heuristics for both the fixed spectrum version of the frequency assignment problem and the minimum span frequency assignment problem. Our results show that the standard greedy algorithm does not perform well, compared to some slightly more advanced algorithms, which is what we would expect. In this thesis we furthermore give some background and motivation for the topics being investigated, as well as mentioning several open problems.

To explore progressively larger biomolecular systems, methods to model explicit solvent cheaply are required. In this work, the use of Graphics Processing Units, found in commodity video cards, for solving the constraints, calculating the non-bonded forces and generating the pair list in the case of the fully constrained three site SPC water model is investigated. It was shown that the GPU implementation of the SPC constraint-solving algorithm SETTLE was overall 26% faster than a conventional implementation running on a Central Processing Unit (CPU) core. The non-bonded forces were calculated up to 17 times faster than using a CPU core. Using these two approaches, an overall speed up of around 4 times was found. The most successful implementation of the pair-list generation ran at 38% the speed of a conventional grid-based implementation on a CPU core. In each investigation the accuracy was shown to be sufficient using a variety of numerical and distributional tests. Thus, the use of GPUs as parallel processors for MD calculations is highly promising. Lastly, a method of calculating a constraint force analytically is presented.