This diploma thesis describes the general process of corporate helpdesk. There is described a history, purpose and function of helpdesk, further benefits for the company using of a helpdesk. The work mentions ITIL, framework for management services in company. One chapter devotes the effectiveness of process in terms of customer satisfaction, which is focused on communication. The second half of diploma thesis is focused on the practical part of using helpdesk in existing company. The work analyses effectiveness of helpdesk process in this company. The results are interpreted in the final recommendation.

A força propulsora da excelência organizacional compeliu grandes organizações a repensar seus modelos de gestão em segurança, saúde no trabalho e meio ambiente. O presente trabalho versa sobre a avaliação do desempenho ambiental de um conjunto de cinco empresas químicas e petroquímicas de um dos pólos industriais do Estado de São Paulo, signatárias do Programa Atuação Responsável da Associação Brasileira da Indústria Química (ABIQUIM) e também certificadas pela norma NBR ISO 14.001:1996. A pesquisa abrange também a verificação da melhoria do processo de comunicação destas empresas em nível interno e com as demais partes interessadas. O trabalho aborda as vantagens da adoção de modelos de gestão integrada nas áreas de segurança, saúde no trabalho e meio ambiente, como fator de racionalização dos seus processos internos com vistas a aumentar a eficácia operacional. É discutida também a necessidade de as organizações demonstrarem seus resultados ambientais e estabelecerem canais eficazes de comunicação com as partes interessadas. São apontados os benefícios e dificuldades encontrados pelas empresas estudadas na adoção de metas para obtenção da melhoria do desempenho ambiental. Constatou-se ligeira melhoria ou manutenção do desempenho ambiental de quatro empresas estudadas, enquanto uma delas destacou-se com melhorias significativas, atribuídas a investimentos modernizadores e à adoção de nova tecnologia de processo. O conjunto de indicadores adotado pela ABIQUIM pode ser adaptado para expressar a evolução temporal do desempenho ambiental de cada empresa. Uma das empresas expandiu o rol de indicadores. As certificações obtidas com a norma NBR ISO 14.001:1996 e o Programa Atuação Responsável da ABIQUIM foram fatores coadjuvantes de mudanças internas e externas, contribuindo indiretamente para a melhoria do desempenho ambiental. Observou-se que todas as empresas têm grande preocupação com a imagem e tomaram iniciativas de comunicação com as partes interessadas; no entanto, os resultados do processo de comunicação não indicam melhoras expressivas na imagem dessas empresas. O Conselho Comunitário Consultivo desempenha papel fundamental no processo de comunicação. Projetos de apoio à comunidade demonstram responsabilidade social e têm sido uma boa oportunidade para melhorar a imagem e o próprio processo de comunicação. Embora as empresas estudadas tenham se empenhado em estabelecer canais de comunicação com todas as partes interessadas, há ainda um caminho árduo a ser percorrido. São apresentadas recomendações para aprimorar o processo de comunicação, como a ampliação do uso de programas sistêmicos envolvendo os representantes do Conselho Comunitário Consultivo e os funcionários das empresas, sendo estes incentivados a participar das ações sociais desenvolvidas na comunidade, como legítimos parceiros e interlocutores entre empresa e comunidade. / The propelling power of the organizational excellence has been causing many large organizations to start rethinking the management models in safety, work health and environment. This work refers to the evaluation of the environmental performance of a set of five chemical and petrochemical companies of one of the industrial poles of the State of São Paulo, subscribers of the Responsible Care Program of the Brazilian Association of the Chemical Industry (ABIQUIM) and also certified by standard NBR ISO 14.001:1996. The research also comprises the checking of the improvement of those companies’ communication process, both in-house and with the other interested parties. The work approaches the advantages of the adoption of integrated management models in the areas of safety, work health and environment, as a factor to rationalize its internal processes aiming at increasing the operating effectiveness. It is also discussed the need to the organizations show their environmental results and establish effective communication channels with the interested parties. The benefits achieved and difficulties faced by the studied companies in the adoption of goals to obtain the improvement of the environmental performance are appointed. It was verified a slight improvement or keeping of the environmental performance of four studied companies, while one of them was outstanding with significant improvements, which can be attributed to modernizing investments and to the adoption of new process technology. The set of indicators adopted by ABIQUIM may be adapted in order to show the timely evolution of the environmental performance of each company. One of the companies expanded the roll of indicators. The certifications obtained with standard NBR ISO 14.001:1996 and the ABIQUIM Responsible Care Program were coadjuvant factors of both internal and external changes, contributing indirectly for the improvement of the environmental performance. It has been observed that all companies declare to be very concerned with their image and took several communication initiatives with the interested parties, however the communication process results do not appoint significant improvement in the image of those companies. The Advisory Community Council plays a major role in the communication process. Community support projects show social responsibility and had been a good opportunity to improve the image and the communication process itself. Although the studied companies have made every effort to establish communication channels with all interested parties, there is still a long way to run. Recommendations are given in order to improve the communication process, such as the enlarged use of systemic programs involving the representatives of the Advisory Community Council and the companies’ employees, encouraging the latter to take part of the social actions taken in the community, as legitimate partners and interlocutors between the company and the community.

A força propulsora da excelência organizacional compeliu grandes organizações a repensar seus modelos de gestão em segurança, saúde no trabalho e meio ambiente. O presente trabalho versa sobre a avaliação do desempenho ambiental de um conjunto de cinco empresas químicas e petroquímicas de um dos pólos industriais do Estado de São Paulo, signatárias do Programa Atuação Responsável da Associação Brasileira da Indústria Química (ABIQUIM) e também certificadas pela norma NBR ISO 14.001:1996. A pesquisa abrange também a verificação da melhoria do processo de comunicação destas empresas em nível interno e com as demais partes interessadas. O trabalho aborda as vantagens da adoção de modelos de gestão integrada nas áreas de segurança, saúde no trabalho e meio ambiente, como fator de racionalização dos seus processos internos com vistas a aumentar a eficácia operacional. É discutida também a necessidade de as organizações demonstrarem seus resultados ambientais e estabelecerem canais eficazes de comunicação com as partes interessadas. São apontados os benefícios e dificuldades encontrados pelas empresas estudadas na adoção de metas para obtenção da melhoria do desempenho ambiental. Constatou-se ligeira melhoria ou manutenção do desempenho ambiental de quatro empresas estudadas, enquanto uma delas destacou-se com melhorias significativas, atribuídas a investimentos modernizadores e à adoção de nova tecnologia de processo. O conjunto de indicadores adotado pela ABIQUIM pode ser adaptado para expressar a evolução temporal do desempenho ambiental de cada empresa. Uma das empresas expandiu o rol de indicadores. As certificações obtidas com a norma NBR ISO 14.001:1996 e o Programa Atuação Responsável da ABIQUIM foram fatores coadjuvantes de mudanças internas e externas, contribuindo indiretamente para a melhoria do desempenho ambiental. Observou-se que todas as empresas têm grande preocupação com a imagem e tomaram iniciativas de comunicação com as partes interessadas; no entanto, os resultados do processo de comunicação não indicam melhoras expressivas na imagem dessas empresas. O Conselho Comunitário Consultivo desempenha papel fundamental no processo de comunicação. Projetos de apoio à comunidade demonstram responsabilidade social e têm sido uma boa oportunidade para melhorar a imagem e o próprio processo de comunicação. Embora as empresas estudadas tenham se empenhado em estabelecer canais de comunicação com todas as partes interessadas, há ainda um caminho árduo a ser percorrido. São apresentadas recomendações para aprimorar o processo de comunicação, como a ampliação do uso de programas sistêmicos envolvendo os representantes do Conselho Comunitário Consultivo e os funcionários das empresas, sendo estes incentivados a participar das ações sociais desenvolvidas na comunidade, como legítimos parceiros e interlocutores entre empresa e comunidade. / The propelling power of the organizational excellence has been causing many large organizations to start rethinking the management models in safety, work health and environment. This work refers to the evaluation of the environmental performance of a set of five chemical and petrochemical companies of one of the industrial poles of the State of São Paulo, subscribers of the Responsible Care Program of the Brazilian Association of the Chemical Industry (ABIQUIM) and also certified by standard NBR ISO 14.001:1996. The research also comprises the checking of the improvement of those companies’ communication process, both in-house and with the other interested parties. The work approaches the advantages of the adoption of integrated management models in the areas of safety, work health and environment, as a factor to rationalize its internal processes aiming at increasing the operating effectiveness. It is also discussed the need to the organizations show their environmental results and establish effective communication channels with the interested parties. The benefits achieved and difficulties faced by the studied companies in the adoption of goals to obtain the improvement of the environmental performance are appointed. It was verified a slight improvement or keeping of the environmental performance of four studied companies, while one of them was outstanding with significant improvements, which can be attributed to modernizing investments and to the adoption of new process technology. The set of indicators adopted by ABIQUIM may be adapted in order to show the timely evolution of the environmental performance of each company. One of the companies expanded the roll of indicators. The certifications obtained with standard NBR ISO 14.001:1996 and the ABIQUIM Responsible Care Program were coadjuvant factors of both internal and external changes, contributing indirectly for the improvement of the environmental performance. It has been observed that all companies declare to be very concerned with their image and took several communication initiatives with the interested parties, however the communication process results do not appoint significant improvement in the image of those companies. The Advisory Community Council plays a major role in the communication process. Community support projects show social responsibility and had been a good opportunity to improve the image and the communication process itself. Although the studied companies have made every effort to establish communication channels with all interested parties, there is still a long way to run. Recommendations are given in order to improve the communication process, such as the enlarged use of systemic programs involving the representatives of the Advisory Community Council and the companies’ employees, encouraging the latter to take part of the social actions taken in the community, as legitimate partners and interlocutors between the company and the community.

Selon l’UNESCO (2006), la démarche d’éducation inclusive consiste à chercher comment transformer les systèmes éducatifs et autres cadres d’apprentissage pour les adapter à la diversité des apprenants. Prendre en compte une telle diversité implique également de se préoccuper de la diversité des enseignants qui accompagnent les élèves. Il est dès lors nécessaire de prendre en considération leurs habitudes, leur identité et considérer que, face à toute modification de leur milieu, la question de la réflexivité comme celles des tensions existentielles ne peuvent être négligées. Dans le cadre de ce travail, nous avons proposé à 35 enseignants volontaires une formation en Process Communication leur permettant de découvrir les caractéristiques-clés de chaque type de personnalité ainsi que les canaux de communication à privilégier pour établir des relations constructives et efficaces. Au terme de cette formation et d’un accompagnement ultérieur des enseignants, nous avons mesuré l’impact de notre approche sur leurs représentations pédagogiques et l’intérêt d’une telle dynamique sur une transformation éventuelle du cadre éducatif. Il ressort de cette recherche qu’une telle formation semble faire évoluer les pratiques sur les plans relationnel et communicationnel mais que les changements au niveau pédagogique en sont encore à leurs balbutiements. Quant à l’impact au niveau du cadre éducatif, nous ne pouvons rien observer tant le manque de stabilité des équipes pédagogiques est flagrant. Nous sommes toutefois convaincu qu’il est possible de tendre vers les objectifs envisagés si un travail en co-construction avec les enseignants se poursuivait au-delà de cette recherche. A cette fin, des propositions ont été suggérées au terme de notre étude. / According to UNESCO (2006), the approach of inclusive education is about transforming educational systems and learning environments to adapt them to learner diversity. To take this diversity into account also means considering the diversity of the teachers who follow these pupils. It is thus necessary to take their habits and identity into account, and to understand that, when confronted to changes in their environment, reflexivity and existential tensions cannot be dismissed. Within the framework of this study, we offered a Process Communication training to 35 voluntary teachers to introduce them to the key features of each personality type and the preferred communication channels to build constructive and efficient relationships. After this training and after subsequent assistance to the teachers, we measured the impact of our approach on their educational representations and the relevance of such a process on the potential transformation of the learning environment. What emerges of this study is that such a training seems to bring about some change in relationship and communication practices but changes at educational level are only beginning. Concerning the impact on the learning environment, we can’t draw any conclusion given the fact that educational teams are far from stable. However, we are convinced that the considered purposes are achievable if the « coconstruction » work with teachers continues beyond this study. In this respect, we have formulated suggestions at the end of our study.

Mega construction projects are complex undertakings. The complexity is increased during a construction boom in a city such as Dubai where more than 80% of material and labour resources are imported. The complexities inherent in mega construction projects include uncertainty and interdependencies, which affect project management performance at the operational level where most of the problems occur. Understanding these processes, how they interrelate and how to overcome the complexities is crucial for increasing the chances of project management success. This research contributed to construction project management theory and practice by using a highly inductive exploratory qualitative approach for capturing formal and informal processes in mega construction projects in Dubai. A dynamic model depicting the complementary formal and informal processes is developed showing formal and informal processes and how they interrelate to reduce complexity. Guidelines on how and when to use specific processes are provided as a framework for the model. This framework may be used to help develop communication processes in future complex projects to increase chances of project management success. The research was conducted by exploring two case study projects fitting the characteristics of mega construction projects. Both case study projects were of values above 1.5 Billion US Dollars and were similar in scope with elements including amusement parks, retail areas, hotels, extensive infrastructure and large landscape areas. Both case study projects were of an experimental character, considered an engineering achievement, complex, and thereby, difficult to control. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 83 project staff from both case study projects. Rich picture diagrams of the organization and processes were made from data collected during the interviews and case study project documents. The analysis was performed in three phases where the results from each phase were built upon cumulatively. The first phase examined what the most crucial critical success factors (CSFs) were in the case study projects. These were revealed to be communication, top management support and effective change management. In the second phase each CSF was analyzed where it was found it that the majority of important communication modes were informal and were was most effective in reducing complexity. Furthermore, it was found that the characteristics of the client were crucial in both case study projects. The third phase involved development of the dynamic hybrid model from the rich picture diagrams created showing the interplay between formal and informal processes. It was found that informal processes are ad-hoc and chaotic in nature and controlled by individuals in the project. Development of guidelines for the positive use of informal processes was required. From the analysis it was found that the characteristics of client staff and individuals in the case study projects provided the main guidelines for effective use of the hybrid model. The research provides insights into the formal and informal processes and the reduction and management of complexity inherent in mega construction projects. Current research in managing complexity is from the perspective of the formal process where the informal processes are neglected, despite research and practice indicating their importance in construction projects. The research presents a systemic dynamic model of the processes for mega construction projects revealing that formal and informal processes are required and are complementary. Guidelines for the successful use of the model provide a framework for its application in practice. This shows how it can be used to inform understanding of processes in the context of the research. The model and guidelines were validated via discussions with practitioners experienced in construction of mega projects. Future work should expand the findings to applications of the model in practice for management of complex projects. The model may be used by practitioners to act as a guide in how to manage construction processes to consciously overcome the inherent complexities to achieve project management objectives. This tool may also be used to inform clients of the inherent complexities and the level of informality required to overcome them. IT/IS practitioners may use the model and framework to understand the complexities in construction, and thereby, develop systems that are practically applied in construction projects. Researchers in the field may build upon the model and findings to increase knowledge regarding construction processes, particularly informal processes.

The main aim of the project is to launch multiple processes and have those processes communicate with each other using peer to peer communication to eliminate the problems of multiple processes running on a single server, and multiple processes running on inhomogeneous servers as well as the problems of scalability. This entire process is done using MPICH which is a high performance and portable implementation of Message Passing Interface standard. The project involves setting up the passwordless authentication between two local servers with the help of SSH connection. By establishing a peer to peer communication and by using a unique shell script which is written using MPICH and its derivatives, I am going to demonstrate the process of inter-process communication between the servers.

Game development today is a complex process that differs from traditional software development by presenting unique challenges stemming from a multidisciplinary structured process, including teams from multiple fields, such as art, sound, programming, design, human factors and more. This, together with the growth of the industry during recent years has increased the need for a more efficient cross-functional collaboration and understanding between these teams. This study focuses on the collaboration and understanding between two distinct teams, User Research (UR) and Development in order to try and shed some light on an emerging challenge of a gap in understanding that exists between the two fields. A case study was conducted at an established game company in Sweden, where a UR team was closely observed and analyzed. The results of this study showed that the issues and practices could be grouped into three different areas, Process, Communication, and Understanding that affected each other differently. Where a majority of the issues found often related to Communication and Understanding problems. The findings provided a glimpse of the gap in understanding in a game development process and what problems it can entail and what the possible solutions could streamline the process. However, in order to fully understand and fill this gap more thorough observations during a longer period of time is required. / Spelutveckling idag är en komplex process, som skiljer sig från traditionell programutveckling genom att den presenterar unika utmaningar som härstammar från en multidisciplinär strukturerad process. Som inkluderar teams från många olika fält, såsom konst, ljud, programmering, design, mänskliga faktorer och många fler. Detta tillsammans med utvidgning av industrin de senaste åren har det skett ett behov av mer effektivt tvärfunktionellt samarbete och förståelse mellan dessa team. Denna studie fokuserar på samarbete och förståelsen mellan två specifika team, User Research (UR) och Development för att försöka belysa den uppkomna utmaningen av en klyfta i förståelsen som existerar mellan de två fälten. En fallstudie gjordes på ett etablerat spelföretag i Sverige, där ett UR team noggrant observerades and analyserades. Resultaten från studien visar att problem och praxis kunde grupperas i tre olika områden, Process, Kommunikation och Förståelse där var och en påverkade varandra olika, där majoriteten av de identifierade problemen ofta relaterade till Kommunikation och Förståelse problem. Upptäckterna gav en skymt av klyftan i förståelse som finns i en spelutvecklingsprocess och vilka problem den kan medföra samt vilka möjliga lösningar som skulle kunna effektivisera denna process. Dock, för att få full förståelse över denna klyfta och hur man kan skulle kunna fylla den så behövs en mer noggrannare studie över en längre tid.

I distribuerade system, kommunicerar komponenter genom att skicka meddelanden till varan- dra och mellanprogramvara överlappar integrationen mellan olika applikationer. Syftet var att undersöka och analysera olika designmönster till en mellanprogramvara som hanterar kommunikationen i en en-till-många relation och som kan användas i en XFS baserad programvara samt identifiera eventuella problem som uppkom under utvecklingsprocessen.Reverse engineering användes för att rekonstruera vår uppdragsgivares XFS baserade mjukvara. Ingång- och utgångspunkter lokaliserades och visualiserades med hjälp av UML-diagram. Med hjälp av vår uppdragsgivares krav och rekonstruktion av deras mjukvara, de designmönster som valdes var Broker och Reactor. Dessa valdes för att frikoppla en-till-en relationen mot vår uppdragsgivares hårdvara. Arkitekturen i vår prototyp av mellanprogramvaran baserades på klient-server och prototypen använder en en-till-många interprocesskommunikation för att skicka JSON-meddelande över en pipe anslutning.Prototypen utvärderades med hjälp av testfall och utfallet av testen var till belåtenhet. Slutversionen av vår prototyp klarade av att hantera kommunikation mellan flera klienter till vår uppdragsgivares hårdvara genom en server. Callbacks hanterades och presenterades i alla klienter.Valen som gjordes under utvecklingen identifierade problem som är värdefulla för andra utvecklare. Två huvudproblem uppstod för att det är väldigt hög komplexitet i välutvecklade system samt att logiken bakom XFS standarden är öppen för fri tolkning. Vår lösning är bra vid en utvecklingsuppstart men det fastställs att asynkrona mönster är en möjlig optimering av mjukvarusystemet. / In distributed systems, components communicate by passing messages between each other and a middleware bridges gaps between the interaction of different applications. The aim was to investigate and analyse middleware designs that handle a one-to-many communication usable in XFS based software and identify possible problems during the development process.Reverse engineering was used to reconstruct our stakeholders XFS based software. Entry and exit points were localised and visualised with UML diagrams from the reconstruction. By focusing on the stakeholders requirements and the reconstruction, the design pattern Broker and Reactor were used to decouple a one-to-one relationship towards the stakeholders hardware. The architecture of the middleware prototype was based on a client-server architecture and the prototype utilises a one-to-many inter-process communication that sends JSON messages over a pipe connection.The prototype was evaluated using written test cases and the test cases presented satisfactory results. The final version of the prototype was able to handle several clients communicating with the stakeholders hardware through the server and all clients displayed callbacks.Choices made during the iterative development identified problems that are valuable to other developers. The two main problems were high complexity in a legacy software system and that all logic in the XFS standard is open to interpretation. Our solution is successful as a start-up approach but asynchronous patterns are determined as a possible optimisation for the software system.

La forte parallélisation des applications MPSoC accroît le besoin d'optimisation des mécanismes de synchronisation, primordiaux pour l'échange sûr d'informations entre processus. En effet, les délais qu'ils introduisent impactent les performances globales des MPSoC. L'objet de cette thèse est d'étudier puis d'optimiser les performances temporelles de ces mécanismes de synchronisation.La complexité croissante des MPSoC impose l'étude précise des mécanismes ciblés dans un environnement réaliste mettant en exergue les spécificités logicielles et matérielles.Les outils de mesures disponibles ne répondant pas à nos exigences de précision conjuguée à la vitesse d'analyse, nous avons conçu notre propre chaîne de mesure non intrusive reposant sur une plateforme d'émulation.Appliquée à l'étude de l'implémentation GNU du mécanisme de barrière de synchronisation offert par la bibliothèque d'aide à la parallélisation de code OpenMP, notre chaîne de mesure a mis en évidence deux faiblesses d'implémentation, aboutissant à la mise en place d'optimisations logicielles et matérielles réduisant de manière significative les délais de ce mécanisme.La chaîne de mesure développée nous a également permis de vérifier une hypothèse structurante pour l'optimisation : un verrou, bien qu'utilisé par plusieurs cœurs de différentes grappes au cours de l'application, est très souvent repris par le dernier cœur l'ayant libéré. Sur la base de ce constat, nous proposons une solution innovante assurant, de manière totalement décentralisée, la relocalisation dynamique des verrous dans la mémoire proche du cœur ayant obtenu l'accès. Cela permet de réduire la latence d'accès et le trafic réseau lors de la réutilisation d'un verrou par une même grappe. / High parallelism of MPSoC applications increase the need of optimization for the synchronization mechanisms, essential to ensure consistent data exchanges between threads. Delays inserted by them impact the whole performances of the system. This thesis work aims to analyze and reduce delays of synchronization mechanisms for MPSoC architectures.The growing complexity of MPSoCs requires assessment of proposed optimizations against hardware and software specifics in real-life environment. Since usual tools to perform measurements do not fulfill required accuracy with sufficient evaluation speed, we have designed a custom non-intrusive tool-chain based on an emulation platform.The study of the textit{GNU} OpenMP library implementation of the synchronization barriers, carried out with our tool-chain, has revealed two weaknesses. Our proposed hardware and software optimizations achieve significant reduction of the delays introduced by the synchronization barrier.The designed tool-chain has also allowed us to confirm a fundamental hypothesis for the optimization of the lock mechanism : although during the run time a lock may be used by various cores belonging to different clusters, it is often reused by the last core which has released it. Based on this observation, we propose an innovative decentralized solution to manage dynamic re-homing of locks in memory close to the last access-granted core, thus reducing access latency and network traffic in case of reuse of the lock by the same cluster.

Uma das tendências para o aumento do desempenho dos sistemas de computação atuais tem sido a distribuição do processamento em uma rede de computadores. Já foram pesquisados diversos modelos para obter essa distribuição, e um dos que tem se mostrado mais promissor é aquele no qual o controle da distribuição é efetuado diretamente pelo sistema operacional. Um sistema operacional desse tipo é chamado de sistema operacional distribuído[TAN85], e seu principal objetivo e fornecer a seus usuários a ilusão de uma maquina uniprocessadora constituída pela soma dos recursos oferecidos pelos componentes da rede. A forma de realizar tal ilusão é o sistema operacional controlar a utilização dos recursos distribuídos para o usuário, independentemente de onde estejam localizados, a medida que sejam requisitados e estejam disponíveis. Esta sendo desenvolvido no CPGCC da UFRGS o projeto DIX, cujo objetivo é o desenvolvimento de um Sistema Operacional Distribuído. Para o desenvolvimento desse projeto, foi tornado como base o sistema operacional MINIX. As principais razoes dessa opção foram: o alto grau de modularidade do MINIX, a utilização do paradigma de troca de mensagens para comunicação entre processos e a sua disponibilidade. A plataforma de hardware inicial para o desenvolvimento do projeto é um grupo de estações de trabalho Proceda. Tais estações caracterizam-se por possuir internamente dois elementos processadores distintos. O projeto DIX teve inicio com o porte do sistema operacional MINIX para o ambiente multiprocessador heterogêneo das estações. Devido a necessidade de comunicação entre as estações e a indisponibilidade de hardware adequado para tal, foi desenvolvida uma forma alternativa de comunicação, baseada na utilização da interface paralela existente nas estações. Este trabalho descreve o núcleo do sistema operacional. A filosofia adotada foi torná-lo o mais simples possível, colocando em processos servidores, externos ao núcleo, grande parte das tarefas. Outro objetivo foi alterar o mínimo possível a interface original do MINIX, para que as camadas superiores do sistema continuassem em funcionamento. Dessa forma, a principal função do núcleo é fornecer aos processos mecanismos para troca de mensagens e transferência de dados entre processos. Foi desenvolvido um método para a identificação global dos processos, que permite identificar cada processo do sistema de forma unívoca e um mecanismo de comunicação entre processos que suporta transparência de localidade, migração de processos e falhas em nodos da rede. / One of the modern trends in Computer Science has been the use of distribution to improve system performance. Many models of distribution have been proposed, and the most promising one is that in which the distribution is directly controlled by the operating system. Such type of system is called a distributed operating system[TAN85], and its main goal is to provide its users an illusion of an uniprocessor system more powerful than its components. The operating system controls the utilization of the distributed resources in a transparent way, in order to present such illusion to its users. There is a project, named DIX, under development at CPGCC/UFRGS, whose goal is to gather experience in the field while developing a distributed operating system. The MINIX operating system has been chosen as a software basis for the project, because of its high degree of modularity, its message passing IPC paradigm and the availability of its source code. The initial hardware configuration is a set of Proceda workstations. Those workstations have two distincts processors that can run in parallel. The project was started with the porting of MINIX to the workstations' heterogeneous multiprocessor environment. Due to the need of information exchange among the workstations and to the unavailability of suitable communication hardware, an alternative communication scheme was developed. This work describes the kernel of the operating system. The adopted methodology was to keep it as simple as possible, putting a great number of tasks in server processes outside the kernel. Another goal was to preserve the MINIX original interface, so that the upper layers of the system could remain functional. So, the main purpose of the kernel is to supply an efficient message exchange mechanism. That mechanism supports locality transparency: the sender of a message is not aware of the destination location, and it is even possible that processes migrate. A method has been developed for the global unique identification of processes.