The Construction of Historical Reality in Jean Froissart's Chronicles Jean Froissart, one of the most famous chroniclers of the Middle Ages, is generally recognized for the literary qualities of his work, less so for the credibility of his account. In my research I have endeavoured to follow those scholars whose aim has been to rehabilitate the author by studying him not on the basis of principles which govern our contemporary understanding of history as an academic discipline, but rather on the basis of conceptual movements which conditioned historical writing in the 14th century, taking into account the traditions upon which medieval conception of history was built. Put differently, this work seeks to examine closely the "historical forge" of Jean Froissart. Clearly, Froissart's historical project falls within a specific discourse on historical genres, on relationships between form and truth which an account of deeds is expected to convey, on the manner in which the authority of a story being told is constructed. It is on the very intersection of this context, on the one hand, and the individuality of the author, on the other, that I based my search for the chronicler's perspectives on the writing of history. Froissart was from the outset concerned with the issues of impartiality and credibility...

Depuis une vingtaine d’années, les discours promotionnels en urbanisme attribuent à un nombre croissant de lieux et de processus le statut de modèles à suivre ou de bonnes pratiques. Cette thèse vise à comprendre comment les acteurs opérationnels réceptionnent et utilisent ces modèles lorsqu’ils conçoivent d’autres projets urbains. L’approche construite vise à suivre les acteurs au plus près de leurs pratiques opérationnelles. Pour ce faire, la notion de « modèle » est mise de côté le temps de l’analyse pour lui préférer celle de « référence » dont la définition prend une dimension méthodologique. Une référence est la représentation d’un objet utilisée dans une situation autre que celle dans laquelle il a été élaboré. Tout objet (idée, image, ou texte) peut devenir une référence, mais il ne le devient qu’à partir du moment où sa représentation est citée dans une autre situation. La notion de référence est étudiée dans le cadre de situations de conception, les moments au cours desquels les acteurs réfléchissent, discutent, se projettent seuls ou à plusieurs, et prennent des décisions pour la transformation des usages d’un espace. Deux méthodes sont utilisées. Une méthode par entretiens semi-directifs auprès de 30 acteurs opérationnels d’origines variées vise à comprendre la façon dont ces derniers se représentent leurs usages des références. Une méthode d’observation circonscrite de quatre situations de conception au cours desquelles les acteurs sont en train d’élaborer des plans directeurs permet de suivre les usages des références dans des projets en train d’être conçus. Les observations et entretiens réalisés en France et dans l’Oregon aux États-Unis, se complètent et se rejoignent, permettent de découvrir des constantes concernant les usages de références et de redéfinir la notion. Les références sont, au sein d’une grande diversité, urbaines, ancrées et locales. Elles sont utilisées à des fins multiples, aussi bien pour communiquer dans un groupe et y négocier sa place, que pour la forme d’un plan directeur, pour lire un contexte, et pour évaluer des propositions de transformation d’un espace. Cette approche permet d’obtenir une lecture fine de l’usage des références en situation de conception, lecture importante pour le débat actuel de la fabrique de la ville concernant les modèles urbains. En situation, il n’y a pas un modèle mais une multitude de références qui sont citées, mentionnées, analysées ; et chaque plan est le résultat d’un travail articulant le contexte et ces objets cités, des projets, des espaces existants, des formes et objets génériques, et des théories / Over the last twenty years, promotional discourse on urban development has been assigning the labels of “best practice” or “model to follow” to an increasing number of specific sites and processes. My thesis explores how these models are received and used by urban developers and other relevant actors. My approach aims at following actors as closely as possible with regard to their working practices. To do so, the notion of “model” is put aside and favored over by the notion of “reference”, whose definition is methodologically based. A reference is the representation of an object (idea, image, text) that is cited within a design situation other than the one it was initially conceived in. Any object can become a reference, but it only becomes a reference when its representation is cited in another design situation. The notion of reference is studied during multiple stages of urban design: from conception to moments during which actors think, talk and plan alone or collectively, to decision-making about the transformation of spatial uses. Two methods were used. First, I carried out semi-structured interviews with 30 actors with the aim of understanding how actors perceive their use of references. Second, I observed and analyzed four specific situations during which actors were designing urban masterplans in order to understand the use of references in the design process.Both methods were applied in France and in the USA (Oregon) and converged in their results, leading to a more precise understanding of the notion of reference. References are mainly urban, anchored within a territory and local. They have many purposes, from communicating and negotiating within a group, to making design decisions, as well as reading an urban context and evaluating design propositions. The present analysis of how references are used is particularly useful for the current debate in urban studies concerning policy and the mobility of ideas. In the design process, there is not one model but a multitude of urban objects that are cited, analyzed and described. Each masterplan is the result of a coordination between an actual context and these cited objects, projects, existing spaces, generic objects and forms, and theories

The study sought to develop a framework for access and use of documentary heritage at the National Archives of Zimbabwe (NAZ). This followed the realization that access and use is the raison d'être for national archival institutions yet the level of utilization has for a long time been lamented to be low. The researcher therefore took a holistic approach and investigated the issues of bibliographic, intellectual and physical access to archives. Using a grounded theory research approach framed within the constructivism ontology and the interpretivism epistemological research paradigm, this study employed the observation technique, interviews and content analysis to collect the empirical evidence that was needed to develop a framework for access and use of the documentary heritage in the custody of NAZ. The study extensively discussed the methodological issues involved in the study as grounded theory is a rarely used approach in Information Science studies. An extensive discussion was therefore offered to enable readers to follow and appreciate how the not so common approach was actually employed. The findings of the study showed that the position of NAZ as a public information resource centre was threatened by many obstacles that were compromising the accessibility and use of the documentary heritage in its custody. Such hindrances included the absence of a national policy on access to public archives, the absence of an institutional access policy, the absence of a standing committee on access and use of archives, lack of a budget, increasing backlogs of unprocessed archives, misconstrued public perception, the absence of special facilities for the physically challenged, centralised access to archives, access restrictions placed by legal instruments as well as limited use of digital technology, no use of the print media and Web 2.0 technologies. Using the findings of the study, the researcher offered a framework for enhanced access and use of archives to serve as a baseline on which archivists may reflect and improve on their practices. / Information Science

[pt] Inúmeras linguagens de programação oferecem suporte a finalizadores e referências fracas. Não obstante, de maneira geral esses mecanismos são relativamente pouco conhecidos e pouco usados por programadores. Mesmo entre pesquisadores e desenvolvedores de linguagens não existe muito consenso quanto à sua semântica, que varia consideravelmente entre diferentes implementações. Neste trabalho buscamos explorar os conceitos de finalizadores e de referências fracas, suprindo a ausência de uma especificação clara e abrangente, e permitindo uma melhor compreensão, implementação e uso dos mecanismos correspondentes. Como ponto de partida realizamos um amplo levantamento sobre como é feito o suporte a finalizadores e referências fracas em diferentes linguagens de programação, identificando as características comuns, os problemas, e as questões semânticas mais relevantes associadas às implementações consideradas. Para garantir uma maior precisão em nossa análise, utilizamos um modelo abstrato de uma linguagem de programação com gerenciamento automático de memória. Através deste modelo especificamos formalmente a semântica de finalizadores e referências fracas, incluindo descrições das suas principais variantes e mecanismos relacionados. Além disso, provamos certas propriedades inerentes a linguagens de programação com gerenciamento automático de memória, indicando como estas são afetadas pela introdução de finalizadores e referências fracas. Por fim, consideramos possíveis estratégias de implementação desses mecanismos em diferentes tipos de sistemas. Algumas das opções semânticas investigadas impõe um custo de processamento expressivo, o que frequentemente inviabiliza a sua adoção na prática. / [en] Most mainstream programming languages support finalizers and weak references. In spite of that, these abstractions are still modestly known by programmers in general. Even among language designers there seems to be no common view on how to define their semantics, and language implementations certainly reflect that. In this thesis we explore the concepts of finalizer and weak reference by discussing several important issues that, as far as we know, have not been explored by other authors. After presenting a survey on how finalizers and weak references are supported by actual programming languages, we thoroughly examine their semantics and discuss alternative implementation strategies. We also use an operational approach to develop a formal model for reasoning about garbage collection and its interaction with client programs. By explicitly representing low-level details, such as heap memory and its addresses, we were able to clearly specify memory management actions, and prove several important memory-related language invariants. Using this model we describe a formal semantics for finalizers and weak references, exploring some of its many subtleties. We believe that the topics covered here can serve as a relevant reference for further investigations, and also help to guide actual implementations.

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[pt] A revisão da literatura científica é um relato crítico dos principais trabalhos em uma área ou tópico específico. Dessa forma, os autores buscam a literatura e apresentam os artigos relevantes de forma organizada por data de publicação e evolução de um tema de pesquisa. Revisões da literatura fornecem uma fotografia do estado da arte de um tópico de pesquisa. Através da seleção dos trabalhos mais importantes de uma certa área é possível identificar os autores mais especializados na área ou em determinados artigos, proporcionando assim uma solução para o problema de encontrar potenciais candidatos especialistas. Nesta tese estudaremos o problema de selecionar e visualizar os artigos mais relevantes que refletem a evolução de um tópico de pesquisa. Para isso, propomos uma abordagem visual colaborativa baseada em grafos para recomendar referências importantes. Apresentamos também a tarefa de encontrar e classificar os autores dado um artigo científico usando caminhos de citações relevantes. A partir de um ranking de referências, o valor da expertise dos autores é calculado. Uma metodologia é proposta para construir e atualizar o grafo de citações de forma colaborativa com os votos dos especialistas. / [en] The scientific literature review is a critical account of the main papers in a particular subject area or topic. In this way, the authors surveys the literature and present the relevant articles in an organized way by publication date and evolution of the research topic, which gives an overview of the state of the art in a subject. Through these relevant papers it is also possible to identify the most expert authors in the area or in certain papers, thus providing a solution to the problem of finding potential expert candidates. The main challenge of making a literature review is to identify the most relevant articles that reflect the evolution of the different research topics. In this thesis, we propose a visual collaborative approach that uses graphs to recommend important references. In addition, we introduce the task of searching and ranking authors given a target paper using relevant citation paths. From a ranking of references, the value of the author s expertise is calculated. A methodology is proposed in order to build and update the citation graph in a collaborative way with the expert s votes.

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Postnatal growth of preterm infants does not match recommended intrauterine growth, due to the initial weight loss that accompanies healthy body composition rearrangements after birth. Thus, optimal postnatal growth for preterm infants is currently unknown.</p> <p><strong>Objectives: </strong>(1)<strong> </strong>Collect longitudinal postnatal growth data of 30–36 week GA preterm infants with unimpaired postnatal adaptation; (2) Develop regressions that predict the growth trajectory such an infant will adjust to by days of life 7/14/21; (3) Extrapolate and validate the regressions downwards to 25 weeks.</p> <p><strong>Methods:</strong> Infants of 30–36 week GA, born/admitted to 1/5 participating centres between 2008–2012, who met pre-specified criteria for unimpaired postnatal adaptation and who had at minimum 14 days of data were included. Day-specific anthropometric data from birth to discharge were abstracted retrospectively. Z-score regressions for days 7/14/21 were developed. Regressions were then extrapolated to 25 weeks and validated using an independent study population.</p> <p><strong>Results:</strong> Of 6203 infants, 665 met the screening criteria. By day 14, infants adjusted to stable growth trajectories that were 84±13% of the recommended weight-for-age. Using the following predictors: GA, z-score at birth and hospital-centre, regressions accurately predicted z-scores at days 7, 14 (n=665; R²=0.939, 0.889) and 21 (n=333; R²=0.841). Validation using 25-29 week GA infants (n=173) suggested models were also accurate within this age-range.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>These results provide robust estimates of a hypothesis of healthy postnatal growth for preterm infants. Future steps include assessing long-term outcomes in a randomized control trial and assessing the quality of growth using body composition analyses.</p> / Master of Science in Medical Sciences (MSMS)

Este trabalho buscou demonstrar que a concepção de mundo/cosmovisão, (reunião das escolhas ontológicas, epistemológicas e metodológicas) base teórica/paradigmática do pesquisador das Ciências Sociais, posta em crise pela passagem da modernidade para a pós-modernidade, pode ser retomada através da construção da sua Identidade Intelectual - expressa na sua palavra - prova da autonomia e da autodeterminação. / This research aimed at demonstrating that the conception of the world/Cosmo vision (assembly of ontological, epistemological and methodological choices) theoretical grounds for the researcher in Social Sciences, in crisis by the transition from Modernity to Post-Modernity, can be rescued through the building of its intellectual identity - expressed in ones voice - proof of autonomy and self-determination.

La lumière naturelle est une préoccupation forte dans la conception du projet architectural. Elle a une grande influence sur le confort visuel et la qualité architecturale des espaces intérieurs. Plusieurs méthodes et outils ont été développés pour assister les architectes dans la conception des ambiances lumineuses. L’analyse de ces différentes méthodes et outils montre qu’ils sont peu adaptés à l’activité de formulation des intentions des concepteurs durant les premières phases de conception.Dans le cadre de cette thèse, notre objectif est d’améliorer ces premières phases de conception en apportant aux concepteurs une aide pour la formalisation de leurs intentions d’ambiances lumineuses. L’objectif poursuivi étant de faire de la lumière naturelle un fil conducteur dans le développement du projet architectural.L’étude de la pratique des concepteurs durant les premières phases de conception fait apparaître qu’ils font fréquemment appel à des références jouant le rôle de dispositifs heuristiques. L’analyse des caractéristiques de ces références et de leur évocation montre que les images comme formes de référence favorisent l’expression des désirs, des souhaits et des intentions du concepteur. L’assistance à l’activité de référenciation par les images serait donc une aide précieuse dans la formalisation des intentions pour la prise en compte de la lumière naturelle dans la conception de projet.Nous développons une méthode fondée sur la constitution d’une base d’images références représentatives des ambiances lumineuses et sur un environnement de manipulation et exploration particulière de cette base. Pour ce faire, nous considérons d’une part le rôle de l’image-référence comme élément actif du raisonnement visuel et d’autre part, les aspects du processus de référenciation notamment dans un mode de raisonnement analogique.Cette méthode a été implémentée dans un outil prototype dénommé « day@mbiance ». Cet outil propose une base d’images composée de photographies illustrant des espaces intérieurs en éclairage naturel. Ces dernières sont indexées à partir d’un thésaurus original dédié aux « ambiances lumineuses ». L’outil, par ailleurs, expérimente différents modes de navigation par l’image qui sont définis de manière à stimuler les différentes activités cognitives dans chacune des phases du processus de référenciation.Enfin, la méthode développée a été testée lors d’une phase expérimentale qui a validé les éléments méthodologiques développés / The natural light is a strong concern in the design of an architectural project. It has a great influence on visual comfort and architectural quality of interior spaces. Several methods and tools have been developed to assist architects in the design of bright atmospheres. Analysis of these different methods and tools showed that they are not well adapted to the designers activity during the early stages of design. In this thesis, our objective is to enhance the early stages of design by providing designers with a support for the formalization of their intentions of bright atmospheres. The aim is to make natural light a thread in the development of the architectural project. The study of the practice of designers during the early stages of design has shown that they frequently use references acting as heuristic devices. Analysis of the characteristics of these references and their evocation showed that images, as type of references, promote the expression of desires, wishes and intentions of the designer. Assistance to the activity of referring by the images would be a valuable aid in the formalization of intentions to include the natural light into the project design. We developed a method based on developping an image database of representative references of bright atmosphere and supported with a handling environment and exploration of this particular base. To achieve this, we consider, in the one hand, the role of the reference-image as the active item of visual reasoning and, on the other hand, aspects of referring process, specially, in a mode of analogical reasoning. This method has been implemented in a prototype tool called « day@mbiance ». This tool provides an image database composed of photographs of interior spaces with natural lighting. These images are indexed using an original thesaurus dedicated to « bright atmosphere ». The tool also experiments different modes of navigation through images that are defined in order to stimulate different cognitive activities in each stage of the referring process