Neste trabalho é proposta uma plataforma robótica móvel, concebida de maneira modular e hierárquica, visando o estudo de diversos aspectos aplicados à navegação, tanto autônoma quanto semi-autônoma, em ambientes internos. O sistema proposto possibilita a implementação de arquiteturas reativas e híbridas com aprendizagem, sendo a importância e limitações desta última discutidas. Utilizando a plataforma desenvolvida, uma aplicação de navegação robótica com aprendizagem supervisionada é realizada, usando sensores de ultra-som e através de tele-operação. O objetivo é fazer com que o agente associe, em tempo real, suas próprias respostas sensoriais com as ações motoras realizadas pelo tele-operador, permitindo que a tarefa seja repetida autonomamente com alguma generalização. Para realizar tal mapeamento, uma rede de função de base radial (RBF), usando um algoritmo de aprendizado seqüencial, é apresentada e utilizada. / This work presents a mobile robotic platform, built as a modular and hierarchical approach, aiming at the study of several aspects of indoor navigation. The proposed system allows the implementation of reactive and hybrid architectures with learning, for autonomous or semi-autonomous navigation. The importance and limitations of the learning characteristics are discussed. An application of robotic navigation with supervised learning is implemented using ultrasonic sensors and teleoperation. The aim is the agent to associate, in real time, its own sensorial perception to the motor actions realized by a teleoperator, allowing the task to be repeated in an autonomous way, with some generalization. To make the corresponding mapping, a radial basis function network (RBF), trained by a sequential learning algorithm, is presented and used.

O Acidente Vascular Cerebral (AVC) é uma doença prevalente e incapacitante, cujo atendimento no Brasil é insuficiente e concentrado em poucos centros de alta complexidade. A telemedicina possibilita assistência à saúde através do uso de tecnologias de comunicação entre dois ou mais profissionais, ou entre o profissional e o paciente, que estejam em locais distintos, permitindo aumento do acesso a tratamentos especializados, podendo ser útil na assistência do AVC agudo. Os objetivos deste estudo foram avaliar a viabilidade de uma rede de telemedicina para o AVC no Sistema Único de Saúde na região de Ribeirão Preto e desenvolver um sistema de telemedicina para o AVC. Para a análise da viabilidade, foram realizados o levantamento de indicadores demográficos e epidemiológicos da população de municípios que constituem o Departamento Regional de Saúde de Ribeirão Preto (DRS XIII) e uma análise técnica e econômica relacionada à estrutura necessária. O sistema de registro eletrônico e videoconferência foi desenvolvido por equipe multiprofissional, baseado em diretrizes nacionais para sistemas de informação em saúde e protocolos padronizados para o atendimento do AVC agudo. Concluiu-se que uma rede de telemedicina entre o Hospital das Clínicas de Ribeirão Preto e os outros hospitais que possuem os pré-requisitos para cadastramento como Unidade de AVC no DRS XIII será estratégica para a expansão do atendimento qualificado do AVC na região, e sua viabilidade depende do cadastro destes serviços junto ao Ministério da Saúde, financiamento dos equipamentos e treinamento das equipes assistenciais. O sistema de telemedicina desenvolvido possibilitará o registro seguro dos atendimentos, a educação permanente das equipes e base de dados para pesquisas clínicas, contribuindo para a concretização desta e de outras redes de telemedicina brasileiras. / Stroke is a prevalent and disabling disease, whith insufficient treatment in Brazil, where is concentrated in a few high complexity centers. Telemedicine enables health care through communication technology between two or more professionals, or between the professionals and patients, in different locations, allowing increased access to specialized treatments, therefore useful in acute stroke treatment. This study objectives were to evaluate the feasibility of a public stroke telemedicine network at Ribeirão Preto region and to develop a stroke telemedicine eletronic system. For feasibility study, populational demographic and epidemiological indicators were compiled for the cities that constitute the Regional Health Department of Ribeirão Preto (DRS XIII) and a technical and economic analysis related to the necessary structure was performed. The electronical record and videoconference system was developed by a multiprofessional team, based on national guidelines for health information systems and standardized protocols for acute stroke care. A telemedicine network between the Hospital das Clínicas of Ribeirão Preto and the other hospitals that meet criteria for enrollment as Stroke Units in DRS XIII will be strategic for the expansion of regional qualified stroke care. Its viability depends on the registration of these services at the Health Ministry, equipment financing and assistance teams training. The developed telestroke system will enable the secure record of calls, the permanent education of the teams and a database for clinical research, contributing to the realization of this and other telemedicine networks.

Travel demand forecasting is essential for many decisions, such as infrastructure investments and policy measures. Traditionally travel demand modelling has considered trip frequency, mode, destination and route choice. This thesis considers two other choice dimensions, hypothesised to have implications for travel demand forecasting. The first part investigates how the increased possibilities to overcome space that ICT (information and communication technology) provides, can be integrated in travel demand forecasting models. We find that possibilities of modelling substitution effects are limited, irrespective of data source and modelling approach. Telecommuting explains, however, a very small part of variation in work trip frequency. It is therefore not urgent to include effects from telecommuting in travel demand forecasting. The results indicate that telecommuting is a privilege for certain groups of employees, and we therefore expect that negative attitudes from management, job suitability and lack of equipment are important obstacles. We find also that company benefits can be obtained from telecommuting. No evidences that telecommuting gives rise to urban sprawl is, however, found. Hence, there is ground for promoting telecommuting from a societal, individual and company perspective. The second part develops a departure time choice model in a mixed logit framework. This model explains how travellers trade-off travel time, travel time variability, monetary and scheduling costs, when choosing departure time. We explicitly account for correlation in unobserved heterogeneity over repeated SP choices, which was fundamental for accurate estimation of the substitution pattern. Temporal constraints at destination are found to mainly restrict late arrival. Constraints at origin mainly restrict early departure. Sensitivity to travel time uncertainty depends on trip type and intended arrival time. Given appropriate input data and a calibrated dynamic assignment model, the model can be applied to forecast peak-spreading effects in congested networks. Combined stated preference (SP) and revealed preference (RP) data is used, which has provided an opportunity to compare observed and stated behaviour. Such analysis has previously not been carried out and indicates that there are systematic differences in RP and SP data. / QC 20100825

Real-world radiance values can range over eight orders of magnitude from starlight to direct sunlight but few digital cameras capture more than three orders in a single Low Dynamic Range (LDR) image. We approach this problem using established High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques in which multiple images are captured with different exposure times so that all portions of the scene are correctly exposed at least once. These images are then combined to create an HDR image capturing the full range of the scene. HDR capture introduces new challenges; movement in the scene creates faded copies of moving objects, referred to as ghosts. Many techniques have been introduced to handle ghosting, but typically they either address specific types of ghosting, or are computationally very expensive. We address ghosting by first detecting moving objects, then reducing their contribution to the final composite on a frame-by-frame basis. The detection of motion is addressed by performing change detection on exposure-normalized images. Additional special cases are developed based on a priori knowledge of the changing exposures; for example, if exposure is increasing every shot, then any decrease in intensity in the LDR images is a strong indicator of motion. Recent Superpixel over-segmentation techniques are used to refine the detection. We also propose a novel solution for areas that see motion throughout the capture, such as foliage blowing in the wind. Such areas are detected as always moving, and are replaced with information from a single input image, and the replacement of corrupted regions can be tailored to the scenario. We present our approach in the context of a panoramic tele-presence system. Tele-presence systems allow a user to experience a remote environment, aiming to create a realistic sense of "being there" and such a system should therefore provide a high quality visual rendition of the environment. Furthermore, panoramas, by virtue of capturing a greater proportion of a real-world scene, are often exposed to a greater dynamic range than standard photographs. Both facets of this system therefore stand to benefit from HDR imaging techniques. We demonstrate the success of our approach on multiple challenging ghosting scenarios, and compare our results with state-of-the-art methods previously proposed. We also demonstrate computational savings over these methods.

Real-world radiance values can range over eight orders of magnitude from starlight to direct sunlight but few digital cameras capture more than three orders in a single Low Dynamic Range (LDR) image. We approach this problem using established High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques in which multiple images are captured with different exposure times so that all portions of the scene are correctly exposed at least once. These images are then combined to create an HDR image capturing the full range of the scene. HDR capture introduces new challenges; movement in the scene creates faded copies of moving objects, referred to as ghosts. Many techniques have been introduced to handle ghosting, but typically they either address specific types of ghosting, or are computationally very expensive. We address ghosting by first detecting moving objects, then reducing their contribution to the final composite on a frame-by-frame basis. The detection of motion is addressed by performing change detection on exposure-normalized images. Additional special cases are developed based on a priori knowledge of the changing exposures; for example, if exposure is increasing every shot, then any decrease in intensity in the LDR images is a strong indicator of motion. Recent Superpixel over-segmentation techniques are used to refine the detection. We also propose a novel solution for areas that see motion throughout the capture, such as foliage blowing in the wind. Such areas are detected as always moving, and are replaced with information from a single input image, and the replacement of corrupted regions can be tailored to the scenario. We present our approach in the context of a panoramic tele-presence system. Tele-presence systems allow a user to experience a remote environment, aiming to create a realistic sense of "being there" and such a system should therefore provide a high quality visual rendition of the environment. Furthermore, panoramas, by virtue of capturing a greater proportion of a real-world scene, are often exposed to a greater dynamic range than standard photographs. Both facets of this system therefore stand to benefit from HDR imaging techniques. We demonstrate the success of our approach on multiple challenging ghosting scenarios, and compare our results with state-of-the-art methods previously proposed. We also demonstrate computational savings over these methods.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

Real-world radiance values can range over eight orders of magnitude from starlight to direct sunlight but few digital cameras capture more than three orders in a single Low Dynamic Range (LDR) image. We approach this problem using established High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques in which multiple images are captured with different exposure times so that all portions of the scene are correctly exposed at least once. These images are then combined to create an HDR image capturing the full range of the scene. HDR capture introduces new challenges; movement in the scene creates faded copies of moving objects, referred to as ghosts. Many techniques have been introduced to handle ghosting, but typically they either address specific types of ghosting, or are computationally very expensive. We address ghosting by first detecting moving objects, then reducing their contribution to the final composite on a frame-by-frame basis. The detection of motion is addressed by performing change detection on exposure-normalized images. Additional special cases are developed based on a priori knowledge of the changing exposures; for example, if exposure is increasing every shot, then any decrease in intensity in the LDR images is a strong indicator of motion. Recent Superpixel over-segmentation techniques are used to refine the detection. We also propose a novel solution for areas that see motion throughout the capture, such as foliage blowing in the wind. Such areas are detected as always moving, and are replaced with information from a single input image, and the replacement of corrupted regions can be tailored to the scenario. We present our approach in the context of a panoramic tele-presence system. Tele-presence systems allow a user to experience a remote environment, aiming to create a realistic sense of "being there" and such a system should therefore provide a high quality visual rendition of the environment. Furthermore, panoramas, by virtue of capturing a greater proportion of a real-world scene, are often exposed to a greater dynamic range than standard photographs. Both facets of this system therefore stand to benefit from HDR imaging techniques. We demonstrate the success of our approach on multiple challenging ghosting scenarios, and compare our results with state-of-the-art methods previously proposed. We also demonstrate computational savings over these methods.

The full text will be available at the end of the embargo period: 5th Nov 2021

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / A educação a distância (EAD) é uma importante estratégia na realização de atividades de educação permanente em saúde. Contudo, as raízes pedagógicas de muitas destas práticas convergem para a reapresentação de uma educação tradicional e transmissora, sobretudo pela inexistência de momentos de interação social que possibilitem a troca e o compartilhamento de saberes. Neste sentido, os fóruns on line são considerados um importante recurso para promover um cenário interativo e estimular processos de construção compartilhada do conhecimento (CCC). Nesta pesquisa, defende-se a tese de que dentro da lógica dos processos de educação permanente em saúde, o fórum representa uma ferramenta interativa e possibilita a construção de saberes compartilhados. Assim, o objetivo geral é analisar os fóruns interativos como espaço de processos de ensino-aprendizagem entre enfermeiros da Estratégia de Saúde da Família em um curso de especialização em saúde da família a distância. Além disso, são objetivos específicos desta pesquisa: compreender a política e os projetos de educação permanente em saúde no Brasil; observar as interações sugestivas de processos de construção compartilhada do conhecimento entre alunos e tutores; analisar a percepção dos discentes do curso sobre o fórum interativo e as possíveis repercussões deste em sua prática profissional. A metodologia escolhidabaseia-se no estudo de caso. Na coleta de dados, foram utilizados questionários on line e análise dos fóruns temáticos das disciplinas do curso, segundo análise de suas redes sociais. Tal análise desdobrou-se na construção de três categorias: as relações comunicacionais e os processos interativos como essencialidades da CCC; a formação de grupos as redes sociais na EAD; o tutor como mediador do espaço virtual. Observou-se, neste estudo, que a construção das redes sociais dentro de uma turma de EAD obedece à mesma lógica daquelas construídas presencialmente, ou seja, é baseada na identificação com o grupo e na aceitação de ideias expostas por um determinado coletivo. Os tutores possuem papel essencial na formação das redes sociais e, também, no surgimento das relações dialógicas. As relações de cooperação dentro dos fóruns interativos indicam a existência de processos de CCC; contudo, assim como nas relações presenciais, é impossível dimensionar a influência e as consequências sociais destas construções na vida dos sujeitos. Conclui-se que o fórum possibilita a existência de relações comunicacionais, porém os desdobramentos interativos, bem como os processos de CCC, dependem, não só do instrumento utilizado, mas de outros fatores, como o estímulo do professor-tutor, a participação dos alunos e a criação de redes sociais cooperativas. / Distance learning (ODL) is an important strategy in conducting continuing education activities in health. However, the pedagogical roots of many of these practices converge to the representation of a traditional and transmitter education, especially due to the lack of social interaction moments allowing the exchange of knowledge. In this regard, on line forums are considered an important resource to promote an interactive scenario and stimulate the shared process of constructing knowledge through communication actions cooperatives. In this research we defend the thesis that within the logic of permanent education processes in health, the forum as a interactive tool of the Internet allows the construction of shared knowledge. Thus, the general objective is to analyze interactive forums as an area of teaching-learning processes between FHS nurses in a distance learning specialization course in family health. In addition, are specific objectives of this research: 1. Understand the policy and projects on permanent education in health in Brazil; 2. Observe interactions suggestive of shared construction of knowledge between students and tutors; 3. To analyze the perception of the course students on the interactive forum and its possible repercussions in their professional practice. The methodological approach chosen is based on case study where data collection used online questionnaires and analysis of thematic forums of course subjects, according to an analysis of their social networks.This analysis was divided in three categories: a) The communication relations and interactive processes as essentialities of Shared Knowledge Construction; b) Formation of groups - social networks in distance education; c) The tutor as a mediator of the virtual space. It was observed in this study that the construction of social networks within a distance education class follows the same logic of those built in person, that is, based on the identification with the group and acceptance of ideas exposed by a certain collective; Tutors have essential role in the formation of social networks and also the emergence of dialogical relations; The cooperation within the interactive forums indicate the existence of shared construction of knowledge, however, as well as in-person relationships, it is impossible to scale the influence and the social consequences of these constructions in subjects' lives. In conclusion, the forum, while interactive element, allows the existence of communication relationships, however the interactive developments and the processes of shared construction of knowledge depend also of other factors such as teacher-tutor incentive, student participation and the creation of cooperative social networks.

This thesis evaluates the possibility of using millimeter waves of frequency 28GHz for the use of wireless backhaul in small cell solutions in the coming fifth generation mobile networks. This frequency band has not been used in preceding mobile networks but is undergoing a lot of research. In this thesis simulations are performed to evaluate how the high frequency waves behave inside a three dimensional grid of buildings. The simulations use highly directive antenna arrays with antenna gains of 26dBi. A main results of the investigation was that a high bandwidth of 800MHz was not enough to provide 12Gbps in non line-of-sight propagation within the simulations. Furthermore, without interference limiting techniques, the interference is probable to dominate the noise, even though the high diffraction losses of millimeter waves propose that interference should be very limited in urban areas.