Gerenciar alianças entre organizações é desafiante e instiga pesquisas que já proporcionaram aprendizado razoável sobre alguns aspectos do tema. No entanto, a persistência de altos índices de falhas em alianças continua a instigar investigações, a exemplo desta pesquisa. Para tal, duas suposições foram consideradas. A primeira foi que objetivos não-declarados e ocultos existiriam em uma proporção tal sobre os declarados que seriam capazes de distorcer as medidas de performance das alianças. A segunda suposição foi de que os gestores não estariam observando um conjunto suficientemente abrangente de fatores capazes de embasar sua gestão. O objetivo geral da presente pesquisa foi investigar a existência dos objetivos não-declarados pelas organizações-mãe nas alianças, sua relevância frente aos declarados e seus reflexos nas medidas de performance das alianças. Antes das investigações empíricas, foi organizada uma série de fatores de gestão e foi proposta uma tipologia contendo oito tipos de objetivos relacionados às alianças. Os dados foram coletados em duas etapas, uma de estudos de caso e outra de survey. Em dois casos estudados ficou demonstrada a presença de vários tipos de objetivos, incluindo declarados e ocultos. Também evidenciou-se a fragilidade dos processos de gestão das alianças prevista na segunda suposição inicial da pesquisa, especialmente no que diz respeito ao planejamento e ao controle das suas atividades. Através da survey foi verificado que a performance devida a objetivos não-declarados tinha valor representativo em relação ao valor da performance devida aos objetivos declarados. Para a amostra investigada de 78 alianças formadas por empresas do setor industrial do estado do Rio Grande do Sul confirmou-se a suposição inicial da possibilidade de que os resultados das avaliações de performance seriam distorcidos se não fossem consideradas as parcelas de performance relativa aos objetivos não-declarados (e ocultos). Esses resultados reforçaram a necessidade dos gestores das alianças reverem os métodos de gestão e de medição da performance das alianças, incluindo na sua estimativa as parcelas referentes à realização dos objetivos não-declarados. / Managing alliances between organizations is a challenging task, which has encouraged research that has provided reasonable learning about some aspects of the theme. However, the persistence of high failure rates continues to instigate investigation, like the present research. For this reason, two basic assumptions were taken into account. The first assumption was that non-declared and hidden objectives existed in such a proportion in relation to the declared ones that they could distort the measures of the performance of alliances. The second assumption was that managers would not be observing a sufficiently broad range of factors capable of sustaining their management. The general aim of this research was to investigate the existence of non-declared objectives by parent organizations in the alliances, their relevance to the declared ones and their consequences in measuring the performance of alliances. Before the empirical investigations, a series of management factors was organized and a typology containing eight types of objectives related to the alliance was proposed. Data were collected in two stages, one in case studies and another one in a survey. In two cases studied, the presence of several types of objectives, including declared and hidden ones was demonstrated. The fragile character of the alliances' management processes predicted in the second initial supposition of the study, especially in what regards the planning and controlling of their activities, was also evident. Through the survey it was found that the performance attributed to non-declared objectives had a significant value in relation to the performance value of the declared objectives. For the investigated sample of 78 alliances formed by industrial sector firms of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the initial assumption was confirmed about the possibility of the results of evaluations of performance being biased if the partial performance related to the non-declared (and hidden) objectives had not been considered. These results emphasized the need for alliance managers to review their management and alliances performance measurement methods, including in their estimate the partial performance related to the achievement of non-declared objectives.

O Processamento de Linguagem Natural (PLN) é uma área da Ciência da Computação, que vem tentando, ao longo dos anos, aperfeiçoar a comunicação entre o homem e o computador. Varias técnicas tem sido utilizadas para aperfeiçoar esta comunicação, entre elas a aplicação de métodos estatísticos. Estes métodos tem sido usados por pesquisadores de PLN, com um crescente sucesso e uma de suas maiores vantagens é a possibilidade do tratamento de textos irrestritos. Em particular, a aplicação dos métodos estatísticos, na marcação automática de "corpus" com categorias morfo-sintáticas, tem se mostrado bastante promissora, obtendo resultados surpreendentes. Assim sendo, este trabalho descreve o processo de marcação automática de categorias morfo-sintáticas. Inicialmente, são apresentados e comparados os principais métodos aplicados a marcação automática: os métodos baseados em regras e os métodos estatísticos. São descritos os principais formalismos e técnicas usadas para esta finalidade pelos métodos estatísticos. E introduzida a marcação automática para a Língua Portuguesa, algo até então inédito. O objetivo deste trabalho é fazer um estudo detalhado e uma avaliação do sistema rotulador de categorias morfo-sintáticas, a fim de que se possa definir um padrão no qual o sistema apresente a mais alta precisão possível. Para efetuar esta avaliação, são especificados alguns critérios: a qualidade do "corpus" de treinamento, o seu tamanho e a influencia das palavras desconhecidas. A partir dos resultados obtidos, espera-se poder aperfeiçoar o sistema rotulador, de forma a aproveitar, da melhor maneira possível, os recursos disponíveis para a Língua Portuguesa. / Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an area of Computer Sciences, that have been trying to improve communication between human beings and computers. A number of different techniques have been used to improve this communication and among them, the use of stochastic methods. These methods have successfully being used by NLP researchers and one of their most remarkable advantages is that they are able to deal with unrestricted texts. Namely, the use of stochastic methods for part-of-speech tagging has achieving some extremely good results. Thus, this work describes the process of part-of-speech tagging. At first, we present and compare the main tagging methods: the rule-based methods and the stochastic ones. We describe the main stochastic tagging formalisms and techniques for part-of-speech tagging. We also introduce part-of-speech tagging for the Portuguese Language. The main purpose of this work is to study and evaluate a part-of-speech tagger system in order to establish a pattern in which it is possible to achieve the greatest accuracy. To perform this evaluation, several parameters were set: the corpus quality, its size and the relation between unknown words and accuracy. The results obtained will be used to improve the tagger, in order to use better the available Portuguese Language resources.

A segmentação dos nomes nas suas partes constitutivas é uma etapa fundamental no processo de integração de bases de dados por meio das técnicas de vinculação de registros. Esta separação dos nomes pode ser realizada de diferentes maneiras. Este estudo teve como objetivo avaliar a utilização do Modelo Escondido de Markov (HMM) na segmentação nomes e endereços de pessoas e a eficiência desta segmentação no processo de vinculação de registros. Foram utilizadas as bases do Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade (SIM) e do Subsistema de Informação de Procedimentos de Alta Complexidade (APAC) do estado do Rio de Janeiro no período entre 1999 a 2004. Uma metodologia foi proposta para a segmentação de nome e endereço sendo composta por oito fases, utilizando rotinas implementadas em PL/SQL e a biblioteca JAHMM, implementação na linguagem Java de algoritmos de HMM. Uma amostra aleatória de 100 registros de cada base foi utilizada para verificar a correção do processo de segmentação por meio do modelo HMM.Para verificar o efeito da segmentação do nome por meio do HMM, três processos de vinculação foram aplicados sobre uma amostra das duas bases citadas acima, cada um deles utilizando diferentes estratégias de segmentação, a saber: 1) divisão dos nomes pela primeira parte, última parte e iniciais do nome do meio; 2) divisão do nome em cinco partes; (3) segmentação segundo o HMM. A aplicação do modelo HMM como mecanismo de segmentação obteve boa concordância quando comparado com o observador humano. As diferentes estratégias de segmentação geraram resultados bastante similares na vinculação de registros, tendo a estratégia 1 obtido um desempenho pouco melhor que as demais. Este estudo sugere que a segmentação de nomes brasileiros por meio do modelo escondido de Markov não é mais eficaz do que métodos tradicionais de segmentação. / The segmentation of names into its constituent parts is a fundamental step in the integration of databases by means of record linkage techniques. This segmentation can be accomplished in different ways. This study aimed to evaluate the use of Hidden Markov Models (HMM) in the segmentation names and addresses of people and the efficiency of the segmentation on the record linkage process. Databases of the Information System on Mortality (SIM in portuguese) and Information Subsystem for High Complexity Procedures (APAC in portuguese) of the state of Rio de Janeiro between 1999 and 2004 were used. A method composed of eight stages has been proposed for segmenting the names and addresses using routines implemented in PL/SQL and a library called JAHMM, a Java implementation of HMM algorithms. A random sample of 100 records in each database was used to verify the correctness of the segmentation process using the hidden Markov model. In order to verify the effect of segmenting the names through the HMM, three record linkage process were applied on a sample of the aforementioned databases, each of them using a different segmentation strategy, namely: 1) dividing the name into first name , last name, and middle initials; 2) division of the name into five parts; 3) segmentation by HMM. The HMM segmentation mechanism was in good agreement when compared to a human observer. The three linkage processes produced very similar results, with the first strategy performing a little better than the others. This study suggests that the segmentation of Brazilian names by means of HMM is not more efficient than the traditional segmentation methods.

Um dos problemas da extração de dados na web é a remoção de ruído existente nas páginas. Esta tarefa busca identificar todos os elementos não informativos em meio ao conteúdo, como por exemplo cabeçalhos, menus ou propagandas. A presença de ruído pode prejudicar seriamente o desempenho de motores de busca e tarefas de mineração de dados na web. Este trabalho aborda o problema da descoberta de ruído em páginas da web oculta, a parte da web que é acessível apenas através do preenchimento de formulários. No processamento da web oculta, a extração de dados geralmente é precedida por uma etapa de inserção de dados, na qual os formulários que dão acesso às páginas ocultas são automaticamente ou semi-automaticamente preenchidos. Durante esta fase, são coleta- dos dados do domínio em questão, como os rótulos e valores dos campos. A proposta deste trabalho é agregar este tipo de dados com informações sintáticas dos elementos que compõem a página. É mostrado empiricamente que esta combinação atinge resultados melhores que uma abordagem baseada apenas em informações sintáticas. / One of the problems of data extraction from web pages is the identification of noise in pages. This task aims at identifying non-informative elements in pages, such as headers, menus, or advertisement. The presence of noise may hinder the performance of search engines and web mining tasks. In this paper we tackle the problem of discovering noise in web pages found in the hidden web, i.e., that part of the web that is only accessible by filling web forms. In hidden web processing, data extraction is usually preceeded by a form filling step, in which the query forms that give access to the hidden web pages are automatically or semi-automatically filled. During form filling relevant data about the queried domain are collected, as field names and field values. Our proposal combines this type of data with syntactic information about the nodes that compose the page. We show empirically that this combination achieves better results than an approach that is based solely on syntactic information. Keywords:

Muitas informações disponíveis na Web estão armazenadas em bancos de dados on-line e são acessíveis somente após um usuário enviar uma consulta por meio de uma interface de busca. Essas informações estão localizadas em uma parte da Web conhecida como Web Oculta ou Web Profunda e, geralmente, são inacessíveis por máquinas de busca tradicionais. Uma vez que a forma de acessar os dados na Web Oculta se dá por intermédio de submissões de consultas, muitos trabalhos têm focado em como preencher automaticamente campos de formulários. Esta tese apresenta uma metodologia para o preenchimento de formulários na Web Oculta. Além disso, descreve uma categorização das técnicas de preenchimento de formulários existentes no estado da arte de coleta na Web Oculta, produzindo uma análise comparativa entre elas. A solução proposta descreve um método automático para seleção de valores para campos de formulários combinando heurísticas e técnicas de aprendizagem de máquina. Experimentos foram realizados em formulários reais da Web, de vários domínios, e os resultados indicam que a abordagem proposta apresenta desempenho comparável aos obtidos pelas técnicas do estado da arte, sendo inclusive significativamente diferente com base em avaliação estatística. / A large portion of the information on the Web is stored inside online databases. Such information is accessible only after the users submit a query through a search interface. TheWeb portion in which that information is located is called HiddenWeb or DeepWeb, and generally this part is inaccessible by traditional search engines crawlers. Since the only way to access the Hidden Web pages is through the query submissions, many works have focused on how to fill in form fields automatically, aiming at enhancing the amount of distinct information hidden behind Web forms. This thesis presents an automatic solution to value selection for fields in Web forms. The solution combines heuristics and machine learning techniques for improving the selection of values. Furthermore, this proposal also describes a categorization of form filling techniques and a comparative analysis between works in the state of the art. Experiments were conducted on real Web sites and the results indicated that our approach significantly outperforms a baseline method in terms of coverage without additional computational cost.

abstract: With the rapid development of mobile sensing technologies like GPS, RFID, sensors in smartphones, etc., capturing position data in the form of trajectories has become easy. Moving object trajectory analysis is a growing area of interest these days owing to its applications in various domains such as marketing, security, traffic monitoring and management, etc. To better understand movement behaviors from the raw mobility data, this doctoral work provides analytic models for analyzing trajectory data. As a first contribution, a model is developed to detect changes in trajectories with time. If the taxis moving in a city are viewed as sensors that provide real time information of the traffic in the city, a change in these trajectories with time can reveal that the road network has changed. To detect changes, trajectories are modeled with a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). A modified training algorithm, for parameter estimation in HMM, called m-BaumWelch, is used to develop likelihood estimates under assumed changes and used to detect changes in trajectory data with time. Data from vehicles are used to test the method for change detection. Secondly, sequential pattern mining is used to develop a model to detect changes in frequent patterns occurring in trajectory data. The aim is to answer two questions: Are the frequent patterns still frequent in the new data? If they are frequent, has the time interval distribution in the pattern changed? Two different approaches are considered for change detection, frequency-based approach and distribution-based approach. The methods are illustrated with vehicle trajectory data. Finally, a model is developed for clustering and outlier detection in semantic trajectories. A challenge with clustering semantic trajectories is that both numeric and categorical attributes are present. Another problem to be addressed while clustering is that trajectories can be of different lengths and also have missing values. A tree-based ensemble is used to address these problems. The approach is extended to outlier detection in semantic trajectories. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Industrial Engineering 2012

abstract: This study looked at ways of understanding how schoolyards might act as meaningful places in children's developing sense of identity and possibility. Photographs and other images such as historical photographs and maps were used to look at how built environments outside of school reflect demographic and social differences within one southwest city. Intersections of children's worlds with various socio-political communities, woven into and through schooling, were examined for evidence of ways that schools act as the embodiment of a community's values: they are the material and observable effects of resource-allocation decisions. And scholarly materials were consulted to examine relationships in the images to existing theories of place, and its effect on children, as well as to consider theories of the hidden curriculum and its relationship to social reproduction, and the nature of visual representation as a form of data rather than strictly in the service of illustrating other forms of data. The focus of the study was on identifying appropriate research methods for investigating ways to understand the importance of the material worlds of school and childhood. Using a combination of visual and narrative approaches to contribute to our understanding of those material worlds, I sought to expose areas of inequity and class differences in ways that children experience schooling, as evidenced by differences in the material environment. Using a mixed-methods approach, created and found images were coded for categories of material culture, such as the existence of fences, trees, views from the playground or walking in the neighborhood at four Tempe schools. Findings were connected to a rich body of knowledge in areas such as theories of space and place, the nature of the hidden curriculum, visual culture, visual research methods including mapping. Familiar aspects of schooling were exposed in different ways, linking past decisions made by adults to their continuing effects on children today. In this way I arrived at an expanded and enriched understanding of the present worlds of children communicated as through the material environment. Visually examining children's worlds, by looking at the material artifacts of everyday worlds that children experience at school and including the child's-eye view in decision processes, has promise in moving decision makers away from strictly analytical and impersonal approaches to decision making about schooling children of the future. I proposed that by weighting of data points, as used in decision-making processes regarding schooling, differently than is currently done, and by paying closer attention to possible longer-term effects of place for all children, not just a few, there is the potential to improve the quality of life for today's children, and tomorrow's adults. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Educational Psychology 2013

abstract: Structural integrity is an important characteristic of performance for critical components used in applications such as aeronautics, materials, construction and transportation. When appraising the structural integrity of these components, evaluation methods must be accurate. In addition to possessing capability to perform damage detection, the ability to monitor the level of damage over time can provide extremely useful information in assessing the operational worthiness of a structure and in determining whether the structure should be repaired or removed from service. In this work, a sequential Bayesian approach with active sensing is employed for monitoring crack growth within fatigue-loaded materials. The monitoring approach is based on predicting crack damage state dynamics and modeling crack length observations. Since fatigue loading of a structural component can change while in service, an interacting multiple model technique is employed to estimate probabilities of different loading modes and incorporate this information in the crack length estimation problem. For the observation model, features are obtained from regions of high signal energy in the time-frequency plane and modeled for each crack length damage condition. Although this observation model approach exhibits high classification accuracy, the resolution characteristics can change depending upon the extent of the damage. Therefore, several different transmission waveforms and receiver sensors are considered to create multiple modes for making observations of crack damage. Resolution characteristics of the different observation modes are assessed using a predicted mean squared error criterion and observations are obtained using the predicted, optimal observation modes based on these characteristics. Calculation of the predicted mean square error metric can be computationally intensive, especially if performed in real time, and an approximation method is proposed. With this approach, the real time computational burden is decreased significantly and the number of possible observation modes can be increased. Using sensor measurements from real experiments, the overall sequential Bayesian estimation approach, with the adaptive capability of varying the state dynamics and observation modes, is demonstrated for tracking crack damage. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Electrical Engineering 2013

Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à une classe particulière de modèles stochastiques de croissance de plantes structure-fonction à laquelle appartient le modèle GreenLab. L’objectif est double. En premier lieu, il s’agit d’étudier les processus stochastiques sous-jacents à l’organogenèse. Un nouveau cadre de travail combinatoire reposant sur l’utilisation de grammaires formelles a été établi dans le but d’étudier la distribution des nombres d’organes ou plus généralement des motifs dans la structure des plantes. Ce travail a abouti `a la mise en place d’une méthode symbolique permettant le calcul de distributions associées `a l’occurrence de mots dans des textes générés aléatoirement par des L-systèmes stochastiques. La deuxième partie de la thèse se concentre sur l’estimation des paramètres liés au processus de création de biomasse par photosynthèse et de son allocation. Le modèle de plante est alors écrit sous la forme d’un modèle de Markov caché et des méthodes d’inférence bayésienne sont utilisées pour résoudre le problème. / This PhD focuses on a particular class of stochastic models of functional-structural plant growth to which the GreenLab model belongs. First, the stochastic processes underlying the organogenesis phenomenon were studied. A new combinatorial framework based on formal grammars was built to study the distributions of the number of organs or more generally patterns in plant structures. This work led to the creation of a symbolic method which allows the computation of the distributions associated to word occurrences in random texts generated by stochastic L-systems. The second part of the PhD tackles the estimation of the parameters of the functional submodel (linked to the creation of biomass by photosynthesis and its allocation). For this purpose, the plant model was described by a hidden Markov model and Bayesian inference methods were used to solve the problem.

Aborder la rhétorique du silence chez Pinter revient à examiner à la fois ce qui se passe sur scène, dans le texte poétique, et à jeter un regard sur les différents média dont son théâtre se sert pour aborder des thèmes liés à la guerre, à la menace, à l'existence, à la philosophie et à la métaphysique. Il y est aussi question de voir le rapport de cette modalité du langage à l'outil linguistique. L'ontologie du silence à permis de comprendre, qu'il s'agisse dans la communication ou dans la représentation, que cette réalité ne peut être compréhensible qu'à l'ombre de l'élément verbal. Le silence peut être perçu comme ce qui se dérobe à toute tentative de mise à mots. Pour nous imprégner du contenu de ce que Pinter cherche à nous faire parvenir, nous devons considérer ce sous-territoire verbal constitués de non-dits, d'allusions, de sous-entendus, mais également des espaces de l’indétermination. Et comme le langage n'est pas toujours téléologiquement motivé par l'expressivité, son caractère ambivalent, elliptique, fragmentaire, minimaliste et ésotérique constitue un défi pour le public. Cependant, l'étude étiologique (causes) du silence montre que tout ne peut s'expliquer par les limites, les failles et les impossibilités du langage et par le refus de l'engagement du locuteur ou de son capital cognitif et épistémologique. Le temps représente un obstacle majeur dans les efforts de l'homme d'expliquer des événements, faits antérieurs. S'il est difficile de parler précisément et objectivement du passé et du futur, nommer ou désigner ce qui se passe sous les yeux semble l'être également. En plus de la labilité et de l'oubli, la complexité des choses à dire peut aussi signifier l'arrêt définitif ou temporaire de tout discours. Avant l'échéance eschatologique, le silence n'est absolument pas un vide, un néant, même si des pesanteurs d'ordre encratique, idéologique et social rendent compte de la contrainte à laquelle sur tout sujet parlant est appelé à faire face. LE silence qui traverse le théâtre de Pinter est différent de cette absence de parole qu'impose la mort. Il n'est donc pas néontique, parce qu'il se justifie, d'une part, par une option artistique, et d'autre part, par le désir de nous rappeler qui nous sommes. Ce sont nos mots et nos silences qui font de nous ce que nous sommes dans ou sans interaction subjective : une entité sonore et une autre silencieuse. Tout être langagier est fait de ce qui s'énonce clairement et de ce qui ne cesse de s'échapper à toute expression verbale.Le choix porté sur l'adaptation cinématographique des pièces de Pinter obéit à l'effort de montrer que, quand les mots n'arrivent plus à dire, il faut se tourner vers des données sémiologiques, sémiotiques et somatico-gestuelles. Le genre poétique est un autre moyen par lequel les voix du silence nous parviennent à travers les allusions, les images et les symboles. Dans l’œuvre artistique de Pinter, le silence n'a pas qu'une signification mais aussi un rôle, une nature et des limites. Le silence n'est pas exclusivement dans le tacite ou le caché : il se trouve également dans ce qui se montre ou ce qui s'entend. Ce théâtre rappelle qu'à l'image du langage, le silence est une forme d'expression qui exige du spectateur une profonde attention pour comprendre le message qu'il entend lui faire passer. Par ailleurs, la protologie du silence révèle que d'autres arts de la scène tels que le praxis orchésale et la pratique musicale doivent leur existence à la réalité silencieuse. Vu que le silence sous-tend les moyens d'expression et de communication humaines, cela révèle du bon sens de lui reconnaître comme forme vivante. Le silence est à la fois une force centrifuge et centripète, car tout part de lui et retourne à son sein. Il est à l'origine de toute chose, et il survivra toute existence. / The main purpose of this research is not only to try to grasp the meaning of the unsaid and the hidden in the artistic work of Harold Pinter, but first and foresmost to show that language can neither have a meaning nor be made out if we do not consider what is lying underneath or if we disregard any reading between the lines. Even if it's obvious that the stage is more often than not under the yoke of words, the gist of any play is to be looked for in silence. In Pinter's dramatic world, silence can be understood as what cannot be said, what is not thoroughly said, what is not clearly expressed, what is not yet said, what will never be said. It can be due to many reasons, a silence may be observed under duress, as it may be made purposefully. The body language is more than important, for what is displayed through it can urge any shrewd spectator to muse upon what is beyond his eyes. Since words and images are not often reliable, the work of any spectator is to ponder over what is shown or said to him. And like any tool of communication, silence requires a text and a context to yield the substance emnodied in it. Any attempt to sever the language of words from that of silence is doomed to failure. Silence per se is the realm of silent words. Before being uttered, any word was first kept in silence. All discourses stem from silence, and whilst some can reach the listener, others need a particular attention, whence our interest in Pinter's early poems. The silence we'redealing with is not a void. It's pregnant with meaning and cannot be avoided as long as we're able to speak or we're potential locutors.