Dans le cadre des travaux en cours pour informatiser un grand nombre de langues « peu dotées », en particulier celles de l’espace francophone, nous avons créé un système de traduction automatique français-somali dédié à un sous-langage journalistique, permettant d’obtenir des traductions de qualité, à partir d’un corpus bilingue construit par post-édition des résultats de Google Translate (GT), à destination des populations somalophones et non francophones de la Corne de l’Afrique. Pour cela, nous avons constitué le tout premier corpus parallèle français-somali de qualité, comprenant à ce jour 98 912 mots (environ 400 pages standard) et 10 669 segments. Ce dernier constitue’est un corpus aligné, et de très bonne qualité, car nous l’avons construit en post-éditant les pré-traductions de GT, qui combine pour cela avec une combinaison de lason système de TA français-anglais et système de TA anglais-somali. Il Ce corpus a également fait l’objet d’une évaluation de la part depar 9 annotateurs bilingues qui ont donné une note score de qualité à chaque segment du corpus, et corrigé éventuellement notre post-édition. À partir de ce corpus, en croissance, nous avons construit plusieurs versions successives d’un système de Traduction Automatique à base de fragments (PBMT), MosesLIG-fr-so, qui s’est révélé meilleur que GoogleTranslate GT sur ce couple de langues et ce sous-langage, en termes de mesure BLEU et du temps de post-édition. Nous avons fait également une première expérience de traduction automatique neuronale français-somali en utilisant OpenNMT, de façon à améliorer les résultats de la TA sans aboutir à des temps de calcul prohibitifs, tant durant l’entraînement que durant le décodage.D’autre part, nous avons mis en place une iMAG (passerelle interactive d’accès multilingue) qui permet à des internautes somaliens non francophones du continent d’accéder en somali à l’édition en ligne du journal « La Nation de Djibouti ». Les segments (phrases ou titres) prétraduits automatiquement par notre un système de TA fr-so en ligne disponible peuvent être post-édités et notés (sur sur une échelle de 1 à 20) par les lecteurs eux-mêmes, de façon à améliorer le système par apprentissage incrémental, de la même façon que ce qui a été fait pour le système français-chinois (PBMT) créé par [Wang, 2015]. / As part of ongoing work to computerize a large number of "poorly endowed" languages, especially those in the French-speaking world, we have created a French-Somali machine translation system dedicated to a journalistic sub-language, allowing to obtain quality translations from a bilingual body built by post-editing of GoogleTranslate results for the Somali and non-French speaking populations of the Horn of Africa. For this, we have created the very first quality French-Somali parallel corpus, comprising to date 98,912 words (about 400 standard pages) and 10,669 segments. The latter is an aligned corpus of very good quality, because we built in by post-editions editing pre-translations of produced by GT, which uses with a combination of the its French-English and English-Somali MT language pairs. It That corpus was also evaluated by 9 bilingual annotators who gave assigned a quality note score to each segment of the corpus and corrected our post-editing. From Using this growing body corpus as training corpusof work, we have built several successive versions of a MosesLIG-fr-so fragmented statistical Phrase-Based Automatic Machine Translation System (PBMT), which has proven to be better than GoogleTranslate on this language pair and this sub-language, in terms BLEU and of post-editing time. We also did used OpenNMT to build a first French-Somali neural automatic translationMT system and experiment it.in order to improve the results of TA without leading to prohibitive calculation times, both during training and during decoding.On the other hand, we have set up an iMAG (multilingual interactive access gateway) that allows non-French-speaking Somali surfers on the continent to access the online edition of the newspaper "La Nation de Djibouti" in Somali. The segments (sentences or titles), pre- automatically translated automatically by our any available fr-so MT system, can be post-edited and rated (out on a 1 to of 20scale) by the readers themselves, so as to improve the system by incremental learning, in the same way as the has been done before for the French-Chinese PBMT system. (PBMT) created by [Wang, 2015].

Parent-infant psychotherapy is a small but growing field in South Africa. Its potential to contribute to mental health services in South Africa is, by contrast, vast. This thesis contributes towards much-needed research on the state of the field in the country and its potential applications across different sectors. Drawing on Daniel Stern’s concept of ports of entry, it is argued that an expansion of ports of entry offers an important integrating tool through which different aspects of parent-infant psychotherapy can be examined and adapted to the South African context. A history of parent-infant psychotherapy in South Africa is offered, together with an analysis of the experiences of current practitioners in the field. These aspects of the thesis draw on interviews with key stakeholders. The dominant context of private practice is then explored through two case study based papers. The first explores the meaning of symptoms in parent-infant psychotherapy. The second introduces the ‘grandmaternal transference’ as an important but under developed port of entry. These different aspects of parent-infant psychotherapy in South Africa are then considered through the prism of ports of entry in order to argue for a flexing of the psychoanalytic frame. Implications for the growth of the parent-infant psychotherapy field in South Africa are considered.

La synthèse translésionnelle (TLS) est un processus important pour franchir des lésions de l’ADN au cours de la duplication du génome dans les cellules humaines. Le modèle « d’échange de polymérases » suggère que la polymérase réplicative est transitoirement remplacée par une polymérase spécialisée, qui va franchir le dommage et permettre de continuer la synthèse d’ADN. Ces ADN polymérases spécialisées appelées Pol êta (η), iota (ι), kappa (κ), zêta (ζ), et Rev1 ont été bien caractérisées pour leur capacité à franchir différents types de lésions in vitro. Un concept en émergence est que ces enzymes pourraient également être requises pour répliquer des zones spécifiques du génome qui sont « difficiles à répliquer ». Polζ est constituée d’au moins 2 sous-unités : Rev3 qui est la sous-unité catalytique et Rev7 sous-unité augmentant l’activité de Rev3L. Jusqu'ici, la fonction la mieux caractérisée de Polζ était de sa capacité à catalyser l'extension d'un mésappariement en face d'une lésion d'ADN. Cependant, il a été montré que la sous unité catalytique Rev3 de levure et humaine interagissent avec les deux sous-unités accessoires de Polδ que sont pol31 et pol32 chez la levure et p50 et p66 chez l’humain. Il a aussi été mis en évidence que Rev3L est importante pour la réplication des sites fragiles (SFCs) dans les cellules humaines, zones connues pour être à l’origine d’une instabilité génétique et pour être répliquées de manière tardive (en G2/M). Tout ceci suggère que Polζ pourrait jouer un rôle dans la réplication du génome non endommagé, et plus spécifiquement lorsque des barrières naturelles (e.g. ADN non-B) entravent la progression normale des fourches de réplication.Chez la levure S. cerevisiae, l’inactivation du gène rev3 est viable et conduit à une diminution de la mutagenèse spontanée ou induite par des agents génotoxiques suggérant que Polζ est impliquée dans le franchissement mutagène des lésions endogènes ou induite. En revanche, l’inactivation du gène Rev3L chez la souris est embryonnaire létale alors que la plupart des autres ADN polymérases spécialisées ne sont pas vitales. Ceci suggère que Polζ a acquis des fonctions essentielles au cours de l’évolution qui restent inconnues à ce jour. Les fibroblastes embryonnaires murins (MEF) Rev3L-/- présente une grande instabilité génétique spontanée associée une forte augmentation de cassures et de translocations chromosomiques indiquant que Polζ est directement impliquée dans le maintien de la stabilité du génome. Afin de clarifier le rôle de cette polymérase spécialisée au cours de la réplication du génome, nous avons entrepris de procéder à une étude sur les relations structure/fonction/localisation de la protéine Rev3. Notre étude met en évidence que la progression en phase S des cellules Rev3L-/- est fortement perturbée, notamment en fin de phase S. Dans ces cellules invalidées pour Rev3L, on constate des changements dans le programme de réplication et plus particulièrement dans des régions de transition (TTR) répliquées à partir du milieu de la phase S. Nous montrons aussi un enrichissement global en marques épigénétiques répressives (marques associées à l’hétérochromatine et méthylation de l’ADN) suggérant qu’un ralentissement de la progression de la fourche de réplication à des loci particuliers peut promouvoir une hétérochromatinisation lorsque Rev3L est invalidé. De manière intéressante, nous constatons une diminution de l’expression de plusieurs gènes impliqués dans le développement qui pourrait peut-être expliquer la létalité embryonnaire constatée en absence de Rev3L. Enfin, nous mettons en évidence une interaction directe entre la protéine d’organisation de l’hétérochromatine HP1α et Rev3L via un motif PxVxL. Tout ceci nous suggère fortement que Polζ pourrait assister les ADN polymérases réplicatives Polδ et Polε dans la réplication des domaines compactés de la chromatine en milieu et fin de phase S. / DNA polymerase zeta (Polζ) is a key player in Translesion DNA synthesis (TLS). Polζ is unique among TLS polymerases in mammalian cells, because inactivation of the gene encoding its catalytic subunit (Rev3L) leads to embryonic lethality in the mouse. However little is known about its biological functions under normal growth conditions.Here we show that S phase progression is impaired in Rev3L-/- MEFs with a delay in mid and late S phase. Genome-wide profiling of replication timing revealed that Rev3L inactivation induces changes in the temporal replication program, mainly in particular genomic regions in which the replication machinery propagates a slower velocity. We also highlighted a global enrichment of repressive histone modifications as well as hypermethylation of major satellites DNA repeats in Rev3L-deficient cells, suggesting that fork movements can slow down or stall in specific locations, and a delay in restarting forks could promote heterochromatin formation in Rev3L-depleted cells. As a direct or indirect consequence, we found that several genes involved in growth and development are down-regulated in Rev3L-/- MEFs, which might potentially explain the embryonic lethality observed in Rev3L KO mice. Finally we discovered that HP1α directly interacts and recruits Rev3L to pericentromeric heterochromatin. We therefore propose that Polζ has been co-opted by evolution to assist DNA polymerase ε and δ in duplicating condensed chromatin domains during mid and late S phase.

[pt] O objetivo desta dissertação de mestrado é analisar o novo marco regulatório do setor elétrico brasileiro e seus impactos para as empresas distribuidoras de energia. Para isto, foi desenvolvida uma ferramenta computacional para elaborar estratégias de atuação das distribuidoras nos leilões de compra de energia instituídos pela nova regulamentação. Desta forma, é possível simular o processo de contratação das distribuidoras no âmbito do ACR e, com os resultados, realizar análises do impacto das novas regras na alocação dos riscos as distribuidoras. O problema consiste, em um ambiente de incerteza da demanda e dado um conjunto de instrumentos de risco, determinar a estratégia de contratação das distribuidoras, fornecendo o montante de energia a ser comprado em cada leilão anteriormente descrito e resultado da melhor compra dados os contratos candidatos. A metodologia de solução é otimização estocástica multi-estágio, levando em consideração, principalmente, os diversos horizontes de contratação e preços da energia, visando minimizar uma ponderação entre tarifa para consumidor e custos para distribuidora. / [en] The objective of this work is to analyze the new regulatory framework of the Brazilian electric sector. In this sense, it was developed a computational tool in order to elaborate strategies for the distribution companies (DISCOs) in the energy auctions instituted by the new regulation. The computational tool was used to simulate the contracts acquisition process by the DISCOs and the results were analyzed to measure impact of new rules and risks allocation for the distribution companies. The problem consists, considering the demand uncertainty and the available risk management instruments, in determining the contracting strategy of the DISCOs, i.e., the amount of energy to be bought in each auction that results from the best purchase given the candidate contracts. The solution methodology is based on a multi-stage stochastic optimization algorithm, minimizing the tariff for consumer and costs for DISCO, taking into account different prices and horizons of the energy contracts.

Para avaliar a exposição ao ácido micofenólico (MPA) na fase inicial pós-transplante renal, receptores foram destinados para receber tacrolimo (n=33) ou ciclosporina (n=19, controle) com MMF. Foram feitas coletas de farmacocinética (AUC) do inibidor de calcineurina e MPA nos dias 7, 14, 30, 60 e 180 pós-transplante. Dos dias 14-180, a MPA-AUC foi mais elevada no grupo tacrolimo devido a um maior segundo pico de MPA. Com doses fixas de MMF, uma grande porcentagem de curvas ficou abaixo da faixa terapêutica. No dia 7, a equação que emprega a concentração pré-dose (C0) e na segunda hora (C2) foi a mais precisa para estimar AUC. Após o dia 7, a equação que utiliza C2 foi a mais precisa. A exposição ao MPA nos primeiros seis meses após transplante renal é maior sob tacrolimo do que ciclosporina. Entretanto, para qualquer inibidor de calcineurina empregado com MMF, uma equação que emprega C0 e C2 (dia 7) e C2 isoladamente (após o dia 7), permite a monitoração de MPA com grande precisão / To evaluate the exposure to mycophenolic acid (MPA) early after renal transplantation, recipients were allocated to tacrolimus (n = 33) or Neoral (n =19, control) plus MMF. Pharmacokinetic curves (AUC) of calcineurin inhibitor and MPA were drawn on days 7, 14, 30, 60 and 180 post-transplant. From days 14-180, MPA-AUC was higher in tacrolimus group due to a higher second MPA peak. With fixed MMF doses, a great amount of curves fell below the proposed therapeutic range. On day 7, the equation that uses pre-dose (C0) and second-hour (C2) concentrations was the most accurate. After day 7, the equation that uses C2 alone was the most accurate. Exposure to MPA during the first six months after transplantation is higher under tacrolimus than Neoral. Nevertheless, despite the calcineurin inhibitor associated with MMF, an equation that uses C0 and C2 up to day 7 and C2 thereafter allows precise MPA monitoring

Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo geral analisar o uso da tecnologia digital para facilitar a integração creche-família. Foi desenvolvida de acordo com os pressupostos da abordagem qualitativa de pesquisa (FLICK, 2004; SEVERINO, 2007; LÜDKE e ANDRÉ, 1986) e, mais especificamente, como estudo de caso (YIN, 2005) a partir dos dados empíricos obtidos na creche municipal de São Bernardo do Campo/SP, onde a pesquisadora exerce o cargo de diretora escolar. As pesquisas teóricas sobre a Educação de crianças de 0 a 3 anos e sobre os usos da tecnologia digital nos contextos escolares buscaram situar os conceitos centrais que envolviam a proposta. A pesquisa empírica foi realizada por meio de questionário enviado a todas as famílias das crianças atendidas na creche e por entrevistas semi-estruturadas realizadas com mães/pais e professoras. Pela análise dos dados levantados, constatou-se que a maioria das famílias das crianças matriculadas na creche pesquisada tem acesso à internet, principalmente via telefone celular, e a utiliza diária ou semanalmente. Outra constatação foi de que são poucas as famílias que acessam o Blog da instituição para acompanhar o trabalho desenvolvido com seus filhos. Por outro lado, a maior parte das famílias, que respondeu ao questionário, afirmou que utilizaria ferramentas de comunicação via internet para se comunicar com a creche e sugeriu o aplicativo WhatsApp para potencializar a integração creche-família. Em termos de resultados, a pesquisa identifica que as famílias e professoras da creche estão imersas na cultura digital, fazem uso de dispositivos móveis e desejam usar esses dispositivos para interações frequentes com a creche a fim de, no caso das famílias, acompanhar virtualmente o desenvolvimento de seus filhos. Neste sentido, considera-se que a tecnologia digital pode facilitar e potencializar a comunicação e a integração entre creche e família e que as iniciativas de propostas para essa maior integração devem partir da equipe da creche. / This researchs general goal is to analyze the use of digital technology to facilitate day care/family integration. It has been developed in consonance with the theoretical assumptions of the Qualitative Research approach (FLICK, 2004; SEVERINO, 2007; LÜDKE and ANDRÉ, 1986) and, more specifically, with the assumptions of the Case Study approach (YIN, 2005) applied on the empirical data obtained from the municipal day-care center of São Bernardo do Campo/SP, where this researcher holds the position of headteacher. Our theoretical researches about the Education of children under 3 years old and the uses of digital technology in school context aim to shed light on the main concepts that involve our general goal. The empirical research is based on a survey form sent to the families of all the children that attend the mentioned day-care center and on semistructured interviews with their parents and teachers. Through the analysis of the collected data, it has been possible to realize that the majority of those families have access to the internet, mainly through smartphones, and use it on a daily or weekly basis. Another realization the empirical analysis made possible was that few are the families that access the institutional Blog to keep up with the work developed with their children. On the other hand, the majority of the families who answered the survey said they would use internetbased communication tools to be in touch with the day-care center, and suggested that WhatsApp could improve the day care/family integration. In terms of results, this research shows that the families and daycare teachers are immersed in digital culture, make regular use of mobile devices and that the family wish to employ them on everyday interaction with the day-care center in order to keep up with their childrens development. Therefore, we consider that digital technology can facilitate and improve communication and integration between day-care center and families, and such initiatives should come from the daycare staff.

Este estudo tem como objetivo investigar o desenvolvimento psíquico de gêmeos abrigados no decorrer do primeiro ano de vida. Foram separados ao nascer, tendo como histórico inicial de vida, para um, a ausência do contato materno logo após o nascimento, tendo permanecido hospitalizado até os oito meses de vida e seguido para o abrigamento; e para o outro, a descontinuidade do contato materno e familiar aos dez meses de vida, seguido pelo abrigamento. No desenvolvimento deste estudo, os gêmeos estavam com cinco anos de idade, ainda abrigados, na mesma instituição e próximos da adoção. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, do tipo estudo de caso, embasada pelo método psicanalítico, à luz dos pensamentos de D. W. Winnicott. Por meio do diagnóstico psicológico do tipo compreensivo e interventivo, com o emprego das técnicas projetivas hora de jogo e procedimento de desenhos-estórias, buscou-se a compreensão da vida intrapsíquica dos gêmeos. Instrumentos auxiliares como o estudo documental do histórico familiar, como também entrevistas realizadas no abrigo, colaboraram para o alcance de uma visão totalizadora dos casos. A partir da análise dos dados, observaram-se marcantes divergências do funcionamento psíquico dos gêmeos: aquele institucionalizado desde o nascimento apresenta maior interação ambiental e facilita o emprego de intervenções, diante de angústias depressivas emergentes, mostra comportamentos regressivos; o outro separado do lar aos dez meses, diante de angústias despertadas, utiliza-se de mecanismos defensivos de negação e evitação, cujas intervenções, por muitas vezes, são evitadas de modo a afastar a quebra do sistema defensivo operante. Quanto ao sistema defensivo, o primeiro apresenta comportamentos regressivos e fragilidade frente ao ambiente, além de dissociações entre movimentos regressivos e evoluídos; o segundo, mostra comportamentos agressivos e oposicionistas frente a limites e regras, como recursos para domínio e controle ambiental e agressões e violência nas relações, desencadeando dificuldades de interação com o ambiente, permanecendo isolado. Além dos aspectos clínicos observados, é possível conjeturar sobre a influência de aspectos psicopatológicos institucionais, especialmente quanto à clivagem dos gêmeos. Esta pesquisa também permitiu vislumbrar que prejuízos ao desenvolvimento também se desencadeiam de lares vitimizadores e não só de contextos institucionais; e que o processo de adoção deve ser mais bem estruturado, a fim de minimizar estados ansiógenos decorrentes, que observamos nos gêmeos, bem como a devolução da criança ao abrigo após sua adoção, como ocorreu com o segundo gêmeo. Dessa forma, concluiu-se que as crianças, mesmo em situação de abrigamento, apresentam aspectos saudáveis propulsores para a saúde e podem aproveitar experiências boas do ambiente, além de apresentarem capacidade para amar e estabelecer relações afetivas; por isso o contexto institucional merece assistência, principalmente psicológica, a fim de favorecer o ambiente e o desenvolvimento das crianças abrigadas. / This essay is aimed at investigating the psychic development of twins institutionalized since before one year of age. Parted at birth, one child is sent to a hospital where it stays for eight months before is sent to an institution. The child undergoes the absence of the early motherly contact. As for the other child, there is the early motherly contact and from the family, however, discontinued. At ten months of age, the child is then sent to the institution. The study is set up when the twins are five years old, and are still inmates at the same institution, and are on the verge of being adopted. This research is qualitative - a case study – grounded on the psychoanalytic method - according to D.W. Winnicott’s lights. By using comprehensive and intervening psychological diagnosis, as well as projective techniques such as Hour Game and the Drawing-stories procedure, it aims at understanding the intra-psychic life of the twins. Additional tools such as the documented study of the family history, along with the interviews carried out at the shelter, contribute to a thorough view of the cases. As data analysis is performed, expressive differences in the functioning psychic of the twins come to light: on the one hand, the child sent to the institution only just after birth shows more interaction with the environment, when confronted with emerging depressive anguish shows regressive behaviour. Also, the child makes it easy for the implementation of interventions. On the other hand, the child parted from its home at ten months of age reacts otherwise. This, when confronted by desperate anguish, utilises defence mechanisms such as negation and avoidance, whose interventions are, in most cases, avoided in order to maintain the ongoing defensive system. When it comes down to the defence system, of the two twins, the first shows regressive behaviour and fragility –as it faces the environment and dissociation in regressive and evolved movements. The second twin shows aggressive behaviour and opposition to limits and regulations as means of controlling the environment followed by aggression and violence in the relationships leading into difficulty in interacting and isolation from the environment. In addition to the clinical aspects, the influence of the psychopathological institutional aspects might also be pondered, such as the split-off the twins. The research, too, permits visualising what damages to the development come from oppressive homes and not only from institutional contexts, and that the adopting process should be thought over, and restructured in order to soothe the state of anxiety, as is observed in the twins during adoption, or the sending back to shelter of the second child, after its adoption. Thus, we conclude that even children under shelter can show healthy aspects, in that the children will benefit from the good experiences of the environment, and be able to love and hold affective relations. For this reason, the institutional context should be given assistance, principally psychological assistance, and then offers the children under shelter an appropriate environment which favours their development.

Planning is the sub-area of artificial intelligence that studies the process of selecting actions to lead an agent, e.g. a robot or a softbot, to a goal state. In many realistic scenarios, any choice of actions can lead the robot into a dead-end state, that is, a state from which the goal cannot be reached. In such cases, the robot can, pro-actively, resort to human help in order to reach the goal, an approach called symbiotic autonomy. In this work, we propose two different approaches to tackle this problem: (I) contingent planning, where the initial state is partially observable, configuring a belief state, and the outcomes of the robot actions are non-deterministic; and (II) probabilistic planning, where the initial state may be partially or totally observable and the actions have probabilistic outcomes. In both approaches, the human help is considered a scarce resource that should be used only when necessary. In contingent planning, the problem is to find a policy (a function mapping belief states into actions) that: (i) guarantees the agent will always reach the goal (strong policy); (ii) guarantees that the agent will eventually reach the goal (strong cyclic policy), or (iii) does not guarantee achieving the goal (weak policy). In this scenario, we propose a contingent planning system that considers human help to transform weak policies into strong (cyclic) policies. To do so, two types of human help are included: (i) human actions that modify states and/or belief states; and (ii) human observations that modify belief states. In probabilistic planning, the problem is to find a policy (a function mapping between world states and actions) that can be one of these two types: a proper policy, where the agent has probability 1 of reaching the goal; or an improper policy, in the case of unavoidable dead-ends. In general, the goal of the agent is to find a policy that minimizes the expected accumulated cost of the actions while maximizes the probability of reaching the goal. In this scenario, this work proposes probabilistic planners that consider human help to transform improper policies into proper policies however, considering two new (alternative) criteria: either to minimize the probability of using human actions or to minimize the expected number of human actions. Furthermore, we show that optimal policies under these criteria can be efficiently computed either by increasing human action costs or given a penalty when a human help is used. Solutions proposed in both scenarios, contingent planning and probabilistic planning with human help, were evaluated over a collection of planning problems with dead-ends. The results show that: (i) all generated policies (strong (cyclic) or proper) include human help only when necessary; and (ii) we were able to find policies for contingent planning problems with up to 10^15000 belief states and for probabilistic planning problems with more than 3*10^18 physical states. / Planejamento é a subárea de Inteligência Artificial que estuda o processo de selecionar ações que levam um agente, por exemplo um robô, de um estado inicial a um estado meta. Em muitos cenários realistas, qualquer escolha de ações pode levar o robô para um estado que é um beco-sem-saída, isto é, um estado a partir do qual a meta não pode ser alcançada. Nestes casos, o robô pode, pró-ativamente, pedir ajuda humana para alcançar a meta, uma abordagem chamada autonomia simbiótica. Neste trabalho, propomos duas abordagens diferentes para tratar este problema: (I) planejamento contingente, em que o estado inicial é parcialmente observável, configurando um estado de crença, e existe não-determinismo nos resultados das ações; e (II) planejamento probabilístico, em que o estado inicial é totalmente observável e as ações tem efeitos probabilísticos. Em ambas abordagens a ajuda humana é considerada um recurso escasso e deve ser usada somente quando estritamente necessária. No planejamento contingente, o problema é encontrar uma política (mapeamento entre estados de crença e ações) com: (i) garantia de alcançar a meta (política forte); (ii) garantia de eventualmente alcançar a meta (política forte-cíclica), ou (iii) sem garantia de alcançar a meta (política fraca). Neste cenário, uma das contribuições deste trabalho é propor sistemas de planejamento contingente que considerem ajuda humana para transformar políticas fracas em políticas fortes (cíclicas). Para isso, incluímos ajuda humana de dois tipos: (i) ações que modificam estados do mundo e/ou estados de crença; e (ii) observações que modificam estados de crenças. Em planejamento probabilístico, o problema é encontrar uma política (mapeamento entre estados do mundo e ações) que pode ser de dois tipos: política própria, na qual o agente tem probabilidade 1 de alcançar a meta; ou política imprópria, caso exista um beco-sem-saída inevitável. O objetivo do agente é, em geral, encontrar uma política que minimize o custo esperado acumulado das ações enquanto maximize a probabilidade de alcançar a meta. Neste cenário, este trabalho propõe sistemas de planejamento probabilístico que considerem ajuda humana para transformar políticas impróprias em políticas próprias, porém considerando dois novos critérios: minimizar a probabilidade de usar ações do humano e minimizar o número esperado de ações do humano. Mostramos ainda que políticas ótimas sob esses novos critérios podem ser computadas de maneira eficiente considerando que ações humanas possuem um custo alto ou penalizando o agente ao pedir ajuda humana. Soluções propostas em ambos cenários, planejamento contingente e planejamento probabilístico com ajuda humana, foram empiricamente avaliadas sobre um conjunto de problemas de planejamento com becos-sem-saida. Os resultados mostram que: (i) todas as políticas geradas (fortes (cíclicas) ou próprias) incluem ajuda humana somente quando necessária; e (ii) foram encontradas políticas para problemas de planejamento contingente com até 10^15000 estados de crença e para problemas de planejamento probabilístico com até 3*10^18 estados do mundo.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the environmental factors that impact on childhood diarrhoea in children under five years old in Akakikality sub city Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Objectives of the study were to determine the prevalence of diarrhoea and to determine the environmental factors that impact on diarrhoea in children under five years old. A survey was done and a non-experimental approach was used in this descriptive and analytical quantitative study using a cross sectional study design. The instrument was a self-designed questionnaire. The target population for this study was all mothers or caretakers of children under five years found in the described study context – the sample size was 299. In this study 12.7% of the children had diarrhoea during the survey. Proper utilization of toilets, hand washing and safe storage of water in the households using narrow mouthed water containers were significant predictors of diarrhoea in the children. / Health Studies / M.A. (Public Health)

Le contrôle de vol en formation se rapporte au contrôle de la trajectoire de plusieurs véhicules pour accomplir une tâche commune. La motivation du contrôle du vol en formation réside dans le fait que l'utilisation de plusieurs drones permet de réaliser des tâches plus complexes et que ne peut accomplir un drone unique. Les stratégies de commande de flotte de véhicules peuvent être classées en trois groupes principaux : la stratégie de vol type meneur-suiveur, celle basée sur comportement et l'approche utilisant un meneur virtuel. Chaque groupe se compose de différents véhicules et on suppose que les véhicules communiquent entre eux pour échanger des informations. Le contrôle de position pour des quadrirotors sous-actionnés ou des UAV VTOL a retenu l'intérêt de plusieurs chercheurs de la communauté scientifique. En raison de la nature sous-actionnée des UAV VTOL, l'attitude du système doit être utilisée afin de commander la position et la vitesse. En effet, la prise en compte des perturbations externes, des incertitudes sur la dynamique du système ainsi que l'objectif d'obtenir des résultats globaux rendent la synthèse de lois de commande plus difficile. Nous proposons, dans ce travail, un algorithme permettant l'extraction de l'attitude et une nouvelle formulation de la poussée pour la commande d'un drone. Cet algorithme utilise cette formulation de la force de poussée pour atteindre les objectifs en translation et utilise le vecteur quaternion unitaire comme consigne du sous-système en rotation. Cet algorithme est ensuite étendu au cas de la commande de vol en formation. Cinq contrôleurs de vol en formation sont développés et séparés dans deux groupes : l'approche structure virtuelle et l'approche meneur-suiveur. Les trois premiers contrôleurs de vol en formation utilisent l'approche structure virtuelle. La vitesse, les perturbations et les incertitudes de modèle dans la dynamique sont estimées par le biais d'un observateur et la technique de commande "backstepping" adaptative. La synthèse des deux derniers contrôleurs de vol en formation de vol est obtenue en utilisant l'approche meneur-suiveur. La formation utilisant cette approche pour des quadrirotors et pour le système du second degré est construite. Le changement de la configuration de la formation de vol est également simulé pour ces deux derniers contrôleurs de vol en formation. Dans chacun des cinq contrôleurs de vol en formation, la fonction d'évitement de collision construite à partir d'une fonction indicielle "lisse" est incluse. Cette fonction produit une force de poussée quand un quadrirotor évolue près des autres et d'une force de traction quand un quadrirotor évolue hors de la zone de détection. Les résultats de simulation prouvent que cette fonction d'évitement de collision fonctionne tout à fait correctement et qu'aucune collision entre les quadrirotors ni avec les obstacles ne se produit. En résumé, l'utilisation de la poussée, de l'algorithme d'extraction d'attitude et de la fonction d'évitement de collision, rend la synthèse des lois de commande plus facile et les résultats obtenus pour le vol en formation sont globaux / Formation control relates with the motion control of multiple vehicles to accomplish a common task. The motivation of formation control is because of the advantages achieved by using a formation of vehicles instead of a single one. Cooperative control approach can be cataloged into three main groups: leader-follower, behavior-based and virtual structure. Each group consists of individual vehicles and the communication allows the information be exchanged among vehicles. Position control for under-actuated quadrotors or VTOL UAVs has been focused in several group in the research community. Due to the under-actuated nature of VTOL UAVs, the system attitude must be used in order to control the position and velocity of the system. Moreover, the effect of external disturbance, uncertainty of the dynamics and the requirement of achieving the global results make the control design process more difficult. Developing from a global controller for a single quadrotor, a new thrust and attitude extraction algorithm is proposed. This algorithm allows transferring an intermediate control force to a thrust force to achieve the translational objective and an unit quaternion vector as a reference for the rotational subsystem. This algorithm is also embedded in the formation controller. Five formation controllers are developed and separated into two groups, virtual structure and leader-follower approach. The first three formation controllers are constructed by using the virtual structure approach. The unmeasured linear velocity, disturbance and uncertainty in the dynamics are solved by employing observer design and adaptive backstepping control design technique. The last two formation controllers are built by using the leader-follower approach. The leader follower formation for quadrotors and for second order system are constructed. The changing of formation shape in working time also is simulated in these last two formation controllers. In all five formation controllers, collision avoidance function constructed from a smooth step function is embedded. This function generates a pushing force when a quadrotor goes close to the others and a pulling force when a quadrotor travels out of the sensing range. The simulation results show that this collision avoidance function works quite effectively and there is no collision among quadrotors and obstacles. It can be summarized that by using the thrust and attitude extraction algorithm and the collision avoidance function, the control design process becomes easier and all the formation controllers achieve the global results