Mapeamento robótico 2,5-D com representação em grade de ocupação-elevação

This work introduces a new method for environment mapping with three-dimensional information from visual information for robotic accurate navigation. Many approaches of 3D mapping using occupancy grid typically requires high computacional effort to both build and store the map. We introduce an 2.5-D occupancy-elevation grid mapping, which is a discrete mapping approach, where each cell stores the occupancy probability, the height of the terrain at current place in the environment and the variance of this height. This 2.5-dimensional representation allows that a mobile robot to know whether a place in the environment is occupied by an obstacle and the height of this obstacle, thus, it can decide if is possible to traverse the obstacle. Sensorial informations necessary to construct the map is provided by a stereo vision system, which has been modeled with a robust probabilistic approach, considering the noise present in the stereo processing. The resulting maps favors the execution of tasks like decision making in the autonomous navigation, exploration, localization and path planning. Experiments carried out with a real mobile robots demonstrates that this proposed approach yields useful maps for robot autonomous navigation

Efeitos dos esteroides anabólicos androgênicos sobre funções cognitivas de ratos

The use and the demand for substances that enhance masculinity, strength and sexual power are not novel. Over the years, this search has assisted the research directions in this area, leading to the discovery of the primary male sex hormone testosterone in 1935. Since then, numerous testosterone analogue compounds were synthesized, which are generically called Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS). The AAS were produced for therapeutic purposes, but an increase in the use of these compounds for other purposes occurred over time. Initially they were used mainly to improve performance in athletes. However, recent studies have shown that the use of AAS by non-athletes with aesthetical purposes have been increasing as well. The abuse of AAS with non-clinical purposes can promote a number of physiological alterations, such as heart, liver, respiratory and psychological problems such as changes in mood, levels of anxiety and aggression. Exposure to supraphysiological doses of AAS is associated with behavioral changes, however, little is known about the effects of AAS on cognitive functions. In this work, we aimed to mimic the AAS abuse in humans with intramuscular administration of a supraphysiological dose of testosterone propionate (TP) in rats. We investigated the effects of this treatment on different aspects of cognitive function, specifically learning, memory and anxiety. Adult male Wistar rats were tested in the spontaneous alternation, novel object recognition and plus-maze discriminative avoidance tasks. The control group received intramuscular injections of vegetable oil (vehicle), and the TP group received injections of TP (10 mg/kg, i.m.). The injections were administered for 40 days, with intervals of 48 hours (chronic treatment) or in a single injection (acute treatment). In addition to the behavioral assessments, we performed biochemical analyzes as indicators of the endocrine effects of the treatment. Our results show that chronic treatment with a supraphysiological dose of TP caused memory impairments in the novel object recognition and the discriminative avoidance tasks. The spatial working memory (evaluated by spontaneous alternation task) was not affected. Also, we did not observe changes in anxiety levels. Regarding the biochemical parameters, chronic treatment increased serum levels of glutamicpyruvic transaminase, an indicator of hepatic and pancreatic lesions (as those observed after chronic use of these substances in humans). On the other hand, acute treatment with PT did not promote significant changes in any of these parameters when compared to the control group. In summary, we conclude that chronic treatment with a supraphysiological dose of testosterone propionate produces memory deficits in novel object recognition and retrieval of the discriminative avoidance task in adult male rats

Localização e mapeamento simultâneos de ambientes planos usando visão monocular e representação híbrida do ambiente

The goal of this work is to propose a SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) solution based on Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) in order to make possible a robot navigates along the environment using information from odometry and pre-existing lines on the floor. Initially, a segmentation step is necessary to classify parts of the image in floor or non floor . Then the image processing identifies floor lines and the parameters of these lines are mapped to world using a homography matrix. Finally, the identified lines are used in SLAM as landmarks in order to build a feature map. In parallel, using the corrected robot pose, the uncertainty about the pose and also the part non floor of the image, it is possible to build an occupancy grid map and generate a metric map with the obstacle s description. A greater autonomy for the robot is attained by using the two types of obtained map (the metric map and the features map). Thus, it is possible to run path planning tasks in parallel with localization and mapping. Practical results are presented to validate the proposal

Localização e planejamento de caminhos para um robô humanóide e um robô escravo com rodas

This work presents the localization and path planning systems for two robots: a non-instrumented humanoid and a slave wheeled robot. The localization of wheeled robot is made using odometry information and landmark detection. These informations are fused using a Extended Kalman Filter. The relative position of humanoid is acquired fusing (using another Kalman Filter) the wheeled robot pose with the characteristics of the landmark on the back of humanoid. Knowing the wheeled robot position and the humanoid relative position in relation to it, we acquired the absolute position of humanoid. The path planning system was developed to provide the cooperative movement of the two robots,incorporating the visibility restrictions of the robotic system

Sistema de navegação para robôs móveis autônomos

The main task and one of the major mobile robotics problems is its navigation process. Conceptualy, this process means drive the robot from an initial position and orientation to a goal position and orientation, along an admissible path respecting the temporal and velocity constraints. This task must be accomplished by some subtasks like robot localization in the workspace, admissible path planning, trajectory generation and motion control. Moreover, autonomous wheeled mobile robots have kinematics constraints, also called nonholonomic constraints, that impose the robot can not move everywhere freely in its workspace, reducing the number of feasible paths between two distinct positions. This work mainly approaches the path planning and trajectory generation problems applied to wheeled mobile robots acting on a robot soccer environment. The major dificulty in this process is to find a smooth function that respects the imposed robot kinematic constraints. This work proposes a path generation strategy based on parametric polynomials of third degree for the 'x' and 'y' axis. The 'theta' orientation is derived from the 'y' and 'x' relations in such a way that the generated path respects the kinematic constraint. To execute the trajectory, this work also shows a simple control strategy acting on the robot linear and angular velocities

Construção de um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem para aplicação do processo de enfermagem baseado na Nanda International, NOC, NIC e CIPE®

This study aimed to build a virtual learning environment for application of the nursing process based on the NANDA-I, NOC, NIC and ICNP® . Faced with problems related to learning of the nursing process and classifications, there is an urgent need to develop innovative teaching resources that modify the relationship between students and teachers. The methodology was based on the steps inception, development, construction and transition, and the software development process Rational Process Unifield. The team involved in the development of this environment was composed by researchers and students of The Care and Epidemiological Practice in Health and Nursing and Group of the Software Engineering curse of the Federal University Rio Grande do Norte, with the participation of the Lisbon and Porto Schools of Nursing, in Portugal. In the inception stage the inter research communication was in order to define the functions, features and tools for the construction process. In the preparation, step the planning and modeling occurred, which resulted in the creation of a diagram and a architectural drawings that specify the features and functionality of the software. The development, unit testing and integrated in interfaces of the modules and areas (administrator, teacher, student, and construction of the NP). Then the transition step was performed, which showed complete and functioning system, as well as the training and use by researchers with its use in practice. In conclusion, this study allowed for the planning and the construction of an educational technology, and it is expected that its implementation will trigger a substantial change in the learning of the nursing process and classifications, with the student being active agent of the learning process. Later, an assessment will be made of functional performance, which will enable the software development, with a feedback, correction of defects and necessary changes. It is believed that the software increment after the reviews, this tool grow further and help insert this methodology and every language under the educational and health institutions, promoting paradigmatic desired change by nursing.

A confiança interorganizacional nas compras

This research is part of the field of organizational studies, focusing on organizational purchase behavior and, specifically, trust interorganizational at the purchases. This topic is current and relevant by addressing the development of good relations between buyer-supplier that increases the exchange of information, increases the length of relationship, reduces the hierarchical controls and improves performance. Furthermore, although there is a vast literature on trust, the scientific work that deal specifically at the trust interorganizational still need further research to synthesize and validate the variables that generate this phenomenon. In this sense, this investigation is to explain the antecedents of trust interorganizational by the relationship between the variable operational performance, organizational characteristics, shared values and interpersonal relationships on purchases by manufacturing industries, in order to develop a robust literature, most consensual, that includes the current sociological and economic, considering the effect of interpersonal relationships in this phenomenon. This proposal is configured in a new vision of the antecedents of interorganizational trust, described as significant quantitative from models Morgan and Hunt (1994), Doney and Cannon (1997), Zhao and Cavusgil (2006) and Nyaga, Whipple, Lynch (2011), as well as qualitative analysis of Tacconi et al. (2011). With regard to methodological aspects, the study assumes the form of a descriptive, survey type, and causal trace theoretical and empirical. As for his nature, the investigation, explicative character, has developed a quantitative approach with the use of exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling SEM, with the use of IBM software SPSS Amos 18.0, using the method of maximum verisimilitude, and supported by technical bootstraping. The unit of analysis was the buyer-supplier relationship, in which the object under investigation was the supplier organization in view of the purchasing company. 237 valid questionnaires were collected among key informants, using a simple random sampling developed in manufacturing industries (SIC 10-33), located in the city of Natal and in the region of Natal. The first results of descriptive analysis demonstrate the phenomenon of interorganizational trust, in which purchasing firms believe, feel secure about the supplier. This demonstration showed high levels of intensity, predominantly among the vendors that supply the company with materials that are used directly in the production process. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, performed on each variable alone, generated a set of observable and unobservable variables more consistent, giving rise to a model, that needed to be further specified. This again specify model consists of trajectories was positive, with a good fit, with a composite reliability and variance extracted satisfactory, and demonstrates convergent and discriminant validity, in which the factor loadings are significant and strong explanatory power. Given the findings that reinforce the model again specify data, suggesting a high probability that this model may be more suited for the study population, the results support the explanation that interorganizational trust depends on purchases directly from interpersonal relationships, sharing value and operating performance and indirectly of personal relationships, social networks, organizational characteristics, physical and relational aspect of performance. It is concluded that this trust can be explained by a set of interactions between these three determinants, where the focus is on interpersonal relationships, with the largest path coefficient for the factor under study

Centros históricos e desenvolvimento urbano: um estudo comparativo entre os programas Monumenta no Brasil e Polis em Portugal

Both the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century have been characterized as a period of major political, economic, social and cultural transformations. Two of the major consequences of the political-economical crisis of the end of last century are the restructuring of capitalist production, and the consolidation of neoliberalism as a worldwide phenomenon. This new world political-economical scenario has influenced, in a dialectic way, the contemporary urban development. In that sense, "new" spatial processes and new paradigms in both urban management and urban planning have gained shape. In this context of urban transformations, the central areas of western cities, also known as historic centers, are being increasingly (re)valued. Since the Second World War, the historic centers urban areas which have great infrastructure and symbolic relevance had been undergoing a process of evasion of population and activities, undeniably linked to the neglect of government authorities. However, in recent decades, the question of historic centers rehabilitation has acquired a growing interest, academically and in political agendas. The object of this dissertation is to focus on how the government of each Brazil and Portugal has dealt with the issue of historic center rehabilitation through programs of urban rehabilitation

Sair curado para a vida e para o bem: diagramas, linhas e dispersão de forças no complexus nosoespacial do Hospital de Caridade Juvino Barreto (1909-1927)

This work has as object of study the Hospital de Caridade Juvino Barreto, nosocomial institution located in the city of Natal (RN), between the Praia de Areia Preta and the Monte Petrópolis, focusing on the period from 1909, the year in which the new hospital building was constructed and opened, and 1927, the date of the transfer of administration of the public domain to the newly created Sociedade de Assistência Hospitalar (SAH). We study the conditions of possibility of the emergence of this hospital space in the urban environment of the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, seeking to understand the different tactics and strategies implemented by the historical subjects involved in the formation of this institution nosocomial. Starting from a corpus of documents consisting of medical memories (with Dr. Januário Cicco as privileged observer), information present in newspapers (the Republic and the Christmas Journa l), photo collection and extensive administrative and legal material (Speeches, Exhibitions, Reports, Laws and Resolutions), we analyzed in detail the medical geography of HCJB, relating the discourses of medicine and geography in choosing the spatial location of the hospital as we examine the architecture of the hospital, its inner spat iality, divisions, forms of space control, and, finally, we discuss the medical practices that took place within it, leading us in this regard, from the experiences of clinical hospital chief, Dr. Januário Cicco, especially the discussion on "ethics" in hospital work. The perception of HCJB as medical nosoespaciality always on the move, incorporated under taxonomic principles based on difference and dispersion forces, led us to articulate it theoretically from the conceptual-methodological arsenal of philosopher Michel Foucault, particularly his reflections of genealogical phase, focusing on the phenomenon of power, a position that allows us to enhance our space-hospital construction, invention, product of power relations, which give the unfinished aspect nosocômio, apparent, always at stake, perpetual non-modeling possibility has previously defined array, establishing it at the field of possible, of virtuality, of power: hospital that could have been and that it was not. Indeed, the investigation of various aspects/elements of hospital space Juvino Barreto revealed us new dimensions of hospital space, far more complex than the simple and the current idea of a place to shelter patients: plasticity and fluidity of space, which is not made to circumscribe the limits of empeiria, engraving up to strength relations fought between different subject; its Constitution as a transitional space, Heterotopic, doing live inside modern elements with premoderns (professional doctors working with religious thought, skeptical of positivist medicine living with the religious faith of the nuns of Santana); the impossibility of thinking hospital space of HCJB while homogeneous unit, static, transistoric, making the spatiality, without considering the profound differences, fractures and dislocations that animated his own existence, multiplying their expressions of identity

Turismo, capital social e produção do espaço: uma leitura a partir do município de Natal/RN no período de 1980 a 2012

Nowadays, there is a tourism phase in the city of Natal/RN called internationalization of tourism , which shows a tourism model with a planning and an administration, based on the needs of the visitors. Such process shows that the production as well as the reproduction of the city spaces with the goal of favor tourism excludes of its composition the effective participation of local subjects. Thus, the research is a result of the perception of tourism as an activity with a meaningful power of transformation of the social and natural space taking into account the low participation of the residents in the decisions of the tourism activities in the city of Natal/RN. Despite that reality, it is possible to note Natal that civil society, starts to mobilize its citizens trying to develop collective actions to low the negative impacts caused by the bad planning as wells not efficient tourism administration, trying to put in action the right of the local population to take part in the decisions of the city activities. Having this panorama as background, this paper aims at investigating in which way the mobilizing action of the social capital in Natal has contributed to change the spatial production which is part of the process of expansion of tourism in Natal/RN? The research presents a temporal picture which starts in the year of 1980, when occurs the first effective state intervention aiming to develop tourism in the capital, taking into account an analysis of 2012. Concerning the spatial picture, the research investigates the beaches of Natal which concentrates criteria and actions such as: visitation, tourism appeal and focus of investments, highlighting the following beaches: Ponta Negra, Areia Preta, Praia dos Artistas, Praia do Meio, Praia do Forte and Redinha. This study is of a descriptive and exploratory nature concerning its goals. With respect to the treatment of its object it is a qualitative research. The data was collected through structural interviews, with open questions. Regarding the methodological choices, it was used the content analysis proposed as well as the collective discursive subject methodology. The results show that there´s not yet in Natal a meaningful social capital related to tourism, capable to change the spatial production related to the activity. It should be stressed that Natal social capital presents difficulties concerning the incentive to trust, spontaneous cooperation and the civic participation, which are the foundation for the development of an effective social capital, which makes it harder for a more expressive articulation in the reality in Natal/RN. It should be stressed, as an answer to the research questions, that tourism in Natal/RN is represented by social and spatial segregation. In other words it emphasizes mainly the action of hegemonic agents (State and market), leaving little room for the participation of society. It can be noticed that the actions related to tourism in Natal keeps the popular participation out of the way. Thus, it can be said that the social capital in Natal/RN does not yet contribute to a more fair spatial production related to the expansion of the tourism as well as the well being of the population of Natal/RN. In conclusion, it should be taken into account that this participation do exists but not in a meaningful way. In other words, it´s not enough yet to cause meaningful changes in the actions which tourism needs nowadays in Natal/RN