Utilização da modelagem sistêmica para analisar o efeito da variação climática no parâmetro produtividade da água na laranja Natal (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck) no Estado de São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Irrigação e Drenagem) - FCA

Elementos estruturais de um modelo formal dos esportes coletivos de invasão

O desenvolvimento de um modelo formal da estratégia e da dinâmica do jogo constitui uma contribuição científica original no contexto dos esportes coletivos de invasão. O procedimento construtivo de uma estratégia definido no modelo é composto de cinco conjuntos de elementos ordenados em níveis hierárquicos, que suportam o desenho de estratégias capazes de orientar adequadamente uma equipe em um jogo. Uma vez definido o modelo da estratégia, a formalização da dinâmica do jogo permite sua contextualização no momento de sua aplicação para orientar os jogadores no confronto. O jogo teve sua estrutura decomposta e suas propriedades dinâmicas fundamentais foram definidas. Dessa forma, a modelagem da dinâmica da oposição e da estratégia se complementam, pois definem os momentos nos quais a informação estratégica é utilizada pelos jogadores. A estrutura formal apresentada inaugura uma linha de pesquisa que poderá contribuir para limitar a subjetividade na definição dos critérios de análise de futuros desenhos experimentais, levando à interpretações e comparações mais acuradas dos resultados dos estudos.

JavaFMI una librería Java para el estándar Functional Mockup Interface

[ES] El estándar Functional Mockup Interface (FMI), es un estándar abierto e independiente de cualquier aplicación o herramienta que permite compartir modelos de sistemas dinámicos entre aplicaciones. Provee una interfaz escrita en lenguaje C que ha de ser implementada por las distintas herramientas exportadoras y pone en común un conjunto de funciones para manipular los modelos.
JavaFMI es una herramienta que permite utilizar simulaciones que cumplen con el estándar FMI en aplicaciones Java de una manera muy simple, limpia y eficiente. Es un proyecto open source con licencia LGPL V2.1H y su código fuente se encuentra disponible para ser clonado en la pagina del proyecto. El proyecto se encuentra alojado en www.bitbucket.org/siani/javafmi y cuenta con una página de bienvenida donde se explica como se usa la librería, una página para reportar incidencias o solicitar que se implementen nuevas historias y una página donde se listan todas las versiones que hay disponibles para descargar. JavaFMI se distribuye como un fichero zip que contiene el .jar con el código compilado de la librería una carpeta lib con las dos dependencias que tiene con librerías externas y una copia de la licencia. Comparada con JFMI, con menos lineas de código, una API limpia, expresiva y auto documentada, y un rendimiento que es un 66 % mejor, JavaFMI es objetivamente la mejor herramienta Java que existe para manipular FMUs de la versión 1.0 y 2.0 del estándar FMI.

Model and control of tendon actuated robots

The use of tendons for the transmission of the forces and the movements in robotic devices has been investigated from several researchers all over the world. The interest in this kind of actuation modality is based on the possibility of optimizing the position of the actuators with respect to the moving part of the robot, in the reduced weight, high reliability, simplicity in the mechanic design and, finally, in the reduced cost of the resulting kinematic chain. After a brief discussion about the benefits that the use of tendons can introduce in the motion control of a robotic device, the design and control aspects of the UB Hand 3 anthropomorphic robotic hand are presented. In particular, the tendon-sheaths transmission system adopted in the UB Hand 3 is analyzed and the problem of force control and friction compensation is taken into account. The implementation of a tendon based antagonistic actuated robotic arm is then investigated. With this kind of actuation modality, and by using transmission elements with nonlinear force/compression characteristic, it is possible to achieve simultaneous stiffness and position control, improving in this way the safety of the device during the operation in unknown environments and in the case of interaction with other robots or with humans. The problem of modeling and control of this type of robotic devices is then considered and the stability analysis of proposed controller is reported. At the end, some tools for the realtime simulation of dynamic systems are presented. This realtime simulation environment has been developed with the aim of improving the reliability of the realtime control applications both for rapid prototyping of controllers and as teaching tools for the automatic control courses.

Arquitectura para la interoperabilidad de unidades de simulación basadas en FMU

[ES] El estándar Functional Mockup Interface (FMI), es un estándar abierto e independiente de cualquier aplicación o herramienta que permite compartir modelos de sistemas dinámicos entre aplicaciones. En FMI, se define una interfaz común (API) que permite la distribución e interoperabilidad de simulaciones. Así, una simulación puede transformarse en un formato ejecutable para su distribución con una interfaz pública conocida. En este estándar, una simulación se empaqueta en un formato de fichero llamado Functional Mock-up Unit (FMU). La ejecución de una simulación compleja en la que intervienen muchas FMUs es una necesidad que puede ser inviable de realizar en un sólo ordenador por la cantidad de recursos que consume.

Aspekte der Modellbildung: Konzepte und Anwendung in der Atmungsphysiologie

Im ersten Teil 'Analyse der Grundlagen' der Dissertation 'Aspekte der Modellbildung: Konzepte und Anwendung in der Atmungsphysiologie' werden die Grundlagen zur Verfügung gestellt. Ausgehend von der Definition der modularer dynamischer Systeme im Kapitel 1 werden Grundbegriffe zu Modellen, Simulation und Modellentwicklung (Kapitel 2) dargelegt und schließlich folgt ein Kapitel über Netzmodelle. Im zweiten Teil wird 'der Prozess der Operationalisierung' untersucht. Im Kapitel 4 wird mit 'dem Koordinatensystem der Modellbildung' ein allgemeiner Lebenszyklus zur Modellbildung vorgestellt. Das Kapitel 5 zur 'Modellentwicklung' steht im Zentrum der Arbeit, wo eine generische Struktur für modulare Level-Raten-Modelle entwickelt wird. Das Kapitel endet mit einem Konzept zur Kalibrierung von Modellen, das auf Data Mining von Modelldaten basiert. Der Prozess der Operationalisierung endet mit der Validierung im sechsten Kapitel. 'Die Validierung am Beispiel der Atmungsphysiologie' im dritten Teil stellt die Anwendung der in beiden Teilen zuvor entwickelten Theorie dar. Zunächst wird das Projekt 'Evita-Weaning-System' vorgestellt, in dem die Arbeit entstanden ist. Ferner werden die notwendigen medizinischen Grundlagen der Atmungsphysiologie analysiert (Kapitel 7). Eine detaillierte Beschreibung des Modells der Atmungsphysiologie und der dabei entwickelten Algorithmen folgt im achten Kapitel. Die Arbeit schließt mit einem Kapitel zur Validierung des physiologischen Modells.

Mensch, Natur-Interaktionen im Oberen Mittelrheintal - Komplexitätstheoretische Ansätze am Beispiel des Weinbaus

Kulturlandschaften als Ausdruck einer über viele Jahrhunderte währenden intensiven Interaktion zwischen Menschen und der sie umgebenden natürlichen Umwelt, sind ein traditionelles Forschungsobjekt der Geographie. Mensch/Natur-Interaktionen führen zu Veränderungen der natürlichen Umwelt, indem Menschen Landschaften kultivieren und modifizieren. Die Mensch/Natur-Interaktionen im Weinbau sind intensiv rückgekoppelt, Veränderungen der natürlichen Umwelt wirken auf die in den Kulturlandschaften lebenden und wirtschaftenden Winzer zurück und beeinflussen deren weiteres Handeln, was wiederum Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der gesamten Weinbau-Kulturlandschaft hat. Kulturlandschaft wird aus diesem Grund als ein heterogenes Wirkungsgefüge sozialer und natürlicher Elemente konzeptionalisiert, an dessen Entwicklung soziale und natürliche Elemente gleichzeitig und wechselseitig beteiligt sind. Grundlegend für die vorliegende Arbeit ist die Überzeugung, dass sich Kulturlandschaften durch Mensch/Natur-Interaktionen permanent neu organisieren und nie in einen Gleichgewichtszustand geraten, sondern sich ständig weiterentwickeln und wandeln. Die Komplexitätstheorie bietet hierfür die geeignete theoretische Grundlage. Sie richtet ihren Fokus auf die Entwicklung und den Wandel von Systemen und sucht dabei nach den Funktionsweisen von Systemzusammenhängen, um ein Verständnis für das Gesamtsystemverhalten von nicht-linearen dynamischen Systemen zu erreichen. Auf der Grundlage der Komplexitätstheorie wird ein Untersuchungsschema entwickelt, dass es ermöglich, die sozio-ökonomischen und raum-strukturellen Veränderungsprozesse in der Kulturlandschaftsentwicklung als sich wechselseitig beeinflussenden Systemzusammenhang zu erfassen. Die Rekonstruktion von Entwicklungsphasen, die Analysen von raum-strukturellen Mustern und Akteurskonstellationen sowie die Identifikation von Bifurkationspunkten in der Systemgeschichte sind dabei von übergeordneter Bedeutung. Durch die Untersuchung sowohl der physisch-räumlichen als auch der sozio-ökonomischen Dimension der Kulturlandschaftsentwicklung im Weinbau des Oberen Mittelrheintals soll ein Beitrag für die geographische Erforschung von Mensch/Natur-Interaktionen im Schnittstellenbereich von Physischer Geographie und Humangeographie geleistet werden. Die Anwendung des Untersuchungsschemas erfolgt auf den Weinbau im Oberen Mittelrheintal. Das Anbaugebiet ist seit vielen Jahrzehnten einem starken Rückgang an Weinbaubetrieben und Rebfläche unterworfen. Die rückläufigen Entwicklungen seit 1950 verliefen dabei nicht linear, sondern differenzierten das System in unterschiedliche Entwicklungspfade aus. Die Betriebsstrukturen und die Rahmenbedingungen im Weinbau veränderten sich grundlegend, was sichtbare Spuren in der Kulturlandschaft hinterließ. Dies zu rekonstruieren, zu analysieren und die zu verschiedenen Phasen der Entwicklung bedeutenden externen und internen Einflussfaktoren zu identifizieren, soll dazu beitragen, ein tief greifendes Verständnis für das selbstorganisierte Systemverhalten zu generieren und darauf basierende Handlungsoptionen für zukünftige Eingriffe in die Systementwicklung aufzuzeigen

Extended kalman filter for estimation of parameters in nonlinear state-space models of biochemical networks.

It is system dynamics that determines the function of cells, tissues and organisms. To develop mathematical models and estimate their parameters are an essential issue for studying dynamic behaviors of biological systems which include metabolic networks, genetic regulatory networks and signal transduction pathways, under perturbation of external stimuli. In general, biological dynamic systems are partially observed. Therefore, a natural way to model dynamic biological systems is to employ nonlinear state-space equations. Although statistical methods for parameter estimation of linear models in biological dynamic systems have been developed intensively in the recent years, the estimation of both states and parameters of nonlinear dynamic systems remains a challenging task. In this report, we apply extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to the estimation of both states and parameters of nonlinear state-space models. To evaluate the performance of the EKF for parameter estimation, we apply the EKF to a simulation dataset and two real datasets: JAK-STAT signal transduction pathway and Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK signaling transduction pathways datasets. The preliminary results show that EKF can accurately estimate the parameters and predict states in nonlinear state-space equations for modeling dynamic biochemical networks.

Adaptive Algorithms for Personalized Diabetes Treatment

Dynamic systems, especially in real-life applications, are often determined by inter-/intra-variability, uncertainties and time-varying components. Physiological systems are probably the most representative example in which population variability, vital signal measurement noise and uncertain dynamics render their explicit representation and optimization a rather difficult task. Systems characterized by such challenges often require the use of adaptive algorithmic solutions able to perform an iterative structural and/or parametrical update process towards optimized behavior. Adaptive optimization presents the advantages of (i) individualization through learning of basic system characteristics, (ii) ability to follow time-varying dynamics and (iii) low computational cost. In this chapter, the use of online adaptive algorithms is investigated in two basic research areas related to diabetes management: (i) real-time glucose regulation and (ii) real-time prediction of hypo-/hyperglycemia. The applicability of these methods is illustrated through the design and development of an adaptive glucose control algorithm based on reinforcement learning and optimal control and an adaptive, personalized early-warning system for the recognition and alarm generation against hypo- and hyperglycemic events.

Modeling corrective experiences as motivational mountain pass

Aim: The landscape metaphor allows viewing corrective experiences (CE) as pathway to a state with relatively lower 'tension' (local minimum). However, such local minima are not easily accessible but obstructed by states with relatively high tension (local maxima) according to the landscape metaphor (Caspar & Berger, 2012). For example, an individual with spider phobia has to transiently tolerate high levels of tension during an exposure therapy to access the local minimum of habituation. To allow for more specific therapeutic guidelines and empirically testable hypotheses, we advance the landscape metaphor to a scientific model which bases on motivational processes. Specifically, we conceptualize CEs as available but unusual trajectories (=pathways) through a motivational space. The dimensions of the motivational state are set up by basic motives such as need for agency or attachment. Methods: Dynamic system theory is used to model motivational states and trajectories using mathematical equations. Fortunately, these equations have easy-to-comprehend and intuitive visual representations similar to the landscape metaphor. Thus, trajectories that represent CEs are informative and action guiding for both therapists and patients without knowledge on dynamic systems. However, the mathematical underpinnings of the model allow researchers to deduct hypotheses for empirical testing. Results: First, the results of simulations of CEs during exposure therapy in anxiety disorders are presented and compared to empirical findings. Second, hypothetical CEs in an autonomy-attachment conflict are reported from a simulation study. Discussion: Preliminary clinical implications for the evocation of CEs are drawn after a critical discussion of the proposed model.

Modeling Techniques for the High-Resolution Interpretation of Cryo-Electron Microscopy Reconstructions

Essential biological processes are governed by organized, dynamic interactions between multiple biomolecular systems. Complexes are thus formed to enable the biological function and get dissembled as the process is completed. Examples of such processes include the translation of the messenger RNA into protein by the ribosome, the folding of proteins by chaperonins or the entry of viruses in host cells. Understanding these fundamental processes by characterizing the molecular mechanisms that enable then, would allow the (better) design of therapies and drugs. Such molecular mechanisms may be revealed trough the structural elucidation of the biomolecular assemblies at the core of these processes. Various experimental techniques may be applied to investigate the molecular architecture of biomolecular assemblies. High-resolution techniques, such as X-ray crystallography, may solve the atomic structure of the system, but are typically constrained to biomolecules of reduced flexibility and dimensions. In particular, X-ray crystallography requires the sample to form a three dimensional (3D) crystal lattice which is technically di‑cult, if not impossible, to obtain, especially for large, dynamic systems. Often these techniques solve the structure of the different constituent components within the assembly, but encounter difficulties when investigating the entire system. On the other hand, imaging techniques, such as cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), are able to depict large systems in near-native environment, without requiring the formation of crystals. The structures solved by cryo-EM cover a wide range of resolutions, from very low level of detail where only the overall shape of the system is visible, to high-resolution that approach, but not yet reach, atomic level of detail. In this dissertation, several modeling methods are introduced to either integrate cryo-EM datasets with structural data from X-ray crystallography, or to directly interpret the cryo-EM reconstruction. Such computational techniques were developed with the goal of creating an atomic model for the cryo-EM data. The low-resolution reconstructions lack the level of detail to permit a direct atomic interpretation, i.e. one cannot reliably locate the atoms or amino-acid residues within the structure obtained by cryo-EM. Thereby one needs to consider additional information, for example, structural data from other sources such as X-ray crystallography, in order to enable such a high-resolution interpretation. Modeling techniques are thus developed to integrate the structural data from the different biophysical sources, examples including the work described in the manuscript I and II of this dissertation. At intermediate and high-resolution, cryo-EM reconstructions depict consistent 3D folds such as tubular features which in general correspond to alpha-helices. Such features can be annotated and later on used to build the atomic model of the system, see manuscript III as alternative. Three manuscripts are presented as part of the PhD dissertation, each introducing a computational technique that facilitates the interpretation of cryo-EM reconstructions. The first manuscript is an application paper that describes a heuristics to generate the atomic model for the protein envelope of the Rift Valley fever virus. The second manuscript introduces the evolutionary tabu search strategies to enable the integration of multiple component atomic structures with the cryo-EM map of their assembly. Finally, the third manuscript develops further the latter technique and apply it to annotate consistent 3D patterns in intermediate-resolution cryo-EM reconstructions. The first manuscript, titled An assembly model for Rift Valley fever virus, was submitted for publication in the Journal of Molecular Biology. The cryo-EM structure of the Rift Valley fever virus was previously solved at 27Å-resolution by Dr. Freiberg and collaborators. Such reconstruction shows the overall shape of the virus envelope, yet the reduced level of detail prevents the direct atomic interpretation. High-resolution structures are not yet available for the entire virus nor for the two different component glycoproteins that form its envelope. However, homology models may be generated for these glycoproteins based on similar structures that are available at atomic resolutions. The manuscript presents the steps required to identify an atomic model of the entire virus envelope, based on the low-resolution cryo-EM map of the envelope and the homology models of the two glycoproteins. Starting with the results of the exhaustive search to place the two glycoproteins, the model is built iterative by running multiple multi-body refinements to hierarchically generate models for the different regions of the envelope. The generated atomic model is supported by prior knowledge regarding virus biology and contains valuable information about the molecular architecture of the system. It provides the basis for further investigations seeking to reveal different processes in which the virus is involved such as assembly or fusion. The second manuscript was recently published in the of Journal of Structural Biology (doi:10.1016/j.jsb.2009.12.028) under the title Evolutionary tabu search strategies for the simultaneous registration of multiple atomic structures in cryo-EM reconstructions. This manuscript introduces the evolutionary tabu search strategies applied to enable a multi-body registration. This technique is a hybrid approach that combines a genetic algorithm with a tabu search strategy to promote the proper exploration of the high-dimensional search space. Similar to the Rift Valley fever virus, it is common that the structure of a large multi-component assembly is available at low-resolution from cryo-EM, while high-resolution structures are solved for the different components but lack for the entire system. Evolutionary tabu search strategies enable the building of an atomic model for the entire system by considering simultaneously the different components. Such registration indirectly introduces spatial constrains as all components need to be placed within the assembly, enabling the proper docked in the low-resolution map of the entire assembly. Along with the method description, the manuscript covers the validation, presenting the benefit of the technique in both synthetic and experimental test cases. Such approach successfully docked multiple components up to resolutions of 40Å. The third manuscript is entitled Evolutionary Bidirectional Expansion for the Annotation of Alpha Helices in Electron Cryo-Microscopy Reconstructions and was submitted for publication in the Journal of Structural Biology. The modeling approach described in this manuscript applies the evolutionary tabu search strategies in combination with the bidirectional expansion to annotate secondary structure elements in intermediate resolution cryo-EM reconstructions. In particular, secondary structure elements such as alpha helices show consistent patterns in cryo-EM data, and are visible as rod-like patterns of high density. The evolutionary tabu search strategy is applied to identify the placement of the different alpha helices, while the bidirectional expansion characterizes their length and curvature. The manuscript presents the validation of the approach at resolutions ranging between 6 and 14Å, a level of detail where alpha helices are visible. Up to resolution of 12 Å, the method measures sensitivities between 70-100% as estimated in experimental test cases, i.e. 70-100% of the alpha-helices were correctly predicted in an automatic manner in the experimental data. The three manuscripts presented in this PhD dissertation cover different computation methods for the integration and interpretation of cryo-EM reconstructions. The methods were developed in the molecular modeling software Sculptor (http://sculptor.biomachina.org) and are available for the scientific community interested in the multi-resolution modeling of cryo-EM data. The work spans a wide range of resolution covering multi-body refinement and registration at low-resolution along with annotation of consistent patterns at high-resolution. Such methods are essential for the modeling of cryo-EM data, and may be applied in other fields where similar spatial problems are encountered, such as medical imaging.

Combining Text and Graphics for Interactive Exploration of Behavior Datasets

Modern sensor technologies and simulators applied to large and complex dynamic systems (such as road traffic networks, sets of river channels, etc.) produce large amounts of behavior data that are difficult for users to interpret and analyze. Software tools that generate presentations combining text and graphics can help users understand this data. In this paper we describe the results of our research on automatic multimedia presentation generation (including text, graphics, maps, images, etc.) for interactive exploration of behavior datasets. We designed a novel user interface that combines automatically generated text and graphical resources. We describe the general knowledge-based design of our presentation generation tool. We also present applications that we developed to validate the method, and a comparison with related work.

Elaboración de un nuevo modelo económico para la contribución al desarrollo sostenible de países del África subsahariana: implementación en Guinea Bissau

El escaso crecimiento de los países del África subsahariana, lleva a la necesidad de plantear un tipo de modelo económico que se adapte a sus especiales características y que en definitiva, conduzca a las sociedades que viven en estos países a un aumento de su calidad de vida, mediante mejoras en todos los campos sociales tales como: la enseñanza, la salud y la nutrición, que puedan ayudar a transformar las perspectivas del crecimiento económico, especialmente en los países objeto de estudio, que se caracterizan por presentar bajos ingresos y escaso desarrollo humano. Se puede concluir, por tanto, diciendo que en definitiva, el fin es el desarrollo humano y que el crecimiento económico es un medio. El propósito del crecimiento económico debe ser enriquecer la vida de la gente. Los adelantos a corto plazo en materia de desarrollo humano son posibles, merced a un mayor crecimiento económico que a su vez no debe desligarse del respeto por el medioambiente y el entorno. Para conseguir estos objetivos, se plantea en la presente tesis un modelo económico, elaborado siguiendo las directrices de la Dinámica de Sistemas, mediante el uso del programa informático VENSIM. El modelo planteado se basa en la producción de energía eléctrica, que sería capaz de abastecer a una población y generar unos excedentes que podrían ser vendidos y las ganancias reinvertidas para impulsar el crecimiento económico de la población a la que abastece. ABSTRACT Low growth in sub-Saharan Africa, leading to the need to establish a type of economic model that suits their special characteristics and ultimately lead to societies that live in these countries to increase human capacity through improvements in all social fields such as education, health and nutrition that can help transform the prospects for economic growth, especially in the countries under study, which are characterized by low income and low human development. It can be concluded, therefore, saying that ultimately, the end is human development and economic growth is a means. The purpose of economic growth should be to enrich the lives of people. The short-term advances in human development are possible, thanks to higher economic growth which in turn should not be separated from respect for the environment and intone. To achieve these objectives, we propose in this thesis an economic model, developed under the guidance of dynamic systems, using the computer program VENSIM. The proposed model is based on the production of electricity, which would be able to supply a population and generate a surplus that could be sold and the proceeds reinvested to boost economic growth in the population it serves.

Cifrado de imágenes digitales basado en teoría del caos: mapas logísticos

Las nuevas tendencias de compartir archivos multimedia a través de redes abiertas, demanda el uso de mejores técnicas de encriptación que garanticen la integridad, disponibilidad y confidencialidad, manteniendo y/o mejorando la eficiencia del proceso de cifrado sobre estos archivos. Hoy en día es frecuente la transferencia de imágenes a través de medios tecnológicos, siendo necesario la actualización de las técnicas de encriptación existentes y mejor aún, la búsqueda de nuevas alternativas. Actualmente los algoritmos criptográficos clásicos son altamente conocidos en medio de la sociedad informática lo que provoca mayor vulnerabilidad, sin contar los altos tiempos de procesamiento al momento de ser utilizados, elevando la probabilidad de ser descifrados y minimizando la disponibilidad inmediata de los recursos. Para disminuir estas probabilidades, el uso de la teoría de caos surge como una buena opción para ser aplicada en un algoritmo que tome partida del comportamiento caótico de los sistemas dinámicos, y aproveche las propiedades de los mapas logísticos para elevar el nivel de robustez en el cifrado. Es por eso que este trabajo propone la creación de un sistema criptográfico basado sobre una arquitectura dividida en dos etapas de confusión y difusión. Cada una de ellas utiliza una ecuación logística para generar números pseudoaleatorios que permitan desordenar la posición del píxel y cambiar su intensidad en la escala de grises. Este proceso iterativo es determinado por la cantidad total de píxeles de una imagen. Finalmente, toda la lógica de cifrado es ejecutada sobre la tecnología CUDA que permite el procesamiento en paralelo. Como aporte sustancial, se propone una nueva técnica de encriptación vanguardista de alta sensibilidad ante ruidos externos manteniendo no solo la confidencialidad de la imagen, sino también la disponibilidad y la eficiencia en los tiempos de proceso.---ABSTRACT---New trends to share multimedia files over open networks, demand the best use of encryption techniques to ensure the integrity, availability and confidentiality, keeping and/or improving the efficiency of the encryption process on these files. Today it is common to transfer pictures through technological networks, thus, it is necessary to update existing techniques encryption, and even better, the searching of new alternatives. Nowadays, classic cryptographic algorithms are highly known in the midst of the information society which not only causes greater vulnerability, but high processing times when this algorithms are used. It raise the probability of being deciphered and minimizes the immediate availability of resources. To reduce these odds, the use of chaos theory emerged as a good option to be applied on an algorithm that takes advantage of chaotic behavior of dynamic systems, and take logistic maps’ properties to raise the level of robustness in the encryption. That is why this paper proposes the creation of a cryptographic system based on an architecture divided into two stages: confusion and diffusion. Each stage uses a logistic equation to generate pseudorandom numbers that allow mess pixel position and change their intensity in grayscale. This iterative process is determined by the total number of pixels of an image. Finally, the entire encryption logic is executed on the CUDA technology that enables parallel processing. As a substantial contribution, it propose a new encryption technique with high sensitivity on external noise not only keeping the confidentiality of the image, but also the availability and efficiency in processing times.

Afetividade e Fluência na Interação Empresarial: Um estudo sobre Mediação

A partir de conflito interpessoal entre gestores de empresa de médio porte, esta pesquisa realiza estudo de caso com objetivo de investigar os reflexos da mediação na fluência de interação e na afetividade dentro da empresa, enfocando 19 participantes, em três níveis: diretoria, equipe da diretoria e coordenadores. Tem como sustentação teórica as abordagens de mediação: Tradicional de Harvard; Transformativa; Narrativo-Circular e Facilitação, delineadas a partir do modelo dos sistemas dinâmicos da Teoria da Complexidade. Após caracterização inicial da empresa, utiliza-se de técnicas de pré-mediação, mediação e facilitação em grupo, analisando-as qualitativamente. Com preocupação sobre a racionalidade dos resultados sobre os reflexos do trabalho de mediação, compõe questionário sobre fluência de interação e afetividade na empresa, QFI. Os resultados do questionário comprovam os da análise da mediação, sendo que 51% dos funcionários assinalam alterações positivas na interação e na afetividade na empresa como um todo. Os pontos nevrálgicos, apontados pelos participantes como reformulados na mediação referem-se a: Autoritarismo; Muita Pressão; Falta Transparência; Co-Responsável; Cisão entre as áreas Administrativa e Técnica (Cisão AA-AT); Centralização e Escuta Insuficiente. Os dados indicam uma abertura sistêmica na tomada de consciência dos conflitos, associada a uma maior responsabilidade conjunta em tentar resolvê-los, através do gerenciamento integrado e dinâmico de competências individuais, intra e inter-grupais na empresa. O estudo considera, portanto, que a mediação pode ser vista como uma abordagem alternativa de resolução de conflitos, com resultados positivos ao meio organizacional. Devido ao fato de as técnicas de mediação não estarem ainda muito difundidas em nossa realidade, recomenda a necessidade de novas pesquisas , diversificando seu foco em empresas de vários tamanhos e segmentos.