Joint modelling of longitudinal and survival data on breast cancer

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências (Especialidade em Matemática)

Feature Nets: behavioural modelling of software product lines

Software product lines (SPL) are diverse systems that are developed using a dual engineering process: (a)family engineering defines the commonality and variability among all members of the SPL, and (b) application engineering derives specific products based on the common foundation combined with a variable selection of features. The number of derivable products in an SPL can thus be exponential in the number of features. This inherent complexity poses two main challenges when it comes to modelling: Firstly, the formalism used for modelling SPLs needs to be modular and scalable. Secondly, it should ensure that all products behave correctly by providing the ability to analyse and verify complex models efficiently. In this paper we propose to integrate an established modelling formalism (Petri nets) with the domain of software product line engineering. To this end we extend Petri nets to Feature Nets. While Petri nets provide a framework for formally modelling and verifying single software systems, Feature Nets offer the same sort of benefits for software product lines. We show how SPLs can be modelled in an incremental, modular fashion using Feature Nets, provide a Feature Nets variant that supports modelling dynamic SPLs, and propose an analysis method for SPL modelled as Feature Nets. By facilitating the construction of a single model that includes the various behaviours exhibited by the products in an SPL, we make a significant step towards efficient and practical quality assurance methods for software product lines.

Implementação de metodologias BIM na Direção de Engenharia de Barragens da EDP: casos de estudo de projeto de estruturas em obras hidroelétricas

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Civil

Ontological representation of tumor-node-metastasis classification and an ontology-driven classifier: a study on colorectal cancer

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Biomédica (área de especialização em Informática Médica)

Hierarchical modelling of timber reference properties using probabilistic methods: Maximum Likelihood Method, Bayesian Methods and Probability Networks

In recent decades, an increased interest has been evidenced in the research on multi-scale hierarchical modelling in the field of mechanics, and also in the field of wood products and timber engineering. One of the main motivations for hierar-chical modelling is to understand how properties, composition and structure at lower scale levels may influence and be used to predict the material properties on a macroscopic and structural engineering scale. This chapter presents the applicability of statistic and probabilistic methods, such as the Maximum Likelihood method and Bayesian methods, in the representation of timber’s mechanical properties and its inference accounting to prior information obtained in different importance scales. These methods allow to analyse distinct timber’s reference properties, such as density, bending stiffness and strength, and hierarchically consider information obtained through different non, semi or destructive tests. The basis and fundaments of the methods are described and also recommendations and limitations are discussed. The methods may be used in several contexts, however require an expert’s knowledge to assess the correct statistic fitting and define the correlation arrangement between properties.

REVISANDO LOS CONTENIDOS EN LENGUA: Hacia una semántica integradora. Transferencia y capacitación. REVIEWING CONTENTS IN LANGUAGE: Toward an integrative semantics. Transference and training.

En el trabajo se sistematiza la información semántica a fin de que ella sea la articuladora y eje de otros contenidos abordados en la enseñanza de la lengua materna. Así, en primer lugar se sistematizarán conceptos y perspectivas semánticas, para luego establecer relaciones con otros niveles lingüísticos, como lo son la Morfología y la Sintaxis, sin descuidar los aportes de la semántica a los procesos de producción y comprensión textuales. Realizaremos estudios para sistematizar y asignar al contenido un lugar dominante e integrador en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de la lengua materna, sin pretender desdibujar otras temáticas. Planteamos tareas cuyo punto culminante es la capacitación de docentes y experimentación de las propuestas didácticas en tres cursos de lengua en una institución educativa de la ciudad de Córdoba, cuyo examen, de ser positivo, permitirá la replicación y transferencia de esas prácticas a otras instituciones. Como objetivos generales, destacamos colaborar con la integración de los contenidos que se dictan en Lengua Materna, tomando como eje la naturaleza semántica del lenguaje; contribuir con la formación de los estudiantes en las dimensiones de la comprensión y producción textuales; promover la reflexión y el incremento del caudal léxico -y del lenguaje en general-, por parte de los estudiantes; contribuir con la capacitación y formación de los docentes en las temáticas abordadas, a través de acciones concretas; corroborar que la formación de los alumnos podrá tornarse más significativa en la medida en que se trabajen 'formas' lingüísticas atravesadas por contenidos. El marco teórico está constituido por los aportes de diferentes líneas, los que, compatibilizados, permitirán acceder a un abordaje integral del 'contenido' lingüístico. Más precisamente, consideramos las conceptualizaciones de autores tales como Coseriu (1986) para la delimitación semántica, sus conceptos y operaciones, al que completamos con la perspectiva de Lyons (1986, 1997); para las relaciones entre Morfología, seguimos a Ramírez Sáinz (2008) ; el vínculo sintaxis- semántica será abordado desde la perspectiva de la Gramática Generativa (Demonte,V. 1991; D'Introno, 2001; Fernández Lagunilla, M y Anula Rebollo,A, 1995; los aportes de la comprensión serán considerados desde De Beaugrande-Dresller (1997). Otros autores de referencia son Lakoff y Jhonsson (1998).

In search of a language textile and text in contemporary women's art

This research uses the textile/text axis concept as a conceptual tool to investigate the role of textile and text in contemporary women’s art practice and theorizing, investigating textile as a largely hitherto unacknowledged element in women’s art practice of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Textile and text share a common etymological root, from the Latin textere to weave, textus a fabric. The thesis illuminates the pathways whereby textile and text played an important role in women reclaiming a speaking voice as creators of culture and signification during a revolutionary period of renewal in women’s cultural contribution and positioning. The methodological approach used in the research consisted of a comprehensive literature review, the compilation of an inventory of relevant women artists, developing a classificatory system differentiating types of approaches, concerns and concepts underpinning women’s art practice vis a vis the textile/text axis and a series of three in-depth case studies of artists Tracey Emin, Louise Bourgeois and Faith Ringgold. The thesis points to the fact that contemporary women artists and theorists have rounded their art practice and aesthetic discourse in textile as prime visual metaphor and signifier, turning towards the ancient language of textile not merely to reclaim a speaking voice but to occupy a ground breaking locus of signification and representation in contemporary culture. The textile/text axis facilitated women artists in powerfully countering a culturally inscribed status of Lacanian ‘no-woman’ (a position of abjection, absence and lack in the phallocentric symbolic). Turning towards a language of aeons, textile as fertile wellspring, the thesis identifies the methodologies and strategies whereby women artists have inserted their webs of subjectivities and deepest concerns into the records and discourses of contemporary culture. Presenting an anatomy of the textile/text axis, the thesis identifies nine component elements manifesting in contemporary women’s aesthetic practice and discourse. In this cultural renaissance, the textile/text axis, the thesis suggests, served as a complex lexicon, a system of labyrinthine references and signification, a site of layered meanings and ambiguities, a body proxy and a corporeal cartography, facilitating a revolution in women’s aesthetic praxis.

The Word Brain - A Short Guide to Fast Language Learning

How long does it take to learn another language? How many words do you need to learn? Are languages within the reach of everybody? Which teachers would you choose and which teachers should you avoid? These are some of the questions you ask yourself when you start learning a new language.The Word Brain provides the answers. If you have learned foreign languages in the past, consider reading it. If you or your children need to learn languages in the future, you must read it. What you will discover in two hours will change for ever the way you see languages and language learning. The principles of The Word Brain are timeless. Our children’s grandchildren will follow them when they discover the people of our planet.

JAVADAPTOR : unrestricted dynamic updates of Java applications

In dieser Arbeit wird mit JAVADAPTOR ein Ansatz präsentiert, der die statisch getypte Programmiersprache Java um die Möglichkeit erweitert, Programme zur Laufzeit und ohne die genannten Einschränkungen zu aktualisieren. Das vorgestellte Konzept kombiniert das schemaverändernde Nachladen von Klassen mit Referenzaktualisierungen auf der Basis von Java HotSwap, Containern und Proxies. Zentrale Beiträge der Arbeit sind detaillierte Beschreibungen der Konzepte und deren Implementierung, sowie der Nachweis der Praxvistauglichkeit der Lösung anhand verschiedener Fallstudien. Weiterhin wird untersucht, ob die präsentierte Lösung Einschränkungen bezüglich Flexibilität, Performanz, Plattform, Programmarchitektur oder Änderungsgranularität unterliegt.

Modelling of a symmetric molten carbonate fuel cell stack

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Verfahrens- und Systemtechnik, Diss., 2011

Failure rates modelling for heterogenous populations

Mixture of distributions, decreasing failure rate, increasing failure rate, proportional hazards model, accelerated life model, asymptotic behavior of mixture failure rate

Modelling and analysis of a production plant for low density polyethylene

Dynamic model, tubular reactor, polyethylene, LDPE, discretization, simulation, sensitivity analysis, nonlinear analysis