A framework for graphic description in book design

This project is concerned with the way that illustrations, photographs, diagrams and graphs, and typographic elements interact to convey ideas on the book page. A framework for graphic description is proposed to elucidate this graphic language of ‘complex texts’. The model is built up from three main areas of study, with reference to a corpus of contemporary children’s science books. First, a historical survey puts the subjects for study in context. Then a multidisciplinary discussion of graphic communication provides a theoretical underpinning for the model; this leads to various proposals, such as the central importance of ratios and relationships among parts in creating meaning in graphic communication. Lastly a series of trials in description contribute to the structure of the model itself. At the heart of the framework is an organising principle that integrates descriptive models from fields of design, literary criticism, art history, and linguistics, among others, as well as novel categories designed specifically for book design. Broadly, design features are described in terms of elemental component parts (micro-level), larger groupings of these (macro-level), and finally in terms of overarching, ‘whole book’ qualities (meta-level). Various features of book design emerge at different levels; for instance, the presence of nested discursive structures, a form of graphic recursion in editorial design, is proposed at the macro-level. Across these three levels are the intersecting categories of ‘rule’ and ‘context’, offering different perspectives with which to describe graphic characteristics. Contextbased features are contingent on social and cultural environment, the reader’s previous knowledge, and the actual conditions of reading; rule-based features relate to the systematic or codified aspects of graphic language. The model aims to be a frame of reference for graphic description, of use in different forms of qualitative or quantitative research and as a heuristic tool in practice and teaching.

A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation

Over the last decade, due to the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and, more recently, the Gravity and steady state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission, our ability to measure the ocean’s mean dynamic topography (MDT) from space has improved dramatically. Here we use GOCE to measure surface current speeds in the North Atlantic and compare our results with a range of independent estimates that use drifter data to improve small scales. We find that, with filtering, GOCE can recover 70% of the Gulf Steam strength relative to the best drifter-based estimates. In the subpolar gyre the boundary currents obtained from GOCE are close to the drifter-based estimates. Crucial to this result is careful filtering which is required to remove small-scale errors, or noise, in the computed surface. We show that our heuristic noise metric, used to determine the degree of filtering, compares well with the quadratic sum of mean sea surface and formal geoid errors obtained from the error variance–covariance matrix associated with the GOCE gravity model. At a resolution of 100 km the North Atlantic mean GOCE MDT error before filtering is 5 cm with almost all of this coming from the GOCE gravity model.

Robust multimodal face and fingerprint fusion in the presence of spoofing attacks

Anti-spoofing is attracting growing interest in biometrics, considering the variety of fake materials and new means to attack biometric recognition systems. New unseen materials continuously challenge state-of-the-art spoofing detectors, suggesting for additional systematic approaches to target anti-spoofing. By incorporating liveness scores into the biometric fusion process, recognition accuracy can be enhanced, but traditional sum-rule based fusion algorithms are known to be highly sensitive to single spoofed instances. This paper investigates 1-median filtering as a spoofing-resistant generalised alternative to the sum-rule targeting the problem of partial multibiometric spoofing where m out of n biometric sources to be combined are attacked. Augmenting previous work, this paper investigates the dynamic detection and rejection of livenessrecognition pair outliers for spoofed samples in true multi-modal configuration with its inherent challenge of normalisation. As a further contribution, bootstrap aggregating (bagging) classifiers for fingerprint spoof-detection algorithm is presented. Experiments on the latest face video databases (Idiap Replay- Attack Database and CASIA Face Anti-Spoofing Database), and fingerprint spoofing database (Fingerprint Liveness Detection Competition 2013) illustrate the efficiency of proposed techniques.

Reliability properties under a stopping time shift

Considering a series representation of a coherent system using a shift transform of the components lifetime T-i, at its critical level Y-i, we study two problems. First, under such a shift transform, we analyse the preservation properties of the non-parametric distribution classes and secondly the association preserving property of the components lifetime under such transformations. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Clustering Lab value working with medical data

Data mining is a relatively new field of research that its objective is to acquire knowledge from large amounts of data. In medical and health care areas, due to regulations and due to the availability of computers, a large amount of data is becoming available [27]. On the one hand, practitioners are expected to use all this data in their work but, at the same time, such a large amount of data cannot be processed by humans in a short time to make diagnosis, prognosis and treatment schedules. A major objective of this thesis is to evaluate data mining tools in medical and health care applications to develop a tool that can help make rather accurate decisions. In this thesis, the goal is finding a pattern among patients who got pneumonia by clustering of lab data values which have been recorded every day. By this pattern we can generalize it to the patients who did not have been diagnosed by this disease whose lab values shows the same trend as pneumonia patients does. There are 10 tables which have been extracted from a big data base of a hospital in Jena for my work .In ICU (intensive care unit), COPRA system which is a patient management system has been used. All the tables and data stored in German Language database.

Förstudie kring ledningssystem vid reklambyrån Confetti

The aim of the project is to develop a tool for a management system at the advertising agency ofConfetti. The company has during a longer period of time felt a need of introducing a quality and environmentalsystem but have a lack in resources of knowledge, time and money. Their goal is to have aconcrete documentation which describes their quality policy and the function of the activity.The work has been performed by mapping and analyzing the processes of the company according tothe process model with focus on one pilot process. New routines have been developed and documentedin a management system.Confetti would like their management system to fulfil the ISO-standard so that they eventually inthe future can be certified. Therefore a literature study has been done according to management systemsand standards. The project has been directed to fulfil the ISO-standards demands for a qualitymanagement system. It has resulted in the creation of a comprehensible and userfriendly managementsystem which includes a routine model and new routines for the pilot process of PDF-handling. A oneyear-plan has been created to facilitate for the continuos development of the quality management systemat Confetti. The new quality implementations demands investment, why a budget has been calculatedshowing profitability.Confetti has to continue the development of the management system very soon. They ought to createan analyzis of the companys current situation and choose the processes that they themeselves considermost important or easiest to improve. A management system will not operate by it self, it needsmaintenance and development.

Geoprocessing journey-to-work data : delineating commuting regions in Dalarna, Sweden

Delineation of commuting regions has always been based on statistical units, often municipalities or wards. However, using these units has certain disadvantages as their land areas differ considerably. Much information is lost in the larger spatial base units and distortions in self-containment values, the main criterion in rule-based delineation procedures, occur. Alternatively, one can start from relatively small standard size units such as hexagons. In this way, much greater detail in spatial patterns is obtained. In this paper, regions are built by means of intrazonal maximization (Intramax) on the basis of hexagons. The use of geoprocessing tools, specifically developed for the processing ofcommuting data, speeds up processing time considerably. The results of the Intramax analysis are evaluated with travel-to-work area constraints, and comparisons are made with commuting fields, accessibility to employment, commuting flow density and network commuting flow size. From selected steps in the regionalization process, a hierarchy of nested commuting regions emerges, revealing the complexity of commuting patterns.

Administração judiciária e os juizados especiais cíveis: o caso do Rio Grande do Sul

Os Juizados Especiais foram criados para proporcionar acesso à justiça, de forma simples e rápida, sem custos, objetivando resolver conflitos de menor complexidade, de modo informal e preferencialmente através da conciliação. Decorridas mais de duas décadas desde a sua implantação, no Rio Grande do Sul, o sistema não vêm tendo a devida atenção, quer de parte dos operadores, quer de parte do próprio Judiciário. O risco de contaminação das práticas do sistema tradicional de justiça, burocrático e formalista e, por isso mesmo, moroso, exige medidas de administração judiciária que evitem o desvirtuamento dos princípios com base nos quais os Juizados Especiais foram concebidos. A correta atuação dos Juízes Presidentes dos Juizados Especiais, a orientação aos servidores que nele atuam, a prévia preparação dos juízes leigos e conciliadores para o exercício das relevantes funções que lhes são atribuídas, o comprometimento dos integrantes das Turmas Recursais com a unidade do sistema e, fundamentalmente, gestão deste pelo órgão estadual responsável pela coordenação e supervisão dos Juizados Especiais, são medidas que, juntamente com os necessários investimentos em informatização, incentivo à inovação e ao uso das novas tecnologias, padronização de procedimentos, aperfeiçoamento dos bancos de dados e sistema estatístico, podem promover melhorias significativas no seu desempenho.

Empirical measures,learning and sunspot equilibrium

In this paper we construct sunspot equilibria that arrise from chaotic deterministic dynamics. These equilibria are robust and therefore observables. We prove that they may be learned by a sim pie rule based on the histograms or past state variables. This work gives the theoretical justification or deterministic models that might compete with stochastic models to explain real data.

O ensino à distância como ferramenta para a implementação do sistema único da assistência social no Brasil

Os desafios da política de Assistência Social do Brasil ainda são imensos. Objetivando a garantia dos mínimos sociais, a partir da Constituição de 1988 e da implantação do Sistema Único de Assistência Social (SUAS), a gestão de Recursos Humanos passa a ser considerada como eixo estruturante, inclusive no que diz respeito à formação e capacitação de profissionais da Assistência Social que, que no exercício da sua discricionariedade, são seus efetivos implementadores. Neste contexto, este trabalho se propõe a investigar modalidade de Ensino à Distância (EAD) como ferramenta impulsionadora do SUAS, oferecendo aos órgãos gestores envolvidos, elementos que contribuam com a avaliação, decisão e incorporação da EAD nas suas estratégias de educação dos atores socioassistenciais.

An evolving possibilistic fuzzy modeling approach for value-at-risk estimation

Market risk exposure plays a key role for nancial institutions risk management. A possible measure for this exposure is to evaluate losses likely to incurwhen the price of the portfolio's assets declines using Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimates, one of the most prominent measure of nancial downside market risk. This paper suggests an evolving possibilistic fuzzy modeling approach for VaR estimation. The approach is based on an extension of the possibilistic fuzzy c-means clustering and functional fuzzy rule-based modeling, which employs memberships and typicalities to update clusters and creates new clusters based on a statistical control distance-based criteria. ePFM also uses an utility measure to evaluate the quality of the current cluster structure. Computational experiments consider data of the main global equity market indexes of United States, London, Germany, Spain and Brazil from January 2000 to December 2012 for VaR estimation using ePFM, traditional VaR benchmarks such as Historical Simulation, GARCH, EWMA, and Extreme Value Theory and state of the art evolving approaches. The results show that ePFM is a potential candidate for VaR modeling, with better performance than alternative approaches.

Conselho Municipal de Saúde de Pedras de Fogo - PB: um estudo sobre participação

The present study aims to understand the process of Participation of the Health Council- CMS in the formularization, implementation and control of the Municipal health plan of Pedras de Fogo, through four criteria of quality of participation considered by Demo (1993): representation, legitimacy, base participation, and self-responsibility. The criteria of representation is related to the quality of politics of the representative over the representings. Legitimacy is related to the politics` quality of the process of participation based on norms and rules that stipulate the participation, the base participation is a necessary political support so that the power authorization directed to the representings can be effective and the self-responsibility refers to the capacity of being responsible when it concerns to the public service or property. Through the descriptive and exploratory study a qualitative method was adopted to consider the conditions of the participation of the twelve council members of the City council of Health of Pedras de Fogo, through a formulated Instrument based on the criteria of DEMO (1993). It was concluded that the quality of the participation of the council members of the CMS of Pedras de Fogo understands essential aspects of the criteria of quality considered by Demo (1993) but it shows fragilities as unfamiliarity with the norms that legitimize the performance of the council; unfamiliarity of its condition of being an agent and the importance of the participation of the base for the reinforcement of its participation, as well as inertia related to the check and rendering of accounts on its performance. This way it makes sense that the participation of the council in the four criteria of quality of politics considered in this paper needs to improve

A televisão refletida na escola: a compreensão de mães/educadoras

This work aims to examine the television social representation by mothers/educators as a TV viewers, to understand the meaning of this media in their quotidian and which relations occur between teachers and students in the classroom. The study purpose is the educational television rule, based on a social representation approach. It look for to reveal, through the discourses of five educators who are engaged in pedagogic activities in the Public Elementary School of the Natal city, a significant experience in the media education field progress. It’s also a way to understand which representations the educators have about the television can contribute to aid the idea and critic analysis about the media meaning in the teacher’s formation. Some questions were in the basis of the investigation as: What is the television for the educators who are also TV viewers? How it reaches the classroom? Their relation with the media interfere in the pedagogic practice? Assuming that the verbal technical is one of the formal ways to access the representations, the methodological strategy employed was the open interview, guided by a wide and flexible schedule, leaving the interviewees free to expose their ideas, a attitude adopted to avoid the imposition of interviwer’s points of view, that result in a rich material. Through this strategy it was possible to confirm or to reject presumptions raised in the beginning of the investigation and modify some planning direction lines. The study has as the theory presupposition the contribution of the Mexican researcher Guillermo Orozco Gómez, who, based on the Paulo Freire e Jesús Martín-Barbero ideas, establishes a dialogue between popular Education and the communication theories, mainly the television reception, when he develops an integral view focused on the audience or on the multiple mediations model. The school – and the family, as well – is an important mediator of the media information. The relationship which the teachers establish between the television and their representations about it in their lives reflects effectively and directly on their professional practice and on the media dialogue within the school, it can contribute to the critic reflection which students establish with the media trough the educators mediation

Efeito do manejo da entrelinha da seringueira sobre as propriedades químicas do solo, o estado nutricional e o crescimento

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)