Análise da indústria de televisão a cabo no Brasil : estrutura competitiva e evolução

A indústria de TVa cabo está num caminho convergente com o setor de telecomunicações por força dos avanços tecnológicos relacionados à informática. As redes das operadoras de cabo têm a possibilidade de se transformarem num elemento central na evolução da sociedade da informação. Essa dissertação investiga a estrutura competitiva atual da indústria de TV a cabo brasileira. Para isso, lança mão dos conceitos de Michael E. Porter (1980). Além disso, são descritos possíveis desdobramentos na evolução da estrutura do setor, na visão de especialistas da indústria.

Graphical models and point set matching

Point pattern matching in Euclidean Spaces is one of the fundamental problems in Pattern Recognition, having applications ranging from Computer Vision to Computational Chemistry. Whenever two complex patterns are encoded by two sets of points identifying their key features, their comparison can be seen as a point pattern matching problem. This work proposes a single approach to both exact and inexact point set matching in Euclidean Spaces of arbitrary dimension. In the case of exact matching, it is assured to find an optimal solution. For inexact matching (when noise is involved), experimental results confirm the validity of the approach. We start by regarding point pattern matching as a weighted graph matching problem. We then formulate the weighted graph matching problem as one of Bayesian inference in a probabilistic graphical model. By exploiting the existence of fundamental constraints in patterns embedded in Euclidean Spaces, we prove that for exact point set matching a simple graphical model is equivalent to the full model. It is possible to show that exact probabilistic inference in this simple model has polynomial time complexity with respect to the number of elements in the patterns to be matched. This gives rise to a technique that for exact matching provably finds a global optimum in polynomial time for any dimensionality of the underlying Euclidean Space. Computational experiments comparing this technique with well-known probabilistic relaxation labeling show significant performance improvement for inexact matching. The proposed approach is significantly more robust under augmentation of the sizes of the involved patterns. In the absence of noise, the results are always perfect.

Como tomadores de decisão experts percebem cenários complexos?

In this thesis, the basic research of Chase and Simon (1973) is questioned, and we seek new results by analyzing the errors of experts and beginners chess players in experiments to reproduce chess positions. Chess players with different levels of expertise participated in the study. The results were analyzed by a Brazilian grandmaster, and quantitative analysis was performed with the use of statistical methods data mining. The results challenge significantly, the current theories of expertise, memory and decision making in this area, because the present theory predicts piece on square encoding, in which players can recognize the strategic situation reproducing it faithfully, but commit several errors that the theory can¿t explain. The current theory can¿t fully explain the encoding used by players to register a board. The errors of intermediary players preserved fragments of the strategic situation, although they have committed a series of errors in the reconstruction of the positions. The encoding of chunks therefore includes more information than that predicted by current theories. Currently, research on perception, trial and decision is heavily concentrated on the idea of pattern recognition". Based on the results of this research, we explore a change of perspective. The idea of "pattern recognition" presupposes that the processing of relevant information is on "patterns" (or data) that exist independently of any interpretation. We propose that the theory suggests the vision of decision-making via the recognition of experience.

Autodeterminação local e desenvolvimento: uma análise da dinâmica social no município de São Roque de Minas

In this thesis, the basic research of Chase and Simon (1973) is questioned, and we seek new results by analyzing the errors of experts and beginners chess players in experiments to reproduce chess positions. Chess players with different levels of expertise participated in the study. The results were analyzed by a Brazilian grandmaster, and quantitative analysis was performed with the use of statistical methods data mining. The results challenge significantly, the current theories of expertise, memory and decision making in this area, because the present theory predicts piece on square encoding, in which players can recognize the strategic situation reproducing it faithfully, but commit several errors that the theory can¿t explain. The current theory can¿t fully explain the encoding used by players to register a board. The errors of intermediary players preserved fragments of the strategic situation, although they have committed a series of errors in the reconstruction of the positions. The encoding of chunks therefore includes more information than that predicted by current theories. Currently, research on perception, trial and decision is heavily concentrated on the idea of 'pattern recognition'. Based on the results of this research, we explore a change of perspective. The idea of 'pattern recognition' presupposes that the processing of relevant information is on 'patterns' (or data) that exist independently of any interpretation. We propose that the theory suggests the vision of decision-making via the recognition of experience.

Gestão pública orientada para resultados: avaliando o caso de Minas Gerais

This research analyses the model of management for results from Minas Gerais State. The theoretical research begins with the origin of the management for results, then analyses its influences and tools. A case study about Minas Gerais State is presented and the model analysis tool is applied. This tool was developed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). It is being applied in many countries and states. After that, interviews with the main people of Minas Gerais government were carried out to get information about the current model of management. With all this information collected, the model is analysed to verify if it is adequate or not to the standards of the management for results.

Aplicação de modelos gráficos probabilísticos computacionais em economia

O objetivo deste trabalho é testar a aplicação de um modelo gráfico probabilístico, denominado genericamente de Redes Bayesianas, para desenvolver modelos computacionais que possam ser utilizados para auxiliar a compreensão de problemas e/ou na previsão de variáveis de natureza econômica. Com este propósito, escolheu-se um problema amplamente abordado na literatura e comparou-se os resultados teóricos e experimentais já consolidados com os obtidos utilizando a técnica proposta. Para tanto,foi construído um modelo para a classificação da tendência do "risco país" para o Brasil a partir de uma base de dados composta por variáveis macroeconômicas e financeiras. Como medida do risco adotou-se o EMBI+ (Emerging Markets Bond Index Plus), por ser um indicador amplamente utilizado pelo mercado.

Conselheiros municipais e vereadores : luta por reconhecimento na esfera pública

O objetivo desta pesquisa foi analisar como conselheiros municipais e vereadores do Recife reconhecem o direito à participação na gestão pública e o direito à representação eleitoral e às funções daí decorrentes. Deste modo, podem-se observar os impactos ocasionados pela instância de participação em uma instituição tradicional de representação política, de modo a aperfeiçoar o modelo de Gestão Social. A análise foi realizada à luz da teoria do reconhecimento, especificamente as ideias de Axel Honneth. Para tanto, foram aplicados questionários e realizadas entrevistas com conselheiros e vereadores do Município, assim como foram analisados documentos da Câmara. Observou-se que ambos os grupos mostram-se favoráveis ao diálogo entre as instâncias, apesar dos conflitos que ainda precisam ser vencidos. Vereadores têm assento nos conselhos, apesar de que a participação não acontece na prática. Concluiu-se que o reconhecimento não ocorre em sua integralidade, sendo uma luta em construção.

Moedas sociais digitais: estudo de caso de duas experiências em bancos comunitários

Este trabalho parte de duas experiências de implantação de moedas sociais digitais pelo poder público para responder se a introdução de uma tecnologia de pagamentos digital, em conjunto com moedas sociais, pode modificar conceitos básicos de comunidade e sociedade ou se é a tecnologia que precisa se adaptar a estes conceitos. Com os casos representando polos opostos na teoria de Tönnies em termos de comunidade/sociedade, têm-se como hipótese que a introdução da tecnologia em moedas sociais precisa estar em linha com conceitos básicos de comunidade, solidariedade, pertencimento, entre outros, de acordo com o frame de cada experiência. Como resultado, há poucas evidências que possam ser tidas neste momento como definitivas. Resta especular que o uso da tecnologia de pagamentos digitais como forma de ganho de escala do modelo de economia solidária em sociedades do tipo gemeinschaft encontra falta de elementos facilitadores que incentivem sua implementação e uso, sendo que, novamente, indaga-se que as tecnologias disponíveis de moedas sociais digitais parecem ser pouco congruentes com o próprio conceito de comunidade que faz parte do cerne da economia solidária e de sociedades locais do tipo gemeinschaft, podendo haver maior proximidade com sociedades do tipo gesellschaft. Em adição a isto, especula-se que (1) mesmo havendo êxito na implantação de moedas sociais digitais em comunidades do tipo gemeinschaft, que isto somente se confirmará mediante a criação de um modelo inovador de tecnologia de pagamentos que leve em conta o capital social dessas localidades; (2) as tecnologias hoje existentes para confecção de uma moeda social digital tendem a um ganho de escala que pode mostrar alguma incompatibilidade com pequenas comunidades onde o senso solidário é maior que o individual; (3) forçar a adoção de moedas sociais digitais em pequenas comunidades do tipo gemeinschaft pode eventualmente levar a um maior grau de individualização e à contratualização das relações interpessoais, dado que hoje muitas das relações nestas comunidades contêm alto grau de pessoalidade e informalidade; (4) havendo uma implementação de moedas sociais digitais de cima para baixo, este modelo tende a ser mais propício para experiências liberais focadas nos indivíduos do que para experiências comunitárias focadas no desenvolvimento do modelo pela própria comunidade. Como contribuição teórica, o estudo tenta mostrar o potencial do uso da teoria de Tönnies com o conceito de frames de Goffman.

Construção das capacidades organizacionais de tecnologia da informação no contexto dos sistemas institucionais integrados de gestão da UFRN

The IT capability is a organizational ability to perform activities of this role more effectively and an important mechanism in creating value. Its building process (stages of creation and development) occurs through management initiatives for improvement in the performance of their activities, using human resources and IT assets complementary responsible for the evolution of their organizational routines. This research deals with the IT capabilities related to SIG (integrated institutional management systems), built and deployed in UFRN (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte) to realization and control of administrative, academic and human resources activities. Since 2009, through cooperative agreements with federal and educational institutions of direct administration, UFRN has supported the implementation of these systems, currently involving more than 30 institutions. The present study aims to understand how IT capabilities, relevant in the design, implementation and dissemination of SIG, were built over time. This is a single case study of qualitative and longitudinal nature, performed by capturing, coding and analysis from secondary data and from semi-structured interviews conducted primarily with members of Superintenência de Informática, organizational unit responsible for SIG systems in UFRN. As a result, the technical, of internal relationship and external cooperation capabilities were identified as relevant in the successful trajectory of SIG systems, which have evolved in different ways. The technical capacity, initiated in 2004, toured the stages of creation and development until it reached the stage of stability in 2013, due to technological limits. Regarding the internal relationship capability, begun in 2006, it toured the stages of creation and development, having extended its scope of activities in 2009, being in development since then. Unlike the standard life cycle observed in the literature, the external cooperation capability was initiated by an intensity of initiatives and developments in the routines in 2009, which were decreasing to cease in 2013 in order to stabilize the technological infrastructure already created for cooperative institutions. It was still identified the start of cooperation in 2009 as an important event selection, responsible for changing or creating trajectories of evolution in all three capacities. The most frequent improvements initiatives were of organizational nature and the internal planning activity has been transformed over the routines of the three capabilities. Important resources and complementary assets have been identified as important for the realization of initiatives, such as human resources technical knowledge to the technical capabilities and external cooperation, and business knowledge, for all of them, as well as IT assets: the iproject application for control of development processes, and the document repository wiki. All these resources and complementary assets grew along the capacities, demonstrating its strategic value to SINFO/UFRN

Técnicas de computação natural para segmentação de imagens médicas

Image segmentation is one of the image processing problems that deserves special attention from the scientific community. This work studies unsupervised methods to clustering and pattern recognition applicable to medical image segmentation. Natural Computing based methods have shown very attractive in such tasks and are studied here as a way to verify it's applicability in medical image segmentation. This work treats to implement the following methods: GKA (Genetic K-means Algorithm), GFCMA (Genetic FCM Algorithm), PSOKA (PSO and K-means based Clustering Algorithm) and PSOFCM (PSO and FCM based Clustering Algorithm). Besides, as a way to evaluate the results given by the algorithms, clustering validity indexes are used as quantitative measure. Visual and qualitative evaluations are realized also, mainly using data given by the BrainWeb brain simulator as ground truth

Aquatic weed automatic classification using machine learning techniques

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

Latex use as an occlusive membrane for guided bone regeneration

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

Fabrication and characterization of chemical sensors made from nanostructured films of poly(o-ethoxyaniline) prepared with different doping acids

Chemical sensors made from nanostructured films of poly(o-ethoxyaniline) POEA and poly(sodium 4-styrene sulfonate) PSS are produced and used to detect and distinguish 4 chemicals in solution at 20 mM, including sucrose, NaCl, HCl, and caffeine. These substances are used in order to mimic the 4 basic tastes recognized by humans, namely sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, respectively. The sensors are produced by the deposition of POEA/PSS films at the top of interdigitated microelectrodes via the layer-by-layer technique, using POEA solutions containing different dopant acids. Besides the different characteristics of the POEA/PSS films investigated by UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopies, and by atomic force microscopy.. it is observed that their electrical response to the different chemicals in liquid media is very fast, in the order of seconds, systematical, reproducible, and extremely dependent on the type of acid used for film fabrication. The responses of the as-prepared sensors are reproducible and repetitive after many cycles of operation. Furthermore, the use of an "electronic tongue" composed by an array of these sensors and principal component analysis as pattern recognition tool allows one to reasonably distinguish test solutions according to their chemical composition. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Mathematical tests about the existence and applications of PPS-wavelets in function approximation problems

Neural networks and wavelet transform have been recently seen as attractive tools for developing eficient solutions for many real world problems in function approximation. Function approximation is a very important task in environments where computation has to be based on extracting information from data samples in real world processes. So, mathematical model is a very important tool to guarantee the development of the neural network area. In this article we will introduce one series of mathematical demonstrations that guarantee the wavelets properties for the PPS functions. As application, we will show the use of PPS-wavelets in pattern recognition problems of handwritten digit through function approximation techniques.

Efficient supervised optimum-path forest classification for large datasets

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