The tutor's role in student learning

Higher education in Portugal, in the last forty years, has undergone profound changes with the enlargement of public higher education network, the appearance of new institutions, the quantity and the heterogeneity of students. The implementation of the Bologna Process in European community countries led to the redesign of higher education Portuguese courses as well as their corresponding curricula. In recent years, the use of Project-led education was one of the most significant changes in teaching and learning, particularly in engineering in higher education in Portugal. This teaching methodology encourages students and teachers to undertake new roles, new responsibilities and a new learning perspective. This study aims at understanding whether the role of the tutor is to be suitable to the needs and expectations of Project-led education students. These changes however are not only structural. At the University of Minho, new teaching and learning methodologies were adopted, which could guide the training of professionals on to the twenty-first century. The opportunity arising from the implementation of Project-led education in Engineering methodology was used in the University of Minho’s courses. This teaching method is intended to provide students with educational support programs that benefit the academic performance, allowing the opportunity to upgrade, train and develop the ability to study and learn more effectively. Through the Project-led education it is possible to provide students with techniques and procedures and develop the ability to communicate orally and in writing. Students and teachers have assumed new roles in the teaching-learning process allowing in one hand the students to explore, discover and question themselves about some knowledge and on the other hand the teachers to change to a tutor, a companion and to a student project guide. Therefore, surveys were analyzed, comprising questions about the most significant contribution of the tutor as well as if there are some initial expectations that have not been foreseen by the tutor.

Underwater acoustic modem with streaming video capabilities

Oceans have shown tremendous importance and impact on our lives. Thus the need for monitoring and protecting the oceans has grown exponentially in recent years. On the other hand, oceans have economical and industrial potential in areas such as pharmaceutical, oil, minerals and biodiversity. This demand is increasing and the need for high data rate and near real-time communications between submerged agents became of paramount importance. Among the needs for underwater communications, streaming video (e.g. for inspecting risers or hydrothermal vents) can be seen as the top challenge, which when solved will make all the other applications possible. Presently, the only reliable approach for underwater video streaming relies on wired connections or tethers (e.g. from ROVs to the surface) which presents severe operational constraints that makes acoustic links together with AUVs and sensor networks strongly appealing. Using new polymer-based acoustic transducers, which in very recent works have shown to have bandwidth and power efficiency much higher than the usual ceramics, this article proposes the development of a reprogrammable acoustic modem for operating in underwater communications with video streaming capabilities. The results have shown a maximum data-rate of 1Mbps with a simple modulation scheme such as OOK, at a distance of 20 m.

Hand gesture recognition for human computer interaction : a comparative study of different image features

Hand gesture recognition for human computer interaction, being a natural way of human computer interaction, is an area of active research in computer vision and machine learning. This is an area with many different possible applications, giving users a simpler and more natural way to communicate with robots/systems interfaces, without the need for extra devices. So, the primary goal of gesture recognition research is to create systems, which can identify specific human gestures and use them to convey information or for device control. For that, vision-based hand gesture interfaces require fast and extremely robust hand detection, and gesture recognition in real time. In this study we try to identify hand features that, isolated, respond better in various situations in human-computer interaction. The extracted features are used to train a set of classifiers with the help of RapidMiner in order to find the best learner. A dataset with our own gesture vocabulary consisted of 10 gestures, recorded from 20 users was created for later processing. Experimental results show that the radial signature and the centroid distance are the features that when used separately obtain better results, with an accuracy of 91% and 90,1% respectively obtained with a Neural Network classifier. These to methods have also the advantage of being simple in terms of computational complexity, which make them good candidates for real-time hand gesture recognition.

Transporte ativo entre casa e escola: estudo de uma escola urbana de 2º ciclo

Relatório de atividade profissional de mestrado em Ensino de Educação Física nos Ensinos Básico e Secundário

Transporte ativo em alunos do 5º e 6º ano de escolaridade, por género, em meio predominantemente rural

Relatório de atividade profissional de mestrado em Ensino de Educação Física nos Ensinos Básico e Secundário

Simulation of OWES with five-Level converter linked to the grid: Harmonic assessment

This paper deals with a computing simulation for an offshore wind energy system taking into account the influence of the marine waves action throughout the floating platform. The wind energy system has a variable-speed turbine equipped with a permanent magnet synchronous generator and a full-power five level converter, injecting energy into the electric grid through a high voltage alternate current link. A reduction on the unbalance of the voltage in the DC-link capacitors of the five-level converter is proposed by a strategic selection of the output voltage vectors. The model for the drive train of the wind energy system is a two mass model, including the dynamics of the floating platform. A case study is presented and the assessment of the quality of the energy injected into the electric grid is discussed.

Simulation of a rectifier malfunction on a offshore wind system with HVDC transmission

A new integrated mathematical model for the simulation of an offshore wind system having a rectifier input voltage malfunction at one phase is presented in this paper. The mathematical model considers an offshore variable-speed wind turbine on a floating platform, equipped with a permanent magnet synchronous generator using full-power three-level converter to inject energy into the electric network, through a high voltage direct current transmission submarine cable. The model for the drive train is a discrete three mass, incorporating the dynamic of the moving surface. A case study is presented to access conclusion about the malfunction.

Educar para a sexualidade e para os afetos: Conceções de jovens, antigos residentes em LIJ's de Braga

Numa sociedade e cultura em que problemáticas biopsicoafetivas nas escolas emergem a cada dia, parece justificar-se ponderar formas eficazes de prevenir comportamentos sexuais de risco. Esta Investigação-Ação inicial e exploratória tem como fundamento a avaliação-intervenção e reflexão sobre ideias/pensamentos de jovens acolhidos em Lares de Infância e Juventude (LIJs), no sentido de se entender melhor o impacto de fatores de risco e de fatores de equilíbrio/moderadores, em LIJ´s, com condições de vida problemáticas associadas: orfandade, situação socioeconómica frágil, exposição a modelos educativos desajustados, entre outros critérios de relação e cultura distinta de “meios naturais de vida”. Parecem evidentes as consequências negativas do afastamento familiar, absentismo escolar, limitações de competências sociais-pessoais, para se melhorar/potenciar a existência de menores. Compreendem-se dificuldades na área da implementação da Educação Sexual, consistente e prolongada, assim como a emergência de condutas psicossexuais desajustadas, que possam comprometer uma sexualidade saudável. Assim, foram efetuadas entrevistas semiestruturadas a 8 jovens, de 18-26 anos, antigos residentes de LIJs, com permanência (prolongada), excedendo os quatro anos, o que possibilita apresentar, por método e técnicas de Analise de Discurso, conceções de sexualidade e consequentemente poder delinear um plano interventivo com outros mais jovens. Entre outros dados, apreende-se que nenhum dos participantes refere motivos plenos para a sua institucionalização, ignorando ou rejeitando a adversidade e maus tratos/abuso na sua infância.

Perceções dos alunos e fatores de influência sobre a escolha da Contabilidade como área de estudo

Dissertação de mestrado em Contabilidade

Implementação de procedimentos de autocontrolo numa empresa de produção de carroçarias

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial

Implementação de um sistema de abastecimento logístico numa empresa de cilindros de aço

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial

Desenvolvimento de um Range Extender para Veículo Elétrico

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e de Computadores

Personalized-based dietary recommendation for weightlifting

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e Computadores

Desenvolvendo a qualidade em parcerias: a voz de um grupo de educadoras

Tese de Doutoramento em Estudos da Criança (Especialidade de Metodologia e Supervisão em Educação de Infância)

Hand gesture recognition system based in computer vision and machine learning: Applications on human-machine interaction

Tese de Doutoramento em Engenharia de Eletrónica e de Computadores