Evaluation of online tools as didactic resource in the university education

Recently, many efforts have been made in the academic world to adapt the new degrees to the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA). New technologies have been the most important factor to carry out this adaptation. In particular, the tools 2.0 have been spreading quickly, not just the Web 2.0, but even in all the educational levels. Nevertheless, it is now necessary to evaluate whether all these efforts and all the changes, carried out in order to obtain improved academic performance among students, have provided good results. Therefore, the aim of this paper is focused on studying the impact of the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in a subject belonging to a Master from the University of Alicante in the academic year (2010-2011). In special, it is an elective course called "Advanced Visual Ergonomics" from the Master of Clinical Optometry and Vision. The methodology used to teach this course differs from the traditional one in many respects. For example, one of the resources used for the development of this course is a blog developed specifically to coordinate a series of virtual works, whose purpose is that the student goes into specific aspects of the current topic. Next, the student participates in an active role by writing a personal assessment on the blog. However, in the course planning, there is an attendance to lessons, where the teacher presents certain issues in a more traditional way, that is, with a lecture supported with audiovisual materials, such as materials generated in powerpoint. To evaluate the quality of the results achieved with this methodology, in this work the personal assessment of the students, who have completed this course during this academic year, are collected. In particular, we want to know their opinion about the used resources, as well as the followed methodology. The tool used to collect this information was a questionnaire. This questionnaire evaluates different aspects of the course: a general opinion, quality of the received information, satisfaction about the followed methodology and the student´s critical awareness. The design of this questionnaire is very important to get conclusive information about the methodology followed in the course. The questionnaire has to have an adequate number of questions; whether it has many questions, it might be boring for the student who would pay no enough attention. The questions should be well-written, with a clear structure and message, to avoid confusion and an ambiguity. The questions should be objectives, without any suggestion for a desired answer. In addition, the questionnaire should be interesting to encourage the student´ s interest. In conclusion, this questionnaire developed for this subject provided good information to evaluate whether the methodology was a useful tool to teach "Advanced Visual Ergonomics". Furthermore, the student´s opinion collected by this questionnaire might be very helpful to improve this didactic resource.

Prueba de concepto de expansión de consultas basada en ontologías de dominio financiero

Este trabajo presenta el uso de una ontología en el dominio financiero para la expansión de consultas con el fin de mejorar los resultados de un sistema de recuperación de información (RI) financiera. Este sistema está compuesto por una ontología y un índice de Lucene que permite recuperación de conceptos identificados mediante procesamiento de lenguaje natural. Se ha llevado a cabo una evaluación con un conjunto limitado de consultas y los resultados indican que la ambigüedad sigue siendo un problema al expandir la consulta. En ocasiones, la elección de las entidades adecuadas a la hora de expandir las consultas (filtrando por sector, empresa, etc.) permite resolver esa ambigüedad.

Use of Costas arrays in subpixel metrology

Subpixel methods increase the accuracy and efficiency of image detectors, processing units, and algorithms and provide very cost-effective systems for object tracking. A recently proposed method permits micropixel and submicropixel accuracies providing certain design constraints on the target are met. In this paper, we explore the use of Costas arrays - permutation matrices with ideal auto-ambiguity properties - for the design of such targets.

An authoring tool for decision support systems in context questions of ecological knowledge

Decision support systems (DSS) support business or organizational decision-making activities, which require the access to information that is internally stored in databases or data warehouses, and externally in the Web accessed by Information Retrieval (IR) or Question Answering (QA) systems. Graphical interfaces to query these sources of information ease to constrain dynamically query formulation based on user selections, but they present a lack of flexibility in query formulation, since the expressivity power is reduced to the user interface design. Natural language interfaces (NLI) are expected as the optimal solution. However, especially for non-expert users, a real natural communication is the most difficult to realize effectively. In this paper, we propose an NLI that improves the interaction between the user and the DSS by means of referencing previous questions or their answers (i.e. anaphora such as the pronoun reference in “What traits are affected by them?”), or by eliding parts of the question (i.e. ellipsis such as “And to glume colour?” after the question “Tell me the QTLs related to awn colour in wheat”). Moreover, in order to overcome one of the main problems of NLIs about the difficulty to adapt an NLI to a new domain, our proposal is based on ontologies that are obtained semi-automatically from a framework that allows the integration of internal and external, structured and unstructured information. Therefore, our proposal can interface with databases, data warehouses, QA and IR systems. Because of the high NL ambiguity of the resolution process, our proposal is presented as an authoring tool that helps the user to query efficiently in natural language. Finally, our proposal is tested on a DSS case scenario about Biotechnology and Agriculture, whose knowledge base is the CEREALAB database as internal structured data, and the Web (e.g. PubMed) as external unstructured information.

Visual perception for the 3D recognition of geometric pieces in robotic manipulation

During grasping and intelligent robotic manipulation tasks, the camera position relative to the scene changes dramatically because the robot is moving to adapt its path and correctly grasp objects. This is because the camera is mounted at the robot effector. For this reason, in this type of environment, a visual recognition system must be implemented to recognize and “automatically and autonomously” obtain the positions of objects in the scene. Furthermore, in industrial environments, all objects that are manipulated by robots are made of the same material and cannot be differentiated by features such as texture or color. In this work, first, a study and analysis of 3D recognition descriptors has been completed for application in these environments. Second, a visual recognition system designed from specific distributed client-server architecture has been proposed to be applied in the recognition process of industrial objects without these appearance features. Our system has been implemented to overcome problems of recognition when the objects can only be recognized by geometric shape and the simplicity of shapes could create ambiguity. Finally, some real tests are performed and illustrated to verify the satisfactory performance of the proposed system.

Els vídeos d’Olga Diego: una memòria filmada

Olga Diego Freises (Alacant 1969) estudià Belles Arts a les facultats de València (Universitat Politècnica) i d’Altea (Universitat Miguel Hernández), on es titulà el 2006. La seua activitat artística ―crítica, compromesa i innovadora― s’ha orientat bàsicament a la performança, encara que amb un important suport gràfic i escultòric de dibuixos i de maquetes. Com es habitual, Olga Diego fa servir el vídeo com a medi de registre i/o de suport de les accions. En ocasions el vídeo arriba a ser la base o el format de presentació d’una acció. És, doncs, un registre fotogràfic ―foto mòbil que pot esdevenir foto fixa― allò que conserva la memòria del que es féu o del que passà. En ocasions la gravació és manual i en ocasions la càmera va lligada a un artefacte. S’ofereixen, així, visions diferents de l’acció. En ocasions es treballa amb llum de dia i en ocasions amb llum de foc o de focus, oferint també així visions diferents de l’acció. Per tant, el vídeo es treballa en funció del suggeriment, de la claredat expositiva o de l’ambigüitat que s’intenta. Proposem aquí una introducció als vídeos vinculats a algunes de les accions d’Olga Diego desenvolupades a llocs tan diferents com ara Espanya, Sàhara Occidental Libre i Egipte.