Research-action Methodology between Computer Science and Educational Psychology: a Multidisciplinary Approach

Computer science studies possess a strong multidisciplinary aptitude since most graduates do their professional work outside of a computing environment, in close collaboration with professionals from many different areas. However, the training offered in computer science studies lacks that multidisciplinary factor, focusing more on purely technical aspects. In this paper we present a novel experience where computer studies and educational psychology find a common ground and realistic working through laboratory practices. Specifically, the work enables students of computer science education the development of diagnosis support systems, with artificial intelligence techniques, which could then be used for future educational psychologists. The applications developed by computer science students are the creation of a model for the diagnosis of pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), sometimes also commonly called the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The complexity of this diagnosis, not only by the exclusive characteristics of every person who suffers from it, but also by the large numbers of variables involved in it, requires very strong and close interdisciplinary participation. This work demonstrates that it is possible to intervene in a curricular perspective, in the university, to promote the development of interpersonal skills. What can be shown, in this way, is a methodology for interdisciplinary practices design and a guide for monitoring and evaluation. The results are very encouraging since we obtained significant differences in academic achievement between students who attended a course using the new methodology and those who did not use it.

Calculation Methodology for Flexible Arithmetic Processing

Paper submitted to the IFIP International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI-SOC), Darmstadt, Germany, 2003.

A reliable and valid questionnaire was developed to measure computer vision syndrome at the workplace

Objectives: To design and validate a questionnaire to measure visual symptoms related to exposure to computers in the workplace. Study Design and Setting: Our computer vision syndrome questionnaire (CVS-Q) was based on a literature review and validated through discussion with experts and performance of a pretest, pilot test, and retest. Content validity was evaluated by occupational health, optometry, and ophthalmology experts. Rasch analysis was used in the psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire. Criterion validity was determined by calculating the sensitivity and specificity, receiver operator characteristic curve, and cutoff point. Testeretest repeatability was tested using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and concordance by Cohen’s kappa (k). Results: The CVS-Q was developed with wide consensus among experts and was well accepted by the target group. It assesses the frequency and intensity of 16 symptoms using a single rating scale (symptom severity) that fits the Rasch rating scale model well. The questionnaire has sensitivity and specificity over 70% and achieved good testeretest repeatability both for the scores obtained [ICC 5 0.802; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.673, 0.884] and CVS classification (k 5 0.612; 95% CI: 0.384, 0.839). Conclusion: The CVS-Q has acceptable psychometric properties, making it a valid and reliable tool to control the visual health of computer workers, and can potentially be used in clinical trials and outcome research.

Differences between the personal, social and emotional profiles of teaching and computer engineering professionals and students

The evidence suggests that emotional intelligence and personality traits are important qualities that workers need in order to successfully exercise a profession. This article assumes that the main purpose of universities is to promote employment by providing an education that facilitates the acquisition of abilities, skills, competencies and values. In this study, the emotional intelligence and personality profiles of two groups of Spanish students studying degrees in two different academic disciplines – computer engineering and teacher training – were analysed and compared. In addition, the skills forming part of the emotional intelligence and personality traits required by professionals (computer engineers and teachers) in their work were studied, and the profiles obtained for the students were compared with those identified by the professionals in each field. Results revealed significant differences between the profiles of the two groups of students, with the teacher training students scoring higher on interpersonal skills; differences were also found between professionals and students for most competencies, with professionals in both fields demanding more competencies that those evidenced by graduates. The implications of these results for the incorporation of generic social, emotional and personal competencies into the university curriculum are discussed.

Contributions to 3D Data Registration and Representation

Nowadays, new computers generation provides a high performance that enables to build computationally expensive computer vision applications applied to mobile robotics. Building a map of the environment is a common task of a robot and is an essential part to allow the robots to move through these environments. Traditionally, mobile robots used a combination of several sensors from different technologies. Lasers, sonars and contact sensors have been typically used in any mobile robotic architecture, however color cameras are an important sensor due to we want the robots to use the same information that humans to sense and move through the different environments. Color cameras are cheap and flexible but a lot of work need to be done to give robots enough visual understanding of the scenes. Computer vision algorithms are computational complex problems but nowadays robots have access to different and powerful architectures that can be used for mobile robotics purposes. The advent of low-cost RGB-D sensors like Microsoft Kinect which provide 3D colored point clouds at high frame rates made the computer vision even more relevant in the mobile robotics field. The combination of visual and 3D data allows the systems to use both computer vision and 3D processing and therefore to be aware of more details of the surrounding environment. The research described in this thesis was motivated by the need of scene mapping. Being aware of the surrounding environment is a key feature in many mobile robotics applications from simple robotic navigation to complex surveillance applications. In addition, the acquisition of a 3D model of the scenes is useful in many areas as video games scene modeling where well-known places are reconstructed and added to game systems or advertising where once you get the 3D model of one room the system can add furniture pieces using augmented reality techniques. In this thesis we perform an experimental study of the state-of-the-art registration methods to find which one fits better to our scene mapping purposes. Different methods are tested and analyzed on different scene distributions of visual and geometry appearance. In addition, this thesis proposes two methods for 3d data compression and representation of 3D maps. Our 3D representation proposal is based on the use of Growing Neural Gas (GNG) method. This Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) has been successfully used for clustering, pattern recognition and topology representation of various kind of data. Until now, Self-Organizing Maps have been primarily computed offline and their application in 3D data has mainly focused on free noise models without considering time constraints. Self-organising neural models have the ability to provide a good representation of the input space. In particular, the Growing Neural Gas (GNG) is a suitable model because of its flexibility, rapid adaptation and excellent quality of representation. However, this type of learning is time consuming, specially for high-dimensional input data. Since real applications often work under time constraints, it is necessary to adapt the learning process in order to complete it in a predefined time. This thesis proposes a hardware implementation leveraging the computing power of modern GPUs which takes advantage of a new paradigm coined as General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU). Our proposed geometrical 3D compression method seeks to reduce the 3D information using plane detection as basic structure to compress the data. This is due to our target environments are man-made and therefore there are a lot of points that belong to a plane surface. Our proposed method is able to get good compression results in those man-made scenarios. The detected and compressed planes can be also used in other applications as surface reconstruction or plane-based registration algorithms. Finally, we have also demonstrated the goodness of the GPU technologies getting a high performance implementation of a CAD/CAM common technique called Virtual Digitizing.

Deformable templates for tracking and analysis of intravascular ultrasound sequences

Deformable Template models are first applied to track the inner wall of coronary arteries in intravascular ultrasound sequences, mainly in the assistance to angioplasty surgery. A circular template is used for initializing an elliptical deformable model to track wall deformation when inflating a balloon placed at the tip of the catheter. We define a new energy function for driving the behavior of the template and we test its robustness both in real and synthetic images. Finally we introduce a framework for learning and recognizing spatio-temporal geometric constraints based on Principal Component Analysis (eigenconstraints).

Bayesian models for finding and grouping junctions

In this paper, we propose two Bayesian methods for detecting and grouping junctions. Our junction detection method evolves from the Kona approach, and it is based on a competitive greedy procedure inspired in the region competition method. Then, junction grouping is accomplished by finding connecting paths between pairs of junctions. Path searching is performed by applying a Bayesian A* algorithm that has been recently proposed. Both methods are efficient and robust, and they are tested with synthetic and real images.

Data normalization and integration in robotic systems using web services technologies

The robotics is one of the most active areas. We also need to join a large number of disciplines to create robots. With these premises, one problem is the management of information from multiple heterogeneous sources. Each component, hardware or software, produces data with different nature: temporal frequencies, processing needs, size, type, etc. Nowadays, technologies and software engineering paradigms such as service-oriented architectures are applied to solve this problem in other areas. This paper proposes the use of these technologies to implement a robotic control system based on services. This type of system will allow integration and collaborative work of different elements that make up a robotic system.

Hybrid simulation-optimization based approach for the optimal design of single-product biotechnological processes

In this work, we present a systematic method for the optimal development of bioprocesses that relies on the combined use of simulation packages and optimization tools. One of the main advantages of our method is that it allows for the simultaneous optimization of all the individual components of a bioprocess, including the main upstream and downstream units. The design task is mathematically formulated as a mixed-integer dynamic optimization (MIDO) problem, which is solved by a decomposition method that iterates between primal and master sub-problems. The primal dynamic optimization problem optimizes the operating conditions, bioreactor kinetics and equipment sizes, whereas the master levels entails the solution of a tailored mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model that decides on the values of the integer variables (i.e., number of equipments in parallel and topological decisions). The dynamic optimization primal sub-problems are solved via a sequential approach that integrates the process simulator SuperPro Designer® with an external NLP solver implemented in Matlab®. The capabilities of the proposed methodology are illustrated through its application to a typical fermentation process and to the production of the amino acid L-lysine.

The Influence of Gender, Intellectual Ability, Academic Self-Concept, Self-Regulation, Learning Strategies, Popularity and Parent Involvement in Early Adolescence

The present study examined the predictive effects of gender, intellectual ability, self-concept, motivation, learning strategies, popularity and parent involvement on academic achievement. Hiearchical regression analysis were performed with six steps in which each variable was included, among a sample of 1398 high school students (mean age = 12.5; standard deviation = .67) of eight education centers from the province of Alicante (Spain). The results revealed significant predictive effects of all of the variables, explaining 59.1% of the total variance.

Experiences Using an Open Source Sofware Library to Teach Computer Vision Subjects

Machine vision is an important subject in computer science and engineering degrees. For laboratory experimentation, it is desirable to have a complete and easy-to-use tool. In this work we present a Java library, oriented to teaching computer vision. We have designed and built the library from the scratch with enfasis on readability and understanding rather than on efficiency. However, the library can also be used for research purposes. JavaVis is an open source Java library, oriented to the teaching of Computer Vision. It consists of a framework with several features that meet its demands. It has been designed to be easy to use: the user does not have to deal with internal structures or graphical interface, and should the student need to add a new algorithm it can be done simply enough. Once we sketch the library, we focus on the experience the student gets using this library in several computer vision courses. Our main goal is to find out whether the students understand what they are doing, that is, find out how much the library helps the student in grasping the basic concepts of computer vision. In the last four years we have conducted surveys to assess how much the students have improved their skills by using this library.

3D teaching: the ideal complement for professionals in design and construction

Today, the requirement of professional skills to university students is constantly increasing in our society. In our opinion, the content offered in official degrees need to be nourished with different variables, enriching their global professional knowledge in a parallel way; that is why, in recent years, there is a great multiplicity of complementary courses at university. One of the most socially demanded technical requirements within the architectural, design or engineering field is the management of 3D drawing software, becoming an indispensable reality in these sectors. Thus, this specific training becomes essential over two-dimension traditional design, because the inclusion of great possibilities of spatial development that go beyond conventional orthographic projections (plans, sections or elevations), allowing modelling and rotation of the selected items from multiple angles and perspectives. Therefore, this paper analyzes the teaching methodology of a complementary course for those technicians in the construction industry interested in computer-aided design, using modelling (SketchupMake) and rendering programs (Kerkythea). The course is developed from the technician point of view, by learning computer management and its application to professional development from a more general to a more specific view through practical examples. The proposed methodology is based on the development of real examples in different professional environments such as rehabilitation, new constructions, opening projects or architectural design. This multidisciplinary contribution improves criticism of students in different areas, encouraging new learning strategies and the independent development of three-dimensional solutions. Thus, the practical implementation of new situations, even suggested by the students themselves, ensures active participation, saving time during the design process and the increase of effectiveness when generating elements which may be represented, moved or virtually tested. In conclusion, this teaching-learning methodology improves the skills and competencies of students to face the growing professional demands of society. After finishing the course, technicians not only improved their expertise in the field of drawing but they also enhanced their capacity for spatial vision; both essential qualities in these sectors that can be applied to their professional development with great success.