Enhancing reflexivity and technology in translation learning: case study on the use of ePortfolio as a training environment

In this paper we describe a casestudy of an experiment on how reflexivity and technology can enhance learning, by using ePorfolios as a training environment to develop translation skills. Translation is today a multiskilled job and translators need to assure their clients a good performance and quality, both in language and in technology domains. In order to accomplish it, for the translator all the tasks and processes he develops appear as crucial, being pretranslation and posttranslation processes equally important as the translation itself, namely as far as autonomy, reflexive and critical skills are concerned. Finally, the need and relevance for collaborative tasks and networks amongst virtual translation communities, led us to the decision of implementing ePortfolios as a tool to develop the requested skills and extend the use of Internet in translation, namely in terminology management phases, for the completion of each task, by helping students in the management of the projects deadlines, improving their knowledge on the construction and management of translation resources and deepening their awareness about the concepts related to the development and usability of ePorfolios.

Hardware and software in smart decision rooms

Since the last decade research in Group Decision Making area have been focus in the building of meeting rooms that could support the decision making task and improve the quality of those decisions. However the emergence of Ambient Intelligence concept contributes with a new perspective, a different way of viewing traditional decision rooms. In this paper we will present an overview of Smart Decision Rooms providing Intelligence to the meeting environment, and we will also present LAID, an Ambient Intelligence Environment oriented to support Group Decision Making and some of the software tools that we already have installed in this environment.

Highly scalable aggregate computations in cyber-physical systems: physical environment meets communication protocols

In this paper, we focus on large-scale and dense Cyber- Physical Systems, and discuss methods that tightly integrate communication and computing with the underlying physical environment. We present Physical Dynamic Priority Dominance ((PD)2) protocol that exemplifies a key mechanism to devise low time-complexity communication protocols for large-scale networked sensor systems. We show that using this mechanism, one can compute aggregate quantities such as the maximum or minimum of sensor readings in a time-complexity that is equivalent to essentially one message exchange. We also illustrate the use of this mechanism in a more complex task of computing the interpolation of smooth as well as non-smooth sensor data in very low timecomplexity.

Dynamic QoS adaptation of inter- dependent task sets in cooperative embedded systems

Due to the growing complexity and dynamism of many embedded application domains (including consumer electronics, robotics, automotive and telecommunications), it is increasingly difficult to react to load variations and adapt the system's performance in a controlled fashion within an useful and bounded time. This is particularly noticeable when intending to benefit from the full potential of an open distributed cooperating environment, where service characteristics are not known beforehand and tasks may exhibit unrestricted QoS inter-dependencies. This paper proposes a novel anytime adaptive QoS control policy in which the online search for the best set of QoS levels is combined with each user's personal preferences on their services' adaptation behaviour. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed anytime algorithms are able to quickly find a good initial solution and effectively optimise the rate at which the quality of the current solution improves as the algorithms are given more time to run, with a minimum overhead when compared against their traditional versions.

Integrating the LMS in service oriented e-learning systems

Learning management systems are routinely used for presenting, solving and grading exercises with large classes. However, teachers are constrained to use questions with pre-defined answers, such as multiple-choice, to automatically correct the exercises of their students. Complex exercises cannot be evaluated automatically by the LMS and require the coordination of a set of heterogeneous systems. For instance, programming exercises require a specialized exercise resolution environment and automatic evaluation features, each provided by a different type of system. In this paper, the authors discuss an approach for the coordination of a network of eLearning systems supporting the resolution of exercises. The proposed approach is based on a pivot component embedded in the LMS and has two main roles: 1) provide an exercise resolution environment, and 2) coordinate communication between the LMS and other systems, exposing their functions as web services. The integration of the pivot component in the LMS relies on Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). This paper presents an architecture to coordinate a network of eLearning systems and validate the proposed approach by creating such a network integrated with LMS from two different vendors.

Modelling an e-learning environment for learning programming languages

It is widely accepted that solving programming exercises is fundamental to learn how to program. Nevertheless, solving exercises is only effective if students receive an assessment on their work. An exercise solved wrong will consolidate a false belief, and without feedback many students will not be able to overcome their difficulties. However, creating, managing and accessing a large number of exercises, covering all the points in the curricula of a programming course, in classes with large number of students, can be a daunting task without the appropriated tools working in unison. This involves a diversity of tools, from the environments where programs are coded, to automatic program evaluators providing feedback on the attempts of students, passing through the authoring, management and sequencing of programming exercises as learning objects. We believe that the integration of these tools will have a great impact in acquiring programming skills. Our research objective is to manage and coordinate a network of eLearning systems where students can solve computer programming exercises. Networks of this kind include systems such as learning management systems (LMS), evaluation engines (EE), learning objects repositories (LOR) and exercise resolution environments (ERE). Our strategy to achieve the interoperability among these tools is based on a shared definition of programming exercise as a Learning Object (LO).

Using the learning tools interoperability framework for LMS integration in service oriented architectures

The LMS plays an indisputable role in the majority of the eLearning environments. This eLearning system type is often used for presenting, solving and grading simple exercises. However, exercises from complex domains, such as computer programming, require heterogeneous systems such as evaluation engines, learning objects repositories and exercise resolution environments. The coordination of networks of such disparate systems is rather complex. This work presents a standard approach for the coordination of a network of eLearning systems supporting the resolution of exercises. The proposed approach use a pivot component embedded in the LMS with two roles: provide an exercise resolution environment and coordinate the communication between the LMS and other systems exposing their functions as web services. The integration of the pivot component with the LMS relies on the Learning Tools Interoperability. The validation of this approach is made through the integration of the component with LMSs from two vendors.

The influence of task design on upper limb muscles fatigue during low-load repetitive work: A systematic review

Ergonomic interventions such as increased scheduled breaks or job rotation have been proposed to reduce upper limb muscle fatigue in repetitive low-load work. This review was performed to summarize and analyze the studies investigating the effect of job rotation and work-rest schemes, as well as, work pace, cycle time and duty cycle, on upper limb muscle fatigue. The effects of these work organization factors on subjective fatigue or discomfort were also analyzed. This review was based on relevant articles published in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. The studies included in this review were performed in humans and assessed muscle fatigue in upper limbs. 14 articles were included in the systematic review. Few studies were performed in a real work environment and the most common methods used to assess muscle fatigue were surface electromyography (EMG). No consistent results were found related to the effects of job rotation on muscle activity and subjective measurements of fatigue. Rest breaks had some positive effects, particularly in perceived discomfort. The increase in work pace reveals a higher muscular load in specific muscles. The duration of experiments and characteristics of participants appear to be the factors that most have influenced the results. Future research should be focused on the improvement of the experimental protocols and instrumentation, in order to the outcomes represent adequately the actual working conditions. Relevance to industry: Introducing more physical workload variation in low-load repetitive work is considered an effective ergonomic intervention against muscle fatigue and musculoskeletal disorders in industry. Results will be useful to identify the need of future research, which will eventually lead to the adoption of best industrial work practices according to the workers capabilities.

Real-time Task-Splitting scheduling algorithms framework

Nos dias de hoje, os sistemas de tempo real crescem em importância e complexidade. Mediante a passagem do ambiente uniprocessador para multiprocessador, o trabalho realizado no primeiro não é completamente aplicável no segundo, dado que o nível de complexidade difere, principalmente devido à existência de múltiplos processadores no sistema. Cedo percebeu-se, que a complexidade do problema não cresce linearmente com a adição destes. Na verdade, esta complexidade apresenta-se como uma barreira ao avanço científico nesta área que, para já, se mantém desconhecida, e isto testemunha-se, essencialmente no caso de escalonamento de tarefas. A passagem para este novo ambiente, quer se trate de sistemas de tempo real ou não, promete gerar a oportunidade de realizar trabalho que no primeiro caso nunca seria possível, criando assim, novas garantias de desempenho, menos gastos monetários e menores consumos de energia. Este último fator, apresentou-se desde cedo, como, talvez, a maior barreira de desenvolvimento de novos processadores na área uniprocessador, dado que, à medida que novos eram lançados para o mercado, ao mesmo tempo que ofereciam maior performance, foram levando ao conhecimento de um limite de geração de calor que obrigou ao surgimento da área multiprocessador. No futuro, espera-se que o número de processadores num determinado chip venha a aumentar, e como é óbvio, novas técnicas de exploração das suas inerentes vantagens têm de ser desenvolvidas, e a área relacionada com os algoritmos de escalonamento não é exceção. Ao longo dos anos, diferentes categorias de algoritmos multiprocessador para dar resposta a este problema têm vindo a ser desenvolvidos, destacando-se principalmente estes: globais, particionados e semi-particionados. A perspectiva global, supõe a existência de uma fila global que é acessível por todos os processadores disponíveis. Este fato torna disponível a migração de tarefas, isto é, é possível parar a execução de uma tarefa e resumir a sua execução num processador distinto. Num dado instante, num grupo de tarefas, m, as tarefas de maior prioridade são selecionadas para execução. Este tipo promete limites de utilização altos, a custo elevado de preempções/migrações de tarefas. Em contraste, os algoritmos particionados, colocam as tarefas em partições, e estas, são atribuídas a um dos processadores disponíveis, isto é, para cada processador, é atribuída uma partição. Por essa razão, a migração de tarefas não é possível, acabando por fazer com que o limite de utilização não seja tão alto quando comparado com o caso anterior, mas o número de preempções de tarefas decresce significativamente. O esquema semi-particionado, é uma resposta de caráter hibrido entre os casos anteriores, pois existem tarefas que são particionadas, para serem executadas exclusivamente por um grupo de processadores, e outras que são atribuídas a apenas um processador. Com isto, resulta uma solução que é capaz de distribuir o trabalho a ser realizado de uma forma mais eficiente e balanceada. Infelizmente, para todos estes casos, existe uma discrepância entre a teoria e a prática, pois acaba-se por se assumir conceitos que não são aplicáveis na vida real. Para dar resposta a este problema, é necessário implementar estes algoritmos de escalonamento em sistemas operativos reais e averiguar a sua aplicabilidade, para caso isso não aconteça, as alterações necessárias sejam feitas, quer a nível teórico quer a nível prá

Transactions and schema evolution in a persistent object-oriented programming system

Applications are subject of a continuous evolution process with a profound impact on their underlining data model, hence requiring frequent updates in the applications' class structure and database structure as well. This twofold problem, schema evolution and instance adaptation, usually known as database evolution, is addressed in this thesis. Additionally, we address concurrency and error recovery problems with a novel meta-model and its aspect-oriented implementation. Modern object-oriented databases provide features that help programmers deal with object persistence, as well as all related problems such as database evolution, concurrency and error handling. In most systems there are transparent mechanisms to address these problems, nonetheless the database evolution problem still requires some human intervention, which consumes much of programmers' and database administrators' work effort. Earlier research works have demonstrated that aspect-oriented programming (AOP) techniques enable the development of flexible and pluggable systems. In these earlier works, the schema evolution and the instance adaptation problems were addressed as database management concerns. However, none of this research was focused on orthogonal persistent systems. We argue that AOP techniques are well suited to address these problems in orthogonal persistent systems. Regarding the concurrency and error recovery, earlier research showed that only syntactic obliviousness between the base program and aspects is possible. Our meta-model and framework follow an aspect-oriented approach focused on the object-oriented orthogonal persistent context. The proposed meta-model is characterized by its simplicity in order to achieve efficient and transparent database evolution mechanisms. Our meta-model supports multiple versions of a class structure by applying a class versioning strategy. Thus, enabling bidirectional application compatibility among versions of each class structure. That is to say, the database structure can be updated because earlier applications continue to work, as well as later applications that have only known the updated class structure. The specific characteristics of orthogonal persistent systems, as well as a metadata enrichment strategy within the application's source code, complete the inception of the meta-model and have motivated our research work. To test the feasibility of the approach, a prototype was developed. Our prototype is a framework that mediates the interaction between applications and the database, providing them with orthogonal persistence mechanisms. These mechanisms are introduced into applications as an {\it aspect} in the aspect-oriented sense. Objects do not require the extension of any super class, the implementation of an interface nor contain a particular annotation. Parametric type classes are also correctly handled by our framework. However, classes that belong to the programming environment must not be handled as versionable due to restrictions imposed by the Java Virtual Machine. Regarding concurrency support, the framework provides the applications with a multithreaded environment which supports database transactions and error recovery. The framework keeps applications oblivious to the database evolution problem, as well as persistence. Programmers can update the applications' class structure because the framework will produce a new version for it at the database metadata layer. Using our XML based pointcut/advice constructs, the framework's instance adaptation mechanism is extended, hence keeping the framework also oblivious to this problem. The potential developing gains provided by the prototype were benchmarked. In our case study, the results confirm that mechanisms' transparency has positive repercussions on the programmer's productivity, simplifying the entire evolution process at application and database levels. The meta-model itself also was benchmarked in terms of complexity and agility. Compared with other meta-models, it requires less meta-object modifications in each schema evolution step. Other types of tests were carried out in order to validate prototype and meta-model robustness. In order to perform these tests, we used an OO7 small size database due to its data model complexity. Since the developed prototype offers some features that were not observed in other known systems, performance benchmarks were not possible. However, the developed benchmark is now available to perform future performance comparisons with equivalent systems. In order to test our approach in a real world scenario, we developed a proof-of-concept application. This application was developed without any persistence mechanisms. Using our framework and minor changes applied to the application's source code, we added these mechanisms. Furthermore, we tested the application in a schema evolution scenario. This real world experience using our framework showed that applications remains oblivious to persistence and database evolution. In this case study, our framework proved to be a useful tool for programmers and database administrators. Performance issues and the single Java Virtual Machine concurrent model are the major limitations found in the framework.

Accounting education in an action-based learning environment: lessons learned

In the context of the Bologna Declaration a change is taking place in the teaching/learning paradigm. From teaching-centered education, which emphasizes the acquisition and transmission of knowledge, we now speak of learning-centered education, which is more demanding for students. This paradigm promotes a continuum of lifelong learning, where the individual needs to be able to handle knowledge, to select what is appropriate for a particular context, to learn permanently and to understand how to learn in new and rapidly changing situations. One attempt to face these challenges has been the experience of ISCAP regarding the teaching/learning of accounting in the course Managerial Simulation. This paper describes the process of teaching, learning and assessment in an action-based learning environment. After a brief general framework that focuses on education objectives, we report the strengths and limitations of this teaching/learning tool. We conclude with some lessons from the implementation of the project.

Improving the learning experience and learning environment of adults in Higher Education – Project LIHE: the Portuguese case

Project LIHE: the Portuguese Case. ESREA Fourth Access Network Conference – “Equity, Access and Participation: Research, Policy and Practice”. Edinburgh (Scotland), 11 – 13 December, 2003.

Moodle and multiple-choice tests

Multiple-Choice items are used in many different kinds of tests in several areas of knowledge. They can be considered an interesting tool to the self-assessing or as an alternative or complementary instrument to the traditional methods for assessing knowledge. The objectivity and accuracy of the multiple-choice tests is an important reason to think about. They are especially useful when the number of students to evaluate is too large. Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is an Open Source course management system centered around learners' needs and designed to support collaborative approaches to teaching and learning. Moodle offers to the users a rich interface, context-specific help buttons, and a wide variety of tools such as discussion forums, wikis, chat, surveys, quizzes, glossaries, journals, grade books and more, that allow them to learn and collaborate in a truly interactive space. Come together the interactivity of the Moodle platform and the objectivity of this kind of tests one can easily build manifold random tests. The proposal of this paper is to relate our journey in the construction of these tests and share our experience in the use of the Moodle platform to create, take advantage and improve the multiple-choices tests in the Mathematic area.

Improving management skills through business simulation

A survey was conducted among students of the Accounting and Administration undergraduate degree at ISCAP – IPP (School of Accounting and Administration of Polytechnic Institute of Porto) in order to understand their perception value of their course Business Simulation (BS). This course is provided in a business environment where students can learn by doing through the management of a company as they were in the real life, but risk-free. The learning tasks are provided in an action-oriented format to maximize the learning process. Students learn by doing a set of tasks every session and have also to produce reports and presentations during the course. BS is part of the undergraduate degree of Accounting and Administration at ISCAP – IPP since the beginning of 2003. The questionnaire we used captured the students’ perception about general and specific skills and competencies considered important for managers and accountants in the real life, about the methodology used in the course, which is totally different from the traditional form, and also about the adequacy of the course included as part of the undergraduate degree. The results showed that students’ perception is highly positive and almost all of them think they improve the skills needed for a job during the course. These results are consistent with [1] Adler and Milne’s research in which the authors found that students agree with the use of action-oriented learning tasks in order to provide them the needed attitudes, skills, and knowledge. The improvement of group skills is the most important issue for students, which can be understandable as BS is the only course from the degree in Accounting and Administration they really have to work in groups.

Energy resources scheduling in competitive environment

The increasing use of distributed generation units based on renewable energy sources, the consideration of demand-side management as a distributed resource, and the operation in the scope of competitive electricity markets have caused important changes in the way that power systems are operated. The new distributed resources require an entity (player) capable to make them able to participate in electricity markets. This entity has been known as Virtual Power Player (VPP). VPPs need to consider all the business opportunities available to their resources, considering all the relevant players, the market and/or other VPPs to accomplish their goals. This paper presents a methodology that considers all these opportunities to minimize the operation costs of a VPP. The method is applied to a distribution network managed by four independent VPPs with intensive use of distributed resources.