Embedded Multi-Core systems for Mixed Criticality applications in dynamic and changeable real-time environments

EMC2 finds solutions for dynamic adaptability in open systems. It provides handling of mixed criticality multicore applications in r eal-time conditions, withscalability and utmost flexibility, full-scale deployment and management of integrated tool chains, through the entire lifecycle.

Quinoxaline, its derivatives and applications: a state of the art review

Quinoxaline derivatives are an important class of heterocycle compounds, where N replaces some carbon atoms in the ring of naphthalene. Its molecular formula is C8H6N2, formed by the fusion of two aromatic rings, benzene and pyrazine. It is rare in natural state, but their synthesis is easy to perform. In this review the State of the Art will be presented, which includes a summary of the progress made over the past years in the knowledge of the structure and mechanism of the quinoxaline and quinoxaline derivatives, associated medical and biomedical value as well as industrial value. Modifying quinoxaline structure it is possible to obtain a wide variety of biomedical applications, namely antimicrobial activities and chronic and metabolic diseases treatment.

Cross-Layer Admission Control to Enhance the Support of Real-Time Applications in WSN

Real-time monitoring applications may be used in a wireless sensor network (WSN) and may generate packet flows with strict quality of service requirements in terms of delay, jitter, or packet loss. When strict delays are imposed from source to destination, the packets must be delivered at the destination within an end-to-end delay (EED) hard limit in order to be considered useful. Since the WSN nodes are scarce both in processing and energy resources, it is desirable that they only transport useful data, as this contributes to enhance the overall network performance and to improve energy efficiency. In this paper, we propose a novel cross-layer admission control (CLAC) mechanism to enhance the network performance and increase energy efficiency of a WSN, by avoiding the transmission of potentially useless packets. The CLAC mechanism uses an estimation technique to preview packets EED, and decides to forward a packet only if it is expected to meet the EED deadline defined by the application, dropping it otherwise. The results obtained show that CLAC enhances the network performance by increasing the useful packet delivery ratio in high network loads and improves the energy efficiency in every network load.

SHõWA: A Self-healing Framework for Web-based Applications

The complexity of systems is considered an obstacle to the progress of the IT industry. Autonomic computing is presented as the alternative to cope with the growing complexity. It is a holistic approach, in which the systems are able to configure, heal, optimize, and protect by themselves. Web-based applications are an example of systems where the complexity is high. The number of components, their interoperability, and workload variations are factors that may lead to performance failures or unavailability scenarios. The occurrence of these scenarios affects the revenue and reputation of businesses that rely on these types of applications. In this article, we present a self-healing framework for Web-based applications (SHõWA). SHõWA is composed by several modules, which monitor the application, analyze the data to detect and pinpoint anomalies, and execute recovery actions autonomously. The monitoring is done by a small aspect-oriented programming agent. This agent does not require changes to the application source code and includes adaptive and selective algorithms to regulate the level of monitoring. The anomalies are detected and pinpointed by means of statistical correlation. The data analysis detects changes in the server response time and analyzes if those changes are correlated with the workload or are due to a performance anomaly. In the presence of per- formance anomalies, the data analysis pinpoints the anomaly. Upon the pinpointing of anomalies, SHõWA executes a recovery procedure. We also present a study about the detection and localization of anomalies, the accuracy of the data analysis, and the performance impact induced by SHõWA. Two benchmarking applications, exercised through dynamic workloads, and different types of anomaly were considered in the study. The results reveal that (1) the capacity of SHõWA to detect and pinpoint anomalies while the number of end users affected is low; (2) SHõWA was able to detect anomalies without raising any false alarm; and (3) SHõWA does not induce a significant performance overhead (throughput was affected in less than 1%, and the response time delay was no more than 2 milliseconds).

Cardmobili: innovation technology in everyday life

The developments of the internet, the proliferation of the use of Web 2.0 tools, and of the technology in general, are leveraging new ways of people to communicate, collaborate, and interact. This new world and new markets, in a daily change, are enabling the emergence of new innovative enterprises and services, taking advantage of the new technologies and of the global network. Cardmobili is a Portuguese start-up company working in the area of mobile services. This company provides a mobile service to manage rewards and membership cards, enabling users to store them in the cloud, while using mobile applications to present them in store, collecting and using the rewards, sharing cards and information with other users and friends in social networks. Cardmobili is linked to merchants’ loyalty management systems, enabling users to access exclusive offers, delivered to their mobile application and web account. The company provides complete services to make any loyalty or membership program mobile: branding, new customer registration, integration of customer account balance, mobile vouchers, coupons and offers, and mobile communication.

Crowdsourcing innovation: a strategy to leverage enterprise innovation

Innovation is recognized by academics and practitioners as an essential competitive enabler for any company to survive, to remain competitive and to grow. Investments in tasks of R&D have not always brought the expected results. But that doesn't mean that the outcomes would not be useful to other companies of the same business area or even from another area. Thus, there is much knowledge already available in the market that can be helpful to some and profitable to others. So, the ideas and expertise can be found outside a company's boundaries and also exported from within. Information, knowledge, experience, wisdom is already available in the millions of the human beings of this planet, the challenge is to use them through a network to produce new ideas and tips that can be useful to a company with less costs. This was the reason for the emergence of the area of crowdsourcing innovation. Crowdsourcing innovation is a way of using the Web 2.0 tools to generate new ideas through the heterogeneous knowledge available in the global network of individuals highly qualified and with easy access to information and technology. So, a crowdsourcing innovation broker is an organization that mediates the communication and relationship between the seekers - companies that aspire to solve some problem or to take advantage of any business opportunity - with a crowd that is prone to give ideas based on their knowledge, experience and wisdom. This paper makes a literature review on models of open innovation, crowdsourcing innovation, and technology and knowledge intermediaries, and discusses this new phenomenon as a way to leverage the innovation capacity of enterprises. Finally, the paper outlines a research design agendafor explaining crowdsourcing innovation brokering phenomenon, exploiting its players, main functions, value creation process, and knowledge creation in order to define a knowledge metamodel of such intermediaries.

Coordenação e gestão de obras em ambiente empresarial

O estágio foi um complemento da formação académica, disponibilizado pelo Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, permitindo o contacto e a inserção do estagiário no mercado de trabalho. Este relatório retrata o percurso realizado durante o estágio, e representa o culminar do Curso de Mestrado em Engenharia civil no Ramo de Gestão de Obras. O estágio, com duração de 6 meses, realizou-se na empresa Cogedir – Gestão de Projetos S.A. sediada em Vila Nova de Gaia. A integração na empresa permitiu adquirir e desenvolver competências que habilitaram o estagiário a prestar funções de direção e fiscalização de obras, pois durante o período de estágio foram atribuídas diversas funções do ramo de gestão, como a coordenação e gestão de obras, resposta a concursos públicos e privados, orçamentação, entre outras, sendo que o estágio se focalizou sobretudo na coordenação e gestão da execução de um empreendimento destinado a um Hotel e Spa na região de Águeda. Este relatório tenta demonstrar que os conhecimentos obtidos ao longo do curso foram devidamente interiorizados e aplicados em ambiente empresarial e para isso serão abordadas as principais funções, responsabilidades e atividades desempenhadas ao longo da execução do empreendimento em foco tentando dar exemplos de cada atividade. Para além disso haverá lugar a um capítulo inteiramente dedicado à gestão do planeamento a nível de prazos e custos de uma das fases de execução do empreendimento. Essa gestão será realizada com recurso à ferramenta de gestão designada por Método EVM, incorporada no programa Microsoft Project 2013. Este método oferece a possibilidade de cálculo de vários indicadores de um projeto e será explicado de forma intuitiva, simples e completa, possibilitando a sua fácil consulta ao longo da vida profissional.

Integration of the project team in the classic maintenance cycle

A manutenção é uma área extremamente importante, principalmente na indústria. Devidamente organizada, permitirá um fluxo produtivo devidamente planeado e executado, que permitirá a qualquer empresa manter o nível de facturação desejado e o prazo de entrega acordado com os clientes. De outra forma, poderá originar o caos. No entanto, os desafios de gestão da produção mais correntes, nomeadamente através do Lean Manufacturing, passam a exigir um pouco mais do que uma simples manutenção. Torna-se obrigatório fazer análises económicas que permitam averiguar quando cada equipamento passa a exigir custos de manutenção excessivos, os quais poderão obrigar a um recondicionamento mais acentuado do equipamento, o qual pode passar inclusivamente por uma melhoria da sua performance. Nestes casos, terá que existir uma “cumplicidade” entre a Direcção de Produção e a Manutenção, no sentido de averiguar o melhor momento para proceder a uma melhoria do equipamento, numa perspectiva de funcionamento global em linha de produção, adaptando-o à performance que será exigida ao conjunto. Neste domínio, o Projecto passa a prestar um serviço valiosíssimo à empresa, integrando-se no conjunto Produção + Manutenção, criando valor na intervenção, através do desenvolvimento de um trabalho que permite não só repor o estado natural da produção, mas sim promover uma melhoria sustentada da mesma. Este trabalho pretende reflectir e avaliar a relevância do Projecto neste tipo de operações, contribuindo de uma forma sistemática e sustentada para a melhoria contínua dos processos de fabrico. É apresentado um caso de estudo que pretende validar todo o desenvolvimento anteriormente realizado na matéria.

Social Media Integration in Video Games GameNshare: A Social Overlay for Desktop Games

The ever increasing popularity of social media makes it a promising source for the personalization of gameplay experiences. Furthermore, involving social network friends in a game can greatly enrich the satisfaction of the player and also attract potential novel players to a game. This master thesis describes a social overlay designed for desktop games, called GameNshare. It allows players to easily capture and share with multiple social networks game-related screenshots, videos and stories. Additionally, it also provides asynchronous multiplayer game mechanics to directly integrate social network friends in the game. GameNshare was designed to interact with the users in a non-intrusive way allowing them to be in complete control of what is shared. It prevents unsolicited sharing of messages, a key problem in social media integration tools, by the use of built-in message monitoring and anti-spam measures. GameNshare was specially designed for players aged from 18 to 25 years that are regular users of Twitter and Facebook. It was tested by a group of 10 individuals from the target age range that were surveyed to capture their insights on the use of the social overlay. The implemented GameNshare features were well accepted by the testers that were also useful in highlighting features for future development. GameNshare ultimate goal is to make players look and ask for social integration and allow them to take full advantage of their social communities to improve gaming experiences.

Controlo de acesso móvel

O mercado de smartphones tem vindo a crescer massivamente nos últimos anos, bem como a diversi cação das suas funcionalidades no dia-a-dia de cada pessoa. O mercado aberto de aplicações para estes equipamentos também tem sofrido uma forte evolução o que permite uma maior qualidade e competitividade pela apresentação de produtos. O conceito de casas inteligentes está cada vez mais presente e é algo que as pessoas se estão a acomodar de forma gradual. Para acompanhar tal feito, é necessário desenvolver as capacidades dos equipamentos que estas pessoas mais usam para que estes possam dar resposta a estas necessidades. Para o caso atual irão ser estudadas as fechaduras inteligentes. Os sistemas comercializados atualmente, são tipicamente sistemas proprietários e apresentam algumas limitações ou faltas (ex: ao nível da segurança, incapacidade de abranger um largo número de dispositivos móveis ou mesmo ao nível do preço). Neste contexto, e com base na caracterização das soluções de controlo de acesso atuais, foi estudada a viabilidade de, usando uma abordagem assente em tecnologias não proprietárias (i.e., abertas), desenvolver soluções de controlo de acesso com características comparáveis com os sistemas proprietários actuais e, eventualmente, ultrapassando os limites e falhas identi cados. Dadas estas premissas o sistema de controlo de acesso móvel pensado envolve um computador BeagleBone Black e a tecnologia sem os Bluetooth. Este sistema permite a fácil integração do computador com qualquer smartphone atual e é dotado de fortes características de segurança e privacidade. O sistema foi concebido inicialmente para ser implementado em fechaduras de portas mas com possibilidade de expansão para outros equipamentos. Além disso, o sistema permitirá também o acesso a terceiros após a devida autorização do dono.