Digital serious games and simulation games - comparison of two approaches to lean training

In an increasingly competitive and globalized world, companies need effective training methodologies and tools for their employees. However, selecting the most suitable ones is not an easy task. It depends on the requirements of the target group (namely time restrictions), on the specificities of the contents, etc. This is typically the case for training in Lean, the waste elimination manufacturing philosophy. This paper presents and compares two different approaches to lean training methodologies and tools: a simulation game based on a single realistic manufacturing platform, involving production and assembly operations that allows learning by playing; and a digital game that helps understand lean tools. This paper shows that both tools have advantages in terms of trainee motivation and knowledge acquisition. Furthermore, they can be used in a complementary way, reinforcing the acquired knowledge.

Efeito de um programa de autorregulação na promoção da autonomia de um aluno com Perturbação do Espetro do Autismo no 1º ano do 1º ciclo do ensino básico

Objetivo: Este estudo avaliou os efeitos da implementação de um programa de autorregulação no aumento da autonomia de um aluno com Perturbação do Espetro do Autismo, em contexto de sala de aula, no segmento letivo de Português. Método: A metodologia adotada foi quantitativa e experimental, num desenho de investigação de sujeito único, dividido em três fases de investigação: linha de base, início do programa de intervenção e um mês depois. Os registos dos vídeos, e a construção e implementação do programa de intervenção em conjunto com a professora, tiveram como base os princípios e procedimentos da Análise Comportamental Aplica. Resultados / Discussão: Após a implementação do programa de intervenção observou-se um acentuado aumento do envolvimento do aluno e das suas respostas às instruções académicas da professora, essencialmente ao nível das instruções de grupo que, na linha de base, apresentavam valores baixos. A eficácia da intervenção reforça a importância de se capacitar professores na aplicação de técnicas comportamentais dado que, neste estudo e à semelhança de outros, a professora aprendeu rapidamente a implementar práticas que facilmente se ajustam à sala de aula, levando à melhoria sistemática do comportamento do aluno com PEA numa sala de aula inclusiva.

Desenvolvimento do Sistema de gestão da qualidade (NP EN ISO 9001:2008) na empresa Centi-Support

Dissertação de Mestrado em Gestão Integrada da Qualidade, Ambiente e Segurança

A data-mining-based methodology for transmission expansion planning

In recent decades, all over the world, competition in the electric power sector has deeply changed the way this sector’s agents play their roles. In most countries, electric process deregulation was conducted in stages, beginning with the clients of higher voltage levels and with larger electricity consumption, and later extended to all electrical consumers. The sector liberalization and the operation of competitive electricity markets were expected to lower prices and improve quality of service, leading to greater consumer satisfaction. Transmission and distribution remain noncompetitive business areas, due to the large infrastructure investments required. However, the industry has yet to clearly establish the best business model for transmission in a competitive environment. After generation, the electricity needs to be delivered to the electrical system nodes where demand requires it, taking into consideration transmission constraints and electrical losses. If the amount of power flowing through a certain line is close to or surpasses the safety limits, then cheap but distant generation might have to be replaced by more expensive closer generation to reduce the exceeded power flows. In a congested area, the optimal price of electricity rises to the marginal cost of the local generation or to the level needed to ration demand to the amount of available electricity. Even without congestion, some power will be lost in the transmission system through heat dissipation, so prices reflect that it is more expensive to supply electricity at the far end of a heavily loaded line than close to an electric power generation. Locational marginal pricing (LMP), resulting from bidding competition, represents electrical and economical values at nodes or in areas that may provide economical indicator signals to the market agents. This article proposes a data-mining-based methodology that helps characterize zonal prices in real power transmission networks. To test our methodology, we used an LMP database from the California Independent System Operator for 2009 to identify economical zones. (CAISO is a nonprofit public benefit corporation charged with operating the majority of California’s high-voltage wholesale power grid.) To group the buses into typical classes that represent a set of buses with the approximate LMP value, we used two-step and k-means clustering algorithms. By analyzing the various LMP components, our goal was to extract knowledge to support the ISO in investment and network-expansion planning.

Context-aware emotion-based model for group decision making

Involving groups in important management processes such as decision making has several advantages. By discussing and combining ideas, counter ideas, critical opinions, identified constraints, and alternatives, a group of individuals can test potentially better solutions, sometimes in the form of new products, services, and plans. In the past few decades, operations research, AI, and computer science have had tremendous success creating software systems that can achieve optimal solutions, even for complex problems. The only drawback is that people don’t always agree with these solutions. Sometimes this dissatisfaction is due to an incorrect parameterization of the problem. Nevertheless, the reasons people don’t like a solution might not be quantifiable, because those reasons are often based on aspects such as emotion, mood, and personality. At the same time, monolithic individual decisionsupport systems centered on optimizing solutions are being replaced by collaborative systems and group decision-support systems (GDSSs) that focus more on establishing connections between people in organizations. These systems follow a kind of social paradigm. Combining both optimization- and socialcentered approaches is a topic of current research. However, even if such a hybrid approach can be developed, it will still miss an essential point: the emotional nature of group participants in decision-making tasks. We’ve developed a context-aware emotion based model to design intelligent agents for group decision-making processes. To evaluate this model, we’ve incorporated it in an agent-based simulator called ABS4GD (Agent-Based Simulation for Group Decision), which we developed. This multiagent simulator considers emotion- and argument based factors while supporting group decision-making processes. Experiments show that agents endowed with emotional awareness achieve agreements more quickly than those without such awareness. Hence, participant agents that integrate emotional factors in their judgments can be more successful because, in exchanging arguments with other agents, they consider the emotional nature of group decision making.

From design-for-test to design-for-debug-and-test: analysis of requirements and limitations for 1149.1

The increasing complexity of VLSI circuits and the reduced accessibility of modern packaging and mounting technologies restrict the usefulness of conventional in-circuit debugging tools, such as in-circuit emulators for microprocessors and microcontrollers. However, this same trend enables the development of more complex products, which in turn require more powerful debugging tools. These conflicting demands could be met if the standard scan test infrastructures now common in most complex components were able to match the debugging requirements of design verification and prototype validation. This paper analyses the main debug requirements in the design of microprocessor-based applications and the feasibility of their implementation using the mandatory, optional and additional operating modes of the standard IEEE 1149.1 test infrastructure.

Desempenho Manual do Membro Superior Ipsilesional em Indivíduos com Acidente Vascular Encefálico

Introdução: nos pacientes que sofreram um Acidente Vascular Encefálico são incididos programas de reabilitação que visam principalmente o hemicorpo contralesional, negligenciando o lado ipsilesional. Porém, estão descritas alterações sensitivas e motoras do membro superior ipsilesional neste grupo populacional. Objetivo: avaliar os défices de sensibilidade, destreza grossa e fina e força de preensão da mão ipsilesional em indivíduos com diagnóstico de Acidente Vascular Encefálico, comparando o sexo, o hemisfério cerebral onde se localiza a lesão, a fase aguda e crónica, tendo como referência um grupo controlo. Metodologia: este estudo observacional de carácter analítico transversal foi constituído por 34 indivíduos em que 18 deles tem diagnóstico de Acidente Vascular Encefálico e 16 sem défices neurológicos. A avaliação foi iniciada com um questionário para recolha de informações dos participantes e de seguida foram aplicados instrumentos de avaliação num só momento com o mesmo examinador. Para avaliar a sensibilidade foi usado o Moving Touch-Pressure Test, para a força o Dinamómetro Baseline®, na avaliação da destreza grossa o Teste Caixa e Blocos e por fim a destreza fina com o Purdue Pegboard Test. Estatisticamente recorreu-se ao teste T-student para amostras independentes com nível de significância de 0,05. Resultados: verificou-se que o membro superior ipsilesional dos indivíduos que sofreram um AVE apresenta um défice na força de preensão manual com nível se significância de p=0,001, e de p=0,000 para a destreza fina e grossa e sensibilidade, quando comparados com um grupo controlo. Constatou-se também que no grupo de indivíduos com diagnóstico de Acidente Vascular Encefálico, o sexo masculino obteve melhores resultados em todos os parâmetros avaliados. Observou-se ainda que tanto os homens como as mulheres após sofrerem um Acidente Vascular Encefálico apresentam défices funcionais na mão ipsilesional, mas no entanto os homens apresentam apenas alterações na destreza grossa (p=0,017) e na força (p=0,001). Na comparação dos hemisférios cerebrais lesados e das fases aguda e crónica do AVE verificou-se que não houve diferenças significativas. Conclusão: Existem défices no membro superior ipsilesional após Acidente Vascular Encefálico, sendo então pertinente a sua inclusão em programas de reabilitação, podendo assim melhorar a qualidade de vida dos indivíduos com esta patologia.

Field experiments for marine casualty detection with autonomous surface vehicles

In this paper we present a set of field tests for detection of human in the water with an unmanned surface vehicle using infrared and color cameras. These experiments aimed to contribute in the development of victim target tracking and obstacle avoidance for unmanned surface vehicles operating in marine search and rescue missions. This research is integrated in the work conducted in the European FP7 research project Icarus aiming to develop robotic tools for large scale rescue operations. The tests consisted in the use of the ROAZ unmanned surface vehicle equipped with a precision GPS system for localization and both visible spectrum and IR cameras to detect the target. In the experimental setup, the test human target was deployed in the water wearing a life vest and a diver suit (thus having lower temperature signature in the body except hands and head) and was equipped with a GPS logger. Multiple target approaches were performed in order to test the system with different sun incidence relative angles. The experimental setup, detection method and preliminary results from the field trials performed in the summer of 2013 in Sesimbra, Portugal and in La Spezia, Italy are also presented in this work.

TEC4SEA - A Modular Platform for Research, Test and Validation of Technologies Supporting a Sustainable Blue Economy

This paper presents the TEC4SEA research infrastructure created in Portugal to support research, development, and validation of marine technologies. It is a multidisciplinary open platform, capable of supporting research, development, and test of marine robotics, telecommunications, and sensing technologies for monitoring and operating in the ocean environment. Due to the installed research facilities and its privileged geographic location, it allows fast access to deep sea, and can support multidisciplinary research, enabling full validation and evaluation of technological solutions designed for the ocean environment. It is a vertically integrated infrastructure, in the sense that it possesses a set of skills and resources which range from pure conceptual research to field deployment missions, with strong industrial and logistic capacities in the middle tier of prototype production. TEC4SEA is open to the entire scientific and enterprise community, with a free access policy for researchers affiliated with the research units that ensure its maintenance and sustainability. The paper describes the infrastructure in detail, and discusses associated research programs, providing a strategic vision for deep sea research initiatives, within the context of both the Portuguese National Ocean Strategy and European Strategy frameworks.