Afavorir l'ensenyament i l'aprenentatge de competències d'autoregulació del treball individual i de grup en el context de l'Espai Europeu d'Educació Superior

La comunicació que es presenta se centra en l’estudi dels factors moduladors de l’autoregulació de l’aprenentatge i en els diversos aspectes de la seva relació amb la construcció del coneixement. En aquest context és important, d’una banda, identificar algunes de les formes de suport i ajuda que s’han mostrat eficaces per afavorir en els estudiants un millor assoliment de competències de planificació, gestió i organització tant de l’estudi personal i de la realització d’activitats individuals, com del treball a elaborar amb altres companys. D’altra banda, és també important analitzar si la construcció dels continguts propis de l’assignatura millora notablement gràcies a l’ús d’estratègies de supervisió, valoració i revisió del propi aprenentatge i de les activitats col·laboratives entre estudiants. La implicació continuada en experiències d’innovació docent1 al llarg dels últims cursos acadèmics en matèries de l’Ensenyament de Mestres de la URV ens permet disposar d’un conjunt de dades sobre alguns dels múltiples i diversos aspectes que caracteritzen l’acció docent en el marc de l’adaptació dels estudis universitaris a l’Espai d’Educació Europeu Superior. Aquesta àmplia trajectòria de participació en projectes orientats al disseny instruccional i la implantació de diferents assignatures als crèdits ECTS, incorporaven noves metodologies didàctiques centrades en l’estudiant. Els resultats obtinguts en aquestes experiències il·lustren que un dels components essencials que contribueixen a la construcció d’aprenentatges significatius i afavoreixen el millor assoliment de competències científiques i professionals per part dels estudiants és l’autoregulació. El reconeixement de la complexitat dels processos implicats en l’autoregulació, entre els quals cal assenyalar tant els relatius a les aportacions per fer progressar el contingut propi de l’assignatura, com d’altres vinculats a la planificació, a la gestió i a l’organització del treball, ha comportat la focalització de la comunicació en l’estudi d’aquest àmbit. Es presenten algunes de les mesures adoptades per afavorir els processos d’autoregulació, part d’elles incorporades des del propi disseny de les assignatures, altres centrades en una varietat de recursos i d’instruments facilitadors de la planificació i del treball acadèmic. Paraules clau: innovació i millora de la qualitat docent, autogestió de l’aprenentatge

La Realitat de l'autogestió de l'aprenentatge aplicada a la pràctica dels estudis de Dret

La present comunicació pretén veure el disseny i funcionament d’una assignatura concreta com és el Dret Processal Civil, després de la introducció d’una sèrie d’elements innovadors. I aquests elements innovadors, estudiats en les properes línies, són conseqüència o millor dit, han estat pensats amb la vista posada en la nova metodologia i pla docent que esdevé amb l’arribada de l’Espai Europeu d’Educació Superior (EEES). Entre els reptes que planteja el nou sistema educatiu, que té com a principal objectiu la convergència europea en matèria d’ensenyament, hi ha la implementació d’un sistema fàcilment comprensible i comparable de titulacions; l’adopció d’un sistema d’acumulació i transferència de crèdits que afavoreixi la mobilitat, o l’intercanvi de coneixements entre països mitjançant programes com el denominat ERASMUS. Observada aquesta necessitat de nova planificació de la docència, des de l’àrea de Dret Processal de la Universitat de Girona s’ha estructurat la nostra assignatura per obtenir, precisament, una millor planificació de l’ensenyament a través d’un conjunt d’elements que permeten aconseguir una millor distribució dels horaris acadèmics, un augment del rendiment, un afavoriment de la relació professor-alumne, una millora de l’interès personal de cadascuna de les parts i una adquisició ràpida i progressiva de conceptes, entre d’altres finalitats. En definitiva, s’ha intentat buscar la manera més idònia d’afrontar els nous reptes que planteja l’EEES

An hybrid methodology for RL-based behavior coordination in a target following mission with an AUV

Proposes a behavior-based scheme for high-level control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Two main characteristics can be highlighted in the control scheme. Behavior coordination is done through a hybrid methodology, which takes in advantages of the robustness and modularity in competitive approaches, as well as optimized trajectories

Evaluating the probability and the impact of a failure in GMPLS based networks

In this paper, we define a new scheme to develop and evaluate protection strategies for building reliable GMPLS networks. This is based on what we have called the network protection degree (NPD). The NPD consists of an a priori evaluation, the failure sensibility degree (FSD), which provides the failure probability, and an a posteriori evaluation, the failure impact degree (FID), which determines the impact on the network in case of failure, in terms of packet loss and recovery time. Having mathematical formulated these components, experimental results demonstrate the benefits of the utilization of the NPD, when used to enhance some current QoS routing algorithms in order to offer a certain degree of protection

Minimum interference routing with fast protection

One of the most effective techniques offering QoS routing is minimum interference routing. However, it is complex in terms of computation time and is not oriented toward improving the network protection level. In order to include better levels of protection, new minimum interference routing algorithms are necessary. Minimizing the failure recovery time is also a complex process involving different failure recovery phases. Some of these phases depend completely on correct routing selection, such as minimizing the failure notification time. The level of protection also involves other aspects, such as the amount of resources used. In this case shared backup techniques should be considered. Therefore, minimum interference techniques should also be modified in order to include sharing resources for protection in their objectives. These aspects are reviewed and analyzed in this article, and a new proposal combining minimum interference with fast protection using shared segment backups is introduced. Results show that our proposed method improves both minimization of the request rejection ratio and the percentage of bandwidth allocated to backup paths in networks with low and medium protection requirements

Vision-based localization of an underwater robot in a structured environment

This paper presents a vision-based localization approach for an underwater robot in a structured environment. The system is based on a coded pattern placed on the bottom of a water tank and an onboard down looking camera. Main features are, absolute and map-based localization, landmark detection and tracking, and real-time computation (12.5 Hz). The proposed system provides three-dimensional position and orientation of the vehicle along with its velocity. Accuracy of the drift-free estimates is very high, allowing them to be used as feedback measures of a velocity-based low-level controller. The paper details the localization algorithm, by showing some graphical results, and the accuracy of the system

Autonomous underwater vehicle control using reinforcement learning policy search methods

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) represent a challenging control problem with complex, noisy, dynamics. Nowadays, not only the continuous scientific advances in underwater robotics but the increasing number of subsea missions and its complexity ask for an automatization of submarine processes. This paper proposes a high-level control system for solving the action selection problem of an autonomous robot. The system is characterized by the use of reinforcement learning direct policy search methods (RLDPS) for learning the internal state/action mapping of some behaviors. We demonstrate its feasibility with simulated experiments using the model of our underwater robot URIS in a target following task

Towards Direct Policy Search Reinforcement Learning for Robot Control

This paper proposes a high-level reinforcement learning (RL) control system for solving the action selection problem of an autonomous robot. Although the dominant approach, when using RL, has been to apply value function based algorithms, the system here detailed is characterized by the use of direct policy search methods. Rather than approximating a value function, these methodologies approximate a policy using an independent function approximator with its own parameters, trying to maximize the future expected reward. The policy based algorithm presented in this paper is used for learning the internal state/action mapping of a behavior. In this preliminary work, we demonstrate its feasibility with simulated experiments using the underwater robot GARBI in a target reaching task

CAC controlled services sharing a link with connectionless data services in an ATM network: a performance evaluation study

In the B-ISDN there is a provision for four classes of services, all of them supported by a single transport network (the ATM network). Three of these services, the connected oriented (CO) ones, permit connection access control (CAC) but the fourth, the connectionless oriented (CLO) one, does not. Therefore, when CLO service and CO services have to share the same ATM link, a conflict may arise. This is because a bandwidth allocation to obtain maximum statistical gain can damage the contracted ATM quality of service (QOS); and vice versa, in order to guarantee the contracted QOS, the statistical gain have to be sacrificed. The paper presents a performance evaluation study of the influence of the CLO service on a CO service (a circuit emulation service or a variable bit-rate service) when sharing the same link

Resource dimensioning aspect of heterogeneous traffic with different service requirements: Integration versus segregation

In this paper, we consider the ATM networks in which the virtual path concept is implemented. The question of how to multiplex two or more diverse traffic classes while providing different quality of service requirements is a very complicated open problem. Two distinct options are available: integration and segregation. In an integration approach all the traffic from different connections are multiplexed onto one VP. This implies that the most restrictive QOS requirements must be applied to all services. Therefore, link utilization will be decreased because unnecessarily stringent QOS is provided to all connections. With the segregation approach the problem can be much simplified if different types of traffic are separated by assigning a VP with dedicated resources (buffers and links). Therefore, resources may not be efficiently utilized because no sharing of bandwidth can take place across the VP. The probability that the bandwidth required by the accepted connections exceeds the capacity of the link is evaluated with the probability of congestion (PC). Since the PC can be expressed as the CLP, we shall simply carry out bandwidth allocation using the PC. We first focus on the influence of some parameters (CLP, bit rate and burstiness) on the capacity required by a VP supporting a single traffic class using the new convolution approach. Numerical results are presented both to compare the required capacity and to observe which conditions under each approach are preferred

Bandwidth allocation based on real time calculations using the convolution approach

This paper focuses on one of the methods for bandwidth allocation in an ATM network: the convolution approach. The convolution approach permits an accurate study of the system load in statistical terms by accumulated calculations, since probabilistic results of the bandwidth allocation can be obtained. Nevertheless, the convolution approach has a high cost in terms of calculation and storage requirements. This aspect makes real-time calculations difficult, so many authors do not consider this approach. With the aim of reducing the cost we propose to use the multinomial distribution function: the enhanced convolution approach (ECA). This permits direct computation of the associated probabilities of the instantaneous bandwidth requirements and makes a simple deconvolution process possible. The ECA is used in connection acceptance control, and some results are presented

Robust fault detection using consistency techniques for uncertainty handling

Often practical performance of analytical redundancy for fault detection and diagnosis is decreased by uncertainties prevailing not only in the system model, but also in the measurements. In this paper, the problem of fault detection is stated as a constraint satisfaction problem over continuous domains with a big number of variables and constraints. This problem can be solved using modal interval analysis and consistency techniques. Consistency techniques are then shown to be particularly efficient to check the consistency of the analytical redundancy relations (ARRs), dealing with uncertain measurements and parameters. Through the work presented in this paper, it can be observed that consistency techniques can be used to increase the performance of a robust fault detection tool, which is based on interval arithmetic. The proposed method is illustrated using a nonlinear dynamic model of a hydraulic system

Adaptive intelligent agent approach to guide the web navigation on the PLAN-G distance learning platform

Hypermedia systems based on the Web for open distance education are becoming increasingly popular as tools for user-driven access learning information. Adaptive hypermedia is a new direction in research within the area of user-adaptive systems, to increase its functionality by making it personalized [Eklu 961. This paper sketches a general agents architecture to include navigational adaptability and user-friendly processes which would guide and accompany the student during hislher learning on the PLAN-G hypermedia system (New Generation Telematics Platform to Support Open and Distance Learning), with the aid of computer networks and specifically WWW technology [Marz 98-1] [Marz 98-2]. The PLAN-G actual prototype is successfully used with some informatics courses (the current version has no agents yet). The propased multi-agent system, contains two different types of adaptive autonomous software agents: Personal Digital Agents {Interface), to interacl directly with the student when necessary; and Information Agents (Intermediaries), to filtrate and discover information to learn and to adapt navigation space to a specific student

Dam wall detection and tracking using a Mechanically Scanned Imaging Sonar

In dam inspection tasks, an underwater robot has to grab images while surveying the wall meanwhile maintaining a certain distance and relative orientation. This paper proposes the use of an MSIS (mechanically scanned imaging sonar) for relative positioning of a robot with respect to the wall. An imaging sonar gathers polar image scans from which depth images (range & bearing) are generated. Depth scans are first processed to extract a line corresponding to the wall (with the Hough transform), which is then tracked by means of an EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) using a static motion model and an implicit measurement equation associating the sensed points to the candidate line. The line estimate is referenced to the robot fixed frame and represented in polar coordinates (rho&thetas) which directly corresponds to the actual distance and relative orientation of the robot with respect to the wall. The proposed system has been tested in simulation as well as in water tank conditions

Pose-based SLAM with probabilistic scan matching algorithm using a mechanical scanned imaging sonar

This paper proposes a pose-based algorithm to solve the full SLAM problem for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), navigating in an unknown and possibly unstructured environment. The technique incorporate probabilistic scan matching with range scans gathered from a mechanical scanning imaging sonar (MSIS) and the robot dead-reckoning displacements estimated from a Doppler velocity log (DVL) and a motion reference unit (MRU). The proposed method utilizes two extended Kalman filters (EKF). The first, estimates the local path travelled by the robot while grabbing the scan as well as its uncertainty and provides position estimates for correcting the distortions that the vehicle motion produces in the acoustic images. The second is an augment state EKF that estimates and keeps the registered scans poses. The raw data from the sensors are processed and fused in-line. No priory structural information or initial pose are considered. The algorithm has been tested on an AUV guided along a 600 m path within a marina environment, showing the viability of the proposed approach