CoolBOT: a component-oriented programming framework for robotics

[EN] Programming software for controlling robotic systems in order to built working systems that perform adequately according to their design requirements remains being a task that requires an important development effort. Currently, there are no clear programming paradigms for programming robotic systems, and the programming techniques which are of common use today are not adequate to deal with the complexity associated with these systems. The work presented in this document describes a programming tool, concretely a framework, that must be considered as a first step to devise a tool for dealing with the complexity present in robotics systems. In this framework the software that controls a system is viewed as a dynamic network of units of execution inter-connected by means of data paths. Each one of these units of execution, called a component, is a port automaton which provides a given functionality, hidden behind an external interface specifying clearly which data it needs and which data it produces. Components, once defined and built, may be instantiated, integrated and used as many times as needed in other systems. The framework provides the infrastructure necessary to support this concept for components and the inter communication between them by means of data paths (port connections) which can be established and de-established dynamically. Moreover, and considering that the more robust components that conform a system are, the more robust the system is, the framework provides the necessary infrastructure to control and monitor the components than integrate a system at any given instant of time.

A Virtual Programming Lab for Moodle with automatic assessment and anti-plagiarism features

[EN] This paper describes VPL, a Virtual Programming Lab module for Moodle, developed at the University of Las Palmas of Gran Canaria (ULPGC) and released for free uses under GNU/GPL license. For the students, it is a simple development environment with auto evaluation capabilities. For the instructors, it is a students' work management system, with features to facilitate the preparation of assignments, manage the submissions, check for plagiarism, and do assessments with the aid of powerful and flexible assessment tools based on program testing, all of that being independent of the programming language used for the assignments and taken into account critical security issues.

A contrastive analysis of epistemic modality in scientific English

[ES] This paper investigates the use of epistemic expressions in scientific English. The main aim of this research is to analyse if native speakers of English use epistemic modality in the same way than non-native speakers of English and to detect the most outstanding cognitive implications of this fact. The corpus used in this research contains 50 research papers written by native English speakers and 50 scientific papers written by Spanish researchers who use English to communicate internationally. As epistemic modals are used to indicate the possibility of some piece of knowledge, this paper focuses on epistemic modal verbs in order to detect if native speakers of English and non-native speakers of English communicate modality in the same way, or if there are differences in frequency and use. The results obtained in this analysis indicated that there are differences in the frequency of use of epistemic expressions, even if the intention of the writers is the same.

SED Stroop Effect Detector prototype

[ES] El Detector de Efectos Stroop (SED - Stroop Effect Detector), es una herramienta informática de asistencia, desarrollada a través del programa de investigación de Desarrollo Tecnológico Social de la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, que ayuda a profesionales del sector neuropsicológico a identificar problemas en la corteza orbitofrontal de un individuo, usándose para ello la técnica ideada por Schenker en 1998. Como base metodológica, se han utilizado los conocimientos adquiridos en las diferentes materias de la adaptación al grado en Ingeniería Informática como Gestión del Software, Arquitectura del Software y Desarrollo de Interfaces de Usuario así como conocimiento adquirido con anterioridad en asignaturas de Programación e Ingeniería del Software I y II. Como para realizar este proyecto sólo el conocimiento informático no era suficiente, he realizado una labor de investigación acerca del problema, teniendo que recopilar información de otros documentos científicos que abordan el tema, consultas a profesionales del sector como son el Doctor Don Ayoze Nauzet González Hernández, neurólogo del hospital Doctor Negrín de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria y el psicólogo Don José Manuel Rodríguez Pellejero que habló de este problema en clase del máster de Formación del Profesorado y que actualmente estoy cursando. Este trabajo presenta el test de Stroop con las dos versiones de Schenker: RCN (Reading Color Names) y NCW (Naming Colored Words). Como norma general, ambas pruebas presentan ante los sujetos estudios palabras (nombres de colores) escritas con la tinta de colores diferentes. De esta forma, el RCN consiste en leer la palabra escrita omitiendo la tonalidad de su fuente e intentando que no nos influya. Por el contrario, el NCW requiere enunciar el nombre del color de la tinta con la que está escrita la palabra sin que nos influya que ésta última sea el nombre de un color.