Adapting remote labs to learning scenarios: case studies using VISIR and RemotElectLab

Remote laboratories are an emergent technological and pedagogical tool at all education levels, and their widespread use is an important part of their own improvement and evolution. This paper describes several issues encountered on laboratorial classes, on higher education courses, when using remote laboratories based on PXI systems, either using the VISIR system or an alternate in-house solution. Three main issues are presented and explained, all reported by teachers, that gave support to students' use of remote laboratories. The first issue deals with the need to allow students to select the actual place where an ammeter is to be inserted on electric circuits, even incorrectly, therefore emulating real-world difficulties. The second one deals with problems with timing when several measurements are required at short intervals, as in the discharge cycle of a capacitor. In addition, the last issue deals with the use of a multimeter in dc mode when reading ac values, a use that collides with the lab settings. All scenarios are presented and discussed, including the solution found for each case. The conclusion derived from the described work is that the remote laboratories area is an expanding field, where practical use leads to improvement and evolution of the available solutions, requiring a strict cooperation and information-sharing between all actors, i.e., developers, teachers, and students.

Acute renal failure after rifampicin

A patient with miliary tuberculosis and a chronic urogenital focus is described, who had a borderline renal function at diagnosis and developed overt renal failure upon daily treatment with rifampin (RMP), isoniazid (INH) and ethambutol (EMB). This is the first Brazilian report of BMP induced renal damage. A renal biopsy taken on the third day of oliguria showed recent tubular necrosis with acute interstitial inflammation and granuloma formation. The aspect of the granulomatous lesion hightly suggested drug etiology because of the lack of palisading, high incidence of neutrophils and absence of facid-fast bacilli. This is the first presentation of an acute granulomatous interstitial nephritis probably due to RMP. Furthermore the pathogenesis of the renal damage caused by tuberculosis and RMP are discussed.

Mechanical behavior and localized failure modes in a porous basalt from the Azores

Basaltic rocks are the main component of the oceanic upper crust, thus of potential interest for water and geothermal resources, storage of CO2 and volcanic edifice stability. In this work, we investigated experimentally the mechanical behavior and the failure modes of a porous basalt, with an initial connected porosity of 18%. Results were acquired under triaxial compression experiments at confining pressure in the range of 25-200 MPa on water saturated samples. In addition, a purely hydrostatic test was also performed to reach the pore collapse critical pressure P*. During hydrostatic loading, our results show that the permeability is highly pressure dependent, which suggests that the permeability is mainly controlled by pre-existing cracks. When the sample is deformed at pressure higher than the pore collapse pressure P*, some very small dilatancy develops due to microcracking, and an increase in permeability is observed. Under triaxial loading, two modes of deformation can be highlighted. At low confining pressure (Pc < 50 MPa), the samples are brittle and shear localization occurs. For confining pressure > 50 MPa, the stress-strain curves are characterized by strain hardening and volumetric compaction. Stress drops are also observed, suggesting that compaction may be localized. The presence of compaction bands is confirmed by our microstructure analysis. In addition, the mechanical data allows us to plot the full yield surface for this porous basalt, which follows an elliptic cap as previously observed in high porosity sandstones and limestones.

Scheduling of a hydro producer considering head-dependency, price scenarios and risk-aversion

In this paper, a mixed-integer quadratic programming approach is proposed for the short-term hydro scheduling problem, considering head-dependency, discontinuous operating regions and discharge ramping constraints. As new contributions to earlier studies, market uncertainty is introduced in the model via price scenarios, and risk aversion is also incorporated by limiting the volatility of the expected profit through the conditional value-at-risk. Our approach has been applied successfully to solve a case Study based on one of the main Portuguese cascaded hydro systems, requiring a negligible computational time.

Tuberculosis in patients with chronic renal failure

Nine cases of tuberculosis (TB) were diagnosed among 800 uremic patients, followed-up during 11 years, a prevalence of 1125%, 2.5 times higher than that in the general population. Six patients (66.7%) had lymph node involvement (4 cervical and 2 mediastinal). Three patients (33.3%) had pulmonary involvement (2 pleuro-pulmonary and 1 bilateral apical pulmonary). Eight patients were undergoing dialysis and 1 was pre-dialytic. The duration of dialysis ranged from 1 to 60 months. Three patients had previously received immunosuppressive drugs for unsuccessful renal transplantation. Daily fever was present in all but one patient; he was asymptomatic and TB was suspected after routine chest radiography. Biopsy was the diagnostic procedure in 7 patients (77.8%), four by direct cervical lymph node biopsy, 2 by mediastinal, performed by mediastinoscopy and 1 by pleural biopsy. In 2 other patients TB was confirmed by the presence of tubercle bacilli; in sputum (1 patient) and in a bronchial flushing specimen (the other patient). Triple therapy was used in all patients (isoniazid and ethambutol in all), plus rifampicin in 8 and streptomycin in 1. One patient had jaundice and another had optical neuritis. Five patients were cured. The other four died during treatment of causes unrelated to TB or its treatment.

Using device detection techniques in M-learning scenarios

Recent studies of mobile Web trends show the continued explosion of mobile-friend content. However, the wide number and heterogeneity of mobile devices poses several challenges for Web programmers, who want automatic delivery of context and adaptation of the content to mobile devices. Hence, the device detection phase assumes an important role in this process. In this chapter, the authors compare the most used approaches for mobile device detection. Based on this study, they present an architecture for detecting and delivering uniform m-Learning content to students in a Higher School. The authors focus mainly on the XML device capabilities repository and on the REST API Web Service for dealing with device data. In the former, the authors detail the respective capabilities schema and present a new caching approach. In the latter, they present an extension of the current API for dealing with it. Finally, the authors validate their approach by presenting the overall data and statistics collected through the Google Analytics service, in order to better understand the adherence to the mobile Web interface, its evolution over time, and the main weaknesses.

Is rhabdomyolysis an additional factor in the pathogenesis of acute renal failure in leptospirosis?

Leptospirosis is an important cause of acute renal failure in our environment. Although several mechanisms are implicated, the role of rhabdomyolysis in the pathogenesis of acute renal failure in leptospirosis has not been analysed. Sixteen patients with the diagnosis of leptospiroses consecutively admitted to the hospital were prospectively studied. The disease was characterized by sudden onset in all patients and, at admission, jaundice, conjunctival suffusion and myalgias. Mild to moderate proteinuria with unremarkable urinary sediment was recorded in 37.5% of the patients and abnormal levels of urea creatinine were found in 87.5% and 74.0%, respectively. Increased levels of aminotranspherase were documented in all 12 and CPK in all 10 patients studied. Serum myoglobin levels greater than 120µg/l recorded in 56.2%. A correlation between myoglobin and renal failure or severity of disease, however, could not be established.

Scenarios Generation for Multi-Agent simulation of Electricity Markets based on Intelligent Data Analysis

This document presents a tool able to automatically gather data provided by real energy markets and to generate scenarios, capture and improve market players’ profiles and strategies by using knowledge discovery processes in databases supported by artificial intelligence techniques, data mining algorithms and machine learning methods. It provides the means for generating scenarios with different dimensions and characteristics, ensuring the representation of real and adapted markets, and their participating entities. The scenarios generator module enhances the MASCEM (Multi-Agent Simulator of Competitive Electricity Markets) simulator, endowing a more effective tool for decision support. The achievements from the implementation of the proposed module enables researchers and electricity markets’ participating entities to analyze data, create real scenarios and make experiments with them. On the other hand, applying knowledge discovery techniques to real data also allows the improvement of MASCEM agents’ profiles and strategies resulting in a better representation of real market players’ behavior. This work aims to improve the comprehension of electricity markets and the interactions among the involved entities through adequate multi-agent simulation.

MASCEM Restructuring: Ontologies For Scenarios Generation in Power Systems Simulators

The electricity market restructuring, along with the increasing necessity for an adequate integration of renewable energy sources, is resulting in an rising complexity in power systems operation. Various power system simulators have been introduced in recent years with the purpose of helping operators, regulators, and involved players to understand and deal with this complex environment. This paper focuses on the development of an upper ontology which integrates the essential concepts necessary to interpret all the available information. The restructuring of MASCEM (Multi-Agent System for Competitive Electricity Markets), and this system’s integration with MASGriP (Multi-Agent Smart Grid Platform), and ALBidS (Adaptive Learning Strategic Bidding System) provide the means for the exemplification of the usefulness of this ontology. A practical example is presented, showing how common simulation scenarios for different simulators, directed to very distinct environments, can be created departing from the proposed ontology.

Load Profiling Tool to Support Smart Grid Operation Scenarios

This paper presents the characterization of high voltage (HV) electric power consumers based on a data clustering approach. The typical load profiles (TLP) are obtained selecting the best partition of a power consumption database among a pool of data partitions produced by several clustering algorithms. The choice of the best partition is supported using several cluster validity indices. The proposed data-mining (DM) based methodology, that includes all steps presented in the process of knowledge discovery in databases (KDD), presents an automatic data treatment application in order to preprocess the initial database in an automatic way, allowing time saving and better accuracy during this phase. These methods are intended to be used in a smart grid environment to extract useful knowledge about customers’ consumption behavior. To validate our approach, a case study with a real database of 185 HV consumers was used.

Realistic Traffic Scenarios Using a Census Methodology: Vila Real Case Study

This paper presents the first phase of the redevelopment of the Electric Vehicle Scenario Simulator (EVeSSi) tool. A new methodology to generate traffic demand scenarios for the Simulation of Urban MObility (SUMO) tool for urban traffic simulation is described. This methodology is based on a Portugal census database to generate a synthetic population for a given area under study. A realistic case study of a Portuguese city, Vila Real, is assessed. For this area the road network was created along with a synthetic population and public transport. The traffic results were obtained and an electric buses fleet was evaluated assuming that the actual fleet would be replaced in a near future. The energy requirements to charge the electric fleet overnight were estimated in order to evaluate the impacts that it would cause in the local electricity network.

Data Mining Approach to support the Generation of Realistic Scenarios for Multi-Agent simulation of Electricity Markets

This paper presents the Realistic Scenarios Generator (RealScen), a tool that processes data from real electricity markets to generate realistic scenarios that enable the modeling of electricity market players’ characteristics and strategic behavior. The proposed tool provides significant advantages to the decision making process in an electricity market environment, especially when coupled with a multi-agent electricity markets simulator. The generation of realistic scenarios is performed using mechanisms for intelligent data analysis, which are based on artificial intelligence and data mining algorithms. These techniques allow the study of realistic scenarios, adapted to the existing markets, and improve the representation of market entities as software agents, enabling a detailed modeling of their profiles and strategies. This work contributes significantly to the understanding of the interactions between the entities acting in electricity markets by increasing the capability and realism of market simulations.

Hemorrhagic syndrome and Acute renal failure in a pregnant woman after contact with Lonomia caterpillars: a case report

A case of a 37-week pregnant woman who developed a hemorrhagic syndrome and acute renal failure after contact with Lonomia caterpillars is reported. The accident also initiated labour and the patient gave birth to an alive child. Some pathophysiological aspects of the genital bleeding and of the acute renal failure are discussed.

Robustness of timber structures in seismic areas

Some of the properties sought in seismic design of buildings are also considered fundamental to guarantee structural robustness. Moreover, some key concepts are common to both seismic and robustness design. In fact, both analyses consider events with a very small probability of occurrence, and consequently, a significant level of damage is admissible. As very rare events,in both cases, the actions are extremely hard to quantify. The acceptance of limited damage requires a system based analysis of structures, rather than an element by element methodology, as employed for other load cases. As for robustness analysis, in seismic design the main objective is to guarantee that the structure survives an earthquake, without extensive damage. In the case of seismic design, this is achieved by guaranteeing the dissipation of energy through plastic hinges distributed in the structure. For this to be possible, some key properties must be assured, in particular ductility and redundancy. The same properties could be fundamental in robustness design, as a structure can only sustain significant damage if capable of distributing stresses to parts of the structure unaffected by the triggering event. Timber is often used for primary load‐bearing elements in single storey long‐span structures for public buildings and arenas, where severe consequences can be expected if one or more of the primary load bearing elements fail. The structural system used for these structures consists of main frames, secondary elements and bracing elements. The main frame, composed by columns and beams, can be seen as key elements in the system and should be designed with high safety against failure and under strict quality control. The main frames may sometimes be designed with moment resisting joints between columns and beams. Scenarios, where one or more of these key elements, fail should be considered at least for high consequence buildings. Two alternative strategies may be applied: isolation of collapsing sections and, provision of alternate load paths [1]. The first one is relatively straightforward to provide by deliberately designing the secondary structural system less strong and stiff. Alternatively, the secondary structural system and the bracing system can be design so that loss of capacity in the main frame does not lead to the collapse. A case study has been selected aiming to assess the consequences of these two different strategies, in particular, under seismic loads.

Evaluation of penicillin therapy in patients with leptospirosis and acute renal failure

The effectiveness of specific antibiotic treatment in severe leptospirosis is still under debate. As part of a prospective study designed to evaluate renal function recovery after leptospirosis acute renal failure (ARF) (ARF was defined as Pcr > or = 1.5 mg/dL), the clinical evolutions of 16 treated patients (T) were compared to those of 18 untreated patients (nT). Treatment or non-treatment was the option of each patient's attending infectologist. The penicillin treatment was always with 6 million IU/day for 8 days. No difference was found between the two groups in terms of age, gender, number of days from onset of symptoms to hospital admission, or results of laboratory tests performed upon admission and during hospitalization, but proteinuria was higher in the treated group. There were no significant difference in the other parameters employed to evaluate patients' clinical evolution as: length of hospital stay, days of fever, days to normalization of renal function, days to total bilirubins normalized or reached 1/3 of maximum value and days to normalization of platelet counts. Dialytic treatment indication and mortality were similar between group T and nT. In conclusion, penicillin therapy did not provide better clinical outcome in patients with leptospirosis and ARF.