Engineering the thermal emission of macroporous silicon

Todos los cuerpos emiten luz espontaneamente al ser calentados. El espectro de radiacion es una funcion de la temperatura y el material. Sin embargo, la mayoria de los materiales irradia, en general, en una banda espectral amplia. Algunas matereiales, por el contrario, son capaces de concentrar la radiacion termica en una banda espectral mucho mas estrecha. Estos materiales se conocen como emisores selectivos y su uso tiene un profundo impacto en la eficiencia de sistemas sistemas tales como iluminacion y conversion de energia termofotovoltaica. De los emisores selectivos se espera que sean capaces de operar a altas temperaturas y que emitan en una banda espectral muy concisa. Uno de los metodos mas prometedores para controlar y disenar el espectro de emision termico es la utilizacion de cristales fotonicos. Los cristales fotonicos son estructuras periodicas artificiales capaces de controlar y confinar la luz de formas sin precedentes. Sin embargo, la produccion de dichas estructuras con grandes superficies y capaces de soportar altas temperaturas sigue siendo una dificil tarea. Este trabajo esta dedicada al estudio de las propiedades de emision termica de estructuras 3D de silicio macroporoso en el rango espectral mid-IR (2-30 m). En particular, este trabajo se enfoca en reducir la elevada emisividad del silicio cristalino. Las muestras estudiadas en este trabajo tienen una periodicidad de 4 m, lo que limitan los resultados obtenidos a la banda del infrarrojo medio, aunque estructuras mucho mas pequenas son tecnologicamente realizables con el metodo de fabricacion utilizado. Hemos demostrado que el silicio macroporoso 3D puede inhibir completamente la emision termica en su superficie. Mas aun, esta banda se puede ajustar en un amplio margen mediante pequenos cambios durante la formacion de los macroporos. Tambien hemos demostrado que tanto el ancho como la frecuencia de la banda de inhibicion se puede doblar mediante la aplicacion de tecnicas de postprocesado adecuadas. Finalmente hemos mostrado que es posible crear bandas de baja emisividad arbitrariamente anchas mediante estructuras macroporosas aperiodicas.

The Swiss Willensnation at Risk: Teachers in the Cultural Gap during the First World War

As a neutral and multilingual country, Switzerland struggled with major domestic political conflicts during the First World War due to the two cultures of the French-speaking and German-speaking parts of the country. The divided cultural loyalties ('fossé moral', 'Röstigraben'), consisting of Swiss-Germans supporting Germany and Swiss-French supporting France, were discussed intensively in both of the main teachers' journals in Switzerland. Teachers felt the need to react and to promote unity from the beginning of the war. Despite the fact that the cantons are responsible for public education and, therefore, for the education of their students, teachers considered themselves called to educate their students to be national citizens rather than to be members of a language group. This threefold citizenship - communal, cantonal and national - was not scrutinised, but national unity became crucial due to the critical political circumstances. How did teachers promote and constitute citizenship for themselves and for their students in a nation united by free will during the First World War, a time of severe internal political conflicts?

Teachers' remarks about their salaries in 1800 in the Helvetic Republic

For centuries, teachers have complained about their salaries. In the Stapfer inquiry of 1799, some teachers made remarks about financial issues, particularly their low incomes. This inquiry is the main source for the arguments presented here regarding teachers' low salary during this period of the Helvetic Republic. The disparity between the lowest and the highest income was huge in 1799. This fact invites investigations about the people who complained. The evidence indicates incoherence between the complaints regarding low salary and the real income that was earned by these teachers. However, in order for this thesis to be wholly understood, the salaries must be explained; at the time of the Stapfer inquiry, salaries were paid in different currencies, as wages in kind and using divergent measurements. The present article aims to determine who these teachers were and why they complained. The arguments presented by the teachers shed light on the topics of political appeals, the social status of teachers in 1800 and the professionalisation of teachers.

Discovering the campus together: a mobile and computer-based learning experience

One of the most relevant difficulties faced by first-year undergraduate students is to settle into the educational environment of universities. This paper presents a case study that proposes a computer-assisted collaborative experience designed to help students in their transition from high school to university. This is done by facilitating their first contact with the campus and its services, the university community, methodologies and activities. The experience combines individual and collaborative activities, conducted in and out of the classroom, structured following the Jigsaw Collaborative Learning Flow Pattern. A specific environment including portable technologies with network and computer applications has been developed to support and facilitate the orchestration of a flow of learning activities into a single integrated learning setting. The result is a Computer-Supported Collaborative Blended Learning scenario, which has been evaluated with first-year university students of the degrees of Software and Audiovisual Engineering within the subject Introduction to Information and Communications Technologies. The findings reveal that the scenario improves significantly students’ interest in their studies and their understanding about the campus and services provided. The environment is also an innovative approach to successfully support the heterogeneous activities conducted by both teachers and students during the scenario. This paper introduces the goals and context of the case study, describes how the technology was employed to conduct the learning scenario, the evaluation methods and the main results of the experience.

Supporting life-long competence development using the TENCompetence infrastructure: a first experiment

This paper describes an experiment to explore the effects of the TENCompetence infrastructure for supporting lifelong competence development which is now in development. This infrastructure provides structured, multi-leveled access to learning materials, based upon competences. People can follow their own learning path, supported by a listing of competences and their components, by competence development plans attached to competences and by the possibility to mark elements as complete. We expected the PCM to have an effect on (1) control of participants of their own learning, and (2) appreciation of their learning route, (3) of the learning resources, (4) of their competence development, and (5) of the possibilities of collaboration. In the experiment, 44 Bulgarian teachers followed a distance learning course on a specific teaching methodology for six weeks. Part of them used the TENCompetence infrastructure, part used an infrastructure which was similar, except for the characterizing elements mentioned above. The results showed that in the experimental condition, more people passed the final competence assess-ment, and people felt more in control of their own learning. No differences between the two groups were found on the amount and appreciation of collaboration and on further measures of competence development.

The role of the Teaching Quality and Innovation Support Unit in the ICT Engineering Studies at Universitat Pompeu Fabra

One of the strategies of Universitat Pompeu Fabra to support Quality Learning has been the creation of Units for the Support of Teaching Quality and Innovation within each faculty. In the seminar we will present the role and activities of the Polytechnic School Unit in charge or coordinating the efforts towards quality learning in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Engineering Studies. We will also discuss how these activities are informed to relevant academic stakeholders.

La evaluación como elemento clave de la formación basada en competencias: tres casos en el ámbito de la ingenierías

El Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior implica cambios organizativos y académicos referentes a la formación basada en competencias. El proyecto AlineaME, coordinado por la Unidad de Soporte a la Calidad y la Innovación Docente de la Escuela Superior Politécnica - Universidad Pompeu Fabra, propuso a docentes del área TIC y a pedagogos la reflexión conjunta en aras a diseñar recomendaciones centradas en la alineación entre los tres elementos clave del proyecto: competencias, metodología y evaluación (C*M*E). Este trabajo recoge tres casos de aplicación de recomendaciones, concretamente de Ingeniería Telemática (dos casos - Universidad de Valladolid y Pompeu Fabra) y de Ingeniería Técnica en Informática de Gestión (un caso - Universidad de Sevilla).Las recomendaciones aplicadas hacen referencia a la necesidad de explicitar la alineación C*M*E en los Planes Docentes de Asignaturas y de presentar esta alineación al estudiantado. También a la integración de la evaluación de la asignatura como tarea-proceso de aprendizaje. La metodología seguida para laaplicación de ambas es (salvo pequeñas diferencias) parecida en los tres casos. La primera recomendación consistió en recoger en el Plan Docente la Alineación y en verbalizar dicha alineación en la sesión de presentación de la asignatura. La segunda se incorporó incluyendo actividades formativas en las que se favorecía la evaluación entre iguales. Para evaluar la aplicación de recomendaciones se recogieron evidencias en clave de satisfacción por parte del estudiantado así como valoraciones de los propios docentes. Para ello se diseñaron instrumentos específicos.En cuanto a la presentación de la alineación C*M*E en los Planes Docentes de asignaturas, los resultados indican que los alumnos son más conscientes de qué, cómo y por qué van a trabajar y ser evaluados. Globalmente valoran positivamente su utilidad para la autorregulación. Asimismo, plantear la evaluación como tarea deaprendizaje resultó ser para los estudiantes un interesante elemento de reflexión.

Comprehensiveness in child healthcare teaching in Undergraduate Nursing: perspective of teachers

This qualitative study analyzed, from the teacher’s perspective, if the principle of comprehensiveness is included in child healthcare teaching in nursing education. The participants were 16 teachers involved in teaching child healthcare in eight undergraduate nursing programs. Data collection was performed through interviews that were submitted to thematic content analysis. The theory in teaching incorporates comprehensive care, as it is based on children’s epidemiological profile, child healthcare policies and programs, and included interventions for the promotion/prevention/rehabilitation in primary health care, hospitals, daycare centers and preschools. The comprehensive conception of health-disease process allows for understanding the child within his/her family and community. However, a contradiction exists between what is proposed and what is practiced, because the teaching is fragmented, without any integration among disciplines, with theory dissociated from practice, and isolated practical teaching that compromises the incorporation of the principle of comprehensiveness in child healthcare teaching.

The view of teachers on bullying and implications for nursing

Objective: To understand school bullying from the perspective of teachers and reflect about the possible actions of the health area when coping with it. The guidelines of the School Health Program of the Ministries of Health and Education were used to reach that purpose. Method: A qualitative study carried out with teachers of a public school in Minas Gerais. Focus groups were used to collect data and the empirical material was decoded from thematic analysis of content, resulting in an analytical category: conceptions and experiences of teachers on bullying. Results: Specific perceptions about the phenomenon and the use of ineffective intervention resources were identified. In the interpretive plan were problematized the health and nursing contributions with resizing the interventions and the continuing training process of teachers. Conclusion: The results point to the construction of intersectoral practices for coping with bullying.


College of Engineering Strategic Plan,2006

College of Engineering at Iowa State University produced a strategic plan for the years 2005-2010.