Morphology and structure of particles produced by femtosecond laser ablation of fused silica

The aim of the present work was to study the morphology and structure of the nanoparticles produced by femtosecond laser ablation of fused silica. Ultrashort laser pulses of 1030 nm wavelength and 550 fs duration were tightly focused by a high numerical aperture microscope objective at the surface of fused silica samples while scanning the sample in relation to the stationary laser beam. Laser tracks were created with pulse energies in the range 5-100 mu J, resulting in ablation debris of different morphologies. The debris were examined by scanning and transmission electron microscopy for their morphology and crystal structure in relation to the incident laser pulse energy. Ejected particles with sizes ranging from a few nanometers to a few microns were found. Their morphologies can be broadly classified into three categories: very fine round nanoparticles with diameters lower than 20 nm, nanoparticles with intermediate sizes between 50 and 200 nm, and big irregular particles with typical size between 0.5 and 1.5 mu m. The fine nanoparticles of the first category are predominantly observed at higher pulse energies and tend to aggregate to form web-like and arborescent-like structures. The nanoparticles with intermediate sizes are observed for all pulse energies used and may appear isolated or aggregated in clusters. Finally, the larger irregular particles of the third category are observed for all energies and appear normally isolated.

Customer stimulation in lean software development

The process of developing software is a complex undertaking involving multiple stakeholders. While the intentions of these parties might vary to some extent, the ultimate goal can be seen as a satisfactory product. Lean and agile software development practices strive toward this and they place customer contentment as one of the highest aims of the process. An important aspect of any development process is the act of innovation. Without it, nothing progresses and the whole process is unnecessary. As a target domain expert, the customer is an important part of effective innovation. Problems arise, however, when the customer is not actively taking part in the activities. Lack of familiarity with software development can easily cause such issues. Unfortunately, the amount of research conducted on product innovation is unimpressive. This makes it difficult to formulate a recommended approach on stimulating the customer and encouraging a more active participation. Ultimately, a small set of high-level guidelines were identified from the available literary resources for inducing innovation. To conclude, this thesis presents the findings made during the development of a small web application and compares them to the aforementioned literature findings. While the guidelines seem to provide promising results, further empirical research is needed to attain more significant conclusions.

A Stationless Bikeshare Proof of Concept for College Campuses

Bikeshares promote healthy lifestyles and sustainability among commuters, casual riders, and tourists. However, the central pillar of modern systems, the bike station, cannot be easily integrated into a compact college campus. Fixed stations lack the flexibility to meet the needs of college students who make quick, short-distance trips. Additionally, the necessary cost of implementing and maintaining each station prohibits increasing the number of stations for user convenience. Therefore, the team developed a stationless bikeshare based on a smartlock permanently attached to bicycles in the system. The smartlock system design incorporates several innovative approaches to provide usability, security, and reliability that overcome the limitations of a station centered design. A focus group discussion allowed the team to receive feedback on the early lock, system, and website designs, identify improvements and craft a pleasant user experience. The team designed a unique, two-step lock system that is intuitive to operate while mitigating user error. To ensure security, user access is limited through near field ii communications (NFC) technology connected to a mechatronic release system. The said system relied on a NFC module and a servo working through an Arduino microcontroller coded in the Arduino IDE. To track rentals and maintain the system, each bike is fitted with an XBee module to communicate with a scalable ZigBee mesh network. The network allows for bidirectional, real-time communication with a Meteor.js web application, which enables user and administrator functions through an intuitive user interface available on mobile and desktop. The development of an independent smartlock to replace bike stations is essential to meet the needs of the modern college student. With the goal of creating a bikeshare that better serves college students, Team BIKES has laid the framework for a system that is affordable, easily adaptable, and implementable on any university expressing an interest in bringing a bikeshare to its campus.

Gamificação como prática pedagógica docente no processo ensino e aprendizagem na temática da inclusão social

Acompanha: Gamificação como prática pedagógica docente no processo ensino e aprendizagem na temática da inclusão social

Online MBPeT dashboard : enabling performance testing as a service in the cloud

In this thesis, tool support is addressed for the combined disciplines of Model-based testing and performance testing. Model-based testing (MBT) utilizes abstract behavioral models to automate test generation, thus decreasing time and cost of test creation. MBT is a functional testing technique, thereby focusing on output, behavior, and functionality. Performance testing, however, is non-functional and is concerned with responsiveness and stability under various load conditions. MBPeT (Model-Based Performance evaluation Tool) is one such tool which utilizes probabilistic models, representing dynamic real-world user behavior patterns, to generate synthetic workload against a System Under Test and in turn carry out performance analysis based on key performance indicators (KPI). Developed at Åbo Akademi University, the MBPeT tool is currently comprised of a downloadable command-line based tool as well as a graphical user interface. The goal of this thesis project is two-fold: 1) to extend the existing MBPeT tool by deploying it as a web-based application, thereby removing the requirement of local installation, and 2) to design a user interface for this web application which will add new user interaction paradigms to the existing feature set of the tool. All phases of the MBPeT process will be realized via this single web deployment location including probabilistic model creation, test configurations, test session execution against a SUT with real-time monitoring of user configurable metric, and final test report generation and display. This web application (MBPeT Dashboard) is implemented with the Java programming language on top of the Vaadin framework for rich internet application development. The Vaadin framework handles the complicated web communications processes and front-end technologies, freeing developers to implement the business logic as well as the user interface in pure Java. A number of experiments are run in a case study environment to validate the functionality of the newly developed Dashboard application as well as the scalability of the solution implemented in handling multiple concurrent users. The results support a successful solution with regards to the functional and performance criteria defined, while improvements and optimizations are suggested to increase both of these factors.

Towards a gravitational wave observatory designer: sensitivity limits of spaceborne detectors

The most promising concept for low frequency (millihertz to hertz) gravitational wave observatories are laser interferometric detectors in space. It is usually assumed that the noise floor for such a detector is dominated by optical shot noise in the signal readout. For this to be true, a careful balance of mission parameters is crucial to keep all other parasitic disturbances below shot noise. We developed a web application that uses over 30 input parameters and considers many important technical noise sources and noise suppression techniques to derive a realistic position noise budget. It optimizes free parameters automatically and generates a detailed report on all individual noise contributions. Thus one can easily explore the entire parameter space and design a realistic gravitational wave observatory. In this document we describe the different parameters, present all underlying calculations, and compare the final observatory's sensitivity with astrophysical sources of gravitational waves. We use as an example parameters currently assumed to be likely applied to a space mission proposed to be launched in 2034 by the European Space Agency. The web application itself is publicly available on the Internet at http://spacegravity.org/designer. Future versions of the web application will incorporate the frequency dependence of different noise sources and include a more detailed model of the observatory's residual acceleration noise.

Influência da revisão de atividades executadas para melhoria da acurácia na estimativa de software utilizando planning poker

Abstract – Background – The software effort estimation research area aims to improve the accuracy of this estimation in software projects and activities. Aims – This study describes the development and usage of a web application tocollect data generated from the Planning Poker estimation process and the analysis of the collected data to investigate the impact of revising previous estimates when conducting similar estimates in a Planning Poker context. Method – Software activities were estimated by Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR) computer students, using Planning Poker, with and without revising previous similar activities, storing data regarding the decision-making process. And the collected data was used to investigate the impact that revising similar executed activities have in the software effort estimates' accuracy.Obtained Results – The UTFPR computer students were divided into 14 groups. Eight of them showed accuracy increase in more than half of their estimates. Three of them had almost the same accuracy in more than half of their estimates. And only three of them had loss of accuracy in more than half of their estimates. Conclusion – Reviewing the similar executed software activities, when using Planning Poker, led to more accurate software estimates in most cases, and, because of that, can improve the software development process.

ACESSIBILIDADE PARA USUÁRIOS DA INFORMAÇÃO COM DEFICIÊNCIA: UM ESTUDO DE ARTIGOS EM BIBLIOTECONOMIA E CIÊNCIA DA INFORMAÇÃO

Esta é uma pesquisa exploratória, na qual foram analisados os artigos publicados entre 2008 e 2013, em revistas das áreas de Biblioteconomia e Ciência da Informação que abordaram o tema ‘usuários da informação com deficiência e acessibilidade’. O levantamento dos artigos foi realizado pelo esquadrinhamento do sumário de cada uma das revistas selecionadas. De acordo com a metodologia proposta, analisaram-se 25 artigos. As variáveis analisadas foram: quantidade de publicações sobre o tema; autoria; palavras-chave; metodologias descritas nos artigos analisados; e os tipos de deficiência, de acessibilidade e de tecnologias assistivas tratadas no corpus da pesquisa. Os resultados demostraram que a revista que mais publicou sobre o tema foi a Revista ACB; a instituição mais citada foi PUC-Campinas; prevaleceu a autoria múltipla; e, quanto à metodologia, destacou-se a pesquisa bibliográfica. A deficiência visual, assim como suas tecnologias assistivas e acessibilidade à informação foram os tópicos que obtiveram maior índice de interesse nos artigos estudados. Por meio desta pesquisa, pode-se perceber o nível de importância dos estudos sobre acessibilidade para deficientes realizados nas áreas estudadas. Este estudo pode ser uma importante fonte sobre o tema, uma vez que compila informações sobre as características das deficiências e sobre as leis que garantem o direito à inclusão e ao acesso a informação, além de trazer questões acerca da acessibilidade, citando normas com aspectos voltados a bibliotecas e uso da web.

HTML5 no contexto de desenvolvimento e implementação de plataformas móveis com interfaces tácteis

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Desenvolvimento de Software e Sistemas Interativos, realizada sob a orientação científica do Doutor Pedro Nuno Moreira da Silva, Professor Adjunto da Unidade Técnico-Científica de Informática do Departamento da Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco.

Desenvolvimento de plataforma digital para análise da satisfação dos utentes de unidades de saúde

Este documento descreve o trabalho realizado em conjunto com a empresa MedSUPPORT[1] no desenvolvimento de uma plataforma digital para análise da satisfação dos utentes de unidades de saúde. Atualmente a avaliação de satisfação junto dos seus clientes é um procedimento importante e que deve ser utilizado pelas empresas como mais uma ferramenta de avaliação dos seus produtos ou serviços. Para as unidades de saúde a avaliação da satisfação do utente é atualmente considerada como um objetivo fundamental dos serviços de saúde e tem vindo a ocupar um lugar progressivamente mais importante na avaliação da qualidade dos mesmos. Neste âmbito idealizou-se desenvolver uma plataforma digital para análise da satisfação dos utentes de unidades de saúde. O estudo inicial sobre o conceito da satisfação de consumidores e utentes permitiu consolidar os conceitos associados à temática em estudo. Conhecer as oito dimensões que, de acordo com os investigadores englobam a satisfação do utente é um dos pontos relevantes do estudo inicial. Para avaliar junto do utente a sua satisfação é necessário questiona-lo diretamente. Para efeito desenvolveu-se um inquérito de satisfação estudando cuidadosamente cada um dos elementos que deste fazem parte. No desenvolvimento do inquérito de satisfação foram seguidas as seguintes etapas: Planeamento do questionário, partindo das oito dimensões da satisfação do utente até às métricas que serão avaliadas junto do utente; Análise dos dados a recolher, definindo-se, para cada métrica, se os dados serão nominais, ordinais ou provenientes de escalas balanceadas; Por último a formulação das perguntas do inquérito de satisfação foi alvo de estudo cuidado para garantir que o utente percecione da melhor forma o objetivo da questão. A definição das especificações da plataforma e do questionário passou por diferentes estudos, entre eles uma análise de benchmarking[2], que permitiram definir que o inquérito iv estará localizado numa zona acessível da unidade de saúde, será respondido com recurso a um ecrã táctil (tablet) e que estará alojado na web. As aplicações web desenvolvidas atualmente apresentam um design apelativo e intuitivo. Foi fundamental levar a cabo um estudo do design da aplicação web, como garantia que as cores utilizadas, o tipo de letra, e o local onde a informação são os mais adequados. Para desenvolver a aplicação web foi utilizada a linguagem de programação Ruby, com recurso à framework Ruby on Rails. Para a implementação da aplicação foram estudadas as diferentes tecnologias disponíveis, com enfoque no estudo do sistema de gestão de base de dados a utilizar. O desenvolvimento da aplicação web teve também como objetivo melhorar a gestão da informação gerada pelas respostas ao inquérito de satisfação. O colaborador da MedSUPPORT é o responsável pela gestão da informação pelo que as suas necessidades foram atendidas. Um menu para a gestão da informação é disponibilizado ao administrador da aplicação, colaborador MedSUPPORT. O menu de gestão da informação permitirá uma análise simplificada do estado atual com recurso a um painel do tipo dashboard e, a fim de melhorar a análise interna dos dados terá uma função de exportação dos dados para folha de cálculo. Para validação do estudo efetuado foram realizados os testes de funcionamento à plataforma, tanto à sua funcionalidade como à sua utilização em contexto real pelos utentes inquiridos nas unidades de saúde. Os testes em contexto real objetivaram validar o conceito junto dos utentes inquiridos.

Front end development for building automation systems using JavaScript Frameworks

Automation technologies are widely acclaimed to have the potential to significantly reduce energy consumption and energy-related costs in buildings. However, despite the abundance of commercially available technologies, automation in domestic environments keep on meeting commercial failures. The main reason for this is the development process that is used to build the automation applications, which tend to focus more on technical aspects rather than on the needs and limitations of the users. An instance of this problem is the complex and poorly designed home automation front-ends that deter customers from investing in a home automation product. On the other hand, developing a usable and interactive interface is a complicated task for developers due to the multidisciplinary challenges that need to be identified and solved. In this context, the current research work investigates the different design problems associated with developing a home automation interface as well as the existing design solutions that are applied to these problems. The Qualitative Data Analysis approach was used for collecting data from research papers and the open coding process was used to cluster the findings. From the analysis of the data collected, requirements for designing the interface were derived. A home energy management functionality for a Web-based home automation front-end was developed as a proof-of-concept and a user evaluation was used to assess the usability of the interface. The results of the evaluation showed that this holistic approach to designing interfaces improved its usability which increases the chances of its commercial success.

Sistema de gestión y guía turística para dispositivos móviles en El Salvador

Este documento, refiere al trabajo realizado para la Alcaldía Municipal de San Vicente, con el propósito de ayudar a la promoción del turismo en el Municipio de San Vicente y en toda la Zona paracentral, se desarrolló una aplicación web que se compone de tres módulos principales a los cuales se puede acceder desde un dispositivo móvil con acceso a internet y un módulo para administradores del sistema para la gestión de centros turísticos y turistas los cuales serán operados desde un administrador principal, el sistema se desarrolló para poder contribuir a la promoción del turismo en El Salvador. Esta herramienta se desarrolló usando las tecnologías existentes para dispositivos móviles de HTML5 y PHP. Al finalizar el aplicativo web se han logrado obtener beneficios para los dueños de destinos turísticos ya que pueden promocionarse de manera gratuita, además la Institución beneficiaria cuenta con un recurso más para poder catalogar y mapear destinos existentes y así sugerirlos. Al finalizar este trabajo se logró cumplir con el objetivo planteado que fue ayudar a la promoción del turismo en El Salvador. SUMMARY This document refers to work done for the Municipality of San Vicente, in order to help promote tourism in the municipality of San Vicente and throughout the paracentral area, is developing a web application that consists of three main modules to which can be accessed from a mobile device with internet access and a module for system administrators to manage resorts and tourists which will be operated from a main administrator, the system development to contribute to the promotion of tourism in El Salvador. This tool was developed using existing technologies for mobile devices HTML5 and PHP. At the end of the web application has been made a profit for the owners of tourist destinations because they can promote themselves for free, also the beneficiary institution has a resource to catalog and map existing and destinations and suggest them. Upon completion of this work failed to meet the stated objective was to help the promotion of tourism in El Salvador.

La enseñanza de la Ciencia Política en Colombia: una aproximación desde los macrocurrículos de pregrado

En vista del rápido crecimiento del número de programas de formación profesional en Ciencia Política a nivel de pregrado en el país, vale la pena detenerse e indagar, a modo de evaluación, por el estado de la enseñanza en esta disciplina. Esto bien podría llevar a un análisis de las metodologías pedagógicas utilizadas en el aula de clase y fuera de ella, los grados de for-mación de los docentes en el área, o incluso las lecturas que componen los microcurrículos de los distintos cursos impartidos por 32 universidades en el país. Sin embargo, en este trabajo se opta por un acercamiento a esta cuestión desde los macrocurrículos, es decir, a partir de los cursos o materias dictadas en los diferentes programas. La metodología adoptada para este trabajo es estadística, y se complementa con reflexiones teóricas, discusiones existentes en la literatura sobre el tema y con las declaraciones de los propios programas en sus sitios web.

Implementación de un framework para la inclusión de logros en "¡Acepta el Reto!"

“Implementación de un framework para la inclusión de logros en ¡Acepta el Reto!” es un proyecto que tiene como objetivo la inclusión de un sistema de logros en ¡Acepta el reto! Los logros son reconocimientos, independientes de la funcionalidad de la web, dentro de ¡Acepta el reto!, que es una página web que propone ejercicios de programación y a su vez los compila y los ejecuta. La labor del framework desarrollado es vigilar las acciones que los usuarios van realizando en el portal para otorgarles los distintos logros implementados. Durante el diseño se ha prestado especial atención a la posibilidad de añadir nuevos logros tras el despliegue del sistema y a la eficiencia en el proceso de comprobación de los mismos. Para demostrar su efectividad, se han hecho pruebas de carga utilizando los datos de usuarios, envíos y ejercicios actuales de la web.

Using Patient Health Questionnaire-9 item parameters of a common metric resulted in similar depression scores compared to independent item response theory model reestimation

Objectives: To investigate the validity of a common depression metric in independent samples. Study Design and Setting: We applied a common metrics approach based on item-response theory for measuring depression to four German-speaking samples that completed the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). We compared the PHQ item parameters reported for this common metric to reestimated item parameters that derived from fitting a generalized partial credit model solely to the PHQ-9 items. We calibrated the new model on the same scale as the common metric using two approaches (estimation with shifted prior and StockingeLord linking). By fitting a mixed-effects model and using BlandeAltman plots, we investigated the agreement between latent depression scores resulting from the different estimation models. Results: We found different item parameters across samples and estimation methods. Although differences in latent depression scores between different estimation methods were statistically significant, these were clinically irrelevant. Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence that it is possible to estimate latent depression scores by using the item parameters from a common metric instead of reestimating and linking a model. The use of common metric parameters is simple, for example, using a Web application (http://www.common-metrics.org) and offers a long-term perspective to improve the comparability of patient-reported outcome measures.