Mitigating Inconsistencies by Coupling Data Cleaning, Filtering, and Contextual Data Validation in Wireless Sensor Networks

With the advent of peer to peer networks, and more importantly sensor networks, the desire to extract useful information from continuous and unbounded streams of data has become more prominent. For example, in tele-health applications, sensor based data streaming systems are used to continuously and accurately monitor Alzheimer's patients and their surrounding environment. Typically, the requirements of such applications necessitate the cleaning and filtering of continuous, corrupted and incomplete data streams gathered wirelessly in dynamically varying conditions. Yet, existing data stream cleaning and filtering schemes are incapable of capturing the dynamics of the environment while simultaneously suppressing the losses and corruption introduced by uncertain environmental, hardware, and network conditions. Consequently, existing data cleaning and filtering paradigms are being challenged. This dissertation develops novel schemes for cleaning data streams received from a wireless sensor network operating under non-linear and dynamically varying conditions. The study establishes a paradigm for validating spatio-temporal associations among data sources to enhance data cleaning. To simplify the complexity of the validation process, the developed solution maps the requirements of the application on a geometrical space and identifies the potential sensor nodes of interest. Additionally, this dissertation models a wireless sensor network data reduction system by ascertaining that segregating data adaptation and prediction processes will augment the data reduction rates. The schemes presented in this study are evaluated using simulation and information theory concepts. The results demonstrate that dynamic conditions of the environment are better managed when validation is used for data cleaning. They also show that when a fast convergent adaptation process is deployed, data reduction rates are significantly improved. Targeted applications of the developed methodology include machine health monitoring, tele-health, environment and habitat monitoring, intermodal transportation and homeland security.

A competência leitora de alunos do ensino fundamental: uma proposta de intervenção

Reading is a activity of paramount importance in the life of every human being, since this practice is essential condition for the exercise of citizenship. Therefore, it is through reading that the student has access to the knowledge that part of the world around him. However, given the complexity involved in the process of learning to read, teach students to read is not an easy task because often they do not acquire the skills necessary to understand the texts. According to this view, the present study focuses on an educational intervention who aim at contribut to the development of reading competence of students in 6th grade "U" of the State School Senador José Bernardo, in São João do Sabugi - RN. The activities which were of that intervention process were conducted in Portuguese Language classroom and developed through didactic sequences drawn from reading strategies, based on the genres tale and news, since students had serious problems with regard to reading comprehension. Given the importance of meeting the aforementioned difficulty, we seek to develop a proposal for interactive reading activities through genres as a language of social practices, whose goal aimed read to understand and make sense of texts. This intervention proposal falls under the Applied Linguistics and to perform it, were taken as a basis some theories focused on the notion of language as sociointerativa practice, such as studies of Bakhtin (2006, 2011), Bronckart (2012) and targeted contributions to the teaching of reading activity, including, Solé (1998), Oliveira (2010), Kleiman (2013), Leffa (1996, 1999), Silveira (2005). Discussions about genres followed the studies of Bakhtin (2011), Marcuschi (2008), as well as other theoretical; the didactic sequences were constructed from Bronckart (2012), Dolz; Noverraz; Schneuwly (2013) and, with regard to the teaching of Portuguese Language, the guidelines were adopted contained in PCN / LP (1998), as well as in Antunes (2003, 2009) and other authors. The results showed that students in the 6th grade increased their understanding capacity of the read texts, by implementing the didactic and pedagogical actions, thereby acquiring the reading competence they needed to keep learning.

Sviluppo di un'applicazione Android per la comunicazione decentralizzata

L'utilizzo di percorsi non centralizzati per la comunicazione tra dispositivi mobili presenta notevoli vantaggi, tra i quali una maggiore sicurezza e segretezza e l'indipendenza da infrastrutture esterne (Internet). Gli studi e le implementazioni di questo tipo di funzionalità stanno emergendo recentemente di pari passo con i traguardi raggiunti nel campo della tecnologia mobile, ma si trovano ancora in uno stato sperimentale e poco fruibile in pratica. È stata sviluppata come proof of work un'applicazione che permette di diffondere messaggi tra dispositivi mobili senza connessione a internet, sfruttando un sistema di comunicazione (quasi) peer to peer. Viene descritta in generale l'architettura e il funzionamento dell'applicazione insieme a dei possibili casi d'uso. Inoltre vengono mostrati i metodi vagliati ed effettivamente utilizzati per implementare questo tipo di comunicazione, insieme ad altre caratteristiche secondarie (crittografia). Il risultato conseguito è a tutti gli effetti funzionante e viene ritenuto la soluzione migliore possibile tra tutte quelle trovate, ma presenta comunque diversi difetti. La conclusione raggiunta è che lo stato attuale dell'arte non permetta di raggiungere lo scopo prefissato in maniera ottimale, in quanto è necessario ricorrere a metodi poco funzionali a causa della mancanza di supporto alle tecnologie necessarie.

The Inner Corona Algebra of a C0(X)-Algebra

Date of Acceptance: 15/07/2015

The Inner Corona Algebra of a C0(X)-Algebra

Date of Acceptance: 15/07/2015

Cardiovascular benefits of lycopene : fantasy or reality

Peer reviewed

Differences in expenditure and amounts of fresh foods, fruits & vegetables and fish purchased in urban and rural Scotland

Peer reviewed

Assessing the relative validity of the Scottish Collaborative Group Food Frequency Questionnaire for measuring dietary intake in adults

Peer reviewed

Differences in expenditure and amounts of fresh foods, fruits & vegetables and fish purchased in urban and rural Scotland

Peer reviewed

National, inter-institutional, graduate modules – blended learning approaches for PhD education in Ireland

This paper is a case study that describes the design and delivery of national PhD lectures with 40 PhD candidates in Digital Arts and Humanities in Ireland simultaneously to four remote locations, in Trinity College Dublin, in University College Cork, in NUI Maynooth and NUI Galway. Blended learning approaches were utilized to augment traditional teaching practices combining: face-to-face engagement, video-conferencing to multiple sites, social media lecture delivery support – a live blog and micro blogging, shared, open student web presence online. Techniques for creating an effective, active learning environment were discerned via a range of learning options offered to students through student surveys after semester one. Students rejected the traditional lecture format, even through the novel delivery method via video link to a number of national academic institutions was employed. Students also rejected the use of a moderated forum as a means of creating engagement across the various institutions involved. Students preferred a mix of approaches for this online national engagement. The paper discusses successful methods used to promote interactive teaching and learning. These included Peer to peer learning, Workshop style delivery, Social media. The lecture became a national, synchronous workshop. The paper describes how allowing students to have a voice in the virtual classroom they become animated and engaged in an open culture of shared experience and scholarship, create networks beyond their institutions, and across disciplinary boundaries. We offer an analysis of our experiences to assist other educators in their course design, with a particular emphasis on social media engagement.

Institutional resistances before school mediation. An inquiry in the conflict settings

This paper deals with the conceptions of the different school actors about the meaning and the implications of mediation in their schools, drawing on data from a qualitative approach carried out as part of a wider project to map mediation perspectives and practices in Catalonia. The authors analyze the scope of the situations regarded as suitable or unsuitable for the introduction of restorative practices, as well as the resistance to change in the practice of conflict resolutions and in the democratization of school culture.

Interpretation and typology Spanish indefinite pronoun uno in three discoursive genres

This study investigates the Spanish indefinite pronoun uno (“one”). After a detailed analysis of its occurrences in authentic language, we find that its interpretation varies depending on the linguistic context. Therefore, we examine which elements of the context - we focus on the broader context, beyond the sentence – have an impact on its interpretation and develop a typology of the indefinite pronoun as to its interpretation. The pronoun may be interpreted as completely generic or specific (referring to the speaker, the listener or a third person). Its interpretation can also be located in an intermediate position between these interpretive extremes.In addition, we compare its use in various discursive genres - spontaneous conversations, academic essays and web forum - which are distinguished by the presence or absence of interactivity and of more or less subjectivity / intersubjectivity. The comparison shows that pronoun use depends on these characteristics.

Performatividad y arte computacional. Hacia una “DIY society”

El artículo analiza la figura del prosumidor desde los estudios visuales a partir de la combinación de la teoría de los actos de habla y los nuevos medios. El objetivo es evaluar si la distinción entre productores y consumidores, estrategias y tácticas de Michel de Certeau continúa siendo operativa en las interfaces gráficas de la cultura global de la información de Scott Lash. Para ello distingue dos tipos de performatividad de los actos de habla: la performatividad top-down del software, y la bottom-up de los juegos del lenguaje y las formas de vida. Estos tipos se aplican al análisis del discurso de los eslóganes que aparecen en los sitios web de las iniciativas “open” y de economía colaborativa, ya que las primeras están dedicadas a la producción de bienes inmateriales y las segundas a la producción de bienes materiales. El desarrollo muestra cómo los dos tipos de performatividad transforman el análisis textual de los estudios literarios y cinematográficos en una metodología capaz de investigar acciones materiales, humanas y no humanas. Las conclusiones describen el surgimiento de nuevas convenciones narrativas de poder y control ajenas a la ficción que apuntan a una “DIY society”.

Of Marx and Makers: an Historical Perspective on Generative Justice

In Marxist frameworks “distributive justice” depends on extracting value through a centralized state. Many new social movements—peer to peer economy, maker activism, community agriculture, queer ecology, etc.—take the opposite approach, keeping value in its unalienated form and allowing it to freely circulate from the bottom up. Unlike Marxism, there is no general theory for bottom-up, unalienated value circulation. This paper examines the concept of “generative justice” through an historical contrast between Marx’s writings and the indigenous cultures that he drew upon. Marx erroneously concluded that while indigenous cultures had unalienated forms of production, only centralized value extraction could allow the productivity needed for a high quality of life. To the contrary, indigenous cultures now provide a robust model for the “gift economy” that underpins open source technological production, agroecology, and restorative approaches to civil rights. Expanding Marx’s concept of unalienated labor value to include unalienated ecological (nonhuman) value, as well as the domain of freedom in speech, sexual orientation, spirituality and other forms of “expressive” value, we arrive at an historically informed perspective for generative justice. 

Secrecy Capacity Analysis Over κ–μ Fading Channels: Theory and Applications

In this paper, we consider the transmission of confidential information over a κ-μ fading channel in the presence of an eavesdropper who also experiences κ-μ fading. In particular, we obtain novel analytical solutions for the probability of strictly positive secrecy capacity (SPSC) and a lower bound of secure outage probability (SOPL) for independent and non-identically distributed channel coefficients without parameter constraints. We also provide a closed-form expression for the probability of SPSC when the μ parameter is assumed to take positive integer values. Monte-Carlo simulations are performed to verify the derived results. The versatility of the κ-μ fading model means that the results presented in this paper can be used to determine the probability of SPSC and SOPL for a large number of other fading scenarios, such as Rayleigh, Rice (Nakagamin), Nakagami-m, One-Sided Gaussian, and mixtures of these common fading models. In addition, due to the duality of the analysis of secrecy capacity and co-channel interference (CCI), the results presented here will have immediate applicability in the analysis of outage probability in wireless systems affected by CCI and background noise (BN). To demonstrate the efficacy of the novel formulations proposed here, we use the derived equations to provide a useful insight into the probability of SPSC and SOPL for a range of emerging wireless applications, such as cellular device-to-device, peer-to-peer, vehicle-to-vehicle, and body centric communications using data obtained from real channel measurements.