Formal Multilevel Hierarchical Verification of Synchronous MOS Circuits

I have designed and implemented a system for the multilevel verification of synchronous MOS VLSI circuits. The system, called Silica Pithecus, accepts the schematic of an MOS circuit and a specification of the circuit's intended digital behavior. Silica Pithecus determines if the circuit meets its specification. If the circuit fails to meet its specification Silica Pithecus returns to the designer the reason for the failure. Unlike earlier verifiers which modelled primitives (e.g., transistors) as unidirectional digital devices, Silica Pithecus models primitives more realistically. Transistors are modelled as bidirectional devices of varying resistances, and nodes are modelled as capacitors. Silica Pithecus operates hierarchically, interactively, and incrementally. Major contributions of this research include a formal understanding of the relationship between different behavioral descriptions (e.g., signal, boolean, and arithmetic descriptions) of the same device, and a formalization of the relationship between the structure, behavior, and context of device. Given these formal structures my methods find sufficient conditions on the inputs of circuits which guarantee the correct operation of the circuit in the desired descriptive domain. These methods are algorithmic and complete. They also handle complex phenomena such as races and charge sharing. Informal notions such as races and hazards are shown to be derivable from the correctness conditions used by my methods.

Development of a low-cost mobile mapping system: A South American experience

This paper presents the prototype of a low-cost terrestrial mobile mapping system (MMS) composed of a van, two digital video cameras, two GPS receivers, a notebook computer, and a sound frame synchronisation system. The imaging sensors are mounted as a stereo video camera on top of the vehicle together with the GPS antennae. The GPS receivers and the notebook computer are configured to record data referred to the vehicle position at a planned time interval. This position is subsequently transferred to the road images. This set of equipment and methods provide the opportunity to merge distinct techniques to make topographic maps and also to build georeferenced road image databases. Both vector maps and raster image databases, when integrated appropriately, can give spatial researchers and engineers a new technique whose application may realise better planning and analysis related to the road environment. The experimental results proved that the MMS developed at the São Paulo State University is an effective approach to inspecting road pavements, to map road marks and traffic signs, electric power poles, telephone booths, drain pipes, and many other applications important to people's safety and welfare. A small number of wad images have already been captured by the prototype as a consequence of its application in distinct projects. An efficient organisation of those images and the prompt access to them justify the need for building a georeferenced image database. By expanding it, both at the hardware and software levels, it is possible for engineers to analyse the entire road environment on their office computers.

Projetos de controle discreto com modos deslizantes para sistemas sujeitos a atraso no controle

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Elétrica - FEIS

Aplicação de controle com modos deslizantes em sistemas com atraso na aquisição de dados

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Elétrica - FEIS

Bibliotecas escolares e instrumentos digitais nos espaços escolares: uma pesquisa em Marília-SP

The article reports on research conducted with fifteen teachers and forty-five students in three high schools municipal Marília - SP, with the goal of mapping relationships between school libraries, computer labs and digital devices. The investigation is linked to the other two poles: one in the Faculty of Education, Federal University of Uberlândia and another at the French Institute of Education, in Lyon, France. Responses were obtained through questions previously formulated and recorded by scholars in an interview situation. The article initially retrieves historical projects of French in the late nineteenth century with the intention of establishing linkages with the situation in 2012, in Brazil. It then presents and comments on the graphics with data. The findings indicate the absence of organicity in relations between libraries and computer labs. Handheld devices outside of school are predominantly used to play and participate in social networking sites.

O ensino de língua estrangeira nas escolas públicas estaduais paulistas e as novas tecnologias

Pós-graduação em Televisão Digital: Informação e Conhecimento - FAAC

A educação para os 'meios e os fins': a informação, o conhecimento e a comunicação na educação escolar básica e universitária

This research has as its main reference, the need to detect the development initiatives by public higher education, concepts, methods and teaching and pedagogical tools and to investigate the ability to transfer knowledge and practices of teaching and learning produced for other levels education. The task of providing appropriate training of teachers of basic education to university education is a vital political and administrative demands for a large country, which needs to adequately educate its people, so he can face in the right conditions, the huge and complex demands of regional and national development. The research presented here, aims to gauge the extent and adequacy of current media and information as tools for teaching and pedagogical transfer the knowledge and practices of teaching and learning as a tool for updating and also for training or non-presence blended Primary School Teacher Education. From the established goals will be carried out research, conceptual and field, to analyze and evaluate some educational practices and resulting forms of communication and also to assess the effects brought about by replacing the linear communication model and the model of unilateral to multilateral communication networks on digital models, and practices of schooling. The results obtained from both theoretical and practical will be on the selection of concepts, content production, methodologies and resources run by different "means" integrated with the cultural, economic and social development, both locally, regionally or nationally. The strategic aim will be to expand from the analysis, production and dissemination of concepts, methods and tools made by teachers of Basic Education and Higher Education, teaching and pedagogical possibilities of media and digital devices that are emerging as the derivation of network communication.

Implementazione su fpga di un pre-distorsore digitale a banda larga per sistemi a microonde di backhaul

The development of next generation microwave technology for backhauling systems is driven by an increasing capacity demand. In order to provide higher data rates and throughputs over a point-to-point link, a cost-effective performance improvement is enabled by an enhanced energy-efficiency of the transmit power amplification stage, whereas a combination of spectrally efficient modulation formats and wider bandwidths is supported by amplifiers that fulfil strict constraints in terms of linearity. An optimal trade-off between these conflicting requirements can be achieved by resorting to flexible digital signal processing techniques at baseband. In such a scenario, the adaptive digital pre-distortion is a well-known linearization method, that comes up to be a potentially widely-used solution since it can be easily integrated into base stations. Its operation can effectively compensate for the inter-modulation distortion introduced by the power amplifier, keeping up with the frequency-dependent time-varying behaviour of the relative nonlinear characteristic. In particular, the impact of the memory effects become more relevant and their equalisation become more challenging as the input discrete signal feature a wider bandwidth and a faster envelope to pre-distort. This thesis project involves the research, design and simulation a pre-distorter implementation at RTL based on a novel polyphase architecture, which makes it capable of operating over very wideband signals at a sampling rate that complies with the actual available clock speed of current digital devices. The motivation behind this structure is to carry out a feasible pre-distortion for the multi-band spectrally efficient complex signals carrying multiple channels that are going to be transmitted in near future high capacity and reliability microwave backhaul links.

Sistema de adquisición de datos basado en FPAA

Las FPAA´s son dispositivos analógicos programables. Estos dispositivos se basan en el uso de condensadores conmutados junto con amplificadores operacionales. Este tipo de tecnología presenta una serie de ventajas, ya que combinan las ventajas de dispositivos digitales, como la reprogramación en función de las variables del entorno que los rodean, con la diferencia de ser dispositivos analógicos, permitiendo la realización de una amplia gama de diseños analógicos en un solo chip. En este proyecto se ha realizado un estudio sobre el funcionamiento de los condensadores conmutados y su uso en el dispositivo AN221E04 del fabricante Anadigm. Una vez descrita la arquitectura del AN221E04 y explicadas las bases del funcionamiento de los condensadores conmutados, utilizando como ejemplo los modelos facilitados por Anadigm, se desarrolla un modelo de amplificador de instrumentación teórico y se describe la metodología para su implementación en un AN221E04 con el software Anadigm Designer 2. Una vez implementado este modelo de amplificador de instrumentación se han efectuado una serie de pruebas con el objetivo de estudiar la capacidad de estos dispositivos. Dichas pruebas ponen de manifiesto que las FPAA´s tienen una serie de ventajas a tener en cuenta a la hora de realizar diseños analógicos. La precisión obtenida por el modelo de amplificador de instrumentación realizado es más que aceptable, llegando a obtener errores de ganancia inferiores al 1% con ganancias de 200V/V sin tener la necesidad de realizar grandes ajustes. En las conclusiones de este estudio se exponen tanto ventajas como inconvenientes de la utilización de FPAA´s en diseños analógicos. La principal ventaja de este uso es el ahorro de costes, ya que una vez desarrollada una plataforma de diseño, la capacidad de reconfiguración permite utilizar dicha plataforma para un amplio abanico de aplicaciones, reduciendo el número de componentes y simplificando las etapas de diseño. Como desventaja, las FPAA´s tienen una serie de limitaciones qué hay que tener en cuenta en ciertos casos pudiendo hacer irrealizable un diseño concreto; como puede ser el valor máximo o mínimo de ganancia. The FPAA's are programmable analog devices. These devices rely on the use of switched capacitors together with operational amplifiers. This type of technology has a number of advantages, because they combine the advantages of digital devices such as the reprogramming function of the variables of the surrounding environment, with the difference being analog devices, allowing the realization of a wide range of designs analog on a single chip. This project has conducted a study on the operation of the switched capacitor and its use in the device AN221E04 from Anadigm. Having described the architecture of AN221E04 and explained the basis for the operation of the switched capacitor, using the example models provided by Anadigm is developing an instrumentation amplifier theory model and describes the methodology for implementation in a AN221E04 with the Anadigm Designer 2 software. Once implemented this instrumentation amplifier model, have made a series of tests in order to study the ability of these devices. These tests show that the FPAA's have a number of advantages to take into account when making analog designs. The accuracy obtained by the instrumentation amplifier model is made more than acceptable, earning gain errors of less than 1% with gains of 200V / V without the need for major adjustments. The conclusions of this study are presented both advantages and disadvantages of using FPAA's in analog designs. The main advantage of this application is the cost savings, because once developed a platform for design, reconfiguration capability allows you to use this platform for a wide range of applications, reducing component count and simplifying design stages. As a disadvantage, the FPAA's have a number of limitations which must be taken into account in certain cases may make impossible a specific design, such as the maximum or minimum gain, or the magnitude of the possible settings.

Outreach Testing of Ancient Astronomy

This work is an outreach approach to an ubiquitous recent problem in secondary-school education: how to face back the decreasing interest in natural sciences shown by students under ‘pressure’ of convenient resources in digital devices/applications. The approach rests on two features. First, empowering of teen-age students to understand regular natural events around, as very few educated people they meet could do. Secondly, an understanding that rests on personal capability to test and verify experimental results from the oldest science, astronomy, with simple instruments as used from antiquity down to the Renaissance (a capability restricted to just solar and lunar motions). Because lengths in astronomy and daily life are so disparate, astronomy basically involved observing and registering values of angles (along with times), measurements being of two types, of angles on the ground and of angles in space, from the ground. First, the gnomon, a simple vertical stick introduced in Babylonia and Egypt, and then in Greece, is used to understand solar motion. The gnomon shadow turns around during any given day, varying in length and thus angle between solar ray and vertical as it turns, going through a minimum (noon time, at a meridian direction) while sweeping some angular range from sunrise to sunset. Further, the shadow minimum length varies through the year, with times when shortest and sun closest to vertical, at summer solstice, and times when longest, at winter solstice six months later. The extreme directions at sunset and sunrise correspond to the solstices, swept angular range greatest at summer, over 180 degrees, and the opposite at winter, with less daytime hours; in between, spring and fall equinoxes occur, marked by collinear shadow directions at sunrise and sunset. The gnomon allows students to determine, in addition to latitude (about 40.4° North at Madrid, say), the inclination of earth equator to plane of its orbit around the sun (ecliptic), this fundamental quantity being given by half the difference between solar distances to vertical at winter and summer solstices, with value about 23.5°. Day and year periods greatly differing by about 2 ½ orders of magnitude, 1 day against 365 days, helps students to correctly visualize and interpret the experimental measurements. Since the gnomon serves to observe at night the moon shadow too, students can also determine the inclination of the lunar orbital plane, as about 5 degrees away from the ecliptic, thus explaining why eclipses are infrequent. Independently, earth taking longer between spring and fall equinoxes than from fall to spring (the solar anomaly), as again verified by the students, was explained in ancient Greek science, which posited orbits universally as circles or their combination, by introducing the eccentric circle, with earth placed some distance away from the orbital centre when considering the relative motion of the sun, which would be closer to the earth in winter. In a sense, this can be seen as hint and approximation of the elliptic orbit proposed by Kepler many centuries later.

Connection of Network Sensors to Distributed Information Measurement and Control System for Education and Research

The development of the distributed information measurement and control system for optical spectral research of particle beam and plasma objects and the execution of laboratory works on Physics and Engineering Department of Petrozavodsk State University are described. At the hardware level the system is represented by a complex of the automated workplaces joined into computer network. The key element of the system is the communication server, which supports the multi-user mode and distributes resources among clients, monitors the system and provides secure access. Other system components are formed by equipment servers (CАМАC and GPIB servers, a server for the access to microcontrollers MCS-196 and others) and the client programs that carry out data acquisition, accumulation and processing and management of the course of the experiment as well. In this work the designed by the authors network interface is discussed. The interface provides the connection of measuring and executive devices to the distributed information measurement and control system via Ethernet. This interface allows controlling of experimental parameters by use of digital devices, monitoring of experiment parameters by polling of analog and digital sensors. The device firmware is written in assembler language and includes libraries for Ethernet-, IP-, TCP- и UDP-packets forming.

Ticking Boxes: (re)constructing the wristwatch as a luxury object

Today the high-price mechanical wristwatch is recognized as a luxury object redolent with notions of adventure, sporting achievement, elevated social status, and technical precision. Through an examination of the segmentation of the current luxury wristwatch market and key moments in the historical development of the wristwatch, this article will explain why these connotations exist. In particular, the article will explain the role that the early development of the wristwatch as a piece of military technical equipment and the mechanical wristwatch’s revitalization as a luxury good in response to the development of commercial quartz timekeeping technology have played in reconstructing the wristwatch as an object type. By utilizing network theory and the analytical tool of complexity, and drawing on fieldwork undertaken in London and Switzerland amongst the manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and consumers of high-value wristwatches, the article will explain how the wristwatch can simultaneously be seen as functional tool, fashion statement, status symbol, and anachronism. This insight into the true nature of the wristwatch as a multivalent and semiotically charged object will also be used to inform reflections on the likely impact of generally perceived current threats to the luxury watch industry: the rise in ethical material sourcing campaigns, the stubborn gender imbalance in watch sales, and the recent appearance of smart watches and similar digital devices.

On the application of contextual IoT service discovery in Information Centric Networks

The continuous flow of technological developments in communications and electronic industries has led to the growing expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT). By leveraging the capabilities of smart networked devices and integrating them into existing industrial, leisure and communication applications, the IoT is expected to positively impact both economy and society, reducing the gap between the physical and digital worlds. Therefore, several efforts have been dedicated to the development of networking solutions addressing the diversity of challenges associated with such a vision. In this context, the integration of Information Centric Networking (ICN) concepts into the core of IoT is a research area gaining momentum and involving both research and industry actors. The massive amount of heterogeneous devices, as well as the data they produce, is a significant challenge for a wide-scale adoption of the IoT. In this paper we propose a service discovery mechanism, based on Named Data Networking (NDN), that leverages the use of a semantic matching mechanism for achieving a flexible discovery process. The development of appropriate service discovery mechanisms enriched with semantic capabilities for understanding and processing context information is a key feature for turning raw data into useful knowledge and ensuring the interoperability among different devices and applications. We assessed the performance of our solution through the implementation and deployment of a proof-of-concept prototype. Obtained results illustrate the potential of integrating semantic and ICN mechanisms to enable a flexible service discovery in IoT scenarios.

As TIC, as práticas de ensino supervisionadas, a investigação e a inovação : os blogues educativos & a segurança na internet

Presentemente, em Portugal, estima-se que a utilização das TIC (Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação), pelos designados nativos digitais, corresponde a cerca de 98,S°/o. Considerando que os nativos digitais correspondem aos cidadãos que nasceram somente há 15 anos atrás, significa que toda a atual população escolar vive e convive rodeada de dispositivos e de ferramentas digitais no âmbito das suas rotinas diárias. Contudo, em termos gerais, não se tem verificado a mesma realidade no espaço educativo onde a presença de computadores e de uma ligação à Internet continua a ser muito escassa e incipiente. As Práticas de Ensino Supervisionadas, no âmbito do Mestrado em Educação Pré-escolar e Ensino do 1° Ciclo do Ensino Básico, têm vindo a constituir uma «janela de oportunidades» para a realização de investigações sobre a implementação das TIC no processo de ensino aprendizagem. Apesar de todos os constrangimentos, tem sido possível promover-se uma investigação que se pode considerar inovadora e exploratória pela inexistência de investigações anteriores similares. Para o efeito, é objetivo apresentarem-se os resultados de uma investigação que envolveu a utilização de blogues, no sentido destas ferramentas digitais promoverem novos contextos de aprendizagem e, ainda, com o objetivo de serem uma «ponte» que permitiu a aproximação entre a escola e a família. Um outro exemplo de investigação a apresentar diz respeito à utilização segura da Internet. Dos resultados obtidos foi possível verificar que crianças de 7/8 anos já fazem uma utilização autónoma da internet mas, em vários casos, foi possível averiguar-se que os respetivos pais não têm noção relativamente às utilizações que os seus educandos fazem no chamado ciberespaço. Em termos globais, foi possível apurar-se que as crianças aderem muito facilmente à utilização das tecnologias digitais na sala de aula, os alunos mostraram-se sempre muito envolvidos e motivados. Para terminar, é importante referir que, apesar de todas as vantagens apuradas, quer os alunos quer os pais, continuam a afirmar que a presença dos professores é fundamental e imprescindível no processo de ensino e de aprendizagem.