Brief report: preliminary proposal of a conceptual model of a digital environment for developing mathematical reasoning in students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

There is clear evidence that in typically developing children reasoning and sense-making are essential in all mathematical learning and understanding processes. In children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), however, these become much more significant, considering their importance to successful independent living. This paper presents a preliminary proposal of a digital environment, specifically targeted to promote the development of mathematical reasoning in students with ASD. Given the diversity of ASD, the prototyping of this environment requires the study of dynamic adaptation processes and the development of activities adjusted to each user’s profile. We present the results obtained during the first phase of this ongoing research, describing a conceptual model of the proposed digital environment. Guidelines for future research are also discussed.

Ambiente digital de aprendizagem promotor do desenvolvimento do raciocínio matemático em alunos com perturbações do espetro do Autismo

A utilização das tecnologias é considerada um meio eficaz para trabalhar conteúdos académicos com alunos com Perturbações do Espetro do Autismo (PEA) possibilitando a criação de ambientes criativos e construtivos onde se podem desenvolver atividades diferenciadas, significativas e de qualidade. Contudo, o desenvolvimento de aplicações tecnológicas para crianças e jovens com PEA continua a merecer pouca atenção, nomeadamente no que respeita à promoção do raciocínio dedutivo, apesar desta ser uma área de grande interesse para indivíduos com esta perturbação. Para os alunos com PEA, o desenvolvimento do raciocínio matemático torna-se crucial, considerando a importância destas competências para o sucesso de uma vida autónoma. Estas evidências revelam o contributo inovador que o ambiente de aprendizagem descrito nesta comunicação poderá dar nesta área. O desenvolvimento deste ambiente começou por uma etapa de criação e validação de um modelo que permitiu especificar e prototipar a solução desenvolvida que oferece modalidades de adaptação dinâmica das atividades propostas ao perfil do utilizador, procurando promover o desenvolvimento do raciocínio matemático (indutivo e dedutivo). Considerando a heterogeneidade das PEA, o ambiente desenvolvido baseia-se em modalidades de adaptação dinâmica e em atividades ajustadas ao perfil dos utilizadores. Nesta comunicação procurámos dar a conhecer o trabalho de investigação já desenvolvido, bem como perspetivar a continuidade do trabalho a desenvolver.

Archivage de répétitions et médiations du spectacle vivant. Le cas du projet spectacle en ligne(s)

Cet article revient sur les résultats du programme Spectacle en ligne(s) à partir desquels une réflexion est menée sur le changement de nature de l’archive nativement numérique et de son statut culturel. La constitution d’une archive vidéo annotée des répétitions de deux spectacles vivants nous a permis d’explorer les médiations de l’archive dans le contexte culturel. Notre réflexion sur la médiation se positionne ainsi à la croisée de l’innovation institutionnelle en la matière, et des problématiques scientifiques liées à l’archive numérique. À travers les expérimentations d’éditorialisation de l’archive, menées lors du projet, l’article introduit l’idée que l’archive nativement numérique n’accède au statut d’objet culturel qu’au travers de ses usages, lors de la génération des formes intermédiaires propre à l’éditorialisation de l’archive.

Exploring the future of immersive education

Trabalho apresentado em iLRN 2016 - Workshop, Short Paper and Poster Proceedings from the Second Immersive Learning Research Network Conference, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2016.

Do modelo geométrico ao modelo físico: o tridimensional na educação do arquiteto e urbanista

In the teaching practice of architecture and urbanism in Brazil, educational legislation views modeling laboratories and workshops as an indispensable component of the infrastructure required for the good functioning of any architectural course of study. Although the development of information technology at the international level has created new possibilities for digital production of architectural models, research in this field being underway since the early 1990s, it is only from 2007 onwards that such technologies started to be incorporated into the teaching activity of architecture and urbanism in Brazil, through the pioneering experience at LAPAC/FEC/UNICAMP. It is therefore a recent experiment whose challenges can be highlighted through the following examples: (i) The implementation of digital prototyping laboratories in undergraduate courses of architecture and urbanism is still rare in Brazil; (ii) As a new developing field with few references and application to undergraduate programs, it is hard to define methodological procedures suitable for the pedagogical curricula already implemented or which have already been consolidated over the years; (iii) The new digital ways for producing tridimensional models are marked with specificities which make it difficult to fit them within the existing structures of model laboratories and workshops. Considering the above, the present thesis discusses the tridimensional model as a tool which may contribute to the development of students skills in perceiving, understanding and representing tridimensional space. Analysis is made of the relation between different forms of models and the teaching of architectural project, with emphasis on the design process. Starting from the conceptualization of the word model as it is used in architecture and urbanism, an attempt is made to identify types of tridimensional models used in the process of project conception, both through the traditional, manual way of model construction as well as through the digital ones. There is also an explanation on how new technologies for digital production of models through prototyping are being introduced in undergraduate academic programs of architecture and urbanism in Brazil, as well as a review of recent academic publications in this area. Based on the paradigm of reflective practice in teaching as designed by Schön (2000), the experiment applied in the research was undertaken in the integrated workshop courses of architectural project in the undergraduate program of architecture and urbanism at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. Along the experiment, physical modeling, geometric modeling and digital prototyping are used in distinct moments of the design process with the purpose of observing the suitability of each model to the project s phases. The procedures used in the experiments are very close to the Action Research methodology in which the main purpose is the production of theoretical knowledge by improving the practice. The process was repeated during three consecutive semesters and reflection on the results which were achieved in each cycle helped enhancing the next one. As a result, a methodological procedure is proposed which consists of the definition of the Tridimensional Model as the integrating element for the contents studied in a specific academic period or semester. The teaching of Architectural Project as it is developed along the fifth academic period of the Architecture and Urbanism undergraduate program of UFRN is taken as a reference

Implementation of an intelligent sensor for measurement and prediction of solar radiation and atmospheric temperature

Dissertação de mestrado, Engenharia Electrónica e Telecomunicações, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2011

Iluminação emocional, percepção visual e bem-estar

Dissertação de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Design de Produto, apresentada na Universidade de Lisboa - Faculdade de Arquitectura.

Dynamic Multi-Objective Optimization With jMetal and Spark: a Case Study

Technologies for Big Data and Data Science are receiving increasing research interest nowadays. This paper introduces the prototyping architecture of a tool aimed to solve Big Data Optimization problems. Our tool combines the jMetal framework for multi-objective optimization with Apache Spark, a technology that is gaining momentum. In particular, we make use of the streaming facilities of Spark to feed an optimization problem with data from different sources. We demonstrate the use of our tool by solving a dynamic bi-objective instance of the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) based on near real-time traffic data from New York City, which is updated several times per minute. Our experiment shows that both jMetal and Spark can be integrated providing a software platform to deal with dynamic multi-optimization problems.

The making of geometry

Geometry has been a source of inspiration in the design of the manmade world for millennia; it also provides representational means enabling development of a concept into a built object. In the past three decades computing methodologies have provided the designer with unprecedented tools to explore highly complex forms, create digital models and fabricate them. This paper describes a computational methodology for the transition of forms from abstract geometric configurations to physical objects: a parametric design process assists from the initial ideation to the final prototyping with 3D printing technologies. The five regular polyhedra are used as a case study; this paper explores how parametric based procedures develop these geometric shapes into digital models of structures to be fabricated in different sizes and materials.

Implementation of soft processor based SOC for JPEG compression on FPGA

With the advent of semiconductor process and EDA tools technology, IC designers can integrate more functions. However, to reduce the demand of time-to-market and tackle the increasing complexity of SoC, the need of fast prototyping and testing is growing. Taking advantage of deep submicron technology, modern FPGAs provide a fast and low-cost prototyping with large logic resources and high performance. So the hardware is mapped onto an emulation platform based on FPGA that mimics the behaviour of SOC. In this paper we use FPGA as a system on chip which is then used for image compression by 2-D DCT respectively and proposed SoC for image compression using soft core Microblaze. The JPEG standard defines compression techniques for image data. As a consequence, it allows to store and transfer image data with considerably reduced demand for storage space and bandwidth. From the four processes provided in the JPEG standard, only one, the baseline process is widely used. Proposed SoC for JPEG compression has been implemented on FPGA Spartan-6 SP605 evaluation board using Xilinx platform studio, because field programmable gate array have reconfigurable hardware architecture. Hence the JPEG image with high speed and reduced size can be obtained at low risk and low power consumption of about 0.699W. The proposed SoC for image compression is evaluated at 83.33MHz on Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA.

A framework for programmatically designing user interfaces in javascript

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of creating a declarative user interface language suitable for rapid prototyping of mobile and Web apps. Moreover, this paper presents a new framework for creating responsive user interfaces using JavaScript. Design/methodology/approach – Very little existing research has been done in JavaScript-specific declarative user interface (UI) languages for mobile Web apps. This paper introduces a new framework, along with several case studies that create modern responsive designs programmatically. Findings – The fully implemented prototype verifies the feasibility of a JavaScript-based declarative user interface library. This paper demonstrates that existing solutions are unwieldy and cumbersome to dynamically create and adjust nodes within a visual syntax of program code. Originality/value – This paper presents the Guix.js platform, a declarative UI library for rapid development of Web-based mobile interfaces in JavaScript.

MaramaAIC: tool support for consistency management and validation of requirements

Requirements captured by requirements engineers (REs) are commonly inconsistent with their client’s intended requirements and are often error prone. There is limited tool support providing end-to-end support between the REs and their client for the validation and improvement of these requirements. We have developed an automated tool called MaramaAIC (Automated Inconsistency Checker) to address these problems. MaramaAIC provides automated requirements traceability and visual support to identify and highlight inconsistency, incorrectness and incompleteness in captured requirements. MaramaAIC provides an end-to-end rapid prototyping approach together with a patterns library that helps to capture requirements and check the consistency of requirements that have been expressed in textual natural language requirements and then extracted to semi-formal abstract interactions, essential use cases (EUCs) and user interface prototype models. It helps engineers to validate the correctness and completeness of the EUCs modelled requirements by comparing them to “best-practice” templates and generates an abstract prototype in the form of essential user interface prototype models and concrete User Interface views in the form of HTML. We describe its design and implementation together with results of evaluating our tool’s efficacy and performance, and user perception of the tool’s usability and its strengths and weaknesses via a substantial usability study. We also present a qualitative study on the effectiveness of the tool’s end-to-end rapid prototyping approach in improving dialogue between the RE and the client as well as improving the quality of the requirements.

The parametric making of geometry: the platonic solids

Geometry is a source of inspiration in the design and making of the manmade world. Computing techniques provide tools to explore complex forms: the research question is how computational tool can be systemised to assist with the translation of geometric concepts into physical objects. The purpose is to describe computational/manufacturing methods for creating digital models and physical objects from regular geometric configurations. The methods are based on parametric design, assisting from ideation to the generation of digital models with material specifications – using the five regular convex polyhedra as a case study. The results are comprised of digital models used for prototyping with 3D printing technologies and hybrid fabrication processes: the products are built geometric shapes ranging from body ornaments to sculptures. These procedures can be extended to generate designs based on irregular geometric shapes. Parametric-based methods are recommended in the digital modeling and fabrication of any geometric form.

Fabrication of biocompatible enclosures for an electronic implant using 3D printing

A variety of different approaches have been employed to enableimplantation of electronic medical microdevices. A novel method of producing low-cost, rapidly fabricated implantable enclosures from biocompatible silicone is presented in this paper. This method utilises 3D computer-aided design software to design and model the enclosures prior to fabrication. The enclosures are then fabricated through additive manufacturing from biocompatible silicone using a 3D bioprinter. In this paper, four different implantable enclosure designs are presented. A prototyping stage with three different prototypes is described, these prototype enclosures are then evaluated through submersion and operation tests. A final design is developed in response to the obtained results, and then evaluated in a long term temperature controlled submersion test. The evaluation results are presented and discussed.Several areas of future works are identified and discussed.

Additive manufacturing in the cycling industry: mainstream or gimmick?

INTRODUCTION. Additive manufacturing (AM) for various industries has been trailed, prototyped and used in limited production runs (Gibson, 2015). But considering additive manufacturing with metallic materials has been around for over 15 years the penetration into an industry such as cycling that values customisation and progressive design techniques has been quite limited. This case study looks at the potential of and why additive manufacturing has not progressed from concept development and prototyping into production and mainstream. Selective Laser Melting (SLM) additive manufacturing systems mainly use Stainless Steel 316 (SS316) and Titanium 6Al.4V (Ti64) as a baseline material; both these materials are extremely common in the custom and high volume bike industries. For the purposes of this article we will focus on smaller custom bike manufacturers who are typically more agile and open to high levels of customisation in their products. The study finds that whilst a high number of companies will experiment and prototype with additive manufacturing there is little evidence that the design and development process translates to ongoing production for sale to the consumer, this could be due to knowledge of design and fabrication techniques.