Identification and Semiactive Control of Smart Structures Equipped with Magnetorheological Actuators

This paper deals with the problem of identification and semiactive control of smart structures subject to unknown external disturbances such as earthquake, wind, etc. The experimental setup used is a 6-story test structure equipped with shear-mode semiactive magnetorheological actuators being installed in WUSCEEL. The experimental results obtained have verified the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms

Preguntas de los estudiantes sobre dispositivos científicos = Students’ questions about scientific devices

¿Cuáles son, en realidad, las ventajas de los dispositivos científicos usados en laboratorios escolares y en museos de ciencia interactivos, para el aprendizaje de las ciencias en los estudiantes? Un aprendizaje eficaz de las ciencias requiere comprensión. La generación de preguntas para obtener información es uno de los procesos que indican la intención de los estudiantes de comprender una determinada información. Además, la construcción de nuevo conocimiento científico comienza con una buena pregunta. Por tanto, estimular la generación de preguntas destinadas a obtener información (ISQ) podría ser un elemento que mejorara el aprendizaje profundo de las ciencias escolares

Silicon Chips and Nano Devices

A look at the Southampton Nanfabrication Centre where electro-photonic research is carried out and the AMD company's industrial processes for creating commercial quantities of silicon computing devices.

Smart Meetings - background reading

Background reading for coursework to prepare a technical report as part of the orientation phase. These items are business documents (i.e. grey literature) which might be read as a prelude or complement to finding information in peer reviewed academic publications. grey literature links and articles to be used in preparation of technical report. See also overview guidance document for this assignment http://www.edshare.soton.ac.uk/8017/

The Open Web of Things as a means to unlock the potential of the IoT

Abstract: There is a lot of hype around the Internet of Things along with talk about 100 billion devices within 10 years time. The promise of innovative new services and efficiency savings is fueling interest in a wide range of potential applications across many sectors including smart homes, healthcare, smart grids, smart cities, retail, and smart industry. However, the current reality is one of fragmentation and data silos. W3C is seeking to fix that by exposing IoT platforms through the Web with shared semantics and data formats as the basis for interoperability. This talk will address the abstractions needed to move from a Web of pages to a Web of things, and introduce the work that is being done on standards and on open source projects for a new breed of Web servers on microcontrollers to cloud based server farms. Speaker Biography -Dave Raggett : Dave has been involved at the heart of web standards since 1992, and part of the W3C Team since 1995. As well as working on standards, he likes to dabble with software, and more recently with IoT hardware. He has participated in a wide range of European research projects on behalf of W3C/ERCIM. He currently focuses on Web payments, and realising the potential for the Web of Things as an evolution from the Web of pages. Dave has a doctorate from the University of Oxford. He is a visiting professor at the University of the West of England, and lives in the UK in a small town near to Bath.

Teleconsultation in sexual and reproductive health for young adults through mobile devices: Experience in Colombia

Background: Sexual risk behaviors associated with poor information on sexuality have contributed to major public health problems in the area of sexual and reproductive health in teenagers and young adults in Colombia. Objective: To measure the perception of changes in sexual and reproductive risk behavior after the use of a teleconsultation service via mobile devices in a sample of young adults. Methods: A before and after observational study was designed, where a mobile application to inquire about sexual and reproductive health was developed. The perception of changes in sexual and reproductive health risk behaviors in a sample of young adults after the use of the application was measured using the validated survey “Family Health International (FHI) – Behavioral Surveillance Survey (BSS) – Survey for Adults between 15 to 40 Years”. Non-probabilistic convenience recruitment was undertaken through the study´s web page. Participants answered the survey online before and after the use of the mobile application for a six month period (intervention). For the inferential analysis, data was divided into three groups (dichotomous data, discrete quantitative data, and ordinal data), to compare the results of the questions between the first and the second survey. For all tests, a confidence interval of 95% was established. For dichotomous data, the Chi-squared test was used. For quantitative data, we used the Student’s t-test, and for ordinal data, the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test. Results: A total of 257 subjects were registered in the study and met the selection criteria. The pre-intervention survey was answered by 232 subjects, and 127 completely answered the post-intervention survey, of which 54.3% did not use the application, leaving an effective population of 58 subjects for analysis. 53% (n=31) were female, and 47% (n=27) were male. The mean age was 21 years, ranging between 18 and 40 years. The differences between the answers on the first and the second survey were not statistically significant. The main risk behaviors identified in the population were homosexual relations, non-use of condoms, sexual relations with non-regular and commercial partners, the use of psychoactive substances, and ignorance about the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV transmission. Conclusions: Although there were no differences between the pre- and post-intervention results, the study revealed different risk behaviors among the participating subjects. These findings highlight the importance of promoting educational strategies on this matter and the importance of providing patients with easily accessible tools with reliable health information.

La política exterior turca en el marco del Complejo de Seguridad Regional de Medio Oriente. Del soft power al smart power. (2002 - 2013)

Dada la confluencia de Turquía en Asia, Medio Oriente, los Balcanes y Europa, el gobierno está en la necesidad de responder a los desafíos de ser un Estado pivote. Es en este punto donde su política exterior se convierte en la mayor herramienta para sobresalir y sobrevivir en un ambiente heterogéneo. El objetivo de esta monografía de grado es analizar la política exterior turca en el marco del Complejo de Seguridad Regional de Medio Oriente a partir de los aportes de la Escuela de Copenhague y su Teoría de los Complejos de Seguridad Regional, para comprender sus estrategias de soft y hard power en su política exterior a fin de analizar si se consolidó un smart power que permita posicionar a Turquía en una potencia regional.

Understanding mobile learning : devices, pedagogical implications and research lines

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

Methodology to obtain the user's Human Values Scale from Smart User Models

En años recientes,la Inteligencia Artificial ha contribuido a resolver problemas encontrados en el desempeño de las tareas de unidades informáticas, tanto si las computadoras están distribuidas para interactuar entre ellas o en cualquier entorno (Inteligencia Artificial Distribuida). Las Tecnologías de la Información permiten la creación de soluciones novedosas para problemas específicos mediante la aplicación de los hallazgos en diversas áreas de investigación. Nuestro trabajo está dirigido a la creación de modelos de usuario mediante un enfoque multidisciplinario en los cuales se emplean los principios de la psicología, inteligencia artificial distribuida, y el aprendizaje automático para crear modelos de usuario en entornos abiertos; uno de estos es la Inteligencia Ambiental basada en Modelos de Usuario con funciones de aprendizaje incremental y distribuido (conocidos como Smart User Model). Basándonos en estos modelos de usuario, dirigimos esta investigación a la adquisición de características del usuario importantes y que determinan la escala de valores dominantes de este en aquellos temas en los cuales está más interesado, desarrollando una metodología para obtener la Escala de Valores Humanos del usuario con respecto a sus características objetivas, subjetivas y emocionales (particularmente en Sistemas de Recomendación).Una de las áreas que ha sido poco investigada es la inclusión de la escala de valores humanos en los sistemas de información. Un Sistema de Recomendación, Modelo de usuario o Sistemas de Información, solo toman en cuenta las preferencias y emociones del usuario [Velásquez, 1996, 1997; Goldspink, 2000; Conte and Paolucci, 2001; Urban and Schmidt, 2001; Dal Forno and Merlone, 2001, 2002; Berkovsky et al., 2007c]. Por lo tanto, el principal enfoque de nuestra investigación está basado en la creación de una metodología que permita la generación de una escala de valores humanos para el usuario desde el modelo de usuario. Presentamos resultados obtenidos de un estudio de casos utilizando las características objetivas, subjetivas y emocionales en las áreas de servicios bancarios y de restaurantes donde la metodología propuesta en esta investigación fue puesta a prueba.En esta tesis, las principales contribuciones son: El desarrollo de una metodología que, dado un modelo de usuario con atributos objetivos, subjetivos y emocionales, se obtenga la Escala de Valores Humanos del usuario. La metodología propuesta está basada en el uso de aplicaciones ya existentes, donde todas las conexiones entre usuarios, agentes y dominios que se caracterizan por estas particularidades y atributos; por lo tanto, no se requiere de un esfuerzo extra por parte del usuario.

Development of a historic hearing devices exhibit

This paper discusses historic hearing devices and their benefits to users.