Information and communication technologies in education – a web-based intelligent tutoring system on teaching and learning electrical project

Electrical activity is extremely broad and distinct, requiring by one hand, a deep knowledge on rules, regulations, materials, equipments, technical solutions and technologies and assistance in several areas, as electrical equipment, telecommunications, security and efficiency and rational use of energy, on the other hand, also requires other skills, depending on the specific projects to be implemented, being this knowledge a characteristic that belongs to the professionals with relevant experience, in terms of complexity and specific projects that were made.

From "Humanities and Computing" to "Digital Humanities": Digital Humanities in Portugal with a focus on Historical Research

In the following text I will develop three major aspects. The first is to draw attention to those who seem to have been the disciplinary fields where, despite everything, the Digital Humanities (in the broad perspective as will be regarded here) have asserted themselves in a more comprehensive manner. I think it is here that I run into greater risks, not only for what I have mentioned above, but certainly because a significant part, perhaps, of the achievements and of the researchers might have escaped the look that I sought to cast upon the past few decades, always influenced by my own experience and the work carried out in the field of History. But this can be considered as a work in progress and it is open to criticism and suggestions. A second point to note is that emphasis will be given to the main lines of development in the relationship between historical research and digital methodologies, resources and tools. Finally, I will try to make a brief analysis of what has been the Digital Humanities discourse appropriation in recent years, with very debatable data and methods for sure, because studies are still scarce and little systematic information is available that would allow to go beyond an introductory reflection.

How to improve urban mobility in Lisbon: intermodality and information and ticketing systems

Urban mobility is one of the main challenges facing urban areas due to the growing population and to traffic congestion, resulting in environmental pressures. The pathway to urban sustainable mobility involves strengthening of intermodal mobility. The integrated use of different transport modes is getting more and more important and intermodality has been mentioned as a way for public transport compete with private cars. The aim of the current dissertation is to define a set of strategies to improve urban mobility in Lisbon and by consequence reduce the environmental impacts of transports. In order to do that several intermodal practices over Europe were analysed and the transport systems of Brussels and Lisbon were studied and compared, giving special attention to intermodal systems. In the case study was gathered data from both cities in the field, by using and observing the different transport modes, and two surveys were done to the cities users. As concluded by the study, Brussels and Lisbon present significant differences. In Brussels the measures to promote intermodality are evident, while in Lisbon a lot still needs to be done. It also made clear the necessity for improvements in Lisbon’s public transports to a more intermodal passenger transport system, through integration of different transport modes and better information and ticketing system. Some of the points requiring developments are: interchanges’ waiting areas; integration of bicycle in public transport; information about correspondences with other transport modes; real-time information to passengers pre-trip and on-trip, especially in buses and trams. After the identification of the best practices in Brussels and the weaknesses in Lisbon the possibility of applying some of the practices in Brussels to Lisbon was evaluated. Brussels demonstrated to be a good example of intermodality and for that reason some of the recommendations to improve intermodal mobility in Lisbon can follow the practices in place in Brussels.

Co-movements between US and UK stock prices: the roles of macroeconomic information and time-series varying conditional correlations

This paper provides evidence on the sources of co-movement in monthly US and UK stock price movements by investigating the role of macroeconomic and financial variables in a bivariate system with time-varying conditional correlations. Crosscountry communality in response is uncovered, with changes in the US Federal Funds rate, UK bond yields and oil prices having similar negative effects in both markets. Other variables also play a role, especially for the UK market. These effects do not, however, explain the marked increase in cross-market correlations observed from around 2000, which we attribute to time variation in the correlations of shocks to these markets. A regime-switching smooth transition model captures this time variation well and shows the correlations increase dramatically around 1999-2000. JEL classifications: C32, C51, G15 Keywords: international stock returns, DCC-GARCH model, smooth transition conditional correlation GARCH model, model evaluation.

Response to the Health Information and Quality Authority on their Corporate Plan

The Institute of Public Health in Ireland is an all-island body which aims to improve health in Ireland, by working to combat health inequalities and influence public policies in favour of health. The Institute promotes co-operation in research, training, information and policy in order to contribute to policies which tackle inequalities in health. He Institute houses the all-Ireland population health observatory, INIsPHO. The Institute has enjoyed good working relations with HIQA and welcomes the opportunity to submit its views for inclusion in HIQA’s forthcoming Corporate Plan. Our response highlights the inter-relatedness of the four Functions of HIQA. The Institute believes that HIQA’s first Corporate Plan should aim to develop all four Functions in a co-ordinated manner that recognizes and takes advantage of their inter-dependence. For example; the Health Information Function should include a strong focus on, but not be limited to, information requirements to support the delivery of the other three Functions. As well as gathering relevant information in a complementary way, these other Functions can help define priorities for the Health Information Function. This approach will have implications for the organizational structures and processes within HIQA, and the way it conducts its business.

Informing healthier choices: Information and intelligence for healthy populations

One of the commitments given in the Choosing Health white paper was to develop and implement a comprehensive public health information and intelligence strategy. This work was led by a specially constituted Task Force and informed by extensive public and professional consultation conducted in 2006. The resulting strategy sets out an approach that will strengthen health information and intelligence resources across England.This document reports on the results of consultation on the strategy.

Health Poverty Index information and resources

This is a collection of HPI resources stored on the SEPHO web site

South Central Regional E-911 Service Board, Independent Auditor's Reports, Financial Statement and Supplementary Information and Schedule of Findings, June 30, 2005

Other Audit Reports - 28E Organizations

Accounting information and the prediction of farm viability

Until recently farm management made little use of accounting and agriculture has been largely excluded from the scope of accounting standards. This article examines the current use of accounting in agriculture and points theneed to establish accounting standards for agriculture. Empirical evidence shows that accounting can make a significant contribution to agricultural management and farm viability and could also be important for other agents involved in agricultural decision making. Existing literature on failureprediction models and farm viability prediction studies provide the starting point for our research, in which two dichotomous logit models were applied to subsamples of viable and unviable farms in Catalonia, Spain. The firstmodel considered only non-financial variables, while the other also considered financial ones. When accounting variables were added to the model, a significant reduction in deviance was observed.

Full insurance, asymmetric information and genetic testing

This paper extends previous resuls on optimal insurance trading in the presence of a stock market that allows continuous asset trading and substantial personal heterogeneity, and applies those results in a context of asymmetric informationwith references to the role of genetic testing in insurance markets.We find a novel and surprising result under symmetric information:agents may optimally prefer to purchase full insurance despitethe presence of unfairly priced insurance contracts, and other assets which are correlated with insurance.Asymmetric information has a Hirschleifer-type effect whichcan be solved by suspending insurance trading. Nevertheless,agents can attain their first best allocations, which suggeststhat the practice of restricting insurance not to be contingenton genetic tests can be efficient.

Information and risk management during the first trimester care for pregnant women: Some reflections about the ethical challenges and the legal framework in Switzerland. [L'information et la gestion des risques dans le suivi de la grossesse lors du 1er trimestre : quelques réflexions sur le défi éthique et le cadre légal en Suisse.]

The progress in prenatal medicine raises complex questions with respect to the physician-patient relationship. The physician needs to reconcile medical aspects, ethical principles as well as judicial norms. Already, during the first trimester, the physician has to put into practice the schedule combining for each individual pregnancy physical, laboratory and other appropriate exams. Physicians are under the obligation to inform in a clear and comprehensive way without creating unnecessary anxiety for their patients. Legal requirements include informed consent, the respect for the patient's right to self-determination, and compliance with the Swiss federal law on genetic testing, especially with its articles on prenatal screening and diagnosis. This article discusses the complexity of obstetrical practice when it comes to delivering adequate information within the scope of ethical and legal requirements in Switzerland. L'évolution de la médecine prénatale soulève des enjeux complexes dans la relation médecin-patient. Il s'agit de concilier à la fois les aspects médicaux, les principes éthiques et les normes juridiques. Dès le premier trimestre de la grossesse le médecin doit poser le cadre du suivi et des examens appropriés pour chaque grossesse. Son devoir est d'informer de manière claire et précise sans inquiéter inutilement, en respectant l'exigence légale d'un consentement éclairé et plus largement le droit de la patiente à l'autodétermination ainsi que le cadre de la loi fédérale suisse sur l'analyse génétique humaine dans le domaine du dépistage et du diagnostic prénatal. Cet article discute de la complexité de l'information et de l'application des principes éthiques et légaux dans la pratique obstétricale en Suisse.

T-Coffee: a web server for the multiple sequence alignment of protein and RNA sequences using structural information and homology extension.

This article introduces a new interface for T-Coffee, a consistency-based multiple sequence alignment program. This interface provides an easy and intuitive access to the most popular functionality of the package. These include the default T-Coffee mode for protein and nucleic acid sequences, the M-Coffee mode that allows combining the output of any other aligners, and template-based modes of T-Coffee that deliver high accuracy alignments while using structural or homology derived templates. These three available template modes are Expresso for the alignment of protein with a known 3D-Structure, R-Coffee to align RNA sequences with conserved secondary structures and PSI-Coffee to accurately align distantly related sequences using homology extension. The new server benefits from recent improvements of the T-Coffee algorithm and can align up to 150 sequences as long as 10,000 residues and is available from both http://www.tcoffee.org and its main mirror http://tcoffee.crg.cat.

Patents in the Information and Communications Technology Sector - Development Trends, Problem Areas and Pressures for Change

The patent system was created for the purpose of promoting innovation by granting the inventors a legally defined right to exclude others in return for public disclosure. Today, patents are being applied and granted in greater numbers than ever, particularly in new areas such as biotechnology and information andcommunications technology (ICT), in which research and development (R&D) investments are also high. At the same time, the patent system has been heavily criticized. It has been claimed that it discourages rather than encourages the introduction of new products and processes, particularly in areas that develop quickly, lack one-product-one-patent correlation, and in which theemergence of patent thickets is characteristic. A further concern, which is particularly acute in the U.S., is the granting of so-called 'bad patents', i.e. patents that do not factually fulfil the patentability criteria. From the perspective of technology-intensive companies, patents could,irrespective of the above, be described as the most significant intellectual property right (IPR), having the potential of being used to protect products and processes from imitation, to limit competitors' freedom-to-operate, to provide such freedom to the company in question, and to exchange ideas with others. In fact, patents define the boundaries of ownership in relation to certain technologies. They may be sold or licensed on their ownor they may be components of all sorts of technology acquisition and licensing arrangements. Moreover, with the possibility of patenting business-method inventions in the U.S., patents are becoming increasingly important for companies basing their businesses on services. The value of patents is dependent on the value of the invention it claims, and how it is commercialized. Thus, most of them are worth very little, and most inventions are not worth patenting: it may be possible to protect them in other ways, and the costs of protection may exceed the benefits. Moreover, instead of making all inventions proprietary and seeking to appropriate as highreturns on investments as possible through patent enforcement, it is sometimes better to allow some of them to be disseminated freely in order to maximize market penetration. In fact, the ideology of openness is well established in the software sector, which has been the breeding ground for the open-source movement, for instance. Furthermore, industries, such as ICT, that benefit from network effects do not shun the idea of setting open standards or opening up their proprietary interfaces to allow everyone todesign products and services that are interoperable with theirs. The problem is that even though patents do not, strictly speaking, prevent access to protected technologies, they have the potential of doing so, and conflicts of interest are not rare. The primary aim of this dissertation is to increase understanding of the dynamics and controversies of the U.S. and European patent systems, with the focus on the ICT sector. The study consists of three parts. The first part introduces the research topic and the overall results of the dissertation. The second part comprises a publication in which academic, political, legal and business developments that concern software and business-method patents are investigated, and contentiousareas are identified. The third part examines the problems with patents and open standards both of which carry significant economic weight inthe ICT sector. Here, the focus is on so-called submarine patents, i.e. patentsthat remain unnoticed during the standardization process and then emerge after the standard has been set. The factors that contribute to the problems are documented and the practical and juridical options for alleviating them are assessed. In total, the dissertation provides a good overview of the challenges and pressures for change the patent system is facing,and of how these challenges are reflected in standard setting.

T-Coffee: a web server for the multiple sequence alignment of protein and RNA sequences using structural information and homology extension

This article introduces a new interface for T-Coffee, a consistency-based multiple sequence alignment program. This interface provides an easy and intuitive access to the most popular functionality of the package. These include the default T-Coffee mode for protein and nucleic acid sequences, the M-Coffee mode that allows combining the output of any other aligners, and template-based modes of T-Coffee that deliver high accuracy alignments while using structural or homology derived templates. These three available template modes are Expresso for the alignment of protein with a known 3D-Structure, R-Coffee to align RNA sequences with conserved secondary structures and PSI-Coffee to accurately align distantly related sequences using homology extension. The new server benefits from recent improvements of the T-Coffee algorithm and can align up to 150 sequences as long as 10 000 residues and is available from both http://www.tcoffee.org and its main mirror http://tcoffee.crg.cat.