Ubiquitous computing in education : a SWOT analysis by students and teachers

Learning from anywhere anytime is a contemporary phenomenon in the field of education that is thought to be flexible, time and cost saving. The phenomenon is evident in the way computer technology mediates knowledge processes among learners. Computer technology is however, in some instances, faulted. There are studies that highlight drawbacks of computer technology use in learning. In this study we aimed at conducting a SWOT analysis on ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction and their affect on education. Students and teachers were interviewed on the mentioned concepts using focus group interviews. Our contribution in this study is, identifying what teachers and students perceive to be the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction in education. We also relate the findings with literature and present a common understanding on the SWOT of these concepts. Results show positive perceptions. Respondents revealed that ubiquitous computing and computer-mediated social interaction are important in their education due to advantages such as flexibility, efficiency in terms of cost and time, ability to acquire computer skills. Nevertheless disadvantages where also mentioned for example health effects, privacy and security issues, noise in the learning environment, to mention but a few. This paper gives suggestions on how to overcome threats mentioned.

A BDI-based approach for the assessment of driver's decision-making in commuter scenarios

The rapid growth of urban areas has a significant impact on traffic and transportation systems. New management policies and planning strategies are clearly necessary to cope with the more than ever limited capacity of existing road networks. The concept of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) arises in this scenario; rather than attempting to increase road capacity by means of physical modifications to the infrastructure, the premise of ITS relies on the use of advanced communication and computer technologies to handle today’s traffic and transportation facilities. Influencing users’ behaviour patterns is a challenge that has stimulated much research in the ITS field, where human factors start gaining great importance to modelling, simulating, and assessing such an innovative approach. This work is aimed at using Multi-agent Systems (MAS) to represent the traffic and transportation systems in the light of the new performance measures brought about by ITS technologies. Agent features have good potentialities to represent those components of a system that are geographically and functionally distributed, such as most components in traffic and transportation. A BDI (beliefs, desires, and intentions) architecture is presented as an alternative to traditional models used to represent the driver behaviour within microscopic simulation allowing for an explicit representation of users’ mental states. Basic concepts of ITS and MAS are presented, as well as some application examples related to the subject. This has motivated the extension of an existing microscopic simulation framework to incorporate MAS features to enhance the representation of drivers. This way demand is generated from a population of agents as the result of their decisions on route and departure time, on a daily basis. The extended simulation model that now supports the interaction of BDI driver agents was effectively implemented, and different experiments were performed to test this approach in commuter scenarios. MAS provides a process-driven approach that fosters the easy construction of modular, robust, and scalable models, characteristics that lack in former result-driven approaches. Its abstraction premises allow for a closer association between the model and its practical implementation. Uncertainty and variability are addressed in a straightforward manner, as an easier representation of humanlike behaviours within the driver structure is provided by cognitive architectures, such as the BDI approach used in this work. This way MAS extends microscopic simulation of traffic to better address the complexity inherent in ITS technologies.

Using an animated pedagogical agent to interact affectively with the student

This work proposes an animated pedagogical agent that has the role of providing emotional support to the student: motivating and encouraging him, making him believe in his self-ability, and promoting a positive mood in him, which fosters learning. This careful support of the agent, its affective tactics, is expressed through emotional behaviour and encouragement messages of the lifelike character. Due to human social tendency of anthropomorphising software, we believe that a software agent can accomplish this affective role. In order to choose the adequate affective tactics, the agent should also know the student’s emotions. The proposed agent recognises the student’s emotions: joy/distress, satisfaction/disappointment, anger/gratitude, and shame, from the student’s observable behaviour, i. e. his actions in the interface of the educational system. The inference of emotions is psychologically grounded on the cognitive theory of emotions. More specifically, we use the OCC model which is based on the cognitive approach of emotion and can be computationally implemented. Due to the dynamic nature of the student’s affective information, we adopted a BDI approach to implement the affective user model and the affective diagnosis. Besides, in our work we profit from the reasoning capacity of the BDI approach in order for the agent to deduce the student’s appraisal, which allows it to infer the student’s emotions. As a case study, the proposed agent is implemented as the Mediating Agent of MACES: an educational collaborative environment modelled as a multi-agent system and pedagogically based on the sociocultural theory of Vygotsky.

Wow!: objects

Nowadays computers have advanced beyond the desktop into many parts of everyday life and objects. To achieve this we have to make the computer invisible, and making a computer invisible is not a matter of size of the hardware, it’s all about how the human perceives the computer. To make this possible, the interaction with the computer has to be done in an alternative way, such that the user doesn’t notice the usual computer interfaces (mouse and keyboard) when using it. Therefore this thesis focuses on physical objects that are interactive to achieve various purposes like persuasive objects for stress relief, persuasive objects to help the process of teaching, persuasive objects for fun, persuasive objects to display internet information and persuasive objects to make people feel more in community (exchange virtual emotions), persuasive objects are going to be created and evaluated to see if they have the power to simplify and turn our lives better. The persuasive objects developed employ technology like sensors, actuators, microcontrollers, and computer/web services’ communication. This Master thesis starts by presenting a comprehensive introduction of what are persuasive objects and some general information about several areas that are related to our persuasive objects like stress relief, work experience, multimedia education and other major aspects. It continues by describing related work done in this area. Then we have a detailed view of each persuasive object and finally this thesis finishes with a general conclusion and notion of future work.

Exploring the dimensions of eco-feedback in the wild

Worldwide reports about energy usage have noted the importance of the domestic energy consumption sector in the worldwide scenario. This fact motivated and supported the birth and spread of the so-called eco-feedback devices. Such devices provide information about individual or group energy consumption behavior with the goal of reducing the impact in the environment. Motivated by the body of work which questions the long term effectiveness of eco-feedback systems, this thesis focus on evaluating in-the-wild the long term usage of eco-feedback systems. We have conducted five long term studies with different eco-feedback systems designed to evaluate different dimensions in the design of eco-feedback plus two more focused short term studies aimed at studying concrete approaches. Our summary reports on the fact that the there is a novelty effect associated with ecofeedback systems in which the usage of these devices declines significantly after a month. We did not found evidence that the novelty effect is related to location or the type of information represented, nor that the decrease in the eco-feedback usage could lead to the consumption relapsing to values previous to the introduction of the eco-feedback. Our work has also generated other contributions related to the positioning of the feedback, using metaphors for representing the consumption and presenting information about the source of the energy in the feedback.

Insights into the Specificity of Thioredoxin Reductase-Thioredoxin Interactions. A Structural and Functional Investigation of the Yeast Thioredoxin System

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Sex group composition, social interaction, and metabolism in the fish Nile tilapia

O objetivo deste trabalho foi testar se grupos monossexuais de machos gastam mais energia e exibem perfil agonístico diferente de grupos formados por um macho e uma fêmea na tilápia-do-Nilo (Oreochromis niloticus). Tais diferenças são esperadas, pois machos e fêmeas competem por diferentes recursos reprodutivos. Foram utilizadas duplas de machos (MM) e duplas de macho-fêmea (MF) que permaneceram pareadas por 40 minutos. Durante esse período foi feito o registro da interação agonística (10 minutos iniciais e 10 minutos finais do pareamento) e determinado o gasto energético (consumo de O2) pelo Método de Winckler. A latência para o início dos confrontos (média ± DP, MM = 27,40 ± 25,15 s; MF = 14,22 ± 21,19 s; Mann-Whitney, U = 33,50, P = 0,21) e a freqüência de todas as unidades comportamentais (média ± DP, MM < 72,30 ± 25,29; MF < 73,50 ± 21,65.10/min; Mann-Whitney, P > 0,10) foram semelhantes entre os grupos MM e MF nos 10 minutos iniciais. Isso indica que cada intruso foi considerado um potencial competidor no início da interação. No entanto, a freqüência de ondulação (interação também exibida durante a corte) foi maior para o residente do grupo MF nos 10 minutos finais (média ± DP, MM = 3,56 ± 5,89; MF = 8,56 ± 4,00.10/min; Mann-Whitney, U = 15,50, P = 0,01). A freqüência de fuga, entretanto, foi menor para o intruso do mesmo grupo (média ± DP, MM = 3,90 ± 4,33; MF = 0,44 ± 0,96.10/min; Mann-Whitney, U = 23,50, P = 0,04). Além disso, o perfil agonístico no grupo MM foi composto por um maior número de itens comportamentais do que o MF (para residentes e intrusos). Apesar das diferenças comportamentais, o consumo de O2 não foi afetado pela composição sexual do grupo (média ± DP, MM = 1,93 ± 0,54; MF = 1,77 ± 0,46 mgO2.g peso seco-1.40/min; t-teste de Student, t = 0,71, P = 0,49).

Molecular typing and virulence markers of Yersinia enterocolitica strains from human, animal and food origins isolated between 1968 and 2000 in Brazil

Molecular typing and virulence markers were used to evaluate the genetic profiles and virulence potential of 106 Yersinia enterocolitica strains. of these strains, 71 were bio-serotype 4/O: 3, isolated from human and animal clinical material, and 35 were of biotype 1 A or 2 and of diverse serotypes, isolated from food in Brazil between 1968 and 2000. Drug resistance was also investigated. All the strains were resistant to three or more drugs. The isolates showed a virulence-related phenotype in the aesculin, pyrazinamidase and salicin tests, except for the food isolates, only two of which were positive for these tests. For the other phenotypic virulence determinants (autoagglutination, Ca++ dependence and Congo red absorption), the strains showed a diverse behaviour. The inv, ail and ystA genes were detected in all human and animal strains, while all the food isolates were positive for inv, and 3% of them positive for ail and ystA. The presence of virF was variable in the three groups of strains. The strains were better discriminated by PFGE than by enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus PCR (ERIC-PCR). A higher genomic similarity was observed among the 4/O: 3 strains, isolated from human and animal isolates, than among the food strains, with the exception of two food strains possessing the virulence genes and grouped close to the 4/O: 3 strains by ERIC-PCR. Unusually, the results revealed the virulence potential of a bio-serotype 1 A/O: 10 strain, suggesting that food contaminated with Y. enterocolitica biotype 1 A may cause infection. This also suggests that ERIC-PCR may be used as a tool to reveal clues about the virulence potential of Y. enterocolitica strains. Furthermore, the results also support the hypothesis that animals may act as reservoirs of Y. enterocolitica for human infections in Brazil, an epidemiological aspect that has not been investigated in this country, confirming data from other parts of the world.

Avaliação do Uso de Smartphones na Interação com as Aplicações da Televisão Digital Brasileira

Brazil is going through the process from analogical transmission to digital transmission. This new technology, in addition to providing a high quality audio and video, also allows applications to execute on television. Equipment called Set-Top Box are needed to allow the reception of this new signal and create the appropriate environment necessary to execute applications. At first, the only way to interact with these applications is given by remote control. However, the remote control has serious usability problems when used to interact with some types of applications. This research suggests a software resources implementation capable to create a environment that allows a smartphone to interact with applications. Besides this implementation, is performed a comparative study between use remote controle and smartphones to interact with applications of digital television, taking into account parameters related to usability. After analysis of data collected by the comparative study is possible to identify which device provides an interactive experience more interesting for users

Avaliação de arquitetura de agentes emocionais : uma abordagem baseada em métrica de qualidade e na influência das emoções sobre usuários

There is a need for multi-agent system designers in determining the quality of systems in the earliest phases of the development process. The architectures of the agents are also part of the design of these systems, and therefore also need to have their quality evaluated. Motivated by the important role that emotions play in our daily lives, embodied agents researchers have aimed to create agents capable of producing affective and natural interaction with users that produces a beneficial or desirable result. For this, several studies proposing architectures of agents with emotions arose without the accompaniment of appropriate methods for the assessment of these architectures. The objective of this study is to propose a methodology for evaluating architectures emotional agents, which evaluates the quality attributes of the design of architectures, in addition to evaluation of human-computer interaction, the effects on the subjective experience of users of applications that implement it. The methodology is based on a model of well-defined metrics. In assessing the quality of architectural design, the attributes assessed are: extensibility, modularity and complexity. In assessing the effects on users' subjective experience, which involves the implementation of the architecture in an application and we suggest to be the domain of computer games, the metrics are: enjoyment, felt support, warm, caring, trust, cooperation, intelligence, interestingness, naturalness of emotional reactions, believabiliy, reducing of frustration and likeability, and the average time and average attempts. We experimented with this approach and evaluate five architectures emotional agents: BDIE, DETT, Camurra-Coglio, EBDI, Emotional-BDI. Two of the architectures, BDIE and EBDI, were implemented in a version of the game Minesweeper and evaluated for human-computer interaction. In the results, DETT stood out with the best architectural design. Users who have played the version of the game with emotional agents performed better than those who played without agents. In assessing the subjective experience of users, the differences between the architectures were insignificant

Ambientes residenciais controlados por dispositivos móveis: estudo, concepção e desenvolvimento de um aplicativo considerando a diversidade

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

Aprendizagem da língua japonesa apoiada por ferramentas computacionais: estudo e desenvolvimento do jogo Karuchā Ships Invaders

The use of technology tools for teaching and learning has grown increasingly in our daily life. In this context, a branch that has had tremendous growth is the area of teaching and learning language through computational tools. The study of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning), accomplished in this research, aims to evaluate existing tools in this context, focused specifically on the Japanese language; and from this study, accomplish the development of a new computational tool that can assist teaching/learning of the Japanese language. As results, we present a wide survey on the subject in various technologies/devices, as well as the complete development process of a new tool, the Karuchā Ships Invaders game, that proposes to teach basic concepts of the language, blended with entertainment, and still, focusing on the Brazilian students of Japanese language audience. We will present all the concept phases of the game and its evolution through the research, as well as an interface evaluation. Still, we present proposal and validation of a method to evaluate motivational aspects of computational tools with educational focus, and results extracted from an experiment accomplished with prospective users

Interação gestual em ambiente residencial: estudo, concepção e desenvolvimento

Control and automation of residential environments domotics is emerging area of computing application. The development of computational systems for domotics is complex, due to the diversity of potential users, and because it is immerse in a context of emotional relationships and familiar construction. Currently, the focus of the development of this kind of system is directed, mainly, to physical and technological aspects. Due to the fact, gestural interaction in the present research is investigated under the view of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). First, we approach the subject through the construction of a conceptual framework for discussion of challenges from the area, integrated to the dimensions: people, interaction mode and domotics. A further analysis of the domain is accomplished using the theoretical-methodological referential of Organizational Semiotics. After, we define recommendations to the diversity that base/inspire the inclusive design, guided by physical, perceptual and cognitive abilities, which aim to better represent the concerned diversity. Although developers have the support of gestural recognition technologies that help a faster development, these professionals face another difficulty by not restricting the gestural commands of the application to the standard gestures provided by development frameworks. Therefore, an abstraction of the gestural interaction was idealized through a formalization, described syntactically by construction blocks that originates a grammar of the gestural interaction and, semantically, approached under the view of the residential system. So, we define a set of metrics grounded in the recommendations that are described with information from the preestablished grammar, and still, we conceive and implement in Java, under the foundation of this grammar, a residential system based on gestural interaction for usage with Microsoft Kinect. Lastly, we accomplish an experiment with potential end users of the system, aiming to better analyze the research results

Participatory design in the project of virtual learning environment of histology

This present article describes a research on the development, under the approach of participatory design, a virtual teaching-learning of Histology in which students and teachers participated actively in all stages of development of the educational environment. We postulates that the development of virtual learning environment of Histology, through the Participatory Design approach, contributes to greater acceptance and use by students and that the adoption of virtual environment for teaching and learning by teachers is a determining factor of use by students