A survey of techniques and technologies for web-based real-time interactive rendering

When exploring a virtual environment, realism depends mainly on two factors: realistic images and real-time feedback (motions, behaviour etc.). In this context, photo realism and physical validity of computer generated images required by emerging applications, such as advanced e-commerce, still impose major challenges in the area of rendering research whereas the complexity of lighting phenomena further requires powerful and predictable computing if time constraints must be attained. In this technical report we address the state-of-the-art on rendering, trying to put the focus on approaches, techniques and technologies that might enable real-time interactive web-based clientserver rendering systems. The focus is on the end-systems and not the networking technologies used to interconnect client(s) and server(s).

O desenvolvimento de um modelo de ensino virtual num contexto de investimento incipiente em e - learning: progressos e desafios

Este artigo relata o desenvolvimento de um modelo de ensino virtual em curso na Universidade dos Açores. Depois de ter sido adotado na lecionação de disciplinas da área da Teoria e Desenvolvimento Curricular em regime de e-learning e b-learning, o modelo foi, no ano académico de 2014/15, estendido à lecionação de outras disciplinas. Além de descrever o modelo e explicar a sua evolução, o artigo destaca a sua adoção no contexto particular de uma disciplina cuja componente online foi lecionada em circunstâncias especialmente desafiadoras. Neste sentido, explica o processo de avaliação da experiência, discute os seus resultados e sugere pistas de melhoria. Essa avaliação enquadra-se num processo de investigação do design curricular – a metodologia que tem sido usada para estudar o desenvolvimento do modelo.

Modellus: Learning Physics with Mathematical Modelling

Tese de doutoramento em Ciências da Educação, área de Teoria Curricular e Ensino das Ciências

Avaliação e a Qualidade das Práticas de Inclusão para Alunos com PEA: Escala LAQI (Louisiana Autism Quality Indicators)

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para obtenção de grau de mestre em Educação Especial, domínio Cognição e Multideficiência

Blended Learning project with Applied Optics. Case study

To show with the case of Applied Optics (AO), the adequacy of blended learning to the teaching/learning process in experimental Science and technology (S&T).

Moodle e ensino-misto (b-learning)

Dissertação de mestrado em Geologia para o ensino

Mining protein structure data

The principal topic of this work is the application of data mining techniques, in particular of machine learning, to the discovery of knowledge in a protein database. In the first chapter a general background is presented. Namely, in section 1.1 we overview the methodology of a Data Mining project and its main algorithms. In section 1.2 an introduction to the proteins and its supporting file formats is outlined. This chapter is concluded with section 1.3 which defines that main problem we pretend to address with this work: determine if an amino acid is exposed or buried in a protein, in a discrete way (i.e.: not continuous), for five exposition levels: 2%, 10%, 20%, 25% and 30%. In the second chapter, following closely the CRISP-DM methodology, whole the process of construction the database that supported this work is presented. Namely, it is described the process of loading data from the Protein Data Bank, DSSP and SCOP. Then an initial data exploration is performed and a simple prediction model (baseline) of the relative solvent accessibility of an amino acid is introduced. It is also introduced the Data Mining Table Creator, a program developed to produce the data mining tables required for this problem. In the third chapter the results obtained are analyzed with statistical significance tests. Initially the several used classifiers (Neural Networks, C5.0, CART and Chaid) are compared and it is concluded that C5.0 is the most suitable for the problem at stake. It is also compared the influence of parameters like the amino acid information level, the amino acid window size and the SCOP class type in the accuracy of the predictive models. The fourth chapter starts with a brief revision of the literature about amino acid relative solvent accessibility. Then, we overview the main results achieved and finally discuss about possible future work. The fifth and last chapter consists of appendices. Appendix A has the schema of the database that supported this thesis. Appendix B has a set of tables with additional information. Appendix C describes the software provided in the DVD accompanying this thesis that allows the reconstruction of the present work.

How to integrate stories and ICT in content-based units of work for English learning

The aim of this article is to show how it is possible to integrate stories and ICT in Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) for English as a foreign language (EFL) learning in bilingual schools. Two Units of Work are presented. One, for the second year of Primary, is based on a Science topic, ‘Materials’. The story used is ‘The three little pigs’ and the computer program ‘JClic’. The other one is based on a Science and Arts topic for the sixth year of Primary, the story used is ‘Charlotte’s Web’ and the computer program ‘Atenex’.

The Interactive Whiteboard And Language Learning: A Case Study

In this paper, we intend to present some research carried out in a state Primary school, which is very well-equipped with ICT resources, including interactive whiteboards. The interactive whiteboard was used in the context of a Unit of Work for English learning, based on a traditional oral story, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. It was also used for reinforcing other topics like, ‘At the beach’, ‘In the city’, ‘Jobs’, etc. An analysis of the use of the digital board, which includes observation records as well as questionnaires for teachers and pupils, was carried out.

Relatório de estágio em Educação Pré-Escolar

Mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar

Democratic dialogue and collective learning in the context of self-managed teams

This paper provides a longitudinal, empirical view of the multifaceted and reciprocal processes of organizational learning in a context of self-managed teams. Organizational learning is seen as a social construction between people and actions in a work setting. The notion of learning as situated (Brown & Duguid 1989, Lave& Wenger 1991, Gherardi & al. 1998, Easterby-Smith & Araujo 1999, Abma 2003) opens up the possibility for placing the focus of research on learning in the community rather than in individual learning processes. Further, in studying processes in their social context, we cannot avoid taking power relations into consideration (Contu & Willmott 2003). The study is based on an action research with a methodology close to the ‘democratic dialogue’ presented by Gustavsen (2001). This gives a ground for research into how the learning discourse developed in the case study organization over a period of 5 years, during which time the company abandoned a middle management level of hierarchy and the teams had to figure out how to work as self-managed units. This paper discusses the (re)construction of power relations and its role in organizational learning. Power relations are discussed both in vertical and horizontal work relations. A special emphasis is placed on the dialectic between managerial aims and the space for reflection on the side of employees. I argue that learning is crucial in the search for the limits for empowerment and that these limits are negotiated both in actions and speech. This study unfolds a purpose-oriented learning process, constructing an open dialogue, and describes a favourable context for creative, knowledge building communities.

Fazer, dançar, de dentro : a fusão entre os processos do fazer e do sentir na prática diária da Técnica de Dança Clássica

Relatório Final de Estágio apresentado à Escola Superior de Dança com vista à obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Ensino de Dança.

Monitoring chlorophyll-a with remote sensing techniques in the Tagus Estuary

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Gestão e Sistemas Ambientais

Wind resource modelling in complex terrain using different mesoscale–microscale coupling techniques

Wind resource evaluation in two sites located in Portugal was performed using the mesoscale modelling system Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and the wind resource analysis tool commonly used within the wind power industry, the Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program (WAsP) microscale model. Wind measurement campaigns were conducted in the selected sites, allowing for a comparison between in situ measurements and simulated wind, in terms of flow characteristics and energy yields estimates. Three different methodologies were tested, aiming to provide an overview of the benefits and limitations of these methodologies for wind resource estimation. In the first methodology the mesoscale model acts like “virtual” wind measuring stations, where wind data was computed by WRF for both sites and inserted directly as input in WAsP. In the second approach, the same procedure was followed but here the terrain influences induced by the mesoscale model low resolution terrain data were removed from the simulated wind data. In the third methodology, the simulated wind data is extracted at the top of the planetary boundary layer height for both sites, aiming to assess if the use of geostrophic winds (which, by definition, are not influenced by the local terrain) can bring any improvement in the models performance. The obtained results for the abovementioned methodologies were compared with those resulting from in situ measurements, in terms of mean wind speed, Weibull probability density function parameters and production estimates, considering the installation of one wind turbine in each site. Results showed that the second tested approach is the one that produces values closest to the measured ones, and fairly acceptable deviations were found using this coupling technique in terms of estimated annual production. However, mesoscale output should not be used directly in wind farm sitting projects, mainly due to the mesoscale model terrain data poor resolution. Instead, the use of mesoscale output in microscale models should be seen as a valid alternative to in situ data mainly for preliminary wind resource assessments, although the application of mesoscale and microscale coupling in areas with complex topography should be done with extreme caution.

Enhancing Multimodal Silent Speech Interfaces With Feature Selection

In research on Silent Speech Interfaces (SSI), different sources of information (modalities) have been combined, aiming at obtaining better performance than the individual modalities. However, when combining these modalities, the dimensionality of the feature space rapidly increases, yielding the well-known "curse of dimensionality". As a consequence, in order to extract useful information from this data, one has to resort to feature selection (FS) techniques to lower the dimensionality of the learning space. In this paper, we assess the impact of FS techniques for silent speech data, in a dataset with 4 non-invasive and promising modalities, namely: video, depth, ultrasonic Doppler sensing, and surface electromyography. We consider two supervised (mutual information and Fisher's ratio) and two unsupervised (meanmedian and arithmetic mean geometric mean) FS filters. The evaluation was made by assessing the classification accuracy (word recognition error) of three well-known classifiers (knearest neighbors, support vector machines, and dynamic time warping). The key results of this study show that both unsupervised and supervised FS techniques improve on the classification accuracy on both individual and combined modalities. For instance, on the video component, we attain relative performance gains of 36.2% in error rates. FS is also useful as pre-processing for feature fusion. Copyright © 2014 ISCA.