Analyzing drifter designs and data gathering methods in complex estuarine environments

Senior thesis written for Oceanography 445

Determining the spatial scale of wave variance for the siting of wave energy converters in near shore coastal environments

Senior thesis for Oceanography 445

A multi-agent-based evolution model of innovation networks in dynamic environments

An innovation network can be considered as a complex adaptive system with evolution affected by dynamic environments. This paper establishes a multi-agent-based evolution model of innovation networks under dynamic settings through computational and logical modeling, and a multi-agent system paradigm. This evolution model is composed of several sub-models of agents' knowledge production by independent innovations in dynamic situations, knowledge learning by cooperative innovations covering agents' heterogeneities, decision-making for innovation selections, and knowledge update considering decay factors. On the basis of above-mentioned sub-models, an evolution rule for multi-agent based innovation network system is given. The proposed evolution model can be utilized to simulate and analyze different scenarios of innovation networks in various dynamic environments and support decision-making for innovation network optimization.

Teaching by leading and managing learning environments

The aim of this chapter is to promote an understanding of how different environments or settings within which students are asked or required to learn - such as large groups, small groups and laboratory and practice settings – have an impact on how they approach their learning and hence on the design and delivery of teaching. It provides an overview of underpinning principles and concepts before exploring their application in practice. The focus is on face-to-face teaching and learning.

Perceptual user interface framework for immersive information retrieval environments (An experimental framework for testing and rapid iteration)

The use of perceptual inputs is an emerging area within HCI that suggests a developing Perceptual User Interface (PUI) that may prove advantageous for those involved in mobile serious games and immersive social network environments. Since there are a large variety of input devices, software platforms, possible interactions, and myriad ways to combine all of the above elements in pursuit of a PUI, we propose in this paper a basic experimental framework that will be able to standardize study of the wide range of interactive applications for testing efficacy in learning or information retrieval and also suggest improvements to emerging PUIs by enabling quick iteration. This rapid iteration will start to define a targeted range of interactions that will be intuitive and comfortable as perceptual inputs, and enhance learning and information retention in comparison to traditional GUI systems. The work focuses on the planning of the technical development of two scenarios, and the first steps in developing a framework to evaluate these and other PUIs for efficacy and pedagogy.

A Travel Optimization System for Academic Environments

Carpooling initiated in America in the 1970s due to the oil crisis. However, over the past years, carpooling has increased significantly across the world. Some countries have created a High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane to encourage commuters not to travel alone. In additional, carpool websites has been developed to facilitate the connection between the commuters, making it possible to create a compatible match in a faster and efficient manner. This project focuses on carpooling, especially in an academic environment since younger people are more likely to choose carpool. Initially, an intense research was made to examine carpool studies that occurred all over the world, following with a research of higher education institutes that use carpooling as a transportation mode. Most websites created carpools by targeting people from a specific country. These commuters have different origins and destinations making it more complicated to create compatible matches. The objective of this project is to develop a system helping teachers and students from an academic environment to create carpool matches. This objective makes it easier to create carpools because these students and teachers have the same destination. During the research, it was essential to explore, as many as possible, existing carpool websites that are available across the world. After this analysis, several sketches were made to develop the layout and structure of the web application that’s being implemented throughout the project. Once the layout was established, the development of the web application was initiated. This project had its ups and downs but it accomplished all the necessary requirements. This project can be accessed on the link: http://ipcacarpool.somee.com. Once the website was up and running, a web-based survey was developed to study the reasons that motivate people to consider carpooling as an alternative to driving alone. To develop this survey was used a tool called Survey Planet. This survey contained 408 respondents, which 391 are students and 17 are teachers. This study concludes that a majority of the respondents don’t carpool, however they will consider carpooling if there was a dedicated parking space. A majority of the respondents that carpool initiated less than a year ago, indicating that this mean of transportation is recent.

Immune responses in Bathymodiolus azoricus upon Vibrio challenges : approaches to characterize mussel survival strategies and physiological adaptations in deep sea extreme environments

Tese de Doutoramento, Ciências do Mar, especialidade de Biologia Marinha, 18 de Dezembro de 2015, Universidade dos Açores.

Risk criteria in occupational environments: critical overview and discussion

The current work can be seen as a starting point for the discussion of the problematic on risk acceptance criteria in occupational environments. Some obstacles to the quantitative acceptance criteria formulation and use were analyzed. A look to the long tradition of major hazards accidents was also performed. This work shows that organizations can have several difficulties in acceptance criteria formulation and that the use of pre-defined acceptance criteria in risk assessment methodologies can be inadequate in some cases. It is urgent to define guidelines that can help organizations in the formulation of risk acceptance criteria for occupational environments.

Time-bounded distributed QoS-aware service configuration in heterogeneous cooperative environments

The scarcity and diversity of resources among the devices of heterogeneous computing environments may affect their ability to perform services with specific Quality of Service constraints, particularly in dynamic distributed environments where the characteristics of the computational load cannot always be predicted in advance. Our work addresses this problem by allowing resource constrained devices to cooperate with more powerful neighbour nodes, opportunistically taking advantage of global distributed resources and processing power. Rather than assuming that the dynamic configuration of this cooperative service executes until it computes its optimal output, the paper proposes an anytime approach that has the ability to tradeoff deliberation time for the quality of the solution. Extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed anytime algorithms are able to quickly find a good initial solution and effectively optimise the rate at which the quality of the current solution improves at each iteration, with an overhead that can be considered negligible.

Lighting conditions and optical filters effects on visual performance of speleologists exposed to cave environments

The aim of this study is to evaluate lighting conditions and speleologists’ visual performance using optical filters when exposed to the lighting conditions of cave environments. A crosssectional study was conducted. Twenty-three speleologists were submitted to an evaluation of visual function in a clinical lab. An examination of visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, stereoacuity and flashlight illuminance levels was also performed in 16 of the 23 speleologists at two caves deprived of natural lightning. Two organic filters (450 nm and 550 nm) were used to compare visual function with and without filters. The mean age of the speleologists was 40.65 (± 10.93) years. We detected 26.1% participants with visual impairment of which refractive error (17.4%) was the major cause. In the cave environment the majority of the speleologists used a head flashlight with a mean illuminance of 451.0 ± 305.7 lux. Binocular visual acuity (BVA) was -0.05 ± 0.15 LogMAR (20/18). BVA for distance without filter was not statistically different from BVA with 550 nm or 450 nm filters (p = 0.093). Significant improved contrast sensitivity was observed with 450 nm filters for 6 cpd (p = 0.034) and 18 cpd (p = 0.026) spatial frequencies. There were no signs and symptoms of visual pathologies related to cave exposure. Illuminance levels were adequate to the majority of the activities performed. The enhancement in contrast sensitivity with filters could potentially improve tasks related with the activities performed in the cave.

Dynamic Approach and Testbed for Small and Medium Players Simulation in Smart Grid Environments

The Smart Grid environment allows the integration of resources of small and medium players through the use of Demand Response programs. Despite the clear advantages for the grid, the integration of consumers must be carefully done. This paper proposes a system which simulates small and medium players. The system is essential to produce tests and studies about the active participation of small and medium players in the Smart Grid environment. When comparing to similar systems, the advantages comprise the capability to deal with three types of loads – virtual, contextual and real. It can have several loads optimization modules and it can run in real time. The use of modules and the dynamic configuration of the player results in a system which can represent different players in an easy and independent way. This paper describes the system and all its capabilities.

Models and tools for value systems analysis in collaborative environments

Dissertation to obtain the degree of Doctor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, specialization of Collaborative Networks