Comparing the content of instruments assessing environmental factors using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health

Purpose: To describe and compare the content of instruments that assess environmental factors using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Methods: A systematic search of PubMed, CINAHL and PEDro databases was conducted using a pre-determined search strategy. The identified instruments were screened independently by two investigators, and meaningful concepts were linked to the most precise ICF category according to published linking rules. Results: Six instruments were included, containing 526 meaningful concepts. Instruments had between 20% and 98% of items linked to categories in Chapter 1. The highest percentage of items from one instrument linked to categories in Chapters 2–5 varied between 9% and 50%. The presence or absence of environmental factors in a specific context is assessed in 3 instruments, while the other 3 assess the intensity of the impact of environmental factors. Discussion: Instruments differ in their content, type of assessment, and have several items linked to the same ICF category. Most instruments primarily assess products and technology (Chapter 1), highlighting the need to deepen the discussion on the theory that supports the measurement of environmental factors. This discussion should be thorough and lead to the development of methodologies and new tools that capture the underlying concepts of the ICF.

Acesso a laboratórios remotos via ambientes imersivos acesso remoto a um multímetro

Recentemente, tem-se assistido à utilização de ambientes imersivos 3D em vários domínios tais como: actividades empresariais, educativas, lúdicas, entre outras devido à expansão do Second Life. A finalidade deste conceito é oferecer aos utilizadores um acesso alternativo a valências existentes no mundo real, a partir de um computador ligado à Internet. Uma aplicação prática pode ser a sua utilização em laboratórios remotos, com a finalidade de controlar remotamente instrumentos de medição, a partir de um ambiente imersivo. Para isso, o mesmo deve permitir a construção de um laboratório virtual e respectivos instrumentos, também virtuais. Este tipo de solução é viável, devido a existirem dispositivos com interfaces de acesso remoto, e ambientes 3D desenvolvidos em linguagens de programação que possuem bibliotecas de código para protocolos de redes de computadores. A finalidade deste trabalho é desenvolver uma metodologia de acesso remoto, a instrumentos de medição em laboratórios de electricidade e electrónica, usando ambientes imersivos 3D. Como caso de estudo, o instrumento utilizado é um multímetro, controlado remotamente a partir de uma reprodução num mundo virtual, construído no ambiente 3D Open Wonderland. Nessa reprodução virtual, numa primeira fase, só serão disponibilizadas para medição, um conjunto limitado das variáveis eléctricas passíveis de medir através do multímetro seleccionado.

Construção de interfaces em Flex para sistemas de experimentação remota

Os laboratórios de experimentação remota estão normalmente associados a tecnologias ou soluções proprietárias, as quais restringem a sua utilização a determinadas plataformas e obrigam ao uso de software específico no lado do cliente. O ISEP possui um laboratório de experimentação remota, baseado em instrumentação virtual, usado no apoio ao ensino da electrónica e construído sobre uma plataforma NIELVIS da National Instruments. O software de controlo da plataforma recorre à linguagem gráfica de programação LabVIEW. Esta é uma ferramenta desenvolvida pela National Instruments que facilita o desenvolvimento de aplicações de sistemas de experimentação remota, mas que possui várias limitações, nomeadamente a necessidade de instalação do lado do cliente de um plug-in, cuja disponibilidade se encontra limitada a determinadas versões de sistemas operativos e de Web Browsers. A experiência anterior demonstrou que estas questões limitam o número de clientes com possibilidade de acesso ao laboratório remoto, para além de, em alguns casos, se ter verificado não ser transparente a sua instalação e utilização. Neste contexto, o trabalho de investigação consistiu no desenvolvimento de uma solução que permite a geração de interfaces que possibilitam o controlo remoto do sistema implementado, e que, ao mesmo tempo, são independentes da plataforma usada pelo cliente.

Desenvolvimento de sistema de teste de caixas de controlo electrónico

O objectivo desta Tese/Dissertação é conceber um sistema para a BOSCH Termotecnologia S.A., na qual exerço as funções de Engenheiro de Qualidade de Fornecedores de peças electrónicas, que permita testar funcionalmente dois tipos de PCBA (Printed Circuit Board Assembled) utilizados em dois modelos de esquentador estanque com denominação Celsius e Celsius Plus, produzidos nesta empresa para mercados de todo o Mundo. Os PCBA foram desenvolvidos internamente pelo departamento de ENG (Departamento de Desenvolvimento) e são actualmente peças de compra cujo fornecedor está localizado na China. Em primeiro lugar foi efectuado um estudo das necessidades da empresa relativamente aos projectos necessários para melhorar os processos de investigação de falhas e melhoria de Qualidade dos fornecedores de peças electrónicas, no contexto do departamento onde este projecto se insere. A conclusão chegada foi que existe uma grande necessidade de investigar avarias nas PCBA de compra do fornecedor asiático de forma rápida e precisa, de modo a que seja possível trabalhar mais activamente e rapidamente na melhoria de Qualidade do mesmo, melhorando, por exemplo, os seus processos produtivos. Em segundo lugar concebeu-se a solução a realizar. Optou-se por um conjunto hardware e software desenvolvido de raiz, que inclui um jig (gabarit anti-erro – Poke Yoke) dotado de agulhas para o teste FCT (Functional Circuit Test), um hardware de aquisição de dados analógicos e digitais adquirido para o projecto, um hardware de interface entre o PC (Personal Computer) e o hardware de aquisição de dados, e um software desenvolvido em LabVIEW versão 8.6 (Laboratory Virtual Instruments Engineering Workbench).

Uma análise das diferenças em termos da cultura e dos interesses profissionais a partir do projeto de substituiçao das IAS 39: Financial Instruments - Recognition and Measurement

Mestrado em Contabilidade

Virtual laboratory for educational environments

In this paper a new simulation environment for a virtual laboratory to educational proposes is presented. The Logisim platform was adopted as the base digital simulation tool, since it has a modular implementation in Java. All the hardware devices used in the laboratory course was designed as components accessible by the simulation tool, and integrated as a library. Moreover, this new library allows the user to access an external interface. This work was motivated by the needed to achieve better learning times on co-design projects, based on hardware and software implementations, and to reduce the laboratory time, decreasing the operational costs of engineer teaching. Furthermore, the use of virtual laboratories in educational environments allows the students to perform functional tests, before they went to a real laboratory. Moreover, these functional tests allow to speed-up the learning when a problem based approach methodology is considered. © 2014 IEEE.

An internet remote laboratory to teach industrial automation

This paper presents the new internet remote laboratory (IRL), constructed at Mechanical Engineering Department (MED), Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL), to teach Industrial Automation, namely electropneumatic cycles. The aim of this work was the development and implementation of a remote laboratory that was simple and effective from the user point of view, allowing access to all its functionalities through a web browser without having to install any other program and giving access to all the features that the students can find at the physical laboratory. With this goal in mind, it has been implemented a simple architecture with the new programmable logic controller (PLC) SIEMENS S7-1200, and with the aid of several free programs, programming technologies such as JavaScript, PHP and databases, it was possible to have a remote laboratory, with a simple interface, to teach industrial automation students.

An integrated reusable remote laboratory to complement electronics teaching

The great majority of the courses on science and technology areas where lab work is a fundamental part of the apprenticeship was not until recently available to be taught at distance. This reality is changing with the dissemination of remote laboratories. Supported by resources based on new information and communication technologies, it is now possible to remotely control a wide variety of real laboratories. However, most of them are designed specifically to this purpose, are inflexible and only on its functionality they resemble the real ones. In this paper, an alternative remote lab infrastructure devoted to the study of electronics is presented. Its main characteristics are, from a teacher's perspective, reusability and simplicity of use, and from a students' point of view, an exact replication of the real lab, enabling them to complement or finish at home the work started at class. The remote laboratory is integrated in the Learning Management System in use at the school, and therefore, may be combined with other web experiments and e-learning strategies, while safeguarding security access issues.

Extended immersive learning environment: a hybrid remote/virtual laboratory

This paper presents a collaborative virtual learning environment, which includes technologies such as 3D virtual representations, learning and content management systems, remote experiments, and collaborative learning spaces, among others. It intends to facilitate the construction, management and sharing of knowledge among teachers and students, in a global perspective. The environment proposes the use of 3D social representations for accessing learning materials in a dynamic and interactive form, which is regarded to be closer to the physical reality experienced by teachers and students in a learning context. A first implementation of the proposed extended immersive learning environment, in the area of solid mechanics, is also described, including the access to theoretical contents and a remote experiment to determine the elastic modulus of a given object.These instructions give you basic guidelines for preparing camera-ready papers for conference proceedings. Use this document as a template if you are using Microsoft Word 6.0 or later. Otherwise, use this document as an instruction set. The electronic file of your paper will be formatted further. Define all symbols used in the abstract. Do not cite references in the abstract.

Embedding instruments & modules into an IEEE1451-FPGA-Based Weblab infrastructure

Adopting standard-based weblab infrastructures can be an added value for spreading their influence and acceptance in education. This paper suggests a solution based on the IEEE1451.0 Std. and FPGA technology for creating reconfigurable weblab infrastructures using Instruments and Modules (I&Ms) described through standard Hardware Description Language (HDL) files. It describes a methodology for creating and binding I&Ms into an IEEE1451-module embedded in a FPGA-based board able to be remotely controlled/accessed using IEEE1451-HTTP commands. At the end, an example of a step-motor controller module bond to that IEEE1451-module is described.

Designing market-based instruments for biodiversity conservation: learning with the Australian experience and evaluating Portugal's potential

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

Trypanosoma cruzi: expression of antigenic component 5 among 35 laboratory clones obtained from 18 different isozymic variants

Two monoclonal antibodies anti-component 5 of Trypanosoma cruzi (I-35/115 and II-190/30) were tested in IFA and ELISA respectively against 35 T. cruzi laboratory clones. Among the 35 clones tested, 18 different isozyme patterns were detected. All clones were recognized by both monoclonal antibodies except one clone which did not react with II-190/30. These results support the universal expression of specific component 5 within the taxon T. cruzi.

Social network analysis applied to knowledge creation and transfer in the portuguese agricultural R&D field: an exploratory study

Paper presented at the 9th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK, 4-5 Sep. 2008. URL: http://academic-conferences.org/eckm/eckm2008/eckm08-home.htm

Soil sampling design and sampling techniques for soil properties monitoring – common difficulties related to forest soils

Mathematical models and statistical analysis are key instruments in soil science scientific research as they can describe and/or predict the current state of a soil system. These tools allow us to explore the behavior of soil related processes and properties as well as to generate new hypotheses for future experimentation. A good model and analysis of soil properties variations, that permit us to extract suitable conclusions and estimating spatially correlated variables at unsampled locations, is clearly dependent on the amount and quality of data and of the robustness techniques and estimators. On the other hand, the quality of data is obviously dependent from a competent data collection procedure and from a capable laboratory analytical work. Following the standard soil sampling protocols available, soil samples should be collected according to key points such as a convenient spatial scale, landscape homogeneity (or non-homogeneity), land color, soil texture, land slope, land solar exposition. Obtaining good quality data from forest soils is predictably expensive as it is labor intensive and demands many manpower and equipment both in field work and in laboratory analysis. Also, the sampling collection scheme that should be used on a data collection procedure in forest field is not simple to design as the sampling strategies chosen are strongly dependent on soil taxonomy. In fact, a sampling grid will not be able to be followed if rocks at the predicted collecting depth are found, or no soil at all is found, or large trees bar the soil collection. Considering this, a proficient design of a soil data sampling campaign in forest field is not always a simple process and sometimes represents a truly huge challenge. In this work, we present some difficulties that have occurred during two experiments on forest soil that were conducted in order to study the spatial variation of some soil physical-chemical properties. Two different sampling protocols were considered for monitoring two types of forest soils located in NW Portugal: umbric regosol and lithosol. Two different equipments for sampling collection were also used: a manual auger and a shovel. Both scenarios were analyzed and the results achieved have allowed us to consider that monitoring forest soil in order to do some mathematical and statistical investigations needs a sampling procedure to data collection compatible to established protocols but a pre-defined grid assumption often fail when the variability of the soil property is not uniform in space. In this case, sampling grid should be conveniently adapted from one part of the landscape to another and this fact should be taken into consideration of a mathematical procedure.