Hudumia: a platform to support spontaneous volunteers' situational awareness, coordination and safety underemergency scenarios

Spontaneous volunteers always emerge under emergency scenarios and are vital to a successful community response, yet some uncertainty subsists around their role and its inherent acceptance by official entities under emergency scenarios. In our research we have identified that most of the spontaneous volunteers do have none or little support from official entities, hence they end up facing critical problems as situational awareness, safety instructions and guidance, motivation and group organization. We argue that official entities still play a crucial role and should change some of their behaviors regarding spontaneous volunteerism. We aim with this thesis to design a software architecture and a framework in order to implement a solution to support spontaneous volunteerism under emergency scenarios along with a set of guidelines for the design of open information management systems. Together with the collaboration from both citizens and emergency professionals we have been able to attain several important contributions, as the clear identification of the roles taken by both spontaneous volunteers and professionals, the importance of volunteerism in overall community response and the role which open collaborative information management systems have in the community volunteering efforts. These conclusions have directly supported the design guidelines of our software solution proposal. In what concerns to methodology, we first review literature on technologies support to emergencies and how spontaneous volunteers actually challenge these systems. Following, we have performed a field research where we have observed that the emerging of spontaneous volunteer’s efforts imposes new requirements for the design of such systems, which leaded to the creation of a cluster of design guidelines that supported our software solution proposal to address the volunteers’ requirements. Finally we have architected and developed an online open information management tool which has been evaluated via usability engineering methods, usability user tests and heuristic evaluations.

Supervisório Inteligente de Processos na Idústria do Petróleo e Gás :Aplicação em uma Coluna de Destilação Simulada Integrada a Instrumentação Real

The need to implement a software architecture that promotes the development of a SCADA supervisory system for monitoring industrial processes simulated with the flexibility of adding intelligent modules and devices such as CLP, according to the specifications of the problem, it was the motivation for this work. In the present study, we developed an intelligent supervisory system on a simulation of a distillation column modeled with Unisim. Furthermore, OLE Automation was used as communication between the supervisory and simulation software, which, with the use of the database, promoted an architecture both scalable and easy to maintain. Moreover, intelligent modules have been developed for preprocessing, data characteristics extraction, and variables inference. These modules were fundamentally based on the Encog software

Controle de atitude e altitude para um veículo aéreo não tripulado do tipo quadrirrotor

A Quadrotor is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) equipped with four rotors distributed on a simple mechanical "X"form structure. The aim of this work is to build and stabilize a Quadrotor aircraft in the roll, pitch and yaw angles at a certain altitude. The stabilization control approach is based on a transformation in the input variables in order to perform a decoupled control. The proposed strategy is based on breaking the control problem into two hierarchical levels: A lower level, object of this work, maintains the desired altitude an angles of the vehicle while the higher level establishes appropriate references to the lower level, performing the desired movements. A hardware and software architecture was specially developed and implemented for an experimental prototype used to test and validate the proposed control approach

Controle Robusto Aplicado a Conversor Buck-Boost em Sistemas Fotovoltaicos

The need to implement a software architecture that promotes the development of a SCADA supervisory system for monitoring industrial processes simulated with the flexibility of adding intelligent modules and devices such as CLP, according to the specifications of the problem, it was the motivation for this work. In the present study, we developed an intelligent supervisory system on a simulation of a distillation column modeled with Unisim. Furthermore, OLE Automation was used as communication between the supervisory and simulation software, which, with the use of the database, promoted an architecture both scalable and easy to maintain. Moreover, intelligent modules have been developed for preprocessing, data characteristics extraction, and variables inference. These modules were fundamentally based on the Encog software

Midgard: um middleware baseado em componentes e orientado a recursos para redes de sensores sem fio

On the last years, several middleware platforms for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) were proposed. Most of these platforms does not consider issues of how integrate components from generic middleware architectures. Many requirements need to be considered in a middleware design for WSN and the design, in this case, it is possibility to modify the source code of the middleware without changing the external behavior of the middleware. Thus, it is desired that there is a middleware generic architecture that is able to offer an optimal configuration according to the requirements of the application. The adoption of middleware based in component model consists of a promising approach because it allows a better abstraction, low coupling, modularization and management features built-in middleware. Another problem present in current middleware consists of treatment of interoperability with external networks to sensor networks, such as Web. Most current middleware lacks the functionality to access the data provided by the WSN via the World Wide Web in order to treat these data as Web resources, and they can be accessed through protocols already adopted the World Wide Web. Thus, this work presents the Midgard, a component-based middleware specifically designed for WSNs, which adopts the architectural patterns microkernel and REST. The microkernel architectural complements the component model, since microkernel can be understood as a component that encapsulates the core system and it is responsible for initializing the core services only when needed, as well as remove them when are no more needed. Already REST defines a standardized way of communication between different applications based on standards adopted by the Web and enables him to treat WSN data as web resources, allowing them to be accessed through protocol already adopted in the World Wide Web. The main goals of Midgard are: (i) to provide easy Web access to data generated by WSN, exposing such data as Web resources, following the principles of Web of Things paradigm and (ii) to provide WSN application developer with capabilities to instantiate only specific services required by the application, thus generating a customized middleware and saving node resources. The Midgard allows use the WSN as Web resources and still provide a cohesive and weakly coupled software architecture, addressing interoperability and customization. In addition, Midgard provides two services needed for most WSN applications: (i) configuration and (ii) inspection and adaptation services. New services can be implemented by others and easily incorporated into the middleware, because of its flexible and extensible architecture. According to the assessment, the Midgard provides interoperability between the WSN and external networks, such as web, as well as between different applications within a single WSN. In addition, we assessed the memory consumption, the application image size, the size of messages exchanged in the network, and response time, overhead and scalability on Midgard. During the evaluation, the Midgard proved satisfies their goals and shown to be scalable without consuming resources prohibitively

STREAM-AP: um processo para sistematizar a escolha de padrões arquiteturais baseado em requisitos não-funcionais

The importance of non-functional requirements for computer systems is increasing. Satisfying these requirements requires special attention to the software architecture, since an unsuitable architecture introduces greater complexity in addition to the intrinsic complexity of the system. Some studies have shown that, despite requirements engineering and software architecture activities act on different aspects of development, they must be performed iteratively and intertwined to produce satisfactory software systems. The STREAM process presents a systematic approach to reduce the gap between requirements and architecture development, emphasizing the functional requirements, but using the non-functional requirements in an ad hoc way. However, non-functional requirements typically influence the system as a whole. Thus, the STREAM uses Architectural Patterns to refine the software architecture. These patterns are chosen by using non-functional requirements in an ad hoc way. This master thesis presents a process to improve STREAM in making the choice of architectural patterns systematic by using non-functional requirements, in order to guide the refinement of a software architecture

Firewall Dinâmico: uma implementação cliente/servidor

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Computação - IBILCE

Autenticação biométrica de usuários em sistemas de E-learning baseada em reconhecimento de faces a partir de vídeo

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Computação - IBILCE

Using Machine Learning Classifiers to Assist Healthcare-Related Decisions: Classification of Electronic Patient Records

Surveillance Levels (SLs) are categories for medical patients (used in Brazil) that represent different types of medical recommendations. SLs are defined according to risk factors and the medical and developmental history of patients. Each SL is associated with specific educational and clinical measures. The objective of the present paper was to verify computer-aided, automatic assignment of SLs. The present paper proposes a computer-aided approach for automatic recommendation of SLs. The approach is based on the classification of information from patient electronic records. For this purpose, a software architecture composed of three layers was developed. The architecture is formed by a classification layer that includes a linguistic module and machine learning classification modules. The classification layer allows for the use of different classification methods, including the use of preprocessed, normalized language data drawn from the linguistic module. We report the verification and validation of the software architecture in a Brazilian pediatric healthcare institution. The results indicate that selection of attributes can have a great effect on the performance of the system. Nonetheless, our automatic recommendation of surveillance level can still benefit from improvements in processing procedures when the linguistic module is applied prior to classification. Results from our efforts can be applied to different types of medical systems. The results of systems supported by the framework presented in this paper may be used by healthcare and governmental institutions to improve healthcare services in terms of establishing preventive measures and alerting authorities about the possibility of an epidemic.

SED Stroop Effect Detector prototype

[ES] El Detector de Efectos Stroop (SED - Stroop Effect Detector), es una herramienta informática de asistencia, desarrollada a través del programa de investigación de Desarrollo Tecnológico Social de la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, que ayuda a profesionales del sector neuropsicológico a identificar problemas en la corteza orbitofrontal de un individuo, usándose para ello la técnica ideada por Schenker en 1998. Como base metodológica, se han utilizado los conocimientos adquiridos en las diferentes materias de la adaptación al grado en Ingeniería Informática como Gestión del Software, Arquitectura del Software y Desarrollo de Interfaces de Usuario así como conocimiento adquirido con anterioridad en asignaturas de Programación e Ingeniería del Software I y II. Como para realizar este proyecto sólo el conocimiento informático no era suficiente, he realizado una labor de investigación acerca del problema, teniendo que recopilar información de otros documentos científicos que abordan el tema, consultas a profesionales del sector como son el Doctor Don Ayoze Nauzet González Hernández, neurólogo del hospital Doctor Negrín de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria y el psicólogo Don José Manuel Rodríguez Pellejero que habló de este problema en clase del máster de Formación del Profesorado y que actualmente estoy cursando. Este trabajo presenta el test de Stroop con las dos versiones de Schenker: RCN (Reading Color Names) y NCW (Naming Colored Words). Como norma general, ambas pruebas presentan ante los sujetos estudios palabras (nombres de colores) escritas con la tinta de colores diferentes. De esta forma, el RCN consiste en leer la palabra escrita omitiendo la tonalidad de su fuente e intentando que no nos influya. Por el contrario, el NCW requiere enunciar el nombre del color de la tinta con la que está escrita la palabra sin que nos influya que ésta última sea el nombre de un color.

Knowledge Patterns for the Web: extraction, tranformation and reuse

This thesis aims at investigating methods and software architectures for discovering what are the typical and frequently occurring structures used for organizing knowledge in the Web. We identify these structures as Knowledge Patterns (KPs). KP discovery needs to address two main research problems: the heterogeneity of sources, formats and semantics in the Web (i.e., the knowledge soup problem) and the difficulty to draw relevant boundary around data that allows to capture the meaningful knowledge with respect to a certain context (i.e., the knowledge boundary problem). Hence, we introduce two methods that provide different solutions to these two problems by tackling KP discovery from two different perspectives: (i) the transformation of KP-like artifacts to KPs formalized as OWL2 ontologies; (ii) the bottom-up extraction of KPs by analyzing how data are organized in Linked Data. The two methods address the knowledge soup and boundary problems in different ways. The first method provides a solution to the two aforementioned problems that is based on a purely syntactic transformation step of the original source to RDF followed by a refactoring step whose aim is to add semantics to RDF by select meaningful RDF triples. The second method allows to draw boundaries around RDF in Linked Data by analyzing type paths. A type path is a possible route through an RDF that takes into account the types associated to the nodes of a path. Then we present K~ore, a software architecture conceived to be the basis for developing KP discovery systems and designed according to two software architectural styles, i.e, the Component-based and REST. Finally we provide an example of reuse of KP based on Aemoo, an exploratory search tool which exploits KPs for performing entity summarization.

Messa a punto di metodi per la caratterizzazione meccanica in vitro di segmenti ossei

In the last decade, the mechanical characterization of bone segments has been seen as a fundamental key to understanding how the distribution of physiological loads works on the bone in everyday life, and the resulting structural deformations. Therefore, characterization allows to obtain the main load directions and, consequently, to observe the structural lamellae of the bone disposal, in order to recreate a prosthesis using artificial materials that behave naturally. This thesis will expose a modular system which provides the mechanical characterization of bone in vitro segment, with particular attention to vertebrae, as the current object of study and research in the lab where I did my thesis work. The system will be able to acquire and process all the appropriately conditioned signals of interest for the test, through dedicated hardware and software architecture, with high speed and high reliability. The aim of my thesis is to create a system that can be used as a versatile tool for experimentation and innovation for future tests of the mechanical characterization of biological components, allowing a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the deformation in analysis, regardless of anatomical regions of interest.

A Fast Platform for Interactive E-Learning Systems

Modern e-learning systems represent a special type of web information systems. By definition, information systems are special computerized systems used to perform data operations by multiple users simultaneously. Each active user consumes an amount of hardware resources. A shortage of hardware resources can be caused by growing number of simultaneous users. Such situation can result in overall malfunctioning or slowed-down system. In order to avoid this problem, the underlying hardware system gets usually continuously upgraded. These upgrades, typically accompanied with various software updates, usually result in a temporarily increased amount of available resources. This work deals with the problem in a different way by proposing an implementation of a web e-learning system with a modified software architecture reducing resource usage of the server part to the bare minimum. In order to implement a full-scale e-learning system that could be used as a substitute to a conventional web e-learning system, a Rich Internet Application framework was used as basis. The technology allowed implementation of advanced interactivity features and provided an easy transfer of a substantial part of the application logic from server to clients. In combination with a special server application, the server part of the new system is able to run with a reasonable performance on a hardware with very limited computing resources.

Dicto: A Unified DSL for Testing Architectural Rules

Software architecture consists of a set of design choices that can be partially expressed in form of rules that the implementation must conform to. Architectural rules are intended to ensure properties that fulfill fundamental non-functional requirements. Verifying architectural rules is often a non- trivial activity: available tools are often not very usable and support only a narrow subset of the rules that are commonly specified by practitioners. In this paper we present a new highly-readable declarative language for specifying architectural rules. With our approach, users can specify a wide variety of rules using a single uniform notation. Rules can get tested by third-party tools by conforming to pre-defined specification templates. Practitioners can take advantage of the capabilities of a growing number of testing tools without dealing with them directly.