Application of Drifting Buoy Technologies for Coastal Watershed and Ecosystem, Ann Arbor, Michigan, June 5-7,2005: workshop proceedings

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) Partner University of Michigan convened a workshop on the Applications of Drifting Buoy Technologies for Coastal Watershed and Ecosystem Modeling in Ann Arbor, Michigan on June 5 to 7,2005. The objectives of the workshop were to: (1) educate potential users (managers and scientists) about the current capabilities and uses of drifting buoy technologies; (2) provide an opportunity for users (managers and scientists) to experience first hand the deployment and retrieval of various drifting buoys, as well as experience the capabilities of the buoys' technologies; (3) engage manufacturers with scientists and managers in discussions on drifting buoys' capabilities and their requirements to promote further applications of these systems; (4) promote a dialogue about realistic advantages and limitations of current drifting buoy technologies; and (5) develop a set of key recommendations for advancing both the capabilities and uses of drifting buoy technologies for coastal watershed and ecosystem modeling. To achieve these goals, representatives from research, academia, industry, and resource management were invited to participate in this workshop. Attendees obtained "hands on" experience as they participated in the deployment and retrieval of various drifting buoy systems on Big Portage Lake, a 644 acre lake northwest of Ann Arbor. Working groups then convened for discussions on current commercial usages and environmental monitoring approaches including; user requirements for drifting buoys, current status of drifting buoy systems and enabling technologies, and the challenges and strategies for bringing new drifting buoys "on-line". The following general recommendations were made to: 1). organize a testing program of drifting buoys for marketing their capabilities to resource managers and users. 2). develop a fact sheet to highlight the utility of drifting buoys. 3). facilitate technology transfer for advancements in drifter buoys that may be occurring through military funding and development in order to enhance their technical capability for environmental applications. (pdf contains 18 pages)

Diretrizes para o planejamento de experimentos em jogos educacionais voltados para o ensino de Engenharia de Software

Jogos educacionais constituem em uma importante ferramenta de ensino na área de Engenharia de Software, onde, muitas vezes, os alunos não passam por nenhum mecanismo de treinamento prático. Um jogo educacional de qualidade tem que ter objetivos educacionais bem definidos, motivar os alunos e efetivar a aprendizagem dos conteúdos. A aplicação de jogos no Ensino de Engenharia de Software deve ser realizada de forma sistemática e controlada com base em avaliação. A técnica Estatística de Experimentação permite a medição e a análise das variáveis envolvidas no processo de aplicação de jogos para que estes possam ser aplicados com qualidade. Para definir melhor os experimentos no uso de jogos para o ensino de Engenharia de Software, este trabalho propõe diretrizes para o planejamento de experimentos em jogos educacionais, de forma que permita verificar a influência e a significância da utilização desses jogos no ensino e aprendizado dos conceitos de Engenharia de Software. Um experimento com o SimulES-W foi realizado seguindo essas diretrizes, onde foi possível ser demonstrada sua aplicabilidade e simplicidade em sua definição. A experiência de uso do SimulES-W mostra que aprender com jogos de computador é divertido, interativo e que, apesar dos resultados obtidos não serem significativos estatisticamente, de certa forma contribui para o ensino da Engenharia de Software, não sendo necessariamente um conhecimento prévio do conteúdo.

Citotécnico: análise do processo de trabalho em laboratórios de citopatologia e anatomopatologia no Estado do Rio de Janeiro.

Trata-se de um estudo sobre o processo de trabalho dos citotécnicos que atuam em laboratórios de Anatomopatologia e Citopatologia no Estado do Rio de Janeiro, cujo objetivo geral é: analisar a percepção dos citotécnicos sobre as competências necessárias à execução de sua atividade laboral; e específicos: (1) descrever a atividade laboral do citotécnico; (2) identificar o modo de produção da atividade por meio das inter-relações de trabalho; (3) conhecer e compreender as implicações do trabalho do citotécnico nas ações de controle do câncer. A investigação foi de abordagem qualitativa, de natureza descritiva e social, realizada em três laboratórios de Anatomopatologia e Citopatologia no Estado do Rio de Janeiro, com a participação de 33 citotécnicos. Os dados foram obtidos pela técnica de entrevista semiestruturada, aplicação de questionário, e grupo focal, no período de janeiro a agosto de 2014, e analisados com base na Análise de Conteúdo de Bardin, tendo como unidade de registro o tema. Os resultados revelaram: dos 33 citotécnicos, 73% são do sexo feminino; 34% estão distribuídos em igual percentual para as faixas etárias entre 41 a 50 anos e 51 a 60 anos. Com relação à variável do grau de escolaridade, 43% possuem especialização e 24% concluíram o curso superior. Em relação ao cargo exercido, 73% atuam como citotécnicos e 70% são funcionários públicos. O trabalho do citotécnico tem especificidade única desse trabalhador de nível técnico, que é a realização da primeira análise do exame citopatológico, com ações articuladas e complementares de natureza técnica, de gestão, e educativas vinculadas à equipe, com ênfase nos princípios de prevenção e promoção da saúde. Por meio da escala de avaliação do contexto de trabalho, foram avaliadas as condições físicas, materiais e organizacionais do processo de trabalho. O quesito clareza, na definição das tarefas, foi o maior valorado com 4,7% de média, seguido das relações socioprofissionais com média de 4,0%. Os resultados da análise de conteúdo revelaram: na trajetória da atividade laboral, emergiram quatro categorias associadas à motivação e ao ingresso na ocupação por pessoas de referência na formação, acesso ao mercado de trabalho, busca pelo aperfeiçoamento profissional e aprendizagem prática no trabalho; no conceito de modo de produção, emergiram cinco categorias: responsabilidade de salvar vidas, crítica em relação ao próprio trabalho com qualidade, características físicas, atividades distintas do citotécnico e do histotécnico, visão do trabalho com otimismo; nas condições de trabalho, emergiram quatro categorias: trabalho em equipe e responsabilidade individual, ambiguidade em relação à autonomia, precarização do trabalho, esperança no reconhecimento da profissão. O trabalho do citotécnico é uma ocupação fracamente regulamentada, que se caracteriza por ausência de perfil profissional específico compatível com o escopo de prática real observada no trabalho levando a condições de trabalho precário. O reconhecimento ocorre entre os próprios trabalhadores que se valorizam por serem responsáveis pela promoção da saúde tornando seu trabalho socialmente útil.

The Malaysian experience

Integrated farming has long been practiced in Malaysia, not only to provide protein requirements needed by the family, but also as a source of income. With fish being promoted on a larger scale, the Malaysian government is providing farmers with financial assistance and hands-on training on fish culture and rice production. Systems of fodder-fish integrated farming and fish-livestock farming in mine ponds are outlined.

Robotics education: A case study in soft-bodied locomotion

Locomotion has been one of the frequently used case studies in hands-on curricula in robotics education. Students are usually instructed to construct their own wheeled or legged robots from modular robot kits. In the development process of a robot students tend to emphasize on the programming part and consequently, neglect the design of the robot's body. However, the morphology of a robot (i.e. its body shape and material properties) plays an important role especially in dynamic tasks such as locomotion. In this paper we introduce a case study of a tutorial on soft-robotics where students were encouraged to focus solely on the morphology of a robot to achieve stable and fast locomotion. The students should experience the influence material properties exert on the performance of a robot and consequently, extract design principles. This tutorial was held in the context of the 2012 Summer School on Soft Robotics at ETH Zurich, which was one of the world's first courses specialized in the emerging field. We describe the tutorial set-up, the used hardware and software, the students assessment criteria as well as the results. Based on the high creativity and diversity of the robots built by the students, we conclude that the concept of this tutorial has great potentials for both education and research. © 2013 IEEE.

Teaching Crossroads: 11th IPB Erasmus Week

In the wake of the latest news regarding IPB’s award for best Polytechnic Institute in Portugal, we would like to congratulate the IPB community who has always striven for the quality of the institution within the national and international academic milieu. We are, undoubtedly, bowled over by the 1st place in the national context (out of the 27 national institutions under evaluation) and the 7th position in the international scope. In fact, it is worth mentioning that the IPB has won this award, three years in a row, being in a leading position in the ranking promoted and sponsored by the European Union. This year’s edition has selected and evaluated over 1300 world higher education institutions. Teaching Crossroads intends thus to give a watershed contribution to the IPB’s successful and most valued pathway. Numbers indicate that Teaching Crossroads has had over 2550 downloads since it first came out. But let’s cut to the chase. Once again, we are delighted to present the 5th number of Teaching Crossroads. This wholly calculated and well-sustained editorial adventure started in 2012 when the first number of Teaching Crossroads first saw the light. This year’s publication includes the areas of Human Geography/anthropology, Information Technology and Forensics and Language and culture, focusing on minority languages. Alongside this, as in the two last previous numbers, we’ve included the specific area for International mobility, Intensive Programmes and Erasmus+ Mobility of Individuals, being the latter financed by the European Union within the Erasmus+ Programme, whereas the former is sponsored uniquely by the foreign partner institution, in this case, Lillebaelt Academy in Denmark. These types of programmes convey very positive and overarching ideas, resonant in cross-cultural and educational benefits, valuable for all the involved partners. We would very kindheartedly like to thank the authors for having contributed with much enlightening and serious articles on a wide array of areas. Pablo M. Orduna Pórtus’s article focuses on border culture and heritage management. The author’s study is placed on two borderlands of the Iberian Peninsula: Roncal Valley (Navarre) and Riverbanks of Douro. Going beyond the linear or physical conception of the border, the author centres his study on the metaphysical and symbolic ideas of the frontier that sustain his anthropological analysis. Michal Popdora manages to find evidence for his proposal of a new conception of teaching Image Processing, based on the student-centered approach. A hands-on experience on a Project-based Learning methodology sustains the teaching project. Grounded on “a forensic-flavored style”, using the author’s own words, he shows how students can become engaged in a highly effective learning process. Cláudia Martins is already a confirmed habitué of this publication, as in every Erasmus Week she delivers a lecture on Portuguese language and culture to visiting teaching and non-teaching staff. This time, the author decided to delve into a Portugal’s official language, Mirandese, spoken in a small designated area in the northeastern part of Portugal, Miranda do Douro and its surrounding area. The author gives account of some thought-provoking facts about the language, from the origin and the survival of the language, however still a minority language, up to the moment when it was acknowledged Portugal’s second official language, together with the challenges that nowadays faces. Luís Frölen Ribeiro, João Eduardo Ribeiro, Carlos Casimiro Costa, António Duarte, Carlos Andrade from the Polytechnic Institute and Arne Svinth, John Madsen, Morten Thomsen, Kent Smidstrup, Carsten John Jacobsen from the Lillebaelt Academy, in Denmark, participate in a joint project which they describe, outlining the main goals and gains of the project. To overcome teaching difficulties regarding the engineering degrees, a 12-ECTS joint course from Lillebaelt Academy and Polytechnic Institute of Bragança was created based on the Danish model. The course Product Development and Industrial Processing was hence created. Rui Pedro Lopes presents an insightful and acute account of the Internationalization programmes in Higher Education in Europe. At one go, the author describes his own experience as a visiting lecturer, within the Erasmus+ programme, to Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy, in a Master’s degree in computer science, bringing to light a personal reflection on the goals and benefits of the mobility for both students and teachers. Finally, the author puts forth some suggestions that would improve the whole mobility process. We sincerely hope to have stimulated you to keep on reading, upholding the belief that these texts can represent valuable sources for both teachers and students in their research work.

Drama Grammatik: Dramapädagogische Ansätze für den Grammatikunterricht Deutsch als Fremdsprache

This dissertation introduces and evaluates dramagrammar, a new concept for the teaching and learning of foreign language grammar. Grammar, traditionally taught in a predominantly cognitive, abstract mode, often fails to capture the minds of foreign language learners, who are then unable to integrate this grammatical knowledge into their use of the foreign language in a meaningful way. The consequences of this approach are manifested at university level in German departments in England and Ireland, where the outcomes are unconvincing at best, abysmal at worst. Language teaching research suggests that interaction plays an important role in foreign language acquisition. Recent studies also stress the significance of grammatical knowledge in the learning process. Dramagrammar combines both interactive negotiation of meaning and explicit grammar instruction in a holistic approach, taking up the concept of drama in foreign language education and applying it to the teaching and learning of grammar. Techniques from dramatic art forms allow grammar to be experienced not only cognitively but also in social, emotional, and bodily-kinaesthetic ways. Dramagrammar lessons confront the learner with fictitious situations in which grammar is experienced 'hands-on'. Learners have to use grammatical structures in a variety of contexts, reflect upon their use, and then enlarge and enrich the dramatic situations with their newly acquired or more finely nuanced knowledge. The initial hypothesis of this dissertation is that the drammagrammar approach is beneficial to the acquisition of foreign language grammar. This hypothesis is corroborated by research findings from language teaching pedagogy and drama in education. It is further confirmed by empirical data gained from specifically designed dramagrammar modules that have been put into practice in German departments at the University of Leicester (England), the University Colleges Cork and Dublin (Ireland), the University of Bologna (Italy), as well as the Goethe-Institute Bratislava (Slovenia). The data suggests that drammagrammar has positive effects on both understanding of and attitudes towards grammar.

Literatur verstehen und inszenieren: Foreign language literature through drama, a research project

Based on the experience that today's students find it more difficult than students of previous decades to relate to literature and appreciate its high cultural value, this paper argues that too little is known about the actual teaching and learning processes which take place in literature courses and that, in order to ensure the survival of literary studies in German curricula, future research needs to elucidate for students, the wider public and, most importantly, educational policy makers, why the study of literature should continue to have an important place in modern language curricula. Contending that students' willingness to engage with literature will, in the future, depend to a great extent on the use of imaginative methodology on the part of the teacher, we give a detailed account of an action research project carried out at University College Cork from October to December 2002 which set out to explore the potential of a drama in education approach to the teaching and learning of foreign language literature. We give concrete examples of how this approach works in practice, situate our approach within the subject debate surrounding Drama and the Language Arts and evaluate in detail the learning processes which are typical of performance-based literature learning. Based on converging evidence from different data sources and overall very positive feedback from students, we conclude by recommending that modern language departments introduce courses which offer a hands-on experience of literature that is different from that encountered in lectures and teacher-directed seminars.

Young caregivers in the end-of-life setting: a population-based profile of an emerging group.

PURPOSE: Little is known about young caregivers of people with advanced life-limiting illness. Better understanding of the needs and characteristics of these young caregivers can inform development of palliative care and other support services. METHODS: A population-based analysis of caregivers was performed from piloted questions included in the 2001-2007 face-to-face annual health surveys of 23,706 South Australians on the death of a loved one, caregiving provided, and characteristics of the deceased individual and caregiver. The survey was representative of the population by age, gender, and region of residence. FINDINGS: Most active care was provided by older, close family members, but large numbers of young people (ages 15-29) also provided assistance to individuals with advanced life-limiting illness. They comprised 14.4% of those undertaking "hands-on" care on a daily or intermittent basis, whom we grouped together as active caregivers. Almost as many young males as females participate in active caregiving (men represent 46%); most provide care while being employed, including 38% who work full-time. Over half of those engaged in hands-on care indicated the experience to be worse or much worse than expected, with young people more frequently reporting dissatisfaction thereof. Young caregivers also exhibited an increased perception of the need for assistance with grief. CONCLUSION: Young people can be integral to end-of-life care, and represent a significant cohort of active caregivers with unique needs and experiences. They may have a more negative experience as caregivers, and increased needs for grief counseling services compared to other age cohorts of caregivers.

Life Around the Turbines

Life around the Turbines is an outreach project developed by the Marine Biological Association of the UK (MBA) funded by COWRIE (Collaborative Offshore Wind Research into the Environment). The project was designed to promote the need for renewable energy, raise awareness of marine biodiversity and generate discussions about offshore wind farms particularly with school children around Great Britain. The project has run from 2008 – 2014 and has involved workshops with schools all around Great Britain; production of online resources and a series of training events and tools for marine educators. All of the resources and workshops were developed to correlate with the national curricula for England, Scotland and Wales and cover a range of topics including science, citizenship and technology. Combining charismatic marine wildlife with technology and interactive, hands-on workshop activities has proved a successful and popular combination, received well by students and teachers. We present the methods of engagement used and some of the information received through a basic activity evaluation process. We will also share information about how conference participants can obtain and utilise free resources to support their own outreach and teaching at www.mba.ac.uk/education.

The librarian is in: a consultation model for information literacy formative assessment

Formative assessment was introduced in Rehabilitation Therapy students’ information literacy programs in Fall Term 2006 in the course OT/PT 892: Evidence-Based Practice. It was subsequently employed in the Winter Term 2008 and again in the Spring Term 2008. Formative assessment during student/librarian face-to-face consultations was one of a variety of teaching techniques used in the program. Other techniques included: a required reading; an interactive hands-on searching session; and a summative assessment of the final revised search strategy assignment (these techniques varied somewhat over the 3 classes). With the 2008 entrance class, this course content moved to OT/PT 898: Critical Enquiry, largely in Module 3: Reviewing the Literature. One of the Critical Enquiry’s learning objectives is: “recognize and reflect on the complexity of gathering evidence to inform decision-making.”

Design-Build Experiences and Student Safety

Design-build experiences (DBEs) are an essential element of any programme based on the CDIO methodology. They enable students to develop practical hands-on skills, they enable the learning of theory by stealth and they provide a forum for developing professional skills such as team working and project management. The hands-on aspect of certain DBEs has significant risk associated with it, which must be addressed through the formal evaluation of risks and the development of a methodology for controlling them. This paper considers the aspects of design-build experiences that may impact on student safety. In particular, it examines the risk associated with each of the four stages of CDIO and gives examples of risks which may commonly apply across engineering disciplines. A system for assessing and controlling the risks in any particular DBE is presented and the paper finishes by discussing the significance of health and safety in the educational environment.

Determinants of long-distance investing by business angels in the UK

The business angel market is usually identified as a local market, and the proximity of an investment has been shown to be key in the angel's investment preferences and an important filter at the screening stage of the investment decision. This is generally explained by the personal and localized networks used to identify potential investments, the hands-on involvement of the investor and the desire to minimize risk. However, a significant minority of investments are long distance. This paper is based on data from 373 investments made by 109 UK business angels. We classify the location of investments into three groups: local investments ( those made within the same county or in adjacent counties); intermediate investments ( those made in counties adjacent to the 'local' counties); and long-distance investments ( those made beyond this range). Using ordered logit analysis the paper develops and tests a number of hypotheses that relate long-distance investment to investment characteristics and investor characteristics. The paper concludes by drawing out the implications for entrepreneurs seeking business angel finance in investment-deficient regions, business angel networks seeking to match investors to entrepreneurs and firms ( which are normally their primary clients), and for policy-makers responsible for local and regional economic development.

Compost city: underground music, collapsoscapes and urban regeneration

This paper looks at the recent history of Hulme, Manchester, which during the 1980s was home to many of the most successful bands of the post-punk era. This flourishing of underground music was not planned, however. It emerged, through a complex network of urban forces, some physical, some social. The paper develops the concept of the ‘compost city’ a laissez-faire approach to the management of urban culture, which is oppositional to the current vogue for more hands-on cultural industries management.

Embedded C programming: a practical course introducing programmable microprocessors

This paper presents a new laboratory-based module for embedded systems teaching, which addresses the current lack of consideration for the link between hardware development, software implementation, course content and student evaluation in a laboratory environment. The course introduces second year undergraduate students to the interface between hardware and software and the programming of embedded devices; in this case, the PIC (originally peripheral interface controller, later rebranded programmable intelligent computer) microcontroller. A hardware development board designed for use in the laboratories of this module is presented. Through hands on laboratory experience, students are encouraged to engage with practical problem-solving exercises and develop programming skills across a broad range of scenarios.