Two new species and a review of the inseminating freshwater fish genus Monotocheirodon (Characiformes: Characidae) from Peru and Bolivia

Two new species of inseminating freshwater fishes of the genus Monotocheirodon, family Characidae, are described from Peru. Males and females of both new species have an external, visually obvious urogenital papilla that was not detected in the females in previous studies, with this longer in males, which use it as an inseminating organ. A third inseminating species from Bolivia, Monotocheirodon pearsoni, unstudied in any detail since its original description in 1924, is redescribed. This latter species lacks an inseminating organ. Monotocheirodon is redescribed, its phylogenetic relationships are briefly discussed and it is suggested that it is possibly related to the stevardiin genera Ceratobranchia, Othonocheirodus, and Odontostoechus.

Matching form with content

Successful computer-supported distance education requires that its enabling technologies are accessible and usable anywhere. They should work seamlessly inside and outside the information superhighway, wherever the target learners are located, without obtruding on the learning activity. It has long been recognised that the usability of interactive computer systems is inversely related to the visibility of the implementing technologies. Reducing the visibility of technology is especially challenging in the area of online language learning systems, which require high levels of interactivity and communication along multiple dimensions such as speaking, listening, reading and writing. In this article, the authors review the concept of invisibility as it applies to the design of interactive technologies and appliances. They describe a specialised appliance matched to the requirements for distance second language learning, and report on a successful multi-phase evaluation process, including initial field testing at a Thai open university.

Matching form with content

Successful computer-supported distance education requires that its enabling technologies are accessible and usable anywhere. They should work seamlessly inside and outside the information superhighway, wherever the target learners are located, without obtruding on the learning activity. It has long been recognised that the usability of interactive computer systems is inversely related to the visibility of the implementing technologies. Reducing the visibility of technology is especially challenging in the area of online language learning systems, which require high levels of interactivity and communication along multiple dimensions such as speaking, listening, reading and writing. In this article, the authors review the concept of invisibility as it applies to the design of interactive technologies and appliances. They describe a specialised appliance matched to the requirements for distance second language learning, and report on a successful multi-phase evaluation process, including initial field testing at a Thai open university.

A Web-based Support System for Providing Effective Monitoring, Feedback and Evaluation in Project Management Education

This work introduces a web-based learning environment to facilitate learning in Project Management. The proposed web-based support system integrates methodological procedures and information systems, allowing to promote learning among geographically-dispersed students. Thus, students who are enrolled in different universities at different locations and attend their own project management courses, share a virtual experience in executing and managing projects. Specific support systems were used or developed to automatically collect information about student activities, making it possible to monitor the progress made on learning and assess learning performance as established in the defined rubric.

Data normalization and integration in robotic systems using web services technologies

The robotics is one of the most active areas. We also need to join a large number of disciplines to create robots. With these premises, one problem is the management of information from multiple heterogeneous sources. Each component, hardware or software, produces data with different nature: temporal frequencies, processing needs, size, type, etc. Nowadays, technologies and software engineering paradigms such as service-oriented architectures are applied to solve this problem in other areas. This paper proposes the use of these technologies to implement a robotic control system based on services. This type of system will allow integration and collaborative work of different elements that make up a robotic system.

An Interdisciplinary Practical for Multimedia Engineering Students

Interdisciplinary projects in the industry typically require collaboration between professionals from various fields. However, this relationship is not generally addressed in the training offered by university programs, which often ignore this interdisciplinary approach. This paper offers an example of interdisciplinary interaction through joint laboratory activities in the curricula of two very different degree programs, i.e., Multimedia Engineering and Teacher Training in Primary Education. The programs' students formed an interdisciplinary team of multimedia engineers and trainee teachers to develop a Web product for children's cognitive development. The complexity of the task required students to engage in close and strong interdisciplinary cooperation and communication; in turn, they benefited from the synergy offered by collaborative work. The results of this paper, presented from the perspective of the multimedia engineering students, demonstrate a significant increase in their academic performance compared to the control group. This paper shows that university studies can incorporate an interdisciplinary perspective to engineering education without the need to introduce a specific course on the topic, thus avoiding further demands on the curriculum schedule.

A biblioteca escolar como comunidade colaborativa : um contributo para o desenvolvimento profissional docente

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Supervisão e Avaliação Escolar.

A simulation of a workflow management system

Suggests that simulation of the workflow component of a computer supported co-operative work (CSCW) system has the potential to reduce the costs of system implementation, while at the same time improving the quality of the delivered system. Demonstrates the value of being able to assess the frequency and volume of workflow transactions using a case study of CSCW software developed for estate agency co-workers in which a model was produced based on a discrete-event simulation approach with implementation on a spreadsheet platform.

Constructing spaces for strategic work:a multimodal perspective

In this paper we take seriously the call for strategy-as-practice research to address the material, spatial and bodily aspects of strategic work. Drawing on a video-ethnographic study of strategic episodes in a financial trading context, we develop a conceptual framework that elaborates on strategic work as socially accomplished within particular spaces that are constructed through different orchestrations of material, bodily and discursive resources. Building on the findings, our study identifies three types of strategic work - private work, collaborative work and negotiating work - that are accomplished within three distinct spaces that are constructed through multimodal constellations of semiotic resources. We show that these spaces, and the activities performed within them, are continuously shifting in ways that enable and constrain the particular outcomes of a strategic episode. Our framework contributes to the strategy-as-practice literature by identifying the importance of spaces in conducting strategic work and providing insight into the way that these spaces are constructed.

Collaborative mediation

A Mediation System utilizes a central security mediator that is primarily concerned with securing the internal structure of the Mediation System. The current problem is that clients are unable to have authority and administrative rights over the security of their data during a transaction. In addition, this Mediation System is unsuited in presenting a metric that measures the level of confidence of security access rights. This creates a black-box perspective from the client towards the Mediation System and also gives no assurance to these clients that they have assigned the proper security access rights that reflect the current environment of the mediation system. This dissertation presents a Collaborative Information System (CIS) that uses an agent based approach to encapsulate collaborative information and security policies within the Mediation System which are under the control of the clients of the Mediation System. In conjunction with the CIS's Stochastic Security Framework it is possible to take a probabilistic approach in modeling the security access rights of a collaboration transaction. The research results showed that it is feasible to construct a Mediation System utilizing agents and stochastic equations to establish an environment where the client has authority and administrative control in assigning security access rights to their collaborative data that can establish a metric that measures the level of confidence of these assigned rights.

File Control: The Heart Of Business Computer Management

In his study - File Control: The Heart Of Business Computer Management - William G. O'Brien, Assistant Professor, The School of Hospitality Management at Florida International University, initially informs you: “Even though computers are an everyday part of the hospitality industry, many managers lack the knowledge and experience to control and protect the files in these systems. The author offers guidelines which can minimize or prevent damage to the business as a whole.” Our author initially opens this study with some anecdotal instances illustrating the failure of hospitality managers to exercise due caution with regard to computer supported information systems inside their restaurants and hotels. “Of the three components that make up any business computer system (data files, programs, and hard-ware), it is files that are most important, perhaps irreplaceable, to the business,” O’Brien informs you. O’Brien breaks down the noun, files, into two distinct categories. They are, the files of extrinsic value, and its counterpart the files of intrinsic value. An example of extrinsic value files would be a restaurant’s wine inventory. “As sales are made and new shipments are received, the computer updates the file,” says O’Brien. “This information might come directly from a point-of-sale terminal or might be entered manually by an employee,” he further explains. On the intrinsic side of the equation, O’Brien wants you to know that the information itself is the valuable part of this type of file. Its value is over and above the file’s informational purpose as a pragmatic business tool, as it is in inventory control. “The information is money in the legal sense For instance, figures moved about in banking system computers do not represent dollars; they are dollars,” O’Brien explains. “If the record of a dollar amount is erased from all computer files, then that money ceases to exist,” he warns. This type of information can also be bought and sold, such as it is in customer lists to advertisers. Files must be protected O’Brien stresses. “File security requires a systematic approach,” he discloses. O’Brien goes on to explain important elements to consider when evaluating file information. File back-up is also an important factor to think about, along with file storage/safety concerns. “Sooner or later, every property will have its fire, flood, careless mistake, or disgruntled employee,” O’Brien closes. “…good file control can minimize or prevent damage to the business as a whole.”

What Google Maps can do for Biomedical Data Dissemination: Examples and a Design Study

Background: Biologists often need to assess whether unfamiliar datasets warrant the time investment required for more detailed exploration. Basing such assessments on brief descriptions provided by data publishers is unwieldy for large datasets that contain insights dependent on specific scientific questions. Alternatively, using complex software systems for a preliminary analysis may be deemed as too time consuming in itself, especially for unfamiliar data types and formats. This may lead to wasted analysis time and discarding of potentially useful data. Results: We present an exploration of design opportunities that the Google Maps interface offers to biomedical data visualization. In particular, we focus on synergies between visualization techniques and Google Maps that facilitate the development of biological visualizations which have both low-overhead and sufficient expressivity to support the exploration of data at multiple scales. The methods we explore rely on displaying pre-rendered visualizations of biological data in browsers, with sparse yet powerful interactions, by using the Google Maps API. We structure our discussion around five visualizations: a gene co-regulation visualization, a heatmap viewer, a genome browser, a protein interaction network, and a planar visualization of white matter in the brain. Feedback from collaborative work with domain experts suggests that our Google Maps visualizations offer multiple, scale-dependent perspectives and can be particularly helpful for unfamiliar datasets due to their accessibility. We also find that users, particularly those less experienced with computer use, are attracted by the familiarity of the Google Maps API. Our five implementations introduce design elements that can benefit visualization developers. Conclusions: We describe a low-overhead approach that lets biologists access readily analyzed views of unfamiliar scientific datasets. We rely on pre-computed visualizations prepared by data experts, accompanied by sparse and intuitive interactions, and distributed via the familiar Google Maps framework. Our contributions are an evaluation demonstrating the validity and opportunities of this approach, a set of design guidelines benefiting those wanting to create such visualizations, and five concrete example visualizations.

Escrita colaborativa com google docs: flash fiction, noticing e aprendizagem de inglês como L2

Google Docs (GD) is an online word processor with which multiple authors can work on the same document, in a synchronous or asynchronous manner, which can help develop the ability of writing in English (WEISSHEIMER; SOARES, 2012). As they write collaboratively, learners find more opportunities to notice the gaps in their written production, since they are exposed to more input from the fellow co-authors (WEISSHEIMER; BERGSLEITHNER; LEANDRO, 2012) and prioritize the process of text (re)construction instead of the concern with the final product, i.e., the final version of the text (LEANDRO; WEISSHEIMER; COOPER, 2013). Moreover, when it comes to second language (L2) learning, producing language enables the consolidation of existing knowledge as well as the internalization of new knowledge (SWAIN, 1985; 1993). Taking this into consideration, this mixed-method (DÖRNYEI, 2007) quasi-experimental (NUNAN, 1999) study aims at investigating the impact of collaborative writing through GD on the development of the writing skill in English and on the noticing of syntactic structures (SCHMIDT, 1990). Thirtyfour university students of English integrated the cohort of the study: twenty-five were assigned to the experimental group and nine were assigned to the control group. All learners went through a pre-test and a post-test so that we could measure their noticing of syntactic structures. Learners in the experimental group were exposed to a blended learning experience, in which they took reading and writing classes at the university and collaboratively wrote three pieces of flash fiction (a complete story told in a hundred words), outside the classroom, online through GD, during eleven weeks. Learners in the control group took reading and writing classes at the university but did not practice collaborative writing. The first and last stories produced by the learners in the experimental group were analysed in terms of grammatical accuracy, operationalized as the number of grammar errors per hundred words (SOUSA, 2014), and lexical density, which refers to the relationship between the number of words produced with lexical properties and the number of words produced with grammatical properties (WEISSHEIMER, 2007; MEHNERT, 1998). Additionally, learners in the experimental group answered an online questionnaire on the blended learning experience they were exposed to. The quantitative results showed that the collaborative task led to the production of more lexically dense texts over the 11 weeks. The noticing and grammatical accuracy results were different from what we expected; however, they provide us with insights on measurement issues, in the case of noticing, and on the participants‟ positive attitude towards collaborative writing with flash fiction. The qualitative results also shed light on the usefulness of computer-mediated collaborative writing in L2 learning.

Estratégias de trabalho com blogs no ensino de geometria em turmas de 5° ano do ensino fundamental

This paper presents a survey conducted through collaborative work, which took place in a suburb school in the city of Uberlandia-MG. The research is characterized as case study and has a qualitative approach. Had the objective to look for different strategies of teaching and learning through the use of technology in pedagogical practice. Regarding the methodology in this research, we analyzed the work with the support of blogs, whose pages were used for student records and discussions directed to the geometry content. The students who were attending the fifth (5th) year of elementary school were invited to participate in this project. However, the research subjects were only those students who accepted the invitation to participate in the study through statement signed by parents. The project was developed with 30 students in the second half of 2014 and another 30 in the first half of 2015. The physical space at school, where most of the project activities were done was at the computer lab. In the process of compiling the data, at school, the following instruments were used: field notes produced by the entire project team, photographs and footage of the activities produced in the computer lab and in classroom (recorded by the research team) questionnaires, interviews, virtual space records: the blogs. The results of this research mainly focused on the analysis of the fifth year student‟s productions records in blogs. Regarding the conclusion, the research has shown that blogs, software and differentiated dynamic studies attracted the student‟s attention, leaving them mostly instigated by the unknown. Gradually, students built their own knowledge from their mistakes and successes. The entire work process enabled the computer lab to be an environment that is used not just to solving computerized and tedious drills. The blogs production work in groups, developed in students the reading and writing of both the mother language as symbols and mathematical nomenclature. The interaction between students became noticeable throughout the project, since it provided the student‟s personal growth, respect, tolerance and mutual cooperation. In this sense, we concluded that the project greatly contributed to the students' literacy process in the mother language, mathematics and computer literacy.

DojoIBL: Nurturing Communities of Inquiry

Demo paper presented at EC-TEL 2016