Using the World Wide Web to revolutionise technology transfer and training in the water and wastewater industries

Industry professionals of the near future will be supported by an IT infrastructure that enables them to complete a task by drawing on resources and people with expertise anywhere in the world, and access to knowledge through specific training programs that address the task requirements. The increasing uptake of new technologies enables information to reach a diverse population and to provide flexible learning environments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This paper examines one of the key areas where the World Wide Web will impact on the water and wastewater industries, namely technology transfer and training. The authors will present their experiences of developing online training courses for wastewater industry professionals over the last two years. The perspective is that of two people working at the coalface.

História da Arte na World Wide Web

in Varia, Revista do IHA, N.3 (2007), pp.328-331

História da Arte na World Wide Web (II)

in Varia, Revista do IHA, N.4 (2007), pp.379-382

Future trends of the World Wide Web in the food and beverage sector in Spain

Extended abstract.

Message Integrity in the World Wide Web: Use of Nested Hash Function and a Fast Stream Cipher

The focus of this work is to provide authentication and confidentiality of messages in a swift and cost effective manner to suit the fast growing Internet applications. A nested hash function with lower computational and storage demands is designed with a view to providing authentication as also to encrypt the message as well as the hash code using a fast stream cipher MAJE4 with a variable key size of 128-bit or 256-bit for achieving confidentiality. Both nested Hash function and MAJE4 stream cipher algorithm use primitive computational operators commonly found in microprocessors; this makes the method simple and fast to implement both in hardware and software. Since the memory requirement is less, it can be used for handheld devices for security purposes.

The End of the World Wide Web

Nothing lasts forever. The World Wide Web was an essential part of life for much of humantiy in the early 21st century, but these days few people even remember that it existed. Members of the Web Science research group will present several possible scenarios for how the Web, as we know it, could cease to be. This will be followed by an open discussion about the future we want for the Web and what Web Science should be doing today to help make that future happen, or at least avoid some of the bad ones.

El World Wide Web como herramienta en la realización, evaluación y publicación de cursos educativos.

Impulsar cursos educativos utilizando como herramienta el World Wide Web. Analizar las formas en que los alumnos interactúan con el curso. Dar a conocer y explotar el momento actual de las telecomunicaciones e informática en la acción educativa y de esta manera analizar los beneficios que las mismas ofrecen para una educación enfocada en las Nuevas Tecnologías. Reflexionar sobre la organización y promoción de programas de enseñanza y formación a través de páginas Web. Dar a conocer el impacto de los nuevos canales de la comunicación en la enseñanza, principalmente Internet, desde el punto de vista pedagógico y didáctico. Construir páginas World Wide Web desarrollándose de acuerdo a las necesidades de los usuarios y así lograr un aprendizaje constructivista y colaborativo por medio de esta herramienta. Evaluar la página para realizar las modificaciones pertinentes para próximos cursos utilizando esta herramienta. Impulsar el uso de las páginas Web como una herramienta educativa para la realización y publicación de cursos. En los campos de uso del ordenador, se establecen dos hipótesis básicas: 1. Desde la perspectiva del profesor, nos encontramos con que, en general, es bastante reacio a utilizar una herramienta hipertextual como herramienta educativa. 2. Desde el punto de vista del alumno puede predecirse la poca utilidad de la herramienta, si no se motiva correctamente para su uso. Se elabora un curso titulado 'Diseño de Software Educativo', utilizando el lenguaje HTML. Esta herramienta permite a los docentes desarrollar con facilidad su propio software educativo, así como el desarrollo de contenidos educativos. Para evaluar la herramienta, se seleccionó una muestra formada por alumnos de la Universidad de Salamanca y de la Universidad Chontalpa del Estado de Tabasco en México. Todos tenían en común que cursaban la asignatura de Nuevas Tecnologías. La investigación se planteó en el marco de la acción descriptiva de estudio transversal, basada en la aplicación de la herramienta didáctica hipertextual. En cuanto al método, se trata de un análisis descriptivo y valorativo sobre el uso de dicha herramienta por los alumnos de la muestra seleccionada. Existe muy buena predisposición de los docentes para trabajar con el ordenador como herramienta didáctica. Los docentes se manifestaron positivamente ante la propuesta de trabajar con software educativo en el desarrollo de sus clases. Sobre todo, porque se trata de material didáctico del que no disponían y porque consideran que es un elemento motivador para los alumnos. Se mostraron además muy interesados no sólo en seguir utilizando este material, sino también otros que pudieran sobrevenir de futuros trabajos en común. Los alumnos tienen una actitud positiva frente al uso del ordenador en clases que no son de Computación. Da cuenta de ello el interés que mostraron no sólo ante la propuesta de trabajar con ordenadores, sino también durante el trabajo con el hipertexto.

Publicación escolar en la World Wide Web.

Este proyecto surge como necesidad de conocer y utilizar las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación. Su objetivo es el diseño y mantenimiento de una publicación escolar en Internet como vehículo de expresión y comunicación. La metodología consiste en el trabajo en grupo, desarrollando un trabajo autónomo para buscar los contenidos y buscar materiales. Tiene como actividades sesiones de navegación, diseño de páginas web, contactar con instituciones públicas, privadas y organismos no gubernamentales, y actividades de coordinación y publicidad del proyecto. La evaluación resulta positiva, pues este proyecto ha supuesto a los alumnos su primer contacto con Internet, y son capaces de utilizar algunos de sus servicios. Destaca el resultado obtenido del trabajo en grupo de los alumnos y del grado de colaboración alcanzado entre ellos, así como su disponibilidad para trabajar.

Animação bidimensional para World Wide Web baseada em autômatos finitos

Este trabalho aplica a Teoria de Autômatos na proposição de uma nova alternativa para prover animações 2D na World Wide Web, verificando as contribuições alcançadas para as questões relacionadas ao espaço de armazenamento, reutilização e manutenção do conteúdo e suporte à recuperação de informação. Para este objetivo, é proposto o modelo AGA (Animação Gráfica baseada em Autômatos Finitos), o qual especifica a animação a partir de uma estrutura baseada em autômatos finitos com saída. Esse modelo é definido de tal forma que os mesmos autômatos utilizados na especificação, ao serem simulados, realizam o controle da animação durante a apresentação. O modelo AGA apresenta características que favorecem a redução do espaço de armazenamento da animação, provêem suporte à recuperação de informação, colaboram com a reutilização e manutenção do conteúdo das animações. Uma implementação multiplataforma foi desenvolvida para apresentar animações especificadas nesse modelo na Web. Essa implementação proporciona a elaboração de consultas ao conteúdo da animação, além dos recursos tradicionais de reprodução. A partir dessa implementação, o AGA foi submetido a um estudo de caso prático, onde os resultados obtidos são comparados com o produzidos pelo GIF (Graphic Interchange Format). Esse comparativo demonstra que o AGA possui várias vantagens em relação à estrutura adotada pelo GIF. O modelo AGA é estendido utilizando autômatos temporizados para prover restrições temporais às especificações e também ampliar as funcionalidades de interação com o observador da animação. Essa extensão, chamada de modelo AGA-S (Animação Gráfica baseada em Autômatos Temporizados Sincronizados), é definida a partir do autômato temporizado proposto por Alur e Dill. Para esse modelo, é definida uma operação formal para sincronização dos componentes da animação e adicionada uma estrutura baseada em autômatos finitos para controlar a interação do observador com a animação.

Interfaces culturais de Mallarmé à World Wide Web

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Breast cancer on the world wide web: cross sectional survey of quality of information and popularity of websites.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the characteristics of popular breast cancer related websites and whether more popular sites are of higher quality. DESIGN: The search engine Google was used to generate a list of websites about breast cancer. Google ranks search results by measures of link popularity---the number of links to a site from other sites. The top 200 sites returned in response to the query "breast cancer" were divided into "more popular" and "less popular" subgroups by three different measures of link popularity: Google rank and number of links reported independently by Google and by AltaVista (another search engine). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Type and quality of content. RESULTS: More popular sites according to Google rank were more likely than less popular ones to contain information on ongoing clinical trials (27% v 12%, P=0.01 ), results of trials (12% v 3%, P=0.02), and opportunities for psychosocial adjustment (48% v 23%, P<0.01). These characteristics were also associated with higher number of links as reported by Google and AltaVista. More popular sites by number of linking sites were also more likely to provide updates on other breast cancer research, information on legislation and advocacy, and a message board service. Measures of quality such as display of authorship, attribution or references, currency of information, and disclosure did not differ between groups. CONCLUSIONS: Popularity of websites is associated with type rather than quality of content. Sites that include content correlated with popularity may best meet the public's desire for information about breast cancer.

MPEG-7 Based Image Retrieval on the World Wide Web

Due to the rapid growth of the number of digital media elements like image, video, audio, graphics on Internet, there is an increasing demand for effective search and retrieval techniques. Recently, many search engines have made image search as an option like Google, AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Freenet. In addition to this, Ditto, Picsearch, can search only the images on Internet. There are also other domain specific search engines available for graphics and clip art, audio, video, educational images, artwork, stock photos, science and nature [www.faganfinder.com/img]. These entire search engines are directory based. They crawls the entire Internet and index all the images in certain categories. They do not display the images in any particular order with respect to the time and context. With the availability of MPEG-7, a standard for describing multimedia content, it is now possible to store the images with its metadata in a structured format. This helps in searching and retrieving the images. The MPEG-7 standard uses XML to describe the content of multimedia information objects. These objects will have metadata information in the form of MPEG-7 or any other similar format associated with them. It can be used in different ways to search the objects. In this paper we propose a system, which can do content based image retrieval on the World Wide Web. It displays the result in user-defined order.

Dynamic data retrieval on the World Wide Web

Methods for accessing data on the Web have been the focus of active research over the past few years. In this thesis we propose a method for representing Web sites as data sources. We designed a Data Extractor data retrieval solution that allows us to define queries to Web sites and process resulting data sets. Data Extractor is being integrated into the MSemODB heterogeneous database management system. With its help database queries can be distributed over both local and Web data sources within MSemODB framework. ^ Data Extractor treats Web sites as data sources, controlling query execution and data retrieval. It works as an intermediary between the applications and the sites. Data Extractor utilizes a twofold “custom wrapper” approach for information retrieval. Wrappers for the majority of sites are easily built using a powerful and expressive scripting language, while complex cases are processed using Java-based wrappers that utilize specially designed library of data retrieval, parsing and Web access routines. In addition to wrapper development we thoroughly investigate issues associated with Web site selection, analysis and processing. ^ Data Extractor is designed to act as a data retrieval server, as well as an embedded data retrieval solution. We also use it to create mobile agents that are shipped over the Internet to the client's computer to perform data retrieval on behalf of the user. This approach allows Data Extractor to distribute and scale well. ^ This study confirms feasibility of building custom wrappers for Web sites. This approach provides accuracy of data retrieval, and power and flexibility in handling of complex cases. ^