Program analysis and evaluation using QUIMERA

During last years, a new challenge rose up inside the programming communities: the programming contests. Programming contests can vary slightly in the rules but all of them are intended to assess the competitor skills concerning the ability to solve problems using a computer. These contests raise up three kind of challenges: to create a nice problem statement (for the members of the scientific committee); to solve the problem in a good way (for the programmers); to find a fair way to assess the results (for the judges). This paper presents a web-based application, QUIMERA intended to be a full programming-contest management system, as well as an automatic judge. Besides the traditional dynamic approach for program evaluation, QUIMERA still provides static analysis of the program for a more fine assessment of solutions. Static analysis takes profit from the technology developed for compilers and language-based tools and is supported by source code analysis and software metrics.(undefined

Partial correctness and continuous integration in computer supported education

In this paper we support the idea that students and teachers will benefit from a computer-based system that assesses programming exercises and provide immediate and detailed feedback: students would be able to evolve in the right direction and teachers would follow and assess more fairly their students. This assessment should outperform the typical right/wrong evaluation returned by existing tools, allowing for a flexible partial evaluation. Moreover, we adopt a concept from Agile Development, the Continuous Integration (CI), to improve students’ effectiveness. The applicability of CI reflects a better monitoring by the teams and their individual members, also providing the ability to improve the speed of the development. Besides the description of the capabilities that we require from an Automatic Grading System (AGS), we discuss iQuimera, an improved AGS that we are working on, that implements our teaching/learning principles.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Functional hubs in mild cognitive impairment

We investigate how hubs of functional brain networks are modified as a result of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition causing a slight but noticeable decline in cognitive abilities, which sometimes precedes the onset of Alzheimer's disease. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate the functional brain networks of a group of patients suffering from MCI and a control group of healthy subjects, during the execution of a short-term memory task. Couplings between brain sites were evaluated using synchronization likelihood, from which a network of functional interdependencies was constructed and the centrality, i.e. importance, of their nodes was quantified. The results showed that, with respect to healthy controls, MCI patients were associated with decreases and increases in hub centrality respectively in occipital and central scalp regions, supporting the hypothesis that MCI modifies functional brain network topology, leading to more random structures

IPEC Evaluation ”Combating the Worst forms of Child Labour in Ecuador. Support to the Time

Bound Programme on the worst forms of child labour in Ecuador.” ECU/03/P50/USA An independent mid-term evaluation by an external consultan

The sustainability of surfing tourism destinations :a case study of Peniche, Portugal

The purpose of this study is to provide a detailed description of the current state of the surfing tourism industry in Peniche, Portugal, and to perform a sustainability-oriented analysis of its development. Also, this thesis represents an attempt to contribute to the overall field of surfing tourism, specifically to a better understanding of the implications of this form of tourism’s development in developed country settings. A thorough review of the literature on surfing tourism was performed, which suggested that a proper contribution to the understanding of the issues surrounding the sustainability of surfing tourism destinations should be based on the perceptions of local stakeholders. As such, a Social Constructivist approach to qualitative research was employed during the analysis of twenty-four semi-structured interviews with local surfers and business owners of the county of Peniche. The analysis of the stakeholders’ main perceptions and concerns regarding surfing tourism suggested that there currently are a few threats to the sustainability of the industry in Peniche. Respondents have identified an “uncontrolled” growth of the local surfing tourism industry, which has been increasingly responsible for changes on both the commercial and recreational contexts, which in turn have caused a few economic, sociocultural and environmental impacts on the destination. The identified growth has been propelled by promotional efforts made by public and private entities, but the results suggest that there has not been an adequate investment in regulatory, infrastructural and logistical support for the growth of the industry that has resulted. Stemming from this realization, a set of recommendations for the implementation of innovative sustainability practices is presented, based on the main challenges to the industry’s future development pointed out by respondents. It is argued that such practices can turn Peniche into a benchmark for the sustainability of surfing tourism in destinations of developed nations, through the overcoming of future environmental, sociocultural, and economic challenges

Portugal’s rising research in architecture and urbanism: the influence of international research centers and authors

In the early 1960s, Portugal saw a rise in scientific research on architecture and urbanism at the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil; LNEC), fundamental to support the Government in establishing a national program for housing, which continued until the fall of the Dictatorship in 1974. Lacking tradition in scientific studies in architecture and urbanism, a group of young architects with knowledge of references from international researchers and research centers gathered encouragement and opportunities to develop their own research works and methodologies and, later, to question the application of such scientific methods. This article aims to identify and discuss the strategies and methodologies explored to develop these seminal researches, retrieving and reappraising LNEC’s archived documents and oral testimonials from former researchers. We aim at exposing the foundations of Portuguese scientific research on architecture and urbanism and its contributions to an international audienceinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Dificuldades de aprendizagem nos manuais e materiais didáticos em Portugal

This article presents the most relevant findings from a study carried out at the Department of Didactics and School Planning of the University of Santiago de Compostela for the purpose of determining whether primary school textbooks widely used in Portuguese schools provide adequate proposals and resources for students with learning difficulties. The study methodology consisted of a content analysis. For this purpose, we elaborated a guide-tool for identifying the strategies and resources contained within textbooks and didactic materials. The guide includes a total of 10 dimensions or analysis blocks that correspond to the study’s main points of inquiry. A total of 21 textbooks were assessed, of which 18 included a handbook for using “note cards”. Before presenting how the evaluation guide-tool was elaborated and the research findings, we will briefly describe the main aspects that should characterize attention to learning difficulties in textbooks and curricular materials as we see it. Our findings show that the materials analysed are limited in terms of strategies and resources for fostering attention to students with learning difficulties. The activities and proposals presented in these materials do little to help teachers address this group of students and do not provide alternatives for adapting work proposals. The study also provides some recommendations regarding the measures to be taken by institutions and professionals involved in the process of designing and using school textbooksEste artigo apresenta os resultados mais relevantes obtidos a partir de um estudo realizado no Departamento de Didática e Planeamento Escolar da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela com a finalidade de determinar se os manuais escolares do primeiro ciclo do ensino básico utilizados nas escolas portuguesas apresentam propostas e recursos adequados para os alunos com dificuldades de aprendizagem. A metodologia do estudo consistiu numa análise de conteúdo. Para esse efeito, foi elaborado como instrumento de avaliação uma guia para identificar as estratégias e os recursos contidos dentro de livros e materiais didáticos. A guia inclui um total de oito dimensões ou blocos de análise que correspondem aos principais pontos de investigação do estudo. Foram avaliados 21 manuais escolares, dos quais dezoito incluíam um livro de fichas com atividades de consolidação das aprendizagens. Antes de apresentar a forma como a guia de avaliação foi elaborada e os resultados da investigação, vamos descrever brevemente os principais aspectos que devem constar nos manuais e livros de atividades de forma a ter em atenção os alunos com dificuldades de aprendizagem. Os nossos resultados mostram que os materiais analisados são limitados em termos de estratégias e recursos para auxiliar a aquisição do conhecimento de alunos com dificuldades de aprendizagem. As atividades e propostas que as integram são insuficientes para auxiliar os professores a lidar com esse grupo de alunos e não oferecem alternativas para adaptar propostas de trabalho. O estudo também fornece algumas recomendações sobre as medidas a serem tomadas pelas instituições e profissionais envolvidos no processo de concepção e utilização de manuais escolaresS

Plagiarism detection: A tool survey and comparison

We illustrate the state of the art in software plagiarism detection tools by comparing their features and testing them against a wide range of source codes. The source codes were edited according to several types of plagiarism to show the tools accuracy at detecting each type. The decision to focus our research on plagiarism of programming languages is two fold: on one hand, it is a challenging case-study since programming languages impose a structured writing style; on the other hand, we are looking for the integration of such a tool in an Automatic-Grading System (AGS) developed to support teachers in the context of Programming courses. Besides the systematic characterisation of the underlying problem domain, the tools were surveyed with the objective of identifying the most successful approach in order to design the aimed plugin for our AGS.(undefined

Quality of Human-Computer Interaction : Self-Explanatory User Interfaces by Model-Driven Engineering

In Human-Computer Interaction, quality is an utopia. Despite all the design efforts, there are always uses and situations for which the user interface is not perfect. This thesis investigates self-explanatory user interfaces for improving the quality perceived by end users. The approach follows the principles of model-driven engineering. It consists in keeping the design models at runtime so that to dynamically enrich the user interface with a set of possible questions and answers. The questions are related to usage (for instance, "What's the purpose of this button?", "Why is this action not possible"?) as well as to design rationale (for instance, "Why are the items not alphabetically ordered?"). This thesis proposes a software infrastructure UsiExplain based on the UsiXML metamodels. An evaluation conducted on a case study related to a car shopping webiste confirms that the approach is relevant especially for usage questions. Design rationale will be further explored in the future.STAREn Interaction Homme-Machine, la qualité est une utopie : malgré toutes les précautions prises en conception, il existe toujours des utilisateurs et des situations d'usage pour lesquels l'Interface Homme-Machine (IHM) est imparfaite. Cette thèse explore l'auto-explication des IHM pour améliorer la qualité perçue par les utilisateurs. L'approche s'inscrit dans une Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles. Elle consiste à embarquer à l'exécution les modèles de conception pour dynamiquement augmenter l'IHM d'un ensemble de questions et de réponses. Les questions peuvent être relatives à l'utilisation de l'IHM (par exemple, "A quoi sert ce bouton ?", "Pourquoi telle action n'est pas possible ?) et à sa justification (par exemple, "Pourquoi les items ne sont-ils pas rangés par ordre alphabétique ?"). Cette thèse propose une infrastructure logicielle UsiExplain basée sur les méta-modèles UsiXML. L'évaluation sur un cas d'étude d'achat de voitures montre que l'approche est pertinente pour les questions d'utilisation de l'IHM. Elle ouvre des perspectives en justification de conception