Anonymous Feedback Using Digital Walls: A Case Study

A common problem faced by many language teachers is students’ fear from speaking in front of the whole class and making mistakes. Research showed that reticence to participate in class may influence students’ language learning who may miss important opportunities for correction. This paper reports on students’ reactions to the use of digital walls to provide anonymous oral feedback and to maximize students’ participation. The students engaged in answering three-minute instructor-posed questions on their mobile devices using an application called Quick fire as found on www.spiral.ac. The anonymous answers were displayed instantaneously on the smartboard which allowed the instructor to provide the students with real-time feedback. The students answered 14 questions after eight weeks of instruction. At the end of the project, the students were invited to focus group discussions in order to delve into their opinions about using digital walls for providing feedback and encouraging class participation. Qualitative analysis of the students’ comments indicated that they had a generally positive experience and that anonymous posting can foster students’ engagement

Hungry for content: How the COVID-19 pandemic changed media usage in the Middle East and North Africa

While the uprisings during the Arab Spring had a significant influence on the adoption of technology and its insertion into peoples' daily lives, the COVID-19 pandemic has been paramount to the new disruptions in the media landscape, provoking accelerated changes as well as novel relations between social actors on mediatised platforms. Whereas the first paradigm shift with media usage can be found in the adoption of the internet and user-generated content on media platforms, the second paradigm shift observed at the time of the pandemic is an acceleration of media consumption, as well as interwoven relations between work and play on mediatised platforms, creating both solidarity and distance between the users of digital content. The pandemic marks a new technological milestone in audiences’ media usage and habits, one that has thus far been both positive - through the interconnectedness and agency - and negative - because of a lack of access for some - for cultural diversity and intercultural relations. The adoption of mobile internet skyrocketed in the region, and some countries, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have ranked among the countries with the highest penetration rates globally for platforms such as Facebook and YouTube

Information Encoding/Decoding using the Memory Effect in Fractional-order Capacitive Devices

In this study, we show that the discharge voltage pattern of a fractional-order supercapacitor from the same initial steady-state voltage into a constant resistor is dependent on the past charging voltage profile. The charging voltage was designed to follow a power-law function, i.e. $v_c(t)=V_{cc} \left( {t}/{t_{ss}}\right)^p \;(0<t \leqslant t_{ss})$, in which $t_{ss}$ (charging time duration between zero voltage to the terminal voltage $V_{cc}$) and $p$ ($0<p<1$) act as two variable parameters. We used this history-dependence of the dynamic behavior of the device to uniquely retrieve information pre-coded in the charging waveform pattern. Furthermore, we provide an analytical model based on fractional calculus that explains phenomenologically the information storage mechanism. The use of this intrinsic material memory effect may lead to new types of methods for information storage and retrieval.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Submitted on Jan 28, 2021 to ACS Applied Electronic Materials - Manuscript ID: el-2021-00092

Possibility of information encoding/decoding using the memory effect in fractional-order capacitive devices

In this study, we show that the discharge voltage pattern of a supercapacitor exhibiting fractional-order behavior from the same initial steady-state voltage into a constant resistor is dependent on the past charging voltage profile. The charging voltage was designed to follow a power-law function, i.e. [Formula: see text], in which [Formula: see text] (charging time duration between zero voltage to the terminal voltage [Formula: see text]) and p ([Formula: see text]) act as two variable parameters. We used this history-dependence of the dynamic behavior of the device to uniquely retrieve information pre-coded in the charging waveform pattern. Furthermore, we provide an analytical model based on fractional calculus that explains phenomenologically the information storage mechanism. The use of this intrinsic material memory effect may lead to new types of methods for information storage and retrieval

Novas tecnologias, ferramentas inovadoras na promoção de um serviço : o caso da Meet West

Este relatório apresenta meu estágio efetuado na empresa de eventos Meet West, em Lisboa. Falaremos sobre o papel dos media sociais, as novas tecnologias, mas também da empresa em si e dos seus concorrentes. Em seguida, tentaremos responder à pergunta: ‘Em que medida as redes sociais ajudam a comunicação de uma empresa? ’. Serão utilizados dados recolhidos e analisados para chegar à algumas conclusões ou hipóteses.This report presents my internship in the event company West Meet in Lisbon. We will talk about the role of social media, new technologies, but also about the company itself and its competitors. We will then try to answer the question: 'To what extent social networks help the communication of a company? '. Collected data will be used and analyzed to have some conclusions or hypotheses

On the Electrochemical Discharges for Nanoparticles Synthesis

The electrochemical discharge phenomenon is a high current density electrochemical process with intrinsic physicochemical properties suitable for the synthesis of nanosized materials. At this mesoscopic range of physics, matter takes on drastically new properties and activities different from its bulk counterpart, which explains the dynamic research activity in building nano-structures. This thesis focuses on the macroscopic and microscopic descriptions of the electrochemical discharges and on the application of the phenomenon for the synthesis of nanoparticles. It starts by establishing the leading variables to control the process from the perspective of entropy production. The nonequilibrium thermodynamics analysis is successfully adapted to the process to extract a global expression for its entropy balance. Based on the excess entropy production in the system, the conjugated thermal and electrochemical fluxes and forces are the hierarchically top constraints affecting the process and its stability. This approach is supported by experimental evidences on the dynamic analysis of the electrochemical system which is performed through a designed wavelet-based signal processing algorithm. The gas film, covering and insulating the electrode during the process from the rest of the solution, has a life-time and building-time which are respectively an increasing and decreasing positive definite functions of the applied terminal voltage and the bulk temperature. With the successful synthesis of nickel and platinum nanoparticles, characterized morphologically, chemically and electrochemically, the second part of this thesis presents a comprehensive methodological procedure to apply the process in nanoparticles manufacturing. Two synthesis mechanisms of nano-materials by the electrochemical discharges and supported by the experiment are treated in detail. The first one involves the continuous competition of direct reduction of metal ions by the hydrated electron, e^–_{aq}, the hydrogen radical, H·, and secondary generated species, versus the back reaction of oxidation by the hydroxide radical OH·. The second mechanism is based on electrode sputtering physics by which the positively charged ions are accelerated in the gas film gap and strike the outermost atoms at the electrode surface to be diffused afterwards in the bulk solution. Zero-valent atoms will then undergo time-dependent nucleation and crystal growth processes to form colloidal suspension of nano-sized particles in the bulk solution. The performances of the synthesized nickel oxide nano-materials by electrochemical discharges as supercapacitors for energy storage applications are investigated and discussed. It is shown that the pseudocapacitance behavior and consequently the energy and power densities are size-dependent

Le Web arabe à succès : une étude empirique d'un espace médiatique émergent

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Time-Domain and Frequency-Domain Mappings of Voltage-to-Charge and Charge-to-Voltage in Capacitive Devices

In this work, we aim to show that there are generally four possible mapping functions that can be used to map the time-domain or frequency-domain representations of an applied voltage input to the resulting time-domain or frequency-domain electrical charge output; i.e. when the capacitive device is voltage-charged. Alternatively, there are four more possible combinations when the device is current-charged. The dual relationship between each pair of functions for the case of voltage or charge input are provided in terms of single or double Fourier transforms. All eight system functions coincide with each other if and only if a constant time- and frequency-independent capacitance is considered