Distributed Simulation of Heterogeneous and Real-time Systems

This work describes a framework for distributed simulation of cyber-physical systems (CPS). Modern CPS comprise large numbers of heterogeneous components, typically designed in very different tools and languages that are not or not easily composeable. Evaluating such large systems requires tools that integrate all components in a systematic, well-defined manner. This work leverages existing frameworks to facilitate the integration offers validation by simulation. A framework for distributed simulation is the IEEE High-Level Architecture (HLA) compliant tool CERTI, which provides the infrastructure for co-simulation of models in various simulation environments as well as hardware components. We use CERTI in combination with Ptolemy II, an environment for modeling and simulating heterogeneous systems. In particular, we focus on models of a CPS, including the physical dynamics of a plant, the software that controls the plant, and the network that enables the communication between controllers. We describe the Ptolemy extensions for the interaction with HLA and demonstrate the approach on a flight control system simulation

If it’s about me, why do it without me? : genuine student engagement in school cyberbullying education

This study reports on a three-year group randomized controlled trial, the Cyber Friendly Schools Project (CFSP), aimed to reduce cyberbullying among grade 8 students during 2010-2012. In each year, 14-15 year old student ‘cyber’ leaders acted as catalysts to develop and implement whole-school activities to reduce cyberbullying-related harms. This paper examines students’ leadership experiences and the effectiveness of their training and intervention efforts. A mixed methods research design comprising interviews and questionnaires was used to collect data from 225 grade 10 students at the end of their leadership years (2010 & 2011). Four to six cyber leaders were recruited from each of the 19 intervention schools involved in each year of the study. The cyber leaders reported high self-efficacy post-training, felt their intervention efforts made a difference, and experienced a sense of agency, belonging and competence when given opportunities for authentic leadership. They identified key barriers and enablers to achieving desired outcomes. Students greatly valued having their voices heard. Their engagement in the development and delivery of whole-school strategies allowed them to contribute to and enhance efforts to promote their peers’ mental health and wellbeing. However, a lack of support from school staff limits students’ effectiveness as changeenablers.peer-reviewe

Young people's views regarding participation in mental health and wellbeing research through social media

Social media is a central component in the lives of many young people, and provides innovative potential to conduct research among this population. Ethical issues around online research have been subject to much debate, yet young people have seldom been consulted to provide a youth perspective and voice. Eight (8) focus groups involving 48 Grade 9 Western Australian secondary school students aged 13-14 years were held in 2012, to investigate how young people perceive the feasibility and acceptability of social media when used as a research tool to investigate various issues relevant to their mental health and wellbeing. Whilst young people recognise many benefits of researchers using social media in this way, such as its relevance, innovation and accessibility, there were salient issues of privacy, consent, and practicality that require careful negotiation. There is a need for continued exploration and scientific debate of the moral and ethical implications of using social media for research, to help ensure this is employed in an appropriate and effective way that is respectful of and sensitive to the needs and views of young peoplepeer-reviewe

Concurrent Session, Warm Rooms in a Cold House: Campus Environments for Student Success

Participants will engage with findings and implications of two research projects that explore environments promoting academic and personal success among students of color in a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). These environments can be described as cultural counterspaces that, like the warm room in a cold house, provide alternative opportunities for students of color to be comfortable and supported within an otherwise challenging campus environment. Participants will identify key concepts, programs, and practices that promote the success of underrepresented students

A Software-Defined Solution for Managing Fog Computing Resources in Sensor Networks

The fast growth of Internet-connected embedded devices demands for new capabilities at the network edge. These new capabilities are local processing, fast communications, and resource virtualization. The current work aims to address the previous capabilities by designing and deploying a new proposal, which offers on-demand activation of offline IoT fog computing assets via a Software Defined Networking (SDN) based solution combined with containerization and sensor virtualization. We present and discuss performance and functional outcomes from emulated tests made on our proposal. Analysing the performance results, the system latency has two parts. The first part is about the delay induced by limitations on the networking resources. The second part of the system latency is due to the on-demand activation of the required processing resources, which are initially powered off towards a more sustainable system operation. In addition, analysing the functional results, when a real IoT protocol is used, we evidence our proposal viability to be deployed with the necessary orchestration in distributed scenarios involving embedded devices, actuators, controllers, and brokers at the network edge.Comment: 8 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables, 16 reference

Beats & Units: A story-game design framework

There are no recipes or rules to develop games, any more than there are to develop stories. When we try to define a game system that not only has to create a balanced experience, but also has to tell a story, which can engage players in creating empathy and meaning, everything gets complicated. We faced this problem when we had to develop a serious game with the goal of promoting discussion and awareness among children around nutrition: FlavourGame. In this regard, we needed not only to design game mechanics that would feel complete and progressive, but also to create a narrative that provided meaning to the game experience, in order to ensure an underlying layer to the context of nutrition. For that, we had to develop a framework that could help the team in guiding the telling of the story while designing the progression of the game. In this article, we present the full framework as a story-game design approach to be employed in the creation of serious narrative games

Uso y significado de las cuentas Tairona

Uso y significado de las cuentas Tairona Desde las primeras excavaciones arqueológicas que se realizaron en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta en 1922, se puso de manifiesto la abundancia de cuentas de collar en piedra, que con el tiempo han venido a caracterizar esta región. Fabricadas en cuarzo, jaspe, chert y riolita entre muchos otros materiales, sus colores son diversos: cristal de roca transparente, diferentes tonos de blanco, rojo, naranja, morado y verde; cuentas veteadas como ágatas, cornalinas y calcedonias. Su forma, al igual que su tamaño, es muy variada: cuentas tubulares, discoidales, redondas, ovoidales, figuras humanas y animales (sapos, aves, gusanillos). &nbsp

Hydrodynamic limit for a boundary driven super-diffusive symmetric exclusion

We study the hydrodynamic limit for a model of symmetric exclusion processes with heavy-tailed long jumps and in contact with infinitely extended reservoirs. We show how the corresponding hydrodynamic equations are affected by the parameters defining the model. The hydrodynamic equations are characterized by a class of super-diffusive operators that are given by the regional fractional Laplacian with some additional reaction terms and various boundary conditions. This work solves some questions left open in \cite{BJGO2} about the same model

Network Latency and Packet Delay Variation in Cyber-physical Systems

The problem addressed in this paper is the limitation imposed by network elements, especially Ethernet elements, on the real-time performance of time-critical systems. Most current network elements are concerned only with data integrity, connection, and throughput with no mechanism for enforcing temporal semantics. Existing safety-critical applications and other applications in industry require varying degrees of control over system-wide temporal semantics. In addition, there are emerging commercial applications that require or will benefit from tighter enforcement of temporal semantics in network elements than is currently possible. This paper examines these applications and requirements and suggests possible approaches to imposing temporal semantics on networks. Model-based design and simulation is used to evaluate the effects of network limitations on time-critical systems

Resposta de crotalaria juncea a exposição ao niguel

Orientador: Ricardo Antunes de AzevedoTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de BiologiaResumo: A presença de metais pesados no ambiente é atualmente, um dos principais problemas de contaminação ambiental, uma vez que, os metais liberados no ambiente contaminam o solo e entram na cadeia alimentar através das plantas, causando efeitos tóxicos a curto e a longo prazo aos animais e seres humanos. No caso do metal pesado Níquel (Ni), foi constatado que a sua presença nas plantas pode diminuir o crescimento, reduzir a taxa de fotossíntese e provocar alterações, tanto nas atividades enzimáticas quanto metabólicas.Pouca informação está disponível na literatura, com referência a resposta antioxidante das plantas à expressão a esse metal. Neste sentido, os objetivos deste trabalho foram realizar diferentes ensaios para avaliar o efeito fitotóxico do Ni em plântulas de C. juncea. Neste estudo foram analisados parâmetros bioquímicos relativos à atividade das enzimas antioxidantes, Catalase (CAT), Superóxido Dismutase (SOD) e Glutationa Redutase (GR). Constatou-se que, não houve alteração da atividade GR e CAT nas raízes. Entretanto, atividades destas enzimas apresentaram aumento significativo na parte aérea. O aumento na atividade da GR, na parte aérea, pode ser explicado pelo fato de ser o ciclo Halliwell-Asada o principal mecanismo que age na desintoxicação de Espécies Ativas de Oxigênio. Quanto à atividade da SOD, quando comparados ambos tecidos, foi constatado que na parte aérea foi pouco alterada, entretanto, a atividade da SOD foi estimulada nas raízes na presença do Ni. Para aumentar a precisão dos resultados, quantificou-se pela técnica de Fluorescência de Raios X, a concentração de NiCl2 e o seu efeito na absorção de nutrientes nas plântulas de crotalaria. Nesta análise, observou-se o acúmulo do metal nas raízes e baixa translocação para a parte aérea. Também foi analisada a concentração de Malonaldeído (MDA) na parte aérea de plântulas de C. juncea, sendo constatada, a ocorrência de peroxidação lipídica na presença do Ni. Finalmente, determinou-se o efeito do Ni sobre as concentrações de aminoácidos solúveis em raízes e na parte aérea, como estratégia desta planta para superar o efeito do Ni , não tendo sido observadas variações significativas nas concentrações dos mesmos com os diferentes tratamentos com Ni. Palavra¿Chave: Aminoácidos, Atividade Enzimática, Crotalária, Fitotoxicidade, Níquel, Poluição AmbientalAbstract: The contamination of the environment with heavy metals has become a world-wide problem. Heavy metals can have direct effects on human health and decreases agricultural yields. In the presence of Nickel (Ni), plant growth and the net photosynthetic rate have been shown to be significantly reduced, even at low concentrations. Moreover, Ni can also inhibit the activity of several groups of enzymes and metabolism. The effects of the Ni on the activies of the antioxidant enzymes and metabolism were investigated in C.juncea seedlings. Enzymatic assays for Catalase (CAT) Glutathione Reductase (GR) and Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) were carried out. Response patterns for CAT and GR were similar with low values in the roots and increased activity in the shoots. A significant increase in CAT and GR activity in the shoots suggests that these enzymes play a role in the detoxification process, of reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by the induced Ni stress, possibly by subquesent dismutase. On the other hand, the activity of SOD was stimulated in the roots, and decreased in the shoots. To gain insight into the response of C. juncea seedlings to the oxidative damage induced by excess Ni, were conducted studies of Malondialdehyde (MDA). It was evident that Ni induced an increase an lipid peroxidation in the shoots during the studied period. The Ni concentration in shoots and roots was determined for C. juncea and demonstrated an increase in the concentration of Ni in the roots, however the shoots did not present an accumulation. Further experiments were carried out on total free amino acids. It was observed that Ni treatment did not cause any change in the accumulation of total free amino acids in the roots. The results suggest that in C. juncea seedlings did not exhibit any major variation following Ni treatment. Key words: Antioxidant enzymes, Amino acids, C. juncea, Nickel, Environmental PollutionDoutoradoGenetica Vegetal e MelhoramentoDoutor em Genetica e Biologia Molecula