Pl@ntWood: A computer-assisted identification tool for 110 species of Amazon trees based on wood anatomy

World interest in conservation of tropical forests has increased due to elevated rates of deforestation and climate change issues. Tropical forests are threatened by extensive agriculture and timber trade among other factors; thus, sustainable management and conservation of tropical tree species require reliable and user accessible identification tools. Although wood anatomical features provide a considerable amount of information, only a handful of experts are able to use it for plant species identification. Here, we propose an interactive tool, based on vector graphics, illustrating 96 states of 22 wood anatomical characters from 110 Amazonian tree species belonging to 34 families. Pl@ntWood is a graphical identification tool based on the IDAO (Identification des plantes Assistée par Ordinateur) system, a multimedia approach to plant identification. This system allows non-specialists to identify plants in a user-friendly interface while stimulating self-training in wood anatomy of tropical species. (Texte intégral

Measuring Cognitive Activities in Software Engineering

This paper presents an approach to the study of cognitive activities in collaborative software development. This approach has been developed by a multidisciplinary team made up of software engineers and cognitive psychologists. The basis of this approach is to improve our understanding of software development by observing professionals at work. The goal is to derive lines of conduct or good practices based on observations and analyses of the processes that are naturally used by software engineers. The strategy involved is derived from a standard approach in cognitive science. It is based on the videotaping of the activities of software engineers, transcription of the videos, coding of the transcription, defining categories from the coded episodes and defining cognitive behaviors or dialogs from the categories. This project presents two original contributions that make this approach generic in software engineering. The first contribution is the introduction of a formal hierarchical coding scheme, which will enable comparison of various types of observations. The second is the merging of psychological and statistical analysis approaches to build a cognitive model. The details of this new approach are illustrated with the initial data obtained from the analysis of technical review meetings

Estudo Anatômico Do Lenho Da Familia Bombacaceae Da América

Forty species of American Bombacaceae belonging to sixteen genera have been studied, in first order to separate the genera. The conclusion is an identification dichotomic key of the genera, based on anatomical characteristics of the wood. After anatomical descriptions, the authors comment the variations of the structure which have been observed and debated on relationship between generic taxonomy and wood anatomy. This paper is illustrated by the transversal, tangencial and radial photographs of one species of each genus.Neste trabalho os autores apresentam o estudo dos caracteres anatômicos de 40 espécies da família Bombacaceae da América. Para cada uma, são apresentadas descrições do gênero, características gerais, descrições anatômicas, comentários gerais sobre os gêneros, relação entre a densidade e coeficiente de flexibilidade das fibras, relação entre comprimento das fibras e espessura das paredes, uma tabela de diferenciação entre os gêneros, um quadro de diferenciação entreo tipo de parênquima, pontuações radiovasculares, filotaxia e tipo de sementes dos gêneros estudados. Atlas com 45 micro-fotografias ilustram o trabalho