Agents: a distributed client/server system for leaf cell generation

The Agents system generates the mask level layout of full custom CMOS, BICMOS, bipolar and mixed digital/analogue leaf cells. Leaf cells are subcircuits of a complexity comparable with SSI (Small Scale Integration) components such as small adders, counters or multiplexers. The system is formed by four server programs: the Placer, Router, Database and Broker. The Placer places components in a cell, the Router wires the circuits sent to it, the Database keeps all the information that is dependent upon the fabrication process, such as the design rules, and the Broker makes the services of the other servers available. These servers communicate over a computer network using the TCP/IP Internet Proto­col. The Placer server receives from its client the description and netlist of the circuit to be generated using EDIF (Electronic Design Interchange Format). The output to its client is the layout of the circuit (no virtual grid is used), again codified in EDIF. The concept of agents as software components which have the ability to communicate and cooperate with each other is at the heart of the Agents system. This concept is not only used at the higher level, for the four servers Placer, Router, Broker and Database, but as well at a lower level, inside the Router and Placer servers, where small rela­tively simple agents work together to accomplish complex tasks. These small agents are responsible for all the reasoning carried out by the two servers as they hold the basic inference routines and the knowledge needed by the servers. The key concept is that competence emerges out of the collective behaviour of a large number of rela­tively simple agents. In addition and integrated with these small agents, the system uses a genetic algorithm to improve components’ placement before routing

Automatic classification of cancer tumors using image annotations and ontologies

Information about cancer stage in a patient is crucial when clinicians assess treatment progress. Determining cancer stage is a process that takes into account the description, location, characteristics and possible metastasis of cancerous tumors in a patient. It should follow classification standards, such as TNM Classification of Malignant Tumors. However, in clinical practice, the implementation of this process can be tedious and error-prone and create uncertainty. In order to alleviate these problems, we intend to assist radiologists by providing a second opinion in the evaluation of cancer stage in patients. For doing this, SemanticWeb technologies, such as ontologies and reasoning, will be used to automatically classify cancer stages. This classification will use semantic annotations, made by radiologists (using the ePAD tool) and stored in the AIM format, and rules of an ontology representing the TNM standard. The whole process will be validated through a proof of concept with users from the Radiology Dept. of the Stanford University.National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPqCAPE

SEDA: Sistema para Exploração de Diretrizes de Acessibilidade

Atualmente milhões de indivíduos em todo o mundo enfrentam diariamente dificuldades devido à falta de recursos acessíveis para obterem informações. Tendo em mente esse problema foram criados diversos conjuntos de diretrizes de acessibilidade com o intuito de orientar, por meio de recomendações, a criação de programas e conteúdos web mais acessíveis. Entretanto, tais conjuntos de diretrizes geralmente estão relacionadas com definições genéricas de deficiências e muitas vezes é difícil identificar quais diretrizes são mais adequadas para certos tipos de deficiências. Este trabalho propõe o uso do sistema denominado SEDA (Sistema para Exploração de Diretrizes de Acessibilidade) para auxiliar tanto na identificação de deficiências, para as quais não foram criadas diretrizes de acessibilidade específicas, quanto na identificação dos limites existentes ao se associar diretrizes de acessibilidade a deficiências. Nós também apresentaremos resultados de um estudo de caso baseado em um protótipo, demonstrando que o sistema pode auxilia pesquisadores na exploração de diretrizes de acessibilidade e apontando algum problemas na ontologia de deficiências da Organização Mundial de Saúde

Personalization of gamification in collaborative learning contexts using ontologies

The design of collaborative learning (CL) scenarios that increase both students' learning and motivation is a challenge that the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) community has been addressing in the past few years. On one hand, CSCL design (i.e. scripts) has shown to be an effective approach to support meaningful interactions and better learning. On the other hand, scripted collaboration sometimes decrease motivation of students to participate in the CL process, which makes more difficult the use of group activities over time. To deal with the problem of motivation, researchers and educators are now looking at Gamification techniques to engage students. Gamification in education is a complex task that requires, from instructional designers, knowledge about game elements (such as leaderboards and point systems), game design (how to combine game elements) and their impact on motivation and learning. To help the adequate use of gamification in collaborative learning activities we have applied ontological engineering techniques to develop an Ontology called OntoGaCLeS in order to formalize the representation of gamification concepts and explain how they affect motivation in CL situations. This paper will present the ontological structure to represent gamified CL scenarios and show the utility of our approach to define personalized conceptual models to gamify CL scenario based on students' needs and individual characteristics.CNPqCAPESFAPES

A METHOD FOR CLASSIFYING USABILITY FINDINGS TO ENHANCE VALIDATION OF NEW HEURISTICS

Different usability heuristics have been proposed as new application domains arise. Such proposals usually depend on the validation of the new heuristics. However, current validation methods are still biased by subjective comparisons of usability findings. In this paper, we aimed to enhance the process of matching usability finding descriptions and mitigate the bias of such process. To reach our goal, we adopted ontology techniques to extend the User Action Framework for the context of validating new usability heuristics. We tested three hypotheses about the feasibility of our new framework based on a case study with 173 usability findings. These usability findings were retrieved from an online project of a private mobile browser. Our data analysis of supported merging three classification schemes for our framework: User Action Framework, Typical Usability Defects (from ISO) and the heuristics of Nielsen. Finally, we describe a logical process for our method, because some of the contents from the classification schemes are not disjoint

Automated tracking of quantitative assessments of tumor Burden in clinical trials

There are two key challenges hindering effective use of quantitative assessment of imaging in cancer response assessment: 1) Radiologists usually describe the cancer lesions in imaging studies subjectively and sometimes ambiguously, and 2) it is difficult to repurpose imaging data, because lesion measurements are not recorded in a format that permits machine interpretation and interoperability. We have developed a freely available software platform on the basis of open standards, the electronic Physician Annotation Device (ePAD), to tackle these challenges in two ways. First, ePAD facilitates the radiologist in carrying out cancer lesion measurements as part of routine clinical trial image interpretation workflow. Second, ePAD records all image measurements and annotations in a data format that permits repurposing image data for analyses of alternative imaging biomarkers of treatment response. To determine the impact of ePAD on radiologist efficiency in quantitative assessment of imaging studies, a radiologist evaluated computed tomography (CT) imaging studies from 20 subjects having one baseline and three consecutive follow-up imaging studies with and without ePAD. The radiologist made measurements of target lesions in each imaging study using Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors 1.1 criteria, initially with the aid of ePAD, and then after a 30-day washout period, the exams were reread without ePAD. The mean total time required to review the images and summarize measurements of target lesions was 15% (P < .039) shorter using ePAD than without using this tool. In addition, it was possible to rapidly reanalyze the images to explore lesion cross-sectional area as an alternative imaging biomarker to linear measure.We conclude that ePAD appears promising to potentially improve reader efficiency for quantitative assessment of CT examinations, and it may enable discovery of future novel image-based biomarkers of cancer treatment response.National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (grant U01CA142555)National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq grant 481837/2008-6

Quantico - simulador para cicuitos analogicos que operam segundo a tecnica de quantização

Orientador: Carlos Alberto dos Reis FilhoDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia EletricaResumo: O QUANTICO é um simulador para circuitos elétricos aplicados no processamento de sinais analógicos, segundo técnica de amostragem de sinais discretos no tempo e amplitude. Na classe de circuitos em que o QUANTICO se aplica. São utilizados como primitivas os dispositivos: chave analógica, capacitor, somador de tensão de ganho unitário, comparador de tensão, buffer de ganho unitário, divisor de tensão por dois, subtrator de tensão e fonte de tensão. Basicamente, o simulador efetua a operação de atualização de tensões nos capacitores conectados ao circuito, que funcionam como elementos de memória anal6gica. Com estes dispositivos são implementados circuitos que desempenham funções básicas de condicionamento de sinais analógicos: amplificador de tensão, multiplicador de duas tensões, conversor digital serial I analógico, etc. Apesar da semelhança com os simuladores para redes de capacitor chaveado. o QUANTICO foi feito para uma classe particular de circuitos. Ele é executável em micros compatíveis com o IBM-PC rodando MS-DOS versão 2.1 (ou posterior). Ele foi escrito na linguagem C para ter fácil portabilidadeAbstract: QUANTICO is a simulator for electrical circuits applied to the analog signal processing using a sampling technique of signals discret in time and amplitude. In the class of circuits where QUANTICO is applied, the following devices are used as primitives: analog switch, capacitor, unit-gain voltage adder, voltage comparator, unit-gain buffer, voltage devider by two, voltage subtractor, and voltage source. Basically, the simulator does the operation of voltage updating in the capacitors connected to the circuit, which work like analog memory elements. With these devices circuits are implemented which periorm basic functions of analog signals conditioning, such as: voltage amplifier, multiplier of two voltages, digital serial to analog converter, etc. Despite the similarity with the simulators for switched capacitor networks, QUANTICO was made for a particular class of circuits. It runs in IBM-PC compatible microcomputers running under the MS-DOS version 2.1 (or later). It was written in C language for easy portabilityMestradoMestre em Engenharia Elétric