Autonomous vehicles in the response to maritime incidents

The future role of autonomous vehicles in the emergency response to maritime incidents isdiscussed and a framework for their integration into existing response plans is proposed. This is done inthe context of the developments on autonomous vehicle systems from the Underwater Systems andTechnologies Laboratory from Porto University

On the nature of the (de)coupling of the magnetostructural transition in Er5_5Si4_4

In this report, a successful thermodynamical model was employed to understand the structural transition in Er$_5$Si$_4$, able to explain the decoupling of the magnetic and structural transition. This was achieved by the DFT calculations which were used to determine the energy differences at 0 K, using a LSDA+U approximation. It was found that the M structure as the stable phase at low temperatures as verified experimentally with a $\Delta F_0 = -$0.262 eV. Finally, it was achieved a variation of Seebeck coefficient ($\sim$ 6 $\mu$V) at the structural transition which allow to conclude that the electronic entropy variation is negligible in the transition.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Addressing the non-linearity and singularity phenomena of stress-based optimal design of material microstructures

Material design is an active research field since composites have met increasingly interest, for instance, in lightweight construction as it happens in aerospace industry. One assumes in the present work a given macroscopic stress or strain field (one that may occur at a certain point of a macro-structure) and computes through homogenization the micro-stress distribution across the two (weaker and stronger) composite constituents mixed in a unit-cell domain which is representative of a periodic heterogeneous material. Stress gradients depend a lot of design details but typically the stress field is highly non-linear. In the frame of finite element models for material microstructures one pursues here an investigation about mesh convergence. Since stress distribution is strongly design dependent, that motivates one to pursue optimal design of the material microstructure to comply with admissible stress criteria. The inverse homogenization method using density-based topology optimization is applied here for such purpose. This is quite a challenge not only because of the aforementioned non-linearity of the stress field but also due to the singularity phenomena which one overcomes using standard relaxation techniques. Some preliminary results are obtained in order to get some insight into the fine structure of composite materials and the influence of the stresses therein

Learning Analytics and Recommender Systems toward Remote Experimentation

This paper presents a process based on learning analytics and recom- mender systems to provide suggestions to students about remote laboratories ac- tivities in order to scaffold their performance. For this purpose, the records of remote experiments from the VISIR project were analyzed taking into account one of its installations. Each record is composed of requests containing the as- sembled circuits and the configurations of the measuring equipment, as well as the response provided by the measurement server that evaluates whether a par- ticular request can be performed or not. With the log analysis, it was possible to obtain information in order to determine some initial statistics and provide clues about the student’s behavior during the experiments. Using the concept of rec- ommendation, a service is proposed through request analysis and returns to the students more precise information about possible mistakes in the assembly of circuits or configurations. The process as a whole proves consistent in what re- gards its ability to provide suggestions to the students as they conduct the exper- iments. Furthermore, with the log, relevant information can be offered to teach- ers, thus assisting them in developing strategies to positively impact student’s learning.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Reference Structure Model for Degree Alert Classification During Seasonal Hydrological Events for Humanitarian Assistence in the Brazilian Amazon

AbstractRecent events in the rivers of the Amazon region show the distinct need for concern in this region and the vulnerability of the Amazonian people in regards to these events. Organizations for humanitarian aid developed procedures in the Amazon region. But to what extent are these actions effective if little is done prior to disasters? This work seeks to develop a frame of reference for classifying alertness in cities likely to suffer from flooding and ebbing of the hydrographic network in the Amazon Basin. The objective is to serve warning to the riverside communities in the state of Amazonas, establish future provisions of supplies and to form a solid database of information concerning the needs and impacts of these events, hence creating a historical record

Towards a microscopic traffic simulation framework to assess vehicle-to-vehicle networks

This paper presents the specification of a framework based on the concept of service-oriented architectures (SOA) to support the assessment of vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET). A preliminary study of concepts related to SOA was carried out, as well as of those technologies that allow real-time data acquisition and dissemination within urban environments, and simulation tools to aid the simulation of the VANET. The requirements for our simulation framework were identified and a two-layered architecture was specified, which rely on the abstraction levels of services for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. A prototypical application was implemented, which was used to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach presented through experimental results

Chromophoric azo reagents for amino acid and peptide labeling

Four carboxylic azo dyes are presented as new markers with spectroscopic absorption peaks ranging from 400 to 500 nm for amino acid and peptide labeling at their N-terminus. Labeling can also be performed at side chain residues as it is exemplified with lysine and serine.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia

Remote Experimentation supported by Learning Analytics and Recommender Systems

This paper proposes a process based on learning analytics and recommender systems targeted at making suggestions to students about their remote laboratories activities and providing insights to all stakeholders taking part in the learning process. To apply the process, a log with requests and responses of remote experiments from the VISIR project were analyzed. A request is the setup of the experiment including the assembled circuits and the configurations of the measuring equipment. In turn, a response is a message provided by the measurement server indicating measures or an error when it is not possible to execute the experiment. Along the two phases of analysis, the log was analyzed and summarized in order to provide insights about students' experiments. In addition, there is a recommendation service responsible for analyzing the requests thus returning, in case of error, precise information about the assembly of circuits or configurations. The evaluation of the process is consistent in what regards its ability to afford recommendations to the students as they carry out the experiments. Moreover, the summarized information intends to offer teachers means to better understand and develop strategies to scaffold students' learning.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio