Open Source Solutions for Building IaaS Clouds

Cloud Computing is not only a pool of resources and services offered through the internet, but also a technology solution that allows optimization of resources use, costs minimization and energy consumption reduction. Enterprises moving towards cloud technologies have to choose between public cloud services, such as: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Cloud and Google Cloud services, or private self built clouds. While the firsts are offered with affordable fees, the others provide more privacy and control. In this context, many open source softwares approach the buiding of private, public or hybrid clouds depending on the users need and on the available capabilities. To choose among the different open source solutions, an analysis is necessary in order to select the most suitable according with the enterprise’s goals and requirements. In this paper, we present a depth study and comparison of five open source frameworks that are gaining more attention recently and growing fast: CloudStack, OpenStack, Eucalyptus, OpenNebula and Nimbus. We present their architectures and discuss different properties, features, useful information and our own insights on these frameworks

Simulação médica baseada em realidade virtual para ensino e treinamento em ginecologia

The use of Virtual Reality techniques in computational systems intends to generate immersive and interactive systems. The interactive and immersive nature of such systems motivates their use in simulations of various situations. The recent questions raised about the traditional paradigms of teaching in the medical field and the technological advances that permits the development of high fidelity simulations, encouraged the building of virtual simulators in order to provide study and training in medical procedures. The aim of this work is to discuss the use of Virtual Reality based simulators to help the teaching and training of medical procedures. As a product of this research, it is detailed the development of a Virtual Reality simulation system to gynecological examination. The objective of this system is providing of a three-dimensional and interactive environment to help the teaching and training of gynecological examination. Other important feature of the system is the assessment of the user interaction. By the end of this work, it is discussed the studies, research and development results and are proposed future works.Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPESA utilização de técnicas de Realidade Virtual na construção de sistemas computacionais procura gerar sistemas imersivos e interativos. Estas características fazem com que estes sistemas sejam utilizados em simulações de diversas situações do cotidiano. Tais características, associadas aos crescentes questionamentos levantados sobre os paradigmas tradicionais de ensino na área médica e ao avanço tecnológico que permite a criação de simulações cada vez mais realistas, alavancaram a construção de simuladores virtuais com o intuito de prover estudo e treinamento de procedimentos médicos. O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir a utilização de simuladores computacionais baseados em Realidade Virtual para o auxílio ao ensino e treinamento de procedimentos médicos, particularmente em ginecologia. Como uma conseqüência direta deste estudo foi proposto e desenvolvido um sistema de simulação de exame ginecológico baseado em RV, o SITEG. Este simulador tem por finalidade o fornecimento de um ambiente tridimensional e interativo para o estudo e treinamento na realização do exame ginecológico, com a possibilidade do monitoramento e avaliação da interação do usuário. No final deste trabalho são discutidos os resultados dos estudos, da pesquisa e da implementação do simulador e são propostos trabalhos futuros no desenvolvimento do sistema

Educational collaborative games for sustainable development learning

In a world regularly menaced by environmental and humanitarian crises, addressing education for a sustainable future becomes a critical issue. However, sustainability learning is extremely challenging, since the instructional tools to use must be able to deal with the inherent complexities of the matter, which can be summarized by three main factors: a) the interdisciplinary domains related to sustainability issues, such as ecology, economics, politics and culture, b) the involvement of several social structures, such as individuals, families and communities, and c) the demand for collaborative skills, creativity, flexibility and critical reflection. This thesis discusses educational games in the context of sustainability issues, by focusing on three main research questions: • RQ1: which are the theoretical models that underlie educational games design; • RQ2: which is the current state of the art of the developed sustainability games? • RQ3: how to design educational games aiming to foster learning and collaboration in sustainability scenarios? Concerning the frst two research questions, this thesis aims at identifying, from a theoretical point of view, the elements that facilitate the achievement of the instructional goals in general educational games. To this end, it surveys the literature related to the design guidelines and evaluation tools for educational games. From this investigation, it is possible to identify (i) the lack of validation of current tools and (ii) the need to balance both educational and engagement elements into game design. Then the work analyzes the state of the art of sustainability serious games, by establishing a taxonomy related to the main purpose of the game, broadly dividing the various approaches into the categories of: (i) educative games, i.e. those intended to teach, and (ii) persuasive games, i.e. those aimed at influencing players’ habits or opinions towards more sustainable practices. The in-depth analysis of both groups allows: (i) the initial proposition of key aspects that should be considered in the design of a sustainability game, attempting to enhance its effectiveness, and (ii) the defnition of open questions that demand further scientifc investigation. Then, the thesis tackles the last research question (from a more practical point of view) by detailing the design, development and evaluation of two sustainability games, WaterOn! and Sustain. In particular, since collaboration among users is a relevant dimension in sustainability learning, one of the research objectives of this work is to acquire a better understanding of users’ collaboration in sustainability games and which tools, game mechanics, design and narrative elements are necessary/suitable to effectively foster such cooperation. As for the two collaborative games developed, each of them has different learning objectives, target audiences and interaction designs in order to analyze the effectiveness of sustainability learning from two distinct instructional approaches (identifed in the theoretical part of this research). Sustain evaluation indicates its success in achieving both pedagogic and collaborative outcomes. Although WaterOn! lacks a similar evaluation, it allows conjectures about the adopted theoretical and practical tools, which also inspired the development of Sustain. Concluding, this thesis identifes the relevant theoretical background and guidelines that underlie sustainability game design, with specifc emphasis on the collaborative dimension of the learning process, and evaluate their effectiveness through the evaluation of games based on such guidelines. The positive results found in the assessment contributes to the current literature by supporting the effectiveness of educational games as an additional learning tool in the context of sustainability

Designing collaborative games for children education on sustainable development

Recent research in the digital learning game area strives for defining a solid grounding methodology, capable of driving the game design process towards the maximization of the intended educational results. In this work, we investigate the mix of tangible interaction, immersive environments, collaborative multiplay and validated theoretical background in the design of WaterOn!, an educational game focused on teaching water cycle contents for children. The paper presents the design decisions taken in light of the adopted methodologies, and discusses some open questions related to the use of these tools

Open stack and cloud stack: Open source solutions for building public and private clouds

Cloud computing is continuously growing as a prominent technology for enterprises. While several giant public cloud providers, such as Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google are competing to extend their market, there is still a large number of organizations asking higher level of privacy and control over cloud solutions. Therefore, the need to have private cloud solutions is obvious. To overcome this need there are several on-going open source software frameworks for building public and private clouds. Among them, OpenStack and CloudStack are growing at fast pace and gaining more attention. An analysis on these software stacks is necessary in order to choose the most suitable solution that matches an enterprise’s requirements. This paper main contribution is an in depth study and comparison of the cloud properties of these two open source frameworks, providing useful information on open source cloud solutions that are not available elsewhere

Leveraging a Collaborative Augmented Reality Serious Game to promote Sustainability Awareness, Commitment and Adaptive Problem-Management

The sustainable development of our global world requires innovative educational approaches to foster people's ability to pursue common goals under ever-changing and uncontrollable environmental conditions. Serious games can meet this need by engaging learners in collective problem-solving activities that mimic real-world sustainability problems and scenarios. This paper presents the design and evaluation of Sustain, a collaborative and co-located multiplayer sustainability serious game. Sustain is an Augmented Reality based urban development game that aims to promote player awareness and commitment to sustainability problems and enhance players' ability to address these problems through collaborative and adaptive problem management approaches. Sustain was developed based on nine key game features that implement principles of serious game design tailored for sustainability. The evaluation of the game leveraged a multimodal approach that included in-game analytics, questionnaires, and observational data from ninety-nine participants and aimed to assess learning outcomes and identify relationships between game features and effects achieved. Results suggest that Sustain was effective in changing players' awareness of and commitment towards sustainability issues. Team adaptive behaviours and increasing collaborative interactions were observed during the game, even during phases that did not require close collaboration, which is altogether suggestive of increased collaborative and adaptive problem-management capabilities. These findings suggest that the development of sustainability serious games based on design principles and features similar to those implemented in Sustain can lead to impacts crucial for sustainability education

The SmartH2O project and the role of social computing in promoting efficient residential water use: a first analysis

SmartH2O is an EU funded project which aims at creating a virtuous feedback cycle between water users and the utilities, providing users information on their consumption in quasi real time, and thus enabling water utilities to plan and implement strategies to reduce/reallocate water consumption. Traditional metering data, usually gathered twice a year, can be used to model consumers’ behaviour at an aggregate level, but the motivations and individual attitudes of consumers are hidden. The advent of smart water meters allows gathering high frequency consumption data that can be used to provide instantaneous information to water utilities on the state of the network. At the same time, the consumption information can be fed back to the user to stimulate increased awareness on water use. The SmartH2O project aims at developing methodologies to involve consumers and promote water savings by increasing their awareness, using a social computing approach, and also exploring their sensitivity to water prices, e.g., to penalise water waste during droughts. In this paper, first we review similar experiences that exploit consumer awareness to reduce consumption, then we review the role of persuasive games for sustainability, and finally we present the SmartH2O approach, sketching the architecture of its modelling and social computing components