Using Twitter to Support Students' Design Thinking

The goal of the short-term study abroad course “International Perspectives on Biomedical Engineering Design” is to enable students to consider sociotechnical factors in designing clinically translatable solutions. In addition, comparison of healthcare systems in Europe and the United States enables students to see the impact of culture on healthcare because people in these locations have similar medical resources. Students seek to define an actionable problem statement that summarizes the needs and insights identified through interviews with healthcare professionals. Methods recommended for formulating actionable problem statements include creating a Madlib or want ad. However, such approaches did not resonate with our student group. In this presentation, we describe our experiences using Twitter as a method for students to succinctly write actionable problem statements that spur creative problem solving.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Generic Real-Time Motion Controller for Differential Mobile Robots

Non

A Estação Paleolítica do Cerro (Vila Nova de Gaia, Noroeste de Portugal): caracterização preliminar dos utensílios com configuração bifacial

A estação paleolítica do Cerro foi descoberta em 1988. Entre 1989 e 1992 realizaram-se três campanhas de escavação que permitiram recolher um importante conjunto de artefactos líticos talhados a partir de seixos rolados de quartzito, atribuíveis ao Paleolítico Inferior. Do ponto de vista geoarqueológico, estes artefactos associam-se a coluviões, que se sobrepõem a uma formação marinha implantada a cerca de 22 m n.m.a.m. O estudo das peças com configuração bifacial (em que também se incluem as parcialmente bifaciais e as unifaciais) revelou a existência de duas cadeias operatórias, globalmente expeditas, que visaram, sobretudo, a criação de utensílios com extremidade distal apontada. Estas cadeias operatórias mais do que se ligarem a opções de natureza morfológica parecem antes constituir uma resposta aos constrangimentos impostos pela volumetria dos suportes utilizados, visando a sua eventual adequação a distintas funcionalidades.The Palaeolithic site of Cerro was discovered in 1988. Between 1989 and 1992 three excavation seasons were carried out, which allowed collecting an important set of macrolithic stone tools most of them made of quartzite pebbles, possibly dating from the Lower Palaeolithic. From a geoarchaeological point of view, these stone tools were associated with colluvial deposits which overlay a marine formation c. 22 m a.s.l. The study of the bifacial shaped tools (including the parcial bifacial shaped and the unifacial tools) allowed the identification of two chaînes operatoires, basically expedite, oriented towards the production of pointed tools. These chaînes operatoires do not seem to be linked to morphological options but instead they may be a response to the constraints imposed by the volumetry of the blanks, possibly adapting them to distinct funcionalities

Computer aided detection in mammography

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

A texture segmentation prototype for industrial inspection applications based on fuzzy grammar

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a set of techniques, in the domain of texture analysis, dedicated to the classification of industrial textures. One of the main purposes was to deal with a high diversity of textures, including structural and highly random patterns. Design/methodology/approach – The global system includes a texture segmentation phase and a classification phase. The approach for image texture segmentation is based on features extracted from wavelets transform, fuzzy spectrum and interaction maps. The classification architecture uses a fuzzy grammar inference system. Findings – The classifier uses the aggregation of features from the several segmentation techniques, resulting in high flexibility concerning the diversity of industrial textures. The resulted system allows on-line learning of new textures. This approach avoids the need for a global re-learning of the all textures each time a new texture is presented to the system. Practical implications – These achievements demonstrate the practical value of the system, as it can be applied to different industrial sectors for quality control operations. Originality/value – The global approach was integrated in a cork vision system, leading to an industrial prototype that has already been tested. Similarly, it was tested in a textile machine, for a specific fabric inspection, and gave results that corroborate the diversity of possible applications. The segmentation procedure reveals good performance that is indicated by high classification rates, revealing good perspectives for full industrialization