Open educational resources : higher education students’ knowledge and use

Information and communication technologies represent one of the main innovation factors within the teaching and learning process, especially in Higher Education. In this context, the search for building useful and grounded knowledge using strategies which meet students’ needs and interests requires the use of innovative resources, among which we highlight digital educational resources, particularly open educational resources (OER). The open educational resources issue has deserved the attention of teachers, students and institutions. Considering the present situation as well as the importance given to OER and to the role these may play in supporting learning, the aims of this paper are as follows: assess the digital educational resources features most valued by higher education students; verify the extent to which students’ IT knowledge influences their assessment of digital educational resources; identify the knowledge that higher education students have of OER; assess the knowledge that higher education students have of open educational resources platforms. In order to achieve the proposed aims, we focus our attention on open educational resources, starting by assessing digital educational resources’ features as well as the connection between students’ IT knowledge and that same assessment. We also assess the knowledge that higher education students have of OER as well as of their corresponding platforms. The data was obtained through a questionnaire conducted within a sample of 315 students at a Portuguese higher education institution. Among the results obtained, we highlight that the most valued features of digital educational resources are: free access; any time access; allows reuse; and free and open. The results show that there is a positive, low, or very low correlation between students’ IT knowledge and the features associated with digital educational resources. In addition to this, the results show an almost inexistent knowledge of the OER concept and of their uses as well as of the existing OER platforms. The data indicates that there is still a long way to go so that OER may be part of the resources used by students to improve their learning.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, UM (FCT R&D 317

Multiclass data plane recovery using different recovery schemes in SDN: a simulation analysis

To provide dependable services SDN networks need to be resilient to link or switching node failures. This entails, when faults occur, ensuring differentiated types of recovery, according to carried traffic, to routing paths. However, the choice of the recovery scheme best suited to each traffic class is not direct, nor is obvious the impact of the combination of various recovery schemes, according to traffic classes. We explore the usage of different recovery schemes for traffic with distinct requirements Simulation analysis confirms that using different recovery schemes for distinct types of traffic does create differentiated effects in terms of traffic carried and bandwidth usage.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Failure simulation in software-defined networks with differential link availability

In Software-Defined Networks (SDN) the placement of controllers is an important factor for overall network reliability. Whereas most studies assume that all links have similar link failure rates/availability, placing controllers taking into account differences in link availability can yield advantages. This is even more relevant if the network is designed with a particular subset of high availability links (a spine). After presenting integer linear programming formulations to support controller placement considering differential link availability, we propose a simulation approach to verify the reliability change due to that placement. From a simulational study using 2 networks, 30 different link availability configurations we found a definite advantage in overall reliability in using the knowledge of high availability links to place the controllers. However, while there were also advantages to using certain spines for individual networks, these advantages were not uniform, and varied according to networks, the number of controllers placed and link availability ratio. Further work is suggested to check whether fault patterns may influence the reliability advantage of individual spines.This work has been partially funded by ERDF Funds through the Centre’s Regional Operational Program and by National Funds through the FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. under the project CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-029312, and also by FCT Grants UIDB/00308/2020 (INESC Coimbra), UIDB/05757/2020 (CeDRI), and UIDB/05037/2020 (CeBER). The authors would like to thank Prof. Rita Girão-Silva and Prof. Lúcia Martins for their contribution in spine generation and Prof. Amaro de Sousa for his comments and discussion.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Using Generalized Annotated Programs to Solve Social Network Optimization Problems

Reasoning about social networks (labeled, directed, weighted graphs) is becoming increasingly important and there are now models of how certain phenomena (e.g. adoption of products/services by consumers, spread of a given disease) "diffuse" through the network. Some of these diffusion models can be expressed via generalized annotated programs (GAPs). In this paper, we consider the following problem: suppose we have a given goal to achieve (e.g. maximize the expected number of adoptees of a product or minimize the spread of a disease) and suppose we have limited resources to use in trying to achieve the goal (e.g. give out a few free plans, provide medication to key people in the SN) - how should these resources be used so that we optimize a given objective function related to the goal? We define a class of social network optimization problems (SNOPs) that supports this type of reasoning. We formalize and study the complexity of SNOPs and show how they can be used in conjunction with existing economic and disease diffusion models

Liderazgo de opinión de moda, adhesión a la innovación y actitud hacia la publicidad entre los consumidores portugueses

In the context of the fashion market, this study aims to analyze opinion leadership and, specifically, to verify the correlation that may exist between opinion leadership, fashion innovativeness and attitude towards fashion advertising. It is also intended to identify two different consumer groups: opinion leaders and fashion followers based on “opinion leadership” construct. Data collection was done through a self-administered questionnaire with a convenience sample of 203 graduate and postgraduate students of two universities of Porto, the second major city of Portugal. Results show a positive correlation between fashion innovativeness, fashion opinion leadership, and attitude towards fashion advertising. It was possible to identify two groups of consumers: fashion influencers, who exhibit a moderate sense of innovativeness and a positive attitude towards fashion advertising; and fashion followers who don’t consider themselves neither innovators nor opinion leaders, but have a moderate positive attitude towards fashion advertising.Este estudio tiene como principal objetivo analizar el liderazgo de opinión en el contexto del mercado de la moda, más concretamente, verificar si existe una correlación entre las variables liderazgo de opinión, adhesión a la innovación en la moda y actitud hacia la publicidad de la moda. A partir de la variable liderazgo de opinión, se pretende también identificar dos grupos diferentes de consumidores: los líderes de opinión y los seguidores en el mercado de la moda. Se seleccionaron 203 estudiantes de tercer ciclo y de postgrado de dos universidades de Oporto, la segunda ciudad más grande de Portugal. Fue solicitado a los participantes que rellenasen un cuestionario sobre actitudes y comportamientos sobre moda. Los resultados muestran que existe una correlación positiva entre la adhesión a la innovación, el liderazgo de opinión y la actitud hacia la publicidad. Fue posible identificar dos grupos de consumidores. Por un lado, “los influyentes”, que puntúan moderadamente en la variable adhesión a la innovación y presentan una actitud positiva hacia la publicidad de la moda, y por otro, “los seguidores”, que no se consideran ni innovadores ni líderes de opinión, pero mantienen una actitud positiva moderada hacia la publicidad de la moda

Building a test bed for simulation analysis for the internet of things

The current Internet of Things (IoT) solutions require support at different network layers, from higher level applications to lower level media-based support. The dissertation presents some of the main application requirements for IoT, characterizing architecture, Quality of Service (QoS) features, security mechanisms, discovery service resources and web integration options and the protocols that can be used to provide them (e.g. CoAP, XMPP, DDS, MQTT-SN, AMQP). As examples of lower-level requirements and protocols, several wireless network characteristics (e.g. ZigBee, Z-Wave, BLE, LoRaWAN, SigFox, IEEE 802.11af, NB-IoT) are presented. The variety of possible applications scenarios and the heterogeneity of enabling technologies combined with a large number of sensors and devices, suggests the need for simulation and modeling tactics to describe how the previous requirements can be met. As a potential solution, the creation of simulation models and the usage of the OMNET++ simulation tool to enable meaningful IoT simulation is discussed. The analysis of the behavior of IoT applications is proposed for two use cases: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for home and industrial automation, and Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks for smart meters, smart buildings, and smart cities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Nutritional composition of omnivorous and carnivorous wild freshwater fish from Tagus river basin

Portugal is one of the countries in the world with highest per capita fish consumption (59.9 kg/year) (1), mainly saltwater fish from Atlantic Northwest and marine aquaculture. However, in the interior of Portugal is traditional the consumption of wild freshwater fish (common carp [CC], iberian barbel [IB], crucian carp [CrC] and largemouth bass [LB]). These species are very interesting as game fishing and also very important in the local cuisine due to their characteristic flavor.CERNAS-IPCB [UIDB/00681/2020] funding by the Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How Cynara cardunculus ecotypes affect the production of Castelo Branco PDO cheese : a case study

Cheese manufacture is a way of preserving a very perishable food, milk. This product is a versatile food that offers various flavours and textures, making it a convenient food and a source of nutrients1. Last available data from Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE) indicates that the annual dairy consumption reaches 1218 thousand tons in Portugal and the third more consumed dairy product is cheese, with 137 thousand tons per year2. In 2021, the world cheese trade was forecast to rise 4 % to hit the record of 3.6 million tonnes.Programa de Desenvolvimento Rural 2014-2020, PDR2020-101-031009info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio