Browsing by Author "Costa, Ricardo"
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- An Alternative Way of Teaching Operational Amplifiers Using a Reconfigurable and Expandable KitPublication . Costa, Ricardo; Portela, Paulo; Alves, Gustavo R.; Felgueiras, Carlos; Viegas, ClaraEarly on, students must develop competences by implementing simple or complex electronic circuits with Operational Amplifiers (OpAmps). Traditionally, these skills were mainly developed in laboratory classes, but technology allows us to explore other and complementary ways of aiding students in this achievement. This paper presents a contribution to improve the way OpAmps are included in electronic engineering courses’ curricula. A reconfigurable and expandable kit to teach electronic circuits based on the OpAmp uA741 was designed and implemented. This kit comprises a software application locally interfaced with a hardware platform capable of running in a PC. This platform includes a circuit with the OpAmp uA741 able to reconfigure according to a set of parameters defined by a software application. Its reconfiguration capability also enables the establishment of automatic connections for measuring and for applying signals to a reconfigured circuit, plus the ability to simulate the same or other OpAmp-based circuits. This paper provides an overview about the OpAmp uA741 and its relevance in engineering education. After presenting the kit and make some considerations for its improvement, at the end a brief discussion about its implementation in education according to specific educational strategies and methodologies are provided.
- An educational remote laboratory for controlling a signal conditioning circuit with an LDR sensorPublication . Costa, Ricardo; Bastos, Paulo; Alves, Gustavo R.; Felgueiras, Carlos; Fidalgo, AndréIn the past few years, the technologic evolution of communication and information systems had a major impact in our lives. In education, this evolution broke some geographical barriers, facilitating students’ access to real laboratories using a simple device connected to the Internet, contributing therefore to improve teaching and learning methods. To support this evolution, this paper describes a remote laboratory that provides students’ access to a typical electronic instrumentation system. Through a set of webpages, users can remotely control a light intensity sensed through a Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) sensor connected in an arm of a configurable Wheatstone Bridge (WB), whose output differential voltage are amplified / attenuated by an Instrumentation Amplifier (IA) circuit. Through this laboratory, users are able to control several components of a typical instrumentation system, visualize changes and analyze some measurements, in the same way as they would do in a traditional hands-on laboratory. An overview of the developed remote laboratory and a contextualization within other available solutions are presented in this paper. At the end, some considerations for its adoption in education are described.
- An FPGA-embedded oscilloscope based on the IEEE1451.0 Std.Publication . Costa, Ricardo; Pinho, Diogo; Alves, Gustavo R.; Zenha-Rela, MárioDigital oscilloscopes are adopted in several areas of knowledge, in particular in electrical engineering, since they are fundamental for measuring and classifying electrical signals. Thanks to the proliferation of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), embedded instruments are currently an alternative solution to stand-alone and modular instruments, traditionally available in the laboratories. High performance, low cost and the huge flexibility to change functional characteristics, make embedded instruments an emerging solution for conducting electrical experiments. This paper describes the project and the implementation of a digital oscilloscope embedded in a FPGA. In order to facilitate their control, an innovative architecture is defined according to the IEEE1451.0 Std., which is typically used to develop the denominated smart transducers.
- Contextual Analysis of Remote Experimentation Using the Actor-Network TheoryPublication . Costa, Ricardo; Alves, Gustavo R.; Zenha-Rela, Mário; Roque, LicínioDistance learning is promoting the adoption of several and new technological resources in education. The Internet is a proof of this trend, providing students with the ability of accessing better pedagogical contents from everywhere at anytime. This is usually supported by the so-called Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). However, the increase of the bandwidth together with improvements in terms of the devices’ processing capabilities for accessing services/tools through the internet, has contributed to the appearance of the Remote Experimentation (RE) concept. Currently adopted by several Science and Engineering (S&E) courses, RE is classified as a sub-domain of E-learning and as an extension of the traditional VLEs, since it provides all the facilities required for remotely accessing laboratorial experiments, giving both students and teachers the ability to control real experiments by using a simple device (e.g. PC, PDA, smart phone, etc.) connected to the internet. Traditional (in-place) laboratorial experiments can now be remotely controlled with more flexibility, reducing place and time restrictions usually present in a real laboratory. In addition, technological evolution is contributing to many changes in several domains, which has alerted us to the importance of contextualizing RE as a network of interconnected actors, with distinct characteristics and interests. This represents a huge challenge that is fundamental to analyse, since society, and more particularly the educational context, is faced with several unpredictable influences from technological innovations that may contribute to the adoption of various educational solutions some of which may not have been validated, particularly in S&E courses. Hence, this paper focuses on an analysis of RE based on the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) in order to understand the existing relationships between human and non-human (technological and/or conceptual) actors. The paper begins by contextualizing RE as an actor-network in an intersection of several contexts, namely the social, technical and educational. Further on, we map the actors and their associations. An analysis of the inclusion of a new actor into the RE actor-network, namely FPGA-based boards for accommodating Instruments and Modules (I&M), which are usually applied in remote laboratory infrastructures, is dealt with in the final section of this paper.
- Creating Competitive Opponents for Serious Games through Dynamic Difficulty AdjustmentPublication . Kristan, David; Bessa, Pedro; Costa, Ricardo; Vaz de Carvalho, CarlosCompetition is a basic element of our society. It drives us to rise above previously perceived limitations, increases our engagement and makes the world more interesting. Competition rewards our existing skills and prompts us to identify and improve our weaker skills. In games, player engagement is achieved, at least in part, by providing him/her with competition at the right amount of difficulty. Achieving and maintaining this exact level of challenge is one of the most difficult tasks for a game designer. The use of Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment techniques allows the game to dynamically adjust the challenge according to player performance, therefore keeping him/her always on edge, immersed and fully active. New information can then be more easily acquired, which is especially important in Serious Games. This paper describes how DDA techniques were used to create two strategic, goal-oriented computer-controlled (CC) players in order to deliver a higher level of competitiveness for the user in Transform@, a Serious Game aimed at developing entrepreneurship skills. As a result, the strength of the computer controlled player increased by more than 100%. By developing a good strategy for the AI and using DDA the game includes now a powerful opponent which has increased the engagement level of the player.
- A demo platform to teach and learn the behaviour of a PI controllerPublication . Felgueiras, Carlos; Serradeiro, Kevin; Fidalgo, André; Costa, RicardoNowadays new demands are posed to engineering education. Students are becoming more autonomous and curious, which requires the use of new educational platforms to complement theory with practice. A well-designed engineering course should include ways to demonstrate evidence of specific theories, in order to involve students and to dissipate any mistrust that they may have when specific theories are presented. On the other hand, it is important to create sustainable solutions, i.e., low cost solutions that do not produce much waste to the environment. While traditional and/or remote labs can be considered for many situations, there are others where a simple demonstrative platform is enough. It was precisely based on this condition, that a simple PI controller platform was idealized and implemented. This allows a teacher to show the behaviour of a PI controller according to the definition of a set of parameters that will enable the displacement of a pointer with accurate and responsive corrections.
- Developing Emotional Intelligence with a Game: The League of Emotions Learners ApproachPublication . Santos, Jaione; Jesmin, Triinu; Martis, António; Maunder, Michelle; Cruz, Sandra; Novo, Carolina; Schiff, Hannah; Bessa, Pedro; Costa, Ricardo; Vaz de Carvalho, CarlosBeing able to understand, express, and communicate emotions is widely recognized as a fundamental competence. For the younger generation entering the professional market, this is particularly relevant as, in this context, emotions are managed and communicated in ways (and channels) that are different from what they are used to and that can easily lead to misunderstandings. Therefore, it is important to analyze how young people deal with, understand, and interpret emotions, particularly in the context of a professional career where the ability to dialogue with different people and how to get around problems in a healthy and resilient way is essential. This analysis will allow one to design and create tools that allow the younger generation to improve their emotional intelligence and competence. This article introduces the League of Emotions Learners (LoEL) project, an innovative initiative that, through a game app, develops the emotional competence and intelligence of young people. The article then presents the results obtained in the initial validation that led to the positive understanding of its impact.
- Do Students Really Understand the Difference Between Simulation and Remote Labs?Publication . Lima, Natércia; Viegas, Clara; Zannin, Marcelo; Marques, Arcelina; Alves, Gustavo R.; Marchisio, Susana; Lerro, Federico G.; Merendino, Claudio; Felgueiras, Carlos; Costa, Ricardo; Fidalgo, André; Silva, Juarez B. da; Pozzo, Maria; Dobboletta, Elsa; Gustavsson, Ingvar; Garcia-Peñalvo, FranciscoLaboratory experiments play a crucial role in engineering education as they strongly contribute to the development of important skills for the professional practice. This paper addresses a students’ understanding gap between simulations and remote labs. These two resources (and namely the remote laboratory VISIR - Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality) have been commonly used on several didactical implementations, along with other didactical resources in different Engineering degrees at the Federal University of Santa Catarina and Polytechnic of Porto School of Engineering. This work, developed in the scope of the VISIR+ Project, intends to evaluate students’ perceptions considering simulation and remote lab results. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to better understand how deeply students realize the differences between these resources and their type of data. Preliminary results indicate that a considerable number of student’s don´t have a clear idea of these differences, even though sometimes they know their definition. Furthermore, these gap does not seem to differ much with the context (country, course, academic year, course content), students’ final grades, teacher approach or implemented tasks.
- Extending the IEEE 1451.0 Std. to serve distributed weblab architecturesPublication . Costa, Ricardo J.; Alves, Gustavo R.; Zenha-Rela, Mário; Costa, Ricardo; Alves, Gustavo; Restivo, Teresa; Cardoso, Alberto; Alves, José C.The appliance of the IEEE1451.0 Std. into the remote experimentation domain may be an interesting solution not only to develop reconfigurable weblab infrastructures, but also to improve the way infrastructures, and their experiments, may be shared. Therefore, this paper proposes a distributed weblab architecture supported on a IEEE1451 concept named Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS). It is suggested the use of a new TEDS, named LabTEDS, to provide information about weblab infrastructures namely, web location, technical resources and type of experiments described according a metadata model specification defined by the Lab2go project. The access to the architecture is made through the IEEE1451.0 HTTP API extended with new functions. At the end of the paper a thin implementation of the architecture is presented, supported on a cross-mapping established between the HTTP functions and the low-level commands, which are used to control the weblabs.
- Group decision making and Quality-of-information in e-Health systemsPublication . Lima, Luís; Novais, Paulo; Costa, Ricardo; Bulas-Cruz, José; Neves, JoséKnowledge is central to the modern economy and society. Indeed, the knowledge society has transformed the concept of knowledge and is more and more aware of the need to overcome the lack of knowledge when has to make options or address its problems and dilemmas. One’s knowledge is less based on exact facts and more on hypotheses, perceptions or indications. Even when we use new computational artefacts and novel methodologies for problem solving, like the use of Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs), the question of incomplete information is in most of the situations marginalized. On the other hand, common sense tells us that when a decision is made it is impossible to have a perception of all the information involved and the nature of its intrinsic quality. Therefore, something has to be made in terms of the information available and the process of its evaluation. It is under this framework that a Multi-valued Extended Logic Programming language will be used for knowledge representation and reasoning, leading to a model that embodies the Quality-of-Information (QoI) and its quantification, along the several stages of the decision-making process. In this way, it is possible to provide a measure of the value of the QoI that supports the decision itself. This model will be here presented in the context of a GDSS for VirtualECare, a system aimed at sustaining online healthcare services.
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