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- A sustainable approach to let students do more real experiments with electrical and electronic circuitsPublication . Alves, Gustavo R.; Pester, Andreas; Kulesza, Wlodek; Silva, Juarez Bento; Pavani, Ana; Pozzo, María Isabel; Marchisio, Susana; Fernandez, Ruben; Oliveira, Vanderli; Schlichting, Luis C. M.; Felgueiras, Carlos; Viegas, Clara; Fidalgo, André; Marques, Maria Arcelina; Costa, Ricardo; Lima, Natércia; Castro, Manuel; García-Zubía, JavierThe present paper focus on the use of remote laboratories in higher education from a sustainability viewpoint. The particular case of engineering education, and, within it, the more specific subject of experiments with electrical and electronic circuits is presented first, to then discuss the benefits of using remote labs, while considering the three dimensions of sustainable development, i.e.: economic practice, environmental protection, and social integration. The paper debates how remote labs address each dimension.
- Sustainable development in higher education: Different teaching & learning approachesPublication . Caetano, Nídia; Felgueiras, CarlosLinking the economic, social and environmental aspects of any plan, project or activity is fundamental to act according to the sustainable development goals. These three dimensions are interrelated and interconnected in such a way that it is sometimes very hard to discriminate what their individual effects are, or on the contrary, how their joint effects are synergistic. And if this is generically a difficult task, when it comes to education the difficulty becomes even more significant, as one must be very careful defining concepts in an absolutely clear and undoubtful way. While the specialization is required to educate professionals able to accurately project and build these projects, it is now mandatory that everyone is also able to understand the causes and effects of their actions, towards sustainable development. In this Track, different teaching & learning approaches have been presented and discussed, aiming to use Higher Education as a highway to educate the professionals of the near future as strategic partners for the development of different mindsets, able to tackle the real problems.
- Teaching sustainable development in higher education - Changing attitudes in a digital eraPublication . Caetano, Nídia; Felgueiras, CarlosSustainable Development (SD) is an increasingly important topic. Humanity has an absolutely vital dependence on a set of natural and artificial resources. The advancement of knowledge needed to adequately manage these resources has traditionally been achieved through specialization. In this strategy of dividing and ruling, what was gained in depth was lost in coverage. Yet, the most recent problems are intensely interdisciplinary, revealing that the previous specialization strategy is currently not wrong, but clearly insufficient. Strangely (or not), various courses in higher education continued to follow the traditional specialization strategy. As a result of this state-of-affairs, several conferences currently exist, both in the field of Education or in the field of Sustainability, but it has been particularly difficult to attract participants to deepen the theme of Teaching Sustainability. As an attempt to contribute to clarifying the needs of the present and future, this TEEM’21 track presents itself as a space for presenting results and debating works and strategies that involve both domains: Teaching and Sustainability.
- A multicultural approach to teach sustainabilityPublication . Caetano, Nídia Sá; Rocha, João; Quadrado, José Carlos; Cardoso, José Marílio; Felgueiras, CarlosGlobalization is a trend that covers all society perspectives in general, and higher education in particular. The main traditional objective of higher education institutions has been to prepare domestic students with a given set of skills. Research competition and University’s rankings, as well as the need to reach other publics, pushed them towards internationalization. The exchange of students across the EU is a well-known reality which success is largely due to cultural similarities. However, a set of issues raises in importance when students from different cultures are involved. ISEP proposed a Summer Course aiming both to increase its level of internationalization and to verify how the institution is able to host foreign students. Therefore was organized, in July 2014, ISEP’s first Engineering for Sustainable Development Summer Course, with a layout specifically designed to address those questions. In our study, and in order to gain from an intensive and multicultural experience, the class included equal number of Korean and Portuguese students to develop work under the framework of sustainability, a theme chosen in order to foster consensus. This work reports some results from this experience, which included a Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach, and points out new directions: PBL revealed to be a promoting integration way; the inclusion of multiple cultures allowed the analysis of different perspectives which otherwise would not have been succeed; institutional academic/social services need to be adapted in order to receive non-Portuguese speaking students; there is a need for further adequate accommodation able to receive a larger number of international students.
- Using Remote Lab for Enhancing E-Learning on FPAAsPublication . Felgueiras, Carlos; Areias, Dinis; Fidalgo, André Vaz; Petry, Clovis; Alves, Gustavo R.Analog and digital electronic subjects are part of the electronic engineer degree but its taught is not easy because they are founded in opposite methodologies. The electronic design in the digital field is centered in the use of microprocessor and FPGA based circuits using high level programing/configuring languages. The counterpart analog design is traditionally based in the use of elementary com- ponents associated with macroblocks such operational am- plifiers in order to built-up the wanted mission circuit. Some few components, as the FPAA, are analogically configurable in a similar manner already used with the FPGA. However the use of this kind of components is not straightforward once is necessary acquire some concepts not taught in the traditionally analog electronic classes. The current work present an innovative remote lab to sup- port teaching of the FPAAs.
- Analog electronic teaching – a new approach for bipolar transistorsPublication . Felgueiras, Carlos; Santos, Catarina; Alves, Gustavo R.; Fidalgo, André; Pertry, Clovis; Schlichting, Luisa) This work was based in a single individual sample; b) Learning Support Means (LSM) received poor acceptance; c) Other Alternative Support Means are under development; d) For these, a broader test sample was used; e) Preliminary results from this test are encouraging to further pursue this work
- Sustainable energy systemsPublication . Caetano, Nídia; Vale, Zita; Jorgensen, Bo Norregaard; Felgueiras, CarlosThis Special Issue, therefore, aims to contribute to the “Sustainable Energy Systems” agenda through advanced scientific and multi-disciplinary knowledge, combined to improve energy security and performance. We therefore invite papers on innovative technical developments, reviews, case studies, analytical, as well as assessments, from different disciplines, which are relevant to “Sustainable Energy Systems”. These include smart grids, renewable energy systems, energy storage systems, life cycle analysis of energy systems, zero energy buildings, electric and hybrid vehicles, financial and economic analysis of energy systems, smart systems, energy management and big data, energy policy, novel energy sources, and renewable-based generation, among others.
- Macro modeling of electricity price towards SDG7Publication . Martins, Florinda; Felgueiras, Carlos; Caetano, NídiaEnergy challenges are crucial issues to achieve Sustainable Development and its goals. Energy availability and affordability are pillars for ending poverty, giving access to commodities as well as water, etc. Modern lives rely on appliances and gadgets based on electric energy being its price a key issue making it worth to analyze and promote simple models able to predict electric energy prices to support in decision-making processes and in management. This work studied the correlation of electricity price with variables such as the electricity mix, GDP (gross domestic product), energy productivity, electricity consumption per capita, fossil fuel reserves, and diesel price, using Spearman correlation. To the significant correlations found it was then applied the Kruskal–Wallis test and the variables that presented statistically significant differences were then considered to model electricity price based on these macro variables. Our findings revealed that the best models were a logarithmic and a linear model of energy productivity to predict electricity price, which is fundamental to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), specifically SDG7. In the validation process, these models presented an average deviation of 10.3% and 11.7%, respectively, which is reasonable considering the simplicity of the models developed.
- ICEER 2021: Developing the World in 2021 with clean and safe energyPublication . Caetano, Nídia; Salvini, Coriolano; Giovannelli, Ambra; Felgueiras, CarlosThe World pandemic situation that started in 2020 brought important limitations to live events. In spite of the fast response provided by the scientific community, with researchers from all over the World committed to the development of vaccines to prevent the dissemination and effects of the corona virus, in 2021 it was not yet possible to organize the 8th International Conference on Energy and Environment Research (ICEER) under live mode. Therefore, the ICEER 2021 occurred online for the second consecutive year, from 13–16 September 2021. The Authors, Participants and the Conference organization understood how important it is to discuss matters related to Energy and the Environment Research, as it was demonstrated by the huge changes introduced by travel and work limitations. Not only the energy consumption was affected during the pandemic, but also the environment was positively impacted by the reduction of human individual travel, both for working and for amusement purposes. These facts highlighted even more the importance of the development and use of energy sources and systems that are reliable, affordable and, above all, environment friendly, towards Sustainable Development, which motivated the theme adopted for the current edition of ICEER 2021: “Developing the World in 2021 with clean and safe energy”. The ICEER 2021 recovered some participants who preferred the live version but were committed not to give up on their research in these important topics, and the full three working days demonstrated the resilience of this community. This editorial paper summarizes the ICEER 2021, briefly reporting the main conclusions and the most impacting sessions, presentations and interventions that allowed to strengthen the interaction among experts and young researchers in the energy and environment field.
- Sustainable engineering labs - A Portuguese perspectivePublication . Caetano, Nídia; Carvalho, Rafael R.; Franco, Francisco R.; Afonso, Carlos A.R.; Felgueiras, CarlosStrategies to reduce emissions responsible for greenhouse effect, and contributing to economy decarbonisation, should focus on using renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency both at production, distribution and consumption (equipment efficiency), sustainable mobility, urban renewal and rehabilitation and behavioural changes. Considering that man spend a significant part of their lives inside buildings that represent a significant share of energy consumption, buildings turn out to be an attractive area to invest efforts, aiming to improve efficiency, as recommended in the European Commission reports. However, despite the goals outlined in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, there are difficulties in the projection of new buildings that can be classified as nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB). These include legal and financial obstacles, as insufficient formation of professionals (such as architects, engineers and consultants) able to tackle the challenges. This paper aims to point strategies that can contribute to the creation of a nearly zero energy laboratory in a university environment, that works as a tool for raising awareness about nZEB while improving the future engineering professionals’ skills towards team work and knowledge sharing – a living lab.