Internet,Multimedia and Virtual Laboratories in a 'Third World' Environment

Electronic education faces similar difficulties in low-budget institutions throughout the world (many of them in common with developed nations), including mainly rejection or disinterest from staff and students, insufficient funds, outdated hardware, incompatible software and poor Internet access. Over the past five years, with low budgets and considerable limitations in the equipment available, the Universidad Estatal a Distancia in Costa Rica has produced multimedia courses and materials for use on the Internet, as well as designing virtual laboratories that can be run on cheap computers. The authors recount their experiences in the hope that these will prove useful to others. They explain how simultaneous production of traditional materials (mainly printed textbooks) and online courses, together with simple automatic evaluation and 'outsourcing', reduce costs significantly. They conclude that HTML and JAVA are currently the choice computer languages to reach the greatest number of users without need of a specific computing platform, powerful computers or expensive software.     

Deleuze,action research and rhizomatic growth

Deleuze and his colleagues, particularly Guattari, have had a profound impact on a number of fields of study. The authors argue that their work offers a range of images to help think about and write action research, a way that acknowledges and celebrates the complexities of the sites of action. The article has a divided structure, coherent with the style of Deleuze & Guattari. The authors present some Deleuzian ideas, particularly the concept of rhizomatic growth, and show how they might profitably be used to analyse and write accounts of action research, reflecting the multiplicities of practice, in this case within education. They have shown the potentialities of the ‘rhizome’ as a way to rethink the field of action research, imagining a new epistemology (in which the concepts work, rather than represent) and how the rhizome demands experimental forms of writing ourselves in action research. They show a cartography (of smooth and striated space) that is required to think rhizomatically about action research.     

Reliability and validity evidence of scores on the Achievement Goal Tendencies Questionnaire in a sample of Spanish students of compulsory secondary education

This study examined the reliability and validity evidence drawn from the scores of the Spanish version of the Achievement Goal Tendencies Questionnaire (AGTQ) using a sample of 2,022 (51.1% boys) Spanish students from grades 7 to 10. Confirmatory factor analysis replicated the correlated three‐factor structure of the AGTQ in this sample: Learning Goals (LG), Social Reinforcement Goals (SRG), and Performance Goals (PG). The AGTQ yields relatively reliable scores for Spanish students. Logistic regression analyses were used to provide additional validity evidence of AGTQ scores on academic success (general, Spanish, and mathematics). Results indicated that general academic success was 15% and 5% more likely every time that scores on LG and PG scales increased 1 point, respectively, although general academic success was 9% less likely every time that scores on SRG scale increased 1 point. These results were similar for Spanish and mathematics. However, the score on the LG scale did not forecast success in both subjects. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Design and development challenges for an E2E DRM content business integration platform

Current studies on Digital Rights Management (DRM) have focused on controlling access to and copies of contents, centered exclusively on the end of the value chain (end users). This focus has been oriented towards security and encryption as a means of solving the issue of illegal copying by purchasers. In this paper, we propose End-to-End Digital Rights Management (E2E DRM) that involves the protection of the content throughout the entire value chain. This concept is given form in the new technologies for representing intellectual property (IP) which, in a secure and unequivocal manner, identify the content at each point in the value chain: from the author to the end user, the content is identifiable in any of the transactions and statuses through which it passes. The key concept which E2E DRM must provide is not only the governability of access and copying, but also that of all the processes associated with the content business. We establish an E2E DRM model and architecture, and propose the R&D management of its design and implementation that makes it possible to protect content from content creator to purchaser. Finally, the paper also analyzes their impact from a global perspective.     

Providing industry 4.0 technologies: The case of a production technology cluster

The concept of industry 4.0 (i4.0) encompasses the integration of different technologies into an autonomous, knowledge- and sensor-based, self-regulating production system. Our objective is to synthesize which are the challenges and opportunities of adopting i4.0 from the perspective of technology provider companies. A single-case research was conducted with ten companies at the Portuguese Production Technologies Cluster. Based on i4.0 technologies – Augmented reality; Additive Manufacturing; Big Data; Cloud Computing; Cyber-Physical Systems; Cybersecurity; Smart Robotics; Simulation; and System Integration – interviewees mentioned that the main adoption challenges are the analysis of data generated, integration of new technologies with available equipment and workforce, and computational limitations. The main opportunities are improvements in: efficiency; flexibility; productivity; cybersecurity; quality of products and services; and decision process due to data analysis. Interviewees have also foreseen changes in company's business model through the integration of internal resources with complementary activities of their partners and other cluster companies.     

Optimal Nash tuning rules for robust PID controllers

In this paper, we propose tuning rules for one degree-of-freedom proportional-integral-derivative controllers, by considering important aspects such as the trade-off in the performance in the servo and regulation operation modes and the control system robustness by constraining the maximum sensitivity peak. The different conflicting objectives are dealt with by using a multi-objective optimization algorithm to generate the trade-off optimal solutions. In this context, a simple tuning rule is determined by using the Nash solutions as a multi-criteria decision making technique. The Nash criteria is shown to provide convenient trade-off solutions for the controller tuning problem. Illustrative simulation examples show the effectiveness of the method.     

Women,university and science in twentieth-century Spain

This article aims to question the widely accepted idea that female university students in Spain have, in the past, tended to opt for degrees in the field of humanities. Based on an analysis of the official statistics that are currently available, the paper demonstrates that Spanish female university students showed a clear preference for scientific studies, first medicine and later pharmacy. This pattern was not affected by Franco’s regime and remained stable until the great transformation of Spanish universities during the 1960s. Finally, the paper argues that the basic reasons for this preference for the scientific field were equal access to the prestigious male baccalaureate curriculum, which was a characteristic of the Spanish model for incorporating women into secondary education, and the uneven prestige of the professions to which the degrees provided access. The conclusion drawn is that, historically, pharmacy was the most common professional career pursued by female university graduates in Spain.     

Teams’ innovation: getting there through knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity

This study addresses the contribution of knowledge sharing behaviour and absorptive capacity to innovation at team level. Although the hypotheses reflect the dominant literature, the study’s novelty lies in the data collected from several industries in Portugal, avoiding possible industry bias. Relationships are tested outside sectors where traditionally team effects are studied, for example healthcare. Data were collected from 141 employees working in organizational teams, excluding top management teams, which are often the object of research addressing phenomena leading to innovation. There is no evidence in support of organizational size effect, team’s geographic concentration effect or gender effect. However, team tenure duration is positively related to increased knowledge sharing, that is, recent teams do not share as much knowledge as older ones. Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the mediation effect of absorptive capacity between individual knowledge sharing behaviour and team innovation. Evidence in support of full mediation was found.     

Los medios como soportes de sistemas de representación: Implicaciones educativas

En esta investigación didáctica se experimenta con el aprendizaje y uso de medios de creación y escritura audiovisual para establecer sus posibilidades educativas. El autor aboga por no encerrar los audiovisuales o los ordenadores en un «aula especial» sino integrarlos en el flujo educativo regular. La escritura audiovisual se presenta como una actividad marcadamente significativa para profesores y alumnos.