Hélia Guerra

Processes with local and global liveness requirements

Abstract The deterministic QS model, introduced in in Costa and Sernadas [J.F. Costa, A. Sernadas, Progress assumption in concurrent systems, Formal Aspects Comput. 7 (1) (1995) 18–36], captures (local) liveness properties, commonly specified in Temporal Logic, and not fully captured by non-deterministic process models. Liveness explains how some processes engage spontaneously in some actions and wait passively for the triggering of other actions by other processes. In this paper, we extend the QS model to describe liveness properties, through the introduction of a new operator deeply influenced by Temporal Logic, and denoting a global liveness requirement. The new operator applied to a process term induces a transactional behaviour until the execution of some specified action. We define the suitable denotational, axiomatic, and operational semantic domains to obtain a trinity of semantics in the sense of Hennessy. We prove that this extended model is a conservative extension of the previous one.

Facebook vs moodle: Surveying university students on the use of learning management systems to support learning activities outside the classroom

Learning management systems and social networks on Web have been tools most used by students in higher education institutions as learning support tools outside of the classroom. In this paper, we present the results from a survey conducted at a Portuguese university to 159 students in Computer Science and Psychology about the purposes and reasons for the use of Moodle and Facebook. We conclude, among other conclusions, that they complement each other: while the first is mostly used for formal communication with teachers, the second is mostly used for informal communication with peers.

Demonstration of programming in Python using a remote lab with Raspberry Pi

The development of programming skills in computer science students, namely algorithm thinking and logical reasoning, is an important challenge to overcome their difficulties in CS1 and CS2 courses. With the advent of Internet of Things, the actual approaches based on project-oriented learning processes can be extended to use experimental setups with low cost microcomputers. In this paper, we provide a demonstration of online experiences with Raspberry Pi, connected to a wireless sensor network, in order to give CS2 students the ability to interact to physical world through practical examples in the context of online experimentation.

Preface to the Special Issue on Physics and Computation Towards a Computational Interpretation of Physical Theories

The present special issue includes a selection of papers presented at the Third International Workshop on Physics and Computation held on the Nile, in a cruise connecting Luxor and Aswan, August 31–September 5, 2010, organized by Cristian S. Calude (University of Auckland), José Félix Costa (Technical University of Lisbon), Walid Gomaa (University of Alexandria), Hélia Guerra (University of Azores), and Karl Svozil (Technische Universität Wien). There is a long tradition of workshops on ‘‘Physics and Computation’’ inaugurated by the famous 1982 meeting whose proceedings have been published in a special issue of the Int. J. Theor. Phys. Volume 21, Numbers 3–4, April (1982), which starts with Toffoli’s programatic article ‘‘Physics and Computation’’ (pp. 165–175). This (renaissance) most recent series of workshops started in Vienna in 2008, when the steering committee was formed, constituted by Časlav Brukner (University of Vienna), Cristian S. Calude (University of Auckland), Gregory Chaitin (IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center), José Félix Costa (Technical University of Lisbon), and István Németi (Hungarian Academy of Sciences). For the third edition of the workshop, original papers were submitted via EasyChair in diverse areas of Physics and Computation (and related fields), such as analogue computation, axiomatization of physics (completeness, decidability), ChurchTuring thesis, computing beyond the Turing barrier, philosophy of computation, quantum computation (digital, analogue), quantum logics, relativity (spacetimes, computation, time travel, speedup), and theory of measurement (axiomatization, complexity). Papers have been first refereed by a program committee constituted by Andrew Adamatzky (University of West England), Selim Akl (Queen’s University), Hajnal Andreka (Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Budapest), Edwin Beggs (University of Swansea), Olivier Bournez (École Polytechnique), Dan Browne (University College London), Cristian Calude (University of Auckland, Arturo Carsetti (University of Rome ‘‘Tor Vergata’’), Barry Cooper (University of Leeds), Bob Coecke (University of Oxford), José Félix Costa (Technical University of Lisbon), Gilles Dowek (École Polytechnique and INRIA), Walid Gomaa (University of Alexandria), Viv Kendon (University of Leeds), Carlos Lourenço (University of Lisbon), Judit Madarász (Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Budapest), Yasser Omar (Technical University of Lisbon), Sonja Smets (University of Groningen), Mike Stannett (University of Sheffield), Karl Svozil (Technische Universität Wien), John V. Tucker (University of Swansea), Jiří Wiedermann (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), Karoline Wiesner (University of Bristol), and Martin Ziegler (University of Paderborn). Accepted papers, presented during the Workshop, were resubmitted, in a call opened to other researchers, to special issues of the three journals: Applied Mathematics and Computation (Elsevier), International Journal of Unconventional Computing (Old City Publishing), and Natural Computing (Springer). Seven of the fourteen papers submitted to Applied Mathematics and Computation were accepted. Below, we shortly describe the contents of each one:

An IoT remote lab for seismic monitoring in a programming course

Emergent technologies combining online labs with IoT devices and real physical world situations have a high potential to promote innovation in higher educational programming courses. The adoption of IoT low cost devices can stimulate students to actively participate in the process of making their own remote labs. Following a project-based approach, we intend to improve CS2 students programming skills, with experiences in a laboratory to monitor seismic activity, in order to overcome their difficulties, to increase their motivation, to emphasize interaction with the external world through practical examples, as well as encourage them to self-study and problem solving.

A Remote Laboratory Architecture for Agile Learning

The objective of this paper is to design and develop a new concept for an educational platform, where the focus is to engage students into learning by shifting the current paradigm of learning methodologies, enabling new ways to organize information into a more intuitive fashion, leveraging the usage of gamification techniques, and the power of social networks.

FARMACIL: An application for mobile devices supporting the management of the medication regime

In this article we present and discuss a prototype for a mobile application to manage the drug regime of a wearer. From a survey of requirements, along with doctors, pharmacists and users of the national health system, we designed a prototype of FARMACIL application, for which we have obtained very promising results in acceptance testing, from a universe of people in various age groups.

A Decision Support System for Municipal Budget Plan Decisions

This paper describes a Decision Support System to provide indicators to support budget plan decisions, in a local government organization, the municipality of Lagoa - S. Miguel, Azores. The work includes system modeling, using the UML notation, the development of a MySQL relational database, algorithms for data collection using PHP, and forecasting models using R functions, such as exponential smoothing, classical decomposition with linear trend, and ARIMA models. Users have access to predictions made by different models for several indicators, being suggested to use the models with closest to zero errors. From the analysis performed considering 12 years data, it is concluded that for most of indicators, the classical decomposition model is the most successful. However, for some indicators, it was found that the two error measures used are not consistent. In these cases, the final decision is left to the decision-maker, taking advantage of his domain knowledge.

Cuid@Web: A supporting plataform for informal caregivers

Informal caregivers contribute decisively to improving the quality of life of people with special needs (the elderly or people with temporary or permanent disabilities) to extend the stay of these people in their home or family environment. However, by giving priority to the dependent person they are facing serious risks jeopardizing their own health. In this paper, we present the Cuid@Web project that aims to create a Web infrastructure to support informal caregivers, promoting their literacy in health, through the development of skills related to their duties and the management of risks to their health.

Contributions to promote the adequacy of an approach based on services to EHR

There are many issues to consider when we develop an information system for managing the electronic health record (EHR). It must be useful for several types of users, entities and departments of health services. Also, it must be flexible to meet a broad set of needs and cover a wide range of clinical and non-clinical areas in health. In this paper we describe a regional healthcare system, having in mind to illustrate a distributed, heterogeneous healthcare system, and then to discuss the suitability of the Triple Helix model for governance in a service-oriented architecture context, following the OpenEHR.