Thesis advisor: Lillie Richardson Albert / Currently, one of the most popular technology initiatives used in schools to prepare information- and technology-literate students is one-to-one laptop programs. However, limited research studies have investigated factors involved in laptop programs' integration process in schools from various participant perspectives by specifically focusing on ELL students and their needs. Through an ecological lens, this study investigated a one-to-one laptop program integrated into ESL classrooms in an urban middle school, which sustained the program for 6 years. The study included multiple perspectives of various school community members to capture an accurate account of factors necessary for the program's implementation and continuation. This study used a qualitative, single-case research design with exploratory purposes to investigate the multi-level nature of a one-to-one laptop program. Ecology was used as a lens to interpret data and show the relations between living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) factors in the program. In-depth data was collected through interviews, classroom observations, field notes, and archives. Collected data were analyzed through constructivist grounded theory using open, axial, and selective coding. The study demonstrated that multiple factors interact with each other and impact the laptop initiative in ESL classrooms. These factors and their interaction were visually represented as a conceptual model. Factors identified in findings were discussed under three main themes: financial, technical and leadership factors. Findings related to financial factors indicated that technical issues increased over the years due to the financial problems, which influenced the instructional use of laptops unfavorably and amplified doubts about the future of the program. Results related to leadership highlighted the importance of having multiple leaderships and allowing the participation of various school members in the decision making process. Results also showed that the federal mandates on achievement influenced the laptop program by changing the vision of the school from teaching with technology to improving instruction and achievement scores on standardized tests. Finally, findings emphasized the importance of including ESL leadership in the laptop program from the very beginning to adjust it to the needs of ESL students. Implications for teachers, administrators, educational researchers, policy makers, and future research are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

A Computação Ubíqua está revolucionando a interação do ser-humano com os dispositivos computacionais ao disponibilizar tecnologias pouco intrusivas ao cotidiano das pessoas. A Computação Ciente de Contexto, um dos temas de pesquisa em Computação Ubíqua, tem contribuído para a construção de aplicações capazes de customizar-se e adaptar-se às necessidades do usuário sem a intervenção explícita deste. Suportar o desenvolvimento de aplicações Cientes de Contexto é um dos desafios da Computação Ubíqua. Desenvolvido no mesmo grupo de pesquisa que este trabalho está inserido, o Serviço Web Context Kernel, gerencia informações de contexto e explora as especificações e tecnologias da Web como plataforma de intercâmbio para a informação contextual. O trabalho aqui reportado teve como objetivo investigar a utilização de Serviços Web por meio do emprego da infra-estrutura Context Kernel na integração de aplicações em cenários de trabalho colaborativo e de aprendizado eletrônico. Como resultado, foi elaborado um conjunto de lições aprendidas provenientes do estudo e do emprego das especificações para Serviços Web. Outros resultados foram: as especificações de informações de contexto de grupo e de metadados educacionais em dimensões de contexto e exemplos de utilização do Context Kernel para tornar aplicações cientes de contexto. / Ubiquitous computing has became a revolution in terms of the user-computer interaction by providing technologies that seamlessly integrate themselves to people?s everyday life. Context-aware computing, which is an important research theme in ubiquitous computing, has been contributing for the building of applications that are capable both to customize and adapt themselves aiming to support a user without disturb him. A great challenge in ubiquitous computing has been the support to build context-aware aplications. For that reason, the it has been developed the Context Kernel Web Service, which is a service infrastructure that makes use of Web-based specifications and technologies in order to promote the management and the interchange of context information. In this work the usage of Web Services was analyzed by using the Context Kernel to integrate applications in scenarios of cooperative work and e-learning. As a result, a list of lessons learned was ellaborated with respect to the use and the study of Web Services specifications for context-aware computing. Other results include a context information specifications for metadata about group and educational resources as well as examples of how to use the Context Kernel to leverage applications context-aware.

Research that involves human-beings depends on the data collection. As technology solutions become popular in the context of healthcare, researchers highlight the need for monitoring and caring patients in situ. Human Activity Recognition (HAR) is a research field that combines two areas: Ubiquitous Computing and Artificial Intelligence. HAR is daily applied in several service sectors including military, security (surveillance), health and entertainment. A HAR system aims to identify and recognize the activities and actions a user performs, in real time or not. Ambient sensors (e.g. cameras) and wearable devices (e.g. smartwatches) collect information about users and their context (e.g. localization, time, companions). This data is processed by machine learning algorithms that extract information and classify the corresponding activity. Although there are several works in the literature related to HAR systems, most studies focusing on elderly users are limited and do not use, as ground truth, data collected from elder volunteers. Databases and sensors reported in the literature are geared towards a generic audience, which leads to loss in accuracy and robustness when targeted at a specific audience. Considering this gap, this work presents a Human Activity Recognition system and corresponding database focusing on the elderly, raising requirements and guidelines for supportive HAR system and the selection of sensor devices. The system evaluation was carried out checking the accuracy of the activity recognition process, defining the best statistical features and classification algorithms for the Elderly Activity Recognition System (EARS). The results suggest that EARS is a promising supportive technology for the elderly, having an accuracy of 98.37% with KNN (k = 1). / Pesquisas e serviços no campo da saúde se valem da coleta, em tempo real ou não, de dados de ordem física, psicológica, sentimental, comportamental, entre outras, de pacientes ou participantes em experimentos: o objetivo é melhorar tratamentos e procedimentos. As soluções tecnológicas estão se tornando populares no contexto da saúde, pesquisadores da área de saúde destacam a necessidade de monitoramento e cuidado dos pacientes in situ. O campo de pesquisa de Reconhecimento de Atividade Humana (sigla em inglês HAR, Human Activity Recognition) envolve as áreas de computação ubíqua e de inteligência artificial, sendo aplicado nos mais diversos domínios. Com o uso de sensores como câmeras, microfones e acelerômetros, entre outros, um sistema HAR tem por tarefa identificar as atividades que uma pessoa realiza em um determinado momento. As informações coletadas pelos sensores e os dados do usuário são processados por algoritmos de aprendizado de máquina para identificar a atividade humana realizada. Apesar de existirem vários trabalhos na literatura de sistemas HAR, poucos são voltados para o público ancião. Bases de dados e sensores reportados em trabalhos relacionados são voltadas para um público genérico, perdendo precisão e robustez quando se trata de um público específico. Diante dessa lacuna, este trabalho propõe um sistema de Reconhecimento de Atividade Humana voltado para o idoso, levantando requisitos para o sistema HAR assistido e selecionando os dispositivos sensores. Um banco de dados HAR com dados coletados de voluntários mais velhos também é fornecido e disponibilizado. A avaliação do sistema foi realizada verificando a acurácia do processo de reconhecimento da atividade, definindo as melhores características estatísticas e algoritmos de classificação para o sistema de reconhecimento de atividades do idoso. Os resultados sugerem que esse sistema é uma tecnologia de suporte promissora para idosos, tendo uma acurácia de 98.37% com KNN (k = 1).

Classification algorithms represent a rich set of tools, which train a classification model from a given training and test set, to classify previously unseen test instances. Although existing methods have studied classification algorithm performance with respect to feature selection, noise condition, and sample distributions, our existing studies have not addressed an important issue on the classification algorithm performance relating to feature deletion and addition. In this thesis, we carry out sensitive study of classification algorithms by using feature deletion and addition. Three types of classifiers: (1) weak classifiers; (2) generic and strong classifiers; and (3) ensemble classifiers are validated on three types of data (1) feature dimension data, (2) gene expression data and (3) biomedical document data. In the experiments, we continuously add redundant features to the training and test set in order to observe the classification algorithm performance, and also continuously remove features to find the performance of the underlying classifiers. Our studies draw a number of important findings, which will help data mining and machine learning community under the genuine performance of common classification algorithms on real-world data. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The coastal (terrestrial) and benthic environments along the southeast Florida continental shelf show a unique biophysical succession of marine features from a highly urbanized, developed coastal region in the north (i.e. northern Miami-Dade County) to a protective marine sanctuary in the southeast (i.e. Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary). However, the establishment of a standard bio-geomorphological classification scheme for this area of coastal and benthic environments is lacking. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis and answer the research question of whether new parameters of integrating geomorphological components with dominant biological covers could be developed and applied across multiple remote sensing platforms for an innovative way to identify, interpret, and classify diverse coastal and benthic environments along the southeast Florida continental shelf. An ordered, manageable hierarchical classification scheme was developed to incorporate the categories of Physiographic Realm, Morphodynamic Zone, Geoform, Landform, Dominant Surface Sediment, and Dominant Biological Cover. Six different remote sensing platforms (i.e. five multi-spectral satellite image sensors and one high-resolution aerial orthoimagery) were acquired, delineated according to the new classification scheme, and compared to determine optimal formats for classifying the study area. Cognitive digital classification at a nominal scale of 1:6000 proved to be more accurate than autoclassification programs and therefore used to differentiate coastal marine environments based on spectral reflectance characteristics, such as color, tone, saturation, pattern, and texture of the seafloor topology. In addition, attribute tables were created in conjugation with interpretations to quantify and compare the spatial relationships between classificatory units. IKONOS-2 satellite imagery was determined to be the optimal platform for applying the hierarchical classification scheme. However, each remote sensing platform had beneficial properties depending on research goals, logistical restrictions, and financial support. This study concluded that a new hierarchical comprehensive classification scheme for identifying coastal marine environments along the southeast Florida continental shelf could be achieved by integrating geomorphological features with biological coverages. This newly developed scheme, which can be applied across multiple remote sensing platforms with GIS software, establishes an innovative classification protocol to be used in future research studies. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The Smart Campus project envisions a university campus where technology assists faculty, staff, students and visitors to improve and more efficiently accomplish their daily activities. The objective of this project is to develop a smart phone application that assists users in finding a certain location on campus, locating their friends and professors, interacting with any student or professors of the campus, get the count of users at certain locations and remain updated about all the events and campus news. Through this project, an idea of ‘Futuristic Social Network’ in a Campus is modeled and developed on Android platform. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The objective of the research is to develop various green-house gas (GHG) mitigations scenarios in the energy demand and supply sectors for state of Florida through energy and environment modeling tool called LEAP (Long Range Energy Alternative Planning System Model) for 2010-2050. The GHG mitigation scenarios consist of various demand and supply side scenarios. One of the GHG mitigation scenarios is crafted by taking into account the available renewable resources potential for power generation in the state of Florida and then the comparison has been made for transformation sector and corresponding GHG emissions through this newly developed mitigation scenario versus Business As Usual and Florida State Policy scenario. Moreover two master mitigation scenarios (Electrification and Efficiency and Lifestyle) were crafted through combination of certain GHG mitigation scenarios. The energy demand and GHG emissions assessment is performed for both master mitigation scenarios versus business As Usual scenario for 2010 – 2050. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Durante o processo de desenvolvimento de software, uma grande quantidade de documentos é gerada com o propósito de registrar as experiências e as decisões relacionadas ao projeto de software. Apesar do esforço empregado na documentação de tais informações, muitas vezes esses documentos não contêm informações suficientes e necessárias para o completo entendimento do software, para a reutilização das experiências adquiridas e a recuperação do processo de tomada de decisão. De maneira geral, apenas as decisões finais a respeito do projeto são documentadas. O Design Rationale (DR) consiste das informações adicionais aos documentos padrões em um processo de desenvolvimento de software, facilitando sua compreensão, manutenção e reuso. Na literatura, muitas pesquisas referem-se aos problemas relacionados à atividade de captura de DR, principalmente no que diz respeito à sobrecarga de trabalho durante o momento de design. O desenvolvimento de mecanismos que facilitem a captura de Design Rationale durante a elaboração de artefatos de software é ainda um desafio. No contexto de ferramentas CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering), cuja utilização enfrenta grande resistência por parte de seus usuários (desenvolvedores), torna-se imprescindível a aplicação de técnicas para garantir a máxima usabilidade dessas ferramentas, de forma a minimizar a resistência à sua utilização. O paradigma da computação ubíqua trouxe grandes mudanças ao desenvolvimento de aplicações da Ciência da Computação, visto que estas aplicações são transparentes, apresentam um comportamento contínuo e ciente de contexto, e visam tornar a interação com o usuário a mais natural possível. Diante desse contexto, a adoção de mecanismos de computação ubíqua na atividade de captura de DR torna-se uma abordagem de interesse científico. O uso de mecanismos de computação ubíqua faz com que a captura das informações e decisões relacionadas ao projeto de software seja realizada de forma mais natural, reduzindo a sobrecarga do uso de uma ferramenta que necessite de tempo adicional para o armazenamento do DR, seja durante o processo de tomada de decisões ou depois do mesmo. Assim sendo, o trabalho realizado neste projeto de mestrado consistiu na reengenharia de uma ferramenta de suporte a DR e à sua integração com um editor gráfico que permite a escrita manual e oferece um serviço de reconhecimento de escrita, de modo a prover uma maneira mais flexí?vel para a entrada de dados e que pode ser utilizada em dispositivos com diferentes tamanhos e características, tais como Tablet PCs e lousas eletrônicas / During the process of software development, a great amount of documents is generated with the purpose of registering experiences and decisions related to software project. Despite the effort made aiming at documenting of such information, in general, these documents do not contain enough and necessary information for the complete understanding of the software, for the reuse of the acquired experiences and the recovery of the process of decision making. In general, only the final decisions regarding the project are registered. The Design Rationale (DR) consists of the additional information to standards documents in a process of software development, aiming to facilitate its understanding, maintenance and reuse. In literature, many researches reveal the problems related to the activity of DR capture, especially related to the work overload during the moment of design. The development of mechanisms to facilitate the Design Rationale capture, during the elaboration of software artifacts, is still a challenge. In the context of CASE (Computer Aided Engineering Software) tools usage, users (developers) present great resistance, so the application of techniques to achieve the maximum usability in the tools becomes essential, aiming to minimize the resistance to their adoption. The paradigm of ubiquitous computing brought great innovations to the development of applications, since the applications are transparent; they present a continuous and aware context behavior, and aim the user-computer interaction become the most natural as possible. For that reason, the adoption of ubiquitous computing mechanisms in the activity of DR capture becomes an approach of scientific interest. The use of the ubiquitous computing makes the capture of the information and decisions related to software project be carried out on a more natural way, reducing the overload of using a tool that needs additional time for the DR storage, either during the process of making decisions or just after. This master project consisted of re-engineering of a DR tool and its integration with a graphical editor. The editor allows handwriting and offers a service of writing recognition in order to provide a more flexible way for the data entry and can be used in devices of different sizes and characteristics, such as Tablet PCs and electronic blackboards.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:58:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 15 / Nenhuma / O crescimento do poder computacional dos dispositivos portáteis como PDAs, handhelds e notebooks é uma realidade na última década. Paralelamente, as redes sem fio (por exemplo Wi-Fi e bluetooth), tiveram um crescimento vinculado a estes equipamentos, facilitando a comunicação e troca de informações entre os mesmos. Nesse escopo surgiu a computação ubíqua. No escopo da computação ubíqua, as aplicações devem ser sensíveis à rede, recursos, localização física e contexto, ou seja, podem ter seu comportamento alterado durante sua execução, devido à mobilidade constante dos dispositivos móveis. Neste cenário o Holoparadigma apresenta-se como uma proposta de solução para a manipulação das questões associadas à mobilidade, já que possui um modelo de programação intuitivo, tornando possível a modelagem de ambientes utilizando as suas abstrações. Este trabalho apresenta o HLS, um modelo para desenvolvimento de aplicações sensíveis à localização utilizando o ambiente do Holoparadigma. O HLS é um modelo que inclui um

Submitted by William Justo Figueiro (williamjf) on 2015-08-20T19:00:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 24e.pdf: 2612397 bytes, checksum: b639cb23c503f86dd9560fcf6386dde4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-08-20T19:00:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 24e.pdf: 2612397 bytes, checksum: b639cb23c503f86dd9560fcf6386dde4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / PROSUP - Programa de Suporte à Pós-Gradução de Instituições de Ensino Particulares / De acordo com a Organização Mundial de Saúde, doenças cardíacas, doenças respiratórias crônicas, câncer e diabetes são as doenças crônicas não transmissíveis mais comuns, assim como uma das principais causas da mortalidade no mundo. Nesses casos é necessário mais do que o engajamento do paciente no auxílio ao cuidado destas doenças. O apoio da comunidade e das organizações de saúde também é desejável. Estes devem apoiar os pacientes em suas atividades de autogerenciamento, fazendo-os sentirem-se confiantes e motivados. A computação ubíqua dá condições para ajudar os pacientes de doenças crônicas na gestão de suas atividades, oferecendo-lhes apoio a qualquer hora, em qualquer lugar. O presente trabalho apresenta o U’Ductor, um modelo para cuidado ubíquo de doenças crônicas não transmissíveis, cujo objetivo é facilitar a integração entre pacientes e recursos da comunidade e organizações de saúde. O U’Ductor dá um passo a frente em relação aos trabalhos estudados ao integrar pacientes, membros da comunidade e organizações de saúde, e recursos da comunidade e organizações de saúde. Tais características não foram exploradas nos trabalhos estudados da maneira como é feita no U’Ductor. Um protótipo do modelo foi avaliado por pacientes crônicos que deram pareceres positivos em relação a sua aplicabilidade nas atividades de cuidado de doenças crônicas não transmissíveis. / Accordingly with the World Health Organization, heart disease, chronic respiratory diseases, cancer and diabetes are the most common non-communicable diseases and one of the leading causes of the mortality in the world. In such cases we need more than patient engagement to help to control of the disease, community and health organizations support is also desirable. These roles must support the patients self-management activities, making them feel confident and motivated. This support can be accomplished by ubiquitous computing. The ubiquitous computing gives conditions to help chronic diseases patients in the management of their activities, offering support to them anytime, anywhere. This work presents U’Ductor, a model for supporting ubiquitous non-communicable disease care, whose goal is to help the integration between patient and community resources. The U’Ductor gives a step forward in relation to the studied related works by integrating patients, community resources and community members. Those features were not completely explored in the studied works in the way it’s employed in U’Ductor. An implementation of the model was evaluated by chronic patients, which had given a positive feedback about it.