2024
Authors
Bidarra, J; Rocio, V; Sousa, N; Coutinho Rodrigues, J;
Publication
OPEN LEARNING
Abstract
This study was initiated at a time of unprecedented uncertainty, as lecturers and educational institutions across the world tried to manage the move to online education as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. It started with lecturers' perspectives of their performance during that time to identify innovative teaching strategies beyond the priority of emergency teaching. The main goal was to identify the occurrence of more permanent changes in Higher Education after the pandemic. The research was based on a qualitative approach where faculty members were interviewed about their activities before, during and after lockdown periods. Data collected was analysed with the help of an algorithm based on Artificial Intelligence. Ultimately, it was possible to gather and evaluate practical solutions related to hybrid learning in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, leading to recommendations for stakeholders in Higher Education.
2024
Authors
Maia, D; Correia, FF; Queiroz, PGG;
Publication
Proceedings of the 29th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, People, and Practices, EuroPLoP 2024, Irsee, Germany, July 3-7, 2024
Abstract
Although service-based architectures offer significant advantages, some aspects of service orchestration remain challenging, particularly for new adopters. Despite the availability of resources on orchestration techniques, many lack clarity or detail. As a result, best practices are often not well explained or standardized, making them difficult to implement and hindering broader adoption within the software industry. To address these concerns, we looked into existing literature and tools to identify common practices. We used our findings to describe as patterns two patterns focused on orchestration configuration, which we present in this paper, and that serve as a stepping stone for other orchestration practices: labeling and resource reserve and limit. These patterns contribute to configuring a system; the former consists of defining key-value pairs to express identifiable properties of system components, and the latter is about supporting two bounds for each resource type: the amount of resources reserved for the service to operate and the maximum amount of resources it can use.
2024
Authors
Ghanbarifard, R; Almeida, AH; Luz, AG; Azevedo, A;
Publication
FLEXIBLE AUTOMATION AND INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING: MANUFACTURING INNOVATION AND PREPAREDNESS FOR THE CHANGING WORLD ORDER, FAIM 2024, VOL 1
Abstract
This paper advocates for Digital Twin (DT) technology as a pivotal solution to address the complexities of Complex Operations Environments (COEs). Recognizing the need for a thorough understanding of COEs and their DTs, a methodology is introduced to bridge existing gaps. Given the lack of a universal definition, the approach leverages the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to extract insights, facilitating the development of a comprehensive definition for COE and DT. The methodology integrates Ontology and Systems Modelling Language (SysML) to provide a semantic and conceptual model of COE and DT. Ontology enriches the semantic understanding, exploring existence and entity relationships, while SysML ensures clear and concise communication through standardized graphical representation. This paper aims to present a methodology to achieve a precise understanding of COEs and their corresponding DTs, providing a robust foundation for addressing operational complexities in dynamic environments.
2024
Authors
Marin, E; Chin, JCY; Cetre, S; Wizinowich, P; Ragland, S; Wetherell, E; Surendran, A; Bouchez, A; Delorme, JR; Lilley, S; Lyke, J; Service, M; Tsubota, K; Correia, C; van Dam, M; Biasi, R; Pataunar, C; Pescoller, D; Glazebrook, K; Jameson, A; Gauvin, W; Rigaut, F; Gratadour, D; Bernard, J;
Publication
ADAPTIVE OPTICS SYSTEMS IX
Abstract
The Real Time Controllers (RTCs) for the W. M. Keck Observatory Adaptive Optics (AO) systems have been upgraded from a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) based solution. The previous RTCs, operating since 2007, had reached their limitations after upgrades to support new hardware including an Infra-Red (IR) Tip/Tilt (TT) Wave Front Sensor (WFS) on Keck I and a Pyramid WFS on Keck II. The new RTC, fabricated by a Microgate-led consortium with SUT leading the computation engine development, provides a flexible platform that improves processing bandwidth and allows for easier integration with new hardware and control algorithms. Along with the new GPU-based RTC, the upgrade includes a new hardware Interface Module (IM), new OCAM2K EMCCD cameras, and a new Telemetry Recording Server (TRS). The first system upgrade to take advantage of the new RTC is the Keck I All-sky Precision Adaptive Optics (KAPA) Laser Tomography AO (LTAO) system, which uses the larger and more sensitive OCAM2K EMCCD camera, tomographic reconstruction from four Laser Guide Stars (LGS), and improvements to the IR TT WFS. On Keck II the new RTC will enable a new higher-order Deformable Mirror (DM) as part of the HAKA (High order Advanced Keck Adaptive optics) project, which will also use an EMCCD camera. In the future, the new RTC will allow the possibility for new developments such as the proposed 'IWA (Infrared Wavefront sensor Adaptive optics) system. The new RTC saw first light in 2021. The Keck I system was released for science observations in late 2023, with the Keck II system released for science in early 2024.
2024
Authors
Ramalho, FR; Moreno, T; Soares, AL; Almeida, AH; Oliveira, M;
Publication
FLEXIBLE AUTOMATION AND INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING: ESTABLISHING BRIDGES FOR MORE SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS, FAIM 2023, VOL 2
Abstract
European industrial value chains and manufacturing companies have recently faced critical challenges imposed by disruptive events related to the pandemic and associated social/political problems. Many European manufacturing industries have already recognized the importance of digitalization to increase manufacturing systems' autonomy and, consequently, become more resilient to adapt to new contexts and environments. Augmented reality (AR) is one of the emerging technologies associated with the European Industry 5.0 initiative, responsible for increasing human-machine interactions, promoting resilience through decision-making, and flexibility to deal with variability and unexpected events. However, the application and benefits of AR in increasing manufacturing resilience are still poorly perceived by academia and by European Manufacturing companies. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the state of the art by relating the application of AR with current industrial processes towards manufacturing systems resilience. In order to cope with this objective, the industrial resilience and augmented human worker concepts are first presented. Then, through an exploratory study involving different manufacturing companies, a list of relevant disruptive events is compiled, as well as a proposal with specific ideas and functionalities on how AR can be applied to address them. In conclusion, this research work highlights the importance of AR in coping mainly with disruptive events related to Human Workforce Management and Market/Sales Management. The AR application ideas shared a common thread of availability and delivery of information to the worker at the right time, place, and format, acting on the standardization and flexibility of the work to support manufacturing resilience.
2024
Authors
Furlan, M; Almada Lobo, B; Santos, M; Morabito, R;
Publication
COMPUTERS & INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
Abstract
Vertical pulp and paper production is challenging from a process point of view. Managers must deal with floating bottlenecks, intermediate storage levels, and by-product production to control the whole process while reducing unexpected downtimes. Thus, this paper aims to address the integrated lot sizing and scheduling problem considering continuous digester production, multiple paper machines, and a chemical recovery line to treat by-products. The aim is to minimize the total production cost to meet customer demands, considering all productive resources and encouraging steam production (which can be used in power generation). Production planning should define the sizes of production lots, the sequence of paper types produced in each machine, and the digester working speed throughout the planning horizon. Furthermore, it should indicate the rate of byproduct treatment at each stage of the recovery line and ensure the minimum and maximum storage limits. Due to the difficulty of exactly solving the mixed integer programming model representing this problem for realworld instances, mainly with planning horizons of over two weeks, constructive and improvement heuristics are proposed in this work. Different heuristic combinations are tested on hundreds of instances generated from data collected from the industry. Comparisons are made with a commercial Mixed-Integer and Linear Programming solver and a hybrid metaheuristic. The results show that combining the greedy constructive heuristic with the new variation of a fix-and-optimize improvement method delivers the best performance in both solution quality and computational time and effectively solves realistic size problems in practice. The proposed method achieved 69.41% of the best solutions for the generated set and 55.40% and 64.00% for the literature set for 1 and 2 machines, respectively, compared with the best solution method from the literature and a commercial solver.
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