Interlocking, Ribbing and Folding: Explorations in Parametric Constructions

This paper presents three projects involving the design and fabrication of architectural structures through the use of different parametric software and digital manufacturing methods. The first project is a flexible partition composed of interlocking elements shaped using a laser-cutter. The second project is a university exhibition unit made with various wooden panels manufactured through a computer numerical controlled (CNC) system. The third project is a system of metal sheets folded by digital machines to create urban circulation spaces. The three works develop a parametric programming of geometry based on certain technical factors, enabling the recognition of patterns of interaction between formal and constructive issues involved in the definition of shapes through parametric controls. Differences in materials and processes are contrasted by similarities of function and conditions involved, creating a system of local, global, productive and environmental parameters that produces a repertoire of self-similar dimensions and variations as well as multiple possibilities of initial setups and final configurations. It suggests a specific field of design exploration focusing on the development of differentiated components and variable architectural configurations, in a kind of open parametric system.     

Modeling Self-Rollable Elastomeric Films for Building Bioinspired Hierarchical 3D Structures

In this work, an innovative model is proposed as a design tool to predict both the inner and outer radii in rolled structures based on polydimethylsiloxane bilayers. The model represents an improvement of Timoshenko’s formula taking into account the friction arising from contacts between layers arising from rolling by more than one turn, hence broadening its application field towards materials based on elastomeric bilayers capable of large deformations. The fabricated structures were also provided with surface topographical features that would make them potentially usable in different application scenarios, including cell/tissue engineering ones. The bilayer design parameters were varied, such as the initial strain (from 20 to 60%) and the bilayer thickness (from 373 to 93 µm). The model matched experimental data on the inner and outer radii nicely, especially when a high friction condition was implemented in the model, particularly reducing the error below 2% for the outer diameter while varying the strain. The model outperformed the current literature, where self-penetration is not excluded, and a single value of the radius of spontaneous rolling is used to describe multiple rolls. A complex 3D bioinspired hierarchical elastomeric microstructure made of seven spirals arranged like a hexagon inscribed in a circumference, similar to typical biological architectures (e.g., myofibrils within a sarcolemma), was also developed. In this case also, the model effectively predicted the spirals’ features (error smaller than 18%), opening interesting application scenarios in the modeling and fabrication of bioinspired materials.     

‘Long autonomy or long delay?’ The importance of domain in opinion mining

Nowadays, people do not only navigate the web, but they also contribute contents to the Internet. Among other things, they write their thoughts and opinions in review sites, forums, social networks, blogs and other websites. These opinions constitute a valuable resource for businesses, governments and consumers. In the last years, some researchers have proposed opinion extraction systems, mostly domain-independent ones, to automatically extract structured representations of opinions contained in those texts. In this work, we tackle this task in a domain-oriented approach, defining a set of domain-specific resources which capture valuable knowledge about how people express opinions on a given domain. These resources are automatically induced from a set of annotated documents. Some experiments were carried out on three different domains (user-generated reviews of headphones, hotels and cars), comparing our approach to other state-of-the-art, domain-independent techniques. The results confirm the importance of the domain in order to build accurate opinion extraction systems. Some experiments on the influence of the dataset size and an example of aggregation and visualization of the extracted opinions are also shown.     

Two milling time regimes in the evolution of magnetic anisotropy of mechanically alloyed soft magnetic powders

The milling time evolution of magnetic anisotropy of ball milled powders can be described considering two regimes. First, for short milling times, the main factor affecting the magnetic behavior of the alloy is the accumulation of internal stresses. Second, for long milling times, magnetic anisotropy can be explained using three contributions: long-range magnetoelastic, averaged short-range magnetoelastic and averaged magnetocrystalline anisotropies.     

A Switched Opamp-Based Bandpass Filter: Design and Implementation in a 0.35 μm CMOS Technology

A fully differential SC bandpass filter (central frequency, 58 kHz; Q = 15; and voltage gain, 8) based on the switched-opamp approach is designed and implemented in this work. The filter operates from a single 1 V supply voltage and is realized in a 0.35 m CMOS technology. It has been characterized with a sampling frequency of 1 MHz and its power consumption is about 230 W. As a main internal filter component, an appropiate switched opamp was also designed. Its common-mode feedback circuit was implemented by using an error amplifier and sampling of the output common-mode voltage is carried out by applying a DC offset to level shift the common-mode sample. It provides an accurate common-mode output for a wide temperature and supply voltage ranges.     

Teamwork assessment in the educational web of data: A learning analytics approach towards ISO 10018

The Web of Data is an emerging research field that contributes to make better decisions because it gathers, combines and analyses different data sources available worldwide. Educational data is an interesting domain because it deals with the quality of the education itself and educational institutions which are common goals for every country. This paper is devoted to present how this idea has been used to improve a learning analytics tool. By means of this tool, teachers can perform teamwork competence assessment of a group of students taking into account how the individuals acquire the essential components of such competence. In this sense, authors use the Comprehensive Training Model of the Teamwork Competence in Engineering Domain (CTMTC) method to gather competence evidences and improve the system with a learning analytics tool to support the process. This tool is able to transform competence evidences and stores them in a competence ontology built upon ISO 10018 concepts. The final result is the production of educational results for the web of data.     

Guest Editorial: Selected Papers on Wireless and Mobility from IEEE INFOCOM

The three papers in this special section were originally presented at the IEEE INFOCOM 2006 conference in Barcelona. The augmented papers, which address issues in wireless networks and mobile computing, represent the high quality of research presented at the conference.