AH-questionnaire: An adaptive hierarchical questionnaire for learning styles

One of the main concerns when providing learning style adaptation in Adaptive Educational Hypermedia Systems is the number of questions the students have to answer. Most of the times, adaptive material available will discriminate among a few categories for each learning style dimension. Consequently, it is only needed to take into account the general tendency of the student and not the specific score obtained in each dimension. In this context, we present AH-questionnaire, a new approach to minimize the number of questions needed to classify student Learning Styles. Based on the Felder-Silverman’s Learning Style Model, it aims at classifying students into categories in spite of providing precise scores. The results obtained in a case study with 330 students are very promising. It was possible to predict students’ learning style preference with high accuracy and only a few questions.     

Constant component of the phase voltage in ore-processing furnaces producing phosphorus and calcium carbide

For the example of phosphorus and carbide furnaces, we consider the variation of the constant component U _cc in the phase voltage of an ore-processing furnace with a closed charge hole. The magnitude and direction of U _cc depend on the reactions of the electrode with different components in the reaction zone and also on the development and combustion of the electric arc.     

Sustainability in bridge construction processes

Sustainability must be seen as a global issue. In order to achieve that goal, it is necessary to apply its principles to all industrial activities, including those that are not traditionally engaged with such guidelines, which is the case of Bridge Construction. This paper evaluates the consumption of steel and energy and the emissions of carbon dioxide due to the use of movable scaffolding systems (MSS) in the Bridge Construction industry. The values obtained considering the use of conventional MSS are compared with the ones obtained using a new sustainable technology which is herein synthetically described—the organic prestressing system (OPS). In order to compare the sustainability of the two systems, a prediction of the material and energy consumptions, and CO₂ emissions for traditional MSS and for MSS equipped with OPS is performed until 2025.     

Dead-time-compensator for unstable MIMO systems with multiple time delays

In this paper a new dead-time-compensator to deal with unstable time delay systems is presented. The result is an extension to multiple-input multiple-output systems with multiple and different time delays of a previous result already reported for single-input single-output systems. There are two key issues: the system instability and the presence of different time delays in each signal channel. The proposed approach is developed in three steps. First, a non-delayed output plant is predicted. This predictor is a stable dead-time-compensator coping with multiple and arbitrary delays in all the signal channels. Then, a stabilizer controller is easily designed for the resulting non-delayed plant. For this stabilized plant, the control performance is improved in order to achieve some output tracking and regulation requirements. The results are illustrated by two examples showing their applicability to unstable multiple-input multiple-output multi-delayed plants, which is the main novelty of the proposed approach.     

Some aspects of citation indexes in Spain: A comparative analysis

This paper studies the main characteristics of the citation indexes currently developed in Spain. The paper compares the impact factors offered by Spanish citation indexes with the impact factor of Spanish journals also collected by the JCRs of the ISI (SCI and SSCI) over a five-year period (2001–2005). Spanish journals published in English have higher impact factor scores in the JCR databases of the ISI than in Spanish citation indexes.     

外滩上的巴西里卡——上海意大利capo餐厅

正巴西利卡一直是欧洲古典建筑中的经典代表,其人文内涵在公共空间领域占据着不可取代的位置。而本次案例中,如恩将巴西利卡的建筑样式植入于一栋上海外滩的意大利餐厅之中,其独特的设计风格令人印象深刻。巴西利卡作为最经典的古典建筑样式,长久以来都占据着历史教科书和旅游游览列表的显著位置。历史上,巴西利卡建筑一直是公共活动的中心,这个传统从公元前的罗马     

An example of sex‐linked color vision differences

It is well known that men and women may experience, perceptually and cognitively, the appearance of color differently. One of the possible physiological factors underlying these differences is a sexual dimorphism in the gene that encodes the photopigment of the long‐wavelength‐sensitive cones in the retina, manifest in a different frequency of expression in men and women. The present work describes a psychophysical experiment that revealed significant differences in color perception between men and women, and that consequently advises the separate treatment of the two populations. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 433–439, 2007