Collaborative Environments

The e-learning profession has grown leaps and bounds over the past two decades. Despite being slow to take hold, e-learning is now rapidly increasing in universities: "Today, almost all institutions of higher education offer some form of distance teaching and learning in the U.S." .

The idea that virtual environments are places for community engagement has been understood by the gaming community for some time, however the rise of the online world, Second Life (SL) during 2005-7, brought wider recognition, when a fascinated media reported on the more sensational aspects of living in a pixelated world.
Since then, the faint pulse has turned into a strong heartbeat. Globally, participation in online spatial environments is on the rise, spearheaded by a bullish kids and youth market, which sees constituents migrating comfortably to virtual worlds for social and gaming purposes. Equally, rapid improvements in the platforms themselves have prompted the serious consideration of 3D virtual environments for geographically dispersed or resource-limited communities, or where remote services and collaborative projects are being undertaken. These two factors, the wider uptake by younger generations, and the improvement in the technology itself, signal the increasing integration between the real and virtual world. It is timely therefore, to understand how multi-user virtual environments (MUVES) add value to the education sector.
Whilst it is early days and further evidence-based research is warranted, Australian initiatives collected for this report demonstrate how immersive Internet technologies are being used to engage students not just in learning, but also in knowledge production. They are then used to establish a

Numa era onde um terço da população mundial vive em bairros degradados, as questões da responsabilidade social começam a ganhar novo protagonismo. As questões formais tão enfatizadas pela prática do Star System, começam a ser postas em causa, pois apesar da sua espectacularidade, não se tem debruçado sobre o papel que a arquitectura deve desempenhar na solução dos problemas ambientais, sociais e urbanos da humanidade. As intervenções de Filipe Balestra integram-se numa tendência de recuperação dos valores éticos e sociais da arquitectura, que procura soluções menos espectaculares, mas mais eficientes, no sentido de melhorarem realmente as condições de vida das populações de deve servir.
A participação das populações nos projectos participativos, pressupõem um novo entendimento daquilo que é o papel do arquitecto. Se por um lado o carácter autoral da prática sofre uma perda, por outro lado a participação das populações nos projectos, dá-lhes uma nova riqueza e eficiência.
Procurar-se-á neste artigo descortinar as conquistas que os projectos participativos implicam na prática da Arquitecto. Em que medida que a procura criativa do projecto é limitada pela participação das populações, ou se pelo contrario, essa participação amplia as respostas do formais do Arquitecto.

IET indexes its books and journal in SCOPUS and IEEE Xplore.
Computer Vision (CV) and Sensors play a decisive role in the operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), but there exists a void when it comes to analysing the extent of their impact on the entire UAV system. In general, the fact that a UAV is a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is not taken into account. In this proposal, we propose to expand on earlier books covering the use of CV and sensing in UAVs. Among other things, an entirely autonomous UAV can help to (i) obtain information about the environment, (ii) work for an extended period of time without human interference, (iii) move either all or part of itself all over its operating location devoid of human help and (iv) stay away from dangerous situations for people and their possessions. A Vision System (VS) entails the way CV data will be utilized, the appropriate architecture for total avionics integration, the control interfaces, and the UAV operation. Since the VS core is its sensors and cameras, multi-sensor fusion, navigation, hazard detection, and ground correlation in real time are important operational aspects that can benefit from CV knowledge and technology. This book will aim to collect and shed some light on the existing information on CV software and hardware for UAVs as well as pinpoint aspects that need additional thinking. It will list standards and a set of prerequisites (or lack of them thereof) when it comes to CV deployment in UAVs. The issue of data fusion takes a centre place when the book explores ways to deal with sensor data and images as well as their integration and display. The best practices to fuse image and sensor information to enhance UAV performance by means of CV can greatly improve all aspects of the corresponding CPS. The CPS viewpoint can improve the way UAVs interact with the Internet of Things (IoT), use cloud computing, meet communications requirements, implement hardware/software paradigms necessary to handle video streaming, incorporate satellite data, and combine CV with Virtual/Augmented Realities.

VOLUME 2-DEPLOYMENT AND APPLICATIONS: This tome introduces procedures, standards, and prerequisites for the deployment of Computer Vision (CV) in UAVs from their application point of view. It discusses existing/desirable open source software tools, image banks, benchmarks, Quality of Experience (QoE), Quality of Service (QoS) and how CV can benefit from a Robot Operating System (ROS) in surveillance, remote sensing, inspection, maintenance and repair among other usages, while offering an assessment of current bottlenecks and trends. It will pave the road towards better studies on the necessity and viability of implementing collaborative environments for visualization, knowledge management and teleoperation of UAVs. This is planned to be the companion volume of Estrela, Hemanth, Saotome (Eds) / Imaging and Sensing for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Volume 1-Control and Performance.

Editor(s):
Dr. Vania V. Estrela, https://www.linkedin.com/in/vania-v-estrela-96b9bb29/
Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), RJ, Brazil
[email protected]

Dr. Jude Hemanth,https://www.karunya.edu/ece/drjude.html
Karunya University, Coimbatore, India
[email protected]

Dr. Osamu Saotome, https://www.linkedin.com/in/osamu-saotome-83935818
Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, CTA-ITA-IEEA, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
[email protected]

CONTENTS:
1. Image Acquisition and Restoration in UAVs
2. Image Fusion in UAVs
3. Super-Resolution Imaging in UAVs
4. 2D/3D/4D Imaging in UAVs
5. Multi-view Image and ToF Sensor Fusion in UAVs
6. Range Imaging in UAVs
7. Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imaging in UAVs
8. Imaging Standards and UAVs
9. Virtual/Augmented Reality in UAVs
10. Collaborative Environments in UAVs
11. Archiving, Storage, and Compression in UAVs
12. Analysis, Indexing, Retrieval in UAVs
13. Multicast/Broadcast/Streaming in UAVs
14. Modelling, Simulation and UAVs
15.  Image-Oriented Estimation and Identification in UAVs
16. Open Source Software in UAVs
17. Image Banks and Benchmarks in UAVs
18. Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) in UAVs
19. Robot Operating System (ROS) in UAVs
20. Cloud Computing in UAVs

Specification and Schedule

July 1st, 2017: Call for Chapter Abstracts
September 1, 2017: One-Page Chapter Abstract (up to 1000 words) Submission Deadline. Free style.
          A proposal must outline one of topics fromthe list above (mention its number, for instance 1. and reference PBCE120B).
November 30, 2017: Last Day for Notification of Acceptance
Jan 30, 2018: Full Chapter Submissions
March 30 2018: Review Chapter Submissions and send comments to authors
May 31, 2018: Receive revised Chapter Submissions
June 30, 2018: Notification of Final Acceptance
July 31, 2018: Gather all material, figure files and copyrights permission forms
Aug 30, 2018: Book editors to finalize introduction and conclusion chapters
Sept 15th, 2018, Delivery of full manuscript to the IET
Scheduled publication: Feb/March 2019

Readership: Graduate students and Researchers in the fields of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Humanitarian Engineering, Control Systems, Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Instrumentation and Measurement, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Oceanic Engineering, Safety Engineering, Reliability, Robotics and Automation, Signal Processing, Technology and Engineering Management, Environmental Engineering, Public Health Management, Non-Invasive Testing/Monitoring and Vehicular Technology.

Additional Information: Dr. Vania V. Estrela,    [email protected]
                                          Dr. Jude Hemanth,      [email protected]

The Web2.0 has opened a great opportunity for collaborative social environments. This article presents a transdisciplinary project named "Arquigrafia-Brasil Social Network", which aims the development of a user centered collaborative environment to document and study Brazilian architecture through images. It may play an important role in the architecture knowledge construction.

This paper describes the design of a distributed sys- tem built using Java that supports peer-to-peer commu- nication among processes spread across a network. We identify the requirements of a software layer that sup- ports distributed computing, and we propose a design that ...

Resumen. A partir del trabajo de Sfard en relación con las fases de interiorización, condensación y cosifi cación para explicar los procesos cognitivos referidos al aprendizaje de las matemáticas, realizamos una propuesta de modelo interpretativo del desarrollo profesional. A continuación, analizamos sus características aplicándolo al caso de una maestra participante en un entorno colaborativo de desarrollo profesional, evidenciando de este modo las potencialidades del modelo. Palabras clave. Desarrollo profesional de los profesores de matemáticas, procesos cognitivos, entornos colaborativos, refl exión. A cognitive model to interpret mathematics teachers' professional development. A case study within a collaborative environment Summary. Based on Sfard's stages of interiorisation, condensation and reifi cation, which she applies to explain the cognitive processes in relation to the mathematical learning, we propose an interpretative model of professional development. We analyse its features and then the model is applied to the case study of a primary teacher participating in a collaborative project for professional development. This way we show the model's potentialities.

Abstract. In this paper, we present LinkZoo, a web-based, linked data enabled tool that supports collaborative management of information resources. LinkZoo addresses the modern needs of information-intensive collaboration environments to publish, manage and share heterogeneous resources within user-driven contexts. Users create and manage diverse types of resources into common spaces such as files, web documents, people, datasets and calendar events. They can interlink them, annotate them and share them with other users, thus enabling collaborative editing, as well as enrich them with links to external linked data resources. Resources are inherently modeled and published as RDF, and can be explicitly interlinked and dereferenced by external applications. LinkZoo supports creation of dynamic communities that enable web-based collaboration through resource sharing and annotating, exposing objects on the Linked Data Cloud under controlled vocabularies and permissions. We demonstrate th...

Objective: The purpose of the study is to determine whether future elementary school teachers are successful in project activities and whether a properly organised collaborative environment affects the outcome of project activities. Background: In conditions when a person is the most important value and main capital of a society, the goal and product of the educational system should be human intelligence and personality. Therefore, for domestic education today, the issue of raising the status of the teaching profession and the modernisation of teacher education has become serious. The article reveals the problem of the successful formation of a future primary school teacher in project activities through a collaborative environment. The authors define the concepts of "project activity", "the success of the future primary school teacher in project activity", "project", "collaborative environment". Method: The methodology for organising a collaborative environment in project activities is determined. The study involved two groups; the sample was 107 pupils. Results: A programme for diagnosing the successful formation of a future primary school teacher in project activities is presented. Criteria, indicators (motivational, cognitive, activity) and levels of success formation of the future primary school teacher in project activities (intuitive, reproductive, creative) are defined. Conclusion: As part of the study, the authors determined that a collaborative environment is an effective means of success for a future primary school teacher in design. A collaborative environment was defined as the collaboration of a teacher and pupils in solving a problem, completing a task, or creating a product.

The research aims to explore the drivers and barriers that influence the inter-firm competitive collaboration within clusters. In this view, a case study on the emerging apparel cluster in the Republic of Moldova was accomplished. It focused particularly on identifying the types of existing collaboration linkages between firms and evaluating the context-specific factors that inhibit or encourage these linkages. The results suggest that despite the relatively dense agglomeration of firms within the emerging cluster, this does not translate into extensive collaboration networks. Entrepreneurs manifest hesitation toward collaboration and the lack of relational capital, as a common feature of most post-socialist economies, remains a big issue in making the cluster work. This represents a missed opportunity for cluster performance, specifically as the social capital crucially matters for knowledge and innovation to be transferred more readily.

Parents are important for their children’s development; they are the first order socialization agents, who, along with their teachers at school, are important for students’ initial and fundamental learning affecting their personalities and lives. Therefore, we propose a joint action of both, teachers in school and parents as a coordinated and cooperated task related to educational work, so to become flattering and rewarding for students. Therefore, we propose an application that will help parents and students to combine major daily tasks. For students, it will help them in their educational process; and for parents, it will help them to efficiently control the educational process. In result, the tool is specifically designed to improve students’ academic performance, and possibly affecting their future leaning paths.