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Nowadays, an extra consumption of electric energy in the Colombian houses is generated due to electric or electronic elements plugged into the electric network. This fact produces a cost overrun in the user’s electricity bills. To reduce this extra cost, and also with a plus of reducing greenhouse gas emission, a monitoring system for the consumption of electric energy in a household will be designed and implemented to make electricity users realize how much money and energy is being wasted due to the unnecessary electric elements plugged into the network. This paper aims to show a monitoring system that allows the client to supervise the consumption of some appliances inside his/her home, remotely. It is also considered the HMI to be able to log in, choose the intervals of data and generate reports and graphics. The monitoring system is based on the integration of several technologies that are already used and implemented in houses and buildings, such as: measuring and treatment of data electronically using microcontrollers, Wi-Fi technology and dynamic graphic interface (website).

The methodology consists of several tasks, starting from documentation of the variables, instrumentation and methods for getting to the solution; the first part of the methodology focuses on selecting the electric and/or electronic elements to be monitored, so the instrumentation is able to monitor. Then, the power stage was implemented in this stage to measure signals from the sensors while sensing the electric nodes are adjusted, so does the transmission and reception. In the third stage, the design information system was implemented; this is where the received data from the sensors are stored and managed for further organization and visualization. Activities included the following: Analysis of the model of use cases: Identification of actors and actions that are involved in the system. Server selection: Study of the different server to manage the database. Design of the database: The variables, tables, fields, profiles are determined for managing the information. Connection between sensors and database: Correct data transmission and managing to the database from the sensors. Finally, the system is validated in a rural house for a month.

The monitoring system satisfies the main objective of making a tracing of the behavior of some appliances inside a house, showing graphically the instant current generated while connected, the cumulated energy consumed and the cost in Colombian pesos of the energy consumed so far, in real time.

The monitoring system requires the correct functioning of the sensors connected to each household appliance in the home.

The main approach in the monitoring platform is the real-time measurement of energy consumption by nodes (in each appliance) that allows the user to control the money. The innovative impact of the project will be based on the use of hardware and information systems in the measurement of electrical consumption.

This research has a direct impact on the economic aspects of the low-income population by allowing them to manage their energy consumption through the proposed system.

The main approach in the monitoring platform is the real-time measurement of energy consumption by nodes (in each appliance) that allows the user to control the money.

The functional strategy map (FSM) is a tool used to capture the organizations' supply chain strategy. Its product, the strategy map, allows the organizations to apply the Conceptual System Assessment and Reformulation methodology (CSAR) with a multi-objective perspective to rethink the business strategy. The aim of this study is to optimize a company business strategy of corrugate cardboard boxes, with its strategic and tactical relations and problems obtained with the CSAR methodology and the FSM tool, as well as its operational priorities identified by the analytical hierarchy process, which is a tool to support multicriteria decision-making. This proposal, with a mixed methodology approach, generates multiple improvements, such as the reduction of the overall cost, the optimal fill rate operations, and the articulation of the strategic and functional decisions in this organization, which are based on a cost competitive strategy. The results were validated by the financial assessments that ensure an attractive return of the investment and the articulation between the business strategies with its functional plans.

The motors for high‐speed operation fed by frequency converters produce, first, a high amount of hysteresis and eddy losses in both stator and rotor iron, and secondly a temperature increase of the rotor due to current distribution in its rotor slots. Conventional calculation using analytical tools could not calculate precisely the required parameters in order to obtain an optimal model to build a prototype that its properties confirm that calculated values with the model. With a finite element method application for magnetic field and heat transfer, the required elements to design a new prototype could be elaborated very precisely and it is also a tool to prove the already existing motors for high speed applications. This allows us also to design energy efficient electrical drives according to the recommendations of the last EEMODS conference held in London in the year 1999 with the support of the European committee for energy saving.

Brighton will remain pleasantly in the memory of those who attended the Library Association Conference there. The meeting was well‐organized from the business and social points of view; and a generous hospitality extended by those in authority there gave a real delight to every day, indeed every hour, spent in the sea‐side city. The beautiful weather that prevailed added much to the event. On the purely technical side the conference compared favourably with any of recent years. The remarkable advance in the roll of members ; the progress of the net books question ; a new and keen interest shown in co‐operation, the immediate first‐fruit of which is to be union catalogue of London's municipal reference libraries ; the interest of the exhibitions, that of the Library Association being a promise of real excellence in the future; and the trade exhibition being one or the best we have examined—these were memorable features of a memorable conference. Our gratitude may perhaps be added to that expressed more officially at Brighton to all who had the arrangement of a most successful affair.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) provide an innovative educational technology, which has become widely used for distance learning by independent learners. However, there has been little work so far to study the effects of using MOOCs as part of a blended classroom approach in which learning activities take place both online and in a traditional classroom setting. The purpose of this study is to investigate the aspects of blended MOOC usage in the context of a computing course for first-year undergraduates at a UK university.

The MOOC was implemented on a purpose-built platform that supports learners to make informed choices about their learning path. This research investigates students’ capacity for self-regulated learning (SRL) and understands their preparedness for independent study, profile the general areas of SRL strength and weakness, which may affect their ability to learn effectively in a self-directed environment. An existing survey instrument, based on a six-dimensional conceptualization of SRL was adapted to investigate the self-regulation in the MOOC study.

The results demonstrate that the dimensions of self-evaluation and time management represent particular areas of weakness for these students. Furthermore, profiles of SRL for individual students show considerable differences in capability within the study. However, the deficiencies in SRL dimensions contrast with the students’ of generally high levels of attainment. This leads us to question the validity of the existing SRL. Furthermore, a high level of social interaction and help-seeking was reported in relation to the MOOC study indicating the increasing importance of social learning and the importance of co-regulation for SRL.

Although this study presents findings from a small data sample, it points to a number of areas for future implementation and exploration. Firstly, in line with the action research approach, students’ SRL could, in the future, be tested early in the course with the MOOC component being ideally placed to provide personalised support for each student in aspects which they may benefit from developing further. Secondly, for students in the cohort studied in this paper, a longitudinal study will track how their SRL develops as they progress through the degree. We feel that it is important to gain further qualitative data to understand how students work in practice and the strategies they adopt when confronted with different modes of learning. Finally, it is necessary to consider the conceptualisation of SRL to understand if existing instruments could be adapted to provide a more accurate assessment of the effectiveness of learners’ self-regulation.

There has been little research on the effects of using a MOOC as the online component of a blended classroom learning approach. This study has used a theoretical perspective of SRL to investigate the approaches to self-regulation adopted by undergraduate computer science students studying in a blended MOOC environment. The MOOC used for this purpose was developed on the innovative eLDa platform, allowing students to determine, track and visualise their individual path through topics and materials offered in the MOOC.

The purpose of this article is to describe an innovative research methods framework designed to address some of the persistent challenges to a social scientific understanding of civilian-led police oversight commissions.

The project design begins by acknowledging that oversight commissions take multiple and varied forms, which are contingent on local histories, institutional dynamics and discursive strategies for indexing racial inequality. The authors find such variation not to be an impediment to insightful research design. Rather, the methodological frame makes use of multi-sited ethnographic methods, organized at the county level across three research clusters (in this example, Milwaukee Co, WI; San Diego Co., CA; and Washtenaw Co, MI), to draw attention to the effects of such multiplicity to complicate, localize and render visible the specific practices of policing and its critique through civilian oversight.

Amongst an increasing national concern with the racialized nature of police violence, one evolving strategy for police reform among municipalities is to establish civilian oversight boards that can monitor, make recommendations for, and potentially direct police policy. However, there is very little research on such commissions, leaving many unanswered questions for proponents of evidence-based criminal justice policy. One reason for this lack is that the tremendous variability of such commissions has led some researchers to abandon hope for a comparative analysis which might offer generalizable conclusions beyond individual case studies. Lessons learned from previous reform efforts suggest that without a solid evidentiary basis, such reform efforts can easily succumb to institutional inertia or even failure. This danger is especially present when policy and practice recommendations are not based on research designs particularly attuned to making audible the experiences and concerns of the most marginalized targets of police attention.

The value of this method rests in its ability to provide comparative insights into the ways in which oversight commissions operate within a broader pluralized security landscape that both makes possible and constrains democratic participation along racial lines. The method contextualizes and renders audible ways of understanding, evaluating, and practicing democratic community as it is articulated through the issue of police and its oversight.

This chapter presents the results of the collective experience of two professors and three students in implementing WebQuests in a preservice English education component. The first part of the chapter provided a definition of WebQuests, situating this particular proposal within the literature on second language education and the Colombian and Latin American contexts. The authors found that the paucity of studies on designing WebQuests, specifically in Latin America, became one of the strengths of their work. The next section situated how implementing WebQuests in this preservice program enabled an expansion of the actual conceptual framework that is currently in place for WebQuests by adding ideas about competences and socio-cultural and critical thinking theories. However, there is an explanation about how WebQuests became a very feasible alternative to respond to the curricular demands of their institution. Next, the authors shared a multi-vocal account, from every author's vantage point, of how they carried out their work with WebQuests. This implementation process generated a series of changes in the way students saw themselves as learners and future teachers, gaining more ownership of the idea of WebQuests beyond a semester assignment. The instructors, as the result of their work, are now thinking of better ways to redefine how they use WebQuests and how they will get their other cohorts involved in collaborative academic efforts. This chapter is, then, not only an account of an experience, but an invitation to think about how to expand the boundaries of preservice teacher education through technological mediation.

Since the 1980s, US universities have greatly increased attention given to innovation and entrepreneurship out of a genuine commitment to enhancing American competitiveness. Although regional innovation and entrepreneurship can be enhanced by universities in multiple ways, the primary metrics of “success” remain patenting, licensing rates, and university spin-outs. While these metrics can be a useful proxy for the entrepreneurial university they tend to understate the many important contributions universities, including non-research intensive universities, make to their regional economies. In this chapter, we introduce a framework of capabilities that are essential to nurturing ecosystems of innovation and entrepreneurship at the regional level. We then describe the varied ways in which universities can support the development of these capabilities. Finally, we provide a framework of metrics, which can more comprehensively capture the value that universities represent to innovation and entrepreneurship in their regions.