Projects of Cooperation and Research

The ALFA-INTEC Project

A project of the LATECO (Latin American TEchnical COoperation) network of the European/Latin American Multi-institutional Project - ALFA (Latin American Academic Formation). The ALFA project was sponsored largely (80%) by the European Union, and was aimed at supporting networks of European/Latin American universities cooperatively undertaking exchange programs of research, industry projects and curricula.Representating my university, I partnered with 6 other universities,(4 European and two Latin American) in drawing up the initial project proposal for the LATECO network and submitting to the European Union. Our common project INTEC (Information Technology in Engineering and Commerce) was successful at the first, second and final phases of evaluation. We had two seminars, one in Clausthal - Germany and another in Guadalajara - Mexico where partners made presentations on innovative IT solutions to industry problems using AI, CAD/CAM, OO and database techniques. Research grands were awarded for travel between member institutions and exhange of post-graduate and undergraduate students between member institutions during the four year duration of our award.

The Computing Center Project - Migrating the University Databases to an Open System

While in the Federal University of Maranhao, working together with the management of the computing center, I elaborated and led a university-wide project which involved the migration of the university databases to an open environment under the client-server interoperable systems Unix/NT and Novell

Some Student Projects Supervised

• A Model for Modelling the Semantics and Dynamics of Advanced Databases and its mapping to the Logical Database Model - a Ph.D. Project approved and still currently being carried out
• The Development of a Knowledge-Based System for Power System Maintenance and Fault-Diagnosis using a Graphical Interface - an M.Sc. project completed by my Student Mario Luis Aquino dos santos and deployed within Eletronorte, the largest electricity generating board in the north-east of Brasil.
• "A fuzzy SQL-like interface to a Relational Database" (in Portuguese) - Project completed by student Jose Joaquim
• I supervised a number of student case-study projects aimed at teaching application of the system thinking methodology to studying real-life dynamic problem situations such as problems of production distribution systems and inventory control with the end result of developing a simulation model and optimizing system performance. Example projects included handling queues in a local bank, process optimization at a local aluminum plant and an order, inventroy and distribution systems for a local store chain.