The major project in which I am involved since 2006 is the development of the software Maxima. It is a Free Software project without any funding. I have developed new versions of the plotting programs, a module for the graphical analysis of dynamical systems, functions to solve systems of differential equations numerically, a combinatorics module and a package to simulate quantum computing circuits. I have also made many improvements to the graphical interface Xmaxima and the Website of the project.
List of projects
Period: 2022 – 2025
A project to stimulate and develop the space technologies in Portugal, involving 39 Companies and Academic Institutions. My contribution consist of providing instruction in Aerospace subjects.
Period: 2020 – 2021
Principal investigators: Yasser Omar, Armando Pinto and José Nuno Oliveira
I participated by proposing a project in Quantum Computing and supervising its execution by Marco Leitão, a student majoring in Physics at the University of Porto.
Funded by: FCT
Period: 5/2012 – 9/2014
Amount awarded: €39 000
Principal investigator: Paulo Garcia (FEUP)
An astrophysics project. I provided support on software development for the project.
Funded by: University of Porto
Period: 2009 – 2010
Amount awarded: €4 000
Principal investigator: Ana Mouraz (FPCEUP)
Aimed at evaluating the importance of argumentative skills in higher education, using as case study courses taught at the Engineering School. Some of the results have been published in Leite et al. (2011) and Mouraz et al. (2014).
Funded by: European Union (7th RDT Framework)
Period: 12/2009 – 12/2012
Amount awarded: €13 220 000
Principal investigator in Portugal: Paulo Garcia (FEUP)
The grant intended to improve the instruments used for infrared observational astronomy used at several Astronomy centers all over Europe. Those funds allowed me to visit the Lyon Observatory for a week, where I learned to use the software "Mira", written by Éric Thiébaut. Later on I spent some days at the European Southern Observatory center in Garching, Germany, to include adapt that software to the libraries used by the GRAVITY experiment in the telescopes in Chile (Eisenhauer et al., 2011).
Funded by: FCT (Programa Operacional Ciência Inovação 2010, POCI)
Period: 11/2005 – 9/2006
Amount awarded: €138 217
Principal investigator: José Manuel Martins Ferreira (FEUP)
Didactic kits for teaching circuit theory via Web were evaluated and incorporated into e-learning platforms (Moodle); I contributed my expertise with that e-learning platform.
Funded by: FCT (FCT/CERN Cooperation Agreement)
Period: 2001 – 2009
Amount awarded in 2005: €110 000 (similar amounts in other years)
Principal investigator: António Amorim, University of Lisbon (Jaime Villate during 2005)
The funding was used for grants for undergraduate and graduate students and to pay the travel expenses from Portugal to the CERN. The work conducted by the students in my group in Porto have been published in Gonçalves (2003), Andrade (2003), Branco (2003), Rocha (2003), Pereira (2007), Pinto (2007), Ferreira (2007), F. Pereira (2008), Teixeira (2008), Batista (2008), Ferreira (2008), Pinto (2008) and M. Pereira (2008). I also co-authored four papers with the ATLAS collaboration (Aad, Abbott, Abdallah et al., 2008a, 2008b, 2010a, 2010b.
Period: 2006 – 2008
Principal investigator: Teresa Restivo
A project to support the creation of virtual and remote laboratories for teaching. The project was led by a group of professors from the departments of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Civil Engineering and Physics Engineering, supported by a group of undergraduate students and technical staff.
Period: 2006 – 2007
My contribution to this project was as advisor to the Informatics Center team that created a special edition of the Ubuntu operating system tailored to the needs of the Faculty of Engineering. That system has been used since to install the Linux system in all the computers in student's rooms and lecture halls.
Funded by: University of Porto/ Caixa Geral de Depósitos (Undergraduate Research Program)
Period: 11/2006 – 10/2007
Amount awarded: €3 500
Principal investigator: José Couto Marques (FEUP)
The goal was the creation of prototypes to aid the teaching of mechanical concepts in Engineering.
Funded by: University of Porto/ Caixa Geral de Depósitos (Undergraduate Research Program)
Period: 9/2005 – 8/2006
Amount awarded: €5 000
Principal investigator: Teresa Restivo (FEUP)
A collaboration was established within this project among undergraduate students majoring in Mechanical Engineering and in Informatics and Computing Engineering to make a Michelson Interferometer, at the Physics Department, accessible via Web. The Mechanical Engineering students undertook the structure to control the interferometer remotely and the Web interface. The Informatics students created a virtual version of the interferometer, which can be used to conduct virtual experiments on interferometry (Teixeira et al., 2006).
Funded by: European Union (FAIR program)
Period: 2003 – 2005
Amount awarded: €658 278
Principal investigator in Portugal: Jaime Villate
The main objective of the project was the improvement of e-learning platforms, in particular Moodle. I used the funding to hire a postdoctoral researcher and award grants to a graduate student and 4 undergraduate students. The results of our contribution to the project have been presented in a master thesis and communications in national and international conferences (Dutra, 2006; Villate et al., 2005a; Villate et al., 2005b).
Period: 2004 – 2005
Principal investigators: António Machado e Moura, Francisco Restivo
A new course was introduced in the Engineering School in 2004, called FEUP Project, to be attended by all freshman students during their first month at the school. As part of that course, students were required to take quizzes to assess their knowledge in Math, Physics and Chemistry (MAFIQUI: MAtemática, FÍsica e QUÍmica); the results of the first quiz was used to place the students in different level courses that run for a few weeks, followed by a second quiz. The aim was to prepare the students for their programs. I was in charge of preparing the logistics of the quizzes and coordinate the work of the Professors writing the quiz questions and the work of the teaching assistants conducting the recitation sessions. In the first year (September of 2004), there were 170 students enrolled and in the second year (September of 2005) all 850 freshman students were enrolled. The course was suspended after that second year. I developed a system to prepare written multiple choice quizzes, whose answers were then transferred to the Moodle server by the teaching assistants, allowing students to see their graded quizzes on-line. I have been using that same system in the courses I teach since then.
Period: 2004 – 2005
Principal investigator: Jaime Villate
I started using Moodle in 2002. At that time, the e-learning system used in the School was Luvit; it had the problem of not being translated into Portuguese and, being proprietary software, we could not undertake its translation. I wrote the first Portuguese translation for Moodle and started using it in my courses since 2003. In 2003 some colleagues asked me to give them access to my Moodle server and in 2004 the School's Board of Directors decided to replace Luvit by Moodle and provided me with funding to hire a graduate student to help with that migration.
Period: 2004
Principal investigator: José Magalhães Cruz
The aim of this project was to help the School administration and academic staff to migrate from proprietary software to free software and to stimulate the use of Free Software by students and professors. We were three professors in charge of the project, helped by three undergraduate students who recruited.
Funded by: CYTED — Ciencia y Tecnologia para el Desarrollo
Period: 4/1996 – 12/2000
Principal investigator: Alberto Sereno (FEUP)
I worked in statistical treatment of sensory analyses of Port Wine, an area in which I had already supervised two senior projects in Chemical Engineering, and presented the results in Ambato, Equador (Villate, 1996).
Funded by: European Union (FAIR program)
Period: 1996 – 2000
Amount awarded: €544 000
Principal investigator in Portugal: Jaime Villate
I worked in the architecture of the database and advised a senior undergraduate student working on the subject (Coelho and Gomes, 1997; Figueiredo and Borges, 1998; Aparício, 1999).