Vitor Manuel Filipe

Abstract
The recovery of walking function following spinal cord injury (SCI) is of major importance to patients and clinicians. In experimental SCI studies, a rat model is widely used to assess walking function, following thoracic spinal cord lesion. In an effort to provide a resource which investigators can refer to when seeking the most appropriate functional assay, the authors have compiled and categorized the behavioral assessments used to measure the deficits and recovery of the gait in thoracic SCI rats. These categories include kinematic and kinetic measurements. Within this categorization, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type of measurement. The present review includes the type of outcome data that they produce, the technical difficulty and the time required to potentially train the animals to perform them, and the need for expensive or highly specialized equipment. The use of multiple kinematic and kinetic parameters is recommended to identify subtle deficits and processes involved in the compensatory mechanisms of walking function after experimental thoracic SCI in rats. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd

Abstract
In the later stages of the aging process, an elderly person might need the help of a family member or a caregiver. Technology can be used to help to take care of elderly persons. Autonomous systems, using special interfaces, can collect information from elderly people, which might be useful to predict and recognize health related problems or physical security problems in real time. The emerging technology of image processing, in particular, the emotion recognition, can be a good option to use in elderly care support systems. In this article, we implemented a Microsoft Azure – Emotion SDK to recognize emotion of elderly that able to detect faces and recognize emotions in real time and to be used for elderly care support. The analysis is done with an online video stream, which analyzes facial expression, so that in case of a critical emotion, e.g., if an elderly is very sad or crying, it will inform a caregiver or related entity. From the experiment, we concluded that emotion recognition is a reliable technology to be implemented in real time elderly care. © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018.

Abstract
The visually impaired must face several well-known difficulties on their daily life. The use of technology in assistive systems can greatly improve their lives by helping with navigation and orientation, for which several approaches and technologies have been proposed. Lately, it has been introduced powerful online image processing services, based on machine learning and deep learning, promising truly cognitive assessment capacities. Google and Microsoft are two of these main players. In this work we built a device to be used by the blind in order to test the usage of the Google and Microsoft services to assist the blind. The online services were tested by researchers in a laboratory environment and by blind users on a large meeting room, familiar to them. This work reports on our findings regarding the online services effectiveness, the user interface and system latency. © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018.

Abstract

Abstract
Customer relationship management is critical for organizations. The public institutions, in particular the municipalities, are not an exception to this fact. However, these institutions have a number of peculiarities, as such their systems must be appropriate to their specific reality. In this article are presented the fundamental concepts of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and CzRM (Citizen Relationship Management), discussing the distinctive characteristics of municipalities regarding other organizations. © 2018 AISTI.