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Publications

Publications by CRACS

2017

Tuberculosis in children from diagnosis to decision to treat

Authors
Ramos, S; Gaio, R; Ferreira, F; Paulo Leal, JP; Martins, S; Vasco Santos, JV; Carvalho, I; Duarte, R;

Publication
REVISTA PORTUGUESA DE PNEUMOLOGIA

Abstract
Setting: Confirmation of tuberculosis (TB) in children is difficult, so clinicians use different procedures when deciding to treat. Objective: Identify criteria to initiate and maintain TB treatment in children younger than 5 years-old, without diagnosis confirmation. Design: A web-based survey was distributed by email to the corresponding authors of journal articles on childhood TB. The observations were clustered into disjoint groups, and analyzed by Ward's method. Results: We sent out 260 questionnaires and received 64 (24.6%) responses. Forty-six respondents (71.9%) said that microbiological confirmation was not important for initiation of anti-TB treatment, and that the epidemiological context and signs/symptoms suggestive of disease were most important. Sixty-one respondents (95.3%) said that the decision to continue therapy was mainly dependent on clinical improvement. A cluster of older respondents (median age: 52 years-old) who were active at a hospital or primary health care centre placed the most value on immunological test results and chest X-rays. A cluster of younger respondents (median age: 38 years-old) who were less experienced in management of TB placed more value on Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) results and chest computed tomography (CT) scans. A cluster of respondents with more experience in treating TB and working at specialized TB centres placed greater value on the clinical results and specific radiological alterations ("tree-in-bud" pattern and pleural effusion). Conclusion: TB management varied according to the age, work location and experience of the clinicians. It is necessary to establish standardized guidelines used for the diagnosis and decision to treat TB in children. (C) 2017 Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U.

2017

RUTICO: Recommending Successful Learning Paths under Time Constraints

Authors
Nabizadeh, AH; Jorge, AM; Leal, JP;

Publication
ADJUNCT PUBLICATION OF THE 25TH CONFERENCE ON USER MODELING, ADAPTATION AND PERSONALIZATION (UMAP'17)

Abstract
Nowadays using E-learning platforms such as Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) that support users to learn subjects are quite common. Despite the availability and the advantages of these systems, they ignore the learners' time limitation for learning a subject. In this paper we propose RUTICO, that recommends successful learning paths with respect to a learner's knowledge background and under a time constraint. RUTICO, which is an example of Long Term goal Recommender Systems (LTRS), a.er locating a learner in the course graph, it utilizes a Depth-first search (DFS) algorithm to find all possible paths for a learner given a time restriction. RUTICO also estimates learning time and score for the paths and finally, it recommends a path with the maximum score that satisfies the learner time restriction. In order to evaluate the ability of RUTICO in estimating time and score for paths, we used the Mean Absolute Error and Error. Our results show that we are able to generate a learning path that maximizes a learner's score under a time restriction. © 2017 ACM.

2017

An Emotional Word Analyzer for Portuguese

Authors
Maia, MI; Leal, JP;

Publication
6th Symposium on Languages, Applications and Technologies, SLATE 2017, June 26-27, 2017, Vila do Conde, Portugal

Abstract
The analysis of sentiments, emotions and opinions in texts is increasingly important in the current digital world. The existing lexicons with emotional annotations for the Portuguese language are oriented to polarities, classifying words as positive, negative or neutral. To identify the emotional load intended by the author it is necessary also to categorize the emotions expressed by individual words. EmoSpell is an extension of a morphological analyzer with semantic annotations of the emotional value of words. It uses Jspell as the morphological analyzer and a new dictionary with emotional annotations. This dictionary incorporates the lexical base EMOTAIX.PT, which classifies words based on three di erent levels of emotions – global, specific and intermediate. This paper describes the generation of the EmoSpell dictionary using three sources, the Jspell Portuguese dictionary and the lexical bases EMOTAIX.PT and SentiLex-PT. Also, this paper details the web application and web service that exploit this dictionary. It presents also a validation of the proposed approach using a corpus of student texts with di erent emotional loads. The validation compares the analyses provided by EmoSpell with the mentioned emotional lexical bases on the ability to recognize emotional words and extract the dominant emotion from a text. © Maria Inês Maia and José Paulo Leal

2017

Improving Diagram Assessment in Mooshak

Authors
Correia, H; Leal, JP; Paiva, JC;

Publication
Technology Enhanced Assessment, 20th International Conference, TEA 2017, Barcelona, Spain, October 5-6, 2017, Revised Selected Papers.

Abstract
Mooshak is a web system with support for assessment in computer science. It was originally developed for programming contest management but evolved to be used also as a pedagogical tool, capitalizing on its programming assessment features. The current version of Mooshak supports other forms of assessment used in computer science, such as diagram assessment. This form of assessment is supported by a set of new features, including a diagram editor, a graph comparator, and an environment for integration of pedagogical activities. The first attempt to integrate these features to support diagram assessment revealed a number of shortcomings, such as the lack of support for multiple diagrammatic languages, ineffective feedback, and usability issues. These shortcomings were addressed by the creation of a diagrammatic language definition language, the introduction of a new component for feedback summarization and a redesign of the diagram editor. This paper describes the design and implementation of these features, as well as their validation. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018.

2017

Streaming sensor data from dynamically reprogrammable tasks running on mobile devices

Authors
Silva, N; Marques, ERB; Lopes, LMB;

Publication
Proceedings of the 4th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Built Environments, BuildSys 2017, Delft, The Netherlands, November 08-09, 2017

Abstract

2017

JPC: A library for categorising and applying inter-language conversions between Java and Prolog

Authors
Castro, S; Mens, K; Moura, P;

Publication
SCIENCE OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING

Abstract
The number of approaches existing to enable a smooth interaction between Java and Prolog programs testifies the growing interest in solutions that combine the strengths of both languages. Most of these approaches provide limited support to allow programmers to customise how Prolog artefacts should be reified in the Java world, or how to reason about Java objects on the Prolog side. This is an error-prone task since often a considerable amount of mappings must be developed and organised. Furthermore, appropriate mappings may depend on the particular context in which a conversion is accomplished. Although some libraries alleviate this problem by providing higher-level abstractions to deal with the complexity of custom conversions between artefacts of the two languages, such libraries are difficult to implement and evolve, because of a lack of appropriate underlying building blocks for encapsulating, categorising and applying Java-Prolog conversion routines. We therefore introduce a new library, JPC, serving as a development tool for both programmers willing to categorise context-dependent conversion constructs in their Java-Prolog systems, and for architects implementing frameworks providing higher-level abstractions for better interoperability between these two languages.

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