Cookies Policy
The website need some cookies and similar means to function. If you permit us, we will use those means to collect data on your visits for aggregated statistics to improve our service. Find out More
Accept Reject
  • Menu
Publications

2019

A classification scheme for analyses of messages exchanged in online health forums

Authors
Lopes, CT; Da Silva, BG;

Publication
INFORMATION RESEARCH-AN INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC JOURNAL

Abstract
Introduction. Online health forums help to surface and organize patients' knowledge and make it useful for many. They are used by many to seek for advice or to share what they know about health subjects. Being an important communication medium, it's important to understand why and how it is used. Method. In this work we examine and categorize messages of an online health forum, with the purpose of providing a classification scheme that can be used by the research community in future analyses. The definition of the classification scheme was iterative and its inter-rater reliability was assessed twice using Cohen's Kappa statistic. Analysis. The classification scheme arose from a content analysis of 3,399 messages from several communities of an online health forum. Findings. The scheme is divided into four sections of categories and each section has several subcategories, in total there are 23 subcategories. The inter-rater agreement assessment of the scheme showed a good consistency between coders. The majority of the categories has a Cohen's Kappa agreement above 0.4. Conclusion. The proposed classification scheme facilitates the analysis of messages exchanged in online health forums for several purposes, including studies of information seeking.

2019

Virtual Reality in Education: Learning a Foreign Language

Authors
Pinto, D; Peixoto, B; Krassmann, A; Melo, M; Cabral, L; Bessa, M;

Publication
New Knowledge in Information Systems and Technologies - Volume 3

Abstract
There are still open questions about the effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) in Education when compared to conventional learning methods. This paper studies the feasibility of a VR-based learning tool and the possible differences in knowledge retention across a VR learning method and a conventional audio method, when it comes to learning a foreign language. Also, the students’ sense of presence and satisfaction were studied. For such purpose, a user study was conducted and results revealed that while presence and satisfaction were higher in Virtual Reality, the knowledge retention score remains the same across both experimental conditions. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.

2019

An Efficient Scheme for Prototyping kNN in the Context of Real-Time Human Activity Recognition

Authors
Ferreira, PJS; Magalhaes, RMC; Garcia, KD; Cardoso, JMP; Mendes Moreira, J;

Publication
INTELLIGENT DATA ENGINEERING AND AUTOMATED LEARNING - IDEAL 2019, PT I

Abstract
The Classifier kNN is largely used in Human Activity Recognition systems. Research efforts have proposed methods to decrease the high computational costs of the original kNN by focusing, e.g., on approximate kNN solutions such as the ones relying on Locality-sensitive Hashing (LSH). However, embedded kNN implementations need to address the target device memory constraints and power/energy consumption savings. One of the important aspects is the constraint regarding the maximum number of instances stored in the kNN learning process (being it offline or online and incremental). This paper presents simple, energy/computationally efficient and real-time feasible schemes to maintain a maximum number of learning instances stored by kNN. Experiments in the context of HAR show the efficiency of our best approaches, and their capability to avoid the kNN storage runs out of training instances for a given activity, a situation not prevented by typical default schemes.

2019

Adversarial learning for a robust iris presentation attack detection method against unseen attack presentations

Authors
Ferreira, PM; Sequeira, AF; Pernes, D; Rebelo, A; Cardoso, JS;

Publication
2019 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE BIOMETRICS SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (BIOSIG 2019)

Abstract
Despite the high performance of current presentation attack detection (PAD) methods, the robustness to unseen attacks is still an under addressed challenge. This work approaches the problem by enforcing the learning of the bona fide presentations while making the model less dependent on the presentation attack instrument species (PAIS). The proposed model comprises an encoder, mapping from input features to latent representations, and two classifiers operating on these underlying representations: (i) the task-classifier, for predicting the class labels (as bona fide or attack); and (ii) the species-classifier, for predicting the PAIS. In the learning stage, the encoder is trained to help the task-classifier while trying to fool the species-classifier. Plus, an additional training objective enforcing the similarity of the latent distributions of different species is added leading to a 'PAIspecies'- independent model. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed regularisation strategies equipped the neural network with increased PAD robustness. The adversarial model obtained better loss and accuracy as well as improved error rates in the detection of attack and bona fide presentations. © 2019 Gesellschaft fur Informatik (GI). All rights reserved.

2019

The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in the Creation and Support of Touristic Routes

Authors
Carvalho, A; Cunha, CR; Mendonca, V; Morais, EP;

Publication
EDUCATION EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT THROUGH VISION 2020

Abstract
The tourism sector has become one of the most important engines of economic growth for many countries. With the evolution of Information and Communication Technologies, new opportunities have arisen for a reengineering in the way the various tourism and hospitality industries interact with tourists. Equally, new possibilities open to the entities that vision to promote the patrimony and endogenous products of their regions. Information and Communication Technologies are today one of the most critical areas for the success of tourism and how tourist destinations can be promoted. Tourists, increasingly a digital generation, expect that the access to information and services be done in an innovative, immersive and contextualized way, through the use of technologies that are embedded in their daily lives. This article discusses the touristic routes creation process and the role of Information and Communication Technologies in the creation and support of touristic routes. Also, a technological model is presented in its conceptual perspective, as well the functional modelling of its main components and features.

2019

Exploring the meaning of social innovation: a categorisation scheme based on the level of policy intervention, profit orientation and geographical scale

Authors
Baptista, N; Pereira, J; Moreira, AC; De Matos, N;

Publication
INNOVATION-ORGANIZATION & MANAGEMENT

Abstract
There has been a growing interest in academia regarding the term 'social innovation', including in disciplines such as sociology, administration, history, management, psychology, and economics. The literature highlights the lack of scientific clarity in the use of the term, and some scholars argue that the term is no more than a 'buzzword' or a 'fad'. This article focusses on the analysis of the conceptualizations of social innovation, contrasting sociological and economical approaches, and adopts an integrative approach to propose a categorization scheme of social innovation projects based on three distinct variables, namely the level of policy support, the profit orientation and the geographical scale. We argue that government support and the scalability of social innovations should be carefully pondered depending on the characteristics of the social innovation initiatives. We conclude that policy support should privilege social innovation initiatives that, while having the potential to deliver social good, are constrained by market failures. In addition, we also argue in favour of policy support for small bottom-up initiatives that have a profit-logic but are not sufficiently robust to survive on their own due to the liabilities of smallness and newness. Finally, we advise caution in public policies supporting scale-up strategies and highlighted the inherent challenges.

  • 1549
  • 4201