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Publications

2023

Boosting additive circular economy ecosystems using blockchain: An exploratory case study

Authors
Ferreira, IA; Godina, R; Pinto, A; Pinto, P; Carvalho, H;

Publication
COMPUTERS & INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Abstract
The role of new technologies such as additive manufacturing and blockchain technology in designing and implementing circular economy ecosystems is not a trivial issue. This study aimed to understand if blockchain technology can be an enabler tool for developing additive symbiotic networks. A real case study was developed regarding a circular economy ecosystem in which a fused granular fabrication 3D printer is used to valorize polycarbonate waste. The industrial symbiosis network comprised four stakeholders: a manufacturing company that produces polycarbonate waste, a municipality service responsible for the city waste management, a start-up holding the 3D printer, and a non-profit store. It was identified a set of six requirements to adopt the blockchain technology in an additive symbiotic network, bearing in mind the need to have a database to keep track of the properties of the input material for the 3D printer during the exchanges, in addition to the inexistence of mechanisms of trust or cooperation between well-established industries and the additive manufacturing industry. The findings suggested a permissioned blockchain to support the implementation of the additive symbiotic network, namely, to enable the physical transactions (quantity and quality of waste material PC sheets) and monitoring and reporting (additive manufacturing technology knowledge and final product's quantity and price).Future research venues include developing blockchain-based systems that enhance the development of ad-ditive symbiotic networks.

2023

Impact of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations on Distribution Grids with PV Integration

Authors
Silva, P; Cerveira, A; Baptista, J;

Publication
ICECET

Abstract
Electric mobility has been one of the big bets for the reduction of CO2 in the transport sector. But, the integration of electric vehicles on a large scale, especially the charging of their battery will bring some challenges in the distribution of electricity to avoid problems in their transport. In this paper, the impact of introducing electric vehicle charging stations and renewable energy sources in a 69-node IEEE network will be analysed. The integration of charging stations into the grid leads to high losses and voltage drops that harm the network. On the other hand, the installation of Photovoltaic (PV) panels, besides the advantage of energy production, improves the profile of the grid in terms of voltage drops. The choice of the best location for the charging stations, as well as the best location for the renewable sources, is made using two genetic algorithms. The results obtained show that the genetic algorithms can solve the problem efficiently.

2023

Communication and coordination issues in managing distributed scrum teams

Authors
Almeida, F;

Publication
Perspectives on Workplace Communication and Well-Being in Hybrid Work Environments

Abstract
Software development companies have progressively been experiencing the need to migrate their traditional development processes to agile environments. Several frameworks have emerged that support this paradigm, and Scrum is one of the most widely adopted on a global scale. However, Scrum was originally designed to work in small, local team environments. The challenge lies in designing its adoption in large-scale environments with geographically distributed teams. This chapter seeks to explore this challenge by identifying communication and coordination issues that may arise when adopting distributed Scrum. Three case studies are considered to allow comparison of different approaches considering structural and contextual factors associated with each organization.

2023

Modeling and Forecasting Photovoltaic Power Production

Authors
Ribeiro, D; Cerveira, A; Solteiro Pires, EJ; Baptista, J;

Publication
ICECET

Abstract
As the world's population grows, there is a need to find new sources of energy that are more sustainable. Photovoltaic (PV) energy is one of the renewable energy sources (RES) expected to have the greatest margin for growth in the near future. Given their intermittency, RES bring uncertainty and instability to the management of the power system, therefore it is essential to predict their behavior for different time frames. This paper aims to find the most effective forecasting method for PV energy production that could be applied to different time frames. PV energy production is directly dependent on solar radiation and temperature. Several forecasting approaches are proposed in this paper. A multiple linear regression (MLR) model is proposed to predict the monthly energy production based on the climatic parameters of the previous year. Different approaches are proposed based on first predicting the temperature and radiation and then applying the PV mathematical models to predict the produced energy. Three methods are proposed to predict the climatic parameters: using the average values, the additive decomposition, or the Holt-Winters method. Comparing the errors of the four proposed forecasting methods, the best model is the Holt-Winters, which presents smaller errors for radiation, temperature, and produced energy. This method is close to additive decomposition.

2023

A Review on Quadruped Manipulators

Authors
Lopes, MS; Moreira, AP; Silva, MF; Santos, F;

Publication
PROGRESS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, EPIA 2023, PT I

Abstract
Quadruped robots are gaining attention in the research community because of their superior mobility and versatility in a wide range of applications. However, they are restricted to procedures that do not need precise object interaction. With the addition of a robotic arm, they can overcome these drawbacks and be used in a new set of tasks. Combining a legged robot's dextrous movement with a robotic arm's maneuverability allows the emergence of a highly flexible system, but with the disadvantage of higher complexity of motion planning and control methods. This paper gives an overview of the existing quadruped systems capable of manipulation, with a particular interest in systems with high movement flexibility. The main topics discussed are the motion planning approaches and the selected kinematic configuration. This review concludes that the most followed research path is to add a robotic arm on the quadrupedal base and that the motion planning approach used depends on the desired application. For simple tasks, the arm can be seen as an independent system, which is simpler to implement. For more complex jobs the coupling effects between the arm and quadruped robot must be considered.

2023

Combining Symbolic and Deep Learning Approaches for Sentiment Analysis

Authors
Muhammad, SH; Brazdil, P; Jorge, A;

Publication
Compendium of Neurosymbolic Artificial Intelligence

Abstract
Deep learning approaches have become popular in sentiment analysis because of their competitive performance. The downside of this approach is that they do not provide understandable explanations on how the sentiment values are calculated. Previous approaches that used sentiment lexicons for sentiment analysis can do that, but their performance is lower than deep learning approaches. Therefore, it is natural to wonder if the two approaches can be combined to exploit their advantages. In this chapter, we present a neuro-symbolic approach that combines both symbolic and deep learning approaches for sentiment analysis tasks. The symbolic approach exploits sentiment lexicon and shifter patterns-which cover the operations of inversion/reversal, intensification, and attenuation/downtoning. The deep learning approach used a pre-trained language model (PLM) to construct sentiment lexicon. Our experimental result shows that the proposed approach leads to promising results, substantially better than the results of a pure lexicon-based approach. Although the results did not reach the level of the deep learning approach, a great advantage is that sentiment prediction can be accompanied by understandable explanations. For some users, it is very important to see how sentiment is derived, even if performance is a little lower.

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