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Publications

2022

Designing Microservice Systems Using Patterns: An Empirical Study on Quality Trade-Offs

Authors
Vale, G; Correia, FF; Guerra, EM; Rosa, TD; Fritzsch, J; Bogner, J;

Publication
IEEE 19TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE (ICSA 2022)

Abstract
The promise of increased agility, autonomy, scalability, and reusability has made the microservices architecture a de facto standard for the development of large-scale and cloud-native commercial applications. Software patterns are an important design tool, and often they are selected and combined with the goal of obtaining a set of desired quality attributes. However, from a research standpoint, many patterns have not been widely validated against industry practice, making them not much more than interesting theories. To address this, we investigated how practitioners perceive the impact of 14 patterns on 7 quality attributes. Hence, we conducted 9 semi-structured interviews to collect industry expertise regarding (1) knowledge and adoption of software patterns, (2) the perceived architectural trade-offs of patterns, and (3) metrics professionals use to measure quality attributes. We found that many of the trade-offs reported in our study matched the documentation of each respective pattern, and identified several gains and pains which have not yet been reported, leading to novel insight about microservice patterns.

2022

Machinery Retrofiting for Industry 4.0

Authors
Torres, P; Dionisio, R; Malhao, S; Neto, L; Goncalves, G;

Publication
INNOVATIONS IN MECHATRONICS ENGINEERING

Abstract
The paper presents an approach for the retrofitting of industrial looms on the shop floor of a textile industry. This is a real case study, where there was a need to update the equipment, providing the machines with communication features aligned with the concept of Industry 4.0. The work was developed within the scope of the research project PRODUTECH-SIF: Solutions for the Industry of the Future. Temperature, Inductive, Acoustic and 3-axis Accelerometers sensors were installed in different parts of the machines for monitorization. Data acquisition and processing is done by a SmarBox developed on a cRIO 9040 from National Instruments. A SmartBox processes data from one to four looms, allowing these old machines to have communication capacity and to be monitored remotely through the factory plant's MES/ERP. Communication can be done through the OPC UA or MQTT architecture, both protocols aligned with the new trends for industrial communications. The sensor data will be used to feed production and manufacturing KPIs and for predictive maintenance. The approach presented in this paper allows industries with legacy equipment to renew and adapt to new market trends, improving productivity rates and reduced maintenance costs.

2022

Geoprivacy in Neighbourhoods and Health Research: A Mini-Review of the Challenges and Best Practices in Epidemiological Studies

Authors
Ribeiro, AI; Dias, V; Ribeiro, S; Silva, JP; Barros, H;

Publication
PUBLIC HEALTH REVIEWS

Abstract
Neighbourhood and health research often relies on personal location data (e.g., home address, daily itineraries), despite the risks of geoprivacy breaches. Thus, geoprivacy is an important emerging topic, contemplated in international regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation. In this mini-review, we briefly assess the potential risks associated with the usage of personal location data and provide geoprivacy-preserving recommendations to be considered in epidemiological research. Risks include inference of personal information that the individual does not wish to disclose, reverse-identification and security breaches. Various measures should be implemented at different stages of a project (pre-data collection, data processing, data analysis/publication and data sharing) such as informed consent, pseudo-anonymization and geographical methods.

2022

ML-Assistant for Human Operators to Solve Faults and Classify Events Complexity in Electrical Grids

Authors
Campos, V; Andrade, R; Bessa, J; Gouveia, C;

Publication
IET Conference Proceedings

Abstract
Nowadays, human operators at grid control centers analyze a large volume of alarm information during outage’s events, and must act fast to restore the service. Currently, after the occurrence of short-circuit faults and its isolation via feeder protection, fault location and isolation is achieved via remotely controlled switching actions defined by operator’s experience. Despite operator’s experience and knowledge, this makes the process sub-optimal and slower. This paper proposes two novel machine learning-based algorithms to assist human operator decisions, aiming to: i) classify the complexity of a fault occurrence (Occurrences Classifier) based on its alarm events; ii) provide fast insights to the operator on how to solve it (Data2Actions). The Occurrences Classifier takes the alarm information of an occurrence and classifies it as a “simple” or “complex” occurrence. The Data2Actions takes a sequence of alarm information from the occurrence and suggests to the operator the more adequate sequence of switching actions to isolate the fault section on the overhead medium voltage line. Both algorithms were tested in real data from a Distribution System Operator between 2017 and 2020, and showed i) an accuracy of 86% for the Data2Actions, and ii) the Occurrences Classifier reached 74% accuracy for “simple” occurrences and 58% for “complex” ones, leading to an overall 65% accuracy. © 2022 IET Conference Proceedings. All rights reserved.

2022

Preparedness in a public health emergency: determinants of willingness and readiness to respond in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors
Leao, T; Duarte, G; Goncalves, G;

Publication
PUBLIC HEALTH

Abstract
Objectives: Healthcare professionals' high risk of infection and burnout in the first months of the COVID19 pandemic probably hindered their much-needed preparedness to respond. We aimed to inform how individual and institutional factors contributed for the preparedness to respond during the first months of a public health emergency. Study design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: We surveyed healthcare workers from a Local Health Unit in Portugal, which comprises primary health care centers and hospital services, including public health units and intensive care units, in the second and third months of the COVID-19 epidemic in Portugal. The 460 answers, completed by 252 participants (about 10% of the healthcare workers), were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple logistic regressions. We estimated adjusted odds ratios for the readiness and willingness to respond. Results: Readiness to respond was associated with the perception of adequate infrastructures (aOR = 4.04, P < 0.005), lack of access to personal protective equipment (aOR = 0.26, P < 0.05) and organization (aOR = 0.31, P < 0.05). The willingness to act was associated with the perception of not being able to make a difference (aOR = 0.05, P < 0.005), risk of work-related burnout (aOR = 21.21, P < 0.01) and experiencing colleagues or patients' deaths due to COVID-19 (aOR = 0.24, P < 0.05). Conclusions: Adequate organization, infrastructures, and access to personal protective equipment may be crucial for workers' preparedness in a new public health emergency, as well workers' understanding of their roles and expected impact. These factors, together with the risk of work-related burnout, shall be taken into account in the planning of the response of healthcare institutions in future public health emergencies.

2022

End-Effectors for Harvesting Manipulators - State Of The Art Review

Authors
Oliveira, F; Tinoco, V; Magalhaes, S; Santos, FN; Silva, MF;

Publication
2022 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS (ICARSC)

Abstract
There has been an increase in the variety of harvesting manipulators. However, sometimes the lack of efficiency of these manipulators makes it difficult to compete with harvesting tasks performed by humans. One of the key components of these manipulators is the end-effector, responsible for picking the fruits from the plant. This paper studies different types of end-effectors used by some harvesting manipulators and compares them. The objective is to analyse their advantages and limitations to better understand the requirements to design an end-effector to improve the performance of a custom Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) on the harvest of different types of fruits.

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