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Abstract
The dropout of university students has been a factor of concern for educational institutions, affecting various aspects such as the institution’s reputation and funding and rankings. For this reason, it is essential to identify which students are at risk. In this study, algorithms based on decision trees and random forests are proposed to solve these problems using real data from 331 students from the University of Trásos-Montes and Alto Douro. In this work with these learning algorithms together with the training strategies, we managed to obtain an 89% forecast of students who may abandon their studies based on the evaluations of both semesters related to the first year and personal data.

Abstract
Visualization can be defined as a technique that allows us to obtain the perception of an object/event in a clear and consistent way. The use of visualization in education is a key factor to explain complex information in a clear way. Therefore, it is essential to have tools capable of visualizing various types of data. An example of a data type is the weather forecast data, which includes various atmospheric data for a given place, and allows the simulation of the atmospheric evolution. It is used for decision making in many areas, such as, agriculture, fishing, tourism, etc. Thus, it is beneficial to demonstrate the usefulness of this type of visualization to better understand the meteorological phenomena, as well as to teach scientific visualization techniques in order to enable access to information that otherwise can only be interpreted by qualified people. In this article it will be discussed the scientific visualization and its benefits to the area of meteorology, and it will be presented a case study of data visualization using the ParaView tools for meteorological data visualization and analysis. ParaView is a multiplatform tool based on the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) that provides features to process, analyze, and visualize various types of data. This study aims to present a tool for scientific visualization and to demonstrate its applications and usefulness for education. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Abstract
In this study, the development of a mobile application, for people with visual disabilities, is presented. The solution allows assistance to easily walk outside and be warned from the obstacles that could appear. Specifically, the application alerts, with audio stimulus, the user for the incoming dangerous objects by identifying them at a certain distance, in real time, via the phone camera. It can be used with voice commands and/or manually, in two different ways. In addition, location information of frequently visited places can be saved, at any time, and the user can use the app's audible navigation service for his/her next visit. Also, this application can be used only with the mobile phone, without any additional hardware device. It was developed to be used on both IOS and Android platforms. A preliminary usability assessment has been made and the overall results appeared positive as it was showed 86% successful rate in user interaction. In future work, we will introduce improvements within the voice command system, also in the synchronization of the camera and navigation service, and provide an advanced model training to object detection.

Abstract
When something is written regarding the need of accessibility, the authors typically put the emphasis in how it is something valuable for the people with disabilities (PwD) that need that accessibility in the first place in order to become included in the society; others follow the more debatable via of the human rights or the strive for a more humanist and inclusive society, even if such accessibility provision ends being legally enforced. Any benefits to non-PwD are usually seen as secondary effects due to PwDs becoming more autonomous or needing less support once the accessibility occurs to some extent. This article drives in a different direction, exposing direct benefits to the non-PwD when the world is more accessible, even when no actual PwD is needing any accessibility. For that purpose, examples are presented with non-PwD being benefited rather than PwD due to accessibilities that were thought to serve only for the PwD.