2021
Autores
Simoes, AC; Ferreira, F; Almeida, A; Zimmermann, R; Castro, H; Azevedo, A;
Publicação
SMART AND SUSTAINABLE COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS 4.0 (PRO-VE 2021)
Abstract
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe are conscious that their competitive position depends on their success to embrace digitalisation challenges. However, some decision-makers in companies discard digital transformation because they do not understand how it can be incorporated into their businesses. Therefore, academia, research centres, and technological clusters are responsible for building the infrastructures and providing the support and the training that will progressively change this mindset. This paper aims to report an experience on designing a training program to train the trainers under the digital transformation topic. To define strategies to understand better the companies (and professionals) needs and motivations and the requisites to deliver the training course, the focus group methodology was applied. In this paper, we present a training program methodology and structure that intend to respond to industrial requests and, in this way to accelerate the digital transformation of companies, especially SMEs.
2021
Autores
Jurado, JM; Padua, L; Hruska, J; Feito, FR; Sousa, JJS;
Publicação
IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING
Abstract
Hyperspectral sensors mounted in unmanned aerial vehicles offer new opportunities to explore high-resolution multitemporal spectral analysis in remote sensing applications. Nevertheless, the use of hyperspectral data still poses challenges mainly in postprocessing to correct from high geometric deformation of images. In general, the acquisition of high-quality hyperspectral imagery is achieved through a time-consuming and complex processing workflow. However, this effort is mandatory when using hyperspectral imagery in a multisensor data fusion perspective, such as with thermal infrared imagery or photogrammetric point clouds. Push-broom hyperspectral sensors provide high spectral resolution data, but its scanning acquisition architecture imposes more challenges to create geometrically accurate mosaics from multiple hyperspectral swaths. In this article, an efficient method is presented to correct geometrical distortions on hyperspectral swaths from push-broom sensors by aligning them with an RGB photogrammetric orthophoto mosaic. The proposed method is based on an iterative approach to align hyperspectral swaths with an RGB photogrammetric orthophoto mosaic. Using as input preprocessed hyperspectral swaths, apart from the need of introducing some control points, the workflow is fully automatic and consists of: adaptive swath subdivision into multiple fragments; detection of significant image features; estimation of valid matches between individual swaths and the RGB orthophoto mosaic; and calculation of the best geometric transformation model to the retrieved matches. As a result, geometrical distortions of hyperspectral swaths are corrected and an orthomosaic is generated. This methodology provides an expedite solution able to produce a hyperspectral mosaic with an accuracy ranging from two to five times the ground sampling distance of the high-resolution RGB orthophoto mosaic, enabling the hyperspectral data integration with data from other sensors for multiple applications.
2021
Autores
Martins, C; Vaz, CB; Alves, JMA;
Publicação
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT
Abstract
Purpose Portugal has been experiencing a continuous growth in tourism activity, with hospitality industry as one of the main tourism sectors. Therefore, the assessment of hotel companies' performance is very important to assist decision processes. The purpose of this paper is to assess the financial performance (FP) of 570 hotel companies operating hotel units in Portugal in 2017. To explore the question of brand affiliation, a comparison was made between hotel companies with similar stars rating and market orientation. In addition, this paper intends to fill a gap in literature studying the Portuguese reality on the subject of brand affiliation. Design/methodology/approach The present study uses a methodology based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the overall performance for each company, which further decomposed into the within-group performance and the technological gap. The performance of the hotel company is assessed through the aggregation of multiple financial indicators using the composite indicator (CI) derived from the DEA model. A bivariate analysis based on the Tobit regression to test the robustness of brand effect on FP of hotel companies (HC) was also included. Findings The empirical results show that branded companies, on average, have significantly better overall FP than non-branded companies. On the one hand, the brand effect tends to improve the within-group FP of HCs and the brand presents a statistically significant positive effect on the FP. On the other hand, the best practices are observed in both branded and non-branded companies. Practical implications The results of this study illustrate that, globally, the better FP of the branded companies is because of their individual relative companies' performance and a better model of operation given by the brand effect. Brand affiliation will generally allow for a better FP and essentially a better profitability for invested equity, a higher return on sales and a higher value added per employee. Originality/value The study provides important theoretical and practical contributions that can assist the strategic decision of the HCs in choosing to operate independently or to adopt brand affiliation. Also, it is innovative because the FP of branded and non-branded HCs is measured not using a set of individual financial ratios but through a single CI that aggregates those financial ratios, using a DEA model.
2021
Autores
Figueredo, LFC; Aguiar, RC; Chen, L; Chakrabarty, S; Dogar, MR; Cohn, AG;
Publicação
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Abstract
2021
Autores
Moreira, RS; Carvalho, P; Catarino, R; Lopes, T; Soares, C; Torres, JM; Sobral, PM; Teixeira, A; Almeida, IF; Almeida, V;
Publicação
WorldCIST (3)
Abstract
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with a high worldwide incidence that in worst cases reaches 4.6%. This dermatosis can be associated with other comorbidities and has a significant negative impact on labor productivity and the quality of life of affected people. During day-to-day lives, psoriasis patients come across several practical clinical difficulties, e.g. to i) easily register a time evolution of affected skin areas (for later analysis by health carers); ii) daily evaluate the size of each affected skin area, to be able to iii) calculate the amount of medication to be applied on those affected body areas. In such a context, this paper proposes the Follow-App mobile system aiming to support people with psoriasis, by alleviating and managing their daily life with the disease. More precisely, the goals of the system are: to allow individual photographic registration of body parts affected by psoriasis; in addition, cataloging each image according to its body segment location and sampling date; then, on those photos, automatically detect and segment the affected skin surface, to posteriorly be able to calculate the area of the lesions; finally, based on the area and prescribed medicine, dynamically accounting the amount of topical medicine to use. These were the requirements addressed by the proposed system prototype. The evaluation tests on the ability to detect and quantify the area of the skin lesions were performed on a data-set with 22 images. The proposed segmentation algorithm for detecting the area of redness lesions reached an IoU rate over 81%. Therefore, the proposed Follow-App mobile system may become an important asset for people with psoriasis since the extent and redness of affected areas are major evaluation factors for the disease severity.
2021
Autores
Santos, BH; Peças Lopes, JA;
Publicação
U.Porto Journal of Engineering
Abstract
Portugal has developed a national roadmap for hydrogen deployment as a key element of the Portuguese energy transition towards carbon neutrality, with a major contribution towards the electrification of society, generating synergies between the electric and gas systems. Considering the government goals for hydrogen injection within natural gas infrastructures for 2025 and 2030, as long as the indicative trajectories for 2040 and 2050, the authors used the natural gas forecast of the security of supply official report in order to obtain the hydrogen demand and power plant capacity, evaluating the system effort to meet public policy goals. Several alternative scenarios were developed for sensitive analysis, in order to assess the different strategies of hydrogen deployment, considering production from an electrolyzer. Regarding the current Portuguese situation and every scenario outcome, the authors stated that major efforts must be undertaken in order to develop full-scale hydrogen projects in order to meet the national goals.
The access to the final selection minute is only available to applicants.
Please check the confirmation e-mail of your application to obtain the access code.