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Abstract

Abstract
In Portugal, the dropout rate of university courses is around 29%. Understanding the reasons behind such a high desertion rate can drastically improve the success of students and universities. This work applies existing data mining techniques to predict the academic dropout mainly using the academic grades. Four different machine learning techniques are presented and analyzed. The dataset consists of 331 students who were previously enrolled in the Computer Engineering degree at the Universidade de Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD). The study aims to detect students who may prematurely drop out using existing methods. The most relevant data features were identified using the Permutation Feature Importance technique. In the second phase, several methods to predict the dropouts were applied. Then, each machine learning technique's results were displayed and compared to select the best approach to predict academic dropout. The methods used achieved good results, reaching an Fl-Score of 81% in the final test set, concluding that students' marks somehow incorporate their living conditions.

Abstract
The accelerated changes on our planet have led to a growing interest in climate change and its consequences: natural hazards and adverse socio-economic impacts. However, the development of climate research and the proliferation of datasets require an integrated and efficient approach to the analysis, investigation, and visualization of atmospheric meteorological data. Thus, we propose a literature review of existing systems viewing meteorological phenomena in four and three dimensions. Moreover, we evaluate meteorological occurrences to better understand the dynamics associated with a meteorological phenomenon and visualize different weather data. Based on the investigation of tools and methods, we consider the existence of different ways of representing meteorological data and methodologies. However, it was imperative to obtain knowledge and create our way of visualizing weather data. This article found eleven existing solutions for 4D meteorological visualization and meteorological phenomena.