Abstract
Social media platforms have been increasingly used by companies, over the past few years, in order to make their recruitment and selection process more efficient. The aim is to gather more data about the applicants’ competences and personality traits, assuring that they are hiring the right candidates. Nevertheless, this method may be controversial since it can lead to different legal and ethical issues such as discrimination and invasion of privacy. Additionally, some problems may arise regarding the validity and fairness of the information found in such platforms. As Facebook is the most frequently used social platform among students and recently employed workers, we chose it as the main focus of our survey (which had 212 answers), in order to understand the applicants’ point of view about this subject. The main conclusions were that the majority of the respondents affirmed being aware of this practice, despite not agreeing with it; and, also, they do not believe that this is a good tool to evaluate their potential. Finally, our participants’ answers also led us to conclude that there could be contradictions regarding their judgement about the accessing of personal information by firms on Facebook. 76,9% of our respondents affirmed that they usually assess the profile of people who send them friend requests. Our respondents consider the use of Facebook during the selection process as being unethical, even though they assess others’ profiles and search for information themselves. © 2020, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Abstract
Segmentation process serves to aid the pathology diagnosing process since segmentation filters the interference from other anatomical structures and helps focus on the posterior segment structures of the eye, highlighting a set of signals that will serve for diagnosis of various retinal pathologies. Automatic retinal vessel segmentation can lead to a more accurate diagnosis. This paper presents a framework for automatic vessel segmentation of lower-resolution retinal images taken with a smartphone equipped with D-EYE lens. The framework is evaluated and the attained results were presented. A dataset was assembled and annotated of train models for automatic localisation retinal areas and for vessel segmentation. For the framework, two CNN based models were successfully trained, a Faster R-CNN that achieved a 96% correct detected of all regions with an MAE of 39 pixels, and a U-Net that achieved a DICE of 0.7547. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.

Abstract
External defibrillators are recognized effective to revert ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. This paper presents a new settable defibrillator, designed to assess the effectiveness of the following defibrillation waveforms during clinical trials: monophasic damped sinusoidal (MDS); biphasic truncated exponential (BTE) and rectilinear biphasic waveform (RBW). The device flexibility allows the setting of the defibrillation waveforms most relevant parameters, namely energy and pulses duration. The device usage is also relevant in biomedical engineer and medical staff education and training programs.

Abstract
We consider the problem of multi agents cooperating in a partially-observable environment. Agents must learn to coordinate and share relevant information to solve the tasks successfully. This article describes Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic with Communication (A3C2), an end-to-end differentiable approach where agents learn policies and communication protocols simultaneously. A3C2 uses a centralized learning, distributed execution paradigm, supports independent agents, dynamic team sizes, partially-observable environments, and noisy communications. We compare and show that A3C2 outperforms other state-of-the-art proposals in multiple environments.

Abstract
One of the biggest, most competitive and quicker shifting markets is the smartphone industry. Evaluating significant opportunities and being sustainable in the market is entirely up to a firm’s innovation strategy. In this article, we perform an in-depth analysis by available means to study trends and tendencies relative to Apple and Xiaomi, two completely different companies with completely different approaches. We tested the clients’ needs and perceptions, in an attempt to see if they are part of the enterprises’ strategy (in a survey, with 193 responses). Indeed, customers are interested in powerful cameras, good storage capacity and a good duration of the battery of their smartphones. The market is evaluated above 1.5 billion units sold per year and demonstrates high demand for every new model to be different, more powerful, more capable of fulfilling our lifestyle. Apple uses an incremental innovation sales strategy, based on the billions of euros used in secret research and development. On the other hand, Xiaomi performs open innovation, taking customers’ needs and ideas to the world. What is the best approach? Will it be enough to stay on top? An analysis using Google Trends shows how Nokia has faded away over time, how Apple had a spike of interest concerning its latest iPhone 11 launch; while Xiaomi is ever more popular, especially in Portugal. © 2020, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Abstract
Millions of people use public transport on a daily basis. Although most public transport systems use traditional ticketing approaches, based on tickets and smartcards, there are already ticketing alternatives based on smartphones. Most of the mobile ticketing solutions developed and available in the market use technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC) or Quick Response Codes (QR Codes), and there are practically no studies on the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for this purpose. This paper focuses on assessing the feasibility of using BLE beacons for mobile ticketing in urban passenger transport. The study was conducted during the development of a mobile ticketing solution for the Metropolitan Area of Porto (AMP) that takes advantage of the Bluetooth technology present on the passengers' smartphones. It uses BLE beacons to track the passengers' trips from the start to the end, as part of an implementation of a check-in/be-out system. This solution was implemented as a prototype to be tested in the AMP and all the tests performed were made during the course of a pilot test of this prototype. The study consisted of a set of technical tests related with beacons signal monitoring and the gathering and analysis of passengers' feedback who participated in a four months pilot test. The results obtained suggest that the BLE technology is feasible for mobile ticketing in urban passenger transport. The paper also presents the various available deployment alternatives, identifies the main problems found and proposes solutions to solve them, filling an important research gap in the literature. © 2020 The Authors