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Publicações

2020

Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the European Portuguese version of the heartland forgiveness scale

Autores
Ikedo, F; Castro, L; Fraguas, S; Rego, F; Nunes, R;

Publicação
HEALTH AND QUALITY OF LIFE OUTCOMES

Abstract
Background Forgiveness is linked with well-being, and social and health research has focused on the role and aspects of forgiveness that has been recently suggested as a phenomenon of public health importance. The Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS) was developed gathering three subscales to assess the forgiveness of others, forgiveness of self, and forgiveness of situation. The present study aimed to adapt the HFS into European Portuguese, and investigate its reliability and validity. Methods Translation and cross-cultural adaptation were conducted using a multistep forward-back translation process. Internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach's alpha. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to verify that the factor structure is the same as in the original HFS. The short version of the Ruminative Response Scale (RRS) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) were used to examine convergent validity. Results A sample of 222 university students, selected through convenience sampling, was used to access the validity of the European Portuguese version of the HFS (EPHFS). Cronbach's alpha for the European Portuguese HFS subscales were 0.777, 0.814 and 0.816 for Self, Others and Situation, respectively, indicating acceptable reliability. The 3-factor model of the original HFS was replicated in confirmatory factor analysis. As expected by evidence in the literature, positive and statistically significant correlations were found between SWLS and HFS and subscales. RRS showed negative and statistically significant correlations with HFS and subscales. Conclusions The European Portuguese version of the HFS presented acceptable internal consistency, construct validity and confirmed the three-factor structure of the original HFS.

2020

Mapping graph coloring to quantum annealing

Autores
Silva, C; Aguiar, A; Lima, PMV; Dutra, I;

Publicação
QUANTUM MACHINE INTELLIGENCE

Abstract
Quantum annealing provides a method to solve combinatorial optimization problems in complex energy landscapes by exploiting thermal fluctuations that exist in a physical system. This work introduces the mapping of a graph coloring problem based on pseudo-Boolean constraints to a working graph of the D-Wave Systems Inc. We start from the problem formulated as a set of constraints represented in propositional logic. We use the SATyrus approach to transform this set of constraints to an energy minimization problem. We convert the formulation to a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problem (QUBO), applying polynomial reduction when needed, and solve the problem using different approaches: (a) classical QUBO using simulated annealing in a von Neumann machine; (b) QUBO in a simulated quantum environment; (c) actual quantum 1, QUBO using the D-Wave quantum machine and reducing polynomial degree using a D-Wave library; and (d) actual quantum 2, QUBO using the D-Wave quantum machine and reducing polynomial degree using our own implementation. We study how the implementations using these approaches vary in terms of the impact on the number of solutions found (a) when varying the penalties associated with the constraints and (b) when varying the annealing approach, simulated (SA) versus quantum (QA). Results show that both SA and QA produce good heuristics for this specific problem, although we found more solutions through the QA approach.

2020

Performance indicators to support firm-level decision-making in the wine industry: a systematic literature review

Autores
Mota, J; Moreira, A; Costa, R; Serrao, S; Pais Magalhaes, V; Costa, C;

Publicação
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF WINE BUSINESS RESEARCH

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify the main firm-level performance indicators and group them in dimensions that support decision-making in the wine industry. Design/methodology/approach To achieve this goal, an SLR approach was conducted in the Scopus database from 2009 to 2019. From a set of 607 articles, only 25 studies related to firm-level performance indicators were considered and, following an inductive thematic analysis and an interpretative synthesis, separated into different specific foci that include social, economic and environmental dimensions. Findings There is a limited number of papers identifying indicators regarding the firm-level performance of wine firms, and even fewer studies including indicators on an integrated approach to measure the different dimensions of firm performance. This paper documents that economic and environmental indicators cover 78.2% of all SLR indicators analyzed. As this group of indicators is limited to a set of sub-dimensions, this paper found that several groups of indicators are misrepresented, such as product portfolio or certifications related to marketing activities and indicators covering purchasing and supply chain activities, which play a crucial role in the competitiveness of the wine industry. Practical implications For practitioners, it discloses the most pertinent indicators they need to improve to craft their business strategies. This framework is of added value for policymakers to customize their support programs for specific producers to develop their competitive strategies. It could be deployed in teaching programs as a tool to address the importance of aligning different types of indicators to achieve firm-level performance in the wine industry. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature identifying a framework of analysis that includes indicators of four dimensions, namely, economic, social, territorial and environmental. This framework aims to relate performance measures to corporate strategy as a management control tool. The framework intends to improve the fit between firms' activities and their competitive context and to be flexibly adapted to various products/firms in the wine industry.

2020

Deep Aesthetic Assessment of Breast Cancer Surgery Outcomes

Autores
Goncalves, T; Silva, W; Cardoso, J;

Publicação
XV MEDITERRANEAN CONFERENCE ON MEDICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTING - MEDICON 2019

Abstract
Breast cancer is a highly mutable and rapidly evolving disease, with a large worldwide incidence. Even though, it is estimated that approximately 90% of the cases are treatable and curable if detected on early staging and given the best treatment. Nowadays, with the existence of breast cancer routine screening habits, better clinical treatment plans and proper management of the disease, it is possible to treat most cancers with conservative approaches, also known as breast cancer conservative treatments (BCCT). With such a treatment methodology, it is possible to focus on the aesthetic results of the surgery and the patient's Quality of Life, which may influence BCCT outcomes. In the past, this assessment would be done through subjective methods, where a panel of experts would be needed to perform the assessment; however, with the development of computer vision techniques, objective methods, such as BAT (c) and BCCT.core, which perform the assessment based on asymmetry measurements, have been used. On the other hand, they still require information given by the user and none of them has been considered the gold standard for this task. Recently, with the advent of deep learning techniques, algorithms capable of improving the performance of traditional methods on the detection of breast fiducial points (required for asymmetry measurements) have been proposed and showed promising results. There is still, however, a large margin for investigation on how to integrate such algorithms in a complete application, capable of performing an end-to-end classification of the BCCT outcomes. Taking this into account, this thesis shows a comparative study between deep convolutional networks for image segmentation and two different quality-driven keypoint detection architectures for the detection of the breast contour. One that uses a deep learning model that has learned to predict the quality (given by the mean squared error) of an array of keypoints, and, based on this quality, applies the backpropagation algorithm, with gradient descent, to improve them; another which uses a deep learning model which was trained with the quality as a regularization method and that used iterative refinement, in each training step, to improve the quality of the keypoints that were fed into the network. Although none of the methods surpasses the current state of the art, they present promising results for the creation of alternative methodologies to address other regression problems in which the learning of the quality metric may be easier. Following the current trend in the field of web development and with the objective of transferring BCCT.core to an online format, a prototype of a web application for the automatic keypoint detection was developed and is presented in this document. Currently, the user may upload an image and automatically detect and/or manipulate its keypoints. This prototype is completely scalable and can be upgraded with new functionalities according to the user's needs.

2020

A Roadmap to Gamify Programming Education

Autores
Swacha, J; Queirós, R; Paiva, JC; Leal, JP; Kosta, S; Montella, R;

Publicação
First International Computer Programming Education Conference, ICPEC 2020, June 25-26, 2020, ESMAD, Vila do Conde, Portugal (Virtual Conference).

Abstract
Learning programming relies on practicing it which is often hampered by the barrier of difficulty. The combined use of automated assessment, which provides fast feedback to the students experimenting with their code, and gamification, which provides additional motivation for the students to intensify their learning effort, can help pass the barrier of difficulty in learning programming. In such environment, students keep receiving the relevant feedback no matter how many times they try (thanks to automated assessment), and their engagement is retained (thanks to gamification). While there is a number of open software and programming exercise collections supporting automated assessment, up to this date, there are no available open collections of gamified programming exercises, no open interactive programming learning environment that would support such exercises, and even no open standard for the representation of such exercises so that they could be developed in different educational institutions and shared among them. This gap is addressed by Framework for Gamified Programming Education (FGPE), an international project whose primary objective is to provide necessary prerequisites for the application of gamification to programming education, including a dedicated gamification scheme, a gamified exercise format and exercises conforming to it, software for editing the exercises and an interactive learning environment capable of presenting them to students. This paper presents the FGPE project, its architecture and main components, as well as the results achieved so far. 2012 ACM Subject Classification Social and professional topics ! Computer science education.

2020

Demand Response Programs in Multi-Energy Systems: A Review

Autores
Vahid Ghavidel, M; Javadi, MS; Gough, M; Santos, SF; Shafie khah, M; Catalao, JPS;

Publicação
ENERGIES

Abstract
A key challenge for future energy systems is how to minimize the effects of employing demand response (DR) programs on the consumer. There exists a diverse range of consumers with a variety of types of loads, such as must-run loads, and this can reduce the impact of consumer participation in DR programs. Multi-energy systems (MES) can solve this issue and have the capability to reduce any discomfort faced by all types of consumers who are willing to participate in the DRPs. In this paper, the most recent implementations of DR frameworks in the MESs are comprehensively reviewed. The DR modelling approach in such energy systems is investigated and the main contributions of each of these works are included. Notably, the amount of research in MES has rapidly increased in recent years. The majority of the reviewed works consider power, heat and gas systems within the MES. Over three-quarters of the papers investigated consider some form of energy storage system, which shows how important having efficient, cost-effective and reliable energy storage systems will be in the future. In addition, a vast majority of the works also considered some form of demand response programs in their model. This points to the need to make participating in the energy market easier for consumers, as well as the importance of good communication between generators, system operators, and consumers. Moreover, the emerging topics within the area of MES are investigated using a bibliometric analysis to provide insight to other researchers in this area.

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