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Publicações

2019

Clustering Geo-Indistinguishability for Privacy of Continuous Location Traces

Autores
Cunha, M; Mendes, R; Vilela, JP;

Publicação
2019 4TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTING, COMMUNICATIONS AND SECURITY (ICCCS)

Abstract
We consider privacy of obfuscated location reports that can be correlated through time/space to estimate the real position of a user. We propose a user-centric Location Privacy Preserving Mechanism (LPPM) that protects users not only against single reports, but also over time, against continuous reports. Our proposed mechanism, designated clustering geo-indistinguishability, creates obfuscation clusters to aggregate nearby locations into a single obfuscated location. To evaluate the utility of the mechanism, we resorted to a real use-case based on geofencing. Our evaluation results have shown a suitable privacy-utility trade-off for the proposed clustering geo-indistinguishability mechanism.

2019

An unsupervised metaheuristic search approach for segmentation and volume measurement of pulmonary nodules in lung CT scans

Autores
Shakibapour, E; Cunha, A; Aresta, G; Mendonca, AM; Campilho, A;

Publicação
EXPERT SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS

Abstract
This paper proposes a new methodology to automatically segment and measure the volume of pulmonary nodules in lung computed tomography (CT) scans. Estimating the malignancy likelihood of a pulmonary nodule based on lesion characteristics motivated the development of an unsupervised pulmonary nodule segmentation and volume measurement as a preliminary stage for pulmonary nodule characterization. The idea is to optimally cluster a set of feature vectors composed by intensity and shape-related features in a given feature data space extracted from a pre-detected nodule. For that purpose, a metaheuristic search based on evolutionary computation is used for clustering the corresponding feature vectors. The proposed method is simple, unsupervised and is able to segment different types of nodules in terms of location and texture without the need for any manual annotation. We validate the proposed segmentation and volume measurement on the Lung Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative - LIDC-IDRI dataset. The first dataset is a group of 705 solid and sub-solid (assessed as part-solid and non-solid) nodules located in different regions of the lungs, and the second, more challenging, is a group of 59 sub-solid nodules. The average Dice scores of 82.35% and 71.05% for the two datasets show the good performance of the segmentation proposal. Comparisons with previous state-of-the-art techniques also show acceptable and comparable segmentation results. The volumes of the segmented nodules are measured via ellipsoid approximation. The correlation and statistical significance between the measured volumes of the segmented nodules and the ground-truth are obtained by Pearson correlation coefficient value, obtaining an R-value >= 92.16% with a significance level of 5%.

2019

Fostering Professional Competencies in Engineering Undergraduates with EPS@ISEP

Autores
Malheiro, B; Guedes, P; Silva, ME; Ferreira, P;

Publicação
EDUCATION SCIENCES

Abstract
Engineering education addresses the development of professional competencies in undergraduates. In this context, the core set of professional competencies includes critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, collaboration and team building, and creativity and innovation-also known as the four Cs-as well as socio-professional ethics and sustainable development-referred in this paper as the two Ss. While the four Cs were identified by the associates of the American Management Association based on the needs of the society, professional associations, and businesses; this paper proposes the two S extension to ensure that future engineers contribute to the well-being of individuals and the preservation of life on Earth. It proposes a tangible framework-the 4C2S-and an application method to analyse the contributions made by engineering capstone programmes to the development of these core competencies in future engineering professionals. The method is applied to an engineering capstone programme-the European Project Semester (EPS) offered by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP)-and a specific project case-EPS@ISEP Pet Tracker project developed in 2013, constituting, in addition, a road map for the application of the 4C2S framework to engineering capstone programmes. The results show that EPS@ISEP complies with the 4C2S framework.

2019

Bringing service design to the development of health information systems: The case of the Portuguese national electronic health record

Autores
Teixeira, JG; de Pinho, NF; Patricio, L;

Publicação
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDICAL INFORMATICS

Abstract
Background: Health Information Systems (HIS), and especially Electronic Health Records (EHR), offer great promise. However, the true benefits of HIS and EHR are more elusive as research shows they have obtained mixed results across countries. To increase the success of these systems while creating value for healthcare professionals, research emphasizes the importance of involving clinical users in the design of HIS. Objective: Following calls for interdisciplinary research and increased end-user participation in HIS development, this paper shows how a service design approach can support the successful development and implementation of national EHRs. Service design brings a human-centered, participatory, holistic, creative and visual approach to HIS development, through an iterative process of exploration, ideation, reflection and implementation, fostering stakeholder participation and co-creation of the solution. Method: This paper presents an in-depth case study of the Portuguese National EHR development and implementation following a service design approach. The study involved individual and group interviews, as well as participatory design workshops with more than 170 participants along the different stages of exploration, ideation, reflection and implementation. Results: The service design approach, including the visual models and tools used across the different design stages, was instrumental to envision new EHR concepts and design the system to enhance healthcare users experience. A qualitative study performed after implementation showed that the EHR was considered useful and easy to use, and these results are backed by widespread usage of the system. Discussion and conclusion: This paper shows how a service design approach can address key challenges in EHR development. By adopting a holistic perspective, service design broadens the scope of EHR development to understand its broader service system and position it to enable value creation with users. The human-centered, participatory, creative, visual and holistic approach supports the understanding of user needs and context, and their active involvement in the design and co-creation effort. This service design approach fosters user adoption at the implementation stage. Service design can thus contribute to the successful development and implementation of EHRs.

2019

The impact of the winery's wastewater treatment system on the winery water footprint

Autores
Saraiva, A; Rodrigues, G; Mamede, H; Silvestre, J; Dias, I; Feliciano, M; Silva, POE; Oliveira, M;

Publicação
WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Abstract
In the Mediterranean region, water scarcity has already prompted concern in the wine sector due to the strong impact it has on vineyard productivity and wine quality. Water footprint is an indicator that takes account of all the water involved in the creation of a product and may help producers to identify hotspots, and reduce water consumption and the corresponding production costs. In recent years several studies have been reported on wine water footprint determination, but mostly focused on the viticulture phase or assuming no grey water footprint at the winery since it has a treatment system. In the framework of the WineWaterFootprint project a medium-size winery was monitored, with direct measurements, regarding determination of the blue and grey components of water footprint. The determined winery water footprint ranged from 9.6 to 12.7 L of water per wine bottle of 0.75 L, the wastewater produced being responsible for about 98%, which means that the grey component cannot be disregarded. The developed scenarios show that a potential reduction of 87% in winery water footprint can be obtained with almost no investment. The challenge of reducing the grey footprint is not in technology development, but rather in the proper maintenance and monitoring of treatment systems.

2019

Get Your Spreadsheets Under (Version) Control

Autores
Macedo, JN; Moreira, R; Cunha, J; Saraiva, J;

Publicação
Proceedings of the XXII Iberoamerican Conference on Software Engineering, CIbSE 2019, La Habana, Cuba, April 22-26, 2019.

Abstract
Spreadsheets play a pivotal role in many organizations. They serve to store and manipulate data or forecasting, and they are often used to help in the decision process, thus directly impacting the success, or not, of organizations. As the research community already realized, spreadsheets tend to have the same problems “professional” software contain. Thus, in the past decade many software engineering techniques have been successfully proposed to aid spreadsheet developers and users. However, one of the most used mechanisms to manage software projects is still lacking in spreadsheets: a version control system. A version control system allows for collaborative development, while also allowing individual developers to explore different alternatives without compromising the main project. In this paper we present a version control system, named SheetGit, oriented for end-user programmers. It allows to graphically visualize the history of versions (including branches), to switch between different versions just by pointing and clicking, and to visualize the differences between any two versions in an animated way. To validate our approach/tool we performed an empirical evaluation which shows evidence that SheetGit can aid users when compared to other tools.

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