Armanda Rodrigues | Universidade Nova de Lisboa (original) (raw)

Papers by Armanda Rodrigues

AGILE: GIScience series, May 30, 2024

The production, use, and disposal of goods and services require the use of natural resources, res... more The production, use, and disposal of goods and services require the use of natural resources, resulting in waste and environmental pollution. A growing number of people are embracing more sustainable lifestyles in alignment with the 3Rs (Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling) to counter these effects, but many remain uninformed of their options, or lack the motivation to adopt these practices. The work described in this paper addresses these issues through the development of the Sustainable App, a mobile application incorporating techniques of persuasion and gamification which offers its users eco-friendly alternatives to several types of daily activities, made available via an interactive map. The app employs diverse strategies to improve engagement, including a pet-nurturing game-like feature that responds to user actions related to sustainable transport choices, sustainable retail, and recycling. Additionally, the complete platform associated with the app also delivers Just-In-Time (JIT) messages concerning nearby sustainable choices based on location and time. Upon evaluation of the platform, positive user experience and overall good feedback were noted. Experts also weighed in on the application's evaluation, offering valuable insights to refine future iterations.

Journal of Geographical Systems, Mar 5, 2018

Runnup and overtopping are the two main sea wave originated events that threat coastal structures... more Runnup and overtopping are the two main sea wave originated events that threat coastal structures. These events may cause destruction of property and the environment, and endanger people. To build early warning forecast systems, we must take into account the consequence and risk characterization of the events in the affected area, and understand how these two types of spatial information integrate with sensor data sources and the risk determination methodology. In this paper we present the description and relationship between consequence and risk maps, their role on the risk calculation, and how the HIDRALERTA project integrates both aspects into its risk methodology. We present a case study for Praia da Vitória port, in Azores Portugal.

J. Univers. Comput. Sci., 2013

The growing availability of on-line geographical information, since the advent of open map server... more The growing availability of on-line geographical information, since the advent of open map servers in the 2000s, originated a new generation of Web applications, those which combine "conventional" Web functionality with typical features of traditional Geographic Application System (GIS). The rapid growth in number and complexity of Web applications with geo-referenced data together with the need to support fast requirements change, demands for increased modularity. The volatility of some of these changing requirements, both in the scope of their geographic nature or in the period of time in which they are valid, stresses the importance of the applications' modularity. A solution is to take into consideration the crosscutting nature of these requirements and decouple their realization from "conventional" requirements in separate software modules. This paper proposes an end-to-end Aspect-Oriented approach to deal with spatial requirements from the early stages ...

2015 Digital Heritage, 2015

Project Lx Conventos aims to study, in a systematic and integrated manner, the impact of the diss... more Project Lx Conventos aims to study, in a systematic and integrated manner, the impact of the dissolution of religious orders in the dynamics of urban transformation in nineteenth century Lisbon. After the liberal revolution and the civil war, in the 19th century, the dissolution of religious orders led to the alienation, in Lisbon, of nearly 130 religious buildings which were then given profane occupations (mainly public services) or demolished and divided in plots, originating new urban realities. Project Lx Conventos thus aims to show that the extinction of the convents was decisive in the urban development of Lisbon, in the eighteen hundreds. The project stands on a large set of multimedia data which includes historic and contemporary cartography and geo-referenced photos, videos and 3D models, provided by the projects partners, Lisbon Municipality and the Portuguese National Archive, Torre do Tombo. Supported by these materials, the project's team is creating an online system that will implement a spatial and temporal navigation of these resources integrated in an interactive Map of Lisbon. Besides spatially locating and analyzing the data available for each of the religious buildings considered in the project, the tool integrates cutting edge interaction technology for: 1) Enabling a temporal voyage over the available traces of religious buildings; 2) Analyzing the evolution of religious buildings and their surroundings, through available data; 3) Using 3D representations of the buildings for accessing related data, through time. In this paper, the tools developed in the context of Lx Conventos are described, as well as the technologies supporting them. The current status of the system is presented and future developments are proposed.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014

Structures and zones of interest in coastal areas are exposed to wave overtopping events. The con... more Structures and zones of interest in coastal areas are exposed to wave overtopping events. The consequences associated with those events have a significant impact on human safety, the environment and affected business areas. This paper presents the overtopping forecast, warning and data analysis component of the HIDRALERTA system. The goal of this system is to provide a platform for warning dissemination, while managing the information generated by the risk forecast methodology. Alongside the warning dissemination, the system is concerned with the analysis of previous forecasts and it is designed to account for variability between different zones of interest. Our discussion includes an analysis on the variability expected by the system, a data model for sensor and interpolation data, and the system's user interface, which includes a geo-referenced time-series data analysis tool. We present a case study for Praia da Vitória port, Azores, Portugal.

ArXiv, 2021

We are currently prioritizing home activities, avoiding human contact, and carrying out external ... more We are currently prioritizing home activities, avoiding human contact, and carrying out external activities mostly by necessity. Therefore, and due to the loss of adhesion to cultural events on the part of the population, the cultural digital transformation process has been boosted, aiming to reach interested communities through digital media. The ACOA platform supports the organization of multiple sources of information related to creative processes behind complex artworks and their trajectories over time. This information is of great interest to conservators and curators, as well as to the general public, as it allows to document changes in the artwork, from the moment it was conceived by the artist, until its most recent exhibition. This platform houses a chronological evolution of the work, through the contextual dissemination of associated multimedia content. Works by the Portuguese artist Ana Vieira (1940-2016) were chosen as case studies for the implementation of the platform.

This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The... more This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The proposed system shows that integrating GIS data with an agent-based approach provides a successful simulation platform for the emergency plan validation process. Possible strategies to emergency plan modeling and representation are discussed, proposing a close relation with the actual workflow followed by the entities responsible for the plan's specification. The simulation model is mainly concerned with the location-based and location-motivated actions of the involved agents, describing the likely effects of a specific emergency situation response. The simulator architecture is further described, based on the correspondence between the representation of the plan, and the simulation model. This includes the involving characteristics of the simulation, the simulation engine, the description of the resulting data (for the later evaluation of the emergency plan) and a visualization and...

This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The... more This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The proposed system shows that integrating GIS data with an agent-based approach provides a successful simulation platform for the emergency plan validation process. Possible strategies to emergency plan modeling and representation are discussed, proposing a close relation with the actual workflow followed by the entities responsible for the plan’s specification. The simulation model is mainly concerned with the location-based and location-motivated actions of the involved agents, describing the likely effects of a specific emergency situation response. The simulator architecture is further described, based on the correspondence between the representation of the plan, and the simulation model. This includes the involving characteristics of the simulation, the simulation engine, the description of the resulting data (for the later evaluation of the emergency plan) and a visualization and int...

Int. J. Spatial Data Infrastructures Res., 2015

Progress in the technical provision of spatial operations as loosely-coupled interoperable web se... more Progress in the technical provision of spatial operations as loosely-coupled interoperable web services requires a corresponding development of standardisation in their description. Operation discovery, usage and interpretation of results require more information on what a spatial operation does than just their input and output interface specifications. Geooperators and WPS profiles have been proposed for addressing operation descriptions for different operational perspectives. Geooperators have been developed mostly for supporting operation discovery through defining alternative perspectives such as a geodata, legacy GIS, formal or technical perspective. These act as filters in the discovery process. WPS profiles provide a hierarchical approach to define the concept underlying an operation and, in more specific profiles, the syntactic interface of the operation. Both approaches require community engagement for reaching an agreed set of documented operations. We report on a discussi...

The development of web applications that manipulate geo-referenced information is often supported... more The development of web applications that manipulate geo-referenced information is often supported by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), al-lowing a fast development cycle for high quality applications. APIs can be used by programmers with different expertise levels and choosing an adequate API may have a dramatic impact on the productivity achieved by those programmers. Our goal is to compare maps APIs with respect to their usability. We compare three different APIs: the Google Maps JavaScript API, the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, and the OpenLayers JavaScript Mapping Library. Our comparison is supported by a set of software metrics and is performed in two orthogonal ways: the comparison of three implementations of the same system prototype, each using one of the APIs under scrutiny; the comparison of the APIs specifications. The main results of the study are related to the size of the APIs, with the Google API being significantly smaller than the others.

Soundscape is the technical term used to describe the sound in our surroundings. Experiencing His... more Soundscape is the technical term used to describe the sound in our surroundings. Experiencing Historical Soundscapes allows for a better understanding of life in the past and provides clues on the evolution of a community. Interactive and multimedia-based Historical Soundscape environments with geolocation is a relatively unexplored area but, recently, this topic has started to call the attention of researchers due to its relevance in culture and history. This work is part of the PASEV project, which is developing several types of digital tools, designed to interactively share the Historical Soundscapes of the Portuguese City of Evora. This paper presents an initial domain requirements analysis for the interactive and multimedia-based Historical Soundscapes domain, which involves handling geolocations. Thus, projects in this domain, such as PASEV, can be part, and take advantage of the benefits of this work, which is the reuse of Soundscape domain requirements, reducing the time needed to develop applications in such domain.

Discovering interesting locations to users is a challenge for social and productive networks. The... more Discovering interesting locations to users is a challenge for social and productive networks. The evidence of the content produced by users must be considered in this task, which may be simplified by the use of the metadata associated with the content, i.e., the categorization supported by the network, namely – descriptive keywords and geographic coordinates. In this book chapter we present a productive network representation model, designed to discover indirect keywords and locations. The spatial dimension of the model enables indirect location discovery methods through the interpretation of the network as a graph, solely relying on keywords and locations that categorize or describe productive items. The model and indirect location discovery methodology presented in this chapter avoid content analysis, and are a new step towards a generic approach to the identification of relevant information, otherwise hidden from the users. The evaluation of the model and methods is accomplished ...

Paisagens sonoras históricas

Communications in Computer and Information Science

Portugal’s privileged location and the extension of its coastline has led to the construction and... more Portugal’s privileged location and the extension of its coastline has led to the construction and maintenance of a large set of port infrastructures. These structures were built primarily to ensure the tranquillity of the protected areas in the harbour basins, but they also support, among others, the control of sedimentation, as they guide the currents and protect water withdrawn from thermoelectric plants. The rubble-mound breakwater is the most common of these structures and its characteristics impose maintenance and repair works throughout its lifetime. To avoid significant costs or, even worse, the collapse of the structure, the need for these works must be evaluated in advance. This is achieved through the evaluation of the breakwater’s Present Condition but also by its comparison with past situations. The Present Condition is periodically checked on-site and all relevant data is systematically gathered. The integration of the data collected during several inspections enables additional comparisons and analyses, supporting the characterisation of the Evolution and Risk conditions. Data collection at periodic inspections of these structures was, until recently, conducted manually, using paper forms and photographs. This was a slow and error prone process. To improve productivity, a monitoring tool, supported by a map-based online geographic information system (WebGIS) was developed. This platform is a device responsive mobile system which adapts to the location of the user’s device, enabling the geo-referencing and analysis of the structures concerned. The system includes facilities for the collection of structural information and also supports the association of Media data, such as photos and videos. In this paper, the developed platform is presented in detail focusing on information requirements, architecture, and the functionality available to the user. The resulting platform has been successfully evaluated by involved researchers from the Portuguese National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (the end users of the system) and by non-expert users.

2019 IEEE 43rd Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)

The widespread use of IoTs, as cheap and immersive technology, is enabling a wide range of daily ... more The widespread use of IoTs, as cheap and immersive technology, is enabling a wide range of daily life systems where Humans play a central role. It is commonly accepted that Humans sometimes present non-reliable behaviour. On the other hand, Gamification is becoming a common technique in system development to integrate business logic and induce Humans to accomplish certain goals and enforce systems reliability. Due to human nature, the evolution of game logic becomes an essential aspect of such systems to keep users engaged and participative. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss evolution in the particular scenario of a running Office Automation System in our open space. Here, the Human plays different roles such as an actuator, source of system input, a controller (decision maker), or simply environment (Human-in-the-loop). The mentioned system is the result of partially retrofitting a room of a forty years old building. It runs with a dynamic context scenario (that motivates different setups) and is formed by a heterogeneous set of IoTs. Those types of equipment are integrated to mainly accomplish two, sometimes conflicting, main goals: energy efficiency and Human comfort. As we will describe next, given the complexity of our system, various system's requirements need to be fulfilled at the same time. Those will dynamically change during runtime to contribute to both efficiency and participants' engagement. Not only the game requirements of the system evolve, but also the participants' behaviour change. We have consulted the open space's occupants on their daily routines and their preferences towards Gamification and gamified systems, particularly considering their social settings. They were also consulted on their views towards achieving energy efficiency in the open space. The results of this assessment are presented in this paper. The major suggestions were integrated into the current design of the system. We considered those that could contribute to the system's efficiency and reliability according to the system's goals. Besides, we also considered those that led to the use of several game techniques for motivating and improving the Humans' participation.

Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing

The1 growth of social networks impacts on several areas of our society. They can be used during s... more The1 growth of social networks impacts on several areas of our society. They can be used during software development, more specifically in the requirements elicitation activity, for identifying, complementing and validating the domain requirements. In this paper, we propose an approach that shows how social networks can be used as a source for capturing domain requirements. The aim is to perform the initial modeling of the system domain, providing a systematic methodology (process) for rapidly capturing relevant features that would not be straightforwardly elicited using traditional approaches. We apply this approach to the emergency systems domain (more specifically, floods in coastal areas), extracting information from the Twitter social network. The result is a domain model whose features can be reused in several applications of that domain. The application of the approach has been evaluated for its usefulness by domain experts and replicated to verify the generation of similar results at different time periods.

Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology

Despite the importance of recycling in the current and pressing context of preserving the environ... more Despite the importance of recycling in the current and pressing context of preserving the environment, it is still not adopted by all of us. Several mobile tools have become available with the aim of sensitizing and motivating the population towards sustainable behaviours, with limitations in information availability and in integration with formal as well as informal sources. Moreover, persuasive characteristics, such as the use of gamification also need improvement towards raising competitiveness (and awareness) in the targeted community. The authors thus propose a mobile responsive gamified application for motivating recycling attitudes centred around an interactive map, supported by the curated data of one of the reference companies of the environmental sector in the region. The app includes collaborative persuasive elements as well as validation processes for crowdsourced content proposed by the community. The results of an evaluation process, with promising results, are described.

Web Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are systems composed by software, hardware, spatial data... more Web Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are systems composed by software, hardware, spatial data and computing operations, which aim to collect, model, store, share, retrieve, manipulate and display geographically referenced data. The development of online geospatial applications is currently on the rise, but this type of application often involves dealing with concerns (i.e., properties) which are inherently volatile, implying a considerable effort for system evolution. Nevertheless, geospatial concerns (e.g., temporarily blocked streets), although changeable, are reusable. However, lack of modularization in software artifacts (including system's models) can compromise reusability. In this context, the use of requirements analysis patterns, enriched with aspect-oriented modeling techniques, can support reusability and improve modularity. In this paper, we introduce requirements analysis patterns for geospatial concerns, to facilitate modularity in GIS Web applications. These patterns are generated from the domain analysis of Web GIS applications and described using a template which is supported by a comprehensive tool, enabling the completion of specific geospatial patterns.

AGILE: GIScience series, May 30, 2024

The production, use, and disposal of goods and services require the use of natural resources, res... more The production, use, and disposal of goods and services require the use of natural resources, resulting in waste and environmental pollution. A growing number of people are embracing more sustainable lifestyles in alignment with the 3Rs (Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling) to counter these effects, but many remain uninformed of their options, or lack the motivation to adopt these practices. The work described in this paper addresses these issues through the development of the Sustainable App, a mobile application incorporating techniques of persuasion and gamification which offers its users eco-friendly alternatives to several types of daily activities, made available via an interactive map. The app employs diverse strategies to improve engagement, including a pet-nurturing game-like feature that responds to user actions related to sustainable transport choices, sustainable retail, and recycling. Additionally, the complete platform associated with the app also delivers Just-In-Time (JIT) messages concerning nearby sustainable choices based on location and time. Upon evaluation of the platform, positive user experience and overall good feedback were noted. Experts also weighed in on the application's evaluation, offering valuable insights to refine future iterations.

Journal of Geographical Systems, Mar 5, 2018

Runnup and overtopping are the two main sea wave originated events that threat coastal structures... more Runnup and overtopping are the two main sea wave originated events that threat coastal structures. These events may cause destruction of property and the environment, and endanger people. To build early warning forecast systems, we must take into account the consequence and risk characterization of the events in the affected area, and understand how these two types of spatial information integrate with sensor data sources and the risk determination methodology. In this paper we present the description and relationship between consequence and risk maps, their role on the risk calculation, and how the HIDRALERTA project integrates both aspects into its risk methodology. We present a case study for Praia da Vitória port, in Azores Portugal.

J. Univers. Comput. Sci., 2013

The growing availability of on-line geographical information, since the advent of open map server... more The growing availability of on-line geographical information, since the advent of open map servers in the 2000s, originated a new generation of Web applications, those which combine "conventional" Web functionality with typical features of traditional Geographic Application System (GIS). The rapid growth in number and complexity of Web applications with geo-referenced data together with the need to support fast requirements change, demands for increased modularity. The volatility of some of these changing requirements, both in the scope of their geographic nature or in the period of time in which they are valid, stresses the importance of the applications' modularity. A solution is to take into consideration the crosscutting nature of these requirements and decouple their realization from "conventional" requirements in separate software modules. This paper proposes an end-to-end Aspect-Oriented approach to deal with spatial requirements from the early stages ...

2015 Digital Heritage, 2015

Project Lx Conventos aims to study, in a systematic and integrated manner, the impact of the diss... more Project Lx Conventos aims to study, in a systematic and integrated manner, the impact of the dissolution of religious orders in the dynamics of urban transformation in nineteenth century Lisbon. After the liberal revolution and the civil war, in the 19th century, the dissolution of religious orders led to the alienation, in Lisbon, of nearly 130 religious buildings which were then given profane occupations (mainly public services) or demolished and divided in plots, originating new urban realities. Project Lx Conventos thus aims to show that the extinction of the convents was decisive in the urban development of Lisbon, in the eighteen hundreds. The project stands on a large set of multimedia data which includes historic and contemporary cartography and geo-referenced photos, videos and 3D models, provided by the projects partners, Lisbon Municipality and the Portuguese National Archive, Torre do Tombo. Supported by these materials, the project's team is creating an online system that will implement a spatial and temporal navigation of these resources integrated in an interactive Map of Lisbon. Besides spatially locating and analyzing the data available for each of the religious buildings considered in the project, the tool integrates cutting edge interaction technology for: 1) Enabling a temporal voyage over the available traces of religious buildings; 2) Analyzing the evolution of religious buildings and their surroundings, through available data; 3) Using 3D representations of the buildings for accessing related data, through time. In this paper, the tools developed in the context of Lx Conventos are described, as well as the technologies supporting them. The current status of the system is presented and future developments are proposed.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014

Structures and zones of interest in coastal areas are exposed to wave overtopping events. The con... more Structures and zones of interest in coastal areas are exposed to wave overtopping events. The consequences associated with those events have a significant impact on human safety, the environment and affected business areas. This paper presents the overtopping forecast, warning and data analysis component of the HIDRALERTA system. The goal of this system is to provide a platform for warning dissemination, while managing the information generated by the risk forecast methodology. Alongside the warning dissemination, the system is concerned with the analysis of previous forecasts and it is designed to account for variability between different zones of interest. Our discussion includes an analysis on the variability expected by the system, a data model for sensor and interpolation data, and the system's user interface, which includes a geo-referenced time-series data analysis tool. We present a case study for Praia da Vitória port, Azores, Portugal.

ArXiv, 2021

We are currently prioritizing home activities, avoiding human contact, and carrying out external ... more We are currently prioritizing home activities, avoiding human contact, and carrying out external activities mostly by necessity. Therefore, and due to the loss of adhesion to cultural events on the part of the population, the cultural digital transformation process has been boosted, aiming to reach interested communities through digital media. The ACOA platform supports the organization of multiple sources of information related to creative processes behind complex artworks and their trajectories over time. This information is of great interest to conservators and curators, as well as to the general public, as it allows to document changes in the artwork, from the moment it was conceived by the artist, until its most recent exhibition. This platform houses a chronological evolution of the work, through the contextual dissemination of associated multimedia content. Works by the Portuguese artist Ana Vieira (1940-2016) were chosen as case studies for the implementation of the platform.

This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The... more This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The proposed system shows that integrating GIS data with an agent-based approach provides a successful simulation platform for the emergency plan validation process. Possible strategies to emergency plan modeling and representation are discussed, proposing a close relation with the actual workflow followed by the entities responsible for the plan's specification. The simulation model is mainly concerned with the location-based and location-motivated actions of the involved agents, describing the likely effects of a specific emergency situation response. The simulator architecture is further described, based on the correspondence between the representation of the plan, and the simulation model. This includes the involving characteristics of the simulation, the simulation engine, the description of the resulting data (for the later evaluation of the emergency plan) and a visualization and...

This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The... more This paper proposes an agent-based simulation system for Dam Break Emergency Plan validation. The proposed system shows that integrating GIS data with an agent-based approach provides a successful simulation platform for the emergency plan validation process. Possible strategies to emergency plan modeling and representation are discussed, proposing a close relation with the actual workflow followed by the entities responsible for the plan’s specification. The simulation model is mainly concerned with the location-based and location-motivated actions of the involved agents, describing the likely effects of a specific emergency situation response. The simulator architecture is further described, based on the correspondence between the representation of the plan, and the simulation model. This includes the involving characteristics of the simulation, the simulation engine, the description of the resulting data (for the later evaluation of the emergency plan) and a visualization and int...

Int. J. Spatial Data Infrastructures Res., 2015

Progress in the technical provision of spatial operations as loosely-coupled interoperable web se... more Progress in the technical provision of spatial operations as loosely-coupled interoperable web services requires a corresponding development of standardisation in their description. Operation discovery, usage and interpretation of results require more information on what a spatial operation does than just their input and output interface specifications. Geooperators and WPS profiles have been proposed for addressing operation descriptions for different operational perspectives. Geooperators have been developed mostly for supporting operation discovery through defining alternative perspectives such as a geodata, legacy GIS, formal or technical perspective. These act as filters in the discovery process. WPS profiles provide a hierarchical approach to define the concept underlying an operation and, in more specific profiles, the syntactic interface of the operation. Both approaches require community engagement for reaching an agreed set of documented operations. We report on a discussi...

The development of web applications that manipulate geo-referenced information is often supported... more The development of web applications that manipulate geo-referenced information is often supported by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), al-lowing a fast development cycle for high quality applications. APIs can be used by programmers with different expertise levels and choosing an adequate API may have a dramatic impact on the productivity achieved by those programmers. Our goal is to compare maps APIs with respect to their usability. We compare three different APIs: the Google Maps JavaScript API, the ArcGIS API for JavaScript, and the OpenLayers JavaScript Mapping Library. Our comparison is supported by a set of software metrics and is performed in two orthogonal ways: the comparison of three implementations of the same system prototype, each using one of the APIs under scrutiny; the comparison of the APIs specifications. The main results of the study are related to the size of the APIs, with the Google API being significantly smaller than the others.

Soundscape is the technical term used to describe the sound in our surroundings. Experiencing His... more Soundscape is the technical term used to describe the sound in our surroundings. Experiencing Historical Soundscapes allows for a better understanding of life in the past and provides clues on the evolution of a community. Interactive and multimedia-based Historical Soundscape environments with geolocation is a relatively unexplored area but, recently, this topic has started to call the attention of researchers due to its relevance in culture and history. This work is part of the PASEV project, which is developing several types of digital tools, designed to interactively share the Historical Soundscapes of the Portuguese City of Evora. This paper presents an initial domain requirements analysis for the interactive and multimedia-based Historical Soundscapes domain, which involves handling geolocations. Thus, projects in this domain, such as PASEV, can be part, and take advantage of the benefits of this work, which is the reuse of Soundscape domain requirements, reducing the time needed to develop applications in such domain.

Discovering interesting locations to users is a challenge for social and productive networks. The... more Discovering interesting locations to users is a challenge for social and productive networks. The evidence of the content produced by users must be considered in this task, which may be simplified by the use of the metadata associated with the content, i.e., the categorization supported by the network, namely – descriptive keywords and geographic coordinates. In this book chapter we present a productive network representation model, designed to discover indirect keywords and locations. The spatial dimension of the model enables indirect location discovery methods through the interpretation of the network as a graph, solely relying on keywords and locations that categorize or describe productive items. The model and indirect location discovery methodology presented in this chapter avoid content analysis, and are a new step towards a generic approach to the identification of relevant information, otherwise hidden from the users. The evaluation of the model and methods is accomplished ...

Paisagens sonoras históricas

Communications in Computer and Information Science

Portugal’s privileged location and the extension of its coastline has led to the construction and... more Portugal’s privileged location and the extension of its coastline has led to the construction and maintenance of a large set of port infrastructures. These structures were built primarily to ensure the tranquillity of the protected areas in the harbour basins, but they also support, among others, the control of sedimentation, as they guide the currents and protect water withdrawn from thermoelectric plants. The rubble-mound breakwater is the most common of these structures and its characteristics impose maintenance and repair works throughout its lifetime. To avoid significant costs or, even worse, the collapse of the structure, the need for these works must be evaluated in advance. This is achieved through the evaluation of the breakwater’s Present Condition but also by its comparison with past situations. The Present Condition is periodically checked on-site and all relevant data is systematically gathered. The integration of the data collected during several inspections enables additional comparisons and analyses, supporting the characterisation of the Evolution and Risk conditions. Data collection at periodic inspections of these structures was, until recently, conducted manually, using paper forms and photographs. This was a slow and error prone process. To improve productivity, a monitoring tool, supported by a map-based online geographic information system (WebGIS) was developed. This platform is a device responsive mobile system which adapts to the location of the user’s device, enabling the geo-referencing and analysis of the structures concerned. The system includes facilities for the collection of structural information and also supports the association of Media data, such as photos and videos. In this paper, the developed platform is presented in detail focusing on information requirements, architecture, and the functionality available to the user. The resulting platform has been successfully evaluated by involved researchers from the Portuguese National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (the end users of the system) and by non-expert users.

2019 IEEE 43rd Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)

The widespread use of IoTs, as cheap and immersive technology, is enabling a wide range of daily ... more The widespread use of IoTs, as cheap and immersive technology, is enabling a wide range of daily life systems where Humans play a central role. It is commonly accepted that Humans sometimes present non-reliable behaviour. On the other hand, Gamification is becoming a common technique in system development to integrate business logic and induce Humans to accomplish certain goals and enforce systems reliability. Due to human nature, the evolution of game logic becomes an essential aspect of such systems to keep users engaged and participative. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss evolution in the particular scenario of a running Office Automation System in our open space. Here, the Human plays different roles such as an actuator, source of system input, a controller (decision maker), or simply environment (Human-in-the-loop). The mentioned system is the result of partially retrofitting a room of a forty years old building. It runs with a dynamic context scenario (that motivates different setups) and is formed by a heterogeneous set of IoTs. Those types of equipment are integrated to mainly accomplish two, sometimes conflicting, main goals: energy efficiency and Human comfort. As we will describe next, given the complexity of our system, various system's requirements need to be fulfilled at the same time. Those will dynamically change during runtime to contribute to both efficiency and participants' engagement. Not only the game requirements of the system evolve, but also the participants' behaviour change. We have consulted the open space's occupants on their daily routines and their preferences towards Gamification and gamified systems, particularly considering their social settings. They were also consulted on their views towards achieving energy efficiency in the open space. The results of this assessment are presented in this paper. The major suggestions were integrated into the current design of the system. We considered those that could contribute to the system's efficiency and reliability according to the system's goals. Besides, we also considered those that led to the use of several game techniques for motivating and improving the Humans' participation.

Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing

The1 growth of social networks impacts on several areas of our society. They can be used during s... more The1 growth of social networks impacts on several areas of our society. They can be used during software development, more specifically in the requirements elicitation activity, for identifying, complementing and validating the domain requirements. In this paper, we propose an approach that shows how social networks can be used as a source for capturing domain requirements. The aim is to perform the initial modeling of the system domain, providing a systematic methodology (process) for rapidly capturing relevant features that would not be straightforwardly elicited using traditional approaches. We apply this approach to the emergency systems domain (more specifically, floods in coastal areas), extracting information from the Twitter social network. The result is a domain model whose features can be reused in several applications of that domain. The application of the approach has been evaluated for its usefulness by domain experts and replicated to verify the generation of similar results at different time periods.

Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology

Despite the importance of recycling in the current and pressing context of preserving the environ... more Despite the importance of recycling in the current and pressing context of preserving the environment, it is still not adopted by all of us. Several mobile tools have become available with the aim of sensitizing and motivating the population towards sustainable behaviours, with limitations in information availability and in integration with formal as well as informal sources. Moreover, persuasive characteristics, such as the use of gamification also need improvement towards raising competitiveness (and awareness) in the targeted community. The authors thus propose a mobile responsive gamified application for motivating recycling attitudes centred around an interactive map, supported by the curated data of one of the reference companies of the environmental sector in the region. The app includes collaborative persuasive elements as well as validation processes for crowdsourced content proposed by the community. The results of an evaluation process, with promising results, are described.

Web Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are systems composed by software, hardware, spatial data... more Web Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are systems composed by software, hardware, spatial data and computing operations, which aim to collect, model, store, share, retrieve, manipulate and display geographically referenced data. The development of online geospatial applications is currently on the rise, but this type of application often involves dealing with concerns (i.e., properties) which are inherently volatile, implying a considerable effort for system evolution. Nevertheless, geospatial concerns (e.g., temporarily blocked streets), although changeable, are reusable. However, lack of modularization in software artifacts (including system's models) can compromise reusability. In this context, the use of requirements analysis patterns, enriched with aspect-oriented modeling techniques, can support reusability and improve modularity. In this paper, we introduce requirements analysis patterns for geospatial concerns, to facilitate modularity in GIS Web applications. These patterns are generated from the domain analysis of Web GIS applications and described using a template which is supported by a comprehensive tool, enabling the completion of specific geospatial patterns.