RSQL - a query language for dynamic data types

Database Management Systems (DBMS) are used by software applications, to store, manipulate, and retrieve large sets of data. However, the requirements of current software systems pose various challenges to established DBMS. First, most software systems organize their data by means of objects rather than relations leading to increased maintenance, redundancy, and transformation overhead when persisting objects to relational databases. Second, complex objects are separated into several objects resulting in Object Schizophrenia and hard to persist Distributed State. Last but not least, current software systems have to cope with increased complexity and changes. These challenges have lead to a general paradigm shift in the development of software systems. Unfortunately, classical DBMS will become intractable, if they are not adapted to the new requirements imposed by these software systems. As a result, we propose an extension of DBMS with roles to represent complex objects within a relational database and support the exibility required by current software systems. To achieve this goal, we introduces RSQL, an extension to SQL with the concept of objects playing roles when interacting with other objects. Additionally, we present a formal model for the logical representation of roles in the extended DBMS

Using geolocated tweets for characterization of Twitter in Portugal and the Portuguese administrative regions

The information published by the millions of public social network users is an important source of knowledge that can be used in academic, socioeconomic or demographic studies (distribution of male and female population, age, marital status, birth), lifestyle analysis (interests, hobbies, social habits) or be used to study online behavior (time spent online, interaction with friends or discussion about brands, products or politics). This work uses a database of about 27 million Portuguese geolocated tweets, produced in Portugal by 97.8 K users during a 1-year period, to extract information about the behavior of the geolocated Portuguese Twitter community and show that with this information it is possible to extract overall indicators such as: the daily periods of increased activity per region; prediction of regions where the concentration of the population is higher or lower in certain periods of the year; how do regional habitants feel about life; or what is talked about in each region. We also analyze the behavior of the geolocated Portuguese Twitter users based on the tweeted contents, and find indications that their behavior differs in certain relevant aspect from other Twitter communities, hypothesizing that this is in part due to the abnormal high percentage of young teenagers in the community. Finally, we present a small case study on Portuguese tourism in the Algarve region. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first study that shows geolocated Portuguese users' behavior in Twitter focusing on geographic regional use.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Are crowdsourced datasets suitable for specialized routing services? Case study of Openstreetmap for routing of people with limited mobility

Nowadays, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has increasingly gained attractiveness to both amateur users and professionals. Using data generated from the crowd has become a hot topic for several application domains including transportation. However, there are concerns regarding the quality of such datasets. As one of the most famous crowdsourced mapping platforms, we analyze the fitness for use of OpenStreetMap (OSM) database for routing and navigation of people with limited mobility. We assess the completeness of OSM data regarding sidewalk information. Relevant attributes for sidewalk information such as sidewalk width, incline, surface texture, etc. are considered, and through both extrinsic and intrinsic quality analysis methods, we present the results of fitness for use of OSM data for routing services of disabled persons. Based on empirical results, it is concluded that OSM data of relatively large spatial extents inside all studied cities could be an acceptable region of interest to test and evaluate wheelchair routing and navigation services, as long as other data quality parameters such as positional accuracy and logical consistency are checked and proved to be acceptable. We present an extended version of OSMatrix web service and explore how it is employed to perform spatial and temporal analysis of sidewalk data completeness in OSM. The tool is beneficial for piloting activities, whereas the pilot site planners can query OpenStreetMap and visualize the degree of sidewalk data availability in a certain region of interest. This would allow identifying the areas that data are mostly missing and plan for data collection events. Furthermore, empirical results of data completeness for several OSM data indicators and their potential relation to sidewalk data completeness are presented and discussed. Finally, the article ends with an outlook for future research study in this area

Proposing a virtual operations network to support a business policy for the medicinal and aromatic plants sector

This research found out a more robust conceptual basis behind three missing links concerning the requirement for a virtual operations network to support a business policy for the Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAP) sector. Industry was pictured from secondary data gathered from a 12 experts panel. The factors to configure a collaborative network, e.g. relationships and structure, enabled the operationalisation of a previously defined social platform. Requirements for information infrastructure, co-ordination and DSS were also expressed. Moreover, the role of enterprise knowledge to the formation of collaborative ventures helped the modelling of the social-momentum of the platform. Finally, it is argued (i) for the confirmation of a significant Operations Management contribution to defining a MAP policy and, (ii) for the outlining of a collaborative network representing an advance to the usually ambiguous prescriptions of virtual operations. An interview guide to run an empirical test could be generated as further work

Web of Knowledge: A look into the Past, Embracing the Future

The International Multidisciplinary Congress - Web of Knowledge: A look into the Past, embracing the Future was held by IHC-CEHFCi, HERCULES Laboratory and CIDEHUS, University of Évora and took place in Évora, Portugal, from 17 to 19 May 2018.1 The Congress brought together researchers and scientists from different backgrounds intersecting the Exact Sciences with the Social Sciences revealing the visible and invisible networks. By fostering the exchange of knowledge and experiences in the study of the past, the Congress laid the framework for the present day science on which to map the future Web of Knowledge. A high-quality scientific programme was prepared, joining together experts from different fields covering a wide range of topics from Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities to Science and Technology. As a result of the quality of the panels and debates, the Organizing Committee decided to publish a digital and open access volume with blind peer-reviewed papers. This volume publishes a total of thirty-five contributions which reflect the innovative and multidisciplinary research occurring at the moment in different fields of knowledge, promoting visibility and networks of knowledge.Câmara Municipal de Évora, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi

A look into the Past, Embracing the Future

UID/HIS/04209/2019The International Multidisciplinary Congress - Web of Knowledge: A look into the Past, embracing the Future was held by IHC-CEHFCi, HERCULES Laboratory and CIDEHUS, University of Évora and took place in Évora, Portugal, from 17 to 19 May 2018.1 The Congress brought together researchers and scientists from different backgrounds intersecting the Exact Sciences with the Social Sciences revealing the visible and invisible networks. By fostering the exchange of knowledge and experiences in the study of the past, the Congress laid the framework for the present day science on which to map the future Web of Knowledge. A high-quality scientific programme was prepared, joining together experts from different fields covering a wide range of topics from Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities to Science and Technology. As a result of the quality of the panels and debates, the Organizing Committee decided to publish a digital and open access volume with blind peer-reviewed papers. This volume publishes a total of thirty-five contributions which reflect the innovative and multidisciplinary research occurring at the moment in different fields of knowledge, promoting visibility and networks of knowledge.publishersversionpublishe

The Innovative Use of Personal Smart Devices by Students to Support their Learning

Research into the autonomous use of MP3 audio recorders by students in UK Higher Education demonstrated that students were innovative in their autonomous use of the devices. They used them to capture learning conversations from formal and informal situations to personalise and enhance their learning. However, today smartphones and other smart devices have replaced the necessity for students to carry multiply mobile devices including MP3 recorders. This chapter builds upon the earlier work and presents a small qualitative study into how students are autonomously using their smart devices to support their learning. The research explores the hypothesis that students are being innovative in the ways in which they are use their smart devices to support their formal and informal learning. The study involved five students who own smart devices who were invited to discuss their ownership of smartphone and tablet technologies and the ways they used them in their studies. The students first completed a short questionnaire and were then interviewed in small groups. The results agree with previous research into the student use of smart devices and describe autonomous engagement facilitated by personally owned smart technologies. The study identifies continuous patterns of pervasive engagement by students and concludes that more thought should be given to disruptive innovation, digital literacy and employability

Annual research report 2015-2016

Comprend des références bibliographique

Educational Technology and Education Conferences, June to December 2012

The conference list contains events such as "Learning and Teaching","Innovation in e-Learning", "Online Teaching", "Distance Learning Administration", "The World Open Educational Resources Congress", "Mobile Health", and "Realizing Dreams"

Data Driven Creation of Sentiment Dictionaries for Corporate Credit Risk Analysis

It has been shown, that German-language user generated content can improve corporate credit risk assessment, when sentiment analysis is applied. However, the approaches have only been conducted by human coders. In order to automate the analysis, we construct 20 domain-dependent sentiment dictionaries based on parts of a manually classified corpus from Twitter. Then, we apply the dictionaries to the remaining part of the corpus and rank the dictionaries based on their accuracy. Results from McNemar’s tests indicate, that the three best dictionaries do not differ significantly, but significant difference can be assured regarding the first and the fourth dictionary in the ranking. In addition to that, a general German-language dictionary is inferior compared to the constructed dictionaries. The results emphasize the importance of domain-dependent dictionaries in German-language sentiment analysis for future research. Furthermore, practitioners can utilize the dictionaries in order to create an additional indicator for corporate credit risk assessment