Automatic extraction and representation of geographic entities in eGovernment

In this paper we present a system that automatically extracts and geocodes named entities from unstructured, natural language textual documents. The system uses the Geo-Net-PT ontology and Google maps as auxiliary data sources. This type of system is particularly useful to automate the geocoding of existing information in e-government applications, which usually requires human intervention. Within the paper we introduce the relevant human language technologies, describe the system that was developed, present and discuss the preliminary results and draw the relevant conclusions and future work

Local e-government information and service delivery

In this article we present a survey of the websites of 239 Portuguese municipalities. General characteristics of the web sites, available information and online delivery of services were observed. The study was conducted between February and May, 2010. Considering the results, we conclude that, despite the investments made in the past decade, local e-government in Portugal still exhibits medium level development in what relates information dissemination and remains substantially underdeveloped concerning online service delivery. We argue that a cultural breakthrough is needed in order to take full advantage of new technologies in government-to-citizen interactions at the local level in Portugal. © 2011 AISTI

Ontology Driven Knowledge Extraction System with Application in e-Government

Important sources of information are originally created in natural language. To make that knowledge computer processable it is necessary to understand the structure of natural languages, by adding lexical and syntactic information; to have a rich representation to encode the knowledge of sentences, like ontologies; and to develop algorithms to bridge the gap between natural languages and computer processable representations. In this paper we present the architecture, modules and results of a prototype that uses an ontology to represent the world concepts and their relationships, and also to guide the process of extracting information from natural language documents. The system was tested using minutes of Portuguese municipalities’ meetings. Initial results are presented for three topics of municipalities' affairs: the subsidies granted, the building permits requested, and the existing protocols with other institutions

A decade of Portuguese research in e-government: Evolution, current standing, and ways forward

In this paper, we present an investigation of the Portuguese research on e-government. Bibliometric techniques are used to explore all the documents published by researchers affiliated to Portuguese institutions from 2005 to 2014 and listed in the Scopus® database. Research production, impact, source types, language used, subject areas, topics, scopes, methods, authors, institutions, networks, and international cooperation are analysed and discussed. We conclude that so that Portuguese research on e-government can evolve, more researchers should be involved, international cooperation should be developed, and more attention should be given to the study of the reasons behind the very good results of the country in the provision of e-government services, as measured by the international rankings. By establishing the evolution and current standing of e-government research in Portugal and exploring the ways forward, our conclusions may prove useful to e-government researchers, research managers, and research policy makers. © Copyright 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Human language technologies for e-gov

Effective provision of government services implies that, besides being provided online, services become available through other channels, are organized according to citizen's expectations, are accessible to everyone, anytime and anywhere, and include information from unstructured sources. It is also essential to provide the tools that allow citizens to correctly identify the services they need. In this paper we will discuss how it is possible to improve e-gov service delivery by using human language technologies. We argue that these technologies can contribute to: deliver services in more inclusive manners; provide human centered and multilingual service and support; and include non-structured information scattered across different sources