Systematic review of the literature, research on blockchain technology as support to the trust model proposed applied to smart places

The smart places are vulnerable with corrupted or compromised data, with the false integration of new devices, and devices with firmware versions inconsistent. These risks worsen with the increasing volume and diversity of data, devices, infrastructures and users connected to the Web. The systematic review of the literature were selected 190 documents, which reveals the growing interest on the theme of blockchain technology with the publication of 14 documents in 2014 to about 100 already in 2017. The articles focused on the areas bitcoin (about 40%), IoT (about 30%), financial (about 15%), cryptocurrencies, electronic government (about 12%), smart contracts, smart cities, business (with about 10% each) and health (about 5%). This perspective confirms the generic model study data supported in blockchain technology for smart places, especially when applied to smart cities and the specific field of the mobility ecosystem, with the use of the new concepts of the application of blockchain in IoT, smart contracts and e-governance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Digitally monitoring thermalism health and wellness effects - a conceptual model proposal

As life expectancy grows and the population requirements for satisfactory health and wellness levels increases, there is a clear opportunity for the incorporation of alternative techniques and tools for promoting health and preventing disease. One of these tools, is the use of thermal water-based treatments, commonly known as thermalism, as tools to trigger patients’ overall wellness. Despite the collective assumption of the effects of thermalism, there is little to no scientific evidence of these treatments, thus impairing the potential of this activity to become more widespread in society. Thus, with this paper, we present a conceptual model for a non-invasive sensing system based on wearables that can monitor a set of patients’ biomarkers which will serve as the basis for the validation of the effects of thermalism. This system will also serve as a management and operation control tool for thermal SPA managers and technical directors.This work is financed by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within project UIDB/50014/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evolução do negócio electrónico em Portugal - as grandes empresas

Sendo o Negócio Electrónico uma realidade dos nossos dias, apresentamos um estudo realizado junto das 1000 maiores empresas a laborar em Portugal (segundo o volume de negócios), com o objectivo de identificar qual a evolução do Negócio Electrónico destas desde o ano de 2005 até ao ano de 2007. Foi desenvolvido um questionário no qual foi utilizado um modelo de maturidade do Negócio Electrónico (SOGe – Stages Of Growth for E-Business), modelo este utilizado em estudos similares. Apresentamos também a evolução da maturidade por determinados sectores de actividade. No entanto, esta análise é uma análise meramente descritiva dos dados, uma vez que para uma análise mais conclusiva por sector de actividade provavelmente o estudo deveria ser conduzido doutro modo

A flow-based intrusion detection framework for internet of things networks

The application of the Internet of Things concept in domains such as industrial control, building automation, human health, and environmental monitoring, introduces new privacy and security challenges. Consequently, traditional implementation of monitoring and security mechanisms cannot always be presently feasible and adequate due to the number of IoT devices, their heterogeneity and the typical limitations of their technical specifications. In this paper, we propose an IP flow-based Intrusion Detection System (IDS) framework to monitor and protect IoT networks from external and internal threats in real-time. The proposed framework collects IP flows from an IoT network and analyses them in order to monitor and detect attacks, intrusions, and other types of anomalies at different IoT architecture layers based on some flow features instead of using packet headers fields and their payload. The proposed framework was designed to consider both the IoT network architecture and other IoT contextual characteristics such as scalability, heterogeneity, interoperability, and the minimization of the use of IoT networks resources. The proposed IDS framework is network-based and relies on a hybrid architecture, as it involves both centralized analysis and distributed data collection components. In terms of detection method, the framework uses a specification-based approach drawn on normal traffic specifications. The experimental results show that this framework can achieve & 100% success and 0% of false positives in detection of intrusions and anomalies. In terms of performance and scalability in the operation of the IDS components, we study and compare it with three different conventional IDS (Snort, Suricata, and Zeek) and the results demonstrate that the proposed solution can consume fewer computational resources (CPU, RAM, and persistent memory) when compared to those conventional IDS.This work was supported by Portuguese national funds through the FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., under the project UID/CEC/04524/2019info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An ontological model for fire evacuation route recommendation in buildings

Guiding the occupants of a building to a safe place is an area of research that deserves the attention of researchers. Finding solutions for the problem of guiding the building occupants requires a perfect knowledge of the fire building evacuation domain. The use of ontologies to model the knowledge of a domain allows a common and shared understanding of that domain. This paper presents an ontology that has the purpose to deepen the understanding of that domain and help develop building evacuation solutions and systems capable of guiding the occupants during a building evacuation process. The proposed ontology considers the different variables and actors involved in the fire building evacuation process. The ontology development followed the Methontology methodology, and for implementation, the Protégé tool was used. The ontological model was successfully submitted to a thorough evaluation process and is publicly available on the Web.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Context-based multi-agent recommender system, supported on IoT, for guiding the occupants of a building in case of a fire

The evacuation of buildings in case of fire is a sensitive issue for civil society that also motivates the academic community to develop and study solutions to improve the efficiency of evacuating these spaces. The study of human behavior in fire emergencies has been one of the areas that have deserved the attention of researchers. However, this modeling of human behavior is difficult and complex because it depends on factors that are difficult to know and that vary from country to country. In this paper, a paradigm shift is proposed which, instead of focusing on modeling the behavior of occupants, focuses on conditioning this behavior by providing real-time information on the most efficient evacuation routes. Making this information available to occupants is possible with a solution that takes advantage of the growing use of the IoT (Internet of Things) in buildings to help occupants adapt to the environment. Supported by the IoT, multi-agent recommender systems can help users to adapt to the environment and provide the occupants with the most efficient evacuation routes. This paradigm shift is achieved through a context-based multi-agent recommender system based on contextual data obtained from IoT devices, which recommends the most efficient evacuation routes at any given time. The obtained results suggest that the proposed solution can improve the efficiency of evacuating buildings in the event of a fire; for a scenario with two hundred people following the system recommendations, the time they take to reach a safe place decreases by 17.7%.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An ontology for fire building evacuation

Guiding the building occupants under fire emergency to a safe place is an open research problem, and finding solutions to address the problem requires a perfect knowledge of the fire building evacuation domain. The use of ontologies to model knowledge of a domain allows a common and shared understanding of that domain, between people and heterogeneous systems. This paper presents an ontology that aims to build a knowledge model to understand the referred domain better and help develop more capable building evacuation solutions and systems. The herein proposed ontology considers the different variables and actors involved in the fire building evacuation process. We followed the Methontology methodology for its developing, and we present all the development steps, from the specification to its implementation with the Protégé tool.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Qualitative analysis of virtual reality adoption by tourism operators in low-density regions

Virtual reality technologies have grown in complexity and functionality, increasing their relevance in various sectors of activity. Applying these innovations to tourism is advantageous for the organisations, the tourists and even the territories. They can provide multisensory immersivity, simulate actions and movements in real-time, enriching reality using interactive virtual objects. Thus, captivating visitors and showing territories from richer and livelier perspectives. This study describes a review of the adoption of virtual reality technology at the organisational level. In order to adapt the literature review to the tourism topic, the process of analysis of the literature was carried out with a constant concern to analyse research that studied the topic. Assuming the need to further develop the work done and to obtain a confirmation on the contribution resulting from the bibliographic review, a focus group was developed, which allowed several specialists to discuss collaboratively and interactively the research project topics without having to be in face-to-face contact. The results of this study allow not only to acknowledge the relevance of virtual reality for tourism but also to understand how the existing literature and experts are aligned with the identification of opportunities for disruptive development of solutions that trigger tourism destinations and organisational development.This work was financed by the ERDF – European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation – COMPETE 2020 Programme and by the National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031309 titled ‘PromoTourVR – Promoting Tourism Destinations with Multisensory Immersive Media.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Accessible software development: a conceptual model proposal

Equal access to all software and digital content should be a reality in the Digital Era. This argument is something defended both by existing regulations, norms and standards, and also business organizations and governments. Despite this acknowledgement, the reality is still far from the desired equality. For certain groups of disabled or impaired citizens, such as the visually impaired, the existence of e-accessibility compliance represents an opportunity to integrate, in a more simple and straightforward manner, their societies. Despite the existing poor results on e-accessibility compliance, the mentioned citizens insist on using digital devices in their daily lives. Even though, in the last decade, multiple standards and regulations have been published towards indicating how to develop accessible digital user interfaces, there are still two major issues surrounding its implementation: the complexity and disparity of the documents containing the abovementioned norms, and also the lack of e-accessibility know-how by software experts. With this in mind, a proposal for an accessible software development model that encompasses e-accessibility incorporation as one of the development process activities has been presented. This model might represent a very interesting support tool for software development organizations and a novel resource for learning and training institutions to be able to improve their computer science and informatics students’ skills on e-accessibility.This work was supported by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the Project UID/CEC/04524/2016. This work was financed by the ERDF—European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Program for Competitiveness and Internationalization—COMPETE 2020 within Project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006961), and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT— Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia as part of Project (UID/EEA/50014/2013).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Assessing the success behind the use of education management information systems in higher education

The continuous use of dynamic and disruptive ICT as energizing elements of the educational process is a reality of current days, where millennials are the centre of an education paradigm in which students are much more inclined to use technologies than enrolling in a traditional non-digital course. Considering education management information systems (EMIS) capacities to collect, analyse, process and publish information and data, it is easy to perceive their relevance to both education organizations and students. Nevertheless, and despite EMIS complexity and inherent possibilities, the existing literature does not provide for a detailed characterization on the impact these systems might have on students’ success. Thus, this research focuses on understanding the use of EMIS by students and the arising of net benefits; it introduces an EMIS success model which posits that to ensure net benefits for students, education institutions must safeguard that their education management information systems are of high quality, while at the same time students are maintained satisfied with the system and engage in continuous use. To assess the posed model, an empirical study has been performed, involving students from higher education institutions. Findings from the study allow us to perceive that, as information systems (IS) success models state, EMIS use and students’ satisfaction are predictors of net benefits. This same model also claims that the available information quality and EMIS inherent service quality are also strong determinants of both continuous EMIS use and student satisfaction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio