Helping older people: is there an app for that?

From social networks to health and fitness, everyday a lot of mobile devices applications (apps) are being developed. The variety and availability is such that people start to think that indeed “there's an app for everything”. Many of these apps address either problems or characteristics that affect older people and that are related with the ageing process (e.g. memory and visual aids apps). They can effectively help people and are under constant evolution. However, the lack of knowledge about these available technological aids can undermine its dissemination and consequently the help that people really receive, especially those who need it the most: older people. As such, a methodological search for available aid apps was made both in Google Play and in iTunes: 536 were selected, their classification analysed and the kind of help that they provide identified. It was noted that either in Google Play or in iTunes the apps’ categories are similar. Furthermore, it is not easily perceived what the type of help that each app can provide is and how is it provided. Hence, based on the results from the aforementioned methodological search, this paper proposes a new scalable tree-based classification methodology for aid apps, which is considered more suited to perceive what the available aid apps for mobile devices are. The existing apps were then characterized based on the proposed classification, to determine what the main aid that they provide is.This work is financed by the ERDF - European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 Programme, and by National Funds through the FCT- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within project «POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006961», and by project Lab2PT - Landscapes, Heritage and Territory laboratory - AUR/04509 and FCT through national funds and when applicable of the FEDER co-financ

Enhancing tourism through viticulture enterprises in Douro Region: The Inov@Douro model

This paper describes a business and technological model proposal, known as Inov@Douro, intended to support and to promote competitive and sustained precision agriculture practices in the Portuguese Douro Region. Our approach is based on a distributed cooperative network, tailored to meet the specific needs of viticulture enterprises which also explore tourism as a valuable national and international business source. We present the Inov@Douro model from the knowledge generation point-of-view, intended to support the multidisciplinary concept of a cooperation approach among regional partners. This model aims to represent a new working style for this unique region. As a guideline to attain the implementation of such a model, information technology and infrastructures tools are discussed in order to promote precision agriculture practices while giving valuable and dynamic tourist information to the general public

Web Accessibility and Digital Businesses: The Potential Economic Value of Portuguese People with Disability

AbstractThe lack of data in Portugal is a crucial problem for a full characterization and thus a full digital integration for people with disabilities. This is not only a problem of ethic dimension or equal opportunities but have also an economic dimension because excludes a consumer group with economical potential. Hence, this article focuses on the importance of the characterization of people with disabilities in a social, economic and digital perspective. It aims to emphasize their disabilities and ageing evolution, potential value in the digital business and design awareness for inclusion for improve the quality of life of people with disabilities

Phytobenthic communities of intertidal rock pools in the eastern islands of Azores and their relation to position on shore and pool morphology

This study aimed to characterize algal composition inside rock-pools from two islands of the Azores archipelago (São Miguel and Santa Maria) and relate it to shore height and pool morphology. Pools were categorized as upper, medium and lower intertidal according to the surrounding communities. Maximum depth and surface area were used to reflect morphology and qualitative sampling to evaluate algal species richness. PRIMER software assessed the similarity across islands, sites, shore heights and pool morphology. Eighty eight algal taxa were identified in pools from São Miguel and 52 from Santa Maria. Rhodophycean species dominated rock-pool flora on both islands. Differences were found across islands and sites. Higher species richness was observed at medium intertidal pools. Algae composition was not affected by shore height in pools from Santa Maria. São Miguel’s medium and lower pools were grouped separately from upper ones. Pool morphology did not influence significantly the algae composition

Developing a multi-touch serious game to fight the digital divide : the Portuguese ATM a pilot case study

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has grown substantially over the past few years. However, a portion of the world’s society has not been able to keep up with these technological advances. For this purpose, we present a serious game with a multi-touch interface envisioned to encourage and teach digitally excluded people on how to use the Portuguese Automated Teller Machine (ATM): a commodity much needed by society, but still avoided by some, mainly due to their fear of the digital world. An exploratory study was conducted to investigate if a serious game based on a new interaction paradigm can have a positive influence in the struggle against the Portuguese digital divide. We believe that the findings of our pilot case study can be useful to determine if a multi-touch serious game, due to its intuitiveness and ease of use, can stimulate the digitally excluded people to handle the ATM on a regular basis. The results that were obtained suggest that this approach may indeed produce a positive impact in the attempt to bridge the Portuguese digital divide.We would like to acknowledge the support and contribution of the two Parishes of Vila Real and their Chairmen. Diana Carvalho has a PhD fellowship granted by FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/81541/2011)

Using Problem-Based Learning to help Portuguese students make the Bologna transition

 The Bologna Declaration has opened a stage of big and deep changes in the internal university organization, external cooperation, teaching models and methods, among other., all over the European countries. Here we will present and discuss a pilot experience conducted at the Engineering Department of the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal, during the second year of that transition period. In brief, we will present a set of non-mandatory courses proposed to the students of each individual syllabus, with one hundred hours duration, each, approximately seven hours/week, fifteen weeks long, with the permanent help of a specialized trainer to aid the students in their "homework". The formal bureaucratic transition is also presented. Design and implementation issues, supported on problem-based learning and experimental lab learning classes, final assessment results, as well as the opinion of the students, are presented and analyzed. We believe that this methodology helped to make the transition smoother to the students, but also to the teaching staff

An autonomous intelligent gateway infrastructure for in-field processing in precision viticulture

Article in PressWireless sensor networks have found multiple applications in precision viticulture. Despite the steady progress in sensing devices and wireless technologies, some of the crucial items needed to improve the usability and scalability of the networks, such as gateway infrastructures and in-field processing, have been comparatively neglected. This paper describes the hardware, communication capabilities and software architecture of an intelligent autonomous gateway, designed to provide the necessary middleware between locally deployed sensor networks and a remote location within the whole-farm concept. This solar-powered infrastructure, denoted by iPAGAT (Intelligent Precision Agriculture Gateway), runs an aggregation engine that fills a local database with environmental data gathered by a locally deployed ZigBee wireless sensor network. Aggregated data are then retrieved by external queries over the built-in data integration system. In addition, embedded communication capabilities, including Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11 and GPRS, allow local and remote users to access both gateway and remote data, as well as the Internet, and run site-specific management tools using authenticated smartphones. Field experiments provide convincing evidence that iPAGAT represents an important step forward in the development of distributed service-oriented information systems for precision viticulture applications.The authors would like to acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT), and Spanish Seneca Foundation Centre for Research Coordination that partially sponsors this research work through the scholarships references SFRH/BD/38759/2007 and 02998-PI-05, respectively

Multi-temporal analysis of forestry and coastal environments using UASs

Due to strong improvements and developments achieved in the last decade, it is clear that applied research using remote sensing technology such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can provide a flexible, efficient, non-destructive, and non-invasive means of acquiring geoscientific data, especially aerial imagery. Simultaneously, there has been an exponential increase in the development of sensors and instruments that can be installed in UAV platforms. By combining the aforementioned factors, unmanned aerial system (UAS) setups composed of UAVs, sensors, and ground control stations, have been increasingly used for remote sensing applications, with growing potential and abilities. This paper's overall goal is to identify advantages and challenges related to the use of UAVs for aerial imagery acquisition in forestry and coastal environments for preservation/prevention contexts. Moreover, the importance of monitoring these environments over time will be demonstrated. To achieve these goals, two case studies using UASs were conducted. The first focuses on phytosanitary problem detection and monitoring of chestnut tree health (Padrela region, Valpaços, Portugal). The acquired high-resolution imagery allowed for the identification of tree canopy cover decline by means of multi-temporal analysis. The second case study enabled the rigorous and non-evasive registry process of topographic changes that occurred in the sandspit of Cabedelo (Douro estuary, Porto, Portugal) in different time periods. The obtained results allow us to conclude that the UAS constitutes a low-cost, rigorous, and fairly autonomous form of remote sensing technology, capable of covering large geographical areas and acquiring high precision data to aid decision support systems in forestry preservation and coastal monitoring applications. Its swift evolution makes it a potential big player in remote sensing technologies today and in the near future.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Polymerase chain reaction for soybean detection in heat processed meat products.

Since vegetable proteins are considerably cheaper than muscle proteins, they are frequently used as meat extenders in order to reduce the cost of the final product. Due to several interesting characteristics, soybean is reported to be the most widely used vegetable protein in the meat industry. Nevertheless, soybean is included in the group of 12 ingredients potentially allergenic, which should therefore be labelled according to the Codex Alimentarius FAO/WHO and the European Commission (Directive 2003/89/EC). In fact, it has been described that amounts of soy bellow 0.1% and 1% (w/w) can lead to allergic reactions in sensitive consumers (1)

Constructing Qubits in Physical Systems

The notion of a qubit is ubiquitous in quantum information processing. In spite of the simple abstract definition of qubits as two-state quantum systems, identifying qubits in physical systems is often unexpectedly difficult. There are an astonishing variety of ways in which qubits can emerge from devices. What essential features are required for an implementation to properly instantiate a qubit? We give three typical examples and propose an operational characterization of qubits based on quantum observables and subsystems.Comment: 16 pages, no figures; IoP LaTeX2e style. Submitted to J. Phys. A: Math. Ge