Mobility-as-a-service challenges and opportunities in the post-pandemic

In December 2019, the world experienced a pandemic that called into question what we always took for granted, such as our freedom of movement. Tough restrictions imposed across the world were necessary to stem the transmission of the COVID-19 virus and have largely affected the mobility and transport sector. In a first phase, due to the mandatory confinement that forced people not to leave their houses; in a second phase, when the measures eased and people started to have the need to move again, it was necessary to look for alternative means of transport that avoided the gathering of people. In view of the advances that were being made in recent years towards a Mobility-as-a-Service paradigm that advocates multimodal and shared transport, the pandemic has raised many challenges. In this paper, a statistical analysis of the mobility data made available by Apple from January 2020 to March 2021 is presented, where the reduction in the use of public transport becomes evident, leading us to question what the future of Mobility-as-a-Service will be as its foundation advocates, among other aspects, the use of a shared transport model. Despite the challenges that the pandemic has brought to Mobility-asa-Service, a set of opportunities are presented that can be used in the short and medium term to strengthen the paradigm and enhance its massive adoption.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

Inclusive mobility solution for visually impaired people using Google Cloud Vision

Mobility in cities is of particular and growing importance nowadays due to the demographic increase and the existence of people with reduced mobility, as is the case of visually impaired people. Of the various situations where mobility represents a challenge, obtaining the notion of positioning, at times when the person loses track of where he is and becomes disoriented, can be extremely useful and a way to contribute to greater autonomy for this segment of people. This paper proposes a visual positioning system using the Google Cloud Vision API. The architecture includes a mobile application that captures an image via the mobile phone and sends it to a backend server that makes use of Google Cloud Vision to recognize the image, which may consist of text, logos or landmarks. In a first phase, the solution was evaluated individually and, in a second phase, on a route chosen in the city of Braga, in Portugal. Logo recognition achieved an accuracy of 98% and proved to be sensitive to image resolution. The frontal text recognition obtained an accuracy of 100% while the lateral recognition and at a 3 meters distance obtained lower values, with worse results in images with more text and of reduced dimensions. Landmark recognition always returned the correct result, although the average accuracy is 82%. The processing time was around 3 seconds in tests done with Wi-Fi network and about 2 seconds in field tests made with mobile network. The obtained results prove the adequacy of using this solution to be adapted in a real scenario.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

«Era uma vez…» o contributo das histórias para a educação pré-escolar

Relatório da Prática Profissional Supervisionada Mestrado em Educação Pré-EscolarO presente relatório surge no seguimento da minha Prática Profissional Supervisionada em contexto educativo, nas valências de Creche e de Jardim-de-Infância. Intitulando-se «Era uma vez…», o contributo das histórias para a Educação Pré-Escolar, proponho-me incidir sobre a importância das histórias neste contexto, sendo que o objetivo é explicitar não só a importância de ler, contar e recontar histórias como também a importância da dinamização das mesmas. A diversidade de recursos e técnicas proporcionam atividades lúdicas e educativas, alargando as representações das crianças, através das várias formas de exploração das histórias, o que proporciona um ambiente securizante e dinâmico. Tendo sempre em conta o desenvolvimento holístico das crianças, e portanto, faixa etária em que se encontra, correlacionam-se intencionalidades com a versatilidade que as histórias/livros podem assumir. Para além disso, as histórias e os livros constituem-se como veículos da criatividade, de valores, de conhecimentos, tendo o seu lugar ao nível das diversas áreas do conhecimento. Expressando-se através de uma abordagem qualitativa, em que são reconhecidas às crianças qualidades, competências e capacidades na construção do seu crescimento, incorpora-se também uma abordagem multidisciplinar, focalizada para o saber-estar, para a expressão e comunicação, e para o conhecimento do mundo.ABSTRACT This report comes from my Supervised Professional Practice in educational context, in the areas of Childcare and Kindergarten . Named «Once upon a time ... », the contribution of stories for Preschool Education, I propose to focus on the importance of the stories in this context, and the goal is to explain not only the importance of reading, telling and retelling stories as well as the importance of their improvement. The diversity of resources and techniques provide recreational and educational activities, extending the representations of children, through different forms of exploration of the stories, which provides a reassuring and dynamic environment. Bearing in mind the holistic development of children, and therefore, the age group they are in, correlate intentions with the versatility that the stories / books can take. In addition, the stories and the books are formed as vehicles of creativity, values, knowledge, and its place across the different areas of knowledge. Expressing itself through a qualitative approach, in which they are recognized to children qualities, skills and abilities in building its growth, it incorporates also a multidisciplinary approach, focused for the civic education, for the expression and communication, and the knowledge of the world

A Intenção de uso da M-Wallet pelo consumidor português

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Instituto de Contabilidade e Administração do Porto para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Marketing Digital, sob orientação de Mestre António da Silva Vieira.Vivemos na Era das Tecnologias em que o telefone móvel está omnipresente no nosso dia a dia. Com o surgimento do m-commerce, do m-payment e a evolução da tecnologia móvel, os smartphones passaram a ser adquiridos não são só para efetuar chamadas, mas também pelas suas aplicações. A m-wallet é das mais recentes aplicações dos telefones móveis. Esta possibilita pagamentos sem uso de dinheiro físico e reunião da maioria dos conteúdos das carteiras físicas no telefone móvel (e.g. cartões de crédito, de débito, de fidelização). Este estudo pretende verificar a intenção de uso da m-wallet pelo consumidor português; a aceitação da tecnologia; o conhecimento do potencial consumidor e as razões que o levam a desejar utilizar ou não. Fez-se uma revisão de literatura sobre a m-wallet, m-payment, m-commerce e a aceitação de tecnologia e após essa revisão, lançou-se um questionário via Internet. Foram selecionadas 400 pessoas da população portuguesa com 15 ou mais anos segundo o local de residência, grupo etário e sexo. Verificou-se uma elevada intenção de uso da m-wallet pelo potencial consumidor. Este é do sexo feminino, tem uma idade entre 25 e 64 anos, habita no Norte, é empregado por conta de outrem, possui Ensino Superior e um rendimento líquido mensal entre 475€ e 1000€. Os fatores que influenciam a m-wallet são: a utilidade percebida, a facilidade de uso percebida; o custo percebido; a confiança; a conveniência; a segurança percebida/privacidade; a idade; o rendimento líquido mensal; o local de residência; as habilitações literárias e a ocupação profissional. Os fatores que deixam o consumidor reticente em usar são: a falta de segurança; o surgimento de vírus ou malware; a possibilidade de roubo de telefone móvel e de fraude. Constata-se que o consumidor quer usar a m-wallet para: receber cupões e descontos; guardar cartões de sócio; pagar compras com dinheiro eletrónico e guardar bilhetes de viagem.We live in the Technology’s Era in which mobile phone is increasingly present in our day by day. With mobile commerce and payment’s emergence and the mobile technology evolution, smartphones are acquired not only to do call, but also by its numerous applications that make life easier. M-wallet is the latest evolution in mobile phones. It allows making payments without using physical cash and gathering the most content of physical wallets on a mobile phone, like credit card, debit card, loyalty card, among others. This study aims to verify the intention of using the m-wallet by the Portuguese consumer; the acceptance of technology; the knowledge of the potential consumer in Portugal and the reasons why he wants to use this technology or not. A literature review was conducted about the m-wallet, m-payment, m-commerce and technology acceptance and before the literature review a questionnaire was released via Internet. 400 people from the Portuguese population with 15 or more years were selected according to the place of residence, age and sex. A high intention to use m-wallet in Portugal by the consumer was verified. This consumer is female, aged between 25 and 64 years, resident in the North, employee for others, higher educated, and earning a monthly income between 475€ and 1000€. The factors that influence m-wallet are: perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use; the perceived cost; reliability; convenience; perceived security / privacy; age; monthly income; place of residence; educational attainment and occupation. The factors that can make the consumer reluctant in using are: the lack of security; the emergence of viruses or malware; the possibility of mobile phone theft and fraud. It is verified that consumer wants to use the m-wallet to: receive coupons and discounts; keep membership cards; pay for purchases with electronic money and keep travel tickets

Security vulnerabilities on implantable medical devices

Implantable medical devices are used for critical functions like diagnosis, prevention, control, treatment or lifeenhancing patients with chronic diseases, through diagnosing and/or monitoring for better care and quality of patients' lives. Communication between medical devices and healthcare professionals is of utmost importance to treat health data and critical functions without the need for patient surgery. Increasingly, the development, implementation and use of security mechanisms that can provide the availability of information, the integrity of medical devices and the confidentiality of data are needed. Alteration of data, theft, improper access to this information, or even denial of service in a healthcare system can lead to the death of patients on devices such as these essential to life. This paper mainly contribution is a research on implantable medical device vulnerabilities and attack mitigation strategies.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

An advertising overflow attack against android exposure notification system impacting COVID-19 contact tracing applications

The digital contact tracing applications are one of the many initiatives to fight the COVID-19 virus. Some of these Apps use the Exposure Notification (EN) system available on Google and Apple?s operating systems. However, EN-based contact tracing Apps depend on the availability of Bluetooth interfaces to exchange proximity identifiers, which, if compromised, directly impact their effectiveness. This paper discloses and details the Advertising Overflow attack, a novel internal Denial of Service (DoS) attack targeting the EN system on Android devices. The attack is performed by a malicious App that occupies all the Bluetooth advertising slots in an Android device, effectively blocking any advertising attempt of EN or other Apps. The impact of the disclosed attack and other previously disclosed DoS-based attacks, namely Battery Exhaustion and Storage Drain, were tested using two target smartphones and other six smartphones as attackers. The results show that the Battery Exhaustion attack imposes a battery discharge rate 1.95 times higher than in the normal operation scenario. Regarding the Storage Drain, the storage usage increased more than 30 times when compared to the normal operation scenario results. The results of the novel attack reveal that a malicious App can prevent any other App to place their Bluetooth advertisements, for any chosen time period, thus canceling the operation of the EN system and compromising the efficiency of any COVID contact tracing App using this system.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

The Use of ARM-Assembly Language and a Raspberry Pi 1 B+ as a Server to Improve Computer Architecture Skills

Prompting students\u27 interest and engagement in learning environments is crucial to achieve the best results. Academia and educators in general are constantly adapting materials and methodologies in order to maximise the acquisition of contents by their students. In this case-study, a new teaching/learning methodology is presented and evaluated through a final questionnaire survey. This case-study aims to understand students\u27 efficiency and motivation levels regarding a new teaching/learning methodology adopted in the second module of a Computer Systems and Architectures course attended by first-year Computer Sciences undergraduates. The new teaching/learning methodology relies on a specific programming language - ARMv6 assembly - to improve students\u27 efficiency levels, and an innovative always-visible in-class mobile test scenario, implemented through a low-cost computing platform - Raspberry Pi 1 B+ - as a server, mimicking as much as possible a real-life environment, so that students believe they are working on real hardware, thus enhancing their motivation levels. The results of the questionnaire survey allowed to infer that the use of a specific programming language, such as ARMv6 assembly, coupled with a new always-visible in-class mobile test scenario were in fact efficient in raising the levels of motivation among Computer Sciences students and, consequently, improved their skills in Computer Architecture

Multi-path routing algorithm for inclusive mobility in an urban environment

The concept of smart city is frequently used nowa-days to refer to the level of integration of cities with citizen services. Mobility and navigation are some examples. When considering disabled users, in a temporary or permanent way, the challenges to provide such services in an efficient way are even bigger. This paper is an extension of a previous work where a mobile application to recommend the most suitable route for citizens was implemented with both Dijkstra and A -Star algorithms. The presented work describes a multi-path approach considering the user might want to choose several destinations in the mobile application and obtain the most suitable route that goes through all of them. Results are presented using the Genetic and the Simulated Annealing Algorithms. Both were evaluated with 100 runs and 2, 4, 8 and 16 destinations. The average algorithm execution time, standard deviation, median value, maximum and minimum execution times were assessed. The Simulated Annealing Algorithm presented better results and always suggested the shorter, or equal, path when comparing to the Genetic Algorithm.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

SMS : a secure healthcare model for smart cities

Technological innovations have enabled the realization of a utopian world where all objects of everydaylife, as well as humans, areinterconnected to form an ?Internet of Things (IoT).? These connected technologies and IoT solutions have led to the emergence of smart cities where all components are converted into a connected smart ecosystem. IoT has envisioned several areas of smart cities including the modern healthcare environment like real-time monitoring, patient information management, ambient-assisted living, ambient-intelligence, anomaly detection, and accelerated sensing. IoT has also brought a breakthrough in the medical domain by integrating stake holders, medical components, and hospitals to bring about holistic healthcare management. The healthcare domain is already witnessing promising IoT-based solutions ranging from embedded mobile applications to wearable devices and implantable gadgets. However, with all these exemplary benefits, there is a need to ensure the safety and privacy of the patient?s personal and medical data communicated to and from the connected devices and systems. For a smart city, it is pertinent to have an accessible, effective, and secure healthcare system for its inhabitants. This paper discusses the various elements of technology-enabled healthcare and presents a privacy-preserved and secure ?Smart Medical System (SMS)? framework for the smart city ecosystem. For providing real-time analysis and responses, this paper proposes to use the concept of secured Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) for performing critical time-bound computations on the edge itself. In order to protect the medical and personal data of the patients and to make the data tamper-proof, the concept of blockchain has been used. Finally, this paper highlights the ways to capture and store the medical big data generated from IoT devices and sensors.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/

Accessibility analysis of higher education institution websites of Portugal

The higher education institutions across the globe are steadily increasing their usage of the web platforms to disseminate information to its stakeholders. In this background, it becomes important to make these resources inclusive. An inclusive website of a higher education institution will facilitate seamless access to its resources for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). This paper presents an accessibility analysis of 59 higher education websites of Portugal. Both Polytechnic (19) and University (40) websites were incorporated into the study.The accessibility analysis is carried out with three major tools: AChecker, WAVE, and aXe. With respect to the AChecker tool, the average of known problems was observed almost doubled in Universities than Polytechnic Institution websites of Portugal under all levels of conformance. With respect to WAVE tool, we found that the average of alerts, structural elements, and HTML5 & ARIA in terms of web accessibility status of websites of Polytechnic Institutes are less than the Universities, but contrast errors are found with more frequency in Polytechnic Institutes than in universities, and the average of errors and features are almost the same in both of the cases. Also, we found that the average number of violations and needs of review guidelines as per aXe tool are 50.84 and 21.47 in Polytechnic Institutes? websites and 30.75 and 27.83 in Universities websites belonging to Portugal, respectively. Based on scores obtained by these accessibility analysis tools, the outliers of accessibility violations are calculated with respect to websites of Polytechnic Institutes and Universities of Portugal. Moreover, we also suggested and discussed the important clues to solve the accessibility violations of websites along with their issue descriptions among the selected websites in this study. Hence, this analysis report provides the feedback to website administrator and web developers to improve the accessibility evaluation status of these websites.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/