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PIDI/CISeD/2022/007 • Modelos de Machine Learning para Deteção de Padrões e Preferências Alimentares

[DDSS] Digital Decision Support Systems, concluído, interno, nacional, não competitivo, não financiado, viseu /

Principal Researcher: Rui Pedro Duarte
Duration: 2022 – 2024

Cised team members
Carlos Augusto da Silva Cunha
Ricardo Luís da Costa Gama

Food assumes an increasingly important role in people's lives, and adequate nutrition associated with a healthy lifestyle increases the average life expectancy. To this end, there has been an increase in the number of people whom nutritionists are following to have a food plan suited to their needs, which vary according to each person's goals: from the purely aesthetic component, through the improvement of the quality of life, for professional reasons (such as sportsmen or high competition athletes), even people with special needs, in which a correct diet impacts on the aggravation of previously diagnosed diseases. There are, however, some associated problems that can impact noncompliance with a previously defined meal plan. One of them is defining a food plan made up of foods people don't like. The other relates to real-time notification of the nutritionist of the correct fulfilment of the plan in terms of the proper intake of recommended macronutrients in each meal of the food plan.

Regarding the first, the combination of foods is a factor mainly linked to people's preferences, far beyond the rules of food combinations recommended by nutritionists. Thus, patterns for each individual may vary over time and as a function of other conditions (e.g., temperature, season). People's sensitivity to these combinations is one of the factors responsible for abandoning eating plans and not matching their food tastes. With this work, we intend to develop an Artificial Intelligence model to detect food patterns to adapt a food plan defined by a nutritionist in an evolutionary way and in real-time to allow the correct management of the plan. Thus, it becomes possible to provide a better quality of life to people who need to define food plans in various types of contexts.

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PIDI/CISeD/2022/006 • STORYTur – O uso do storytelling em vídeos promocionais turísticos

[CDS] Connected Digital Society, concluído, interno, nacional, não competitivo, não financiado, viseu /

Principal Researcher:
Sara Santos
Duration: 2022 – 2024

Cised team members
Luísa Augusto

Currently, more and more cities and regions differentiate themselves through the creation of a positive identity and image, developing territorial branding. The use of storytelling can also be an asset when used to promote tourist destinations. It is essential that the entities that manage the tourist image of Portuguese regions rethink their dissemination strategies and give priority to “storytelling”, emotions, and involvement with the public in building the image of the territories. Territorial marketing, and in particular the focus on tourism promotion videos, allows to demonstrate the unique characteristics of the territory and its differentiation from the others. Through the story told about the region, the audience identifies with the characters and is “transported” by the narrative.

In Portugal, the Centro region has stood out for the promotional films (with storytelling techniques) that it uses to promote the Center of Portugal. In recent years, “Turismo do Centro” has won dozens of international awards related to tourism promotion. For its part, the “Aldeias Históricas de Portugal” also won the world award for best tourism film in the world, in 2021.

Considering this worldwide recognition, this project will have the partnership of “Turismo do Centro” and “Aldeias Históricas de Portugal”, as examples of good practices in tourism promotion of regions through storytelling in promotional videos.

STORYtur's main objective is to understand the strategies for promoting tourism in Portuguese regions, especially in the Center region.

The project comprises the development of studies through interviews (to the representatives of “Turismo do Centro” and “Aldeias Históricas de Portugal”) and the application of questionnaires to the public.

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PIDI/CISeD/2023/011 • Modelos de Inteligência Artificial para Deteção de Stress Crónico e Padrões de Movimento em Ambientes de Atividades da Vida Diária

Leave a Comment / [CDS] Connected Digital Society, concluído, interno, nacional, não competitivo, não financiado, viseu /

Principal Researcher:
Rui Pedro Duarte
Duration: 2022 – 2024

Cised team members
Carlos Augusto da Silva Cunha

For a long time, stress has been considered an important health factor that affects the quality of life. Several studies indicate that excessive and continuous stress can trigger or worsen several diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular. Stress is a response to a stressor, an external stimulus or condition that causes an emotional, physical, or psychological change in the individual. However, even though momentary stress can be easily identified, it is hard for people to recognize that they are living a stressful life. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease that affects individuals. It has symptoms on diverse levels, such as vision, fatigue, numbness and tingling, muscle spasms, stiffness and weakness, mobility problems, problems with thinking, learning, planning, and even depression and anxiety. With this, a few critical questions need to be raised: Is there any relation between stress and MS exacerbations? What are the relevant biomarkers to identify continuous stress? Are they reliable? Are their measurements little intrusive?
Thus, it is vital to measure stress and identify its types, in order to monitor and help people to deal with the manifestations of stress. It becomes crucial to identify continuous stress, as there are studies that indicate that it has a negative impact, while a systemic stress situation may even be rewarded. The monitoring process of this continuous stress needs to be controlled and with low intrusion in the user, so that it does not have negative effects on their lifestyle. For that, there are several biomarkers to identify stress in people, but not all are recommended. The most indicated biomarkers are heart rate (HR) and electrical conductivity, which can be monitored by devices such as smart watches. With this, it is possible to train artificial intelligence models to create a solution to detect long-term stress, which does not harm people's quality of life.

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PIDI/CISeD/2021/003 • BioVALOR – Ecoponto Florestal: Valorização Integrada da Biomassa e digitalização da sua gestão

[DDSS] Digital Decision Support Systems, <=21, 2021, ano, concluído, Edmundo Marques, Elisabete Silva, Filipe Caldeira, interno, Isabel Brás, linha investigação, Paulo Pinho, Sérgio Lopes, viseu /
Principal Researcher:
Isabel Paula Lopes Brás
Duration: 2021 – 2023

Cised team members
Elisabete Silva
Sérgio Lopes
Paulo Pinho
Filipe Caldeira
Edmundo Marques
José Vicente Ferreira

In the current scenario of climate change and an ageing population in rural areas, forest fires have increasingly caused economic, environmental and social impacts in these areas. The solution that has the best acceptance, is the correct management of forest fuels, including its energy and material use. On the other hand, the reports produced annually reflect the great relevance of fire use practices for the destruction of exceeding materials that cause rural fires. There are some ongoing scientific projects that provide for the decentralized valorization of agroforestry biomass produced within communities, but there is a great lack of information about its characteristics, both qualitatively and quantitatively (variation of the type and volume deposited throughout the year). In this way and to computerize the whole process, it is proposed the introduction of digital technology, namely with the use of IoT sensors and applications for the web. Through data collection, processing and analysis, it will be possible to measure several variables, generate reports and later optimize processes.

In the municipality of Viseu there is a network of forest ecopoints that allow residents to deposit agroforestry waste, avoiding the need to burn them and potentially cause fires. Due to their character of innovation, interest and utility, these structures have opened several lines of scientific research with a view to the design of second generation forest ecopoints that can be disseminated throughout the Portuguese territory.
Thus, the BioValor project has as activities: (1) the physical-chemical characterization of biomass that is deposited throughout the year in the forest ecopoint targeted for study and the creation of a network of IoT sensors for data collection and development of digital communication platforms between the entities involved; (2) the assessment of the potential for the recovery of the material of this biomass in composting and mulching processes, both using digital monitoring for control and monitoring, complementary to analytical control; (3) the analysis of the possibilities of energy recovery with local use; (4) the life cycle evaluation of the options under study, accounting for the different regional inputs; and (5) the definition of good practices for the design and operation of forest ecopoints with a view to optimizing their operation and mitigating the risk of forest fire.

It is considered that this project, in addition to improve the design of forest ecopoints, using digital thecnhologies (such as: drone for recording images and video, communication platforms and network of sensors monitoring operating conditions), will promote their reproduction by other Portuguese municipalities and other countries. Thus, it is important that there is an effort in the dissemination of its results and an association with key entities in this process, such as the Municipality of Viseu, the Parish Councils, the Biomass Center for Energy, the Biomass Center, among others.

It is expected that the BioValor project will contribute decisively, not only to solving the challenges posed by rural fires, but also to the valorization of rural areas, creating wealth and jobs. Fundamentally, that its results are an important contribution to the definition of public policies.

PIDI/CISeD/2021/002 • Combinações de relações bancárias e detentores do seu capital, custos de financiamento, performance e estrutura de capital das empresas

[DDSS] Digital Decision Support Systems, concluído, interno, nacional, não competitivo, não financiado, viseu /

Principal Researcher:
Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis
António Pedro Soares Pinto

Duration: 2021 – 2023

A revisão da literatura identifica o efeito do poder de mercado do sistema bancário nos custos de financiamento da empresa (Wang et al., 2020; Abubakr & Esposito, 2012; Han et al., 2015), na estrutura de capital das pequenas empresas (Degryse et al., 2012), da inclusão financeira – acesso adequado, atempado e a custos reduzidos a um conjunto de produtos e serviços financeiros regulados, aumentando o bem-estar financeiro (Banco de Portugal, 2017) – e no desempenho da empresa (Chauvet & Jacolin, 2017). Contudo, pelo que seja do nosso conhecimento, ainda não foi realizado qualquer estudo que avalie o impacto das possíveis combinações das relações com as diversas instituições bancárias, bem como com as características dos seus detentores de capital, com as quais as empresas estabelecem relações, na sua atividade. O estudo incide sobre Pequenas e Médias Empresas (PME´s), que representam cerca de 99,9% do tecido empresarial português em 2019 (PORDATA, 2021) e 99,9% do tecido empresarial espanhol em janeiro de 2020 (MINISTERIO DE INDUSTRIA, COMERCIO Y TURISMO, 2021), constituindo este o grande impulso e motivação para a realização desta investigação. Para além, das características da carteira de credores de financiamento remunerado, o estudo contempla diferentes variáveis de controlo, tais como, a idade das empresas, o número de empregados, total de ativos, localização da empresa, quantidade de bancos de relação da empresa, entre outras características que se tornem relevantes para a análise.

OBJETIVOS
Este estudo procura avaliar de que forma as características das principais instituições bancárias que concedem crédito à empresa e, as relações de combinação entre elas, condicionam a estrutura de capital, os custos de financiamento e o desempenho das empresas, nomeadamente, nas de menor dimensão. Para além deste objetivo, também as características dos detentores de capital que controlam as instituições financeiras com as quais as empresas estabelecem relação será propósito de análise, no que respeita à sua influência na atividade financeira e operacional da empresa.
O universo da amostra em análise, será constituído por PME’s ibéricas, recolhido na base de dados SABI – Bureau Van Dijk, com recurso à análise de dados seccionados. Pretende-se também, aferir a prevalência, ou não, de diferenças significativas no comportamento das empresas portuguesas e espanholas.
Os dados serão analisados recorrendo a técnicas de inferência estatística como testes de hipóteses paramétricos e não paramétricos, regressão multivariada com recurso a equações simultâneas, modelando pelo estimador de 2 ou 3 estágios dos mínimos quadrados, procurando dar resposta às questões em investigação.

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PIDI/CISeD/2021/001 • Industrial Augmented Reality (IAR)

[DDSS] Digital Decision Support Systems, concluído, interno, nacional, não competitivo, não financiado, viseu /

Principal Researcher:
José Silva
Duration: 2021 – 2023

Cised team members
Olga Contente
Serafim Oliveira
Daniel Gaspar

The constant changes in the contextual environment and the continuous globalization cause changes in the market, which push the companies to look for new technologies to increase productivity and profitability. In addition, customer requirements force companies to make their production systems more flexible, efficient and competitive.

It is due to these changes that the need arises to implement interconnected systems, integrated into an industrial IoT platform (IIoT - Industrial Internet of Things), supported by the connection of equipment and production systems so that companies can create networks along the value chain and thus control and command processes independently and in real-time.

The implementation in organizations of intelligent and interconnected ecosystems allows making decisions in a decentralized way. However, it is necessary to provide tools to assist in decision-making, monitoring operations, and reducing errors by the operator.
This project aims to respond to this challenge with the application of solutions developed in augmented reality (AR) in an industrial environment.

The integration of AR in a production system allows to reduce production errors and increase the efficiency of product development since there is constant monitoring during the performance of tasks.

This project is based on three fundamental objectives.
One of the objectives of this project is the implementation of solutions developed in AR, in various industrial applications, namely, in carrying out maintenance interventions (inspection with remote support or access to instructions in virtual windows), in guiding employees through procedures, either be it the first time or a recurring task, using holographic step-by-step instructions and issuing alerts to users with the details necessary for the execution of operations.
The other objective is the integration of the AR system with an existing IIoT platform, which will allow obtaining and viewing in real-time the desired information for each equipment, such as the operating temperature, energy consumption, or the condition of the components. that integrate the equipment.
It is also the objective of this project to develop the best visualization solution taking into account the particularities of each application so that the interaction with the projections is fluid and with reduced latency.
Digital objects, from industrial equipment, will be developed using programming algorithms and spatial digitization for referencing the anchoring points of the real space where these objects are immersed.

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PROJ/IPV/ID&I/030 • JASM – Janela aberta sobre o mundo: Línguas estrangeiras, criatividade multimodal e inovação pedagógica no ensino superior

competitivo, concluído, interno, nacional, Outros, viseu /

Principal Researcher:
Véronique Delplancq
Duration: 2020 – 2022

Cised team members
Isabel Oliveira

Funding
CGD; PV

Pedagogical innovation is at the centre of Higher Education (HE) priorities, with a concern to renew its practices in order to motivate students and provide experiences adapted to the professional reality. The improvement in foreign languages (FL), especially with students who do not proceed with language training, does not discard this questioning, even because the competences in FL in the work environment are unanimously recognized as vital, being therefore, by right their inclusion in the training plans. The Project-based learning approach in an interdisciplinary and collaborative work perspective, using multimodality in communication, is a consistent asset working the various dimensions of language in French and English, in their connections with cognitive representations. JASM project aims to develop an experience of active pedagogy at the School of Education of Viseu with students of the 1st cycle in Media Studies enrolled in the various FL curricular units in order to promote the acquisition of multilingual skills and the development of a plurilingual conscience thanks to the mobilization of the various dimensions of language (aesthetic and emotional, in addition to cognitive), in a creative, collaborative and interdisciplinary work environment.
In this project, the topic of interdisciplinarity is highlighted, combining FL with digital art.
Keywords: pedagogical innovation, higher education, project-based learning approach, foreign languages and linguistic and cultural diversity, multilingual and multimodal artistic creativity, collaborative and cooperative work, aesthetics and emotion.

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PROJ/IPV/ID&I/023 • Mini-Olimpíadas Experimentais de Ciência

[DDSS] Digital Decision Support Systems, competitivo, concluído, interno, nacional, viseu /

Principal Researcher:
Maria Paula Carvalho
Duration: 2020 – 2022

Cised team members
Isabel Brás
Ricardo Gama

Funding
CGD; PV

The importance of science education is widely highlighted in the literature. There are national and international mechanisms that evaluate education systems and the scientific competences of students(1,2,3). The purpose of the Science Olympiads is to identify intrinsic problems in the teaching-learning process and to promote science education(4,5). In this competition the pupils perform 2 tests: theoretical and experimental. The experimental exam allows operational skills (know-how) that are not evaluated, e.g. in the PISA and TIMSS studies, to be assessed.

This project is motivated by a study(5) that shows that Portuguese students present a deficit in experimental skills at the International Olympiads at the end of secondary education. Although they undergo an intensive training in the months preceding the international competitions, these students cannot develop some of the skills required. It is necessary to promote science skills from the first years of schooling. Therefore, we designed a pilot study to implement the Experimental Mini-Olympics of Science within the scope of the subject of Estudo do Meio in primary school. The objectives of the study are: to evaluate the feasibility of the Mini-Olympics in the 4th year of primary school; to determine teachers’ needs to implement science activities; to investigate the potential for the Mini-Olympics so as to evaluate the theoretical and experimental science competences of pupils at the end of primary school; to investigate the potential of the Mini-Olympics to stimulate pupils’ autonomous learning and critical thinking; to motivate teachers for new scientific challenges and to increase pupils interest in science. This research will be carried out in the 5 School Groups in the municipality of Viseu, during the 2020/21 school year and will involve principals, teachers and pupils in the 4th year of schooling. Initially an inventory of each school’s resources available for science activities will be performed. The Olympic competitions will be developed and implemented and the results will be published after the data are analysed. Recommendations will be stated in order to improve science education in primary school.

Com as conclusões serão apresentadas sugestões para o ensino das ciências no 1ºCEB.
O estudo será realizado em cooperação com a Ciência Viva, as Sociedades Portuguesas da Física, da Química e da Geologia, a Ordem dos Biólogos, a Association of Polar Early Career Scientists e a International Association for Geoethics.

To sum up, the project is unique because there are no Experimental Science Mini-Olympiads in Portugal at the end of the primary school. The IPV will be a pioneer in implementing this competition, which it intends to expand soon to a national level.

1 http://www.oecd.org/pisa/
2 http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/timss2019/frameworks/
3 http://www.ige.min-edu.pt/upload/Relatorios/GC_EEC_2016_RELATORIO.pdf
4 https://www.dge.mec.pt/olimpiada-da-ciencia-da-uniao-europeia-euso
5 https://estudogeral.uc.pt/handle/10316/43058

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PROJ/IPV/ID&I/022 • EQuIPES – Estudo de Qualidade e Inovação Pedagógica no Ensino Superior

competitivo, concluído, interno, nacional, viseu /

Principal Researcher: Maria Pacheco Figueiredo
Duration: 2020 – 2021

CISeD
Team Members
Carlos Pereira

Funding
CGD; PV

Several challenges have been tackled by Portuguese and European Higher Education, many of which are in the pedagogical arena. Although Pedagogy in Higher Education is not an invested area, there are studies, initiatives, projects and structures of great quality in the national context. An important part of the advances in the area has resulted from the systematic analysis, sharing and discussion of practices that have embodied several publications and sustained several interventions in Portugal and internationally. The EQuIPES - Study of Quality and Pedagogical Innovation in Higher Education aims to contribute to this body of experiences and studies that allows to understand and improve teaching and learning in Higher Education institutions, based on the analysis of practices in the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu in communication with partners. Based on projects from the Institute and at national level, EQuIPES will characterize the way IPV’s teaching staff teaches and what supports and constraints teachers recognize in their pedagogical practices. From this diagnosis, follows the identification, characterization and discussion of practices, namely active learning ones, which embody pedagogical innovation. Active learning is understood as a set of flexible practices that seeks the involvement of students through the use of approaches that move away from the teacher as center of the activities and which often resort to digital technologies. These practices, supported by a variety of records and in-depth reviews and input from various stakeholders, are shared and discussed with the closer and the wider community. The study adopts a mixed methodology. It begins with a survey for the the entire IPV that is accompanied by direct observation of spaces used for teaching, registered in a grid. In the second phase, through a snowball sampling, the case studies will be identify: teachers with pedagogical practices with active learning approaches, which we intend to characterize and analyze, using the input of external experts. The teachers involved in these case studies are invited to share these practices in peer-to-peer training spaces open to IPV staff and the larger community, accompanied by expert interventions.
With this approach, we intend to contribute to the visibility of Pedagogy in Higher Education, associated to the construction and utilization of active learning approaches.

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