Agent-based parking occupancy simulation

The existing parking simulations, as most simulations, are intended to gain insights of a system or to make predictions. The knowledge they have provided has built up over the years, and several research works have devised detailed parking system models. This thesis work describes the use of an agent-based parking simulation in the context of a bigger parking system development. It focuses more on flexibility than on fidelity, showing the case where it is relevant for a parking simulation to consume dynamically changing GIS data from external, online sources and how to address this case. The simulation generates the parking occupancy information that sensing technologies should eventually produce and supplies it to the bigger parking system. It is built as a Java application based on the MASON toolkit and consumes GIS data from an ArcGis Server. The application context of the implemented parking simulation is a university campus with free, on-street parking places.

Exploring Literary Landscapes: From Texts to Spatiotemporal Analysis through Collaborative Work and GIS

This article argues that the study of literary representations of landscapes can be aided and enriched by the application of digital geographic technologies. As an example, the article focuses on the methods and preliminary findings of LITESCAPE.PT—Atlas of Literary Landscapes of Mainland Portugal, an on-going project that aims to study literary representations of mainland Portugal and to explore their connections with social and environmental realities both in the past and in the present. LITESCAPE.PT integrates traditional reading practices and ‘distant reading’ approaches, along with collaborative work, relational databases, and geographic information systems (GIS) in order to classify and analyse excerpts from 350 works of Portuguese literature according to a set of ecological, socioeconomic, temporal and cultural themes. As we argue herein this combination of qualitative and quantitative methods—itself a response to the difficulty of obtaining external funding—can lead to (a) increased productivity, (b) the pursuit of new research goals, and (c) the creation of new knowledge about natural and cultural history. As proof of concept, the article presents two initial outcomes of the LITESCAPE.PT project: a case study documenting the evolving literary geography of Lisbon and a case study exploring the representation of wolves in Portuguese literature.

Contribuição da detecção remota para a prospecção de jazigos de Sn, W e Au na região de Góis

A presente dissertação pretende utilizar técnicas de detecção remota como ferramenta na prospecção de jazigos de estanho, volfrâmio e ouro em Portugal Continental. O facto de ser relativamente comum a coexistência de mineralizações estano-volframíticas com mineralizações auro-argentíferas nas regiões centro e norte de Portugal, associado à importância estratégica e económica destes metais, tanto a nível nacional, como europeu, faz destas regiões um dos mais apetecíveis alvos para a prospecção e exploração mineira em Portugal. No contexto português, as ferramentas de detecção remota têm vindo a ser aplicadas com alguma regularidade e nas mais diversas temáticas das Geociências. Contudo, exceptuando alguns trabalhos, principalmente dos anos oitenta e noventa, são escassos os casos conhecidos da aplicação específica da detecção remota na prospecção de recursos minerais metálicos em Portugal. Assim, através da utilização de critérios de fotointerpretação, da aplicação de técnicas de processamento digital a imagens de satélite, assim como da integração dos resultados obtidos com dados de cartografia geológica, de altimetria e geofísicos, pretende-se a selecção de zonas potencialmente relacionadas com a ocorrência dos referidos metais na região de Góis-Castanheira de Pêra. A selecção das zonas potenciais tem como objectivo a escolha de alvos para posterior estudo em pormenor, cujo alcance já não é abrangido pelo âmbito desta dissertação. Para além da aplicação das técnicas de detecção remota e da integração de diferentes fontes de informação em ambiente SIG, foram realizados trabalhos de campo com o intuito de permitir a validação preliminar dos resultados obtidos.

Online strategies for offline business the case of Millennials and shopping centrs (Sonae Sierra)

The project, conducted within a direct research internship at Sonae Sierra, aims to propose innovative digital approaches for Shopping Centres (SC) to deal successfully with millennial consumer behavior concerning digital devices and online content in relation to shopping. An online survey followed by a focus group were conducted for this purpose. Results show a demand for specific digital services created by a SC and that their perception depends highly on gender of millennials. Moreover it´s a cohort seeking for personalized content, providing emotional or functional benefit. Consequently a SC must deliver services, as presented in this work satisfying those needs.