Group decision making and Quality-of-information in e-Health systems

Knowledge is central to the modern economy and society. Indeed, the knowledge society has transformed the concept of knowledge and is more and more aware of the need to overcome the lack of knowledge when has to make options or address its problems and dilemmas. One’s knowledge is less based on exact facts and more on hypotheses, perceptions or indications. Even when we use new computational artefacts and novel methodologies for problem solving, like the use of Group Decision Support Systems (GDSSs), the question of incomplete information is in most of the situations marginalized. On the other hand, common sense tells us that when a decision is made it is impossible to have a perception of all the information involved and the nature of its intrinsic quality. Therefore, something has to be made in terms of the information available and the process of its evaluation. It is under this framework that a Multi-valued Extended Logic Programming language will be used for knowledge representation and reasoning, leading to a model that embodies the Quality-of-Information (QoI) and its quantification, along the several stages of the decision-making process. In this way, it is possible to provide a measure of the value of the QoI that supports the decision itself. This model will be here presented in the context of a GDSS for VirtualECare, a system aimed at sustaining online healthcare services.

Estudo de movimentos de vertente no concelho da Povoação (ilha de São Miguel, Açores): inventariação, caracterização e análise da susceptibilidade

Tese de Doutoramento, Geologia (Riscos Geológicos), 4 de Abril de 2014, Universidade dos Açores.

Conectividade em populações de lapas nas ilhas da Macaronésia (Atlântico-NE): uma abordagem multidisciplinar

Jornadas "Ciência nos Açores – que futuro? Tema Ciências Naturais e Ambiente", Ponta Delgada, 7-8 de Junho de 2013.

Oportunidades para o desenvolvimento da aquacultura de macroalgas nos Açores

Jornadas "Ciência nos Açores – que futuro? Tema Ciências Naturais e Ambiente", Ponta Delgada, 7-8 de Junho de 2013.

Temporal and spatial variability of fin whale's (Balaenoptera physalus) distribution in the Pelagos Sanctuary: Northwestern Mediterranean Sea

Dissertação de Mestrado, Estudos Integrados dos Oceanos, 20 de Março de 2014, Universidade dos Açores.

Side information creation for efficient Wyner-Ziv video coding: Classifying and reviewing

Video coding technologies have played a major role in the explosion of large market digital video applications and services. In this context, the very popular MPEG-x and H-26x video coding standards adopted a predictive coding paradigm, where complex encoders exploit the data redundancy and irrelevancy to 'control' much simpler decoders. This codec paradigm fits well applications and services such as digital television and video storage where the decoder complexity is critical, but does not match well the requirements of emerging applications such as visual sensor networks where the encoder complexity is more critical. The Slepian Wolf and Wyner-Ziv theorems brought the possibility to develop the so-called Wyner-Ziv video codecs, following a different coding paradigm where it is the task of the decoder, and not anymore of the encoder, to (fully or partly) exploit the video redundancy. Theoretically, Wyner-Ziv video coding does not incur in any compression performance penalty regarding the more traditional predictive coding paradigm (at least for certain conditions). In the context of Wyner-Ziv video codecs, the so-called side information, which is a decoder estimate of the original frame to code, plays a critical role in the overall compression performance. For this reason, much research effort has been invested in the past decade to develop increasingly more efficient side information creation methods. This paper has the main objective to review and evaluate the available side information methods after proposing a classification taxonomy to guide this review, allowing to achieve more solid conclusions and better identify the next relevant research challenges. After classifying the side information creation methods into four classes, notably guess, try, hint and learn, the review of the most important techniques in each class and the evaluation of some of them leads to the important conclusion that the side information creation methods provide better rate-distortion (RD) performance depending on the amount of temporal correlation in each video sequence. It became also clear that the best available Wyner-Ziv video coding solutions are almost systematically based on the learn approach. The best solutions are already able to systematically outperform the H.264/AVC Intra, and also the H.264/AVC zero-motion standard solutions for specific types of content. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Investigação em ambientes marinhos naturalmente acidificados

Jornadas "Ciência nos Açores – que futuro?", Ponta Delgada, 7-8 de Junho de 2013.

Variabilidade genética, conectividade e reiliência de populações de lapas nas ilhas da Macronésia (Atlântico-NE)

Jornadas "Ciência nos Açores – que futuro? Tema Ciências Naturais e Ambiente", Ponta Delgada, 7-8 de Junho de 2013.

Optimization, high availability and redundancy in information communications and technology using networks and systems virtualization architectures

Mestrado em Engenharia Informática

Avaliação do stock de Abalones: uma pesca sustentável

Jornadas "Ciência nos Açores – que futuro? Tema Ciências Naturais e Ambiente", Ponta Delgada, 7-8 de Junho de 2013.

Uma caracterização dos teores de azoto ureico no leite (AUL/MUN) nas explorações leiteiras da Ilha Terceira

Dissertação de Mestrado, Engenharia Zootécnica, 04 de Junho de 2014, Universidade dos Açores.

A denoising approach for iterative side information creation in distributed video coding

In distributed video coding, motion estimation is typically performed at the decoder to generate the side information, increasing the decoder complexity while providing low complexity encoding in comparison with predictive video coding. Motion estimation can be performed once to create the side information or several times to refine the side information quality along the decoding process. In this paper, motion estimation is performed at the decoder side to generate multiple side information hypotheses which are adaptively and dynamically combined, whenever additional decoded information is available. The proposed iterative side information creation algorithm is inspired in video denoising filters and requires some statistics of the virtual channel between each side information hypothesis and the original data. With the proposed denoising algorithm for side information creation, a RD performance gain up to 1.2 dB is obtained for the same bitrate.

Mapping multi-species habitat use for marine conservation planning

Tese de Doutoramento, Ciências do Mar (Biologia Marinha)

Avaliação dos modelos de Supply Chain : Lean, Agile e Leagile : uma abordagem empírica

Dissertação de Mestrado em Ciências Económicas e Empresariais.

A imprensa regional e local: estudo de caso do jornal O Ribatejo

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior de Comunicação Social como parte dos requisitos para obtenção de grau de mestre em Jornalismo.