Author: ma-admin

The European Researchers’ Night is being celebrated on Friday, November 27, this year. The University of Madeira and ARDITI are organizing this event fully online, for the first time, due to COVID-19.
The new format includes online videos, conferences, activities, virtual visits, and more, of the different research units available here. Some of the involved entities are schools, the University of Madeira, the Oceanic Observatory of Madeira, the Natural History Museum of Funchal, Startup Madeira, among others. The initiative will have live streaming of demos and talks, also available on the same website, from 9:30 am to 19:30 pm.
Several ITI/LARSyS researchers have sent videos for the event. Check them out here.

Program (in Portuguese)

9h30 – 10h00  Sessão de Abertura

10h00 – 10h20 Conferência I: A potencialidade de macroalgas marinhas como fonte de compostos bioactivos – Nuno Nunes (ISOPlexis – Centro em Agricultura Sustentável e Tecnologia Alimentar – UMa)

10h20 – 10h35 Atividade de Divulgação 1 : ROVs e outras tecnologias marinhas – Carlos Lucas e João Belo (Observatório Oceânico da Madeira – ARDITI)

10h35 – 10h55 Conferência II: Criação de uma praia artificial e respetivas infraestruturas necessárias à sua boa execução. Aplicação ao Município de Machico – Sérgio Lousada (Departamento Engenharia Civil e Geologia – UMa)

10h55 – 11h10 Atividade de Divulgação 2: Lixo marinho – Investigação e Sensibilização –  Sara Bettencourt e Soledad Álvarez (MARE – Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente – ARDITI)

11h10 – 11h30 Conferência III: O papel dos morcegos como controladores de pragas agrícolas em Madagáscar e na Madeira – Ricardo Rocha (ARDITI)

11h30 – 11h45 Atividade de Divulgação 3: Experiências para os mais novos – Dayana Aguiar e João Leça (ISOPlexis – Centro em Agricultura Sustentável e Tecnologia Alimentar  – UMa)

11h45 – 12h05 Conferência IV: Startup Madeira > Da ideia ao negócio… – Micaela Vieira (SartUP Madeira )

12h05 – 12h20 Atividade de Divulgação 4: Vamos construir um parque eólico; Cenário de Aprendizagem das áreas STEAM –  Elsa Fernandes, Cristina Lopes, Sónia Abreu, Sónia Martins (Departamento de Matemática – UMa)

12h20 – 12h40 Conferência V: Mariscos da Madeira – Manuel Biscoito (Estação de Biologia Marinha do Funchal – Câmara Municipal do Funchal )

12h40 – 12h55 Atividade de Divulgação 5: Experiências no âmbito da Eletrónica e Telecomunicações  – Luís Gomes (Departamento de Engenharia Eletrónica e Telecomunicações – UMa)

13h00 – 14h30 Exibição de vídeos sobre a Investigação e Inovação na Madeira

14h30 – 14h50 Conferência VI: AGEO – Plataforma Atlântica para a Gestão do Risco Geológico  – Fátima Gouveia (Departamento Engenharia Civil e Geologia – UMa)

14h50 – 15h05 Atividade de Divulgação 6: Demonstração de impressão 3D, demonstração de projeto em desenvolvimento de robô futebolista – Jorge Monteiro (Escola Secundária Francisco Franco)

15h05 – 15h25 Conferência VII: Efeitos da poluição luminosa sobre as aves marinhas – Cátia Gouveia  (Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves – SPEA)

15h25 – 15h40 Atividade de Divulgação 7: O Papel da AGROSENSELAB (Câmara de Provadores) na valorização dos produtos Agroalimentares da RAM – Zita Vasconcelos  (AgroSenseLab)

15h40 – 16h00 Conferência VIII:  Na linha da Frente: Investigar para cuidar – Isabel Fragoeiro e João Pedro Silva (Escola Superior de Saúde – UMa)

16h00 – 16h15 Atividade de Divulgação 8: Projetos de Mecatrónica – Paulo Gomes e Sandro Silva (Curso EFA – Técnico de Mecatrónica. Escola Básica e Secundária de Santa Cruz)

16h15 – 16h35 Conferência IX: Os nematodes na agricultura – Fátima Rocha (Laboratório de Qualidade Agrícola)

16h35 – 16h50 Atividade de Divulgação 9: ANÁLISES AGRÍCOLAS – As Análises Agrícolas no apoio a agricultura da RAM – Miguel Franquinho e Duarte Sardinha (Laboratório de Qualidade Agrícola)

16h50 – 17h10 Conferência X: Lixo Espacial – Laurindo Sobrinho (Grupo de Astronomia da Universidade da Madeira – GAUMa)

17h10 – 17h25 Atividade de Divulgação 10: Equipamentos didático-científicos na área das estruturas de Engenharia Civil – José Santos (Departamento Engenharia Civil e Geologia – UMa)

17h25 – 17h45 Conferência XI: Investigação no Centro de Maricultura da Calheta – Ricardo José (Centro de Maricultura da Calheta – DSIMar)

17h45 – 18h00 Atividade de Divulgação 11: INOVAGRO – No seu papel para desenvolver ações planificadas de criação de inovação na produção agrícola e agroalimentar da RAM – Natália Silva (Inovagro – Divisão de Inovação Agroalimentar)

18h00 – 18h20 Conferência XII : Estudo sobre o Impacto emocional do confinamento nos estudantes de enfermagem portugueses e espanhóis – Tânia Lourenço (Escola Superior de Enfermagem São José de Cluny)

18h20 – 18h35 Atividade de Divulgação 12: Hortas da Varanda – Gonçalo Antunes (ISOPlexis – Centro em Agricultura Sustentável e Tecnologia Alimentar – UMa)

18h35 – 18h55 Conferência XIII: O Museu de História Natural do Funchal e o conhecimento científico – Ricardo Araújo (Museu de História Natural do Funchal – Câmara Municipal do Funchal)

18h55 – 19h10 Atividade de Divulgação 13: O coração da Internet – Filipe Freitas (Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão – UMa)

19h10 – 19h30 Conferência XIV: Análise Teórico-prática do Risco de Cheias no Arquipélago da Madeira – O caso de estudo dos concelhos do Funchal, Machico, Ribeira Brava e São Vicente – Leonardo Gonçalves (Departamento Engenharia Civil e Geologia – UMa)

19h30 Encerramento

TEDx was created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading.” It supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community.  This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxGreenwichUniversity, an independent event.

Prof. Nuno Correia presented the topic “The Multisensory Gap: Towards Audiovisual Design.”

Since 2000, Prof. Nuno N. Correia has been teaching and conducting research in media art and design, in various universities. Nuno’s work has been presented in more than 20 countries, in such festivals and venues as ACM Multimedia – Interactive Arts (Scottsdale), Electro-Mechanica (St. Petersburg), FILE (São Paulo), ISEA (Istanbul), Le Cube (Paris), Mapping (Geneva), NAME (Lille), Optronica / British Film Institute (London), PixelAche / Kiasma (Helsinki) and SXSW (Austin).

Watch the talk

 

 

 

 

The MARÉ project was one of the selected projects by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the scope of the 2nd edition of the call “RESEARCH 4 COVID-19.” It will have 40 thousand euros in financing and be developed in three months.

Involved in this project are the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS), the Institute of Systems and Computers Engineering – Research and Development (INESC-ID), the Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto (ISPUP), and the Institute of Madeira Health Administration who will collaborate to test the first version of the platform.

Led by Professor Nuno Jardim Nunes, the project “Maré – Mobilização Anónima de Regresso à normalidade para mitigar a Epidemia de COVID-19″ [Anonymous mobilization of the return to normality to mitigate the COVID-19 epidemic], focuses on supporting the return to normality in times of pandemic, keeping into account the citizens’ security and privacy matters. More importantly,  citizens should be able to use technology to return to “normal”, knowing that they can trust in it and that it won’t compromise their security.

Keeping these in mind, the project’s team has developed a platform for tracking people digitally, which can be used to respond to the various problems generated by the pandemic, but that at the same time will guarantee the anonymity of the citizen.

Nuno Jardim Nunes, Professor at Técnico, ITI/LARSyS researcher and project leader explained that “as specialists in human factors, we are well aware of the challenges of technology adoption, as well as concerns about privacy, security, and convenience for citizens. The COVID-19 crisis is almost a perfect example of what we call a “wicked” design problem.” It was important to manage the return to normality, knowing “that people are scared, afraid and COVID-19 implies changes in our daily lives” and, therefore, it is important to “understand how to help technologically change behavior in a sustainable way.”  To solve this challenge, the project’s team decided to invert the most common solution, and instead of “asking how technology can help doctors and authorities, we asked how technology can help citizens to return to normality in a safe and reliable way. We put the citizen and not the authorities at the center of the problem .”

The research team will use modern technologies for developing applications in Flutter and Dart for the development of the platform. Also, they will find contact detection solutions that are not intrusive or involve sharing user data, for example, using WiFi.

Other dynamics may be incorporated in the platform, namely the voluntary involvement of selected groups of users who will help answer questions posed by doctors, duly approved by an ethics committee since the project has a perspective of citizen science. “The idea of Maré is to serve as a platform for tests located in specific communities and not be a general and universal solution,” added professor Nuno Jardim Nunes.

Although the first prototype had already been developed on a voluntary basis, there are some important features that required additional support, which was made possible with the FCT funding. These features would be the gamification models of the platform, which may include, for example, the creation of incentives through prizes and rewards to promote behavioral change. “We want Maré to be, within three months, an open and available experimentation platform for civil and scientific communities to be able to use, and not only in the context of COVID-19,” Professor Nuno explained.

The project was already tested despite its short life: “we have already given the platform to the Regional Government of Madeira to adapt it to support the opening of tourism in the Islands,” Professor Nuno continued. “We are available to do it free of charge with other communities and with a view to helping to return to normality and mitigate the economic impacts of the crisis.”

The research team is composed of a multidisciplinary team, which involves Designers, Computer Engineers, Psychologists, and Public Health Doctors. Professor Nunes explained that “design is important since it allows us to find the right problem because often Engineering moves towards a solution without questioning whether it is trying to solve the right problem.” On the other hand, Doctors and Psychologists will “contribute indirectly, and from a citizen science perspective, to help better understand relevant public health issues.”

Professor Nuno Nunes sees the pandemic as “an opportunity to create quick interdisciplinary responses” and says that he is “involved in two other projects and they are unexpected collaborations even within Técnico that would probably never have happened had it not been for COVID-19.” He is grateful for FCT’s support in designing this solution that does not forget important values for citizens, who should not be segregated into the background by the fear generated by the pandemic.

*This article includes citations from this article published by IST.

A team of researchers from the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS), a research unit of the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) partially managed by ARDITI – Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology, and Innovation, led by Prof. Nuno Nunes, Full Professor at IST and President of ITI, collaborated in the development of a public information visualization platform for COVID-19 in the Autonomous Region of Madeira (RAM). The disclosure of information related to the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus requires the application of responsible techniques that allow the sharing of credible and contextualized information to the population, in particular because we are facing an exponential growth phenomenon that can be misinterpreted.

The ITI/LARSyS team, which has the technical development of researchers Miguel Ribeiro (encoding) and Marta Ferreira (design), worked together with technicians from the Regional Secretary of Health and the Civil Protection to adapt the information to the needs and geography of the RAM.

This work also involved the development of a decision support system that integrates models for predicting the mobility of local and foreign citizens, made available by NOS, and also risk models that are being developed by teams from the Faculty of Sciences and Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon.

The project is expected to continue to support not only during the mitigation phase of COVID-19 but also when going back to normal after the peak of the epidemic is over.

The expectation is that the information provided by the research teams will allow not only health and safety authorities to make informed decisions, in a context of great uncertainty and very rapid evolution, but also to keep the population informed and aware that behavior change is the biggest weapon to overcome this period.

The platform can be accessed via the link https://covidmadeira.pt/dashboard/.

In the media

Published in Funchal Notícias, on April 17, 2020:  https://funchalnoticias.net/2020/04/17/instituto-de-tecnologias-interativas-da-madeira-colabora-na-criacao-de-plataforma-de-visualizacao-publica-da-covid-19/.

Published in RTP Madeira, on April 17, 2020: https://www.rtp.pt/madeira/sociedade/madeira-tem-plataforma-que-acompanha-a-evolucao-da-covid-19-audio_37556.

Researchers from the Interactive Technologies Institute adapted a face shield 3D model for medical use in the region and are printing them using 3D printers.
The structure of the original model available online was modified by the researchers to allow 180-degree lateral protection, from ear to ear.

Several entities are involved in this process, some are contributing with filament (plastic), acetate and elastics. With a 3D printing network distributed on the island, the prediction is to supply at least 200 pieces in the coming days. In addition to the 16 3D printers provided by the Regional Secretary of Education, Science and Technology this initiative also has other printers made available by a large number of companies, schools, universities, and individuals.

This initiative involves researchers from ITI / LARSyS and Professors from the University of Madeira, as well as resources from Madeira Tecnopolo, Startup Madeira, the Regional Secretary of Education, Publinsular, Wow! Systems, and other individuals.

The new adjusted model of face shields, made by the researchers and approved by SESARAM is available at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CVADClcLS_Dv29PcuzevQ7NuJxazY3KP.

This year, ITI affiliated researchers are once again participating in CHI 2020 with two full papers and one alt.CHI paper. Overall, the number of papers accepted from Portugal is eight, which is more than many other European countries. Portugal is ranked 21 out of 45 participating countries and is positioned on the 8th place among the European countries.

List of works accepted:

– Paper: “Teenage Visitor Experience: Classification of Behavioral Dynamics in Museums” authored by Vanessa Cesário, Daniela Petrelli, Valentina Nisi;
– Paper: “‘Human, All Too Human’: NOAA Weather Radio and the Emotional Impact of Synthetic Voices” by Kristen Scott, Simone Ashby, and Julian Hanna;
– Alt.CHI: “Low Power Web: Legacy Design and the Path to Sustainable Net Futures” by Max Willis, Julian Hanna, Enrique Encinas, and James Auger;
– LBW: “Navigation Based Application with Augmented Reality and Accessibility” by Sebastião Rocha and Arminda Guerra Lopes;
– Paper: Self-powered Users, “Free” Energy Harvesting and Interaction-powered Devices: a Hybrid Vision for Improved Sustainability by José Luís Silva – participation in the Workshop SelfSustainableCHI: Self-Powered Sustainable Interfaces and Interactions.

CHI 2020 will be taking place in Honolulu, Hawaii on April 25-30.

List of the number of publications by EU country. Source: CHI 2020 Data and Statistics.

Rank	EU Country	No. of Publications
1	Germany	84
2	Denmark	27
3	France	26
4	Sweden	26
5	Finland	19
6	Netherlands	19
7	Austria	8
8	Portugal	8
9	Italy	7
10	Belgium	5
11	Czech Rep	2
12	Greece	2
13	Poland	1
14	Romania	1
15	Spain	1

Full list of the number of publications by country below. Source: CHI 2020 Data and Statistics.

Country	No. of Publications
United States	388
United Kingdom	113
Germany	84
Canada	83
China	47
Australia	45
Republic Of Korea	29
Denmark	27
France	26
Sweden	26
Japan	25
Finland	19
Netherlands	19
Switzerland	16
Ireland	10
New Zealand	10
Singapore	10
Taiwan Roc	10
India	9
Austria	8
Portugal	8
Italy	7
Belgium	5
Israel	5
Norway	5
Pakistan	4
Czech Republic	2
Egypt	2
Greece	2
Jamaica	2
Kenya	2
Qatar	2
UAE	2
Bhutan	1
Brazil	1
Colombia	1
Ghana	1
Iran	1
Ivory Coast	1
Poland	1
Romania	1
Saudi Arabia	1
Spain	1
Thailand	1
Turkey	1