Alberto Pedrero

A New Adaptive Algorithm for Detecting Falls through Mobile Devices

Most of elderly people suffer physical degeneration that makes them particularly vulnerable to falls. Falls cause injuries, time of hospitalization, re-habilitation which is particularly difficult for the elderly and disabled. This paper presents a new system with advanced capacities for learning and adaptation specifically designed to detect falls through mobile devices. The systems proposes a new adaptive algorithm able to learn, classify and identify falls from data obtained by mobile devices and user profile. The system is based on machine learning and data classification using decision trees. The main contribution of the proposed system is the use of posturographic data and medical patterns as a knowledge base, which notably improves the classification process.

Relationship-based dynamic versioning of evolving legal documents

Rule evolution is usually performed by creating a new document which explicitly details changes to specific parts inside other ruless content. Obtaining (virtual) document versions corresponding to a ruless state at a specific date is thus left to document users, who manually extract from library collections, and compose, the pieces of text needed to obtain the desired version. When changes are numerous this can be a tedious task. We propose a solution to dynamically generate virtual rule versions on user demand, respecting the library documents integrity. References to other documents and modification relationships can be automatically detected and are modelled as typed links - modelled with XLink - in a relationships graph. This graph can be used to query relationships, to create hypertext, and to dynamically generate rule versions. In this paper, we focus on the version generation process: a dynamic document composition based in a graph traversal, during which we intelligently infer the composition rules of the desired version.

Multiagent-Based Educational Environment for Dependents

This paper presents a multiagent architecture that facilitates active learning in educational environments for dependents. The multiagent architecture incorporates agents that can be executed on mobile devices and that facilitate language learning in an ubiquitous way. Moreover, the agents are specifically designed to provide advanced interfaces for elderly and dependent people. The architecture has been tested in a real environment and the preliminary results obtained are presented within this paper.

Obtaining Feedback for Indexing from Highlighted Text

The indexing techniques most commonly applied in information retrieval systems associate weights to the terms of documents; this association is carried out in order to quantify the term’s capacity for representing the document. Subsequently, these weights are used in query processing, playing an important role in the performance of the system. This work presents a method for the adjustment of index weights by processing text that has been highlighted by users. Text in a document is highlighted using an application which provides annotation facilities in order to support active reading. Highlighted text is supposed to be of special relevance and the method tries to improve the index weights of terms located in these highlighted fragments.

Modelo MVC para una Interfaz Adaptativa de Consulta de Imágenes

In recent years the fast growing adoption of the Internet as a tool to link companies for business purposes has appeared to be one of the major forces able to shape competition and the whole economy in 21st century. More specifically, the agreements between buying firms and supplying firms seem to head towards new scenarios, with possible consequences with regard to the time span of the relationship and the amount of information exchanged between business partners. This paper aims to present some research issues concerned with the adoption of interorganizational information systems and with the innovative relations allowed by the Internet as enabling infrastructure, and to point out the main theoretical hypothesis about buyer-suppliers relationships which emerge from the literature in the field. As a result, a definite set of statements will be provided. Furthermore, by considering the case of two of the leading food retailing companies in Britain, some web-based information systems will be discussed, in order to understand in which terms the speculative findings of the literature apply in the given cases.Na sociedade actual, o conhecimento existente nas empresas e uma forte arma competitiva quando gerido adequadamente. Os factores determinantes da sobrevivencia de uma grande parte das organizacoes reflectem-se na forma como a organizacao aprende e responde a mudanca atraves da partilha, distribuicao e criacao de conhecimento organizacional. O termo que vem sendo usado para referir a criacao, partilha e distribuicao de conhecimento e “gestao de conhecimento”.Neste artigo sao apresentados os resultados de um estudo exploratorio que pretende caracterizar o estado da gestao de conhecimento em Portugal. Pretendeu-se medir a sensibilidade das organizacoes para a necessidade e vantagens da gestao de conhecimento, bem como identificar projectos desenvolvidos ou em curso, ferramentas utilizadas e o conhecimento manuseado.O artigo comeca com uma breve contextualizacao historica e descricao da situacao actual. Em seguida introduz as principais alteracoes que o desenvolvimento tecnologico vem trazer as cadeias de valor das organizacoes. A abordagem seguinte, relativa a aprendizagem de Sistemas de Informacao (SI), debate a insuficiencia do factor tecnologico para estas mudancas, se nao houver, por parte das organizacoes, um esforco sistematico de tirar o maximo partido desse factor, apostando na valorizacao dos seus profissionais e, em particular, na aprendizagem dos SI na perspectiva da criacao de novo conhecimento organizacional nesta area. Ainda antes da apresentacao do modelo, e feita uma descricao mais exaustiva dos principais conceitos desta area do conhecimento organizacional. Finalmente e apresentado o modelo que propomos para ser utilizado na caracterizacao da aprendizagem dos SI.O objectivo desta comunicacao consiste em fazer uma abordagem generica aos sistemas de informacao e a tecnologia de suporte no âmbito da gestao das organizacoes ligadas a Cadeia de Valor do Turismo e Hotelaria. Pretende-se ainda reflectir sobre as conclusoes de um estudo efectuado pelos autores a utilizacao de Sistemas do tipo ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) nas unidades hoteleirasNos ultimos anos, congregaram-se alguns factores, pressionando os decisores da Saude para mudancas de fundo nas suas politicas: a dificuldade do controlo orcamental, o aumento do grau de exigencia dos utentes, o envelhecimento da populacao e a necessidade de comparacao e disseminacao de boas praticas. Estas mudancas de fundo implicam a existencia de sistemas de Qualidade, que nao podem existir sem recolha e tratamento de grandes volumes de dados. Os Sistemas de Suporte a Decisao tem sido, com sucesso, aplicados noutros dominios para resolver este problema. O autor propoe o uso de sistemas ja implementados em Portugal como base de trabalho para a criacao de uma Base de Dados Nacional de Indicadores.

Presentation Adaptation: Results from a Case Study

This work presents some of the results from a study analyzing the effects of interface customization on user tasks. The study was developed in the context of an interface developed for specialists visiting a Virtual Museum. The information about the time used to complete a task has been collected to acquire quantitative data. The observations were developed both before and after the adaptation of the interface. The way in which the users interact with the customization system was also analyzed, paying special attention to the effects that the customization process has on the interaction with the main system. To acquire qualitative and subjective data, the users were asked to fill out a questionnaire to find out their opinion about the interface adaptation.