Ricardo Herrmann

A crowdsourcing platform for the construction of accessibility maps

We present in this article a crowdsourcing platform that enables the collaborative creation of accessibility maps. The platform provides means for integration of different kind of data, collected automatically or with user intervention, to augment standard maps with accessibility information. The article shows the architecture of the platform, dedicating special attention to the smartphone applications we developed for data collection. The article also describes a preliminar experiment conducted on field, showing how the analysis of data produced by our solution can bring novel insights in accessibility challenges that can be found in cities.

Smarter board: a community-oriented communication tool

In this demo we present the Smarter Board, a platform designed to facilitate the creation of a community-focused social network, with a special focus on groups of people with disabilities. The communication is based on text messages, which makes the system easy to use and more accessible to communities where network connections are not well-developed and where the people do not have much experience with more advanced technological tools. The solution also provides a manage interface, through which administrators are able to mediate the messages and the users. We also implemented a matching procedure for the identification of related posts (e.g., it can check if there are compatible car ride offers and car ride requests) in order to make users aware of what is being posted and, even more important, adopt the technology.

Marker-assisted recognition of dynamic content in public spaces

In this work we present an image processing-based assistant for helping visually impaired citizens with the task of recognizing dynamic content within fixed layouts of displays in public spaces. Our solution relies on the placement of markers, in order to facilitate the location and recognition of target objects and, at the same time, provide hints to users about how to better position their mobile devices cameras to capture the whole information contained in the display.

A learning feature engineering method for task assignment

Multi-domain IT services are delivered by technicians with a variety of expert knowledge in different areas. Their skills and availability are an important property of the service. However, most organizations do not have a consistent view of this information because creation and maintenance of a skill model is a difficult task, especially in light of privacy regulations, changing service catalogs and worker turnover. We propose a method for ranking technicians on their expected performance according to their suitability for receiving the assignment of a service request without maintaining an explicit skill model describing which skills are possessed by each technician. We find appropriate assignees by making use of similarities between the assignees and previous tasks performed by them.

Watchboard: curated microblogging for the enterprise

Traditional microblogging in the enterprise is known to increase work environment awareness, but is also coupled with information overload and privacy issues. We address these challenges by introducing the concept of curated microblogging, which proposes the addition of social curation and access control to such platforms. We also present Watchboard, a prototype tool incorporating these ideas, and discuss highlights of a preliminary user study delineating crucial factors of the proposed concept.

Shared message boards for smart enterprises

Shared Message Boards foster communication practices within restricted groups that typically do not emerge in traditional social networks. In this article, we describe an experiment in which a Shared Message Board technology was employed to support carpooling activities in a large company in Brazil. Based on the results extracted from the platform and from two user studies, we identified important elements influencing the adoption of this technology as well as other activities where it can be effectively used in order to promote the development of smart enterprises.

Marker-based image recognition of dynamic content for the visually impaired

The access to information displayed in public spaces is a challenge faced by visually impaired people for which image processing techniques have the potential to deliver satisfactory solutions. However, object recognition algorithms must initially locate possible candidates in the images, which is a hard task in complex scenes. In this article, we introduce an image processing technique that relies on the incorporation of markers to panels and boards with fixed layouts displaying dynamic content. The markers allow: a) locating the objects to be recognized; b) correcting perspective in the input images; c) limiting the training set size for supervised learning; and d) guiding the visually impaired by indicating how they should position their devices for adequate pictures. The proposed technique can be used for automatic recognition of texts and images and is suitable for deployment on mobile devices, providing more independence to the citizens. Results of preliminary tests on vending machines show that this method is robust enough to be used in practice.

A learning method for improving quality of service infrastructure management in new technical support groups

Service infrastructure management requires the matching of tasks to technicians with a variety of expert knowledge in different areas. Most Service Delivery organizations do not have a consistent view of the evolution of the technician skills because in a dynamic environment the creation and maintenance of a skill model is a difficult task, especially in light of privacy regulations, changing service catalogs and worker turnover. In addition, as services expand, new technical support groups for the same type of services are created and also new technicians may be added, either into a new group or into existing groups. To tackle this problem we evolve a method for ranking technicians on their expected performance according to their suitability for receiving the assignment of a service request. This method makes use of similarities between the technicians and previous tasks performed by them. We propose a strategy for incorporating new technicians and delivery team reorganizations into the method and we present experimental results demonstrating the efficacy of the strategy. Applying this strategy to new teams yields on average acceptable accuracy within 4 hours, though with a wide variation across teams for the first 12 hours. Accuracy and its variability approach the quality of accuracy on older teams over 24 hours.

Flower Classification for a Citizen Science Mobile App

This work describes an efficient approach for flower classification that is suitable for deployment in mobile devices, allowing its use in a citizen science application for biodiversity monitoring. In the proposed system, geo-located images are uploaded by the user and segmented semi-automatically. We propose a classification method based on histogram comparison of color, shape and texture cues, using metric learning for feature weighting. Our method is tested on the Oxford Flower Dataset and we are able to achieve state-of-the-art accuracy, while proposing an approach that can run efficiently in mobile devices.

A Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem with Bounded Multitasking

Abstract The Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem (RCPSP) is the sub-class of the Scheduling Problem that deals with scenarios where personnel or workforce employed to perform the tasks are limited and each job has an arrival time, a due date, and a penalty associated to delays. In this article, we consider a special case of the RCPSP, which we will denote as the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem with Bounded Multitasking (RCPSPBM), where human analysts are able to perform a limited number of tasks in parallel in exchange for cognitive overhead costs. We present a description of the problem and introduce an exact Mixed-Integer Linear Program formulation of the (RCPSPBM), used to evaluate the efficiency of (typically online) algorithms employed by dispatchers.