PhD Programme in Telecommunications

Posted on 01/07/2011 by rui

The PhD Programme in Telecommunications is a joint venture of Universidade do Minho (www.uminho.pt), Universidade de Aveiro (www.ua.pt) and Universidade do Porto (www.up.pt), three Portuguese Universities with a strong tradition in the area of Telecommunications Engineering. The programme represents a fusion of the doctoral offers in Telecommunications in the three institutions and constitutes a unified effort to prepare highly qualified human resources in Telecommunications.

The programme is supported by an academic staff of more than 150 PhDs whose research and development activities covers a wide range of topics, ranging from theoretical and fundamental aspects to the experimental and applied areas of Telecommunications, and comprehends wide-ranging collaborative work with leading industries in this country and abroad. The MAP-tele targets both national and international audiences and is designed for excellence and competitiveness at the international level. It aims to prepare selected students for leadership in research and development careers in industry, academia and independent entrepreneurial initiatives.

The programme comprises two semesters of curricular component and four to six semesters of research component leading to the PhD thesis. All courses and seminars will be taught in English. A distinctive feature of the curricular part is its strong laboratorial component in the areas of optical and wireless communications and communications networks. The research will be carried out in one of the research centres affiliated with the three Universities or in leading companies associated with the programme.

Applications are open:

- Phase 1: up to May 2, 2011

- Phase 2: up to July 7, 2011

We encourage applications of students coming from the areas Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Physics and Mathematics.

Grants are available for prospective students.
For more information please visit http://www.map.edu.pt/tele.

HDS Project finalist in award

Posted on 07/02/2011 by rui

“TOK – Touch, Organize and Create” is one of the finalists projects of “Prémio Nacional Indústrias Criativas – Unicer/Serralves”, in its “Education” category.

The project is being conjunctly developed between Uminho’s Education Institute (Departamento de Estudos Curriculares e Tecnologia Educativa), the Engineering School (Departamento de Sistemas de Informação, EngageLab) and the Institute of Social Sciences (Departamento de Ciências da Comunicação). Cristina Sylla, Human Digital systems group member and researcher in EngageLab is operationalizing the project.

To better know the project and the award, please find:

http://www.engagelab.org/Home/research/research-2/hlm

http://www.premioindustriascriativas.com/

Propostas de dissertação de Mestrado 2010/2011

Posted on 30/07/2010 by rui

O grupo Human-digital Systems apresenta um conjunto de propostas de dissertação de Mestrado para o ano lectivo de 2010/2011, no âmbito dos cursos de Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia de Comunicações, Mestrado em Redes e Serviços de Comunicações, Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, Mestrado em Informática, Mestrado em Tecnologia e Arte Digital, Mestrado em Engenharia de Sistemas de Informação e Mestrado em Serviços de Informação da Universidade do Minho.

Estas propostas de dissertação tem a si associada a possibilidade de atribuição de uma bolsa BIC pelo período de 6 meses. Para acesso a esta bolsa, os candidatos devem apresentar a sua candidatura de acordo com edital publicado em

http://humandigitalsystems.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/anuncio-para-atribuicao-de-tres-bolsas-de-iniciacao-cientifica-bic-ref-upcgsm-2010-3-bic/

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Displaybook – Bringing online identity to situated displays

Posted on 14/06/2010 by rui

This work is part of a study in which we aim to explore multiple bridges between on-line and off-line forms of socialisation by creating bi-directional connections between Facebook and situated social interactions. In this paper, we specifically describe a study on the use of public displays for the public presentation of data from the Facebook profiles of people near the display. The key challenge is how to map the concept of sharing information within a social network, to the concept of sharing information with the places you visit. For this to be viable, people must have full control over what they share and in what circumstances they will share it. This paper addresses this issue by studying the sharing alternatives, how this sharing of profile data in a public display is perceived by people and what are the main factors affecting that perception. The results suggest that, overall, people seem to be willing to expose parts of their Facebook profiles given proper privacy controls, but clearly revealed a gap between privacy control in Facebook and the type of privacy controls that would be needed for this use of Facebook information.

Displaybook was part of Project in Ubiquitous Computing class, Master in Informatics ed. 09/10 at UMinho.

If you have any questions or want to know more about Displaybook, fell free to contact us at {pg13019,pg15964} at alunos dot uminho dot pt.

WalkWithMe

Posted on 08/06/2010 by rui

O WalkWithMe foi um projecto de computação móvel, realizado no 1º semestre do ano lectivo de 2009/2010, no âmbito da UCE de Computação Móvel e Ubíqua. A ideia do projecto surgiu do crescente interesse na recolha de traces GPS pedestres, interesse esse motivado pelo surgimento de uma série de áreas aplicacionais onde estas traces se revelam como dados valiosos, no estudo do comportamento das pessoas nas mais variadas situações do dia-a-dia. Este projecto tinha então por objectivos a criação e teste de uma plataforma de recolha de traces GPS. Para este efeito, a aplicação criada teria que fornecer uma contrapartida aos seus utilizadores, pois muito poucas pessoas estariam interessadas em partilhar as suas traces sem um retorno. Aqui surge a ideia de criar um GWAP (Game With A Purpose), que seria então a motivação para as pessoas partilharem os seus percursos. O GWAP WalkWithMe fornece então aos utilizadores desafios sob a forma de fotos às quais estes devem responder com fotos cujo tema seja semelhante. A aplicação foi testada num dispositivo móvel, com algumas pessoas, na medida do possível, sendo os resultados obtidos desses testes e das entrevistas positivos. O feedback obtido foi interessante e pode ser utilizado como ponto de partida para alguém que procure estender sobre o trabalho já feito e até sobre o próprio conceito.

MobiSensor

Posted on 08/06/2010 by rui

MobiSensor is a mobile and a Facebook application that let users know about the persons they pass more time in their days. Using Bluetooth discovery technologies, user’s mobile devices with MobiSensor are capable of detect and generate a dataset of other devices found in the same environment along time. Crossing the device Mac address (their unique id) with a Facebook profile, we can map the device as a Facebook Profile and present users a list of familiar persons they cross along his days. We them present other Facebook profiles with a level of familiarity to the user, based on the previously sets of detected mobile devices.

[vimeo 9256066]

DisplayBook: Where public displays and Facebook meet

Posted on 07/06/2010 by rui

With their increasing popularity, digital social networks have been reshaping notions of socialisation. Still, their scope is inherently virtual, occurring in the web almost as a parallel world of relationships and interactions that does not necessarily translates into physically situated interactions. Displaybook is a research project that aims to explore possible bridges between the physical environment, the natural context for situated interaction between co-located people, and the virtual environment of digital social networks. More specifically, this project brings Facebook profiles into public displays, displaying information obtained from the Facebook profiles of the people currently near the display.

Experiment

As part of this study, we have set two public displays showing Facebook information in the Information Systems Department at University of Minho. Everyone is invited to participate in this study by adding the DisplayBook Facebook application to their profile and indicating the respective Bluetooth address and privacy preferences.

The first step to participate in this experiment is to go to apps.facebook.com/displaybook and install displayBook in your Facebook profile.

When you first go to the application you will be asked to allow it to access your profile information. This is a common procedure when you use a Facebook application and is absolutely necessary for the system to be able to present parts of the profile.

Immediatelly after, you will be asked to give offline access and permission to some of your profile informations. This will make possible for us to retrieve your Facebook Profile information on behalf of yourself and whenever you pass by the display. It also indicates the profiles categories that the system may ask for, such as Birthday and Education, Hometown and Location, and Relationship Status.

Keep in mind that DisplayBook will never use your profile information unless you let us do so. Your profile information (the one you choose to share) will only be used for presentation at the public display and will never be stored in our system. This is just a generic permission. You will latter be asked to refine exactly which information you want to display.

The way the displays can recognise you when you pass by them is from the Bluetooth address of your device, and therefore you need to submit your mobile device Mac address. Also, remember to activate your bluetooth when you pass by the Displays.

Our displays can now show your Facebook information. You can use our permissions dialog to configure exactly which profile data you are interested to showing on the displays. The answers to this dialog box are an important part of our study, and theferore we ask you to honestly consider which information you feel confortable with it being presented in the displays. You may choose not to select any information.

You can now go to apps.facebook.com/displaybook and start using DisplayBook.

JukeChoice: A System For Democratic Music Choice in Public Spaces

Posted on 01/06/2010 by rui

In our society music plays a special role. For instance, when someone chooses to go to a bar at night, probably he/she will choose the bar according to the styles of music played there.

There is a lot of money being spent by owners to hire the best DJ’s whose main job is to select the best music to be played at each moment. But the truth is that even with the greatest DJ of all, customers would like to feel some control over the music to be played.

JukeChoice aims to achieve a successful outcome using the votes of the community and some other simple techniques to guess the kind of desirable songs.

Sistema de Gestão de Filas de Espera

Posted on 28/05/2010 by rui

Actualmente a sociedade é confrontada com filas de espera em
diversos serviços e o tempo despendido nas mesmas começa a surgir como um
dos principais factores diferenciadores da qualidade dos serviços prestados.
Este projecto explora novas soluções de integração de sistemas de gestão de
filas de espera com a computação móvel, de forma a trazer valor acrescentado
ao que já existe actualmente no mercado. Para se perceber melhor o problema e
estudar as soluções possíveis, foi desenvolvido um protótipo funcional que foi
sujeito a avaliação. A abordagem utilizada, o processo de avaliação e a análise
dos resultados obtidos permitiram tirar conclusões e deixar novas ideias para
desenvolvimento de trabalho futuro.

Ubicomp@UMinho

A research group on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems in Portugal

Category Archives: Education