Abstract
Virtual assistants offer a new type of solution to handle interaction between human and machine and can be applied in various business contexts such as Industry or Education. When designing and building a virtual assistant the developers must ensure a set of parameters to achieve a good solution. Various platforms and frameworks emerged to allow developers to create virtual assistant solutions easier and faster. This paper provides a review of available platforms and frameworks used by authors to create their own solutions in different areas. Big tech companies like Google with Dialogflow, IBM with Watson Assistant and Microsoft with Bot Framework, present mature solutions to build virtual assistants that provide to the developer all components of the basic architecture to build a fast and solid solution. Open-Source solutions focus on providing to the developer the main components to build a virtual assistant, namely language understanding and response generation. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.

Abstract
The trends of the 21st century are challenging the traditional production process due to the reduction in the life cycle of products and the demand for more complex products in greater quantities. Industry 4.0 (I4.0) was introduced in 2011 and it is recognized as the fourth industrial revolution, with the aim of improving manufacturing processes and increasing the competitiveness of industry. I4.0 uses technological concepts such as Cyber-Physical Systems, Internet of Things and Cloud Computing to create services, reduce costs and increase productivity. In addition, concepts such as Smart Factories are emerging, which use context awareness to assist people and optimize tasks based on data from the physical and virtual world. This article explores and applies the capabilities of context-aware applications in industry, with a focus on production lines. In specific, this paper proposes a context-aware application based on a microservices approach, intended for integration into a context-aware information system, with specific application in the area of manufacturing. The manuscript presents a detailed architecture for structuring the application, explaining components, functions and contributions. The discussion covers development technologies, integration and communication between the application and other services, as well as experimental findings, which demonstrate the applicability and advantages of the proposed solution.

Abstract
Higher education institutions (HEIs) make decisions in several domains, namely strategic and internal management, without using systematized data that support these decisions, which may jeopardize the success of their actions or even their efficiency. Thus, HEIs must define and monitor strategies and policies essential for decision making in their various areas and levels, in which business intelligence (BI) plays a leading role. This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) aimed at identifying and analyzing primary studies that propose a roadmap for the implementation of a BI system in HEIs. The objectives of the SLR are to identify and characterize (i) the strategic objectives that underlie decision making, activities, processes, and information in HEIs; (ii) the BI systems used in HEIs; (iii) the methods and techniques applied in the design of a BI architecture in HEIs. The results showed that there is space for developing research in this area since it was possible to identify several studies on the use of BI in HEIs, although a roadmap for its implementation was not identified, making it necessary to define a roadmap for the implementation of BI systems that can serve as a reference for HEIs.

Abstract
The massive industrialization of products in a factory environment requires testing the product at a stage before its exportation to the sales market. For example, the end-of-line tests at Continental Advanced Antenna contribute to the validation of an antenna's functionality, a product manufactured by this organization. In addition, the storage of information from the testing process allows the data manipulation through automated machine learning algorithms in search of a beneficial contribution. Studies in this area (automatic learning/machine learning) lead to the search and development of tools designed with objectives such as preventing anomalies in the production line, predictive maintenance, product quality assurance, forecast demand, forecasting safety problems, increasing resources, proactive maintenance, resource scalability, reduced production time, and anomaly detection, isolation, and correction. Once applied to the manufacturing environment, these advantages make the EOL system more productive, reliable, and less time-consuming. This way, a tool is proposed that allows the visualization and previous detection of trends associated with faults in the antenna testing system. Furthermore, it focuses on predicting failures at Continental's EOL.

Abstract
In the last 30 years, several academic and commercial projects have explored the context-awareness concept in multiple domains. Ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence are features associated with the 4th generation industry empowering space to interact and respond appropriately according to context. In the scope of Industry 4.0, context-aware systems aim to improve productivity in smart factories and offer assistance to workers through services, applications, and devices, delivering functionalities and contextualised content. This article, through descriptive research, discusses the concepts related to context, presents and analyses projects related to ubiquitous computing and associated with Industry 4.0, and discusses the main challenges in systems and applications development to support intelligent environments for increased productivity, supporting informed decision-making in the factories of the future. The study results indicate that many research questions regarding the analysed projects remain the same, leading the research in the context-aware systems area to minimise issues related to context-aware features, improving the incorporation of Industry 4.0 paradigm concepts. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.