Abstract
Driving simulators require extensive road environments, with roads correctly modeled and similar to those found in real world. The modeling of extensive road environments, with the specific characteristics required by driving simulators, may result in a long time consuming process. This paper presents a procedural method to the modeling of large road environments. The proposed method can produce a road network design to populate an empty terrain and produce all the related road environment models. The terrain model can also be edited to produce well-constructed road environments. The road and terrain models are optimized to interactive visualization in real time, applying all the stet-of-art techniques like the level of detail selection. The proposed method allows modeling large road environments, with the realism and quality required to the realization of experimental work in driving simulators.

Abstract
PTCRIS (Portuguese Current Research Information System) is a program aiming at the creation and sustained development of a national integrated information ecosystem, to support research management according to the best international standards and practices. This paper reports on the experience of designing and prototyping a synchronization framework for PTCRIS based on ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID). This framework embraces the "input once, re-use often" principle, and will enable a substantial reduction of the research output management burden by allowing automatic information exchange between the various national systems. The design of the framework followed best practices in rigorous software engineering, namely well-established principles in the research field of consistency management, and relied on formal analysis techniques and tools for its validation and verification. The notion of consistency between the services was formally specified and discussed with the stakeholders before the technical aspects on how to preserve said consistency were explored. Formal specification languages and automated verification tools were used to analyze the specifications and generate usage scenarios, useful for validation with the stakeholder and essential to certificate compliant services. © 2015 Mendes Moreira J et al.

Abstract

Abstract
In this article we survey the historical background and development of information and data visualization, and an overview of the intersection of data visualization with storytelling applied to the field of data journalism, where it finds its most widespread use in narrative visualizations. We start by explaining why the mere act of visualization can be highly useful to readers, helping them discover patterns and comprehend information. Backed by historical references, we will describe how some of the first data visualizations were used to explain facts, understand certain events, and determine courses of action. We will then outline how storytelling and narrative techniques are being currently used with data visualization to leverage the power of visual expression. Our goal is to characterize storytelling with data as a vibrant and interesting field that current journalism practices employ to help readers understand and form opinions on complex facts. By presenting concepts like storytelling with data and data stories, we aim to spark interest in further research in the applications of data visualization and narrative. © 2015 ACM.

Abstract
We describe GPU implementations of the matrix recommender algorithms CCD++ and ALS. We compare the processing time and predictive ability of the GPU implementations with existing multi- core versions of the same algorithms. Results on the GPU are better than the results of the multi- core versions (maximum speedup of 14.8).

Abstract
Since high dynamic range (HDR) displays are not yet widely available, there is still a need to perform a dynamic range reduction of HDR content to reproduce it properly on standard dynamic range (SDR) displays. The most common techniques for performing this reduction are termed tone-mapping operators (TMOs). Although mobile devices are becoming widespread, methods for displaying HDR content on these SDR screens are still very much in their infancy. While several studies have been conducted to evaluate TMOs, few have been done with a goal of testing small screen displays (SSDs), common on mobile devices. This paper presents an evaluation of six state-of-the-art HDR video TMOs. The experiments considered three different levels of ambient luminance under which 180 participants were asked to rank the TMOs for seven tone-mapped HDR video sequences. A comparison was conducted between tone-mapped HDR video footage shown on an SSD and on a large screen SDR display using an HDR display as reference. The results show that there are differences between the performance of the TMOs under different ambient lighting levels and the TMOs that perform well on traditional large screen displays also perform well on SSDs at the same given luminance level.