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Publications

Publications by CSE

2021

Work-in-Progress-Immersing E-facilitators in Training: The Perspective of Project FAVILLE - Facilitators of Virtual Learning

Authors
Lattke, S; Morgado, L; Afonso, AP; Penicheiro, F; Morgado, L; Moreira, JA;

Publication
2021 7TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE IMMERSIVE LEARNING RESEARCH NETWORK (ILRN)

Abstract
The paper presents the e-facilitator concept and explores the perspective of some professionals in the field (stakeholders) on this role and its competencies. Facilitation in virtual learning environments is a growing challenge when more and more learners find their way to online learning platforms and many universities adapt their courses to digital environments since the global pandemic forced many people to stay at home.

2021

A Binary Translation Framework for Automated Hardware Generation

Authors
Paulino, N; Bispo, J; Ferreira, JC; Cardoso, JMP;

Publication
IEEE MICRO

Abstract
As applications move to the edge, efficiency in computing power and power/energy consumption is required. Heterogeneous computing promises to meet these requirements through application-specific hardware accelerators. Runtime adaptivity might be of paramount importance to realize the potential of hardware specialization, but further study is required on workload retargeting and offloading to reconfigurable hardware. This article presents our framework for the exploration of both offloading and hardware generation techniques. The framework is currently able to process instruction sequences from MicroBlaze, ARMv8, and riscv32imaf binaries, and to represent them as Control and Dataflow Graphs for transformation to implementations of hardware modules. We illustrate the framework's capabilities for identifying binary sequences for hardware translation with a set of 13 benchmarks.

2021

An analysis of Monte Carlo simulations for forecasting software projects

Authors
Miranda, P; Faria, JP; Correia, FF; Fares, A; Graça, R; Moreira, JM;

Publication
SAC '21: The 36th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing, Virtual Event, Republic of Korea, March 22-26, 2021

Abstract
Forecasts of the effort or delivery date can play an important role in managing software projects, but the estimates provided by development teams are often inaccurate and time-consuming to produce. This is not surprising given the uncertainty that underlies this activity. This work studies the use of Monte Carlo simulations for generating forecasts based on project historical data. We have designed and run experiments comparing these forecasts against what happened in practice and to estimates provided by developers, when available. Comparisons were made based on the mean magnitude of relative error (MMRE). We did also analyze how the forecasting accuracy varies with the amount of work to be forecasted and the amount of historical data used. To minimize the requirements on input data, delivery date forecasts for a set of user stories were computed based on takt time of past stories (time elapsed between the completion of consecutive stories); effort forecasts were computed based on full-time equivalent (FTE) hours allocated to the implementation of past stories. The MMRE of delivery date forecasting was 32% in a set of 10 runs (for different projects) of Monte Carlo simulation based on takt time. The MMRE of effort forecasting was 20% in a set of 5 runs of Monte Carlo simulation based on FTE allocation, much smaller than the MMRE of 134% of developers' estimates. A better forecasting accuracy was obtained when the number of historical data points was 20 or higher. These results suggest that Monte Carlo simulations may be used in practice for delivery date and effort forecasting in agile projects, after a few initial sprints. © 2021 ACM.

2021

ATOCS: Automatic Configuration of Encryption Schemes for Secure NoSQL Databases

Authors
Ferreira, D; Paulo, J; Matos, M;

Publication
2021 17TH EUROPEAN DEPENDABLE COMPUTING CONFERENCE (EDCC 2021)

Abstract
Secure databases have emerged to securely store and process sensitive data at untrusted infrastructures (e.g., Cloud Computing). To be secure and efficient, the encryption schemes used by these systems must be carefully chosen. Indeed, this task requires expertise both in databases and security, and is currently being done manually, which is time-consuming and error-prone and can lead to security violations, poor performance, or both. This paper presents ATOCS, a novel framework that analyses the applications' code and, from the inferred requirements, determines the best combination of encryption schemes and related configurations for the underlying secure NoSQL database. Its design is modular and extensible thus facilitating the support of different applications and database solutions. Our evaluation with real-world applications shows that ATOCS is fast (it takes 44 seconds to analyse more than 12K LoC), accurate, and simplifies the configuration of secure databases.

2021

Visiting museums from the perspective of visually impaired visitors: Experiences and accessibility resources in portuguese museums

Authors
Vaz, R; Freitas, D; Coelho, A;

Publication
International Journal of the Inclusive Museum

Abstract
Although new, renewed, and innovative museum experiences are constantly provided to the sighted public, millions of visually impaired persons worldwide are still deprived of access to enjoying and engaging with collections. This research aims to investigate the limitations of blind or partially sighted persons in visiting a museum nowadays. Semistructured interviews with seventy-two visually impaired Portuguese individuals revealed reasons and factors that contribute to positive and negative visiting experiences, and the assessment of sixteen accessibility resources demonstrates their frequency and potential usefulness in museum visits. It concludes that the actual limited experiences in museums could be surpassed and enhanced by moving beyond accessibility, embracing inclusion, and focusing on the creation of multimodal and multisensory approaches to promote exceptional, memorable, and exciting visiting opportunities for all.

2021

Generalised Quantum Tree Search

Authors
Sequeira, A; Santos, LP; Barbosa, LS;

Publication
2021 IEEE/ACM 2ND INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON QUANTUM SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (Q-SE 2021)

Abstract
This extended abstract reports on on-going research on quantum algorithmic approaches to the problem of generalised tree search that may exhibit effective quantum speedup, even in the presence of non-constant branching factors. Two strategies are briefly summarised and current work outlined.

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