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Publications

Publications by António Manuel Amaral

2023

Project Management Maturity in Renovation and Remodelling Construction Firms

Authors
Machado, F; Duarte, N; Amaral, A;

Publication
BUILDINGS

Abstract
Project Management Maturity Models (PMMM) are considered practical tools to deal with poor Project Management (PM) performance, an issue that concerns academics and practitioners. However, the models that exist are something close to one size fits all. This means that those models might not be suitable for activity sectors with specific requirements, such as construction, in particular, the renovation and remodelling construction firms. The present research proposes a PMMM to assess the PM capabilities of Portuguese renovation and remodelling Project-Based Firms (PBF). To achieve this goal, the authors developed documental research, followed by exploratory research through qualitative analysis. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews and performed a content analysis of the fully transcribed interviews. Compared with the literature review's findings, qualitative analysis results made it possible to find closure on previous research that indicated two models to have the best fit for an assessment project on construction PBFs: the OPM3 from the PMI and the MMGP-Prado. Based on those findings, the latter has the best fit for an assessment project on construction PBF. However, the model needs adjustments to fit the Portuguese context of renovation and remodelling organisations. This article presents a new PMMM for Portuguese renovation and remodelling construction firms based on obtained results. Furthermore, regarding construction PM, this article is among the few that studied PMMM on renovation and remodelling construction companies. Unlike large construction companies, these are small organisations that academics do not target for research.

2022

A Competency Definition Based on the Knowledge, Skills, and Human Dispositions Constructs

Authors
Mendes Pereira, TS; Amaral, A; Mendes, I;

Publication
Internet of Everything - The First EAI International Conference, IoECon 2022, Guimarães, Portugal, September 16-17, 2022, Proceedings

Abstract
The competency-based learning approach arose from the Bologna signed declaration. However, a competency definition has never been easy and has been evolving and adapted over time, from indicators and learning goals to learning outcomes, which were formulated in terms of competencies. Meanwhile, the competency concept becomes discussed by pears, in particular, associating knowledge, skills, and human dispositions or attitudes into the competency definition. This information will be an essential update to the previous approaches and certainly contribute to achieving more accurate and reliable competencies information for employers and higher education institutions (HEI). This paper aims to reinforce the relevance of these concepts and suggest how each construct of “knowledge, skills and human dispositions” could be approached to formulate a competency. In addition, due to accelerated digital transformation, an example of a digital competency defined by the DigComp 2.0 framework, with proposed information regarding each of the three constructs, will be presented to consolidate this challenge. As future work, it is intended to analyze the eight different levels, and competency profiles defined by the European Qualification Framework (EQF) and assign a profile to each defined competency. In the end, it is expected altogether to contribute to achieving a competency roadmap definition. © 2023, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

2023

Sustainable Urban Last-Mile Logistics: A Systematic Literature Review

Authors
Silva, V; Amaral, A; Fontes, T;

Publication
SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract
Globalisation, urbanisation and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has been raising the demand for logistic activities. This change is affecting the entire supply chain, especially the last-mile step. This step is considered the most expensive and ineffective part of the supply chain and a source of negative economic, environmental and social externalities. This article aims to characterise the sustainable urban last-mile logistics research field through a systematic literature review (N = 102). This wide and holistic review was organised into six thematic clusters that identified the main concepts addressed in the different areas of the last-mile research and the existence of 14 solutions, grouped into three types (vehicular, operational, and organisational solutions). The major findings are that there are no ideal last-mile solutions as their limitations should be further explored by considering the so-called triple bottom line of sustainability; the integration and combination of multiple last-mile alternative concepts; or by establishing collaboration schemes that minimise the stakeholders' conflicting interests.

2023

Visually Impaired People Positioning Assistance System Using Artificial Intelligence

Authors
Lima, R; Barreto, L; Amaral, A; Paiva, S;

Publication
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL

Abstract
Blindness and visual impairment are commonly associated with social and functional limitations, almost 45 million people in the world have blindness, and 135 million have any visual impairment. This condition has a significant impact on the quality of life and brings many challenges to the individual, one of which is the navigation and positioning tasks. Although there are already apps capable of helping visually impaired people (VIP) for mobility purposes, most of them focus on detecting obstacles and, therefore, on avoiding dangerous situations. However, mobility of VIP involves many more tasks, such as knowing their exact position and staying informed along an entire route. For this purpose, a standalone and customizable solution is proposed that uses traditional visual recognition of landmarks to process the surroundings of the current location of the visually impaired person using a smartphone and informing about the nearby places assuring the user a sense of the site. For feature detection, it used the oriented features from accelerated segment test (FAST) and rotated binary robust-independent elementary feature (BRIEF) (ORB) algorithm, and for feature matching, it used the brute-force method with the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm. Results show that the proposed solution can analyze pictures in fractions of a second with satisfactory accuracy.

2023

Anticipation of New and Emerging Trends for Sustainable Last-Mile Urban Distribution

Authors
Silva, V; Amaral, A; Fontes, T;

Publication
SMART ENERGY FOR SMART TRANSPORT, CSUM2022

Abstract
Globalization and the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increased number of consumers using e-commerce services. This trend has been raising the demand for logistic activities, especially on the last-mile. This part of the supply chain is expensive and ineffective, and a source of negative externalities such as air and noise pollution, traffic congestion and accidents. The anticipation of innovative solutions can help to mitigate these costs. In this context, this paper provides a systematic literature review of the existing literature regarding emerging solutions for last-mile parcel delivery. For guiding the development of more sustainable last-mile parcel distribution, and to provide some insights for future research, we identified and summarized the emerging concepts within this field domain. The results show that innovative solutions have been emerging at different levels: (i) definition of new crowdsourcing-based models, (ii) use of new types of vehicles, and (iii) development of optimization systems based on data collection and the combination of different technologies. Moreover, recent studies show that new strategies are being developed focusing on using consumers as active actors of delivery; non-road and autonomous vehicles are promising concepts in last-mile operations; and different logistic operations, such as vehicle routing, are being optimized with data analytics, cloud technology and mobile apps.

2023

Conceptual Architecture for an Inclusive and Real-Time Solution for Parking Assistance

Authors
Paiva, S; Amaral, A; Pereira, T; Barreto, L;

Publication
SMART ENERGY FOR SMART TRANSPORT, CSUM2022

Abstract
Inclusive mobility represents an essential component of the smart and sustainable mobility ecosystem. Moreover, smart parking has gained greater importance given the vital contribution to reducing the carbon footprint. However, currently, existing solutions are not yet inclusive as they do not include the required information for the comfort and safety of people with reduced mobility, for whom the time it takes to park the vehicle is sometimes not the most important factor when compared to the suitability of the parking space considering the displacement objectives. The main contribution of this paper is a conceptual and technological architecture for an inclusive and real-time solution for parking assistance in a small urban environment. The architecture uses a crowd-sourcing approach, a Geographic Information System, a set of external APIs, the GPS, and a mobile solution for interaction with the citizen. The solution will be built from a previous work developed in the city of Viana do Castelo in Portugal and intends to be evaluated by the Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators (SUMI) proposed by the European Commission.

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