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Publications

2025

Enhancing Nut-Tightening Processes in the Automotive Industry: Integration of 3D Vision Systems with Collaborative Robots

Authors
Gonçalves, A; Pereira, T; Lopes, D; Cunha, F; Lopes, F; Coutinho, F; Barreiros, J; Durães, J; Santos, P; Simões, F; Ferreira, P; Freitas, DC; Trovão, F; Santos, V; Ferreira, P; Ferreira, M;

Publication
Automation

Abstract
This paper presents a method for position correction in collaborative robots, applied to a case study in an industrial environment. The case study is aligned with the GreenAuto project and aims to optimize industrial processes through the integration of various hardware elements. The case study focuses on tightening a specific number of nuts onto bolts located on a partition plate, referred to as “Cloison”, which is mounted on commercial vans produced by Stellantis, to secure the plate. The main challenge lies in deviations that may occur in the plate during its assembly process, leading to uncertainties in its fastening to the vehicles. To address this and optimize the process, a collaborative robot was integrated with a 3D vision system and a screwdriving system. By using the 3D vision system, it is possible to determine the bolts’ positions and adjust them within the robot’s frame of reference, enabling the screwdriving system to tighten the nuts accurately. Thus, the proposed method aims to integrate these different systems to tighten the nuts effectively, regardless of the deviations that may arise in the plate during assembly. © 2025 by the authors.

2025

Inclusive Interactions for Place-Belongingness: Lessons from Citizen Science

Authors
Mohseni H.; Silvennoinen J.; Correia A.;

Publication
CEUR Workshop Proceedings

Abstract
The active involvement of marginalized and vulnerable groups such as migrants and newly arrived refugees in the development of local communities has been part of many agendas across the EU and around the world. Despite the lessons gleaned from more than three decades of IUI research, there is still a shortage of systematic understanding and concrete guidance on how to design more socially inclusive and culturally sensitive interfaces targeted to these populations. In this paper, we argue that community-based citizen science approaches hold the potential to foster people-place bonds and inform the design of inclusive interactions since these initiatives are typically open to a wide audience regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, and education. From portable environmental monitoring devices to open databases providing place-related data about species observations and environmental threats, citizen scientists have a socially transformative and place-development potential that is often overlooked from an interaction design perspective. This research investigates this gap by examining digital interactions in citizen science through a systematic literature review addressing interaction possibilities for digitally enhanced place-belongingness. The results indicate three interaction themes within citizen science literature contributing to digitally enhanced sense of place-belonginess: place awareness and involvement, experience sharing, and collaboration encouragement. In addition, we found that the inclusivity goals in citizen science initiatives typically vary from urban and rural development to cultural purposes and environmental engagement and conservation. The interaction themes, along with the negative impacts of digital technologies, are discussed regarding their potential to inform technology design for place-belongingness in HCI.

2025

Evaluation of Lyrics Extraction from Folk Music Sheets Using Vision Language Models (VLMs)

Authors
Sales Mendes, A; Lozano Murciego, Á; Silva, LA; Jiménez Bravo, M; Navarro Cáceres, M; Bernardes, G;

Publication
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)

Abstract
Monodic folk music has traditionally been preserved in physical documents. It constitutes a vast archive that needs to be digitized to facilitate comprehensive analysis using AI techniques. A critical component of music score digitization is the transcription of lyrics, an extensively researched process in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and document layout analysis. These fields typically require the development of specific models that operate in several stages: first, to detect the bounding boxes of specific texts, then to identify the language, and finally, to recognize the characters. Recent advances in vision language models (VLMs) have introduced multimodal capabilities, such as processing images and text, which are competitive with traditional OCR methods. This paper proposes an end-to-end system for extracting lyrics from images of handwritten musical scores. We aim to evaluate the performance of two state-of-the-art VLMs to determine whether they can eliminate the need to develop specialized text recognition and OCR models for this task. The results of the study, obtained from a dataset in a real-world application environment, are presented along with promising new research directions in the field. This progress contributes to preserving cultural heritage and opens up new possibilities for global analysis and research in folk music. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

2025

AI-mediated Collaborative Crowdsourcing for Social News Curation: The Case of Acropolis

Authors
Schneider, D; Chaves, R; Pimentel, AP; de Almeida, MA; De Souza, JM; Correia, A;

Publication
Proceedings of the 2025 ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences

Abstract

2025

Access opportunities to a unique long term deep sea infrastructure

Authors
Cusi, S; Martins, A; Tomasi, B; Puillat, I;

Publication

Abstract
EMSO ERIC is a unique European distributed marine Research Infrastructure dedicated to the observation and study of the deep ocean in the long term in fixed regional areas. It provides different services of which access to its infrastructure by external users -engineers, scientists and researchers-, working both in the public and private sectors. The aim of this service, called physical access, is to facilitate access to instrumented platforms deployed at different sites across the European seas, from the seabed to the surface, in order to perform experiments in geosciences and engineering in real ocean conditions. Depending on the logistics and availability of each site, users may deploy their own platforms, instruments, systems or technologies to be tested by the existing equipment that, in this case, can provide reference measurements. Users may also deploy their own systems on the existing EMSO platforms, either in standalone mode or connected to them, receiving power and, in some cases, being able to transmit data by satellite or by cable, depending on the site. Projects requiring the use of several EMSO sites are also accepted. The host EMSO Regional Facility provides logistics and technical support in order to deploy and recover the systems, access the data and it may also offer training and co-development. EMSO ERIC launches the physical access call on a yearly basis and evaluates the received project proposals every two months. Access is free of charge and funding is available for travel, consumables, shipping, operations and hardware adaptations needed to run the project. Since 2022, when the first call was launched, ten projects with varied topics have been funded and are in different phases of execution.

2025

The Attitude of Young Portuguese Youth Toward Blood Donation Advertising Campaigns—an Exploratory Approach

Authors
Fonseca, MJ; Lopes, S; Garcia, JE; Sousa, BB;

Publication
Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies

Abstract
This study explores the context of blood donation in Portugal, specifically aiming to understand how communication strategies can effectively recruit young blood donors aged 18 to 24. The research addresses the following question: What is the impact of communication efforts on the recruitment of young blood donors in Portugal? To answer this question, four specific objectives were set: (1) To evaluate the level of awareness among young individuals in this age group regarding blood donation; (2) to analyze and assess the communication strategies employed by the Portuguese Institute of Blood and Transplantation (IPST) to promote blood donation; (3) to investigate the motivations and barriers related to blood donation; and (4) to identify effective communication strategies for encouraging blood donation. To achieve the first objective, which is the primary focus of this article, a content analysis of 14 blood donation campaigns was conducted. For the second objective, an exploratory interview was held with a specialist from the IPST. The third objective is being addressed through a survey involving 390 young individuals, which has already been administered and revealed that over half of the respondents are not blood donors. The findings suggest that future campaigns should adopt more targeted segmentation strategies based on behavioral criteria and make greater use of integrated marketing communication to enhance effectiveness. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.

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