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Publications

2025

Histopoly: A serious game for teaching histology to 1st year veterinary students

Authors
Marcos, R; Gomes, A; Santos, M; Coelho, A;

Publication
ANATOMICAL SCIENCES EDUCATION

Abstract
Histology is a preclinical subject transversal in medical, dental, and veterinary curricula. Classical teaching approaches in histology are often undermined by lower motivation and engagement of students, which may be addressed by innovative learning environments. Herein, we developed a serious game approach and compared it with a classical teaching style. The students' feedback was evaluated by questionnaires, and their performance on quizzes and exam's scores were assessed. The serious game (Histopoly) consisted of a game-based web application for the teacher/game master, a digital gaming application used by the students as a controller, and a projected digital board game. The board featured rows for the four fundamental tissues (epithelial, connective, muscular, and nervous) paired with question tiles and additional tiles with more demanding activities (e.g., drawing, presenting slides, and making a syllabus). Participants included all veterinary students enrolled in the first year. Paired laboratory sessions were split with four sections (n = 94 students) playing Histopoly at the end of all sessions and two sections (n = 28 students) completing small evaluations every three weeks at the beginning of sessions. According to the questionnaires, students that played the serious game were more motivated, engaged, and more interconnected with classmates. The activity was considered fun, and students enjoyed the classes more. No differences in the final examination scores were found, but the percentage of correct answers provided throughout the serious game was significantly higher. Overall, these findings argue for the inclusion of serious games in modern histology teaching to promote student engagement in learning.

2025

A citywide TD-learning based intelligent traffic signal control for autonomous vehicles: Performance evaluation using SUMO

Authors
Reza, S; Ferreira, MC; Machado, JJM; Tavares, JMRS;

Publication
EXPERT SYSTEMS

Abstract
An autonomous vehicle can sense its environment and operate without human involvement. Its adequate management in an intelligent transportation system could significantly reduce traffic congestion and overall travel time in a network. Adaptive traffic signal controller (ATSC) based on multi-agent systems using state-action-reward-state-action (SARSA (lambda)) are well-known state-of-the-art models to manage autonomous vehicles within urban areas. However, this study found inefficient weights updating mechanisms of the conventional SARSA (lambda) models. Therefore, it proposes a Gaussian function to regulate the eligibility trace vector's decay mechanism effectively. On the other hand, an efficient understanding of the state of the traffic environment is crucial for an agent to take optimal actions. The conventional models feed the state values to the agents through the MinMax normalization technique, which sometimes shows less efficiency and robustness. So, this study suggests the MaxAbs scaled state values instead of MinMax to address the problem. Furthermore, the combination of the A-star routing algorithm and proposed model demonstrated a good increase in performance relatively to the conventional SARSA (lambda)-based routing algorithms. The proposed model and the baselines were implemented in a microscopic traffic simulation environment using the SUMO package over a complex real-world-like 21-intersections network to evaluate their performance. The results showed a reduction of the vehicle's average total waiting time and total stops by a mean value of 59.9% and 17.55% compared to the considered baselines. Also, the A-star combined with the proposed controller outperformed the conventional approaches by increasing the vehicle's average trip speed by 3.4%.

2025

PÓS - CIDADES CRIATIVAS

Authors
Nunes, JdS; Nunes, RdS; Schlemmer, E;

Publication
Congresso Internacional de Cidadania Digital

Abstract
O conceito de cidades criativas envolve a existência de uma polis, geograficamente localizada, no espaço físico, com toda sua paisagem urbana, artefatos, pessoas, produções manuais e físicas. No entan

2025

Analysis of methods to transform existing buildings into Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB)

Authors
Andrade, BPB; Piran, FAS; Lacerda, DP; Sellitto, MA; Campos, LMD; Siluk, JCM;

Publication
ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Abstract
Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB) is a concept that promotes the reduction of energy consumption in buildings by applying energy efficiency measures. The energy supply for the remaining demand should only come from sources with low CO2 emissions. Despite abundant research on NZEB for new buildings, only a small number of studies address its application to those already existing. This study aims to bridge this research gap by organizing the proposed methods to transform existing buildings into NZEB. The research method is a systematic literature review covering the methodological development and the application of the concept. We conducted a bibliometric and Scientometric analysis of 117 articles and a content analysis of 48 of them. The results highlighted that the methods identified follow similar stages: (i) planning, (ii) data collection, (iii) pre-design, (iv) design, and (v) delivery. The sub-stage with the highest frequency (88%) was the presentation of the efficiency measure package, making it an essential step in the transformation process. The review did not find specific topics, such as equipment listing and performance, occupant engagement, and charrette design. Finally, the study established guidelines for future research.

2025

Artificial intelligence for endoscopic grading of gastric intestinal metaplasia: advancing risk stratification for gastric cancer

Authors
Almeida, E; Martins, ML; Marques, D; Delas, R; Almeida, T; Chaves, J; Libânio, D; Renna, F; Coimbra, MT; Dinis Ribeiro, M;

Publication
ENDOSCOPY

Abstract
Background The Endoscopic Grading of Gastric Intestinal Metaplasia (EGGIM) classification correlates with histological assessment of gastric intestinal metaplasia and enables stratification of gastric cancer risk. We developed and evaluated an artificial intelligence (AI) approach for EGGIM estimation. Methods Two datasets (A and B) with 1280 narrow-band imaging images were used for per-image analysis. Still images with manually selected patches of 224 x 224 pixels, annotated by experts, were used. Dataset A was retrospectively collected from clinical routine; Dataset B (used for per-patient analysis) was prospectively collected and included 65 fully documented patients. To mimic clinical practice, a deep neural network classified image patches into three EGGIM classes (0, 1, 2) and calculated the total per-patient EGGIM score (0-10). Results On per-image analysis, an accuracy of 87% (95%CI 71%-100%) was obtained. Per-patient EGGIM estimation had an average error of 1.15 (out of 10) and showed 88% (95%CI 80%-96%) accurate clinical decisions for surveillance (EGGIM >= 5), with 85% (95%CI 75%-94%) specificity, no false negatives, and positive and negative predictive values of 62% (95%CI 32%-92%) and 100% (95%CI 100%-100%), respectively. Conclusions EGGIM was estimated with high accuracy using AI tools in endoscopic image analyses. Automated assessment of EGGIM may provide a greener strategy for gastric cancer risk stratification, prospective studies, and interventional trials.

2025

Bridging Domain Gaps in Computational Pathology: A Comparative Study of Adaptation Strategies

Authors
Nunes, JD; Montezuma, D; Oliveira, D; Pereira, T; Zlobec, I; Pinto, IM; Cardoso, JS;

Publication
SENSORS

Abstract
Due to the high variability in Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E)-stained Whole Slide Images (WSIs), hidden stratification, and batch effects, generalizing beyond the training distribution is one of the main challenges in Deep Learning (DL) for Computational Pathology (CPath). But although DL depends on large volumes of diverse and annotated data, it is common to have a significant number of annotated samples from one or multiple source distributions, and another partially annotated or unlabeled dataset representing a target distribution for which we want to generalize, the so-called Domain Adaptation (DA). In this work, we focus on the task of generalizing from a single source distribution to a target domain. As it is still not clear which domain adaptation strategy is best suited for CPath, we evaluate three different DA strategies, namely FixMatch, CycleGAN, and a self-supervised feature extractor, and show that DA is still a challenge in CPath.

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