Abstract
Virtual environments for driving simulation aimed to scientific purposes require realistic three-dimensional models of roads. The creation of road models for these purposes, is usually preceded by the design of road paths which fulfill all the desired specific characteristics. Traditionally, the design of road paths is performed by road engineering specialists, resulting in a very time-consuming task. This paper presents a method that allows the procedural generation of road paths aimed to driving simulation experiments (e.g., ergonomics, psychology and traffic engineering). This method is inspired in methods used in roadways engineering, producing roads according to the design standards and similar to those found in the real world. This significantly reduces the need of specialists to prepare the road paths and generate road models suitable for conducting scientific work in driving simulators.

Abstract
Serious games are starting to attain a higher role as learning tools in several and diversified contexts such as education and training. Serious games provide a favorable learning environment where mistakes can occur without real life penalty and students get instant feedback from challenges. The rules, behavior simulation, and feedback from the player's actions of the studied games, provide a realistic context for learning where failure and repetition can be a positive contribution to achieve success. These challenges are designed in accordance with the intended learning objectives and will self-adapt and repeat according to the student difficulty level while providing instant feedback. There is decisively an acquisition of knowledge and experience through: (1) motivating and engaging environments, (2) approaches to problem solving and simulation of different situations, and also, (3) from contexts where players can develop professional skills. However, how do we certify acquired knowledge and competencies? Until now, most research has been focused on the evaluation of the game itself rather than on the learners' assessment. The analysis of the player is usually performed at the end of the game using traditional questionnaire forms. Instead of that, using our Correlation Matrix methodology [15], we provide a set of guidelines for game designers to build specific games for the certification of competences, and an in-game assessment in location-based cultural heritage applications. This assessment can be done with in-game mechanics and challenges providing a learning path to obtain the intended competences. These guidelines are established on a triad of components: Competencies/Mechanics/Play, following the approach of Casper Harteveld (Play/Meaning/Reality) [19]. This is needed for balancing the relationship between the game mechanics for serious games genres, the array of competences to certify, and the game elements. This paper presents a matrix of generic skills, based on the Education Competences [12] which serves as a reference to identify which competencies must be used to obtain the performance success of each situation. Based on the combination of identified competencies and the training game genres, this choice allows the identification of the most appropriate and necessary mechanics and challenges by comparison with a correlation matrix between competencies and game genre analysis with 120 serious games. Currently this methodology is being applied in the context of tourism guide's applications with the key objective of identifying ability patterns correlated in acquiring different skills (multiplex). In the tourism guide's context these skills could be planning and organizing the city exploration through challenges and targets to achieve, and successful assess heritage knowledge by quizzes or photos taken. As a result, existing game mechanics are identified and new ones are created and implemented in a Location-Based Gaming (LBG) platform to support more learning and to better interact with the heritage sites. As a case study the guidelines will be applied to a tourism mobile route application, about Porto heritage, to provide an improved design so that it may also be capable of in-game certification of tourism guides.

Abstract

Abstract
Following the proliferation of Augmented Reality technologies and applications in mobile devices it is becoming clear that AR techniques have matured and are ready to be used for large audiences. This poses several new multimedia interaction and usability problems that need to be identified and studied. AR problems are no longer exclusively about rendering superimposed virtual geometry or finding ways of performing GPS or computer vision registration. It is important to understand how to keep users engaged with AR and in what occasions it is suitable to use it. Additionally how should graphical user interfaces be designed so that the user can interact with AR elements while pointing a mobile device to a specific real world area? Finally what is limiting AR applications from reaching an even broader acceptance and usage level? This position paper identifies several interaction problems in today's multimedia AR applications, raising several pressing issues and proposes several research directions. Copyright

Abstract
Data analysis and monitoring is currently carried out within enterprises using Business Intelligence tools that are subject to major limitations (as outlined in the state of the art analysis that we perform). Effective visualization support is a very much needed feature in Big Data applications. In this paper we examine the visualisation requirements of a real world banking application, and identify generic visualisation tasks that are essential for doing effective analysis of a complex process that produces amazingly large amounts of data. The requirements for the visualization support that we propose are modelled using an application wireframe that acts a story-board. The effectiveness of the visualization facilities that we propose is demonstrated through their application to the Big Data banking use-case.

Abstract
The Global Positioning System (GPS) provides geolocation to a considerable number of applications in domains such as agriculture, commerce, transportation and tourism. Operational factors such as signal noise or the lack of direct vision from the receiver to the satellites, reduce the GPS geolocation accuracy. Urban canyons are a good example of an environment where continuous GPS signal reception may fail. For some applications, the lack of geolocation accuracy, even if happening for a short period of time, may lead to undesired results. For instance, consider the damages caused by the failure of the geolocation system in a city tour-bus transportation that shows location-sensitive data (historical/cultural data, publicity) in its screens as it passes by a location. This work presents an innovative approach for keeping geolocation accurate in mobile systems that rely mostly on GPS, by using computer vision to help providing geolocation data when the GPS signal becomes temporarily low or even unavailable. Captured frames of the landscape surrounding the mobile system are analysed in real-time by a computer vision algorithm, trying to match it with a set of geo-referenced images in a preconfigured database. When a match is found, it is assumed that the mobile system current location is close to the GPS location of the corresponding matched point. We tested this approach several times, in a real world scenario, and the results achieved evidence that geolocation can effectively be improved for scenarios where GPS signal stops being available.