ENEI back to Porto

The Encontro Nacional de estudantes de Informática ENEI’25 is coming up and on its 16th edition, will take place from 11 to 14 April at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) and the Higher Institute of Engineering of Porto (ISEP/IPP), organised jointly by the student groups NIAEFEUP (Informatics Engineering Group of the Students‘ Association of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto), NCGM (Computer Graphics and Multimedia Group) and NEI-ISEP (Computer Science Students’ Group of the Higher Engineering Institute of Porto).

The more than 500 participants of the event will have the opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities, including talks (21), workshops (33), competitions, a job fair and countless networking moments throughout the days and nights of the event. Times and locations of the activities can be found at the event’s webpage.

The organisation highlights some of the 21 talks scheduled:

‘AI, Copilots, and the future of software development’ by Eddie Aftandilian, Principal Researcher at Github Next;
‘How to look through skin with AI’ by Michael Pound, Researcher at the University of Nottingham, Member of the Youtube Channel Computerphile;
‘The programmer who didn’t know how to code – Powered by IEEE Portugal’ by Charalampos Patrikakis, Professor at University of West Attica. IEEE Distinguished Visitor;
‘Cyberwarfare: Who Needs a Gun when you have a Keyboard? – Powered by ACM FEUP’ by Haider Abbas, Head of the R&D Department at College of Signals, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan;
‘What impact does software development have on an F1 team?’ by João Romão, Graduate Software Engineer at Aston Martin F1 Team;
‘Approaches and Challenges of Virtual and Augmented Reality in Health and Rehabilitation’ by Joaquim Jorge, Full Professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). IEEE Fellow. UNESCO Chair on AI & XR;
‘How to make software for Hollywood studios’ by Nuno Fonseca, Founder and CEO Sound Particles (Alumnus ProDEI);
‘A story on Computer Vision: from zero to hero’ by José Costa Pereira, Assistant Professor at DEI/FEUP;
‘CRDTs: Building blocks for high availability and beyond’ by Carlos Baquero (DEI/FEUP) and Nuno Preguiça, co-creators of CRDTs;
‘Competitive Programming: Will it make you a better programmer?’ by André Restivo, Associate Professor at DEI/FEUP.

Also on show there will be a Points System that will allow participants to win more than 100 prizes. The event’s points are called bytes. All participants will be able to earn bytes by taking part in activities, completing tasks or securing podium places in the event’s various competitions, among other things. On the ENEI website there will be a shop where can be bought items with bytes. ‘This way, participants will have plenty of motivation to make the most of the event’s programme!’ say the organisers.

Discovering the latest technological trends, finding motivation for upcoming challenges, meeting students with common interests, contacting relevant companies in the field and leaving the event with new skills is what the organisers want to offer to all students travelling to Porto at the end of the week for what’s expected to be one of the best ENEI’s ever!

DEI Master’s Presentation

On April 9th, the José Carlos Marques dos Santos Auditorium (FEUP) will open its doors at 14:30 for all those who wish to find out about the master´s programmes at the Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI).

It will be a session aimed at providing guidance and clarification for all students who intend to choose one of the master’s programmes offered at DEI. At the end of the presentations, participants will be able to find out in more detail how the courses work, their areas of study and the employability offered by each one, thus making it easier to choose when applying.

It will also be an opportunity to get to know the master’s programmes of the Department of Computer Science (FCUP), which have been invited to participate.

The organisation has provided a form for those interested to ask questions in advance so that they can be answered at the end of the session.

Admission is free and registration is not required.

Programme

14:30 | Auditorium opening
14:45 | Opening of the session
15:00 | Presentation M.EIC – Master’s in Informatics and Computing Engineering (Prof. Rui Rodrigues)
15:15 | Presentation M.IA – Master’s in Artificial Intelligence (Prof. Henrique Lopes Cardoso)
15:30 | Presentation MM – Master’s in Multimedia (Prof. Jorge Barbosa)
15:45 | Presentation MCI – Master’s in Information Science (Prof. Carla Teixeira Lopes)
16:00 | Presentation MESW – Master’s in Software Engineering (Prof. Nuno Flores)
16:15 | Presentation MECD – Master’s in Data Science and Engineering (Prof. José Luís Borges)
16:30 | DCC – FCUP Masters Presentation (Prof. Pedro Ribeiro)
16:45 | Q&A on the application process

‘A journey through the asphalt. Rock music in Porto in the 1980s’

The exhibition entitled ‘Uma viagem pelo asfalto. O rock no Porto nos anos oitenta’ will open on April 8 (opening at 18:30) and will be on display at Casa Comum until September 20.

For an extended period of around five months, visitors will be able to travel through a boiling phase in the 1980s, when the city of Porto experienced the heyday of exuberant urban tribes, which arose from an effort by young people to differentiate themselves and, at the same time, identify with a group that society recognised as such.
There were many tribes, from punks to goths, from metalheads to skinheads and rockabillys. Music was consumed with the avidity of discovery, with the help of pirate radios, and people went to places where they idolised bands like GNR, Taxi and Trabalhadores do Comércio.

The exhibition will take us on this journey through photographs, posters, newspaper cuttings and vinyl covers.

André Cunha, Beatriz Dobbs, Gurpreet Kaur, Inês Aguiar, Patrícia Amaral and Rodrigo Ferreira, students of the Master in Multimedia of U.Porto, supervised by Gilberto Bernardes, a lecturer at DEI, contributed to this exhibition by developing an interactive application for intuitive navigation through a wide range of multimedia content about the bands and key venues of Rock in Porto in the 80s.

More info here.

DEI Talks | “Towards AI-Assisted Synthesis of Verified Dafny Methods” by Prof. Cristina Videira Lopes

The talk “Towards AI-Assisted Synthesis of Verified Dafny Methods”, will be presented March the 24th, at 11:00, in room I-105, moderated by Rui Maranhão (DEI).

Abstract:

“LLMs show “great promise” in code synthesis. Can they keep the promise and ensure that the synthesized code is provably correct?
In this talk I will present our work on synthesizing formally verified Dafny methods. LLMs don’t know much about Dafny, but they learn fast with proper RAG-CoT prompts. We spent 6 weeks hand-coding 50 verified algorithms in Dafny, and then GPT4 was able to generate 103 new ones with the right postconditions and the necessary verification hints.
Md Rakib Hossain (Misu) co-led the work, with assistance from Iris Ma. Joint work with James Noble.”

About the Speaker:

Cristina (Crista) Lopes is a Professor in the School of Information and Computer Sciences at University of California, Irvine, with research interests in Programming Languages, Software Engineering, and Distributed Virtual Environments. She is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. She is the recipient of the 2016 Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest for her work in the OpenSimulator virtual world platform. Her book “Exercises in Programming Style” has gained rave reviews, including being chosen as “Notable Book” by the ACM Best of Computing reviews.

WIER’25 – Workshop on Informatics Engineering Research

On the 13th of March, the Doctoral Programme in Informatics Engineering (ProDEI) will host WIER’25 – Workshop on Informatics Engineering Research, the 20th edition of this annual event (formerly known as DSIE), which since 2006 has aimed to provide the first-year doctoral students, the organisers of the event, with an environment where they can present the concepts of Methodologies for Scientific Research applied to the articles submitted.

This year’s edition will open with the Keynote TalkComputer Vision: from zero to hero“, by José Costa Pereira (DEI/FEUP lecturer).

António Augusto de Sousa and Rui Maranhão Abreu, the event’s steering committee and teachers of the ‘Methodologies for Scientific Research’ curriculum unit, see this as “a great opportunity for students to present and discuss their work in an informal setting, as a possible contribution to improving the content of their theses and putting into practice what they have learnt during the semester: the application of scientific methods to research work, the analysis and critical review of scientific articles, the writing of scientific texts, their oral presentation and the organisation of scientific meetings”.

All information about the speaker and the sessions can be found on the event’s website.

Entrance is free and registration is not required.

M.IA student gets a place on the podium of the country’s first quantum hackathon

On the centenary of the publication of the works of Born, Heisenberg and Jordan (+info), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). The year-long global initiative will promote numerous initiatives aimed at raising public awareness of the importance of quantum science and its applications.

The PQHack 2025 competition, organised by the Quantum Science and Technology Centre (CiTeQ) and hosted by the Physics and Astronomy Department of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), took place on 8 and 9 February.

Over the course of a weekend, 39 participants in 12 teams competed to solve a set of Quantum Machine Learning (QML) challenges using Qadence, proposed by a team of experts.

SZS’, was the big winner of first quantum hackathon in the country, and it’s in this team that we find the Master’s student in Artificial Intelligence (M.IA) David Mesquita Scarin (first on the picture) who, together with Lucas Almeida (M:EF) and Carlos Felgueiras (University of Lisbon), won 1st place and a cash prize of 700 euros.

The other winning teams can be found on the event’s website.

PQHack is part of IQC25, an international hackathon circuit that will end with QuantathonV2, a championship that will take place from 10 to 12 October 2025 at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

Foto: FCUP

DEI Talks | “Neuronflow: an event-driven processor architecture for low power AI at the edge” by Orlando Moreira (Snap Inc)

The talk “Neuronflow: an event-driven processor architecture for low power AI at the edge” will be presented March the 6th, at 11:30, in room I-105, moderated by Pedro Diniz (DEI).

Abstract:

This presentation provides an in-depth overview of the GrAIcore Neural Processing Unit (NPU) architecture developed by Snap Inc. for Augmented Reality applications, emphasizing the role of sparsity in achieving significant power and performance improvements compared with traditional architectures. The discussion will focus on the necessity of redesigning traditional computer architectures to adopt an event-driven execution model, which is critical for harnessing the benefits of sparsity. Additionally, the talk will explore advanced training optimization techniques that enhance network activation sparsity, enabling the full potential of the event-driven multicore architecture to be realized. This holistic approach to architectural and algorithmic design is essential for leveraging the unique advantages of the GrAIcore NPU in real-world applications.

About the Speaker:

Orlando Moreira is Chief Computer Architect and Senior Manager at Snap Inc. in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His expertise encompasses computer architecture, edge AI, embedded systems, real-time systems, and data flow methodologies. Before his tenure at Snap Inc., Moreira held the position of Chief Architect at GrAI Matter Labs, where he was responsible for the compute architecture and software development kit (SDK) roadmaps.
Before, he worked for Philips Research, ST-Ericsson, Ericsson, and Intel (where he was group leader for programming and core tools – compiler, simulator, debugger and hw generation).
Throughout his career, Moreira has contributed peer-reviewed to the field of computer architecture, particularly in the areas of embedded and cyber-physical systems, as well as the field of real-time design, modeling, and analysis .
He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Eindhoven.

PhD Defense in Digital Media: ”Artificial Intelligence and Infodemic: a study on fact-checked Health Communication and synthetic media”

Candidate:
Haline Costa Maia

Date, Time and Place:
February 24th 2025, 10:30, Sala de Atos DEEC (I -105), Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto.

President of the Jury:
António Fernando Vasconcelos Cunha Castro Coelho, PhD, Associate Professor with Habilitation, Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto.

Members:
Christopher Mathieu, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University;
Stefania Milan, PhD, Professor of Critical Data Studies, Department of Media Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam;
António Maria Salvado Coxito Granado, PhD, Associate Professor with Habilitation, Department of Communication Sciences, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa;
Ioli Ribeiro Campos, PhD, Assistant Professor, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas, Universidade Católica Portuguesa;
Helena Laura Dias de Lima, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto (Supervisor);
Alexandre Miguel Barbosa Valle de Carvalho, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto.

The thesis was co supervised by Prof. Sérgio Sobral Nunes, Associate Professor at the Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto.

Abstract:

The proliferation of health misinformation, especially during critical times such as pandemics, has underscored the need for effective mechanisms to verify and disseminate accurate health news. This research, guided by Value Sensitive Design (VSD), investigates the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health fact-checking, aiming to enhance the speed and reliability of information dissemination while ensuring ethical compliance. The study addresses these key research questions: How can AI facilitate the rapid dissemination of authenticated health information? What benefits does AI integration bring to health fact-checking processes? How can AI promote ethically responsible practices in the dissemination of counter-information? Through systematic reviews, case studies, and empirical research, including co-design workshops and surveys, the research evaluates existing AI applications. It develops guidelines for incorporating AI in journalism and public health information systems. This dissertation follows a structured approach centered around the three distinct phases of VSD. During the Conceptual Investigations phase, systematic reviews and meta-analyses were conducted on publications from 2020 to 2022, using the PRISMA process to analyze 57 studies. During the Technical Investigations phase, case studies and semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders. In the Empirical Investigations, technological probes using AI for the dissemination phase of health fact-checking were tested through co-design workshops, focus groups, and surveys. The data collected in the Technical and Empirical phases were analyzed using thematic and exploratory methods. Findings indicate that while AI significantly enhances the efficiency of fact-checking processes, challenges related to equality, governance, and stakeholder trust remain prevalent. The study also explores the socio-technical dynamics of AI applications in fact-checking, emphasizing the importance of value-driven design to mitigate ethical risks and promote inclusivity. The implications of this research are far-reaching, offering guidelines for developing AI-driven tools that are not only technologically effective but also culturally sensitive and ethically sound. By fostering a better understanding of AI’s role in managing health misinformation, this work contributes to the broader discussion on technology governance and the ethical dimensions of digital media in public health contexts.

Keywords:  AI Ethics; Infodemic; Generative Media; Fact-Checking; Health Misinformation; Media Literacy; Journalism Innovation.

PhD Defense in Digital Media: ”Interfacing peer-produced knowledge: a framework for shadow libraries based on pervasive games”

Candidate:
Pedro Miguel Sá Couto Condeço Ribeiro

Date, Time and Place:
February 19th 2025, at 9:30, Sala de Atos (L202A), Department of Industrial Engineering and Management of the Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto

President of the Jury:
António Fernando Vasconcelos Cunha Castro Coelho, PhD, Associate Professor with Habilitation, Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto.

Members:
Rodrigo Hernández Ramírez, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Design da Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning da The University of Sydney, Austrália;
Luísa Maria Lopes Ribas, PhD, Assistant Professor, Design and Communication Department, Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade de Lisboa;
Teresa Isabel Lopes Romão, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Informatics, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa;
Catarina Franco Lélis da Cruz, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Art, Universidade de Aveiro;
José Miguel Santos Araújo Carvalhais Fonseca, PhD, Full Professor, Department of Design, Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade do Porto (Supervisor);
Rui Pedro Amaral Rodrigues, PhD, Associate Professor, Departament of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto.

The thesis was co supervised by Pedro Cardoso, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Design, Faculdade de Belas Artes, Universidade do Porto.

Abstract:
Shadow libraries are media repositories whose primary goal is to enable access to resources that were previously restricted or inaccessible through other means. These informal publishing streams have the additional capacity to interface knowledge that does not fit or does not aim to fit within formal distribution models.
As a case study, we researched Portuguese-student shadow libraries (PSSLs) as spaces significant beyond their distributive capacity. Through physical, digital and hybrid interfaces, PSSLs challenge contemporary access to published research, enabling community members to produce and distribute informal knowledge and actively questioning the stability of peers’ roles, dependencies, and interdependencies.
This research started by investigating PSSLs community members’ current needs and requirements. Subsequently, we analysed how prominent shadow libraries align with these needs and how available platforms have the necessary affordances to respond to them. Informed by present constraints, we established a set of software requirements to support the creation and transformation of multiple shadow libraries, enable the collection of plural voices and interventions, and ensure these spaces accommodate a diverse range of resources.
In the second moment of our research, we studied shadow libraries from a new lens. We explored potential library discourses using mechanics from pervasive games as a tool with particular traits and potential. In the context of this research, these are particularly relevant due to their capacity to extend experiences beyond fixed timeframes, leading to users’ sustained and continuous involvement; extend the relationship between users and their environment, exploring the boundaries between physical and digital spaces; extend the possible interfaces for interaction introducing new hypotheses for interaction and user engagement; extend the dynamics between users and their community by integrating external variables and reshaping social interactions; extend users’ engagement at a more personal and meaningful level.
Through a practice-based research methodology, we led community members to reconsider shadow library’s distribution and production dynamics, as well as community interactions. Contributions from these explorations establish a holistic set of design strategies that challenge dominant shadow library practices and highlight the importance of protecting projects’ motivations, community requirements, dependencies, and informal principles. Collectively, the strategies and dependencies identified establish a framework for expanding shadow libraries in response to communities’ evolving needs, ultimately shaping access, distribution, production, and publication of knowledge, and peer synergies.

Keywords:
Shadow Libraries; Peer-produced knowledge; Design; Pervasive Games; Game mechanics; Publishing.

DEI Talks | “AI and the Worlds of Work“ by Prof. Christopher Mathieu (Lund University)

The talk “AI and the Worlds of Work “ will be presented February the 25th, at 11:00, in room I-105, moderated by António Coelho (DEI).

Abstract:

“The effects of AI on work is a central point of discussion and negotiation in many fields. Machines and mechanical tools have replaced some but not all physical manual labour. The assumption is that AI will bring similar changes, eradicating some jobs, transforming many and having little impact on others. At the moment we know very little about which jobs AI will replace, transform, increase or have little real impact on, but we know that the scope of work and jobs is wide, and that changes do not occur automatically, they are usually negotiated, and negotiations have already begun to take place in a number of sectors. While industrial machines largely replaced low-skill, low-paid physically demanding manual work, the assumption is that AI will increasingly have an impact on high-skill, high-qualification, and high-consequence cognitive and even “creative” work. As AI poses challenges to workers of higher standing and better organized, the deployment and use of AI is subject to negotiation and contestation, both at workplaces and in central negotiations between employers and employee representatives. Worlds of work differ from technical and social perspectives, and as we already see, AI is confronted differently dependent upon what types of employees are being impacted and in which jurisdiction. This lecture examines the various reactions to the “threats” and “possibilities” of AI among different types of workers from telecoms to entertainment in Europe and North America, arguing that institutional factors play a significant role in these negotiations and subsequent use and deployment of AI.”

About the Speaker:

Chris Mathieu is Reader in the Sociology of Work and Organisations at the Department of Sociology, Lund University, and previously (2002-2014) Associate Professor at the Department of Organisation, Copenhagen Business School. From 2015-2018 he was coordinator of the Horizon 2020 project QuInnE (quinne.eu) – Quality of Jobs and Innovation Generated Employment Outcomes. His primary research areas include film production as well as medical education and practice. Book publications include: Careers in Creative Industries (Routledge, 2012); Accomplishing Cultural Policy in Europe (Routledge 2022); and The Oxford Handbook of Job Quality (OUP, 2022). A recent article on AI as a focus area of labour negotiations is: Ilsøe, A., Larsen, T. P., Mathieu, C., & Rolandsson, B. (2024). Negotiating about Algorithms: Social Partner Responses to AI in Denmark and Sweden. ILR Review, 77(5), 856-868. https://doi.org/10.1177/00197939241278956f