Category Archives: Highlights

L.EIC students among the winners of U.Porto’s 2025 Incentive Award

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On 24 March, at the Solemn Session of Dia da Universidade 2025, the students António Lourenço Rodrigues and Luís Barbosa, from the Bachelor in Informatics and Computing Engineering (L.EIC), were awarded the Incentive Prize 2025, for the best 1st year students from the 14 faculties of U.Porto in the academic year 2023/2024.

The 22 awarded students stood out for the exceptional quality of their academic career in the 1st year of the program, led by António Lourenço Rodrigues, who finished with an average of 19.83 marks. Luís Barbosa was also on the 19 mark (19.35) with an equally fantastic first year.

António said in an interview about the prize: ‘The Incentive Award represents recognition, on the part of the University, of my efforts throughout the first year. For me, it’s one more motivation to keep doing my best and improving academically.’ The interview given to the U.Porto’s communication team can be read in full here.

Luís Barbosa also sees the Incentive Award as recognition of his efforts over the past year. “It’s a motivation to keep learning and studying” says Luís in his interview.

The Incentive Award has been awarded annually since 2010 and corresponds to an individual monetary prize corresponding to the annual tuition fee applied to U.Porto’s national students.

Photo (from left to the right): Luís Barbosa and António Lourenço Rodrigues.

‘FEUP Boost Engineering’ kicks off

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The new programme of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), ‘FEUP Boost Engineering’, has been officially launched, a project aimed at secondary schools, offering them the chance to take part in the activities that are part of the project’s offer.
We’re talking about more than 40 activities, divided into workshops (activities for young people to ‘get their hands dirty’ in real-life application activities) and the engi talks (themed lectures on current topics from an engineering perspective).

And what is FEUP’s goal with this initiative? – “To bring STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) concepts to schools and promote debate on current issues. Available throughout the year, the programme aims to raise awareness of scientific and technological culture among young people,” writes Álvaro Paralta, from the Talent Unit, in the article promoting the programme.

There will be several areas covered in these activities, including climate change, renewable energies, the circular economy, the internet of things and artificial intelligence.

At DEI, several teachers and researchers have been mobilised to foster curiosity in these young people and show them that knowledge and technology can solve very complex problems. Carlos Soares, Diana Sousa, Lázaro Costa and Luis Paulo Reis offer, respectively: (Ir)Responsible Artificial Intelligence, STEM Code: decode, play and learn!, Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities.

According to Luís Paulo Reis (DEI), “FEUP Boost Engineering provides students with an excellent opportunity to have direct contact with advanced scientific areas, enrich their training and identify interests and skills at an early stage in their lives. The activities will enable the development of essential skills such as collaborative work, complex problem solving, the use of emerging technologies and the ability to adapt to innovative contexts, which are fundamental to meeting the challenges of the future.” This is his conviction, which is clearly visible in the lectures he has given over the years, publicising STEM areas as crucial to the society we want to build.

All secondary schools are eligible and can submit their enrolment for the proposed activities at FEUP Escolas website.

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

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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

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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 Talk “Computer 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.

The award-winning zerozero visited by the Department of Informatics Engineering

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Created in 2003, zerozero.pt is the largest football database in the world, with two million player records and five million matches.

A delegation from the Department of Informatics Engineering visited the facilities of zerozero.pt, the project of five alumni from the Licenciatura em Engenharia Informática e Computação (LEIC) of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), which has become the world’s largest football database, with free access, and is a benchmark on the digital and journalistic scene in Portugal.

Zerozero.pt was born in 2003, during the final years of university, as a project of five friends, four of them from the first generation of LEIC, driven by their passion for football, the need to create a reliable and detailed repository of sports statistics, and the opportunity to put into practice some of the knowledge they had acquired during the course.

Marco Sousa and Pedro Dias were the two founders of zerozero.pt who welcomed the FEUP delegation, with the former praising the bond between the two institutions. ‘The bond between zerozero and the faculty grew naturally. We believe that the fact that the five founders took their (pre-bologna) degrees in Informatics and Computing Engineering at FEUP, four of them in the ‘first batch’ of the course (1994-1999), carries a special symbolism. In fact, several of our fellow students are now professors at the university and these links have created a natural bridge between FEUP and zerozero, based on the quality, respect and admiration we have for our teachers and colleagues, who have had a real impact on our professional lives.’

The teachers who took part in this visit, Raul Vidal, João Pascoal Faria and João Cardoso – all from the Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI) – gave an overview of this relationship, which has been based on dissertation projects, partnerships within the scope of Linking Great Partners (LGP), and also on the recent recognition of zerozero as a FEUP Affiliate, on 13 January, at the Dia da FEUP ceremony. ‘This relationship materialises in zerozero’s active participation in the FEUP and U.Porto ecosystem, where we (proudly!) challenge the Academy every year and are also challenged by it. We’ve hosted several dissertations by Informatics and Computing Engineering and Information Science students, but we’ve also welcomed Communication Sciences and Journalism students to do curricular internships in our newsroom, and we’re also present in several curricular units of the current Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Informatics and Computing Engineering (L.EIC and M.EIC), successors to LEIC (pre-Bologna), such as LGP or Projeto Integrador’.

This visit took place the day after the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup trophy was exhibited on the premises of zerozero, which, in 2024, received the ‘Online Journalism’ award from the Association of Sports Journalists (CNID).

Author: Nuno Teixeira, SICC, FEUP.
Photo: zerozero

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

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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)

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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”

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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”

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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)

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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