Category Archives: News

‘LITHME – Language In The Human Machine Era’ is coming to Porto

Posted on

LITHME, the EU-funded research network includes all European countries plus a number of international partner countries, and is funded for four years, 2020-24. Over this period of time it is planned to include stakeholders to strike up a productive dialogue between academic researchers and industry. Academics will gain foresight of future technologies, while industry stakeholders will gain insight in the potential social and linguistic effects of their inventions.

As part of the LITHME management team and chairs of Work Group 1 on ‘Computational Linguistics’, Henrique Lopes Cardoso (FEUP) and Rui Sousa-Silva (FLUP) will host on 1-2 June 2022 a roadshow in Porto. This roadshow aims to further the links among the LITHME network, the industry, and the community by inviting companies to showcase their products and services. The roadshow will take place at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.

This roadshow will focus on language technologies and human-machine interaction, which allow us to speak to and through technology, the software powering the human-machine era, and human integrated devices. This includes but is not limited to: innovative human-machine interfaces; machine translation and interpreting; machine sign language interpreting; text-to-speech, speech to text and speech-to-speech technologies; and virtual reality and augmented reality, among others.

Simultaneously, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities will host the LITHME Training School (30 May – 3 June), whose objectives are widening the knowledge of LITHME’s activities, bringing together trainees from across linguistics, language research, and language technology, providing intensive training on new and emerging interdisciplinary challenges and familiarizing trainees with unique technologies developed by our sponsors.

The Program will cover the following topics:

  • 30 May: Language and Computation, Language Technology;
  • 31 May: Language and Law, Language Rights;
  • 1 June: Language Vitality and Endangerment, Technology-assisted Language Learning;
  • 2 June: Language Ideologies, Language Variations and Change;
  • 3 June: Language Professionals, Translation and Teaching of Languages

Participating Companies and further details about the event will be announced in the coming weeks @ https://lithme.eu/.

CT UP took office for the four-year term 2022/2025 and one of the 11 members elected to this Commission is Pedro Silva from the DEI-FEUP

Posted on

The University of Porto Workers’ Commission (CT-UP) took office for the four-year period 2022/2025 last 28 January, at the Rectory building.

“We are now available to collaborate, to help and to contribute to the growth of our University and to the well-being of the entire community of the University of Porto”, said Pedro Sampaio, one of the 11 members who are now part of that representative body of workers of the University and the first of its kind in Portuguese Higher Education.

The electoral act held last December 13, in all Organic Units and Autonomous Services of the U.Porto, also resulted in the election of Ana Nogueira (SASUP), Maria João Leite Cardoso (Rectory), Paula Teixeira Pinto (Rectory), Pedro Miguel Silva (FEUP), Rui Pedro Costa (FFUP), António Rodrigues (FADEUP), José Miguel Magalhães (Rectory), Rosa Barros (FCNAUP), Miguel Diogo (FEUP) and Maria Armandina Moreira (FMUP).

Created in 2013, the U.Porto Workers’ Commission is a pioneer body in the framework in Higher Education in Portugal and its mission is to defend and enhance the interests and rights of all employees of the academic community through an active and constructive participation in the management of the institution.

1984 Revisited: Was George Orwell an optimist?

Posted on

Debating privacy in the digital era – 03/02, 14:30, online

George Orwell’s masterpiece “1984” offers today an almost realistic description of the vast surveillance system on which capitalist democracies are now based. For the first time in the history of humanity, electronics have made it possible to bring together in the same instruments and the same gestures the work and the supervision exercised over the worker. Big Brother is no longer a figure of speech – he has become an everyday vulgarity.

This work will serve as inspiration for the Workshop promoted by the Doctoral Program in Digital Media at U.Porto, to be held online on February 3rd, at 14:30.

The afternoon will be dedicated to the theme of privacy in the digital era and intends to address its multiple implications today and to foresee future ones – namely regarding the transparency/opacity of digital systems and its relation with digital literacy, surveillance capitalism, prediction algorithms, among others.

To help this reflection, the session will open with a lecture by Professor Luís Borges Gouveia (Fernando Pessoa University/CITCEM – Transdisciplinary Research Centre “Culture, Space and Memory”), followed by a round table with Amílcar Correia (Co Director of Público newspaper), Arlindo Oliveira (President of INESC) and Filipe Vilas Boas (Artist).

The event will be held at Zoom https://bit.ly/35qpn9x,  with live broadcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/34lwLTl

Gilberto Bernardes will coordinate one of the transversal curricular units created to help think “outside the box”.

Posted on

The initiative of U.Porto, which will start in the next second semester, intends to bring students closer to some of the main cultural institutions of the city. The collaboration with Casa da Música, Teatro Nacional S. João, Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis and also with Jardim Botânico and Faculdade de Belas Artes, resulted in the creation of curricular units of transversal skills (3 ECTS), that the undergraduate and master students will be able to add to their basic training and enrich their career by experiencing the backstage of the artistic and cultural activity of Porto.

Music and Society will be the UC coordinated by Prof. Gilberto Bernardes, Assistant Professor of DEI/FEUP and Coordinator of the Specialization in Interactive Music and Sound Design of the Masters in Multimedia of U.Porto, in collaboration with Óscar Rodrigues from Casa da Música, and will be an opportunity to understand and explore music in different socio-cultural contexts, particularly in the classical context and in community intervention, and to reflect actively on the mission and challenges of the fabric of creative industries, with special focus on the branch of music creation.

The course will take place on Fridays, from 17:00 to 19:00, and will be held at FEUP and Casa da Música.

Applications are open until January 31st, and detailed information about these CU’s can be seen here and here.

Photo: Egidio Santos/U.Porto

PhD Defense in Digital Media: ”Playing the Museum: A framework for the design of location-based games with augmented reality for museum spaces”

Posted on

Candidate:
Maria Van Zeller de Macedo de Oliveira e Sousa

Date, Time and Place
26th January, 10h00, Sala de Atos da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto

Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvsg2ymeaHLRLbsGt67JmKw

President of the Jury
Doutor Carlos Miguel Ferraz Baquero-Moreno, Professor Catedrático da FEUP

Members
Doutor Pedro Júlio Enrech Casaleiro, Professor Auxiliar Convidado da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra;
Doutora Teresa Isabel Lopes Romão, Professora Associada do Departamento de Informática da Faculdade de Ciência Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa;
Doutor Mário Jorge Rodrigues Martins Vairinhos, Professor Auxiliar do Departamento de Comunicação e Arte da Universidade de Aveiro;
Doutora Paula Cristina Menino Duarte Homem, Professora Auxiliar do Departamento de Ciências e Técnicas do Património da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto;
Doutor António Fernando Vasconcelos Cunha Castro Coelho, Professor Associado com Agregação do Departamento de Engenharia Informática da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (Supervisor).

PhD Defense in Digital Media: ”New Strategies and User-Generated Content in the Public Service Media News in the Digital World – The Portuguese Case”

Posted on

Candidate:  Daniel dos Santos Catalão

Date, Time and Place

15th of December,14:30, Sala de Atos da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto

 

President of the Jury

Doutor António Fernando Vasconcelos Cunha Castro Coelho, Professor Associado com Agregação da FEUP

Members

Doutor Francisco Rui Nunes Cádima, Professor Catedrático (aposentado) da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa;

Doutora Felisbela Maria Carvalho Lopes, Professora Associada com Agregação do Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade do Minho;

Doutora Catarina Sofia Lourenço Rodrigues, Professora Auxiliar da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade dos Açores;

Doutor Fernando António Dias Zamith Silva, Professor Auxiliar do Departamento de Ciências da Comunicação e da Informação da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (Coorientador);

Doutor Sérgio Sobral Nunes, Professor Auxiliar do Departamento de Engenharia Informática da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto.

Streaming via YouTube

StepTalks2019: Software Engineering, Data protection, Privacy and Cybersafety

Posted on
Today, Portuguese and international companies based in Portugal/South Europe have demonstrated an ability to react, indicating a growing concern to adopt good International practices in software engineering, as a way to foster their capabilities for their sustained growth, higher competitiveness and internationalization, also complying with the latest European/international legislation on data privacy and protection thus increasing their level of compliance and facilitating access to new markets, both in Portugal and internationally to their global base of customers.
 
Steptalks is back for a renewed edition and, motivated by these themes, intends to bring together specialists in a wide range of areas such as Software Engineering & Industry 4.0 as well as Data Protection, Privacy and Cybersecurity (including Blockchain). This way, the latest trends focusing on improving engineering processes and privacy / data protection can be shared with our audience.
 
Pedro Castro Henriques – Strongstep (Organizing Chair)
João Pascoal Faria – FEUP (Program Chair)
Raul Moreira Vidal – FEUP (Program Co-Chair)
Juan Garate – Tecnalia (Program Co-Chair)

Incentive Award 2019: Pedro Moás

Posted on

Pedro Moás é um jovem portuense que frequenta o Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Informática e Computação da Faculdade de Engenharia da U.Porto (FEUP). No ano letivo de 2017/18, terminou o seu primeiro ano de curso com a média final de 19,05 valores, facto que o levou a ser distinguido pela U.Porto com um Prémio Incentivo 2019, juntamente com os outros 21 alunos que mais se notabilizaram nas várias faculdades da U.Porto. É o próprio que enumera os fatores que explicam o seu sucesso no ano de estreia.
Para além do esforço pessoal que este prémio lhe reconhece, atribui também parte do mérito ao trabalho dos docentes da FEUP, que “sempre se mostraram disponíveis para esclarecer a matéria, dentro e fora de aulas, quer por e-mail, quer durante o horário de atendimento” e ao primeiro momento de contacto com a faculdade, ou seja, a semana de integração de novos alunos, que considera ter sido “bastante positiva” no sentido de “introduzir os estudantes ao ambiente da faculdade”. A nível pessoal, confessa que outro aspeto que o beneficiou grandemente foi a sensação de “maior autonomia” em relação ao ensino secundário, que experimentou na Universidade.
Há, porém, um aspeto que Pedro desejava ver melhorado na U.Porto – o sistema SIGARRA. “Precisa de ver melhorada a sua organização”, afirma Pedro Moás. “Ao longo deste ano, tenho visto vários alunos a salientar este aspeto, que pode prejudicar os estudantes que ainda não estão habituados a esta estrutura, por vezes confusa.”
No 108.º aniversário da instituição, o futuro engenheiro deseja o melhor para a U.Porto e que esta “continue a incentivar os novos alunos com iniciativas como esta.”