Research Group on Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS)

Research Group on Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS)

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Introduction to Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS) group Decision Support Systems are interactive, flexible and adaptable systems, especially developed to support non-structured problem solving in order to improve decision making capabilities. Since 1993, GECAD researchers have a long experience on the development of Decision Support Systems. Ambient Intelligent (AmI) deals with a new world where computing devices are spread everywhere, allowing the human being to interact in physical world environments in an intelligent and unobtrusive way. These environments should be aware of the needs of people, customizing requirements and forecasting behaviours. AmI has been identified as one of the priority research areas in Europe on the last years. However, there is a trend to emphasize some operational and infrastructural technologies in AmI, like sensing and communications, and forget the most high level and strategic technologies, like those related with Artificial Intelligence. Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support group claims that decision support features are essential in AmI environments. This group wants to illustrate some decision support capabilities in AmI environments, namely in the following situations: - working environments (e.g. group meetings) - leisure environments (e.g. tourist assistance, cultural heritage, exhibitions) - sports (e.g. free-flight assistants, cycling) -AI&DS- 35

- manufacturing (e.g. production scheduling) - transports (e.g. urban transports) - energy (e.g. power systems control centres) - home Ambient Intelligent & Decision Support group has obtained a meaningful scientific recognition during the last years. This recognition is clear from the invitation made by James Hendler, editor-in-chief of the IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine, to Carlos Ramos in order to coordinate the Special Issue on Ambient Intelligence, to appear in March/April 2008 issue. Results are already passing from prototype to real world. FlyMaster Avionics S.A. is a spin-off generated from this group. This spin-off developed FlyMaster NAV+, a free-flight on-board pilot Assistant (e.g. gliding, hangliding, paragliding), using the FlyMaster F1 module with access to GPS and sensorial information. FlyMaster Avionics S.A. is commercializing these patented products. These products constitute a decision support system for the pilot and are being used by the Portuguese and French paragliding national teams with fantastic results. GECAD was identified by Fraunhofer Gesellshaft as one of the 12 research centres with significant competence in the areas of the new Fraunhofer Institute to be installed in Portugal, this institute will be dedicated to Ambient Assisted Living. One of the most important activities involving Ambient Intelligence was the Exhibition Artificial Intelligence 50 Years. The exhibition opened on May 31, 2006 at the Parada Leitão Museum and was visited by 36 -AI&DS-

dozens of thousands of persons, received tremendous attention from the media, international organizations, like AAAI, and magazines (IEEE Intelligent Systems). Another important result was the creation of LAID (Ambient Intelligence for Decision Support Lab.), a kind of Intelligent Meeting Room for Group Decision Support. During [2003-2006] this group had 5 projects (PLANET-II, IMAGE, SCALINTEL, ArgEmotionAgents, and PFA FLYMASTER) and 3 new projects started in 2007 (PSiS, TOURSPLAN, and SmartVision). This group envisages being an international reference in the application of decision support in AmI environments. Publication of papers in good scientific journals and conferences, edition of special issues, organization of events are also envisaged. Following the GECAD culture, research projects are an important goal to be considered by the group. The creation of new spin-offs is also desired. -AI&DS- 37

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Researchers of Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS) group Group Coordinator: Carlos Ramos email: csr@dei.isep.ipp.pt PhD Researchers Ana Maria Neves de Almeida Baptista Figueiredo Carlos Fernando da Silva Ramos João Manuel Pereira Barroso João Paulo Fonseca da Costa Moura João Paulo Jorge Pereira José Avelino Silva Marinho Leonel Caseiro Morgado Lino Manuel Baptista Figueiredo Nuno Filipe da Fonseca Bastos Gomes Paulo Nogueira Martins Antonio Manuel Cardoso da Costa (collaborator) Non-PhD researchers António Paulo Gomes dos Santos Carlos Filipe Araújo de Freitas Dorabela Regina Chiote Ferreira Gamboa Maria Goreti Carvalho Marreiros Nuno Miguel dos Santos Branco Nuno Jorge Pereira Saleiro Ricardo Jorge da Silva Santos Rui Miguel Bento de Carvalho e Silva -AI&DS- 39

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Specific Projects of the Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS) group PLANET-II - IST-29656 - Network of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence Planning [2001-2003] EC IMAGE - POCTI-32352 - Integrated Tools for Computer Supported Manufacturing Systems project [2000-2003] - FCT SCALINTEL - POCTI/EME/37525/2001 - Decision Support System for Scheduling with Scalable Intelligence [2002-2005] - FCT ArgEmotionAgents - POSI/EIA/56259/2004 - Argumentative Agents with Emotional Behaviour Modelling for Participants Support in Group Decision-Making Meetings [2005-2008] - FCT PFA FlyMaster - Personal Flight Assistant project [2006-2007] - AdI PSiS - PTDC/TRA/72152/2006 - Personalized Sightseeing Planning System [2007-2010] - FCT TOURSPLAN - PTDC/EIA/74310/2006 - TOURS PLANning Support system [2007-2010] - FCT SmartVision - PTDC/EIA/73633/2006 - Active vision for the blind [2007-2010] -AI&DS- 41

Budgets of Projects of Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS) group PLANET-II budget for specific missions IMAGE - 40.000,00 SCALINTEL - 80.000,00 ArgEmotionAgents - 71.000,00 PFA FlyMaster - 85.000,00 PSiS - 99.312,00 TOURSPLAN - 95.000,00 SmartVision - 166.000,00 idesk (FCT Reequipment) - 70.000,00 IPP Reequipment - 21.500,00 idesk-run (FCT Basic Fund) - 89.487,50 ISEP Basic Fund - 5.000,00 Post-PhD hiring fund 220.000,00 42 -AI&DS-

PLANET-II - IST-29656 - Network of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence Planning Project Coordinator at GECAD: João Rocha email: jsr@isep.ipp.pt PLANET-II was the continuation of PLANET (Network of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence Planning). PLANET was developed during 1999-2000 and is a Network of Excellence co-ordinated by the University of Ulm (Germany), and involving companies like ILOG, COSYTEC, Thomson, Siemens AG and British Telecom. PLANET-II started in 2001 and was approved for 3 years. -AI&DS- 43

IMAGE - POCTI-32352 - Integrated Tools for Computer Supported Manufacturing Systems project Project Leader: Carlos Ramos email: csr@dei.isep.ipp.pt IMAGE (Integrated Tools for Computer Supported Manufacturing in the Global Economy) was a project supported by FCT that started in October/2000 with the duration of 3 years. The goal of IMAGE was to build Multi-Agent Systems for dealing with the new trends of Manufacturing. Concepts like Virtual Enterprises and Electronic Commerce are present in IMAGE, thus extending the distributed manufacturing paradigm from the shop-floor level to the entire enterprise and society. 44 -AI&DS-

SCALINTEL - POCTI/EME/37525/2001 - Decision Support System for Scheduling with Scalable Intelligence Project Leader: Carlos Ramos email: csr@dei.isep.ipp.pt SCALINTEL (Decision Support System for Scheduling with Scalable Intelligence) was a project supported by FCT that started in January/2002 with the duration of 3 years. It was started due to several studies that pointed out to some constraints in Decision Support Systems (DSS) for Scheduling. The first constraint was the difficulty in an intelligent interaction between the user and the DSS. DSS were not able to explain their reasoning or proposed solutions, like an Expert System, since this is very difficult for most of the scheduling algorithms. The second limitation was that DSS should not restrict to follow the user-interaction paradigm they should infer what their users are trying to do and learn from the observation. Finally, decision-making is usually a process involving many people, advising for different aspects of the problem, which points for the need of Group DSS (GDSS). SCALINTEL contributed with the following originalities: new versions of scheduling algorithms oriented for intelligent interaction; use of case-based learning methods for user intention recognition; and use of Multi-Agent Systems paradigm for modelling GDSS. -AI&DS- 45

ArgEmotionAgents - POSI/EIA/56259/2004 - Argumentative Agents with Emotional Behaviour Modelling for Participants Support in Group Decision- Making Meetings Project Leader: Carlos Ramos Email: csr@dei.isep.ipp.pt ArgEmotionAgents is a project envisaging the use of Multi-Agent Systems approach for supporting Group Decision-Making processes, where Argumentation and Emotion components are especially important. Lots of work has been done in the Negotiation domain. Most of this work considers two participants negotiation, and involves rational decision making. ArgEmotionAgents intends to give a meaningful contribution. The work will be centered in Argumetation processes. These processes are so rich, namely because they do not consider just the rational aspects. An important emotional component is always present, such as gratitude debts, sympathy and friendship/hate relations between participants. Incompleteness, Quality of Information and Temporal Reasoning will be considered. Group Decision-Making was chose because in this domain argumentation has a crucial role, and because a significant number of participants, with different points of view, are usually involved. The final product of ArgEmotionAgents is the development of a Group Argumentation Support System, in which a community of agents will model the participants of a decision group, considering several proposals. With this platform it will be possible to give support to one or more group participants, suggesting the most convenient and adequate arguments, taking into account their objectives, the feasible proposals, voting trends and the profile of other participants. This project involves GECAD and the University of Minho. 46 -AI&DS-

PFA FlyMaster - Personal Flight Assistant project Project Leader: Nuno Gomes Email: nbg@isep.ipp.pt Free flight sports, like gliding, hangliding and especially paragliding, are increasing every year. Up to now free flight pilots received few support from flight equipments, basically numeric GPS information. This drawback led to the development of FlyMaster project, creating a product that received innovation prizes and originated the FlyMaster Avionics SA spin-off. The main idea in the FlyMaster project is to create an on-board Ambient Intelligent environment composed by low-cost equipments able to assist pilots during the flight, giving them on-line decision support. FlyMaster products are now a great success in the free flight sports area, being a strong help, even for free-flight competition pilots. A significant amount of intelligence was integrated in FlyMaster products, namely to allow: the decision about when a pilot should move to the start line; the pilot support when climbing in the rising air columns (thermal lift); the trajectory plan; the glide optimization; and the context awareness to allow the automatic identification of the information to display since in this kind of sports both hands are necessary to control the gliding device. In this paper we will describe how FlyMaster is using these characteristics to allow a real pilot assistance and decision support on the fly. This project involves GECAD, Imediata, and Visteon Technologies. -AI&DS- 47

PSiS - PTDC/TRA/72152/2006 - Personalized Sightseeing Planning System Project Leader: Ana Almeida Email: ana@dei.isep.ipp.pt In this project we propose the development of a Personalised Sightseeing Planning System (PSiS) which intends to help tourists in finding a personalized tour plan allowing them to use their time efficiently and promote the culture and national tourism. Hence, this research focuses on tour planning support, we aim at defining and adapt a visit plan combining, in a tour, the most adequate tourism products, namely interesting places to visit, attractions, restaurants and accommodation, according to tourist s specific profile (which includes interests, personal values, wishes, constraints and disabilities) and available transportation modes between the selected products. Functioning schedules will be considered as well as transportation schedules. In order to develop such a system we need to efficiently address the core of the tour planning process. Hence, we have to define an optimization model that clearly represents the described tour planning problem and design a heuristic algorithm that effectively tackles that problem. The Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) and some of its variations with additional constraints like time windows (TSPTW) or the Prize Collecting Travelling Salesman Problem (PCTSP) have been used as basis for the development of algorithms that address tour planning issues. The TSP has been extensively studied by some of the members of this research. Following our TSP research, we intend to explore the application to the tour planning problem of advanced concepts and methods for the construction of effective neighborhood structures such as those derived from ejection chain methods and take advantage of the emerging methodologies, especially those that exploit the concept of adaptive memory programming. 48 -AI&DS-

TOURSPLAN - PTDC/EIA/74310/2006 - TOURS PLANning Support system Project Leader: Ana Almeida Email: ana@dei.isep.ipp.pt When a tourist arrives to a new place (country, city or region) he would certainly appreciate to have a quite simple tool to assist him in planning his staying, according to his objectives, preferences, knowledge, budget and staying period, instead of having to look for guide prospects/bulletins which sometimes can be quite confuse, or having to follow a standardized plan which does not fulfil his needs. The tour planning task can be quite complex and time consuming due to the numerous attractions to visit, restaurants to eat and hotels available, when combining this task with the selection of transportation modes to move between selected places the complexity level raises, which is generally a discouraging factor for a tourist when trying to establish a plan that fulfils his needs, including preferences, wishes and constraints. Generated tour plans will be added to a tour basket, here the tourist has the possibility of eliminate selected attractions or add new ones, according his actual interest, motivation or availability. The system gathers knowledge about the tourist s profiles, creating groups and stereotypes with specific interests and features, allowing characteristics inheritance. The tour basket stores tourist s travel history, where all the places he visited are stored, which leads to accumulated knowledge about personal profiles. This knowledge, together with tourist stereotypes offer a mean of learning about general and specific interests of tourists, so that this information can serve as a basis for studying new forms of tourist products, which can be useful for the tourism sector, namely public entities (e.g. city council) as well as for travel agencies. It will be possible to return information on accomplished tours. So, the system gathers knowledge about tourist s opinions and preferences. Based on this knowledge and on profile groups categorised information can be delivered according to tourist specific interests, namely events, factual information, useful tips, promotional offers, recommended places to visit and more. This project involves GECAD and CENTRIA (New University of Lisbon). -AI&DS- 49

SmartVision - PTDC/EIA/73633/2006 - Active vision for the blind Project Coordinator at GECAD: João Barroso Email: jbarroso@utad.pt Vehicles can be equipped with a GPS/GIS-based navigation system. By contrast, blind and visually impaired persons need to navigate using the stick or, at best, an ultrasonic obstacle detector. This asymmetry needs to be solved, an estimated 180 million persons with severe impairments of which 40-50 million are completely blind, and every year 2 million people more become blind. The Greek project SmartEyes aims at developing a portable GPS/GIS-based navigation aid for the blind, obviously limited to outdoor navigation and stable landmarks like zebra crossings, bus stops, shops etc. This FCT project concerns a collaboration with the SmartEyes project, for developing an active vision module. We will develop the necessary technology for outdoor and indoor navigation, with obstacle avoidance and object recognition. Main problems to be solved are the detection of outlines of sidewalks and zebra crossings while walking, including nearby obstacles like trees, traffic signs, persons (children) and dogs. Indoor navigation requires detection of corridors, doors and furniture, but also locating objects, like a ketchup bottle in a pantry or fridge. Only by complementing SmartEyes with realtime vision it will become a really smart aid! The necessary hardware is already available: a palmtop with BlueTooth link and GPS (in the future Galileo), plus cameras with USB interface. The main problem of a palmtop is its processor without floating-point units, which means that state-ofthe-art algorithms from computer vision must be implemented using integers. There are two solutions: (a) most of the processing can be done remotely on a normal PC or even a small cluster, and (b) instead of applying most processing from the first to the last pixel of the video frames, processing can be limited to important regions by using a model of human vision, namely Focus-of-Attention (FoA). Instead of only focusing on computer vision, this project establishes a link with human vision. Recent progress in the modelling of processes in the visual cortex showed that computational models can already compete with the state-of-the-art in computer vision. This concerns 2D multi-scale line/edge and keypoint extraction, Focus-of-Attention and object categorisation. Linking computer vision and human vision allows to "combine the best of two worlds". For example, recognition of rotated 3D objects by using a limited number of views in visual memory is a difficult problem to be solved because of outliers, but robust methods are available from computer vision. This project involves GECAD/UTAD, University of Algarve, AIBILI, and IST. 50 -AI&DS-

Main Publications in Journals of the Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS) group C. Ramos; How Portugal celebrated AI s 50th Anniversary; IEEE Intelligent Systems Magazine; 21(4); pp. 86-88; 2006; IF=2,413 C. Ramos, J. Augusto, D. Shapiro; Ambient Intelligence; IEEE Intelligent Systems Magazine; 23(2); 3 pages, accepted for publication in special issue on Ambient Intelligence in Mar/Apr-2008; IF=2,413 in 2006 L. Figueiredo, J. A. Tenreiro Machado, J. Rui Ferreira; Dynamical Analysis of Freeway Traffic; IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems; 5(4); pp. 259-266;2004; IF=1.104 L. Figueiredo, J. Tenreiro Machado; Simulation and Dynamics of Freeway Traffic; Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics - special issue Modeling and Control of Intelligent Transportation Systems; Springer; 2006; IF=0,902 L. Figueiredo, J. Tenreiro Machado; Editorial Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics; Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics - special issue Modeling and Control of Intelligent Transportation Systems; Springer; 2006; IF=0,902 D. Gamboa, C. Rego, F. Glover; Implementation Analysis of Efficient Heuristic Algorithms for the Traveling Salesman Problem; Computers and Operations Research; 33(4); pp. 1161-1179; 2006; IF=0.893 D. Gamboa, C. Rego, F. Glover; Data Structures and Ejection Chains for Solving Large Scale Traveling Salesman Problems; European Journal of Operational Research; 160(1); pp. 154-171; 2005; IF=0.824 G. Marreiros, C. Ramos, J. Neves. Dealing with Emotional Factors in Agent Based Ubiquitous Decision; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer- Verlag; ISBN: 3-540-30803-2; 3823; pp. 41 50; 2005; IF=0.402 L. Figueiredo, J. A. Tenreiro Machado, J. Rui Ferreira; Fractional-Order Dynamics in Freeway Traffic; International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics; 13(2); pp. 167-179; 2004; IF=0,105 G. Marreiros, C. Ramos, J. Neves; Modelling group decision meeting participants with an Agent-based approach; Selected for publication in an upcoming special issue of the International Journal of Engineering Intelligent Systems in 2007; IF=0.094 in 2006 -AI&DS- 51

Some other Publications of the Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS) group G. Marreiros, R. Santos, C. Ramos, J. Neves, P. Novais, J. Machado, J. Bulas- Cruz; Ambient Intelligence in Emotion Based Ubiquitous Decision Making; Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Ambient Intelligence; IJCAI 07 Twentieth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence; Hyderabad, India, January, 2007 L. Figueiredo, J. T. Machado, J. Ferreira; Simulation and Dynamical Analysis of Freeway Traffic; 2003 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics; Washington, USA; 2003 A. Almeida, C. Ramos, S. C. Silva; Simultaneous Manufacturing in Batch Production; 6th IEEE International Symposium Assembly and Task Planning; Besançon, France; 2003 J. P. Moura, A. Coelho, M. Gaspar, F. Gomes; A GIS application for Urban Parking Management; In Geographical Information Systems Planet; Estoril; Portugal; 2005 G. Marreiros, C. Ramos, J. Neves; Emotion and Group Decision Making in Artificial Intelligence; Cognitive, Emotive and Ethical Aspects of Decision- Making in Humans and in AI - vol IV, Iva Smit; Wendell Wallach; George Lasker (Eds.). Published By The International Institute for advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics; ISBN 1-894613-86-4; pp. 41-46; 2005 A. Almeida, C. Ramos; A Scheduling Approach to Batch Production Envisaging the Reduction of Job Throughput Times; Intelligent Systems at the Service of Mankind ; 2; Wilfried Elmenreich, J. Tenreiro Machado and Imre J. Rudas (Eds.); Ubooks. ISBN 3-935798-25-3; pp. 255-268; 2005 L. Figueiredo, J. A. Tenreiro Machado, J. K. Tar; Modelling and Control of Freeway Traffic; Intelligent Systems at the Service of Mankind; 2; Wilfried Elmenreich, J. Tenreiro Machado and Imre J. Rudas (Eds.); Ubooks; ISBN 3-935798-25-3; pp. 3-13; 2005 L. Morgado, M. Cruz, K. Kahn; ToonTalk in Kindergartens: Field Notes, in A. Mendez-Vilas, J. Mesa González, I. Maldonado (eds.); Information Society 52 -AI&DS-

and Education Journal of Digital Contents; 1(1), ISSN 1696-313X, ISBN 84-607-8369-3; Formatex; Spain; 2003 A. Almeida, G. Marreiros; An approach to Collaborative Scheduling through Group Decision Support; Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics; 10(4); Fuji Technology Press Ltd, Tokyo, Japan; 2006 J. P. Pereira, J. A. Jorge, V. A. Branco, F. Nunes Ferreira; Calligraphic Interfaces: Mixed Metaphors for Design; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer Verlag; 2844; pp. 154-170; 2003 Almeida, C. Ramos, S. C. Silva; Concurrent Scheduling of Manufacturing Orders; Concurrent Engineering - Advanced Design, Production and Management Systems ; Swets & Zeitlinger B. V. ; 2003 A. Almeida, C. Ramos, S. C. Silva; Product Oriented Detailed Scheduling ; Computer Integrated Manufacturing - Advanced Design and Management ; Wydawnictwa Naukowo - Techniczne ; 2003 L. Figueiredo, J. A. Tenreiro Machado, J. Rui Ferreira; Simulation and Analysis of Freeway Traffic Dynamics; Recent Trends in Intelligent Transportation Systems; World Scientific Publishing Co at River Edge; 2004 A. Almeida, G. Marreiros; Toward Collaborative Scheduling; Information for Balanced Manufacturing Systems, Weiming Shen (Ed.); pp. 47-56; Springer; New York, 2006 C. Ramos, G. Marreiros, P. Sousa, J. Marinho, R. Santos, J. Neves, A. Abelha, J. Machado; AMBITION: Ambient Intelligence with Emotional Behaviour; Knowledge and Decision Technologies; Z. Vale, C. Ramos and L. Faria (eds.); pp. 337-344; ISBN 972-8688-39-3; 2006 G. Marreiros, C. Ramos, J. Neves; An Emotional Agent Based Simulator For Group Decision Making; Knowledge and Decision Technologies; Z. Vale, C. Ramos and L. Faria (eds.); pp. 143-149; ISBN 972-8688-39-3; 2006 G. Marreiros, P. Novais, J. Machado, C. Ramos, J. Neves; A Formal Approach To Argumentation In Group Decision Scenarios; Knowledge and Decision Technologies; Z. Vale, C. Ramos and L. Faria (eds.); pp. 135-141; ISBN 972-8688-39-3; 2006 -AI&DS- 53

Almeida, G. Marreiros; A Group Decision Framework to Support Collaborative Scheduling; Knowledge and Decision Technologies; Z. Vale, C. Ramos and L. Faria (eds.); ISBN 972-8688-39-3; 2006 L. Figueiredo, J. Tenreiro Machado, A. Almeida, C. Reis; SITS Simulator of Intelligent Transportation Systems; Knowledge and Decision Technologies. Z. Vale, C. Ramos and L. Faria (eds.); pp. 329-335; ISBN: 972-8688-39-3; 2006 R. Santos, G. Marreiros, C. Ramos, J. Neves, J. Bulas-Cruz; Multi-Agent Approach for Ubiquitous Group Decision Support involving Emotions; Lectures Notes for Computer Science; 4159; pp. 1174 1185; Springer, 2006 54 -AI&DS-

PhD and MSc Thesis of Ambient Intelligence & Decision Support (AI&DS) group PhD Thesis Ana Almeida Figueiredo; Análise e Desenvolvimento de Mecanismos e Algoritmos de Apoio ao Escalonamento Orientado ao Produto (Analysis and development of Mechanisms and Algorithms for Product oriented Scheduling Support); PhD Thesis in Production Systems; University of Minho; 2003. João Paulo Jorge Pereira; Interacção Caligráfica Ambígua em Sistemas Computacionais de Modelação (Ambiguous Caligraphic Interaction in Modelling Computational Systems), PhD Thesis in Electrical & Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering University of Porto (FEUP); 2004. Lino Figueiredo; Sistemas Inteligentes de Transporte (Intelligent Transportation Systems); PhD Thesis in Electrical & Computer Engineering, FEUP; 2005. Paulo Martins, Um Modelo para Ensino a Distância em Ambientes que suportam Mobilidade (A Distance Learning Model for Mobile Environments), PhD Thesis in Electrical Engineering; Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), 2005. António Cunha, Controlo de Veículos Autoguiados com Base na Análise de Sequências de Imagens (Autonomous guided Vehicles Control based on Image Sequence Analysis), PhD Thesis in Electrical Engineering; UTAD, 2005. J. Marinho; Sistemas Inteligentes de Apoio à Decisão com capacidades de Justificação de Soluções e Identificação da Intenção do Utilizador (Intelligent Decision Support Systems with Solution Explanation and User Intention Identification); PhD Thesis in Informatics, UTAD; 2006. João Paulo Moura; Um modelo cooperativo de gestão de informação territorial (A cooperative model for Territorial Information Management); PhD Thesis in Electrical Engineering; UTAD, 2006. Leonel Morgado; Framework for Computer Programming in Preschool and Kindergarten, PhD Thesis in Informatics, UTAD, 2006. -AI&DS- 55

Maria Goreti Marreiros; Agentes de Apoio à Argumentação e Decisão em Grupo (Argumentation and Decision Support Agents); PhD Thesis in Informatics; University of Minho; 2007. Dorabela Gamboa; Algoritmos de Memória Adaptativa para a Resolução de Problemas de Optimização Combinatória de Grande Dimensão (Adaptive Memory Algorithms for solving High Dimension Combinatory Optimization Problems); PhD Thesis; Instituto Superior Técnico; 2007. MSc Thesis Monica Costa; Signal Reconstruction Techniques applied to High Temporal Resolution Sequences, MSc Thesis in Electrical Engineering; UTAD, 2006. 56 -AI&DS-