News: Event News

MHCI Capstone Project presentation

PROGRAM

The MHCI Capstone Project course is a one-year-long (two semesters) project for the Masters of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) program and integrates everything the students have learned in their coursework into one “end-to-end” experience.

Students work in interdisciplinary teams with an industry sponsor to produce a working prototype that serves as a proof of concept of a novel service or product idea. The students come from a variety of backgrounds including Computer Science, Psychology, Design, and other related programs.

In the first semester, students conduct user research and brainstorm product ideas. The user research phase begins with students conducting methods such as contextual inquiries and background research to understand the nature and needs of the customer/user and tasks relevant to their problem. Based on that understanding, students go through an innovation phase producing product ideas situated to meet the identified needs. With strong sponsor input, they narrow down their ideas and select one or more to pursue further. Then, in the second semester, students engage in a prototyping and user-testing phase where they produce prototypes with increasing fidelity and iteratively test them with users to improve the design. They do weekly iteration cycles, so by the end of the course, product prototypes are well refined and adapted to user needs. The end goal is a working prototype that serves as a proof of concept of the product idea.

This year, there are three companies sponsoring the MHCI Capstone Project course, which includes SAPO, Critical Software and PromoSoft. On December 14th, 2009, in Madeira, the MHCI students will present what they have accomplished. Projects range from solutions for micro finance institutes in Africa, mobile services for lifestyles and next-generation web for kids. There will be presentations, posters as well as demo sessions. Guests, companies, students and faculty are all welcome to participate.
Promosoft
Team: Eugene Danilkis, Frederik Pfisterer, Josh Coe, Joydeep Sengupta and Sofia Nunes. “The Promosoft Mobility Team is designing a new online software service to enable microfinance organizations to better manager their client and loan portfolios. The new design presents both a long-term vision of the service as well as more immediate needs, which are designed as both a service and as software interfaces. The team addresses the microfinance needs from the design, business and technical perspectives to create a compelling project for a company to pursue. Their work is backed by extensive research including two weeks observing, discussing and learning form microfinance organizations in Mozambique.” Critical Software
Team: André Dória, Daniel Wagner, Mariana Lopez, Mary Barreto and Nuno Laginha.
“Critical Software is interested in the impact of using mobiles in people’s lifestyles. We have identified that the increasing proliferation of mobile phones and other communication channels leads to an ever-growing amount of people that are obliged to be connected in some sort of communication network. These expectations have profound impacts in our society and its norms, namely to what regards availability (for example answering calls, sms or emails in a timely and often disruptive manner). We identified a clear mismatch between the expectancy of how available one should be, and how available one can afford to be. We approached this problem and coupled it with the increasing need to be connected to people who are close to us, and came up with an innovative way of bridging this gap, bringing people CLOSER to each other. We are developing a different contact list, one where people not only have customized status messages, but they also have a stated availability and their preferred method of communication.”
SAPO
Team: Brad Copenhaver, Iryna Pavlyshak, João Rodrigues, Joshua Zuniga e Katia Serralheiro.
“SAPO project aims to provide contents and services for children in the range of 7-12 years old. The strategy as it was defined by Portugal Telecom, extends through three main axes: contents delivered by its multiple partners, interactive applications for PC to provide a safe access to online and offline content, and community services like internet messaging and email with parental control. In accordance with this strategy, our group must address several requirements that pose specific challenges. Our objective is to deliver a rich and playful prototype web portal which: “Supports how 7-12 year old children play, communicate and socialize, and look for information online in a safe and secure environment supported by multiple platforms”.”

SEMINAR SERIES on ICTs POLICY RESEARCH :: Professor Pavel N. Krivitsky
Data: Tuesday, December 15 th 2009, 16:30pm
Place: Room C01, Central Pavilion, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal
Models for Data-Driven Simulation of Sexual Partnership Networks in Changing Populations
Professor Pavel N. Krivitsky, visiting research scientist at Heinz College and the Department of Statistics of Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract:
Models of dynamic networks — networks that evolve over time — have manifold applications. Applications in epidemiology present their own challenge, in that the data available are often limited to egocentric views of the network processes of interest, and in that evolution of these networks comprises not only changes in relationship states but also changes in attributes and numbers of actors. We develop and apply a discrete-time generative model for social network evolution that seeks to inherit the richness and flexibility of exponential family random graph models (ERGMs) and facilitate modeling of tie duration distributions, while avoiding pitfalls of some of the past efforts in this area, and adjusting for changing network size and composition.
Method of Moments is used to fit this model to observed cross-sectional and egocentric networks and incorporate available tie duration data.

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For those who won’t be able to be in the room CO1 at IST, you can attend the seminar online through WebEx (link and instructions below).

Please follow the instructions in that email some minutes before 4:30pm (GMT) and join the online meeting room.

Topic: Professor Pavel Krivitsky – Presentations
Date: Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Time: 16:30, GMT Time (London, GMT)
Meeting Number: 844 319 810
Meeting Password: EPP

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Holiday Party and Portuguese Dinner Buffet
Date: Friday, December 11, 2009
6:00 – 10:00 p.m.

Location: Imperial House
5600 Munhall Rd
Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh PA 15217

The goals are to celebrate the successful completion of the semester and the holiday season together with ICTI Students, faculty, staff and leaders. It is also a chance to say goodbye to the students who will not return to Carnegie Mellon University next semester.

Email: demanski@andrew.cmu.edu

Bring your CDs or IPOD with Traditional Music

 

The Carnegie Mellon | Portugal Program will participate in the 1st international fair “FEUP Mobility Network: International Fair for Engineering Education”, that will be held at FEUP, located in the Porto, Portugal, on the 22 nd , 23 rd , 24 th and 25 th November, 2009.

The main objectives of this fair are to promote and strengthen the academic relationships, between our partner higher education institutions, and also to inform FEUP students about the mobility opportunities, under the existing programs or the established cooperation agreements.

This fair aims to contribute to the internationalization of FEUP and to encourage the creation of international academic networks, providing mutual understanding between the participating institutions and promoting mobility of students and teachers, as a way to boost the offer of international courses in the programs offered by each institution.

For more information visit: http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~mobility/.

 

On November 25 th , 2009, the Carnegie Mellon | Portugal Program will be in Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), in Lisbon, to participate in the event IST International Day.

This initiative has three main goals:
– inform students of the different international programs related to student mobility, such as Erasmus, joint Masters and Doctoral programs, internships, etc;
– provide an opportunity for faculty, researchers and students to contact directly some of IST’s main international academic partners, this strengthening IST’s culture of internationalization;
– foster a forum for community building and exchange of ideas amongst the IST international population as well as between the Portuguese and the international IST communities.

For more information visit: http://gri.ist.utl.pt/.

Partners in Innovation Six young Novabase trainees visits Carnegie Mellon Campus
From April 18 to April 23, Novabase Partner Pedro Chagas and six young Novabase trainees visited the Carnegie Mellon campus to tour facilities, meet students and faculty, and sit in on classes.

Novabase, a corporate sponsor for the Carnegie Mellon|Portugal Program, is the largest IT company in Portugal. Founded in 1989, it currently employs about 1700 people. Chagas is responsible for the Novabase Advanced Custom Development, a company in Novabase’s consulting branch. He also serves on the board that helps co-manage the other companies in that branch.

The trainees, Francisco José Silva, Gil Pontes, Gonçalo Teixeira, Maria Grave, Nuno Miranda, and Tiago Moreiras, come from the Novabase Academy, a training program for recent college graduates that offers a two week intensive training program prior to becoming full time employees at the company.

While on the Carnegie Mellon campus, the trainees visitied several classes to get a feel for the different programs. Classes included Distributed Systems, Analysis of Software Artifacts, Network Security, Management of Software Development for Technology Executives, and Basic Interaction Design. They also toured a number of facilities, including the Entertainment Technology Center, Google Lab, and the Robotics Lab.

Monday night of their stay saw the Novabase visitors at a Welcome Reception and Overview of ICTI in Roberts Hall. Program coordinators from each of the CMU|Portugal Masters programs talked about their respective programs, and the trainees had a chance to meet students and faculty members. During the reception, Chagas also spoke about purpose of bringing trainees to Carnegie Mellon, how they were selected, and process they had to go through during their Novabase training. In a special moment, Chagas surprised the trainees by presenting them with their Novabase Academy Awards, which he had hidden in his luggage on the trip over.

The trip, which served as a special honor for the top six trainees, was a welcome break from the rigors of the Novabase Academy. From the initial 500-600 applicants to the program, Novabase invites about 300 for interviews, of which 90 are selected to enter the program. These six students were deemed the top of their class by both instructor and peer evaluations. Included in the program are instructional courses, like Intro to Consultancy, client projects, and team-building exercises like scavenger hunts. Virtually every second of the student’s stay is programmed. Coordinators and instructors even plan “unexpected events,” just to keep the trainees on their toes.

“We want them to face some challenges,” says Chagas. “When things are going too well, we flip the tables and they are in panic again.”

For example, trainees may have to deal with misinformation, coping with conflicting personalities, or a sudden change of management—all things that could feasibly happen in the real work place. The goal is not just to build skills, but also a sense of community among the trainees.

“Strong group spirit is very important to us. We want them to put down the barriers that are built between different locations”

This philosophy speaks well to the Carnegie Mellon|Portugal partnership, which fosters a sense of academic and cultural community between the Carnegie campus and Portugal affiliates. Chagas made a special effort to close the culture gap by ensuring that his six trainees were ready to go and on time for every meeting and event. About two to three minutes before the group had to be at the door to leave, Chages would play a Tina Turner song, signaling that it was nearly time to go. If by the end of the song someone wasn’t ready, Chagas would then dole out a silly punishment.
“Maybe they will get out of here with the will to come back and do the Masters program,” says Chagas, “or maybe some new ideas of how to do things better.”

ICTI Student Research Presentation and Lunch
Hamburg Hall Room 2224 (Second Floor, West Wing – Near the ICTI Offices)
Tuesday November 24, 2009
11:45 am – 1:30 pm

Please RSVP At: http://doodle.com/pud7kdfiw442b7qb
(This will ensure we order enough food for all attendees.)

Overview:
11:45 am Buffet lunch opens (in Hamburg Hall, Room 2222)
12:15 pm Presentation 1: “ Speech Synthesis and Conversion ” by Gopala Krishna Anumanchipalli, PhD student, Language Technology (LTI)
12:30 pm Q & A
12:45 pm Presentation 2: “ Does Money Make the Entrepreneurial World Go Round? ” by Ana Isabel Venâncio, PhD student in Technological Change and Entrepreneurship (TCE)
1:00 pm Q & A

This informal ICTI Student Presentation is designed to promote a broader awareness among and between master and doctoral level students in the technical and social ICT disciplines. Additional benefits for students attending or presenting at this and future sessions are to:
• Share (and hear) ideas with a broader audience (outside of your own departments)
• Practice making a presentation
• Receive (and give) friendly feedback
• Learn where your own research might intersect with another discipline
• Generate ideas for potential collaborations (now or in the future)
• Network and
• Share good food and company!

For more information, pleasde send an email to Ann Demanski: demanski@andrew.cmu.edu .

Software Engineering Seminars
Dynamic Teams and Groups | November 21st, 2009
Locations: Hotel Tryp Oriente (Lisboa) and Hotel Ipanema Porto
Software is built by people and for people. However, people act dramatically different when compared to the same situation; Moreover one person behaves differently when in a group! This seminar will discuss the different types of human behaviors and the effects on group dynamics.

Software Development Methodologies | December 12th, 2009
Locations: Hotel Tryp Oriente (Lisboa) and Hotel Ipanema Porto
Not all projects are created equally. There are many different types of projects which have distinct requirements, criticality, technology, and customers. A very common mistake is trying to apply the same software development methodology to different projects. This seminar will address various development methodologies and how these should be chosen depending on the characteristics of the projects in question.

More information at : http://mse.dei.uc.pt/workshop/

ECE Back to Basics Colloquium
Wednesday November 11 by Björn Andersson, CISTER.

Title: Real-Time Scheduling on Multicores

This talk will start at 13:00 in I-105, FEUP. Lunch will start at 12:30.

Abstract:
Embedded computer systems is an important scientific area today as witnessed by three facts. First, 99% of all processors sold are used in embedded computer systems. Second, we, humans, interact with embedded computer systems daily and they are present in most business processes/operations. Embedded computer systems are already used in all moderns cars and aircrafts and they are routinely used in manufacturing systems and process industry. Third, the number of engineers working on embedded systems in Europe exceeds the number of lawyers in Europe.

The design of an embedded computer system typically requires domain knowledge (for example designing software for controlling a combustion engine requires knowledge of combustion engines) and knowledge about computers in general (programming, algorithms and data structures, computer architecture, etc.). But embedded computers tend to also bring their own special challenges. One of them, is to ensure that the computer does its thing at the right time (for example, take a sample at the right time or start the ignition in an engine at the right time or decompressing a video frame at the right time.). The scientific community has created algorithms and theories for scheduling programs to perform actions at the right time. These theories have been successful; they are taught in undergraduate classes in real-time systems at most major universities world-wide (FEUP included) and they have the remarkable feature that under certain assumptions, timing guarantees can be given although the exact time when a program requests to execute is unknown. But most of these results do not extend to computers with more than one processor. This is unfortunate since multicores are today becoming standard building blocks in system design. In fact, it is expected that 40% of all embedded computer systems will use multicore processors in 2011.

Therefore, real-time scheduling on multicores is currently the hot topic in the scientific area of real-time systems. I will sketch some results that have been obtained in this area and in particular some of my contributions. I will present a few important and simple equations and a few observations on scheduling algorithms and their performance but I will omit most of the details.

More information at http://www.fe.up.pt/ecebacktobasics