Project List

The M7VPR project objectives are to develop algorithms for traffic pattern recognition in a MPEG -7 descriptions based monitoring system. The work is performed in the scope of the recent “Multimedia Content Description Interface” ISO standard (a.k.a. MPEG-7) and will be demonstrated in a multi-camera video surveillance application for car traffic monitoring. A Pattern is the opposite of chaos, it is an entity vaguely defined that could be given a name. Pattern recognition objective is then to find and explicitly define this entity, i.e., to describe its structure. In the business world, the most powerful infrastructure for information analysis and pattern recognition is Data Warehousing systems. In the multimedia world this approach was not yet implemented because it required a “Multimedia Content Description Interface”, which is now provided through MPEG-7, the standard for describing the multimedia content data that supports to some degree the interpretation of the information’s meaning. The challenge now is to specify and develop a MPEG-7 based intelligence density framework for semi-automatic video monitoring of reality. We concentrate in traffic modelling because this is a very important real-time application for which we have already some results, though not yet working in real-time.” ADETTI was the coordinator of this project.

In the last decades we have witnessed deep transformations in Portuguese society. Their pace and intensity in the various dimensions of national social life have diverse implications on different social groups, status groups, and gender categories, thus distinguishing practices and social values. Family has been a dimension where occurred the most significant changes in Portugal, particularly in the ways of perceiving conjugality, late age in marrying, decreasing number of children (with greater investment in their care and education) increasing number of divorces, and the establishment of new forms of organising the family (de facto unions – hetero and homosexual –, single parent, reconstructed households and adoption). However, changes in family relations are not restricted to these “new families” but also affect the ways in which relations within the so-called “traditional family structures” (nuclear heterosexual) are lived and perceived. \nSuch changes raise questions urging to be analysed: 1) present family practices in different formal organizations reveal the loss of importance of values associated with the traditional family (the affective and relational investment in familial relations– in the sharing of daily experiences and life planning – radically transforms the meaning of family, where interpersonal relations – and not consanguinity or alliance – become central elements to constitute relatedness); 2) cultural values and social representations associated with the traditional family model remain hegemonic in various domains of Portuguese social life (see the strong political opposition to proposals seeking to liberalise family law, abortion, and adoption).\nThis project aims to identify the values, meanings, and ways of living family relations in Portugal in order to reflect critically upon the presuppositions of normality of the nuclear heterosexual family in kinship studies. Research will be based on case studies, with long-term fieldwork among a signi...

The Central Library of African Studies is a joint effort of four research centers in the field of African studies: the Center for African Studies at ISCTE-IUL, the Center for African Studies at the University of Porto, the Center for Studies on Africa and Development from ISEG-UTL, and the Center for African Studies of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon. The library is installed in a wing of the ISCTE Library, offers about 15 thousand volumes in all African regional areas and all social sciences. [Projecto acolhido pelo Centro de Estudos Africanos do ISCTE-IUL]