Centre for Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra (CISUC)

The aim of the ACG is the analysis and development of computational models and algorithms founded on data analytics and soft computing techniques for solving complex problems. The group’s activities are structured in four main research streams:

• Machine learning and pattern recognition areas;
• Algorithms and optimization;
• Personalized health care;
• Smart heterogeneous systems.

The group has led and participated in several national (FCT, FCG, QREN, P2020) and international projects (FP7, H2020, COST, EUREKA) and organized several international workshops and conferences.

The goal of the Cognitive and Media Systems (CMS) group is to provide context for specialized team research on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Information Visualization, Computational Creativity, Ambient Intelligence, and ICT for Education, stimulating theoretical and empirical study, the design and development of models and tools, and the use of research results in innovative applications with high social and scientific relevance. Its activities are structured in four main research streams, organized into four cooperative Laboratories:

• Artificial Intelligence and Computational Creativity
• Ambient Intelligence
• Educational Technology
• Computational Design and Visualization

The Evolutionary and Complex Systems Group (ECOS) is a research group of CISUC that aims at exploring the possible cross-fertilization between physical, biological and social systems directed towards solving complex problems.

ECOS research is structured in 3 streams: Evolutionary Computation (EC), Evolutionary Machine Learning (EML) and Data Science (DS). The EC line of research deals with the development of bio-inspired algorithms. The EML line is focused on closing the gap between the areas of ML and EC, through the development of hybrid approaches to overcome challenges that emerge in both areas. In the area of DS, we have been using our knowledge in the fields of EC and ML to extract useful knowledge from different data sources working towards what can be called Evolutionary Data Science.

The Information Systems Group (GSI) studies IS in order to innovate individual and organizational practices for the engineering of sustainable transitions, and includes three action areas:

• Reflection on the philosophical, sociological and historical foundations of research in Information Systems;
• Models and methods of design research, and of sociotechnical systems development, in the digital transformation and governance of organizations and society;
• The design and study of new participatory media and interaction technologies in contexts of learning, health, cultural heritage, collaboration, social and organizational development.

The Communications and Telematics group carries out research in the areas of network performance, quality of service, quality of experience, management and resilience, low latency communications in the cloud, network function virtualisation, software-defined networks, and security and privacy. Application domains include people-centric IoT, ambient-assisted living, smart cities, socially interactive environments, industry 4.0, 5G networks and applications, and critical systems and infrastructures. Most CT research is carried out in the scope of European/international projects, as well as national and international R&D industry contracts. The CT group comprises 9 senior researchers and more than 20 PhD students from various countries.

The vision of the Software and Systems Engineering (SSE) group is to develop disruptive research on different facets of software and systems engineering, with particular focus on dependability and security aspects.

Internationally recognized contributions of SSE include experimental approaches for the evaluation and benchmarking of dependability, resilience and security, using fault injection, robustness testing, vulnerability & attack injection and vulnerability detection methods. These techniques and tools have been researched for a variety of domains, ranging from web applications and services to safety critical systems, and have resulted from a long series of research projects funded by the European Commission and the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT). Currently, the SSE group is involved in 6 H2020 projects and 5 projects funded by FCT through national and international programs such as CMU-Portugal.