Low-code development platforms (LCDPs) address the need for increased productivity in software development. There is still, however, a considerable number of relevant gaps in current knowledge about how people reason during programming and development tasks, as well as a need for new tools to fill these gaps.

Low-code development platforms (LCDPs) address the need for increased productivity in software development. By raising the abstraction level at which software is developed, LCDPs automate low-level and routine development tasks, effectively contributing to solve the problem of global shortage of professional software developers. According to MarketsandMarkets (2020), the Global LCDPs market is projected to grow from €11,2 billion in 2020 to €38,8 billion by 2025. At the same time, they lower the entry barrier to software development. As these low-level tasks become automated, developers are not required to carry them out (or even to know how to carry them out)…

Explain or perish!

Every day, each person generates an enormous quantity and diversity of data, which, allied to an increase of the available computational power and to the democratisation of the access to the data itself, created the ideal conditions for the generalised use of machine learning models applied to several contexts and areas (e.g., law, finance, healthcare, commerce, politics, biometrics and multimedia). Moreover, while the first generation of machine learning algorithms required some prior knowledge on data process and feature engineering and was used to solve easy tasks, the current trend focuses more on solving harder tasks, using multi data sources and…

This post is not about physics but, in a way, it is related to the elusive dark matter:

“Dark matter is material that cannot be seen directly. We know that dark matter exists because of the effect it has on objects that we can observe directly.”

Likewise, this text is about the inference of the larger number of active COVID-19 cases by using the information on official numbers of detected cases and mortality data. …

Shared mobility can be defined as transportation services that are shared among users. During the last years, there has been a significant rise of shared mobility modes, including carsharing, ride-hailing, and micro-mobility services like scooter sharing and bike-sharing. Among these modes, carsharing represents a unique way of transportation since it provides a private, flexible and convenient mode of transportation for short periods (by the hour or minute), which may make this mode of transportation attractive for short-distance daily-needs trips. …

For the second year INESC TEC’s Centre for Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CRAS) will organise the IN THE BLACK meeting, with the support of TEC4SEA Research Infrastructure [+info: www.inesctec.pt/en/innovation/tec4sea#intro ] and EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) Raw Materials [+ info: eitrawmaterials.eu].

The “Portugal is Sea” map shows the project for the extension of the Portuguese Continental Shelf and there is definitely a considerable area to be explored.

The exploitation of mineral resources on deep-ocean beds, including those in the surrounding area of sensitive-rich habitats such as hydrothermal vents, is rapidly emerging as a credible alternative. However, the scale…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a disruptive technology in the energy sector and raising the attention of different stakeholders, such as electric system operators, energy retailers, energy services companies, consumers, etc. The main motivations are:

(a) The electrical grid operation is becoming more complex due to the higher number of actors and services, that range from new technologies and decentralized power generation and electrical storage to new market frameworks, players and services. The current electric system was not designed to accommodate diversified and distributed energy sources, particularly renewable ones characterized by their variable behavior. …

Smart grid technologies have transformed electricity networks, in particular medium and low voltage distribution networks. The need for increasing Renewable Energy Sources (RES) hosting capacity and ensure an efficient management of grid assets, have led the industry to develop new technologies for the monitoring, control and management of smart distribution grids.

The deployment of advanced metering infrastructures and distribution automation have extended monitoring and control capabilities of medium and low voltage distribution networks that allow the implementation of decentralized network control and self-healing functionalities.

However, reaching a 100% RES and consumer centric power system, enabling new concepts such energy communities…

There is plenty of technical literature, consultancies firms’ reports and opinion letters about the benefits of developing energy communities with blockchain-based local energy markets, to support domestic energy trading for peer-to-peer buying and selling of energy.

Empowering consumers with the possibility of participating directly in electricity markets is indeed a very appealing approach, with the romantic feeling of escaping from the big utilities by producing their own energy for auto-consumption and for selling it to their pairs. As David Spence says in The Climate Law Blog of the Columbia Law School (in the entry Blockchain and Electricity Trading: In Praise…