Digital Media Projects

Outstanding scholarly research is one of the principal goals of the UT Austin | Portugal Project. Advanced digital media research projects have been supported by a major grant program from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to bring together researchers from UT Austin and Portuguese institutions to conduct collaborative research. In 2009, two joint research projects were funded: (1) Kinetic controller driven music systems and (2) Digital inclusion.

Kinetic controller driven music systems

Principal Investigators: Carlos Guedes, University of Porto and Bruce Pennycook, University of Texas at Austin

This joint research project will develop new techniques and strategies for computer-assisted composition in the context of real-time user control with non-standard human interface devices for applications in electronic art and digital entertainment systems. The research team will design and implement real-time software, hardware and specialized human-interfaces that will provide tools and resources for music, dance, theatre, installation artists, interactive kiosks, computer games, internet/web information systems.

The outcome of the project will be the creation of a modular toolbox for real-time dynamic music generation that will allow for easy creation of software applications for the purposes described above. The toolbox will be highly flexible allowing its use both by trained musicians and the general public.

INESC-Porto, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, University of Texas at Austin, with industrial affiliates Casa da Música and YDreams as partners make up the consortium for this joint research project.

Digital Inclusion

Principal Investigators: Cristina Ponte (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Joseph Straubhaar (University of Texas at Austin), José Azevedo (Universidade do Porto)

In those societies with access to new media, concern continues to grow about the digital divide, between generations and between majority and minority social groups. In Portuguese society, this challenge presents some specific characteristics, marked by major cultural and educational differences and by the very different levels of digital literacy that distinguish the access and use of these media by adults and children. Children and youth younger than 18 year are ahead of adults in access and use, to the contrary of what happens in the majority of other European countries.

Portugal has passed from being a country of emigrants to becoming a country of immigrants, from its old colonies in Africa and Brazil in the last few decades, and more recently of immigrants from the countries of Eastern Europe. Access and use of the digital media also vary between children that have these media at home and in their room, and those who only get to use them at school and in public access where their use is limited and conditioned by circumstances.

This project thus intends to contribute to knowledge of the critical factors that facilitate or make more difficult the access and use of digital media by social groups that are considered socially disadvantaged. With this research it will be possible to bring together indicators that will contribute to helping digital content industries reach and include segments of the market that are not yet reached by their productions; that may help design public policies for digital inclusion that will be more effective and sustainable; that may strengthen local networks and agencies, including the production of contents by the groups that have been digitally excluded until now.

Advanced Computing Projects

Irregular applications for multicore processors

Principal Investigators: Prof. João Luís Sobral, Universidade do Minho, and Prof. Keshav Pingali, UT Austin 

Over the past thirty years, the parallel programming community has invented many tools and techniques for parallel programming of computational science applications like FFTs and finite-differences that are organized around defense matrices. However, new applications such as data-mining and social network analysis involve irregular computations that are performed on large, sparse graphs and trees. Little is known about how to write parallel programs for these kinds of irregular applications. The Portugal-UT Austin team is studying the use of optimistic parallel execution and program refinements to address this problem.  

Patient-specific cardiovascular modeling & analysis (Project SIMCARD) 

Principal Investigators: Prof. Adélia Sequeira, IST, and Prof. Tom Hughes, UT Austin.

Starting from high-resolution volumetric medical imaging, researchers are developing spatially realistic physiological models of the human heart and vasculature, with its pathologies and malformations. The long term goal is the development of a semi-automated software framework for accurate structure elucidation from imaging, geometric processing for high fidelity finite element models with quantified uncertainties, as well as the physics simulations of pulsatile blood flow through the heart and vasculature models. The Portugal-UT Austin team is developing and deploying state-of-the-art techniques for key geometric and biophysics modeling and analysis steps that are essential for the ultimate development of this computational framework.

Read more about Project SIMCARD

Mathematics Projects

Applied mathematics: from dynamical systems to cryptography

Principal Investigator: Prof. Diogo Gomes

Researchers from several disciplines are joining efforts in applied mathematics including dynamical systems, financial mathematics, game theory, optimal control, viscosity solutions, number theory, and cryptography. In dynamical systems the main focus research areas are Aubry-Mather theory, renormalization and attractors of semilinear parabolic equations. In financial mathematics focus is being placed on developing forward price models, interest rate models and stochastic volatility models, and first passage times in diffusion processes. Game theory oligopoly models are being considered to investigate the following issues: uncertainty, signaling, dynamic price discrimination (linear prices and non linear pricing), research and development programs, location decisions, advertising strategies and their effects, trade policy models and competitive strategies in spatial networks, as well as mean-field games and its applications. Optimal control theory and viscosity solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations are essential to understand important problems in dynamical systems (Aubry-Mather theory) and in mathematical finance. These directions are being pursued, as well as certain problems in multiple criteria decision-making. Finally, in the emerging applied area of cryptography, the group is examining post-quantum cryptography in order to propose cryptosystems based on rational points on curves over function fields and show that they are robust to quantum adversaries.

Mathematical modeling and endoscopic image processing

Principal Investigator: Isabel Maria Narra de Figueíredo, Univ. of Coimbra.

This project focuses on the mathematical modeling and endoscopic imaging processing of aberrant polyps and aberrant crypt foci (ACF, which statistically precede polyp formation). Multiscale methods are used in a modeling process which involves partial differential equations and level set methods, to simulate the dynamics and shape of ACF and polyps populations. The project’s aim in image processing is to develop computerized and fast algorithms to identify and assess ACF and polyps patterns, captured in vivo by endoscopy in order to facilitate and speed up screening methods towards CRC prevention.

Nonlinear partial differential equations

Principal Investigator: José Miguel Urbano, Univ. of Coimbra.

Nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) are central in modern applied mathematics, both in view of the significance of the concrete problems they model and the novel techniques that their analysis generates. This project explores some of the new applications of these equations in biomathematics, against eight tasks:

• Regularity for singular/degenerate PDEs
• Numerical ocean and climate modeling
• Nonlinear elliptic systems
• Kinetic equations and BGK-type models
• Problems driven by subelliptic operators
• Drift-diffusion equations
• Free boundary problems
• PDEs involving variable exponents.

Advancement in understanding of these equations can be related to many applications such as the motion of multiphase fluids in porous media, the melting of crushed ice (and phase transitions in general), the behavior of composite materials, the pricing of assets in financial markets, or the quantum drift diffusion in semiconductors.

Reaction-diffusion in porous media

Principal Investigator: José Ferreira, Univ. of Coimbra.

In recent decades, diffusion in porous media has attracted researchers from several disciplines, such as geosciences, environmental sciences, mechanics, biology, chemistry, petroleum engineering, biomedical engineering, physics and mathematics. Diffusion in porous media has applications to problems such as groundwater contamination, diffusion in polymers, and flow in oil reservoirs. The fundamental equation governing diffusion in porous media is the equation of mass conservation, which is of parabolic type. It is established assuming that the dispersive mass flux is given by Fick´s law where the dispersion tensor is assumed to be independent of the concentration and its gradient. It is well-known that this equation gives rise to an infinite speed of propagation. Smallscale and large-scale heterogeneities in porous matrix and/or fluid properties are the main sources of deviations of the so-called Fickian dispersion behavior. In order to overcome this deviation, a certain memory effect should be included in the flux modeling. The aim of this project is to introduce memory effects in the models for fluid flows in porous media characterized by small-scale and large-scale heterogeneities in several contexts.