[Journal] New member introduction

[Michel Ferreira]

Hello,

I've just subscribed to this list and have been encouraged to introduce
myself. My name is Michel Ferreira and I'm an assistant professor at the
Computer Science Department at University of Porto, in Portugal. My
research interests have involved mainly Logic Programming Systems, which
have a strong tradition at our department. We have been developing Yap,
one of the most efficient and well-known Prolog systems. Spatial data
handling through logic programming is a relatively new area, founded on
the basis of constraint databases and spatial datalog. In this context,
Yap has been extended to provide a geographic information system, named
Spatial-Yap, based on logic querying and spatial logic terms.

We have been directing the systems we develop to the application area of
Intelligent Transportation Systems, particularly in the modeling and
evaluation of wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems. One of
our most interesting projects, named DIVERT (Development of
Inter-Vehicular Reliable Telematics), has developed a sophisticated
simulation framework, combining a layer of wireless communications with
a layer of traffic microscopic simulation, providing a valuable platform
for the evaluation of cooperative routing protocols and for road safety
applications. I invite you to visit a small video of this platform
working over the road network of the city of Porto, second largest in
Portugal, available at http://myddas.dcc.fc.up.pt/divert/

Best regards,

Michel Ferreira