Research
Main Research Interests
I'm particularly interested in research themes related to natural language and spatial / spatio-temporal information.
The work builds on a variety of research areas in computer science, including:
Artificial Intelligence (e.g., Knowledge Representation, Automated Reasoning, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing);
Advanced Databases;
Conceptual Modelling;
The main thread of my research encompasses the following fields:
Natural Language Processing applied to different domains.
Text mining;
Text classification;
Dialog Representation.
Geospatial Research:
Linguistic aspects of space and space-time;
Spatial / Spatio-temporal Knowledge Representation & Reasoning;
Handling Spatial Vagueness and Uncertainty;
Geospatial Ontologies;
Commonsense representations of space; cognitive and philosophical aspects of space;
The work is applied to different (broader) fields of research, such as:
Volunteered Geographic Information - VGI;
Geographic Information Retrieval - GIR (toponym resolution, spatio-temporal indexing, relevance ranking, query formulation and visualisation);
Geographic Information Systems - GIS (spatial and spatio-temporal data modelling, user-aware/context-aware systems, user interaction and visualisation, satellite image processing);
Modelling Geospatial Semantics (including event/process modelling for dynamic GIS, reasoning over multi-granularities);
Intelligent Transportation Systems - ITS;
Smart Cities;
Robotics, Industrial Automation, Computer Vision (e.g., event detection in video);
Other Research Interests
Many of the fields investigated have characteristics that are independent from space and time. Thus I'm also generally interested in:
Everything that involves formal representations of knowledge;
Ontology development, semantic integration & interoperability, and semantic technologies in general;
Semantic Web in General;
Social Network Analysis, Social Media Mining, Text Mining;
Information Retrieval in General;
Natural Language Processing;
Data Modelling and Management;
Databases (Multimedia DBs, Distributed DBs, Datawarehouse, Data Mining);
Digital Image Processing (with focus on Satellite Image Classification);
Students
(I welcome enquiries from potential MSc and PhD students interested in topics related to my research)
PhD Students:
Alana Viana Borges da Silva Neo (2022-2026) - ongoing
Natural Language Processing (Applied to Education)
Lucas Raniére Juvino Santos (2021-2025) - ongoing
Natural Language Processing and Social Media Analysis
Salatiel Dantas Silva (2020-2024) - ongoing
Natural Language Processing (Applied to Spatial Domain)
Anderson Felinto Barbosa (2019 - did not complete)
Natural Language Processing (Applied to Education)
Erick John Fidelis Costa (2018-2022) - ongoing
Computational Thinking, Natural Language Processing, Education
Larissa Lucena Vasconcelos (2018-2022)
Natural Language Processing, Text Classification, Text Flows
Current position: professor at IFPB.
Caio Libânio de Melo Jerônimo (2017-2021)
Natural Language Processing, Text Classification
AI Analyst at NeoPTO, Researcher at UFCG
Maxwell Guimarães de Oliveira (2013-2017)
Volunteered Geographic Information, Geographic Information Retrieval, Social Network Mining;
Current position: Professor at UFCG.
Francisco Dantas Nobre Neto (2013-2017)
Intelligent Transportation Systems, Route and Destination Prediction;
Current position: Professor at IFPB.
MSc Students:
Bryan Khelven da Silva Barbosa (2022-2024) - ongoing
Natural Language Processing (Applied to Education)
Gabriel Joseph Ramos Rafael (2019-2021)
Geographic Information Retrieval, Spatial Search Algorithms, Big Spatial Data
Current Position: Data Scientist at INDT
Daniyel Negromonte Nascimento Rocha (2019-2022) - ongoing
Natural Language Processing (Applied to Education)
Tales Tenório de Souza Pimentel (2018 - did not complete)
Intelligent Transportation Systems, Trajectory Analysis
José Lucas Silva Freitas (2018-2021)
Natural Language Processing (applied to spatial domain)
Current position: Software Engineer at Amazon.
Júlio Henrique Rocha (2014 - 2016)
Geographic Information Retrieval, Social Network Analysis;
Current position: Software Engineer at UOL.
José Amilton Accioli Filho (2014-2016)
Spatial Big Data, Data Integration;
Current position: Software Engineer at Amazon.
Caio Libânio de Melo Jerônimo (2015-2017)
Spatial Analysis, Social Network Analysis, Urban GIS;
Current position: AI Analyst at NeoPTO, Researcher at UFCG.
Igor Gomes de Meneses Cruz (2015-2017)
Volunteered Geographic Information, Navigation
Current position: Professor at UEPB.