Formación académica
- "Doctor of Philosophy" en Administración de Negocios, con énfasis en Sistemas de Información Gerencial, Graduate School of Business Administration, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.A., agosto 1993.
- "Master of Science" en Ciencias de la Computación, Department of Computer Engineering and Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., agosto 1985.
- Estudios de Maestría en Administración Pública, Programa Instituto Centroamericano de Administración Pública (ICAP) - Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica, de junio 1981 a abril 1982 (29 créditos).
- Licenciatura en Ciencias de la Computación, Escuela de Matemáticas, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Pedro, Costa Rica, febrero 1981.
- Bachillerato en Ciencias de la Computación, Escuela de Matemáticas, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Pedro, Costa Rica, agosto 1980.
Experiencia laboral
- Directora, Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (CITIC), Universidad de Costa Rica, 21 de junio 2012 al 31 de julio 2017.
- Decana del Sistema de Estudios de Posgrado, Universidad de Costa Rica, 30 junio 2008 al 29 junio 2012.
- Vice-Decana del Sistema de Estudios de Posgrado, Universidad de Costa Rica, 14 de noviembre del 2007 al 29 de junio del 2008.
- Directora, Programa de Posgrado en Computación e Informática, Universidad de Costa Rica, 15 de mayo de 1998 al 30 de julio del 2009.
- Representante, Area de Ingeniería ante el Cosejo del Sistema de Estudios de Posgradp, Universidad de Costa Rica, 2002-2004, 2004-2006, 2006-2008.
- Profesora Catedrática, Escuela de Ciencia de la Computación e Informática, Universidad de Costa Rica, julio 1981- al presente.
- Miembro, Comisión de Maestría, Telemática, 1998 hasta 2001.
- Profesora y coordinadora, Programa de Diplomado en Computación Administrativa, Universidad de Costa Rica, desde 1987 hasta julio 1989.
- Investigador I, Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE), dese agosto 1980 a junio 1981.
Proyectos
II Coloquio Costarricense de Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural
Desarrollo de esquemas para certificar autoridades certificadoras y aplicaciones de software en el Sistema Nacional de Certificación Digital
Efecto de alegorías concretas, abstractas y ludificación en visualizaciones de programa
Identificación de políticas públicas para incentivar la participación de las mujeres en el Sector de Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación en Costa Rica
Evaluación de la viabilidad de la producción de modelos anatómicos utilizando tecnologías emergentes 3D
Medición automatizada del tamaño funcional para aplicaciones de software transaccionales
Plataforma biocomputacional de análisis de datos genómicos para superar la resistencia a la terapia contra el cáncer y las infecciones microbianas
Creación de una visualización de programa para el aprendizaje constructivista de conceptos complejos de C++
XI Congreso Iberoamericano de Ciencia Tecnología y Género
Desarrollo de un modelo basado en extracción de características del texto para clasificar comentarios de opinión en lengua española según su polaridad
Foro Mundial de Tecnologías de Información WITFOR 2016
I Coloquio Costarricense de Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural
Evaluación de la gestión de las unidades académicas de la Universidad de Costa Rica por medio de técnicas cuantitativas
Evaluación de algoritmos para análisis automático de sentimiento asociado a comentarios en español publicados en medios de opinión en línea
Incentivando el aprendizaje de un lenguaje de programación en estudiantes de ciencias de la computación a través de un videojuego para dispositivos móviles
Creación de la Nube Académica Computacional de la UCR (NAC)
Desarrollo de una plataforma experimental para minería de opinión a partir de foros en línea
Análisis comparado de las políticas públicas de gobierno digital de Costa Rica y Chile entre los años 2002 y 2010
Evaluación de algoritmos de computación evolutiva para el entrenamiento de redes de neuronas artificiales, aplicada a la detección temprana de Alzheimer
Un juez en línea usable para la enseñanza y aprendizaje de la programación concurrente
Diseño automático de hiperparámetros en redes neuronales artificiales profundas mediante computación evolutiva
Apoyo a la creación de grupos de investigación y a la divulgación de la investigación
Sistema de soporte de decisiones a la agricultura inteligente que incorpore aspectos de automatización de la fertirrigación y recomendaciones al agricultor
Publicaciones
Smart Cities in Latin America
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence
Visualizing IT Budget to Improve Stakeholder Communication in the Decision Making Process
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems
An applied methodology for information security and assurance: A study case for cloud computing
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST), 2014 9th International Conference for
Typifying Mechanisms for Gender Digital Equity in Latin America
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: ICT for Promoting Human Development and Protecting the Environment
Human aspects of ubiquitous computing: a study addressing willingness to use it and privacy issues
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing
Use of Emerging 3D Printing and Modeling Technologies in the Health Domain
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence
Towards Smart Notifications - An Adaptive Approach Using Smart Devices
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence
Evolución en la Carrera Profesional de los Graduados en Computación en Costa Rica - Un análisis de género
Tipo de publicación: Conference Proceedings
Publicado en: VIII Latin American Women in Computing Congress
Learning principles in program visualizations: A systematic literature review
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
Promoting Quality e-Government Solutions by Applying a Comprehensive Information Assurance Model: Use Cases for Digital Signature
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: ICT for Promoting Human Development and Protecting the Environment
GQM+Strategies and IDEAL: A Combination of Approaches to Achieve Continuous SPI
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Product-Focused Software Process Improvement
Understanding Notional Machines through Traditional Teaching with Conceptual Contraposition and Program Memory Tracing
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: CLEI Electronic Journal
Mobile Internet Tariff Models: Technical or Political Decisions? A Costa Rican Case Study
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: ICT for Promoting Human Development and Protecting the Environment
Experiences Designing and Validating a Gamified Development Environment for Learning Programming
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Proceedings of the 14th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology
Student understanding of the C++ notional machine through traditional teaching with conceptual contraposition and program memory tracing
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Latin American Computing Conference
Characterizing Ubiquitous Systems Privacy Issues by Gender and Age
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Ambient Assisted Living. ICT-based Solutions in Real Life Situations
Historia de vida de tres mujeres pioneras de la computación en Costa Rica
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Historias de las TIC en América Latina y el Caribe: inicios, desarrollos y rupturas
Cloud Management Platform Selection: a Case Study in a University Setting
Tipo de publicación: Conference Proceedings
Publicado en: International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization
¿En quién o en qué confían las mujeres para tomar la decisión de estudiar Computación?
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: Novática
Infosec-Tree Model: An Applied, In-depth, and Structured Information Security Model for Computer and Network Systems
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transaction
Análisis de políticas públicas desde los actores: un modelo de cuantificación aplicado a casos de Gobierno Digital en Costa Rica y Chile
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: Anuario Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos
Playing with Metaphors: A Methodology to Design Video Games for Learning Abstract Programming Concepts
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Innovation & Technology in Computer Science Education
Tablet Use Patterns and Drivers of User Satisfaction: A Gender Approach
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Human Computer Interaction
Digital government development: The analytical perspective based on actors for the case of State procurement in Costa Rica
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: 2012 XXXVIII Conferencia Latinoamericana En Informatica (CLEI)
An Analytical Model to Measure Feasibility of E-Government Policies
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES & SOCIETY (ITS 2012)
Gender gap in computer science programs from Costa Rican Public universities
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Informatica (CLEI), 2012 XXXVIII Conferencia Latinoamericana en Informatica (CLEI)
Differences in Perception of Computer Sciences and Informatics due to Gender and Experience
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: CLEI Electronic Journal
Are women becoming extinct in the Computer Science and Informatics Program?
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: CLEI Electronic Journal
Diferencias de percepción sobre Computación e Informatica debidas a género y experiencia
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Proceedings of the Conferencia Latinoamericana de Informática, CLEI
¿Se estarán extinguiendo las mujeres de la carrera de Computación e Informática?
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Conferencia Latinoamericana de Informática, CLEI
Typifying Data Required for the Development of Smart Agriculture Systems
Descripción:
Smart agriculture is an active research field. Currently, many researchers are working on the construction of platforms directed to improve efficiency, crop processes, and data awareness. However, it is common that developers focus on data monitoring instead of the data relevance for decision making or the costs associated with the creation of monitoring platforms. In this paper, we present a classification of the data required by researchers on the construction of decision-support systems applied to smart agriculture processes. By using this classification, the user can define which data are relevant according to the characteristics of the problem that needs to be solved.We have applied the classification to data recollected in a study case conducted by the end of last year. Besides, we identify a list of agronomic and climatic variables commonly used in the construction of decision support systems. We apply the classification to this list of variables as an example for researchers. As a conclusion, this typification permits the researcher to identify data that has to be monitored and controlled, and data that does not have to be measured, the later based on the data characteristics and utility for the farmer.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)
Alzheimer’s Disease Early Detection Using a Low Cost Three-Dimensional Densenet-121 Architecture
Descripción:
The objective of this work is to detect Alzheimer’s disease using Magnetic Resonance Imaging. For this, we use a three-dimensional densenet-121 architecture. With the use of only freely available tools, we obtain good results: a deep neural network showing metrics of 87% accuracy, 87% sensitivity (micro-average), 88% specificity (micro-average), and 92% AUROC (micro-average) for the task of classifying five different classes (disease stages). The use of tools available for free means that this work can be replicated in developing countries.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Effects of oral metaphors and allegories on programming problem solving
Descripción:
Metaphors of ordinary concepts are intensively used in computer science for naming abstract concepts and for designing users interfaces. Metaphors are mappings from a source domain (e.g., a stream) to a target domain (e.g., a sequence of bytes). Typically computing phenomena are explained using incoherent discourses at the source domain, formed by metaphors taken from a diversity of origins. Nonetheless, versatility of metaphors allows for the creation of coherent discourses in the origin domain that map the target computing discourse, and we call them allegories. The limited number of existing studies about this topic has compared only textual allegories, visual allegories, and the traditional unconnected metaphors. Although their findings are heterogeneous, equal effectiveness is the most frequent empirical result between these three types of metaphors. Furthermore, we have not found any study about oral allegories, in spite of oral being the most used modality for metaphors in computer science education. This article experimentally compares the effects of oral allegories and oral metaphors on a complex problem‐solving task. As in previous studies, our results did not find any significant differences on support or detriment of oral allegories. Our results support new metaphor theories posing that the context significantly influences the metaphors’ efficacy, and encourages future research about the interaction between context and allegories.
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: Computer Applications in Engineering Education
A Precise Layout Manager for Vector Graphics
Descripción:
Automated layout is the use of software to determine the positions and sizes of visual elements that are part of an information presentation. As the amount of data that computers are able to process increases, automatic layout becomes more necessary. During the process of creating a program visualization, the authors needed a precise layout manager for scalable vector graphics that supported layers and animations. A literature review revealed the lack of a layout manager that satisfies these requirements. This paper reports the creation of a layout manager that uses floating-point arithmetic for precise and imperative arrangement of visual elements, that may be useful for other visual applications facing similar requirements.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: 2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)
Early Detection of Diseases in Precision Agriculture Processes Supported by Technology
Descripción:
One of the biggest challenges for farmers is the prevention of disease appearance on crops. Governments around the world control border product entry to reduce the number of foreign diseases affecting local producers. Evenmore, it is also important to reduce the spread of crop diseases as quickly as possible and in early stages of propagation, to enable farmers to attack them on time, or to remove the affected plants. In this research, we propose the use of convolutional neural networks to detect diseases in horticultural crops. We compare the results of disease classification in images of plant leaves, in terms of performance, time execution, and classifier size. In the analysis, we implement two distinct classifiers, a densenet-161 pre-trained model and a custom created model. We concluded that for disease detection in tomato crops, our custom model has better execution time and size, and the classification performance is acceptable. Therefore, the custom model could be useful to use to create a solution that helps small farmers in rural areas in resource-limited mobile devices.
Tipo de publicación: Book Chapter
Publicado en: Advances in Sustainability Science and Technology
Online Judge Support for Programming Teaching
Descripción:
Online programming judges are considered useful and sometimes indispensable tools to support competitive programming, professionals' recruiting, and programming education. In this last field, the scientific literature on these tools focuses on the learners' needs, but neglects the requirements of the professors, even though they are who mainly decide whether or not an educational tool is adopted in the courses they teach. This article collected 132 functional requirements for educative online judges, from the scientific literature and programming teachers with experience in the use of this type of tool. To know the degree of support, the requirements were grouped into 27 categories, and a requirements verification was performed with four available educative online judges reported in a recent systematic literature review. A low degree of satisfaction of requirements was found. This result encourages future research to create tools that better support teaching-learning processes and the requirements collected are a useful contribution as a starting point for such research.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: 2020 XLVI Latin American Computing Conference (CLEI)
Common Causes and Effects of Technical Debt in Costa Rica: InsighTD Survey Replication
Descripción:
Technical debt is a concept used to describe technical decisions that can benefit companies in the short term but can produce costs and software quality issues in the long term. Technical debt management can help enterprise profitability, sustainability, and the software industry's credibility. This paper presents a replication of the InsighTD survey (a globally distributed family of industrial surveys on causes and effects of TD), focusing on Costa Rica and comparing other regional countries. In total, 145 practitioners from the Costa Rican IT industry participated. Results show that the leading cause of technical debt is not technical (not only in Costa Rica but also in the region). On the other hand, the main effects reported are delivery delay and general dissatisfaction of the parties involved. A comparative study of InsighTD survey results in various countries is also included.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: 2021 XLVII Latin American Computing Conference (CLEI)
When One Wireless Technology is Not Enough: A Network Architecture for Precision Agriculture Using LoRa, Wi-Fi, and LTE
Descripción:
The world population will reach nearly 10 billion people by 2050, according to the United Nations. Therefore, more food to supply the world's demand will be required in the following years. Precision agriculture emerges as an option to satisfy the growing demand. In smart farming, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are crucial in the deployment of sensors in crop fields. Precision agriculture includes crop monitoring and fertigation control. Monitoring and control have distinct network requirements. While monitoring stations deployment requires long-range networks, control stations have other requirements like low latency. For that reason, the use of a combination of WSN is necessary. In this paper, we present an option of network architecture for precision agriculture projects. The architecture includes the use of LoRa for monitoring stations and Wi-Fi/LTE for control stations. Currently, we are working on smart fertigation in greenhouses. For the architecture, we consider the typical requirements for smart farming projects, but also our project’s requirements.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Intelligent Sustainable Systems
Designing a Context-Aware Smart Notifications System for Precision Agriculture
Descripción:
Smart farming solutions seek to help farmers in their daily activities. Their use has shown that it is beneficial for farmers to be aware of the distinct variables affecting the production. For this reason, having alerts and notifications in monitoring and control platforms is crucial. However, in some circumstances, farmers cannot attend to the messages delivered through traditional mechanisms, making it impossible for them to be informed at the right moment. In this paper, we present the design evaluation of an intelligent context-aware smart notifications system for precision agriculture. We consider using distinct notification mechanisms to improve the delivery of notifications to the farmers. We carry out an anticipated user experience evaluation to assess the system’s design and validate the use of the notification mechanisms in distinct scenarios. A total of 48 potential users from Spain and Costa Rica participated in the evaluation. The results show that our proposed system can be very helpful in supporting farmers to be aware of the state of crops. In addition, non-traditional notification mechanisms can potentially keep the farmers informed without affecting their daily activities. Costa Rican potential users value the system’s novelty more than Spanish users.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: Proceedings of the International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing Ambient Intelligence (UCAmI 2022)
Social Network Analysis for Automatic Ranking of Political Stakeholders: a Case Study
Descripción:
This article exposes the way in which the creation of a new method for calculating the popularity of stake holders in social networks can support political data analysis experts. The definition of a new formula for estimating popularity allowed us to have a new method that, together with other previously existing ones, allows us to build a multidimensional interpretation of reality. The construction of a method that would seem like a computational scientific curiosity has significant impacts for experts who carry out political analysis. The new ranking algorithm called BOPRank made it possible to identify political actors in a different way than known algorithms. While a wellknown algorithm showed popularity as a result of the work of campaign teams on social networks, the new algorithm reflected popularity obtained as a result of the reaction of the public on social networks.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: 2022 XVLIII Latin American Computer Conference (CLEI)
Making Technical Debt Visible using Hybrid Sankey Diagrams: An Industrial Case Study
Descripción:
Context: Technical debt (TD) is a challenge for companies who develop software on which their critical operations depend. To properly manage TD, it is necessary to make it visible to the different stakeholders involved to support informed decisions. Objective: To validate a TD visualization approach based on hybrid Sankey diagrams that makes the TD visible by showing (a) technical and business aspects, and (b) the flow of value and TD impacts. This approach regards visualizations as boundary objects. Method: We performed a multi-case study in a large multi-industry state-owned company. The objective was to validate the effectiveness of such visualizations and to explore their possible uses in TD management. We first used a retrospective case study on a TD decision-making scenario and, later, visualization usage scenarios using focus groups to evaluate its usefulness. Results: The results suggest that the proposed approach: (a) provides a structured process for systematic TD visualization to help the decision-making process; (b) enables the communication at knowledge boundaries between stakeholders to make informed decisions; (c) uses flow representations that are important for assessing the impact in multiple functional areas; and (d) enables documentation and reuse. Conclusion: The study results suggest that TD decision-making events can benefit from using our TD visualizations based on hybrid Sankey diagrams as boundary objects to portray the impact of TD in business, services, and technical aspects.
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering
Designing a Diagnosis Instrument to Determine e-Commerce Readiness for Micro and Small Enterprises in Rural Areas
Descripción:
Electronic commerce, as a new way of commercialization, is not only a business decision, since not all companies, nor all consumers in a region, are technologically prepared to adopt electronic commerce. To implement this type of trade, companies should carry out a diagnostic study, both to know if the technological resources are available internally, and to determine if the potential clients are also ready and willing to use the channel.
From this perspective, this work seeks to design an instrument that allows diagnosing the e-Commerce readiness of micro and small businesses, and their potential consumers in rural areas. An iterative process to create the diagnosis instruments was used. It involved iterations of design and evaluation stages. Academic experts with extensive experience in instrument design carried out the first evaluation; the second iteration was evaluated in a pilot field study where 6 companies and 10 consumers from similar regions participated. Finally, in a case study in the canton of Río Cuarto de Alajuela, 29 companies and 261 consumers from the region participated in this study. The diagnosis highlights that most of these companies express that they are not technologically prepared to implement e-commerce, while most of the participating consumers indicated that they do feel technologically prepared to use these platforms.
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: CLEI Electronic Journal
Taxonomy of Malicious URL Detection Techniques
Descripción:
Malicious URLs are often used by phishing campaigns, botnets and other attacks. Indeed, DNS traffic is necessary for the Internet to function correctly, which means that this data flow cannot be blocked. For these reasons, detecting malicious URLs is both important, challenging and still an open research problem. There are two types of techniques used to detect malicious URLs: rules-based and machine learning-based. The traditional, rules-based techniques rely on blacklists and heuristics. These techniques struggle to keep up with a rapidly changing array of malicious URLs. Therefore, machine learning-based techniques have emerged. Both detection techniques rely on URL characteristics such as length, number of vowels and others to classify them as legitimate or malicious. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a taxonomy of detection techniques and to point out which URL characteristics are used by each method. While surveys on the topic exist, a precise mapping between the detection methods and the characteristics is not available. We also compare these techniques, highlighting that machine learning-based techniques are more complex to implement but better at keeping up with rapidly incoming new malicious URLs. In contrast, rules-based techniques are simpler and easier to implement, but they struggle to update fast enough to identify new malicious URLs.
Tipo de publicación: Conference Paper
Publicado en: International Conference on Information Technology & Systems
Usability assessment of a greenhouse context-aware alert system for small-scale farmers
Descripción:
In the dynamic landscape of modern agriculture, integrating technology holds immense potential to enhance efficiency and productivity for small-scale farmers. This study presents a user-centric evaluation of an intelligent context-aware alert system, tailored for small-scale greenhouse farming. We employed standardized questionnaires, including the NASA Task Load Index and the User Experience Questionnaire, to assess the system's perceived utility, mental workload, and overall user experience. Our findings reveal the high perceived utility of the system among farmers. Farmers participating in the assessment indicated a strong intention to utilize the system for crop monitoring. Moreover, the system demonstrated a moderate mental workload, suggesting ease of use and potential acceptance by users. Our evaluation highlighted an excellent user experience, with scores ranging from very good to extremely good across all dimensions. Furthermore, user preferences for alert mechanisms underscored the importance of adaptable notifications, with voice and text alerts favored for comprehensive information dissemination. Light and voice alerts were preferred during manual tasks. This study highlights the significance of user-centered design in agricultural technology, offering insights to enhance the usability and the adoption of alert systems in small-scale farming environments. The positive reception of the system's utility and the moderate mental workload suggest that such technology can be readily adopted by farmers, thereby improving monitoring and management practices in greenhouse farming. The preference for adaptable alert mechanisms further emphasizes the need for flexible and context-sensitive solutions in agricultural technology.
Tipo de publicación: Journal Article
Publicado en: Front. Comput. Sci.