Radar Based Collision detection developments on USV ROAZ II

This work presents the integration of obstacle detection and analysis capabilities in a coherent and advanced C&C framework allowing mixed-mode control in unmanned surface systems. The collision avoidance work has been successfully integrated in an operational autonomous surface vehicle and demonstrated in real operational conditions. We present the collision avoidance system, the ROAZ autonomous surface vehicle and the results obtained at sea tests. Limitations of current COTS radar systems are also discussed and further research directions are proposed towards the development and integration of advanced collision avoidance systems taking in account the different requirements in unmanned surface vehicles.

Kalman tracking linear predictor for vowel intelligibility enhancement on european portuguese HMM based speech synthesis

The recent developments on Hidden Markov Models (HMM) based speech synthesis showed that this is a promising technology fully capable of competing with other established techniques. However some issues still lack a solution. Several authors report an over-smoothing phenomenon on both time and frequencies which decreases naturalness and sometimes intelligibility. In this work we present a new vowel intelligibility enhancement algorithm that uses a discrete Kalman filter (DKF) for tracking frame based parameters. The inter-frame correlations are modelled by an autoregressive structure which provides an underlying time frame dependency and can improve time-frequency resolution. The system’s performance has been evaluated using objective and subjective tests and the proposed methodology has led to improved results.

Qualidade, higiene e segurança na gestão das empresas

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Auditoria. Orientada por: Mestre Alcina Dias

How to feel “in love" with math: a MOOC experience

In the past few years we have witnessed astonishing developments on distance learning tools, in particular on Open Educational Resources (OER) such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). In this paper we present the “Mathematics without STRESS”, a MOOC Project, which has been a collaborative volunteer effort that brought together professors, from four schools of the Polytechnic Institute of Oporto (IPP), in Portugal. Some concepts directly associated with MOOC and their quickly growing popularity are complemented with a discussion of some particular MOOC characterizations. The design process of this project is revealed by focusing on the MOOC structure we used, as well as on the several types of course materials that were produced. At last, we undertake a short discussion about some of the problems, achievements and challenges met throughout this project development, giving a special attention to the motivational aim of this work - hoping to contribute to a change in the way of teaching and learning Mathematics is seen and practiced nowadays.