Intelligent behavior in a Cyber-Ambient training system for control center operators

This paper deals with the application of an intelligent tutoring approach to delivery training in diagnosis procedures of a Power System. In particular, the mechanisms implemented by the training tool to support the trainees are detailed. This tool is part of an architecture conceived to integrate Power Systems tools in a Power System Control Centre, based on an Ambient Intelligent paradigm. The present work is integrated in the CITOPSY project which main goal is to achieve a better integration between operators and control room applications, considering the needs of people, customizing requirements and forecasting behaviors.

Shopping center tracking and recommendation systems

Shopping centers present a rich and heterogeneous environment, where IT systems can be implemented in order to support the needs of its actors. However, due to the environment complexity, several feasibility issues emerge when designing both the logical and physical architecture of such systems. Additionally, the system must be able to cope with the individual needs of each actor, and provide services that are easily adopted by them, taking into account several sociological and economical aspects. In this sense, we present an overview of current support systems for shopping center environments. From this overview, a high-level model of the domain (involving actors and services) is described along with challenges and possible features in the context of current Semantic Web, mobile device and sensor technologies.

Magnetic resonance imaging of the vocal tract: techniques and applications

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging has been used to analyse and evaluate the vocal tract shape through different techniques and with promising results in several fields. Our purpose is to demonstrate the relevance of MR and image processing for the vocal tract study. The extraction of contours of the air cavities allowed the set - up of a number of 3D reconstruction image stacks by means of the combination of orthogonally oriented sets of slices for e ach articulatory gesture, as a new approach to solve the expected spatial under sampling of the imaging process. In result these models give improved information for the visualization of morphologic and anatomical aspects and are useful for partial measure ments of the vocal tract shape in different situations. Potential use can be found in Medical and therapeutic applications as well as in acoustic articulatory speech modelling.

Modelling and segmentation of the vocal tract during speech production by using deformable models in magnetic resonance images

The first and second authors would like to thank the support of the PhD grants with references SFRH/BD/28817/2006 and SFRH/PROTEC/49517/2009, respectively, from Funda����o para a Ci��ncia e Tecnol ogia (FCT). This work was partially done in the scope of the project ���Methodologies to Analyze Organs from Complex Medical Images ��� Applications to Fema le Pelvic Cavity���, wi th reference PTDC/EEA- CRO/103320/2008, financially supported by FCT.

Effects of home environment and center-based child care quality on children���s

This study examined the joint effects of home environment and center-based child care quality on children���s language, communication, and early literacy development, while also considering prior developmental level. Participants were 95 children (46 boys), assessed as toddlers (mean age = 26.33 months;Time 1) and preschoolers (mean age = 68.71 months; Time 2) and their families. At both times, children attended center-based child care classrooms in the metropolitan area of Porto, Portugal. Results from hierarchical linear models indicated that home environment and preschool quality, but not center-based toddler child care quality, were associated with children���s language and literacy outcomes at Time 2. Moreover, the quality of preschool classrooms moderated the association between home environment quality and children���s language and early literacy skills ��� but not communication skills ��� at Time 2, suggesting the positive cumulative effects of home environment and preschool quality. Findings further support the existence of a detrimental effect of low preschool quality on children���s language and early literacy outcomes: positive associations among home environment quality and children���s developmental outcomes were found to reduce substantially when children attended low-quality preschool classrooms.

Simulation of the magnetic induction vector of a magnetic core to be used in FFC NMR relaxometry

This paper is a contribution for the assessment and comparison of magnet properties based on magnetic field characteristics particularly concerning the magnetic induction uniformity in the air gaps. For this aim, a solver was developed and implemented to determine the magnetic field of a magnetic core to be used in Fast Field Cycling (FFC) Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) relaxometry. The electromagnetic field computation is based on a 2D finite-element method (FEM) using both the scalar and the vector potential formulation. Results for the magnetic field lines and the magnetic induction vector in the air gap are presented. The target magnetic induction is 0.2 T, which is a typical requirement of the FFC NMR technique, which can be achieved with a magnetic core based on permanent magnets or coils. In addition, this application requires high magnetic induction uniformity. To achieve this goal, a solution including superconducting pieces is analyzed. Results are compared with a different FEM program.

Building a microscope for the data center

Managing the physical and compute infrastructure of a large data center is an embodiment of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS). The physical parameters of the data center (such as power, temperature, pressure, humidity) are tightly coupled with computations, even more so in upcoming data centers, where the location of workloads can vary substantially due, for example, to workloads being moved in a cloud infrastructure hosted in the data center. In this paper, we describe a data collection and distribution architecture that enables gathering physical parameters of a large data center at a very high temporal and spatial resolutionof the sensor measurements. We think this is an important characteristic to enable more accurate heat-flow models of the data center andwith them, _and opportunities to optimize energy consumption. Havinga high resolution picture of the data center conditions, also enables minimizing local hotspots, perform more accurate predictive maintenance (pending failures in cooling and other infrastructure equipment can be more promptly detected) and more accurate billing. We detail this architecture and define the structure of the underlying messaging system that is used to collect and distribute the data. Finally, we show the results of a preliminary study of a typical data center radio environment.

Application of fractional controllers for quad rotor

This paper studies the application of fractional algorithms in the control of a quad-rotor rotorcraft. The development of a flight simulator provide the evaluation of the controller algorithm. Several basic maneuvers are investigated, namely the elevation and the position control.

Do outro lado da linha: impacto dos hor��rios de trabalho de trabalhadores de call center nas necessidades de recupera����o ��� engagement e esfor��o compensat��rio

Disserta����o apresentada ao Instituto Polit��cnico do Porto para obten����o do Grau de Mestre em Gest��o das Organiza����es, Ramo Gest��o de Empresas Orientada por: Prof�� Doutora Maria Alexandra Pacheco Ribeiro da Costa Esta disserta����o inclui as cr��ticas e sugest��es feitas pelo J��ri.

Dete����o e extin����o de inc��ndio em Data Center

O presente trabalho enquadra-se na tem��tica de seguran��a contra inc��ndio em edif��cios e consiste num estudo de caso de projeto de dete����o e extin����o de inc��ndio num Data Center. Os objetivos deste trabalho resumem-se �� realiza����o de um estudo sobre o estado da arte da extin����o e dete����o autom��tica de inc��ndio, ao desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de software de apoio a projetos de extin����o por agentes gasosos, como tamb��m �� realiza����o de um estudo e uma an��lise da prote����o contra inc��ndios em Data Centers. Por ��ltimo foi efetuado um estudo de caso. S��o abordados os conceitos de fogo e de inc��ndio, em que um estudo te��rico �� tem��tica foi desenvolvido, descrevendo de que forma pode o fogo ser originado e respetivas consequ��ncias. Os regulamentos nacionais relativos �� Seguran��a Contra Inc��ndios em Edif��cios (SCIE) s��o igualmente abordados, com especial foco nos Sistemas Autom��ticos de Dete����o de Inc��ndio (SADI) e nos Sistemas Autom��ticos de Extin����o de Inc��ndio (SAEI), as normas nacionais e internacionais relativas a esta tem��tica tamb��m s��o mencionadas. Pelo facto de serem muito relevantes para o desenvolvimento deste trabalho, os sistemas de dete����o de inc��ndio s��o exaustivamente abordados, mencionando caracter��sticas de equipamentos de dete����o, t��cnicas mais utilizadas como tamb��m quais os aspetos a ter em considera����o no dimensionamento de um SADI. Quanto aos meios de extin����o de inc��ndio foram mencionados quais os mais utilizados atualmente, as suas vantagens e a que tipo de fogo se aplicam, com especial destaque para os SAEI com utiliza����o de gases inertes, em que foi descrito como deve ser dimensionado um sistema deste tipo. Foi tamb��m efetuada a caracteriza����o dos Data Centers para que seja poss��vel entender quais as suas funcionalidades, a import��ncia da sua exist��ncia e os aspetos gerais de uma prote����o contra inc��ndio nestas instala����es. Por ��ltimo, um estudo de caso foi desenvolvido, um SADI foi projetado juntamente com um SAEI que utiliza azoto como g��s de extin����o. As escolhas e os sistemas escolhidos foram devidamente justificados, tendo em conta os regulamentos e normas em vigor.

A microscope for the data center

Nowadays, data centers are large energy consumers and the trend for next years is expected to increase further, considering the growth in the order of cloud services. A large portion of this power consumption is due to the control of physical parameters of the data center (such as temperature and humidity). However, these physical parameters are tightly coupled with computations, and even more so in upcoming data centers, where the location of workloads can vary substantially due, for example, to workloads being moved in the cloud infrastructure hosted in the data center. Therefore, managing the physical and compute infrastructure of a large data center is an embodiment of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS). In this paper, we describe a data collection and distribution architecture that enables gathering physical parameters of a large data center at a very high temporal and spatial resolution of the sensor measurements. We think this is an important characteristic to enable more accurate heat-flow models of the data center and with them, find opportunities to optimize energy consumptions. Having a high-resolution picture of the data center conditions, also enables minimizing local hot-spots, perform more accurate predictive maintenance (failures in all infrastructure equipments can be more promptly detected) and more accurate billing. We detail this architecture and define the structure of the underlying messaging system that is used to collect and distribute the data. Finally, we show the results of a preliminary study of a typical data center radio environment.

A potentiometric magnetic immunoassay for rapid detection of Salmonella typhimurium

Potentiometric detection with homemade polymeric membrane microelectrodes was coupled to a magnetic sandwich immunoassay for Salmonella typhimurium determination. Cadmium and sodium ion selective electrodes were used respectively as indicator and pseudo-reference electrodes and were prepared in pipette tips to allow potentiometric measurements in microliter sample volumes. In the proposed method, the concentration of S. typhimurium was proportional to the amount of cadmium released upon dissolution of a CdS nanoparticle labeled to the secondary detection antibody. The limit of detection was 2 cells per 100 ��L. The immunomagnetic assay with potentiometric detection is suitable for sensitive and rapid (average total time per assay of 75 minutes) detection of S. typhimurium in milk samples. The proposed method is easy to perform, safe, sensitive, and low cost and has potential for in situ analysis.