Engineering a search and rescue application with a wireless sensor network - based localization mechanism

The advent of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies is paving the way for a panoply of new ubiquitous computing applications, some of them with critical requirements. In the ART-WiSe framework, we are designing a two-tiered communication architecture for supporting real-time and reliable communications in WSNs. Within this context, we have been developing a test-bed application, for testing, validating and demonstrating our theoretical findings - a search&rescue/pursuit-evasion application. Basically, a WSN deployment is used to detect, localize and track a target robot and a station controls a rescuer/pursuer robot until it gets close enough to the target robot. This paper describes how this application was engineered, particularly focusing on the implementation of the localization mechanism.

Nuclear medicine technologist education and training in Europe: literature and web-based findings

Purpose - The education and training of a nuclear medicine technologist (NMT) is not homogeneous among European countries, which leads to different scope of practices and, therefore, different technical skills are assigned. The goal of this research was to characterize the education and training of NMT in Europe. Materials and methods - This study was based on a literature research to characterize the education and training of NMT and support the historical evolution of this profession. It was divided into two different phases: the first phase included analysis of scientific articles and the second phase included research of curricula that allow health professionals to work as NMT in Europe. Results - The majority of the countries [N=31 (89%)] offer the NMT curriculum integrated into the high education system and only in four (11%) countries the education is provided by professional schools. The duration in each education system is not equal, varying in professional schools (2-3 years) and high education level system (2-4 years), which means that different European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, such as 240, 230, 222, 210 or 180 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, are attributed to the graduates. The professional title and scope of the practice of NMT are different in different countries in Europe. In most countries of Europe, nuclear medicine training is not specific and curriculum does not demonstrate the Nuclear Medicine competencies performed in clinical practice. Conclusion - The heterogeneity in education and training for NMT is an issue prevalent among European countries. For NMT professional development, there is a huge need to formalize and unify educational and training programmes in Europe.

Design and implementation of a behaviorally typed programming system for web services

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática.

A web-based platform for biosignal visualization and annotation

With the advent of wearable sensing and mobile technologies, biosignals have seen an increasingly growing number of application areas, leading to the collection of large volumes of data. One of the difficulties in dealing with these data sets, and in the development of automated machine learning systems which use them as input, is the lack of reliable ground truth information. In this paper we present a new web-based platform for visualization, retrieval and annotation of biosignals by non-technical users, aimed at improving the process of ground truth collection for biomedical applications. Moreover, a novel extendable and scalable data representation model and persistency framework is presented. The results of the experimental evaluation with possible users has further confirmed the potential of the presented framework.

Factors associated to breastfeeding in the first hour of life: systematic review

OBJECTIVE To identify independent risk factors for non-breastfeeding within the first hour of life.METHODS A systematic review of Medline, LILACS, Scopus, and Web of Science electronic databases, till August 30, 2013, was performed without restrictions on language or date of publishing. Studies that used regression models and provided adjusted measures of association were included. Studies in which the regression model was not specified or those based on specific populations regarding age or the presence of morbidities were excluded.RESULTS The search resulted in 155 articles, from which 18 met the inclusion criteria. These were conducted in Asia (9), Africa (5), and South America (4), between 1999 and 2013. The prevalence of breastfeeding within the first hour of life ranged from 11.4%, in a province of Saudi Arabia, to 83.3% in Sri Lanka. Cesarean delivery was the most consistent risk factor for non-breastfeeding within the first hour of life. “Low family income”, “maternal age less than 25 years”, “low maternal education”, “no prenatal visit”, “home delivery”, “no prenatal guidance on breastfeeding” and “preterm birth” were reported as risk factors in at least two studies.CONCLUSIONS Besides the hospital routines, indicators for low socioeconomic status and poor access to health services were also identified as independent risk factors for non-breastfeeding within the first hour of life. Policies to promote breastfeeding, appropriate to each context, should aim to reduce inequalities in health.

Filters method in direct search optimization, new measures to admissibility

Constrained nonlinear optimization problems are usually solved using penalty or barrier methods combined with unconstrained optimization methods. Another alternative used to solve constrained nonlinear optimization problems is the lters method. Filters method, introduced by Fletcher and Ley er in 2002, have been widely used in several areas of constrained nonlinear optimization. These methods treat optimization problem as bi-objective attempts to minimize the objective function and a continuous function that aggregates the constraint violation functions. Audet and Dennis have presented the rst lters method for derivative-free nonlinear programming, based on pattern search methods. Motivated by this work we have de- veloped a new direct search method, based on simplex methods, for general constrained optimization, that combines the features of the simplex method and lters method. This work presents a new variant of these methods which combines the lters method with other direct search methods and are proposed some alternatives to aggregate the constraint violation functions.

Self-adaptive combination of global tabu search and local search for nonlinear equations

Solving systems of nonlinear equations is a very important task since the problems emerge mostly through the mathematical modelling of real problems that arise naturally in many branches of engineering and in the physical sciences. The problem can be naturally reformulated as a global optimization problem. In this paper, we show that a self-adaptive combination of a metaheuristic with a classical local search method is able to converge to some difficult problems that are not solved by Newton-type methods.

Web-based application programming interface to solve nonlinear optimization problems

Nonlinear Optimization Problems are usual in many engineering fields. Due to its characteristics the objective function of some problems might not be differentiable or its derivatives have complex expressions. There are even cases where an analytical expression of the objective function might not be possible to determine either due to its complexity or its cost (monetary, computational, time, ...). In these cases Nonlinear Optimization methods must be used. An API, including several methods and algorithms to solve constrained and unconstrained optimization problems was implemented. This API can be accessed not only as traditionally, by installing it on the developer and/or user computer, but it can also be accessed remotely using Web Services. As long as there is a network connection to the server where the API is installed, applications always access to the latest API version. Also an Web-based application, using the proposed API, was developed. This application is to be used by users that do not want to integrate methods in applications, and simply want to have a tool to solve Nonlinear Optimization Problems.

Direct-search penalty/barrier methods

In Nonlinear Optimization Penalty and Barrier Methods are normally used to solve Constrained Problems. There are several Penalty/Barrier Methods and they are used in several areas from Engineering to Economy, through Biology, Chemistry, Physics among others. In these areas it often appears Optimization Problems in which the involved functions (objective and constraints) are non-smooth and/or their derivatives are not know. In this work some Penalty/Barrier functions are tested and compared, using in the internal process, Derivative-free, namely Direct Search, methods. This work is a part of a bigger project involving the development of an Application Programming Interface, that implements several Optimization Methods, to be used in applications that need to solve constrained and/or unconstrained Nonlinear Optimization Problems. Besides the use of it in applied mathematics research it is also to be used in engineering software packages.

Comanche: aplicações web estendidas nos clientes

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Experimenting through the web a linear variable differential transformer

Aiming for teaching/learning support in sciences and engineering areas, the Remote Experimentation concept (an E-learning subset) has grown in last years with the development of several infrastructures that enable doing practical experiments from anywhere and anytime, using a simple PC connected to the Internet. Nevertheless, given its valuable contribution to the teaching/learning process, the development of more infrastructures should continue, in order to make available more solutions able to improve courseware contents and motivate students for learning. The work presented in this paper contributes for that purpose, in the specific area of industrial automation. After a brief introduction to the Remote Experimentation concept, we describe a remote accessible lab infrastructure that enables users to conduct real experiments with an important and widely used transducer in industrial automation, named Linear Variable Differential Transformer.

Effect of hole drilling at the overlap on the strength of single-lap joints

Bonded unions are gaining importance in many fields of manufacturing owing to a significant number of advantages to the traditional fastening, riveting, bolting and welding techniques. Between the available bonding configurations, the single-lap joint is the most commonly used and studied by the scientific community due to its simplicity, although it endures significant bending due to the non-collinear load path, which negatively affects its load bearing capabilities. The use of material or geometric changes in single-lap joints is widely documented in the literature to reduce this handicap, acting by reduction of peel and shear peak stresses at the damage initiation sites in structures or alterations of the failure mechanism emerging from local modifications. In this work, the effect of hole drilling at the overlap on the strength of single-lap joints was analyzed experimentally with two main purposes: (1) to check whether or not the anchorage effect of the adhesive within the holes is more preponderant than the stress concentrations near the holes, arising from the sharp edges, and modification of the joints straining behaviour (strength improvement or reduction, respectively) and (2) picturing a real scenario on which the components to be bonded are modified by some external factor (e.g. retrofitting of decaying/old-fashioned fastened unions). Tests were made with two adhesives (a brittle and a ductile one) varying the adherend thickness and the number, layout and diameter of the holes. Experimental testing showed that the joints strength never increases from the un-modified condition, showing a varying degree of weakening, depending on the selected adhesive and hole drilling configuration.

A genetic algorithm for the job shop scheduling with a new local search using Monte Carlo method

This paper presents a methodology for applying scheduling algorithms using Monte Carlo simulation. The methodology is based on a decision support system (DSS). The proposed methodology combines a genetic algorithm with a new local search using Monte Carlo Method. The methodology is applied to the job shop scheduling problem (JSSP). The JSSP is a difficult problem in combinatorial optimization for which extensive investigation has been devoted to the development of efficient algorithms. The methodology is tested on a set of standard instances taken from the literature and compared with others. The computation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The DSS developed can be utilized in a common industrial or construction environment.

Solving nonlinear equations by a tabu search strategy

Solving systems of nonlinear equations is a problem of particular importance since they emerge through the mathematical modeling of real problems that arise naturally in many branches of engineering and in the physical sciences. The problem can be naturally reformulated as a global optimization problem. In this paper, we show that a metaheuristic, called Directed Tabu Search (DTS) [16], is able to converge to the solutions of a set of problems for which the fsolve function of MATLAB® failed to converge. We also show the effect of the dimension of the problem in the performance of the DTS.

Combining global tabu search with local search for solving systems of equalities and inequalities

This papers aims at providing a combined strategy for solving systems of equalities and inequalities. The combined strategy uses two types of steps: a global search step and a local search step. The global step relies on a tabu search heuristic and the local step uses a deterministic search known as Hooke and Jeeves. The choice of step, at each iteration, is based on the level of reduction of the l2-norm of the error function observed in the equivalent system of equations, compared with the previous iteration.