Mónica Costa

Signal processing interpolation educational workbench

This article presents an educational tool to be used in signal processing interpolation‐related subjects. The aim is to contribute to the better consolidation of acquired theoretical knowledge, allowing students to test signal reconstruction algorithms and visualize the results obtained by the usage of such algorithms, and how several parameters affect their convergence and performance.

Handheld devices as actors in domotic monitoring system

This paper describes the first stage of a prototype that is being developed using a personal digital assistant (PDA) and Bluetooth communication to build an information system to supervise automated robotic maintenance systems. This work is being done under collaboration between different university departments with different specialties. The work focuses on the programming of PDA devices and its usage in monitoring systems with domotic applicability. One of the desired goals is to apply new technologies for deploying an information system on mobile and wireless devices. The first results, system architecture and main blocks are presented in this paper

Flour quality control using image processing

This document presents the description of an application for the automatic visual inspection of flour quality. The flour quality depends on the number of impurities detected in the flour after a predefined settling time. The software was developed with IMAQ Vision for LabVTEW software-developing tool and it uses a commercial camera as image acquisition device. The paper along its sections describes the main system blocks. An illustrative example is used for better description of the several steps during the digital processing of the acquired images.

Reconstructed high frame rate sequences quality measurement tool

In this paper, we presented an application developed to measure the quality of a set of reconstructed high frame rate sequences. The main goal of the developed application is to allow the simultaneous visualization of both original and reconstructed sequences and measure the quality of the reconstructed frames.

Development of Mobile Platforms Using PDA Bluetooth Control

This paper describes a prototype that uses Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and Bluetooth communication in an information system designed to supervise Automated Robotic Maintenance systems. This work is a collaboration between different University departments with different specialties. The work focuses on the programming of PDA devices and its usage in monitoring systems with domotic applicability. One of the desired goals is to apply new technologies for deploying an information system on mobile and wireless devices. The system’s architecture and results are presented in this paper

Integrating Medical Patient Data with Family Trees to Improve the Quality of Information

The way patient information is presented has been proven to have an important impact on patient care. This paper presents a software component to be integrated in a virtual patient record used in a Portuguese hospital. This component supports genetic oncology consultations and aims to help the physician needs to visualize the patient’s family tree in order to diagnose hereditary cancers in both patient and patient descendants. This system allows the physician to view relevant medical information of the elements of the family of a given patient, add new tests, as well as record new cancer situations that occur in any member of the patient’s family. Besides the graphical display of the patients’ family tree, the system also allows to differentiate between different groups of cancer by using symbols and colours, register new cancer occurrences within that family network, as well as information related to tests performed by them.

Reconstruction of high frame rate image sequences in biomechanical related areas

Regular video cameras shoot normally at 25/30 frames per second (fps). Actually there are available in the market equipments that allow us to acquire video at 1.000.000 fps. When we observe a video sequence it becomes noticeable that great part of the information remains unchanged regardless of the bit rate or frame rate used. One origin of discontinuity in video signals is directly related to movement. Several areas use high frame rate images to analyze and comprehend certain events or effects, biomechanical engineering is one of them. Biomechanics engineering studies the mechanics of a living body, especially the forces exerted by muscles and gravity on the skeletal structure. Some examples are athlete assessment, were images are capture and then the acquired parameters are analyzed. This article describes a new methodology to decrease the space needed to store high frame rate image sequences in the specific case of biomechanical related areas.

A tool to reveal the student's work activity along an academic period

This paper presents a web application designed to allow better workload distribution during a semester. The tool was designed to face the new goals that are required for teachers that work within new methods that are fostered by the Bologna Treaty implementation. The tool can help course administrators to improve the effect of some extra-initiatives (talks, workshops, tours, short courses, amongst others), without compromising the performance of students on their work scheduled for the course activities. The paper presents and discusses the motivation and the developed tool.

Branches of professional organizations a way to enrich student's scientific and personal skills

This paper focus on our experience as student branch counselors regarding the strong benefit of students branch activities to the student skills. These skills are not only from the scientific point of view but also from the reinforcement of the contacts network and personal development to face working teams and the labor market. The maintenance of a student branch, with the new reality after the Bologna treaty implementation, is not an easy task. This requires a strong activity also from the teachers staff to keep alive this important component of the graduation cycle during graduation.

Procedures to improve undergraduate students know how - a successful story

This paper describes a holistic learning approach used to improve students preparation. Some experiences have resulted in students well prepared in fields of high acceptance in the employment market and with maturity to be integrated into multi-disciplinary working teams. Aspects related to the gradual insertion of students in professional environments like industry and commerce are reported. These insertions are based on strategic alliances with external entities, which function as controlled testing environments. The success of this story is supported by the employment rate of our students, the students satisfaction, as well as the easy adaptation of students to their first job experience. The main focus of this paper relates to the pedagogical insight acquired with the experiences that is shaping our courses