Cooperative Cyber-Physical Devices (Co-CPS) are reaching into the most diverse areas and pose new integration challenges. This is particularly true between cooperative autonomous machines, where safety and reliability must often be guaranteed without human presence. Among these scenarios, Cooperative Vehicular Platooning (Co-VP) applications present an exciting promise: improving road occupation, reducing accidents, and providing fuel savings. However, due to their high complexity and safety-critical characteristics, these applications must be validated to ensure their reliability before being applied in real scenarios, particularly regarding their underlying communication transactions. This paper presents an architecture for validating a Co-VP system via Hardware In the Loop (HIL) integration of IEEE 802.11 communications, and co-simulation support of a 3D simulator. We propose a use case with one scenario of communication profile according to the ETSI IT-G5 model and information exchange frequencies between the vehicles. Through these scenarios that mimic realistic conditions of Co-VP applications, we observe the impacts of such variations on the number of messages, network delays, and lateral and longitudinal platoon errors.

Multicore platforms share the hardware resources such as caches, interconnects, and main memory among all the cores. Due to such sharing, tasks running on different cores compete to access these shared resources which can potentially result in shared resource contention. This shared resource contention can increase the execution times of tasks in a non-deterministic manner. Consequently, the shared resource contention is problematic for hard real-time systems, i.e., systems that run tasks with stringent timing requirements. To address this issue, this PhD dissertation builds novel solutions to model and analyze the shared resource contention that can be suffered by tasks executing on a multicore system. The shared resource contention aware schedulability analysis is then derived by integrating the maximum shared resource contention that can be suffered by the tasks.

he worldwide investment in renewable energy sources is leading to the formation of local energy communities in which users can trade electric energy locally. Regulations and the required enablers for effective transactions in this new context are currently being designed. Hence, the development of software tools to support local transactions is still at an early stage and faces the challenge of constant updates to the data models and business rules. The present paper proposes a novel approach for the development of software tools to solve auction-based local electricity markets, considering the special needs of local energy communities. The proposed approach considers constrained bids that can increase the effectiveness of distributed generation use. The proposed method takes advantage of semantic web technologies, in order to provide models with the required dynamism to overcome the issues related to the constant changes in data and business models. Using such techniques allows the system to be agnostic to the data model and business rules. The proposed solution includes the proposed constraints, application ontology, and semantic rule templates. The paper includes a case study based on real data that illustrates the advantages of using the proposed solution in a community with 27 consumers

Occupational exposure may involve a variety of toxic compounds. A mutagenicity analysis using the Ames test can provide valuable information regarding the toxicity of absorbed xenobiotics. Through a search of relevant databases, this systematic review gathers and critically discusses the published papers (excluding other types of publications) from 2001–2021 that have assessed urinary mutagenicity (Ames test with Salmonella typhimurium) in an occupational exposure context. Due to the heterogeneity of the study methods, a meta-analysis could not be conducted. The characterized occupations were firefighters, traffic policemen, bus drivers, mail carriers, coke oven and charcoal workers, chemical laboratory staff, farmers, pharmacy workers, and professionals from several other industrial sectors. The genetically modified bacterial strains (histidine dependent) TA98, TA100, YG1041, YG1021, YG1024 and YG1042 have been used for the health risk assessment of individual (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and mixtures of compounds (e.g., diesel engine exhaust, fire smoke, industrial fumes/dyes) in different contexts. Although comparison of the data between studies is challenging, urinary mutagenicity can be very informative of possible associations between work-related exposure and the respective mutagenic potential. Careful interpretation of results and their direct use for occupational health risk assessment are crucial and yet complex; the use of several strains is highly recommended since individual and/or synergistic effects of complex exposure to xenobiotics can be overlooked. Future studies should improve the methods used to reach a standardized protocol for specific occupational environments to strengthen the applicability of the urinary mutagenicity assay and reduce inter- and intra-individual variability and exposure source confounders

The 3-phase task execution model has shown to be a good candidate to tackle the memory bus contention problem. It divides the execution of tasks into computation and memory phases that enable a fine-grained memory bus contention analysis. However, existing works that focus on the bus contention analysis for 3-phase tasks, neglect the fact that memory bus contention strongly relates to the number of bus/memory requests generated by tasks, which, in turn, depends on the content of the cache memories during the execution of those tasks. These existing works assume that the worst-case number of bus/memory requests will be generated during all the memory phases of all tasks, irrespective of the already existing content in the cache memory. This overestimates the memory bus contention of tasks, leading to pessimistic worst-case response time (WCRT) bounds. This work proposes a holistic approach towards bus contention analysis for 3-phase tasks by (1) deriving an upper bound on the actual cache misses of tasks that lead to bus/memory requests; (2) improving State-of-the-Art (SoA) bus contention analysis of two bus arbitration schemes that dominate all existing works on the bus contention analysis for 3-phase tasks; and (3) performing an extensive experimental evaluation under different settings to compare the proposed analysis against the SoA. Results show that incorporating a tighter bound on the number of cache misses of tasks into the bus contention analysis can lead to a significant improvement in task set schedulability.

A crescente preocupação com as mudanças climáticas e a necessidade de reduzir as emissões de gases com efeito de estufa têm aumentado a procura por soluções energéticas mais limpas e sustentáveis, assim como a utilização de materiais mais amigos do ambiente e reutilizáveis. Neste contexto, a presente dissertação propõe o desenvolvimento de uma célula de biocombustível enzimática de glicose/O₂ (EBFC), utilizando papel como substrato para os elétrodos, minimizando e reduzindo o uso de material, com o intuito de aumentar a sustentabilidade ambiental no fabrico de dispositivos analíticos. A EBFC é composta por dois bioelétrodos, com imobilização das enzimas glicose desidrogenase (bioânodo) e bilirrubina oxidase (biocátodo). A seleção do nanomaterial adequado para a construção dos elétrodos foi realizada utilizando voltametria cíclica (CV), uma técnica eletroquímica que permite comparar a eficiência de diferentes nanomateriais em termos de transferência eletrónica e atividade de oxidaçãoredução. Foram testados dois nanomateriais de carbono (carbono mesoporoso e negro de fumo), bem como dois solventes diferentes na sua dispersão, nomeadamente N,Ndimetilformamida (DMF) e dodecil sulfato de sódio (SDS) tendo-se verificado que o carbono mesoporoso, dispersado em DMF, apresentou o melhor desempenho, sendo então selecionado para a construção dos biossensores. Este material demonstrou uma capacidade superior de imobilização de enzimas, facilitando a transferência direta de eletrões e aumentando a eficiência dos processos redox. Os bioelétrodos desenvolvidos com base neste nanomaterial foram inicialmente caracterizados como biossensores para os seus substratos (glicose e O2) usando as técnicas CV e amperometria. No caso do biossensor de glicose, foram alcançados resultado com uma sensibilidade de 3,33 μA/mM e um limite de deteção (LOD) de 0,049 mM. Já no biossensor de oxigénio, obteve-se uma sensibilidade de 32,54 μA/mM, com um LOD de 0,002 mM. A célula de combustível enzimática glicose/O2 foi então construída usando o bioelétrodo papel(MC)/GDH, como ânodo, e bioelétrodo papel(MC)/BOx, como cátodo. As curvas de polarização da célula de combustível permitiram analisar o seu desempenho energético. A potência máxima gerada pela célula foi de 0,13 μW na presença de glicose, um valor baixo, mas suficiente para aplicações em biossensores de baixo consumo energético. Apesar da potência gerada ser relativamente baixa, a EBFC desenvolvida demonstra um elevado potencial para ser utilizada como um biossensor autossuficiente na determinação de glicose, especialmente em dispositivos biomédicos portáteis. Esta tecnologia inovadora representa um passo importante na criação de soluções sustentáveis e ecológicas para a monitorização de saúde, alinhando-se com as exigências atuais de energias renováveis e dispositivos autossustentáveis.

The human ear is a complex biomechanical system and is divided into three parts: outer, middle and inner ear. The middle ear is formed by ossicles (malleus, incus and stapes), ligaments, muscles and tendons, which transfers sound vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear, linking with mastoid and Eustachian tube. In this work, a finite element modelling of the tympano-ossicular system of the middle ear was developed. A dynamic study based on a structural response to harmonic vibrations, for a sound pressure level (SPL) of 110, 120 and 130 dB SPL applied in the eardrum, is presented. The connection between the ossicles is made using a contact formulation. The model includes the different ligaments considering its hyperelastic behaviour. The activation of the muscles is based on the constitutive model proposed by previous work. The harmonic responses of displacement and pressure obtained on the stapes footplate, for a frequency range between 100 Hz and 10 kHz, are obtained simulating the muscle activation. The results are compared considering the passive and active states. The results are discussed and they are in accordance with audiological data published with reference to the effects of the middle ear muscles contraction.

Although it is known that blood vessels can be found in mechanically active environments, less is known about the effect of mechanical stimulus in angiogenesis. Therefore, understanding how endothelial cells respond to a mechanical stimulus is essential to improve tissue vascularization and to promote wound healing and tissue engineering development. In this work, a meshless method is used to combine an elasticity formulation with a capillary growth algorithm. The final numerical model is capable to simulate the effect of compressive loading in angiogenesis, using three strain magnitudes (5, 10 and 30% strain). In this proposed model, the vascular endothelial growth factor gradient regulates the endothelial cell migration and the compressive loading affects the branching process. The numerical results showed that all the compressive loadings tested increased the vascular network length and the number of branches, being 5% strain magnitude the most effective one. The capillary network obtained resembles the one presented in experimental assays and the obtained numerical results coincided to the experimental ones. Nevertheless, this study possesses some limitations since the viscoelastic properties of the tissue, the dynamic loading effect and the effect of the time variable were not considered. In the future, the combination of computational and experimental studies will be very useful to understand and to define which are the mechanical cues that promote angiogenesis, allowing to improve tissue vascularization and, consequently, the wound healing process.

Neste artigo apresentamos uma análise comparativa entre três inquéritos internacionais: PISA, levado a cabo pela OCDE, o TIMSS e o PIRLS, realizados pela IEA, tendo em conta os seus objetivos gerais e uma correlação dos dados referentes a Portugal (por regiões da NUTS III). A revisão bibliográfica e documental mostrou como os resultados podem ser reformulados ou reinterpretados pelos diferentes atores sociais e que são vistos pelos decisores políticos e pelas organizações como uma ferramenta de comparação dos sistemas escolares, reveladora de pontos fortes e pontos fracos. A análise dos resultados gerais evidencia que Portugal tem vindo a melhorar os seus resultados no PISA, nos três domínios (leitura, matemática e ciências), que melhorou no TIMSS em matemática e piorou em leitura no PIRLS. A análise comparativa por regiões revelou que existe uma diferenciação dos resultados por regiões e que, enquanto o fator domínio não se apresenta como relevante, o fator objeto de avaliação em cada estudo parece determinante para os resultados dos questionários. Revelou, ainda, que há uma relação direta entre o PIB/habitante e os resultados dos questionários nas regiões com valores extremos de PIB/habitante, mas que essa relação não existe para a generalidade das regiões.

In the current Industry 4.0 era (I4.0, for short) [1–3], manufacturing and management (M&M) paradigms, methods and tools should be wisely developed to fulfil sustainability issues, regarding not just economic but also social and environmental concerns by simultaneously fostering organizational efficiency excellence and transformational initiatives, therefore contributing to enduring business results.This Special Issue aims to provide new insights regarding manufacturing or management paradigms (strategies), methods, tools, and practices aligned with the contemporary necessity to create and implement sustainable I4.0 manufacturing systems. Each of the five selected papers of this Special Issue makes a novel contribution to that aim.