Abstract
Aging of Tawny Port wine is a multifactorial process critical for attaining the desired quality. Real time monitoring of important intrinsic and extrinsic factors that are known to affect the time and quality of the aging process are important to optimize and to manage the natural variability between wines aged in different long used wood barrels. For this study, a distributed monitoring system was installed in sixteen oak barrels, placed in two adjacent wineries - one of them with controlled temperature in the Douro Demarcated Region, Portugal. The monitoring process was performed using a RS-485 industrial network, which interconnects sensors that continuously measure wine temperature, pH, redox potential and wine's dissolved oxygen, as well as other sensors that measure parameters related to the barrels' environmental context, such as room temperature and relative humidity. This work presents the design, development and implementation of a remote distributed system to monitor such parameters, aiming to determine the existence of behaviour models for Port Tawny wine during aging in long-used oak barrels, depending on their storage history and to understand the evolution of wine pH, dissolved oxygen and redox potential in real winery conditions as well as their dependence on the wine's storage temperature. This approach is based on easy-to-use embedded systems, with the aim of giving a relevant contribution to other projects in the area of precision enology.

Abstract
A methodology to rapidly produce environments that combine the intuition of in situ augmented reality (AR) with the commodity of virtual reality (VR) is proposed in this paper, by bringing together unmanned aerial systems (UAS) imagery and procedural modelling. While fully synthesized environments provide a very accurate visualization of the conserved parts of the real-world, missing parts - namely ruins - can be complemented with procedurally modelled structures. Regarding methodology's steps, firstly, a UAS flight mission gathers georeferenced imagery data about the site of interest. Then, the image set is converted to an accurate 3D model of the referred site, through photogrammetry. By considering the geographic information that also results from the previous process, ruins are manually outlined for georeferencing purposes. To complement ruins' missing information, virtual models of buildings are produced too, in a procedural modelling tool. Finally, at the full VR environment setup step, all elements are imported and subjected to geometric transformations that aim to match the procedurally modelled buildings with the outlined ruins. To improve the insight about the process work-flow, system's architecture and implementation are presented along with a case-study regarding a historically relevant site - Vila Velha's city gates (Vila Real, Portugal) - and preliminary results.

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This paper presents a model of a system capable of addressing the training needs identified by the University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD). In addition to supporting the typical needs of distance learning/education (e.g., e-learning), it is also intended that the proposed system will complement the traditional classroom-based teaching. This model will have two modules: the physical/infrastructural module and the policies/practices module. The physical/infrastructural module will have the following (control and management) components or modules: e-learning platforms (e.g., Moodle, Sakai) with SIDE (a platform for teaching support developed at UTAD) interconnection; website with educational/training offer and e-learning events; media repository; file storage and sharing service; collaborative/cooperative platform, for the sharing of information and knowledge; scientific repository, for the storage and sharing of work and scientific research, books, conferences, etc.; forum; ticket service/helpdesk, to help solving problems that may arise; Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service (management, relationship and customer satisfaction-student, teachers, other); Learning Analytics system (collection of information about the quality of teaching, evolution and student analysis in the e-learning mode, etc.). Additionally, there will be an assessment/examination space, a contents production studio, and a training studio. The policies/practices module includes the institution policies, and including policies for the creation/dissemination of curses, implementation of course evaluation strategies and continuous improvement, training policies, recognition of the merit and effort of teachers, the training in using the system, the policies for the creation of physical spaces equipped with the necessary tools (computers, cameras, video-conferencing, etc.), among other. In line with these, UTAD has come to recognize that e-learning should be part of its strategy for its training offer and, consequently, is being adopting new policies, namely through the signing of protocols with other institutions with more experience using e-learning. To achieve these objectives, a detailed review of other models and systems that have been successfully implemented in other international reference universities will also be presented here.

Abstract
Despite being a recent phenomenon and being in constant evolution, e-commerce (EC) is already embedded in current society. However, difficulties in establishing a universally accepted definition have resulted in a multiplicity of meanings that sometimes merge with the e-business (EB) concept. This article presents a brief historical and conceptual evolution of EC and some of its most significant aspects. © 2018, IGI Global.