Abstract
Interest in autonomous vehicles has steadily increased in recent years. A number of tasks, like lane tracking, semaphore detection and decoding, are key features for a self-driving robot. This paper presents a path detection and tracking algorithm using the Inverse Perspective Mapping and Hough Transform methods compounded with real-time vision techniques and a semaphore recognition system based on color segmentation. An evaluation of the proposed algorithm is performed and a comparison between the results using real-time techniques is also presented. The suggested architecture has been put to test on autonomous driving robot who competed in the Portuguese autonomous vehicle competition called "Festival Nacional de Robotica". The overall process of the lane tracking algorithm, takes about 1.4 ms per image, almost 60 times faster than the first algorithm tested and a good accuracy, showing a translation error below 0.03m and a rotation error below 5 degrees. Regarding the real-time semaphore recognition, it takes about 0.35 ms to detect a semaphore and has achieved a perfect score in the laboratory tests performed.

Abstract
The arsenic content of dried baby shrimp (Acetes sp.) was investigated as part of an independent field study of human exposure to toxic metals/metalloids among the ethnic Chinese community located in Upstate New York. The dried baby shrimp were analyzed in a home environment using a portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) instrument based on monochromatic excitation. Study participants had obtained their dried baby shrimp either from a local Chinese market or prepared them at home. The shrimp are typically between 10-20 mm in size and are consumed whole, without separating the tail from the head. Elevated levels of As were detected using portable XRF, ranging between 5-30 g g(-1). Shrimp samples were taken to the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) for Synchrotron Radiation XRF (SR-XRF) elemental mapping using a 384-pixel Maia detector system. The Maia detector provided high resolution trace element images for As, Ca, and Br, (among others) and showed localized accumulation of As within the shrimp's cephalothorax (head), and various abdominal segments. As quantification by SR-XRF was performed using a lobster hepatopancreas reference material pellet (NRC-CNRC TORT-2), with results in good agreement with both portable XRF and ICP-MS. Additional As characterization using X-ray Absorption Near Edge Spectroscopy (XANES) with the Maia XRF detector at CHESS identified arsenobetaine and/or arsenocholine as the possible As species present. Further arsenic speciation analysis by LC-ICP-MS/MS confirmed that the majority of As (>95%) is present as the largely non-toxic arsenobetaine species with trace amounts of arsenocholine, methylated As and inorganic As species detected.

Abstract
Within the smart grid (SG) paradigm, the microgrid (MG) concept has been pointed out as a pathway for the implementation of future smart distribution networks since it extends and decentralizes the distribution network monitoring and control capability and provides key self-healing capabilities to low voltage (LV) networks. The increased interest on the MG concept has led to several demonstration activities that have been exploited worldwide. Therefore, this chapter provides an overview regarding some of the laboratorial infrastructures and pilot sites dedicated to development of MG and SG concepts. Additionally, it is presented and discussed the development of a specific SG laboratorial infrastructure following the MG concept.

Abstract
A multimode interferometer based on an etched coreless optical fiber tip is proposed for the determination of the thermo-optic coefficient of ethanol-water mixtures, through refractive index and temperature measurements. © OSA 2018 © 2018 The Author(s)

Abstract

Abstract
In the area of algebraic specification there are two main approaches for defining observational abstraction: behavioural specifications use a notion of observational satisfaction for the axioms of a specification, whereas abstractor specifications define an abstraction from the standard semantics of a specification w.r.t. an observational equivalence relation between algebras. Earlier work by Bidoit, Hennicker, Wirsing has shown that in the case of first-order logic specifications both concepts coincide semantically under mild assumptions. Analogous results have been shown by Sannella and Hofmann for higher-order logic specifications and recently, by Hennicker and Madeira, for specifications of reactive systems using a dynamic logic with binders. In this paper, we bring these results into a common setting: we isolate a small set of characteristic principles to express the behaviour/abstractor equivalence and show that all three mentioned specification frameworks satisfy these principles and therefore their behaviour and abstractor specifications coincide semantically (under mild assumptions). As a new case we consider observational modal logic where observational satisfaction of Hennessy-Milner logic formulae is defined "up to" silent transitions and observational abstraction is defined by weak bisimulation. We show that in this case the behaviour/abstractor equivalence can only be obtained, if we restrict models to weakly deterministic labelled transition systems.