Abstract
This paper describes the full development process of TriMARES, a hybrid AUV/ROV designed to fulfil the requirements of a consortium for the inspection and periodic monitoring of a large dam reservoir. The demand of robotic systems for underwater operations is growing exponentially and there are many scenarios for which the commercial solutions are not adequate. Such was the case with TriMARES, where it was possible to take advantage of previous designs to achieve a custom solution in a short time. We describe the initial requirements for the underwater system, we present the main solutions adopted for the vehicle subsystems, and we provide some data from the first in-water tests, performed only 6 months after the beginning of the project.

Abstract
Children and teens today grow up immersed in a myriad of digital devices, thinking and processing information in a radically different way from their predecessors. These kids usually prefer hypermedia information, learning by self-discovery, or by playing, in teams, are good at multitasking, better in digital literacy than in textual literacy, tend to be always connected, enjoy social interaction, diversity and sharing. As a result of all of this, young "digital natives" need new ways of learning that are more interactive, participative and individualized, capable of supporting the co-creation, collaboration, and sharing of a variety of contents, combining traditional and new digital media. To be successful, the teaching strategies, the learning contexts, and the learning spaces must accommodate these children's needs and habits, harmoniously combining technology and pedagogy, as earliest as possible. With the advent of Web 2.0, the way people collaborate in the creation and sharing of their own contents improved considerably, enabling everyone to be active producers and consumers at the same time, and helping them to self-organize in networks and virtual communities. It is now easy to create collaborative spaces for teachers and students to adopt a partnering pedagogy, more social and informal, but also more personal. Personal Learning Environments (PLE) combine tools that help learners to set their own learning goals, manage their learning contents and process, to communicate with others, allowing a bidirectional flow of information between teachers and students, at a degree not possible before by traditional Learning Management Systems (LMS). In this work, we present schoooools.com (a.k.a in Portugal as escolinhas. pt), a new collaborative and social learning environment, developed and validated in several Portuguese schools, following an action- research method. Schoooools.com is being developed to be a very simple personal learning environment targeted to schools and students from 6 up to 12 years old ( K-6). It follows a wiki- way philosophy for the cocreation of contents. It combines the best features of Web 2.0 relevant for schools, simplified and integrated in a single platform: easy-to-use content editors, wikis, blogs, private social networks, image galleries, calendars, private messages, chat, shared files, micro-blogging, integration with traditional LMS (ex: Moodle), integration with contents from publishers or other types of providers. It was designed with three principles in mind: educational, by providing collaborative web spaces to use in classroom, at home, everywhere, for educational purposes; entertainment, by providing appealing spaces and features to use also in leisure time, to learn by playing, chatting; social, by providing an engaging space to promote the communication and socialization within the respective private social networks. As in real life, students, parents and teachers have different features and responsibilities in the school, but they all may communicate and collaborate between them, with privacy rules similar to the real school and its respective community. Simply and naturally, the platform promotes a gradual adoption of the best practices on using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for educational purposes: in classroom or extracurricular contexts, inside or outside schools.

Abstract
Fiber Bragg Gratings are structures with remarkable characteristics that have induced new qualitative developments in the broad field of optical fiber technology, most notably in optical communications and in optical sensing. When these devices are applied for sensing, the underlying concept is the modulation of the grating Bragg wavelength by the measured and, therefore, a central issue is the sensitive and accurate conversion of the resonant wavelength into a proportional electrical signal with the adequate format for further processing. This topic is broadly known as Fiber Bragg Grating interrogation and is the subject of the present chapter. It is organized in two parts: in the first one, the techniques developed by the scientific community looking for this functionality are reviewed, with emphasis on the identification of general conceptual classes where they fit; in the second part, illustrative and state-of-the-art commercial Fiber Bragg Grating interrogation systems are described.

Abstract
A methodology for achieving the best-fit set of parameters for a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a semiconductor optical amplifier (MZI-SOA) static model is proposed. A multi-objective genetic algorithm is exploited and the quality of the approach is validated by applying it in an existing sample. Optimisation of performance and determination of operational limits are enabled by the proposed methodology and good agreement was obtained between simulated and practical results.

Abstract

Abstract
This paper presents an impact analysis of communications in frequency and active power control in hierarchic multi-microgrid structures. Since communications can potentially introduce significant difficulties in the operation of electric power systems, particularly in the case of islanded multi-microgrids, an assessment is performed considering delays and losses that control information is likely to experience when traversing the communication infrastructure. Results show that the impact of communication difficulties under most simulated scenarios is reduced, whereas in more demanding scenarios the control structure can have a significant role in minimizing the impact of communication failures.