Abstract
It is expected that future delivery of digital TV signals will use H.264. This paper presents a novel coding scheme for multi-program video transmission in which the channel capacity is distributed among the programs according to the program complexities resulting in a more uniform overall image quality. A complexity bit rate control algorithm based on the structural similarity index (SSIM) is proposed. SSIM metric is presented under the hypothesis that the human visual system (HSV) is very specialized in extracting structural information from a video sequence but not in extracting the errors. Thus, a measurement on structural distortion should give a better correlation to the subjective impression. Computer simulations have demonstrated very promising results showing joint coding is able to effectively control the complexity of the multi-program encoding process whilst improving overall subjective compared to independent coding and algorithms based on traditional distortion/quality metrics. ©2008 The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Abstract
According with Axiomatic Design (AD) theory, the world of design is made up of four domains: the customer domain, the functional domain, the physical domain and the process domain. Therefore, to proceed in the design process, firstly, it's necessary to determine the Customer's Attributes (CAs), established in the Customer domain, and translate them into specific requirements, the Functional Requirements (FRs), formalized in the functional domain. This task is considered essential because a major reason for customer dissatisfaction is that the design specifications quite often do not adequately link to customer use of the product, a fact which is being pointed out as the most common cause for product design failures [1-2]. The European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI), as a Structural Equation Model (SEM), links customer satisfaction to its main drivers and consequences in terms of causal relationships. We will therefore introduce in this paper a new conceptual framework, aimed at addressing the development and validation of a model based on ECSI that supports the determination of the critical-to-satisfy (CTS) requirements, which are then used to determine the FRs. In order to validate the proposed approach, it was applied to the Portuguese plastic injection moulds sector.

Abstract
The identification and assessment of human being emotional states belongs to one of the primordial objectives of the scientific research in disparate areas such as artificial intelligence, medicine or psychology. The main objective of this project is related to automatic assessment of a subject's basic emotional states by using electroencephalography as a source for biometric data acquisition. This evaluation is based on predefined mechanisms of emotional induction, as well as specific methods and tools capable of data analysis and processing. From the experimental results attained in several experimental sessions and through the support tools developed, the most pertinent conclusion extracted from this work refers to the capability of effectively performing automatic classification of the subject's predominant emotional state. The emotional conditions were induced through the presentation of specific visual multimedia contents. The success rate of this tool, compared against the self assessment interviews carried out immediately after the experimental session, was approximately 75%. It was also experimentally concluded that female subjects are emotionally more demonstrative than the male ones.

Abstract
Analytic usability analysis methods have been proposed as an alternative to user testing in early phases of development due to the cost of the latter approach. By working with models of the systems, analytic models are not capable of identifying implementation related problems that might have an impact on usability. Model-based testing enables the testing of an implemented software artefact against a model of what it should be (the oracle). In the case of model-based user interface testing, the models should be expressed at an adequate level of abstraction, adequately modelling the interaction process. This paper describes an effort to develop tool support enabling the use of task models as oracles for model-based testing of user interfaces.

Abstract
A new methodology to evaluate well-being indices for a composite generation and transmission system, based on non-sequential Monte Carlo simulation and pattern recognition techniques, is presented. To classify the success operating states into healthy and marginal, an artificial neural network based on group method data handling techniques is used to capture the patterns of these state classes, during the beginning of the simulation process. The idea is to provide the simulation process with an intelligent memory, based on polynomial parameters, to speed up the evaluation of the operating states. The proposed methodology is applied to the IEEE reliability test system (IEEE-RTS), to the IEEE-RTS-96 and to a configuration of the Brazilian South-Southeastern system.

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to describe a novel representation framework for high level robot and multi-robot programming, called Petri Net Plans (PNP), that allows for representing all the action features that are needed for describing complex plans in dynamic environments. We provide a sound and complete execution algorithm for PNPs based on the semantics of Petri nets. Moreover, we show that multi-robot PNPs allow for a sound and complete distributed execution algorithm, given that a reliable communication channel is provided. PNPs have been used for describing effective plans for actual robotic agents which inhabit dynamic, partially observable and unpredictable environments, and experimented in different application scenarios. Copyright