Abstract
This paper proposes a stochastic framework to augment the integration of variable renewable energy sources (VRESs) in power system scheduling. In this way, the fast-response capability of gas-fired generator units (GFGUs) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capability of electric vehicles (EVs) can play important roles in large-scale integration of VRESs. However, the growth of GFGUs utilization can increase the grade of interdependency between power and natural gas systems. In this condition, the power system tends to demand more reliability and flexibility from the natural gas system, which creates new challenges in power system scheduling. The likely significant growth of EVs can solve this challenge and reduce the correlation between power and natural gas systems, bringing new opportunities for power system scheduling. However, a considerable literature in the field of operation of GFGUs and EVs has only focused on using the hourly discrete time model (HDTM). Undoubtedly, the major limitation of HDTM is its inability to handle the fast sub-hourly dispatch of GFGUs and energy storage capability of EVs. Accordingly, in this paper, this limitation has been solved by the operation of both energy systems with a continuous time model (CTM). The reliability test system with a ten-node gas transmission system has been analysed to show the effectiveness of the proposed problem.

Abstract
Over the past few decades, much has been done globally to make final energy consumption more sustainable, integrating more renewable resources. In Europe, there are many directives and regulations that imposes to the states ambitious targets on the promotion of renewable energies and energetic efficiency among others. Portugal has not only fulfilled all the goals but has also exceeded them. This is the case with the integration of renew ables in electricity consumption, which is currently rated at 53 %, with the prospect of reaching 80% in 2030. In this scenario, it is important to encourage the energy production from the solar resource as the country has optimal conditions for this purpose. This research assess the existing Portuguese potential for floating photovoltaic systems and its integration in the power grid. Another aim of this study is to sizing and assesses the energetic potential of floating solar power plant in Gouvaes dam, included in the Tamega hydroelectric complex in under construction in northern Portugal belong to Iberdrola Company.

Abstract
Realizing autonomous inspection, such as that of power distribution lines, through unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems is a key research domain in robotics. In particular, the use of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles to execute the tasks of an inspection process can enhance the efficacy and safety of the operation; however, many technical problems, such as those pertaining to the precise positioning and path following of the vehicles, robust obstacle detection, and intelligent control, must be addressed. In this study, an innovative architecture involving an unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) and an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) was examined for detailed inspections of power lines. In the proposed strategy, each vehicle provides its position information to the other, which ensures a safe inspection process. The results of real-world experiments indicate a satisfactory performance, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Abstract
In order to take advantage of the processing power of current computing platforms, programmers typically need to develop software versions for different target devices. This task is time-consuming and requires significant programming and computer architecture expertise. A possible and more convenient alternative is to start with a single high-level description of a program with minimum implementation details, and generate custom implementations according to the target platform. In this paper, we use MATLAB as a high-level programming language and propose a compiler that targets CPU/GPU computing platforms by generating customized implementations in C and OpenCL. We propose a number of compiler techniques to automatically generate efficient C and OpenCL code from MATLAB programs. One of such compiler techniques relies on heuristics to decide when and how to use Shared Virtual Memory (SVM). The experimental results show that our approach is able to generate code that provides significant speedups (eg, geometric mean speedup of 11x for a set of simple benchmarks) using a discrete GPU over equivalent sequential C code executing on a CPU. With more complex benchmarks, for which only some code regions can be parallelized, and are thus offloaded, the generated code achieved speedups of up to 2.2x. We also show the impact of using SVM, specifically fine-grained buffers, and the results show that the compiler is able to achieve significant speedups, both over the versions without SVM and with naive aggressive SVM use, across three CPU/GPU platforms.

Abstract
The interest of using light in clinical practice is increasing strongly and many applications work at various wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the infrared. Due to this great range of applications, the determination of the optical properties of biological tissues in a wide spectral range becomes of interest. The liver is an important organ, since it has a major role in the human body and various pathologies are known to develop within it. For these reasons, this study concerns the estimation of the optical properties of human normal and pathological (metastatic carcinoma) liver tissues between 200 and 1000 nm. The obtained optical properties present the expected wavelength dependencies for both tissues - the refractive index, the absorption and the scattering coefficients decrease with the wavelength and the anisotropy and light penetration depth increase with the wavelength. Although similar behavior was observed for the various properties between the normal and pathological tissues, evidence of smaller blood content in the pathological tissues was found. A possible explanation is that the cancer cells destroy liver's vasculature and internal architecture, providing though a reduction in the blood content. For low wavelengths, it was observed a matching between the scattering and the reduced scattering coefficients, which implies a nearly zero anisotropy in that range. The scattering coefficient decreases from nearly 140 cm(-1) (at 200 nm) to 80 cm(-1) (at 1000 nm) for the normal liver and from nearly 140 cm(-1) (at 200 nm) to 95 cm(-1) (at 1000 nm) for the pathological tissue.

Abstract