Abstract
This paper presents a teaching/learning experiment running in the laboratorial curricular unit Project I of the 4th year of the Integrated Master in Industrial Electronics and Computers Engineering at the University of Minho. Project specifications were defined by the three teachers involved in the experience and students were encouraged to look on different solutions for a real-word problem. In a concurrent way, students designed, developed and implemented didactic rigs to control a gantry crane system. The control was performed in open-loop, based on the Posicast feedforward technique, and in closed-loop, using a two-degrees of freedom configuration. The experiment procedure and the project outcomes of two solutions proposed by the students are presented.

Abstract
This paper presents a teaching/learning experiment running in the laboratorial curricular unit Project I of the 4'h year of the Integrated Master in Industrial Electronics and Computers Engineering at the University of Minho. Project specifications were defined by the three teachers involved in the experience and students were encouraged to look on different solutions for a real-word problem. In a concurrent way, students designed, developed and implemented didactic rigs to control a gantry crane system. The control was performed in open-loop, based on the Posicast feedforward technique, and in closed-loop, using a two-degrees of freedom configuration. The experiment procedure and the project outcomes of two solutions proposed by the students are presented. © 2017 IEEE.

Abstract
Precision agriculture is gaining an increasing interest in the current farming paradigm. This new production concept relies on the use of information technology (IT) to provide a control and supervising structure that can lead to better management policies. In this framework, imaging techniques that provide visual information over the farming area play an important role in production status monitoring. As such, accurate representation of the gathered production images is amajor concern, especially if those images are used in detection and classification tasks. Real scenes, observed in natural environment, present high dynamic ranges that cannot be represented by the common LDR (Low Dynamic Range) devices. However, this issue can be handled by High Dynamic Range (HDR) images since they have the ability to store luminance information similarly to the human visual system. In order to prove their advantage in image processing, a comparative analysis between LDR and HDR images, for fruits detection and counting, was carried out. The obtained results show that the use of HDR images improves the detection performance to more than 30% when compared to LDR.

Abstract
The brain emotional learning (BEL) control paradigm has been gathering increased interest by the control systems design community. However, the lack of a consistent mathematical formulation and computer based tools are factors that have prevented its more widespread use. In this article both features are tackled by providing a coherent mathematical framework for both the continuous and discrete-time formulations and by presenting a SIMULINK (R) computational tool that can be easily used for fast prototyping BEL based control systems.

Abstract
Despite the studies already developed about Trombe walls, more research work is needed to contribute to the knowledge about their behaviour and optimize it according to the specific characteristics of each climatic region. The ventilation openings and the shading device operation decisively influence the temperatures fluctuation along the system and that impact should be discussed. In this context, a test cell with a classical Trombe wall was submitted to real climatic conditions in a Portuguese city. The effect of ventilation openings and shading devices in the temperatures fluctuation was analysed. The temperatures in the air layer and along the massive wall presented a similar oscillation pattern and exceeded 60 degrees C without ventilation and shading devices. For this configuration, temperature values at the top of the air layer were always higher than those obtained at the base and a differential of 19 degrees C was achieved. The temperature fluctuation across the massive wall was not proportional to its thickness due to its heat storage capacity. When the ventilation system was closed and the shading device was not activated, the temperature inside the test cell exceeded the outside temperature value in 9 degrees C, showing the system ability to store and release heat.

Abstract
An analytical and experimental analysis on the Trombe wall thermal performance was carried out for different conditions of ventilation openings and occlusion device operation. Experimental results allowed to determine temperature fluctuation, heat flux, heat delay and air velocity at the ventilation openings. A calculation methodology was applied to estimate the heat gains and losses through the system using experimental data. Ventilation openings and occlusion device effect was immediately visible in the temperature fluctuation and, consequentelly, in the heat gains and losses. Experimental.results showed that, when there was no occlusion device, massive wall external surface temperature values exceeded 60 degrees C and, when it was placed, reduced to 30 degrees C or less. Heat took almost 3 times more to achieve the interior of the test cell when the ventilation openings were closed. Air velocity increased following a diagonally pattern from the bottom to the top of the ventilation opening and its values varied between 0.10 m/s and 0.40 m/s, leading to air flow values between 0.002 m(3)/s and 0.008 m(3)/s. The calculation methodology application allowed to determine the total gains through the system for a continuous period. The impact of the system operation on the different thermal performance parameters was observed.