Abstract

Abstract
At the present time there is a high prebure toward the improvement of all the production procebes. Those improvements can be sensed in several directions in particular those that involve energy efficiency. The definition of tight energy efficiency improvement policies is transversal to several operational areas ranging from industry to public services. As can be expected, agricultural procebes are not immune to this tendency. This statement takes more severe contours when dealing with indoor productions where it is required to artificially control the climate inside the building or a partial growing zone. Regarding the latter, this paper presents an innovative system that improves energy efficiency of a trees growing platform. This new system requires the control of both a water pump and a gas heating system based on information provided by an array of sensors. In order to do this, a multi-input, multi-output regulator was implemented by means of a Fuzzy logic control strategy. Presented results show that it is pobible to simultaneously keep track of the desired growing temperature set-point while maintaining actuators streb within an acceptable range.

Abstract
In this paper it is described the prototyping of an instrumented chair that allows to fully-automate the "Timed Up and Go" and "30-Second Chair Stand" tests assessment. The presented functional chair prototype is a low cost approach that uses inexpensive sensors and the Arduino platform as the data acquisition board, with its software developed resorting to LabVIEW. The "Timed up and go test" consists in measuring the time spent in the task execution of standing up from a chair, walk three meters with a maximum speed without running, turn a cone and going back to the initial position. The "30-Second Chair Stand" test consists in the count of the number of completed chair stands in 30 seconds. It are agility and strength tests easy to setup and execute although they lack of repeatability, whenever the measures are taken manually, due to the rough errors that are introduced.

Abstract
This manuscript presents the performance evaluation of our algorithm that precisely finds human eyes in still gray-scale images and describes the state of the founded eye. This algorithm has been evaluated considering two descriptors - Pyramid transform domain (PLBP) and Multi-Block Histogram LBP (BHLBP), which are extended versions of the Local Binary Pattern descriptor (LBP). For the classification stage, two types of supervised learning techniques have also been evaluated, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP). The proposed method is assessed on the Face Recognition Grand Challenge (BioID) and (CAS-PEAL-R1) databases, and experimental results demonstrate improved performance than some state-of-the-art eye detection approaches.

Abstract
Eye detection is a complex issue and widely explored through several applications, such as human gaze detection, human-robot interaction and driver's drowsiness monitoring. However, most of these applications require an efficient approach for detect the ocular region, which should be able to work in real time. In this paper, it is proposed and compare two approaches for online eye detection. The proposed schemes, work under real variant illumination conditions, using the conventional appearance method that is known for its discriminative power especially in texture analysis. In the first stage, the salient eye features are automatically extracted by employing Uniform Local Binary pattern (LBP) operator. Thereafter, supervised machine learning methods are used to classify the presence of an eye in image path, which is described by an LBP histogram. For this stage, two approaches were tested; Support Vector Machine and Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Network, both are trained for discriminative binary classification, between two classes namely eye / non eye. The human eyes were successfully localized in real time videos, which were obtained from a laptop with uncalibrated web camera. In these tests, different people were considered and light illumination. The experimental results are reported.

Abstract
The goal of this project, one of the proposals of the EPS@ISEP 2014 Spring, was to develop an Aquaponics System. Over recent years Aquaponics systems have received increased attention due to its possibilities in helping reduce strain on resources within 1st and 3rd world countries. Aquaponics is the combination of Hydroponics and Aquaculture and mimics a natural environment in order to successfully apply and enhance the understanding of natural cycles within an indoor process. By using this knowledge of natural cycles it was possible to create a system with the capabilities similar to that of a natural environment with the benefits of electronic adaptions to enhance the overall efficiency of the system. The multinational team involved in its development was composed of five students, from five countries and fields of study. This paper covers their solution, involving overall design, the technology involved and the benefits it could bring to the current market. The team was able to achieve the final rendered Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawings, successfully performed all the electronic testing, and designed a solution under budget. Furthermore, the solution presented was deeply studied from the sustainability viewpoint and the team also developed a product specific marketing plan. Finally, the students involved in this project obtained new knowledge and skills.