Abstract
Excessive dead time in complementary switches causes significant energy losses in DC-DC power conversion. The optimization of dead time prevents the degradation of overall efficiency by minimizing the body diode conduction of power switches and, as a consequence, also reduces reverse recovery losses. The present work aims at analyzing the influence of one of the most important characteristics of a digital controller, the timer resolution, in the context of dead-time optimization for synchronous buck converters. In specific, the analysis quantifies the efficiency dependency on the timer resolution, in a parameter set that comprises duty-cycle and dead-time, and also converter frequency and analog-to-digital converter accuracy. Based on a sensorless optimization strategy, the relationship between all these limiting factors is described, such as the number of bits of timer and analog-to-digital converter. To validate our approach experimental results are provided using a 12-to-1.8V DC-DC converter, controlled by low- and high-resolution pulse-width modulation signals generated with an XMC4200 microcontroller from Infineon Technologies. The measured results are consistent with our analysis, which predicts the power efficiency improvements not only with a fixed dead time approach, but also with the increment of timer resolution.

Abstract
Recommender systems have radically changed the way people find products, services and information. They are a precious tool in e-commerce and other online services and have slowly been clawing their way into the real-world stage. Location is one of the variables that can be useful in this new situation. While this particular area has been the subject of some research, it can go even further with the exploration of mobility. In this work, we analyze the integration of mobility in a recommender system with real mobility data from a public transportation network. We developed an algorithm that incorporates location and frequency in a conventional recommender system. Our results show successful recommendations of items adapted to users' mobility patterns.

Abstract
The Arteriolar-to-Venular Ratio (AVR) is an index used for the early diagnosis of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or cardiovascular pathologies. This paper presents three automatic approaches for the estimation of the AVR in retinal images that result from the combination of different methodologies in some of the processing phases used for AVR estimation. Each one of these methods includes vessel segmentation, vessel caliber estimation, optic disc detection or segmentation, region of interest determination, vessel classification into arteries and veins and finally AVR calculation. The values produced by the proposed methods on 40 images of the INSPIRE-AVR dataset were compared with a ground-truth obtained by two medical experts using a semi-automated system. The results showed that the measured AVRs are not statistically different from the reference, with mean errors similar to those achieved by the two experts, thus demonstrating the reliability of the herein proposed approach for AVR estimation.

Abstract

Abstract
The IEC 61499 standard provides an executable model for distributed control systems in terms of interacting function blocks. However, the current IEC 61499 standard lacks appropriate timing semantics for the specification of timing requirements, reasoning on timing properties at the model level, and for the timing verification of a specific deployment. In this paper we address this fundamental shortcoming by proposing Real-Time-4-FUN, a real-time semantics for IEC 61499. The key property is the preservation of non-determinism, allowing us to reason on (and verify) timing properties at the model level without assuming any specific scheduling policy or stipulating specific order of execution for the deployment. This provides for a clear separation of concerns, where the designer can focus on properties of the application prior to, and separately from, deployment verification. The proposed timing semantics is backwards compatible to the current standard, thus allow for reuse of existing designs. The transitional property allows timing requirements to propagate to downstream sub-systems, and can be utilized for scheduling both at device and network level. Based on a translation to RTFM-tasks and resources, IEC 61499 models can be analyzed, compiled and executed. As a proof of concept the timing semantics has been experimentally implemented in the RTFM-core language and the accompanying (thread based) RTFM-RT run-time system.

Abstract
Global competition and the customers demand for customized products with shorter due dates, marked the introduction of the Extended Enterprise. In this Extended Manufacturing Environment (EME), lean, virtual, networked and distributed enterprises collaborate to respond to the market demands. In this paper we study the influence of the batch size on Flexible Flow Shop makespan minimization problem FFC||Cmax for two multi-sites approaches, the FSBF (Flow Shop Based Factories) and the PMBF (Parallel-Machines Based Factories). The computational study demonstrates how the performance of the PMBF model decreases with the increase of batch size and determines the batch sizes in which the performance is similar. © 2015 AISTI.