Abstract
Electricity power planning is a serious national task that encompasses not only forecasts but more importantly the evolution in short, medium and long term of each element that composes the assumptions, the constraints and/or the parameters of the planning model. Deterministic models can bring simplicity to the electricity power planning but do not consider the uncertainties and sources of risk of the electricity system. On the other hand, stochastic models tend to include the behavior of one or more uncertain parameters that are critical to obtain a robust solution, being however more detailed and lengthy than deteministic models. The aim of this work was to identify the major sources of risk and uncertainties facing electricity system, representing valuable input for the electricit planner task. From this study it can be observed that several different behaviours for each uncertain parameter can be found along a time horizon. Thus, it is concluded that reling on average lowers can represent a reductionist approach and in order to obtain more reliable scenarios for future electricity system, the statistical charcateristics of each parameter should be considered in the electricity power planning.

Abstract
Manufacturing environments require a real-time adaptation and optimization method to dynamically and intelligently maintain the current scheduling plan feasible. This way, the organization keeps clients satisfied and achieves its objectives (costs are minimized and profits maximized). This paper proposes an optimization approach - Selection Constructive based Hyper-heuristic for Dynamic Scheduling - to deal with these dynamic events, with the main goal of maintaining the current scheduling plan feasible and robust as possible. The development of this dynamic adaptation approach is inspired on evolutionary computation and hyper-heuristics. Our empirical results show that a selection constructive hyper-heuristic could be advantageous on solving dynamic adaptation optimization problems. © 2015 AISTI.

Abstract

Abstract
In highway construction, earthworks refer to the tasks of excavation, transportation, spreading and compaction of geomaterial (e.g. soil, rockfill and soil-rockfill mixture). Whereas relying heavily on machinery and repetitive processes, these tasks are highly susceptible to optimization. In this context Artificial Intelligent techniques, such as Data Mining and modern optimization can be applied for earthworks. A survey of these applications shows that they focus on the optimization of specific objectives and/or construction phases being possible to identify the capabilities and limitations of the analyzed techniques. Thus, according to the pinpointed drawbacks of these techniques, this paper describes a novel intelligent earthwork optimization system, capable of integrating DM, modern optimization and GIS technologies in order to optimize the earthwork processes throughout all phases of design and construction work. This integration system allows significant savings in time, cost and gas emissions contributing for a more sustainable construction.

Abstract
This paper proposes a method to detect a reference frame in an ultrasound video of the carotid artery. This reference frame, usually located at the end of the diastole, is used as the location to measure several vascular biomarkers. Our approach is based on the analysis of the movement of the carotid walls in ultrasound images using an optical flow technique. A periodic movement resembling heart beat is observed in the resulting signals. The comparison of these signals with electrocardiograms validates the proposed method for detecting the reference frame.

Abstract
The viStaMPS software is a collaborative scientific project that was created with three major purposes: (1) facilitate the usage by users non familiar with the specificities of the programming language that supports StaMPS; (2) implement several visualization tasks not available in the StaMPS standard approach (avoiding that each user develop its own code for visualization and interpretation purposes) and (3) create a collaborative research project, continuously under development counting on the dynamism of its users to improve and/or add new features.