Abstract
An erbium doped (Er3+) fiber optic laser is proposed for magnetic field measurement. A pair of FBGs glued onto a magnetostrictive material (Terfenol-D rod) modulates the laser wavelength operation when subject to a static or a time dependent magnetic field. A passive interferometer is employed to measure the laser wavelength changes due to the applied magnetic field. A data acquisition hardware and a Lab VIEW software measure three phase-shifted signals at the output coupler of the interferometer and process them using two distinct demodulation algorithms. Results show that sensitivity to varying magnetic fields can be tuned by introducing a biasing magnetic field. A maximum error of 0.79% was found, for magnetic fields higher than 2.26 mT(RMS).

Abstract
WSN can be deployed using widely available hardware and software solutions. The Contiki is an open source operative system compatible with a wide range of WSN hardware. A Contiki development environment named InstantContiki is also available and includes the Cooja simulation tool, useful for the simulation of WSN scenarios, prior to their deployment. This simulation tool can provide realistic results since it uses the full Contiki's source code and some motes can be emulated at the hardware level. However, the Cooja simulator uses one process per simulation, not taking advantage of multiple core processors. In this paper we propose a framework to automate the execution of simulations of multiple scenarios and configurations in Cooja. When a multiple cores processor is available, this framework can run multiple simultaneous Cooja instances, taking advantage of processing resources and contributing to reduce the total simulation runtime.

Abstract
When designing laboratory courses in a Physics Major we consider a range of objectives: teaching Physics; developing lab competencies; instrument control and data acquisition; learning about measurement errors and error propagation; an introduction to project management; team work skills and scientific writing. But nowadays we face pressure to decrease laboratory hours due to the cost involved. Many universities are replacing lab classes for simulation activities, hiring PhD. and master students to give first year lab classes, and reducing lab hours. This leads to formatted lab scripts and poor autonomy of the students, and failure to enhance creativity and autonomy. In this paper we present our eight year experience with a laboratory course that is mandatory in the third year of Physics and Physical Engineering degrees. Since the students had previously two standard laboratory courses, we focused on teaching instrumentation and giving students autonomy. The course is divided in two parts: one third is dedicated to learn computer controlled instrumentation and data acquisition (based in LabView); the final 2/3 is dedicated to a group project. In this project, the team (2 or 3 students) must develop a project and present it in a typical conference format at the end of the semester. The project assignments are usually not very detailed (about two or three lines long), giving only general guidelines pointing to a successful project (students often recycle objectives putting forward a very personal project); all of them require assembling some hardware. Due to our background, about one third of the projects are related to Optics.

Abstract
This chapter presents a general methodology for embodying simulation as part of a tree search procedure, as a technique for solving practical problems in combinatorial optimization. Target problems are either difficult to express as mixed integer optimization models, or have models which provide rather loose bounds; in both cases, traditional, exact methods typically fail. The idea then is to have tree search instantiating part of the variables in a systematic way, and for each particular instantiation-i.e., a node in the search tree-resort to a simulation for assigning values to the remaining variables; then, use the outcome of the simulation for evaluating that node in the tree. This method has been used with considerable success in gameplaying, but has received very limited attention as a tool for optimization. Nevertheless, it has great potential, either as a way for improving known heuristics or as an alternative to metaheuristics.We depart from repeated, randomized simulation based on problem-specific heuristics for applications in scheduling, logistics, and packing, and show how the systematic search in a tree improves the results that can be obtained. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.

Abstract

Abstract