Abstract
Scrum was originally projected for environments with small teams working in the same place, where collaboration and physical proximity are key for success. Accordingly, it becomes relevant to explore how scrum can be implemented in geographically distributed teams. This study aims to identify a set of different types of practical distributed scrum implementation using three case studies with Portuguese software companies. Furthermore, it explores the main motivations for this migration, the challenges posed by the geographical dispersion of teams, and the benefits brought by this approach to organisations. The findings reveal three approaches for implementing distributed scrum considering the geographical location of the employees and the challenges that are posed in terms of communication, collaboration and coordination. These approaches enhance the theoretical knowledge in the field and help software companies to migrate from traditional scrum environments to large-scale distributed environments. Copyright © 2024 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Abstract
[No abstract available]

Abstract
The increase in renewable generation of a distributed nature has brought significant new challenges to power and energy system management and operation. Self-consumption in buildings is widespread, and with it rises the need for novel, adaptive and intelligent building energy management systems. Although there is already extensive research and development work regarding building energy management solutions, the capabilities for adaptation and contextualization of decisions are still limited. Consequently, this paper proposes a novel contextual rule-based system for energy management in buildings, which incorporates a contextual dimension that enables the adaptability of the system according to diverse contextual situations and the presence of multiple users with different preferences. Results of a case study based on real data show that the contextualization of the energy management process can maintain energy costs as low as possible, while respecting user preferences and guaranteeing their comfort.

Abstract
In recent years, technologies related to the electrification of transportation have attracted significant attention. Among these, wireless charging stands out, even facing numerous challenges concerning design and parameter optimization. Consequently, this article introduces a novel design methodology to improve the performance of inductive power transfer (IPT) systems for wireless charging applications in electric vehicles. The methodology considers operational limits of switches and passive components. By using a combination of Newton-Raphson and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms, the proposed approach efficiently determines both electrical and physical parameters of converters and coils to achieve maximum efficiency at a chosen operational point. Furthermore, a Maximum Efficiency Point Tracking (MEPT) algorithm is employed for optimal system operation. The proposed methodology is validated through experimental analysis using a 3.6 kW setup. Results demonstrate a power transfer efficiency around 89.4 %, while ensuring that current and voltage levels remain within safe operating areas for the components.

Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading causes of death worldwide. While there are a number of cardiovascular risk indicators, recent studies have found a connection between cardiovascular risk and the accumulation and characteristics of visceral adipose tissue in the ventral cavity. The quantification of visceral adipose tissue can be easily performed in computed tomography scans but the manual delineation of these structures is a time consuming process subject to variability. This has motivated the development of automatic tools to achieve a faster and more precise solution. This paper explores the use of a U-Net architecture to perform ventral cavity segmentation followed by the use of threshold-based approaches for visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue segmentation. Experiments with different learning rates, input image sizes and types of loss functions were employed to assess the hyperparameters most suited to this problem. In an external test set, the ventral cavity segmentation model with the best performance achieved a 0.967 Dice Score Coefficient, while the visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue achieve Dice Score Coefficients of 0.986 and 0.995. Not only are these competitive results when compared to state of the art, the interobserver variability measured in this external dataset was similar to these results confirming the robustness and reliability of the proposed segmentation.

Abstract
Gliomas are a common and aggressive kind of brain tumour that is difficult to diagnose due to their infiltrative development, variable clinical presentation, and complex behaviour, making them an important focus in neuro-oncology. Segmentation of brain tumour images is critical for improving diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment options. Manually segmenting brain tumours is time-consuming and challenging. Automatic segmentation algorithms can significantly improve the accuracy and efficiency of tumour identification, thus improving treatment planning and outcomes. Deep learning-based segmentation tumours have shown significant advances in the last few years. This study evaluates the impact of four denoising filters, namely median, Gaussian, anisotropic diffusion, and bilateral, on tumour detection and segmentation. The U-Net architecture is applied for the segmentation of 3064 contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance images from 233 patients diagnosed with meningiomas, gliomas, and pituitary tumours. The results of this work demonstrate that bilateral filtering yields superior outcomes, proving to be a robust and computationally efficient approach in brain tumour segmentation. This method reduces the processing time by 12 epochs, which in turn contributes to lowering greenhouse gas emissions by optimizing computational resources and minimizing energy consumption.