Abstract
The grapevine variety identification is important in the wine's production chain since it is related to its quality, authenticity and singularity. In this study, we addressed the data augmentation approach to identify grape varieties with images acquired in-field. We tested the static transformations, RandAugment, and Cutmix methods. Our results showed that the best result was achieved by the Static method generating 5 images per sample (F1 = 0.89), however without a significative difference if compared with RandAugment generating 2 images. The worst performance was achieved by CutMix (F1 = 0.86).

Abstract
With the growing connectivity demands, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a prominent component in the deployment of Next Generation On-demand Wireless Networks. However, current UAV positioning solutions typically neglect the impact of Rate Adaptation (RA) algorithms or simplify its effect by considering ideal and non-implementable RA algorithms. This work proposes the Rate Adaptation aware RL-based Flying Gateway Positioning (RARL) algorithm, a positioning method for Flying Gateways that applies Deep Q-Learning, accounting for the dynamic data rate imposed by the underlying RA algorithm. The RARL algorithm aims to maximize the throughput of the flying wireless links serving one or more Flying Access Points, which in turn serve ground terminals. The performance evaluation of the RARL algorithm demonstrates that it is capable of taking into account the effect of the underlying RA algorithm and achieve the maximum throughput in all analysed static and mobile scenarios.

Abstract
Climate change is an existential threat facing humanity and the future of our planet. The signs of global warming are everywhere, and they are more complex than just the climbing temperatures. Climate data on a massive scale has been collected by various scientific groups around the globe. Exploring and extracting useful knowledge from large quantities of data requires powerful software. In this chapter we present some possibilities for exploring and visualising climate change data in connection with statistics education using the freely accessible statistical programming language R together with the computing environment RStudio. In addition to the visualisations, we provide annotated references to climate data repositories and extracts of our openly published R scripts for encouraging teachers and students to reproduce and enhance the visualisations. © Springer Nature Switzerl and AG 2022.

Abstract
This paper evaluates lines repair and maintenance impacts on generation-transmission expansion planning (GTEP), considering the transmission and generation reliability. The objective is to form a balance between the transmission and generation expansion and operational costs and reliability, as well as lines repair and main-tenance costs. For this purpose, the transmission system reliability is represented by the value of loss of load (LOL) and load shedding owing to line outages, and generation reliability is formulated by the LOL and load shedding indices because of transmission congestion and outage of generating units. The implementation results of the model on the IEEE RTS show that including line repair and maintenance as well as line loading in GTEP leads to optimal generation and transmission plans and significant savings in expansion and operational costs.

Abstract
The development of increasingly autonomous underwater vehicles has long been a research focus in underwater robotics. Recent advances in deep learning have shown promising results, offering the potential for fully autonomous behavior in underwater vehicles. However, its implementation requires improvements to the current vehicles. This paper proposes an onboard data processing framework for Deep Learning implementation. The proposed framework aims to increase the autonomy of the vehicles by allowing them to interact with their environment in real time, enabling real-time detection, control, and navigation.

Abstract
Despite the trend towards ubiquitous wireless connectivity, there are scenarios where the communications infrastructure is damaged and wireless coverage is insufficient or does not exist, such as in natural disasters and temporary crowded events. Flying networks, composed of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), have emerged as a flexible and cost-effective solution to provide on-demand wireless connectivity in these scenarios. UAVs have the capability to operate virtually everywhere, and the growing payload capacity makes them suitable platforms to carry wireless communications hardware. The state of the art in the field of flying networks is mainly focused on the optimal positioning of the flying nodes, while the wireless link parameters are configured with default values. On the other hand, current link adaptation algorithms are mainly targeting fixed or low mobility scenarios. We propose a novel rate adaptation approach for flying networks, named Trajectory Aware Rate Adaptation (TARA), which leverages the knowledge of flying nodes’ movement to predict future channel conditions and perform rate adaptation accordingly. Simulation results of 100 different trajectories show that our solution increases throughput by up to 53% and achieves an average improvement of 14%, when compared with conventional rate adaptation algorithms such as Minstrel-HT. © ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2024.