Abstract
In this paper an analysis of MicroFactory is carried out and its potential for generating a diversified set of didactic experiences is evaluated. MicroFactory is a robotic competition based on a previously existing competition called Robot@Factory. Robot@Factory is a Portuguese robotic competition whose first edition was held in 2011 in Lisbon. The scenario of the competition simulates a factory which has two warehouses, and eight processing machines. The flow of the materials inside the factory starts at the Incoming Warehouse and ends at the Outgoing Warehouse, eventually passing through one or more processing machines. The robots must collect, transport and position the materials along the process, having to self-localize and navigate while avoiding collisions with walls, obstacles and other robots. There is the option of following predefined tracks present on the floor to ease the navigation problem. Robot@Factory poses challenges like dynamic task scheduling, robot cooperation, trajectory planning, robot navigation with obstacle avoidance, robot self-localization and materials identification and manipulation. Related research contributes to improve AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicle systems) technology. Presently this competition is integrated in Festival Nacional de Robotica, a yearly event which attracts lots of public, contributing also to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) popularization. MicroFactory was conceived to be low-cost and easily implementable in a small space, be it a classroom or the school robotics club. The ground area of the factory scenario was reduced to approximately one ninth of its original value. The scenario materials were simplified -the floor is now an A0 printed sheet and the warehouses and machines dimensions are so that they can be 3D printed or made out of LEGO (TM) bricks; both machines and parts had active elements with LEDs and now they are passive. Besides the competition scenario it was also conceived a prototype robot for the competition. It's a 3D printed robot, based on an Arduino board and accessible electronic parts. The creation of this competition is part of a wider Open Source project, aiming to develop project-based collaborative didactic experiences involving robotics and low-cost 3D printed educational robots based on generic electronics to support those experiences. Currently efforts are being dedicated to the inclusion of more sensors in the competition robot, namely low-cost distance sensors and a weight sensor at the claws, the inclusion of different kinds of motors, the development of a new version of the robot incorporating a Raspberry Pi board, the development of a very precise robot localization system, and the conception of a diversified set of didactic experiences based on the MicroFactory competition. This article presents an analysis of MicroFactory and of its inherent challenges. Through this analysis it will be possible to identify topics that can be taught and learned while developing robots to participate in the competition, and to collect elements that will be very useful in the planning and implementation of didactic experiences that work those topics.

Abstract
This paper proposes a new open-loop and low complexity (small size) fast-lock synchronization circuit for clock and data recovery in wearable systems. The system includes sensors embedded in textile and connected by conductive yarns. Synchronization is based on the open-loop selection of the correct phase of the receiver clock synchronously with the incoming signal. The clock generator of the receiver is an autonomous oscillator set to operate at the same nominal frequency. The circuit lock time is at most one clock cycle, faster than all methods based on phase-locked loops or delay-locked loops. The circuit can be used for baseband communication independently of the signal coding method used in the physical layer, making it suitable for many applications. The fully digital circuit (including non-return-to-zero inverted decoder) occupies 0.0022 in a 0.35 complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process, a smaller implementation than many existing circuits, and supports a maximum system clock frequency of 70 for a 35-data rate. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed circuit robustly generates a synchronous clock for data recovery. The circuit is suitable for systems that tolerate some jitter but requires fast lock time, small size, and low energy consumption. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract
Empirical data for residential indoor temperature and its determinants have important implications for policymakers in terms of the assessment of thermal comfort, health of occupants and the use for supporting energy demand models. With the purpose of advancing this knowledge, the indoor temperatures of 141 households in the Northern Portugal were measured at a half-hourly basis during the winter of 2013-2014. The observed mean winter daily indoor temperature at the occupied period was 14.9 °C for the bedrooms and 16.6°C for the living rooms. The results show that indoor temperatures are significantly below the comfort levels generally accepted, which could be an indication of future potential rebound effects. Results also reinforce the idea that 'cold homes' during winter season are a reality even in the southern European countries. Models for predicting the daily mean bedroom and living room temperature were developed using an enhanced linear regression with panel-corrected standard errors. The results showed that climatic conditions, and especially building characteristics, affect significantly the bedroom and living room's indoor temperatures.

Abstract
Firefighting is a stressful occupation. The monitoring of psychophysiological measures in those professionals can be a way to prevent and early detect cardiac diseases and other stress-related problems. The current study aimed to assess morphological changes in the ECG signal induced by acute stress. A laboratory protocol was conducted among 6 firefighters, including a laboratory stress-inducer task - the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST) - and a 2-choice reaction time task (CRTT) that was performed before (CRTT1) and after (CRTT2) the stress condition. ECG signals were continuously acquired using the VitalJacket (R), a wearable t-shirt that acts as a medical certified ECG monitor. Results showed that ECG morphological features such as QT and ST intervals are able to differentiate stressful from non stressful events in first responders. Group mean Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for stress assessment significantly increased after the stress task (TSST), relatively to the end of CRTT2 (after TSST: 4.67 +/- 1.63; after CRTT2: 3.17 +/- 0.75), a change that was accompanied by a significant increase in group mean QT and ST segments corrected for heart rate during TSST. These encouraging results will be followed by larger studies in order to explore those measures and its physiological impact under realistic environments in a higher scalability.

Abstract
In this work we identify a seminal design guideline that prevents current Full-Duplex (FD) MAC protocols to scale the FD capacity gain (i.e. 2× the half-duplex throughput) in single-cell Wi-Fi networks. Under such guideline (referred to as 1-1), a MAC protocol attempts to initiate up to two simultaneous transmissions in the FD bandwidth. Since in single-cell Wi-Fi networks MAC performance is bounded by the PHY layer capacity, this implies gains strictly less than 2× over half-duplex at the MAC layer. To face this limitation, we argue for the 1:N design guideline. Under 1:N, FD MAC protocols 'see' the FD bandwidth through N>1 orthogonal narrow-channel PHY layers. Based on theoretical results and software defined radio experiments, we show the 1:N design can leverage the Wi-Fi capacity gain more than 2× at and below the MAC layer. This translates the denser modulation scheme incurred by channel narrowing and the increase in the spatial reuse factor enabled by channel orthogonality. With these results, we believe our design guideline can inspire a new generation of Wi-Fi MAC protocols that fully embody and scale the FD capacity gain. © 2016 IEEE.

Abstract
Expression Atlas (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/gxa) provides information about gene and protein expression in animal and plant samples of different cell types, organism parts, developmental stages, diseases and other conditions. It consists of selected microarray and RNA-sequencing studies from Array Express, which have been manually curated, annotated with ontology terms, checked for high quality and processed using standardised analysis methods. Since the last update, Atlas has grown sevenfold (1572 studies as of August 2015), and incorporates baseline expression profiles of tissues from Human Protein Atlas, GTEx and FANTOM5, and of cancer cell lines from ENCODE, CCLE and Genentech projects. Plant studies constitute a quarter of Atlas data. For genes of interest, the user can view baseline expression in tissues, and differential expression for biologically meaningful pairwise comparisons-estimated using consistent methodology across all of Atlas. Our first proteomics study in human tissues is now displayed alongside transcriptomics data in the same tissues. Novel analyses and visualisations include: 'enrichment' in each differential comparison of GO terms, Reactome, Plant Reactome pathways and InterPro domains; hierarchical clustering (by baseline expression) of most variable genes and experimental conditions; and, for a given gene-condition, distribution of baseline expression across biological replicates. © The Author(s) 2015.