Abstract
This paper proposes a specific configuration of sensors assembled in a mobile robot, which can be used as a proof of concept to measure important environmental variables in an urban search and rescue mission, such as toxic gas density, temperature gradient and smoke particles density. This data is processed through a support vector machine classifier with the purpose of detecting relevant contexts in the course of the mission. The outcome is provided by the experimental experiments conducted with TraxBot and Pioneer-3DX robots under the Robot Operating System framework.

Abstract

Abstract
This paper presents the system developed to promote the rational use of electric energy among consumers and, thus, increase the energy efficiency. The goal is to provide energy consumers with an application that displays the energy consumption/production profiles, sets up consuming ceilings, defines automatic alerts and alarms, compares anonymously consumers with identical energy usage profiles by region and predicts, in the case of non-residential installations, the expected consumption/production values. The resulting distributed system is organized in two main blocks: front-end and back-end. The front-end includes user interface applications for Android mobile devices and Web browsers. The back-end provides data storage and processing functionalities and is installed in a cloud computing platform -the Google App Engine - which provides a standard Web service interface. This option ensures interoperability, scalability and robustness to the system.

Abstract
The ever-increasing popularity of online stores is reshaping traditional commerce models. In particular, brick-and-mortar stores are presently facing the challenge of reinventing themselves and their business models to offer attractive yet low-cost alternatives to e-commerce. Other industries have already introduced new concepts to fight inefficiency (i.e., 'Just-in-Time' inventory management in Automotive), retail stores face a more challenging environment which these models cannot accommodate. Stores remain heavily vested in battling the overhead costs of personnel management when, instead, a robotic automation scheme with retail-oriented behaviors could reduce the detection latency of out-of-stock and compliance error phenomena throughout the store. These behaviors must be automated, multi-purpose, and schedulable; they must also ensure that the robot coordinates store nuances to adapt its functionality appropriately. In this paper, we present our architecture that defines retail robot behaviors as a collection of reusable activities, which, when permuted various ways, allows for various high-level and application-specific tasks to be accomplished effectively. We evaluate this system on our robotic platform by scrutinizing the integrity of navigation and machine vision tasks, which we perform concurrently in an experimental store setup. Results show the feasibility and efficiency of our proposed architecture. © 2013 IEEE.

Abstract
A good representation of a simple polygon, with a desired degree of approximation and complexity, is critical in many applications. This paper presents a method to achieve a complete Circle Covering Representation of a simple polygon, through a topological skeleton, the Medial Axis. The aim is to produce an efficient circle representation of irregular pieces, while considering the approximation error and the resulting complexity, i.e. the number of circles. This will help to address limitations of current approaches to some problems, such as Irregular Placement problems, which will, in turn, provide a positive economic and environmental impact where similar problems arise. © 2013 IFAC.

Abstract
This paper describes MATISSE, a MATLAB to C compiler targeting embedded systems that is based on Strategic and Aspect-Oriented Programming concepts. MATISSE takes as input: (1) MATLAB code and (2) LARA aspects related to types and shapes, code insertion/ removal, and specialization based directives defining default variable values. In this paper we also illustrate the use of MATISSE in leveraging data types and shapes to generate customized C code suitable for high-level hardware synthesis tools. The preliminary experimental results presented here reveal the described approach to yield performance results for the resulting hardware and software references implementations that are comparable in terms of performance with hand-crafted solutions but derived automatically at a fraction of the cost.