Abstract
This presentation gives a review of the main concepts behind fibre optic sensing networks. Some important application areas are mentioned, such as the monitoring of oil fields, of large Civil Engineering structures, as well as of natural environments. Then, it will be addressed the potential relevance of this technology in domains of increasingly social importance, such as Health and Elderly Care, particularly in the development of Personal Health Systems.

Abstract
This paper presents the results of a series of experiments aiming at the optimisation of vital sign monitoring using textile electrodes to be used in a swimsuit The swimsuit will integrate sensors for the measurement of several physiological and biomechanical signals, this paper will focus on ECG and respiratory movement analysis The data obtained is mainly intended to provide tools for evaluation of high-performance swimmers, although applications can be derived for leisure sports and other situations A comparison between electrodes based on different materials and structures, behaviour in dry and wet environments, as well as the behaviour in different extension states, will be presented The influence of movement on the signal quality, both by the muscular electrical signals as well as by the displacement of the electrodes, will be discussed The final objective is the integration of the electrodes in the swimsuit by knitting them directly in the suit's fabric in a seamless knitting machine

Abstract
Although epidemic or gossip-based multicast is a robust and scalable approach to reliable data dissemination, its inherent redundancy results in high resource consumption on both links and nodes. Tins problem is aggravated in settings that have costlier or resource constrained links as happens in Cloud Computing infrastructures composed by several interconnected data centers across the globe. The goal of this work is therefore to improve the efficiency of gossip-based reliable multicast by reducing the load imposed on those constrained links. hi detail, the proposed CLON protocol combines an overlay that gives preference to local links and a dissemination strategy that takes into account locality. Extensive experimental evaluation using a very large number of simulated nodes shows that this results in a reduction of traffic in constrained links by an order of magnitude, while at the same time preserving the resilience properties that make gossip-based protocols so attractive.

Abstract
With the use of new computational technologies and novel methodologies for problem solving, recurring to the use of Group Decision Support Systems, normally the problem of incomplete information is marginalized as if we were living in an ideal world. Common sense tells us that in the precise time a decision is make it is impossible to know all the information regarding to it, however decisions must be made. What we propose is, in the ambit of the VirtualECare project, is a possible solution to decision making, through the use of Group Decision Support Systems, aware of incomplete information but, even so, able to make decisions based in the quality of the information and its source.

Abstract
An optical refractometer based on a birefringent (Hi-Bi) fiber Bragg grating (FBG) written in a new H-shaped fiber structure is proposed. This structure is formed by opening the two holes of a side-hole fiber using chemical etching. When the Hi-Bi FBG is immersed in different liquids, different responses of the slow and fast wavelengths are obtained. The refractometer is also capable of simultaneous measurement of refractive index and temperature. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 060.2310, 060.3735, 060.2370.

Abstract
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) can be used to monitor hazardous and inaccessible areas. In these situations, the power supply (e g battery) in each node can not be easily replaced One solution is to deploy a large number of sensor nodes, since the lifetime and dependability of the network can he increased through cooperation among nodes In addition to energy consumption, applications for WSN may also have other concerns, such as, meeting deadlines and maximizing the quality of information In this paper, we present a Genetic Machine Learning algorithm aimed at applications that make use of trade-offs between different metrics Simulations were performed on random topologies assuming different levels of faults Our approach showed a significant improvement when compared with the use of IEEE 802.15 4 protocol