Abstract
Standard granulometry methods are used to count the number of disjoint grains in digital images. For the case of overlapping grains, the standard method is not effective. Two alternative methods for counting overlapping grains in digital images are proposed. The methods are based on mathematical morphology and are suitable for grains of circular shape. The standard and overlapping methods were tested with a Monte-Carlo simulation using 32500 synthetic images with various grain sizes and quantities, as well as different levels of noise. The overall average counting error for all images tested with intermediate amount of noise (zero mean Gaussian noise with sigma = 0.05) was 6.03% for the standard method, and 4.40% and 3.56% for the overlapping methods. The performance of the proposed methods was found to be much better than the standard method for images with significant overlap between grains.

Abstract
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is one of the automatic identification technologies more in vogue nowadays. There is a wide research and development in this area trying to take maximum advantage of this technology, and in coming years many new applications and research areas will continue to appear. This sudden interest in RFID also brings about some concerns, mainly the security and privacy of those who work with or use tags in their everyday life. RFID has, for some time, been used to access control in many different areas, from asset tracking to limiting access to restricted areas. In this paper we propose an architecture and a prototype of a system that uses distributed RFID over Ethernet and we demonstrate how to automate an entire students' attendance registration system by using RFID in an educational institution environment. Although the use of RFID systems in educational institutions is not new, it is intended to show how the use of it came to solve daily problems in our university. © 2008 IEEE.

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Abstract
This paper describes a process to reverse engineer structural and behavioural formal models of a GUI application by a dynamic technique, mixing manual with automatic exploration. The goal is to diminish the effort required to construct the model and mapping information needed in a model-based GUI testing process. A skeleton of a state machine model of the GUI, represented in a formal pre/post specification language, is generated automatically by the exploration process. Mapping information between the model and the implementation is also generated along the way. The model extracted automatically is then completed manually in order to get an executable model which can be used as a test oracle. Abstract test cases, including expected outputs, can be generated automatically from the final model and executed over the GUI application, using the mapping information generated during the exploration process.

Abstract
Currently, due to questions of financial order, the Internet Service Providers do not invest in rural areas, because the investment does not pay. This fact originates, more and more, the appearance of the so called WBN (Wireless Broadband Networks), that are going to supply Internet access to the populations, discriminated by this circumstance. The aspects related to the management of these networks are normally forgotten and today there is a lack of economically and technical viable solutions, that can efficiently help with this function, without use an enterprise solution. After an intensive research of commercial and opensource solutions of wireless networks management, it was checked an absence of an economically viable solution as well as an absence of a model of management for the WBN. This article contributes to the definition of a management model of these networks, using opensource tools. The proposal model is based on a centralized solution that congregates several modules of opensource tools, which can be able to respond to a wide range of features identified in the model. The simulation shows how the model presented, can be practicable and able to cover several functions in WBN management. © 2008 IEEE.