Abstract
This paper intends to discuss self-organisation and learning capabilities in autonomous and cooperative holons that are part of a holonic manufacturing control system. These capabilities will support the dynamic adaptation of the manufacturing control to the manufacturing evolution and emergency, specially the agile reaction to unexpected disturbances.

Abstract
This paper describes a surveillance system for forest environments and protected natural areas with capacity for detecting fires and other ecological crimes. This system uses a digital camera that is controlled remotely by a system operator. Using the software the operator may chose to zoom a special spot or even take measures to place a strategy to fight the lire right before it becomes uncontrollable. Since that this system has to operate in the middle of forests, aspects like effectiveness, robustness and reliability are crucial. To make the positioning of camera, the system uses a stepper motor to the vertical movement of the camera, and a DC motor to the horizontal movement. The system also captures information about the temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction. All the processing is realized by a PIC16f877 microcontroller.

Abstract

Abstract
This paper addresses the problem of transmission expansion-planning in the context of the re-regulation and liberalization of power systems. The transmission expansion-planning problem is formulated as an integer problem and it is solved keeping that characteristic using Simulated Annealing. In the scope of the access to the transmission networks and the corresponding payments for Use of Networks, the paper discusses the advantages and drawbacks from adopting several cost methods and, more specifically, short-term and long-term nodal marginal prices. Long-term marginal prices are computed in the framework of the Simulated Annealing algorithm and led to the calculation of the Marginal Based Remuneration to the transmission company. The paper includes case studies based on the Portuguese 400/220/150 kV network and on a didactic 6-bus system. © 2003 IEEE.

Abstract
The purpose of the research herein presented is the automatic detection of lung boundaries in posterior-anterior digital chest radiographs. The precise location of the two lungs is important in a computer-aided diagnosis system as it allows the reduction of the region under analysis, decreasing the computation time and facilitating data compression. Furthermore, it allows the delimitation of the search area, easing the selective tuning of the abnormalities detection algorithms. The results produced by the automatic method were validated by comparison with manual contours traced by an experienced radiologist. For this particular purpose, two programs with friendly interfaces were developed. The achieved comparison results demonstrate the good performance of the automatic method.

Abstract
We define a lexically scoped, asynchronous and distributed p-calculus, with local communication and process migration. This calculus adopts the network-awareness principle for distributed programming and follows a simple model of distribution for mobile calculi: a lexical scope discipline combines static scoping with dynamic linking, associating channels to a fixed site throughout computation. This discipline provides for both remote invocation and process migration. A simple type system is a straightforward extension of that of the p-calculus, adapted to take into account the lexical scope of channels. An equivalence law captures the essence of this model: a process behavior depends on the channels it uses, not on where it runs. This work was partially supported by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (via CLC, the project MIMO, POSI/CHS/39789/2001, and scholarships POCTI/SFRH/BPD/6782/2001 and POSI/SFRH/BD/7100/20- 01), by the EU FEDER (via CLC) and the EU IST proactive initiative FET- Global Computing (projects Mikado, IST-2001-32222, and Profundis, IST- 2001-33100). We thank Gérard Boudol, Ilaria Castellani, Matthew Hennessy and Francisco Martins, as well as the anonymous referees, for their comments. © 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.