Abstract
In this article, we address the problem of virtual communities, proposing a basket of products' self-determination model, where the community determines what it is interested to buy and, in some situations, when. In this way, instead of letting a brand or product create the need or desire of the users in the community to buy, it will be the community, through a network effect, to self-influence the user, in order to define what intends to buy reaffirming, also, in this way its identity. This article proposes a conceptual model to be implemented toward a future Case Study research, with a structure within a network capable of influencing itself where members, who share the same interests, can define a basket of products and services and thus reaffirm and evolve their identity.

Abstract
The CrossLog project aims to investigate, study, develop and implement an automated and collaborative cross-docking system (aligned with Industry 4.0) capable of moving and managing the flow of products within the warehouse in the fastest and safest way. In CrossLog, the ability to generate intelligent three-dimensional packing patterns is essential to ensure the flexibility and productivity of the cross-docking system while ensuring the stability of the palletised load. In this work, a heuristic solution approach is proposed to generate efficient pallet packing patterns that simultaneously minimise the total number of pallets required and address the balance of weight and volume between pallets. Computational experiments with data from a real company demonstrate the quality of the proposed solution approach.

Abstract
A new (bio)sensing platform based on differential refractometric measurements was developed. The sensing scheme is based on the combination LPFGs/MIP/NIP, involving a dual channel system for real-time compensation of non-specific interactions. The correction system improves the sensor behavior by reducing the response to interferents by 30%. © 2022 The Author(s).

Abstract
Monitoring and controlling the energy consumption of electrical appliances brings significant benefits to both consumers and the energy utility. This work presents a system for monitoring and controlling energy consumption by residence loads connected to smart plugs. The user will have a tool to view consumption information and remotely turn loads on and off, as well as control the power level at which certain appliances will operate. In addition, it is intended to give the system the ability to make decisions regarding the operation of electrical devices based on the electrical energy available. This decision-making can occur either through priorities established by the user or, possibly, through Machine Learning applied to the system, based on the consumption pattern. Solutions like these can even be applied in situations where the user produces his own energy and would like to use the surplus produced to meet certain loads.

Abstract

Abstract
Many relevant sound events occur in urban scenarios, and robust classification models are required to identify abnormal and relevant events correctly. These models need to identify such events within valuable time, being effective and prompt. It is also essential to determine for how much time these events prevail. This article presents an extensive analysis developed to identify the best-performing model to successfully classify a broad set of sound events occurring in urban scenarios. Analysis and modelling of Transformer models were performed using available public datasets with different sets of sound classes. The Transformer models' performance was compared to the one achieved by the baseline model and end-to-end convolutional models. Furthermore, the benefits of using pre-training from image and sound domains and data augmentation techniques were identified. Additionally, complementary methods that have been used to improve the models' performance and good practices to obtain robust sound classification models were investigated. After an extensive evaluation, it was found that the most promising results were obtained by employing a Transformer model using a novel Adam optimizer with weight decay and transfer learning from the audio domain by reusing the weights from AudioSet, which led to an accuracy score of 89.8% for the UrbanSound8K dataset, 95.8% for the ESC-50 dataset, and 99% for the ESC-10 dataset, respectively.