Technological evolution has allowed the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in an easier and more diversified way, creating opportunities for its application in various fields of engineering, namely in the inspection of transport infrastructures. The present study begins with the analysis of the main practices that resort to the use of UAVs, in order to frame its application in the field of transport pavement inspection. A review of studies and other available literature served as a starting point to define the methodology adopted for the development of the case study presented. The methodology includes the collection of images of a flexible road pavement section, its processing, and the creation of an orthoimage and a 3D model from which it was possible to identify and characterize the distresses present on the pavement surface. The main results obtained point to planimetric and altimetric deviations of less than 2 and 10 mm, respectively, for the images collected by theMavic 2 Pro drone at 3 and 20mhigh.With the collected data, itwas also possible to calculate the global quality index PCI for the inspected pavement section. Under these conditions, it is possible to conclude that the accuracy is very good and suitable for the intended purpose, allowing fast data collection at low cost. This new technological approach supports infrastructure managers in the design of maintenance programs and in the scheduling of interventions, thus contributing to the increase of the durability and safety levels of the inspected pavements.

Objective: The main purpose of our study was to analyze the effects of a 9-month, physical activity intervention program in physical fitness in older women. Methods: Older women were recruited and randomly assigned to a supervised physical activity group or to a control group. Combined exercise sessions were performed three times a week, for 45 minutes and controlled for intensity. Sociodemographic data, health and daily habits, and physical function was assessed at baseline and after nine months. Results: However the intervention group showed better results at the end of the program, comparison between groups revealed no statistically meaning differences, for all studied variables. Baseline results from both groups revealed to be higher than the reference standards for their age and gender, meaning that participants were already very active at the beginning of the intervention. Not controlling for physical activity in the control group may have limited the analysis. Conclusions: Although not statistically significant, our results indicate that participants of the intervention group achieved better results, meaning that this supervised, community based physical activity intervention program was beneficial. It should also be acknowledge that participants, at least, maintained their initial high level, meaning that there was no decline in their physical function.

OBJECTIVE Detraining results in the loss of cardiovascular and metabolic characteristics and consequently results in the reduction of VO2max and muscular strength (Coyle, 1994, Evangelista & Brum, 1999). For most researchers the VO2max is an indicator of greater fidelity in the characterization of aerobic power of an individual, as well as their level of fitness (1,2,3,4,5,6). Because detraining in young athletes has received little attention, is important to discuss this area. In adults, training-induced increases in muscle strength and VO2max appear to decline during detraining about and in the same rate as they increase during training. To date, only one study (Blimkie et al., 1989) looked at the effects of 8 weeks of detraining in prepubertal boys following 20 weeks of resistance training. The training-induced strength gains regressed towards the growth-adjusted control level during the detraining period, suggesting that alike with adults, training adaptations are reversible (Blimkie et al., 1989). The aim of this study was to know the effect of detraining in a period of 34 days on the Maximum Aerobic Power (MAP) and Lower Force (LF), in pre-pubescent children football players. METHODS Eight pre-pubescent male football players (age 12.75 ± 0.71years; weight 41.46 ± 6.66 kg; height 1,51 ± 0.06 cm; BMI 19,30 ± 3,59) were assessed before and after 5 weeks of a detraining period. A Modified Balke maximal protocol using ergo-spirometry procedures (Cosmed® K4b2) was selected to determine VO2max and the Ventilatory Anaerobic Threshold (VAT) as estimates for the aerobic capacity. To access the LF a Coutermovement Jump (CMJ) was made in the Ergojump®. Data comparisons were set to determine the relationships between the parameters resulting from testing. RESULTS The MAP (VO2max/kg) show a significant difference from the pre vs post detraining period (69,27 ± 5,41 ml.kg.min-1 vs 63,22 ± 4,95 ml.kg.min-1, p=0,002) however the LF doesn’t report significant changes. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION The results suggest that 5 weeks of detraining decrease the MAP (VO2max/kg) of pre-pubescent football players although not significant changes were report on the LS parameter.

Segundo Fernandes & Vilas-Boas (2001), o tempo total de uma prova divide-se pelos parciais: de tempo de partida; tempo de nado; tempo de viragem. Este último pode ser dividido em tempo de aproximação à parede, tempo de rotação e tempo de reinício de nado, pelo que deve ocorrer até aos 15m (Sanders, 2002). A sua execução técnica tem vindo a mudar e a evoluir ao longo dos tempos, e de acordo com Lyttle & Benjanuvatra (2004), alguns ajustes na viragem pode se traduzir em melhorias substanciais no tempo final da prova. Existem estudos que comprovam que pequenos ajustes podem melhorar 0.20s por volta (Maglischo, 2003). De modo a que o processo de ensino/aprendizagem seja o mais ajustado e coerente, é necessário definir conjunto de progressões pedagógicas devidamente orientadas. Esta proposta será composta pelos parâmetros: aprendizagem do rolamento, rolamento com apoio, rolamentos sem apoio; impulsão, deslizes, impulsão e deslizes, deslizes com rotações e pernadas; aproximação à parede. Tem como base o equilíbrio durante o rolamento de forma a que a aprendizagem seja simples, neste sentido, requer a aquisição do rolamento bem adquirido e consolidado para prosseguir para as etapas seguintes da aquisição técnica. Ao contrário da metodologia tradicional do ensino da viragem a partir da aproximação, rolamento, impulsão/deslize esta proposta metodológica pretende facilitar a aprendizagem e o ensino da viragem de crol, através primeiramente da aquisição consolidada do rolamento e deslize e depois com a aproximação à parede.

Transactional analysis, group behaviour theory and control theory have provided us with the concepts of script, symbiotic schizophrenia, triangling in, undifferentiated group ego mass, and disor der neurosis, and a new respect for écriture. Group behaviour theory, for example, enables us to discover the nature of the mysterious laws and ideas mentioned by the Proustian narrator, to relate them to the psychological condition of the narrator, and to understand why the meanings had not been revealed to the reader. No other theory or system has explained both of these features of the text and the relationship between them. To reject such perspectives, which are based on clinical research, as pseudo-psychology is ignorant and irres ponsible. The same is true of the defense of the immorality of Proust’s characters. The venal character of the love between Swann and Odette and between the narrator and Albertine is undeniable. To criticize such immorality is standard literary criticism, and to be upset by such criticism of immorality is possible only if one confuses the Proustian narrator with Proust himself. This despite the trouble Proust has taken to distinguish the narrator from himself, by changing the career of the father and the religion of the mother and by eliminating his brother. This is what is known as the biographical fallacy, denounced by Proust himself in Contre Sainte-Beuve. Fear of the new may explain such errors, but it cannot justify them. And they are related to a more general problem. Closed minds are the bane of the literary community: we must remain open to the new, if the intellectual life is to remain an intellectual adventure.

This article presents the characterization of a shock absorber embedded sensor (SAES) for real-time monitoring of the condition of vehicle shock absorbers in everyday use. A prototype system was built using a custom designed monolithic silicon combined accelerometer, pressure and temperature sensors. The characterization of the SAES was performed and the obtained results meet and even outperform the specification requirements. The SAES was installed in a shock absorber, with adjustable damping properties, and submitted to road tests. Results show that the condition of a shock absorber can be effectively assessed with the presented SAES. Ensuring that shock absorbers are replaced before reach unacceptable condition, this system will increase onboard comfort and vehicle safety.

This paper presents a no-reference model for monitoring the voice quality experienced by users in VoIP services. The proposed model is based on the E-Model, which is adapted from Recommendation ITU-T G.107 for this purpose. A calibration function was determined for relevant codecs under different packet loss conditions. Extensive field testing was carried out to validate the proposed model at PT Inovação Labs (Portugal). The results show that the mean opinion score (MOS) obtained from the proposed model match class C2 of conformance tests defined in ITU-T Recommendation P.564. The QoE model described in this paper was implemented in a VoIP QoE probe and is currently fully operational at Portugal Telecom.

Although resynthesis may seem a simple analysis/synthesis process, it is a quite complex task, even more when it comes to recreating a singing voice. This paper presents a system whose goal is to start with an original audio stream of someone singing and recreate the same performance (melody, phonetics, dynam-ics) using an internal vocal sound library (choir or solo voice). By extracting dynamics and pitch information, and looking for phonetic similarities between the original audio frames and the frames of the sound library, a completely new audio stream is created. The obtained audio results, although not perfect (mainly due to the existence of audio artifacts), show that this technologi-cal approach may become an extremely powerful audio tool.

La visión es uno de los más importantes sentidos que ayuda a las personas a navegar en nuestro mundo. Comúnmente las personas no videntes desarrollan sus otros sentidos para poder sentir sus alrededores, pero en ciertos casos esto no es suficiente. Los sentidos pueden ser perturbados por el ruido o enfermedades. Por esta razón se han desarrollado muchos artefactos para ayudar a este grupo de personas. Artefactos como bastones blancos o perros guía ayudan a las personas no videntes a moverse en su entorno. Este artículo propone el uso de un sistema que detecta y reconoce obstáculos cercanos, dando una retroalimentación audible al usuario, evitando una colisión. Es un sistema inalámbrico para que sea cómodo para el usuario. El sistema ayuda a las personas con discapacidad visual a moverse en escenarios interiores o exteriores. Los objetivos del sistema es detectar los obstáculos que los bastones blancos o los perros guía no pueden, ampliando su rango de detección.

Crowdsourcing is a bubbling research topic that has the potential to be applied in numerous online and social scenarios. It consists on obtaining services or information by soliciting contributions from a large group of people. However, the question of defining the appropriate scope of a crowd to tackle each scenario is still open. In this work we compare two approaches to define the scope of a crowd in a classification problem, casted as a recommendation system. We propose a similarity measure to determine the closeness of a specific user to each crowd contributor and hence to define the appropriate crowd scope. We compare different levels of customization using crowd-based information, allowing non-experts classification by crowds to be tuned to substitute the user profile definition. Results on a real recommendation data set show the potential of making crowds more personal, i.e. of tuning the crowd to the crowdtarget.