Filomena Soares | Universidade do Minho (original) (raw)

Papers by Filomena Soares

Research paper thumbnail of Automatic System for Blood Type Classification using Image Processing Techniques

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Research paper thumbnail of Where is your nose? - Developing body awareness skills among Children with Autism using a humanoid robot

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Research paper thumbnail of BakSIM: an application for control, monitoring and simulation of baker's yeast fermentation process

This paper describes an experience based on the final project work for the Industrial Electronics... more This paper describes an experience based on the final project work for the Industrial Electronics Engineering undergraduate course. The main goal is the development of an application for fermentation processes. BakSIM is an application for monitoring, control and simulation of a mini-bioreactor for baker's yeast fermentation, running in open or closed loop mode. It performs data acquisition of the most important system variables: biomass, ethanol, oxygen, glucose and dioxide of carbon, and files writing for future analysis and for future contrast with previous experiences. Different modules were considered: simulation, monitoring and simulation and monitoring running together. The BakSIM application allows not only the comparison of the experimental data with the simulated data as the study of the effectiveness of several numerical methods. One more advantage of this project was its multidisciplinary work, enclosing several areas covered during the undergraduate course, namely P...

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Research paper thumbnail of Remote Physiological Systems (RePhyS) Laboratory: a didactic learning environment

With the appearance of new teaching/learning methods, innovative techniques have been used to mot... more With the appearance of new teaching/learning methods, innovative techniques have been used to motivate and to improve students' skills in the area of engineering. Nowadays, remote laboratories are well accepted and used to support the students' learning in higher education, playing an important role in engineering teaching, since they allow the connection between theory and practice to all students anytime, anywhere because they are available in the Internet. Following this trend, this paper describes the main ideas of a multidisciplinary R&D workgroup in the development of an innovative laboratory in the bioengineering area: RePhyS. RePhyS is a remote laboratory for the study of biomedical and physiological systems in graduate and post graduate levels. The user (student) will be allowed to interact with the system parameters, through an interface, controlling and monitoring the process, in real-time, and receiving the selected results.

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Research paper thumbnail of Improved biomedical device for spasticity quantification

Spasticity is a disabling motor disorder, resulting from neurological impairments. This disorder ... more Spasticity is a disabling motor disorder, resulting from neurological impairments. This disorder has now a remarkable social and economic impact, affecting approximately 1.9% of the world population. The methods for spasticity quantification play an important role in the medical treatments’ success and may reduce the associated costs. The Modified Asworth Scale is the most commonly method used for the evaluation of this disorder, but experts agree that it is not a precise and reproducible method. Despite the literature presents several innovative methods, there is still a need for improvements. This paper presents the development of a biomedical device for spasticity quantification, based on the velocity dependent increase of the stretch reflexes threshold. The proposed approach was tested in clinical environment, with the collaboration of patients with spasticity. The experimental trials allow confirming the sensibility, reproducibility and reliability of the proposed approach.

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Research paper thumbnail of A multidisciplinary experience in Remote Physiological Systems laboratory

Remote laboratories have been developed to support the students' learning and to reduce equip... more Remote laboratories have been developed to support the students' learning and to reduce equipment costs. More and more, laboratories play an important role in engineering teaching, since they allow the connection between theory and practice. Actually, there is the necessity to change strategies and methodologies of education. The remote laboratories enable the access to all students anytime, anywhere because they are available on the Internet. This paper presents the firsts developments of an innovative laboratory in the bioengineering area: RePhyS. RePhyS will be a remote laboratory for use in biomedical and physiological systems studies in graduate and post graduate levels. The user will be allowed to interact with the system parameters, and to control some system variables. This new lab will enable to produce, visualize and analyze, in real-time, results of practical experiences in order to improve students' activity of learning, and it will provide with an enriched compu...

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Research paper thumbnail of Students’ perspectives on Remote Physiological Signals Acquisition Experiments

Data acquisition of physiological signals is a very important issue since further health treatmen... more Data acquisition of physiological signals is a very important issue since further health treatment depends on them. With recent developments in technology, new medical devices and new ways of monitoring and acquisition of physiological information emerge. So, not only medicals but also biomedical engineers must be prepared and aware of the characteristics and requirements needed. Following this tendency, this paper describes the developments of a remote lab for the study of biomedical and physiological systems in undergraduate and graduate level. The remote acquisition of ECG and body acceleration data was the experiments performed and evaluated by a group of biomedical engineering students. The experiments were conducted according to a protocol designed for the physiological data acquisition task. A pre and post questionnaires were applied to a group of students to obtain qualitative and quantitative evaluation to validate the remote experiment. The first results show a very positi...

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Research paper thumbnail of Issues in remote laboratory developments for biomedical engineering education

In engineering and sciences education, the laboratorial experiment is an important component of t... more In engineering and sciences education, the laboratorial experiment is an important component of the learning process. The recurrent or intensive use of laboratories leads to the improvement of students’ skills. Nevertheless, the need of laboratorial practice has led to the development of innovative solutions: the remote labs. This work intends to discuss the preliminaries developments of a new remote laboratory for biomedical engineering courses: Remote Physiological System (RePhyS) laboratory. LabVIEW was the tool used for both the device handling (control and configuration) and the web platform’s deployment. However it could be incompatible with some web browsers. To overcome this limitation, the team explores news user-side solutions. With this innovative teaching/learning tool, the students should be able to recognize the biosignals and the acquisition methods in an intuitive and easy way, allowing them to improve their knowledge.

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Research paper thumbnail of Remote physiological signals acquisition: Didactic experiments

The biomedical engineering can be understood as the intersection of the engineering with medicine... more The biomedical engineering can be understood as the intersection of the engineering with medicine/biology areas. One of its applications is the design of efficient devices in physiological specific monitoring activities, which demands the knowledge of the physiological signals' characteristics and the acquisition methods. The use of innovative educational tools can make a remarkable impact on biomedical engineering education. A remote laboratory for physiological data acquisition has been developed to be used as a complementary tool in the students' learning process. This remote laboratory consists in different experiments for biosignals' acquisition, and it empowers the students to understand the physiological systems functioning. A demonstration will be performed using one of those remote experiments.

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Research paper thumbnail of Mechanical Simulation Model of the Systemic Circulation

Measurement

The simulation of different physiological systems is very useful as a pedagogical tool, allowing ... more The simulation of different physiological systems is very useful as a pedagogical tool, allowing a better understanding of the mechanisms and the functions thereof. Thus, the observation of physiological phenomena through mechanical simulators represents a great asset. Furthermore, the development of these simulators allows for the reinterpretation of physiological systems. The cardiovascular system is one of the most important systems of the human body and has been the target of several biomedical studies. The present work describes a computational approach for a mechanical model of the systemic circulation, capable of reproducing with high accuracy the physiological haemodynamic function. The model was developed in the Automation Studio™ software. Despite this software is widely used in hydraulic and electro-hydraulic conventional simulations - among others, as pneumatics simulations, industrial controllers behavior simulations - it is not commonly used for physiological functions...

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Research paper thumbnail of Development of a Mechatronic System for Bedridden People Support

This work is developed on the context of Ambient Assisted Living and has, as main purpose, the de... more This work is developed on the context of Ambient Assisted Living and has, as main purpose, the development of a mechatronic system that allows autonomous treatment for bedridden patients with ongoing medical care, by a single person. This system allows greater autonomy in domiciliary care, related with safety, comfort and hygiene of bedridden patients. It contributes to a large increase in their quality of life as well as the ease of monitoring by providers of continuing care, which in many cases may be the family itself. In this paper it is presented only one part of this complex mechatronic system that deals with physiological data acquisition and treatment. Also the sending of data for distance evaluation, by medical decision centres, is illustrated. This project falls within the area: Ambient Assisted Living. The developed societies currently face severe demographic changes: the world is aging at an unprecedented rate. In 2000, about 420 million people, or about 7 percent of the...

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Research paper thumbnail of Facial Expressions and Gestures to Convey Emotions with a Humanoid Robot

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Research paper thumbnail of The FINS Protocol for Complex Industrial Applicattions - A Case Study

International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, 2009

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Research paper thumbnail of A new plant modelling approach for formal verification purposes

Eleventh IFAC Symposium on Large Scale Complex Systems Theory and Applications, 2007, 2007

Abstract This paper presents a new approach in plant modeling for the formal verification of real... more Abstract This paper presents a new approach in plant modeling for the formal verification of real time systems. A system composed by two tanks is used, where all its components are modeled by simple modules and all the interdependences of the system's modular models are presented. As innovating parameters in the plant modeling, having as purpose its use on formal verification tasks, the plant is modeled using Dymola software and Modelica programming language. The results obtained in simulation are used to define the plant models that are ...

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Research paper thumbnail of Yarn parameterization based on mass analysis

Sensors and Actuators A-physical, 2004

The aim of this paper is to present a new experimental procedure to evaluate yarn characteristics... more The aim of this paper is to present a new experimental procedure to evaluate yarn characteristics, in real time, using capacitive sensors with a width below 8mm (commercial equipments use 8mm sensors). The new approach allows a direct measurement in 1mm range (increasing resolution eight times). Using software modules developed in this project, all yarn parameters commonly used in industry

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Research paper thumbnail of QR codes and Java applied to physiological data acquisition in biomedical engineering education

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Research paper thumbnail of Using a Humanoid Robot to Elicit Body Awareness and Appropriate Physical Interaction in Children with Autism

International Journal of Social Robotics, 2014

ABSTRACT In this article we describe a human–robot interaction study, focusing on tactile aspects... more ABSTRACT In this article we describe a human–robot interaction study, focusing on tactile aspects of interaction, in which children with autism interacted with the child-like humanoid robot KASPAR. KASPAR was equipped with touch sensors in order to be able to distinguish gentle from harsh touch, and to respond accordingly. The study investigated a novel scenario for robot-assisted play, with the goal to increase body awareness of children with autism spectrum condition (hereafter ASC) by teaching them how to identify human body parts, and to promote a triadic relationship between the child, the robot and the experimenter. Data obtained from the video analysis of the experimental sessions showed that children treated KASPAR as an object of shared attention with the experimenter, and performed more gentle touches on the robot along the sessions. The children also learned to identify body parts. The study showed the potential that teaching children with autism about body parts and appropriate physical interaction using a humanoid robot has, and highlighted the issues of scenario development, data collection and data analysis that will inform future studies.

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Research paper thumbnail of Yarn Irregularity Parameterisation Using Optical Sensors

This paper presents an original system to measure yarn diameter using coherent optical signal pro... more This paper presents an original system to measure yarn diameter using coherent optical signal processing to eliminate the influence of hairiness over the output signal. The system consists of optical hardware to produce an image which characterises the yarn diameter and electronic hardware that converts the optical yarn diameter image into a proportional voltage. LabVIEW customised software was used to

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Research paper thumbnail of Improving feeding efficiency of a sewing machine by on-line control of the presser foot

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Research paper thumbnail of Advancements in on-line monitoring and control of parameters in knitting and sewing processes

This paper presents a summary of the developments in process control in textile processes at the ... more This paper presents a summary of the developments in process control in textile processes at the University of Minho, by a multidisciplinary research group involving three different departments (Textile, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering). The studies target the automatic process parameter monitoring and control in the areas of industrial sewing and knitting.

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Research paper thumbnail of Automatic System for Blood Type Classification using Image Processing Techniques

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Research paper thumbnail of Where is your nose? - Developing body awareness skills among Children with Autism using a humanoid robot

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of BakSIM: an application for control, monitoring and simulation of baker's yeast fermentation process

This paper describes an experience based on the final project work for the Industrial Electronics... more This paper describes an experience based on the final project work for the Industrial Electronics Engineering undergraduate course. The main goal is the development of an application for fermentation processes. BakSIM is an application for monitoring, control and simulation of a mini-bioreactor for baker's yeast fermentation, running in open or closed loop mode. It performs data acquisition of the most important system variables: biomass, ethanol, oxygen, glucose and dioxide of carbon, and files writing for future analysis and for future contrast with previous experiences. Different modules were considered: simulation, monitoring and simulation and monitoring running together. The BakSIM application allows not only the comparison of the experimental data with the simulated data as the study of the effectiveness of several numerical methods. One more advantage of this project was its multidisciplinary work, enclosing several areas covered during the undergraduate course, namely P...

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Research paper thumbnail of Remote Physiological Systems (RePhyS) Laboratory: a didactic learning environment

With the appearance of new teaching/learning methods, innovative techniques have been used to mot... more With the appearance of new teaching/learning methods, innovative techniques have been used to motivate and to improve students' skills in the area of engineering. Nowadays, remote laboratories are well accepted and used to support the students' learning in higher education, playing an important role in engineering teaching, since they allow the connection between theory and practice to all students anytime, anywhere because they are available in the Internet. Following this trend, this paper describes the main ideas of a multidisciplinary R&D workgroup in the development of an innovative laboratory in the bioengineering area: RePhyS. RePhyS is a remote laboratory for the study of biomedical and physiological systems in graduate and post graduate levels. The user (student) will be allowed to interact with the system parameters, through an interface, controlling and monitoring the process, in real-time, and receiving the selected results.

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Research paper thumbnail of Improved biomedical device for spasticity quantification

Spasticity is a disabling motor disorder, resulting from neurological impairments. This disorder ... more Spasticity is a disabling motor disorder, resulting from neurological impairments. This disorder has now a remarkable social and economic impact, affecting approximately 1.9% of the world population. The methods for spasticity quantification play an important role in the medical treatments’ success and may reduce the associated costs. The Modified Asworth Scale is the most commonly method used for the evaluation of this disorder, but experts agree that it is not a precise and reproducible method. Despite the literature presents several innovative methods, there is still a need for improvements. This paper presents the development of a biomedical device for spasticity quantification, based on the velocity dependent increase of the stretch reflexes threshold. The proposed approach was tested in clinical environment, with the collaboration of patients with spasticity. The experimental trials allow confirming the sensibility, reproducibility and reliability of the proposed approach.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A multidisciplinary experience in Remote Physiological Systems laboratory

Remote laboratories have been developed to support the students' learning and to reduce equip... more Remote laboratories have been developed to support the students' learning and to reduce equipment costs. More and more, laboratories play an important role in engineering teaching, since they allow the connection between theory and practice. Actually, there is the necessity to change strategies and methodologies of education. The remote laboratories enable the access to all students anytime, anywhere because they are available on the Internet. This paper presents the firsts developments of an innovative laboratory in the bioengineering area: RePhyS. RePhyS will be a remote laboratory for use in biomedical and physiological systems studies in graduate and post graduate levels. The user will be allowed to interact with the system parameters, and to control some system variables. This new lab will enable to produce, visualize and analyze, in real-time, results of practical experiences in order to improve students' activity of learning, and it will provide with an enriched compu...

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Research paper thumbnail of Students’ perspectives on Remote Physiological Signals Acquisition Experiments

Data acquisition of physiological signals is a very important issue since further health treatmen... more Data acquisition of physiological signals is a very important issue since further health treatment depends on them. With recent developments in technology, new medical devices and new ways of monitoring and acquisition of physiological information emerge. So, not only medicals but also biomedical engineers must be prepared and aware of the characteristics and requirements needed. Following this tendency, this paper describes the developments of a remote lab for the study of biomedical and physiological systems in undergraduate and graduate level. The remote acquisition of ECG and body acceleration data was the experiments performed and evaluated by a group of biomedical engineering students. The experiments were conducted according to a protocol designed for the physiological data acquisition task. A pre and post questionnaires were applied to a group of students to obtain qualitative and quantitative evaluation to validate the remote experiment. The first results show a very positi...

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Research paper thumbnail of Issues in remote laboratory developments for biomedical engineering education

In engineering and sciences education, the laboratorial experiment is an important component of t... more In engineering and sciences education, the laboratorial experiment is an important component of the learning process. The recurrent or intensive use of laboratories leads to the improvement of students’ skills. Nevertheless, the need of laboratorial practice has led to the development of innovative solutions: the remote labs. This work intends to discuss the preliminaries developments of a new remote laboratory for biomedical engineering courses: Remote Physiological System (RePhyS) laboratory. LabVIEW was the tool used for both the device handling (control and configuration) and the web platform’s deployment. However it could be incompatible with some web browsers. To overcome this limitation, the team explores news user-side solutions. With this innovative teaching/learning tool, the students should be able to recognize the biosignals and the acquisition methods in an intuitive and easy way, allowing them to improve their knowledge.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Remote physiological signals acquisition: Didactic experiments

The biomedical engineering can be understood as the intersection of the engineering with medicine... more The biomedical engineering can be understood as the intersection of the engineering with medicine/biology areas. One of its applications is the design of efficient devices in physiological specific monitoring activities, which demands the knowledge of the physiological signals' characteristics and the acquisition methods. The use of innovative educational tools can make a remarkable impact on biomedical engineering education. A remote laboratory for physiological data acquisition has been developed to be used as a complementary tool in the students' learning process. This remote laboratory consists in different experiments for biosignals' acquisition, and it empowers the students to understand the physiological systems functioning. A demonstration will be performed using one of those remote experiments.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Mechanical Simulation Model of the Systemic Circulation

Measurement

The simulation of different physiological systems is very useful as a pedagogical tool, allowing ... more The simulation of different physiological systems is very useful as a pedagogical tool, allowing a better understanding of the mechanisms and the functions thereof. Thus, the observation of physiological phenomena through mechanical simulators represents a great asset. Furthermore, the development of these simulators allows for the reinterpretation of physiological systems. The cardiovascular system is one of the most important systems of the human body and has been the target of several biomedical studies. The present work describes a computational approach for a mechanical model of the systemic circulation, capable of reproducing with high accuracy the physiological haemodynamic function. The model was developed in the Automation Studio™ software. Despite this software is widely used in hydraulic and electro-hydraulic conventional simulations - among others, as pneumatics simulations, industrial controllers behavior simulations - it is not commonly used for physiological functions...

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Research paper thumbnail of Development of a Mechatronic System for Bedridden People Support

This work is developed on the context of Ambient Assisted Living and has, as main purpose, the de... more This work is developed on the context of Ambient Assisted Living and has, as main purpose, the development of a mechatronic system that allows autonomous treatment for bedridden patients with ongoing medical care, by a single person. This system allows greater autonomy in domiciliary care, related with safety, comfort and hygiene of bedridden patients. It contributes to a large increase in their quality of life as well as the ease of monitoring by providers of continuing care, which in many cases may be the family itself. In this paper it is presented only one part of this complex mechatronic system that deals with physiological data acquisition and treatment. Also the sending of data for distance evaluation, by medical decision centres, is illustrated. This project falls within the area: Ambient Assisted Living. The developed societies currently face severe demographic changes: the world is aging at an unprecedented rate. In 2000, about 420 million people, or about 7 percent of the...

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Research paper thumbnail of Facial Expressions and Gestures to Convey Emotions with a Humanoid Robot

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of The FINS Protocol for Complex Industrial Applicattions - A Case Study

International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics, 2009

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of A new plant modelling approach for formal verification purposes

Eleventh IFAC Symposium on Large Scale Complex Systems Theory and Applications, 2007, 2007

Abstract This paper presents a new approach in plant modeling for the formal verification of real... more Abstract This paper presents a new approach in plant modeling for the formal verification of real time systems. A system composed by two tanks is used, where all its components are modeled by simple modules and all the interdependences of the system's modular models are presented. As innovating parameters in the plant modeling, having as purpose its use on formal verification tasks, the plant is modeled using Dymola software and Modelica programming language. The results obtained in simulation are used to define the plant models that are ...

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Research paper thumbnail of Yarn parameterization based on mass analysis

Sensors and Actuators A-physical, 2004

The aim of this paper is to present a new experimental procedure to evaluate yarn characteristics... more The aim of this paper is to present a new experimental procedure to evaluate yarn characteristics, in real time, using capacitive sensors with a width below 8mm (commercial equipments use 8mm sensors). The new approach allows a direct measurement in 1mm range (increasing resolution eight times). Using software modules developed in this project, all yarn parameters commonly used in industry

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of QR codes and Java applied to physiological data acquisition in biomedical engineering education

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Using a Humanoid Robot to Elicit Body Awareness and Appropriate Physical Interaction in Children with Autism

International Journal of Social Robotics, 2014

ABSTRACT In this article we describe a human–robot interaction study, focusing on tactile aspects... more ABSTRACT In this article we describe a human–robot interaction study, focusing on tactile aspects of interaction, in which children with autism interacted with the child-like humanoid robot KASPAR. KASPAR was equipped with touch sensors in order to be able to distinguish gentle from harsh touch, and to respond accordingly. The study investigated a novel scenario for robot-assisted play, with the goal to increase body awareness of children with autism spectrum condition (hereafter ASC) by teaching them how to identify human body parts, and to promote a triadic relationship between the child, the robot and the experimenter. Data obtained from the video analysis of the experimental sessions showed that children treated KASPAR as an object of shared attention with the experimenter, and performed more gentle touches on the robot along the sessions. The children also learned to identify body parts. The study showed the potential that teaching children with autism about body parts and appropriate physical interaction using a humanoid robot has, and highlighted the issues of scenario development, data collection and data analysis that will inform future studies.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Yarn Irregularity Parameterisation Using Optical Sensors

This paper presents an original system to measure yarn diameter using coherent optical signal pro... more This paper presents an original system to measure yarn diameter using coherent optical signal processing to eliminate the influence of hairiness over the output signal. The system consists of optical hardware to produce an image which characterises the yarn diameter and electronic hardware that converts the optical yarn diameter image into a proportional voltage. LabVIEW customised software was used to

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Research paper thumbnail of Improving feeding efficiency of a sewing machine by on-line control of the presser foot

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of Advancements in on-line monitoring and control of parameters in knitting and sewing processes

This paper presents a summary of the developments in process control in textile processes at the ... more This paper presents a summary of the developments in process control in textile processes at the University of Minho, by a multidisciplinary research group involving three different departments (Textile, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering). The studies target the automatic process parameter monitoring and control in the areas of industrial sewing and knitting.

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