Abstract
Developing Poker agents that can compete at the level of a human expert can be a challenging endeavor, since agents' strategies must be capable of dealing with hidden information, deception and risk management. A way of addressing this issue is to model opponents' behavior in order to estimate their game plan and make decisions based on such estimations. In this paper, several hand evaluation and classification techniques are compared and conclusions on their respective applicability and scope are drawn. Also, we suggest improvements on current techniques through Monte Carlo sampling. The current methods to deal with risk management were found to be pertinent concerning the agent's decision-making process; nevertheless future integration of these methods with opponent modeling techniques can greatly improve overall Poker agents' performance.

Abstract
Portuguese higher education national access system, allows every year, thousands of students to enter higher education degrees. These students are allocated according to their classifications and their application including preferences to the institution-course pairs. Despite official statistics provided by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES) it is not always possible for course directors to get sufficient relevant indicators for good decision making in relation to the offering of their courses and respective dissemination strategy. This study evaluated the factors that directors consider that will influence students in their choice of a pair establishment-course as well as understand the different variables that are related to the same influence attribution. It was based on a survey on course directors and its content analysis. The results enable us to conclude that the directors are particularly interested by A3ES accreditations and internal competition, from courses in the department itself, college or institution of higher education. However, many of the directors don't show great concern to identify and defend themselves from external competitors, although that, however, is essential to ensure having a course that attracts high quality students.

Abstract
Autonomous Vehicles are a topic of important research, also being visually appealing to the public and attractive to educators and researchers. The autonomous driving competition in the Portuguese Robotics Open tries to take advantage of this context but concerns arise from lack of participators. Participants mention the complexity of issues related to the challenge, the space occupied for the track and the budget needed for participation. This paper takes advantage of a realistic simulator under Gazebo/ROS, studies a new track design and proposes a change in the track. The analysis presented tries to ascertain if the new design facilitates the learning process that is intended for participants while keeping visual appeal for both the general public and the participants. The proposed setup for the rules and simulator is expected to address the mentioned concerns. The rule's modification and simulator are evaluated and tested, hinting that expected learning outcomes are encouraged and the track occupied area is reduced. Learning includes mobile robotics (discrete event system and continuous control), real time artificial image vision systems (2D at image recognition and processing of real world imagery seen in 3D perspective), general real world robotics such as mechanics, control, programming, batteries, systems thinking as well as transversal skills such as team cooperation, soft skills, etc. Shown results hint that the new track and realistic simulation are promising to foster learning and hopefully attract more competing teams.

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Abstract
Since the demographics of population, with respect to age, are continuously changing, politicians and scientists start to pay more attention to the needs of senior individuals. Additionally, the well-being and needs of disabled individuals are also becoming highly valued in the political and entrepreneurial society. Intelligent wheelchairs are adapted electric wheelchairs with environmental perception, semi-autonomous behaviour and flexible human-machine-interaction. This paper presents the specification and development of a user-friendly multimodal interface, as a component of the IntellWheels Platform project. The developed prototype combines several input modules, allowing the control of the wheelchair through flexible user defined input sequences of distinct types (speech, facial expressions, head movements and joystick). To validate the effectiveness of the prototype, two experiments were performed with a number of individuals who tested the system firstly by driving a simulated wheelchair in a virtual environment. The second experiment was performed using the real IntellWheels wheelchair prototype. The results achieved proved that the multimodal interface may be successfully used by people, due to the interaction flexibility it provides.

Abstract