Abstract
This paper discusses the teaching of Fourier Series concepts in undergraduate Electrical Engineering education with the help of an Android application, especially developed to that end. In order to better understand the links and implications, some of the basic Fourier series theory is briefly reviewed. The Android application has an easy-to-use, friendly interface, conceived to help undergraduate students test and assess the Fourier series expansions on a typical set of signals. The application also allows the students to control the total approximation error and the number of terms/harmonics used in the expansions. It has been found a very useful learning resource in the Fourier series context.

Abstract
This article describes a new electrical conductance converter method suitable for low power applications and an implementation in standard CMOS technology. Despite being designed to meet specific measurements requirements, this converter is intended for applications where device power requirements are determinative such self powered sensors networks and implantable devices. The topology is described and an implementation is presented. Results show the possibility of being powered by a single 1.2 V accumulator cell with a consumption of 8 nJ per conversion.

Abstract
This paper reviews instrumented hip joint replacements, instrumented femoral replacements and instrumented femoral fracture stabilizers. Examination of the evolution of such implants was carried out, including the detailed analysis of 16 architectures, designed by 8 research teams and implanted in 32 patients. Their power supply, measurement, communication, processing and actuation systems were reviewed, as were the tests carried out to evaluate their performance and safety. These instrumented implants were only designed to measure biomechanical and thermodynamic quantities in vivo, in order to use such data to conduct research projects and optimize rehabilitation processes. The most promising trend is to minimize aseptic loosening and/or infection following hip or femoral replacements or femoral stabilization procedures by using therapeutic actuators inside instrumented implants to apply controlled stimuli in the bone-implant interface.

Abstract
In this paper the first steps for the derivation of a mathematical model to describe the mechanical behaviour of a cylindrical electromagnetic vibration energy harvester, designed to extract energy from human gait to power biomedical implantable devices, are provided. As it is usual, in the modelling of such devices, the proposed mechanical model is also based on the solution of Newton's second law, but here a nonlinear closed-form expression is used for the resulting magnetic force of the system, unlike what has been done in previous works where, traditionally, that expression is a linear or is a nonlinear approximation of the real one. The main feature of this mechanical model is that it depends on several parameters which are related to the main characteristics of this kind of devices, which constitutes a major advantage with respect to the usual models available in the literature since these characteristics can always be changed in order to optimize the device. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Abstract
In the last decade, SAR interferometry techniques, especially those that use time series analysis experienced a strong development in both, methodologies and applications, becoming an operational tool for deformation monitoring. The emergence of a growing number of SAR dedicated missions combined with the increasing interest from academics, but also private research groups, reflected in the number of available software packages developed with interferometric analysis purposes, were the major responsible for the InSAR/MTI achievements occurred over the past few years. Many free-of-charge (freeware or open-source) and commercial software packages exist. Due to its proven reliability and freeware distribution among the scientific community, Stanford Method for Persistent Scatterers/Multi-Temporal Interferometry (StaMPS/MTI) implementation, is widely used for ground deformation monitoring. This paper presents viStaMPS v1.2, a collaborative scientific project that appeared with three major purposes: (1) facilitate the usage by users nonfamiliar with the specificities of the programming language that supports StaMPS; (2) implement several visualization tasks not available in the StaMPS standard approach requiring that each user to develop its own code for visualization and interpretation purposes and (3) create a collaborative research project, continually under development counting on the dynamism of its users to improve and/or add new features. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Abstract
The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to present a survey of the actual and most advanced methods for man-made structures monitoring, more specifically dams and bridges. Theoretical and technical aspects of these methodologies are presented and discussed focusing on innovative inspection methods and on the opportunities that could deliver. Secondly, to identify the opportunities that could potentially improve the inspections and maintenance processes, being the satellite-based monitoring, using radar imagery, recognized as viable source of independent information products that may be used to remotely monitor the health of these specific man-made structures. By applying Multi-temporal InSAR processing techniques to a series of radar images over the same region, it is possible to detect vertical movements of structure systems on the ground in the millimeter range, and therefore, identify abnormal or excessive movement indicating potential problems requiring detailed ground investigation. In this paper it is clearly demonstrated that with the new high-resolution synthetic aperture radar satellites scenes, InSAR technology may be particular useful as hot spot indicator of relative deformations structures over large areas, making possible to develop interferometric based methodologies for structural health monitoring. From a technological standpoint, this approach represents a substantial evolution over the current state-of-the-art. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.