Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the relations among different knowledge management (KM) factors, such as human capital (HC), processes and information systems (IS) on organizational sustainable competitive advantage (CA), within the SMEs context. Design/methodology/approach Structured questionnaires were distributed to CEOs and managers of Portuguese organizations through an electronic survey. Partial least squares software was utilized to analyze the data. Findings The measurement model results identify and validate the dimensions of HC, processes and IS representing the KM construct. The structural model results demonstrate that HC and processes have a direct and significant impact on organizational CA, on the customer and financial dimensions, respectively. IS indirectly and significantly influence organizational CA, mediated by HC and processes. Research limitations/implications The sample size includes mostly service business and SMEs. Other organizations sectors, such as industry, should be analyzed in order to develop a comparative cross-sectorial study. Practical implications This study establishes suggestions for managers to make legitimate decisions concerning investments on knowledge assets and organizational capabilities that can foster business growth and sustainable CA within a SMEs context. Originality/value The authors propose a mediation mechanism showing that the relationship between IS and sustainable CA is not direct, but it is mediated by HC and processes. This mechanism points out some critical issues for the strategic knowledge and intellectual capital assets, as a source of organizational CA.

Abstract
In recent years, with the vigorous development of the new energy industry in the world, distributed photovoltaics (PV) have strongly penetrated the international energy markets at exponential growth rates, and a large number of electric vehicles (EVs) have been used mainly driven by policies. The use of EVs and distributed PV would lead to an increase in load uncertainty. Hence, a new day-ahead portfolio optimization model for a power supply company with distributed PV considering EVs was developed. The model contains risks depending on market price fluctuation and load uncertainty caused by EVs load, conventional load and distributed PV's output, considering the expected cost of errors, and helping to determine an optimal quantity of power to be obtained from distributed PV's output and different electricity markets. This paper analyses the efficient frontier of conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) and the influence of different EVs market penetration levels and distributed PV's output on the portfolio strategy. © 2018 IEEE

Abstract

Abstract
Modern economy requires engineers to excel in collaborative and communication skills at an international setting. However, these competences are not usually addressed in most engineering curricula. In the Multinational Undergraduate Team Work course, MUTW, students develop their capstone project as members of an international team while working at their home institutions. Team members are geographically spread to assure heterogeneous teams and to promote international cooperation. This paradigm can be applied in any project/internship course unit. The results from the pilot editions that ran between 2009 and 2011 support our initial hypothesis that MUTW significantly promotes students' soft skills without requiring costly and time consuming changes to prior degree curricula.

Abstract
The presence in natural vineyard images of savage foliage, weed, multiple leaves with overlapping, occlusion, and obstruction by objects due to the shadows, dust, insects and other adverse climatic conditions that occur in natural environment at the moment of image capturing, turns leaf segmentation a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a segmentation algorithm based on region growing using color model and threshold techniques for classification of the pixels belonging to vine leaves from vineyard color images captured in real field environment. To assess the accuracy of the proposed vine leaf segmentation algorithm, a supervised evaluation method was employed, in which a segmented image is compared against a manually-segmented one. Concerning boundary-based measures of quality, an average accuracy of 94.8% over a 140 image dataset was achieved. It proves that the proposed method gives suitable results for an ongoing research work for automatic identification and characterization of different endogenous grape varieties of the Portuguese Douro Demarcated Region.

Abstract
Context. V923 Sco is a bright (V = 5.91), nearby (pi = 15.46 +/- 0.40 mas) southern eclipsing binary. Because both components are slow rotators, the minimum masses of the components are known with 0.2% precision from spectroscopy. The system seems ideal for very precise mass, radius, and luminosity determinations and, owing to its proximity and long orbital period (similar to 34.8 days), promises to be resolved with long-baseline interferometry. Aims. The principal aim is very accurate determinations of absolute stellar parameters for both components of the eclipsing binary and a model-independent determination of the distance. Methods. New high-precision photometry of both eclipses of V923 Sco with the MOST satellite was obtained. The system was spatially resolved with the VLTI AMBER, PIONIER, and GRAVITY instruments at nine epochs. Combining the projected size of the spectroscopic orbit (in km) and visual orbit (in mas) the distance to the system is derived. Simultaneous analysis of photometric, spectroscopic, and interferometric data was performed to obtain a robust determination of the absolute parameters. Results. Very precise absolute parameters of the components were derived in spite of the parameter correlations. The primary component is found to be overluminous for its mass. Combining spectroscopic and interferometric observations enabled us to determine the distance to V923 Sco with better than 0.2% precision, which provides a stringent test of Gaia parallaxes. Conclusions. It is shown that combining spectroscopic and interferometric observations of nearby eclipsing binaries can lead to extremely accurate parallaxes and stellar parameters.