Abstract
In the past two decades, grid computing have fostered advances in several scientific domains by making resources available to a wide community and bridging scientific gaps. Grid infrastructures have been harnessing computational resources all around the world allowing all kinds of parallelisms to be explored. Other approaches to parallel and distributed computing still exist like the use of dedicated high-performance (HPC) infrastructures, and the use of clouds for computing and storage, but grid computing continues to be the predominant technology used for scientific computing in Europe, through the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) and the European Middleware Initiative (EMI). Currently, there is a trend towards the use of cloud technologies for computing and storage. In Europe, this trend is being followed by taking advantage of all the experiences gained from building grid infrastructures and the technologies developed around them (resource management orchestration, unified job description languages, security, user interfaces, programming models, and scheduling policies, among others). As a result, the European Grid Infrastructure Federated Cloud is being built on top of the grid infrastructure already available. After almost two decades of the development of grid software and components and the emergence of competing technologies, now is the time to discuss current trends and to assess future prospects. When organizing this book, the authors considered contributions that would review the current grid computing scenario as well as contributions that would summarize the main tools and technologies used so far. The chapters in this book provide reviews for the following topics: a) performance prediction for parallel and distributed computing systems, b) resource sharing on computational grids, c) economic models for resource management, and d) programming frameworks. The chapters address grid issues such as a) the challenges of designing efficient job schedulers for production grids, b) scalability analysis of bag-of-tasks applications, c) the energy efficiency of resource reservation-based scheduling, and d) the development of parallel applications using the grid environment. Additionally, the following tools are presented: a) a programming framework based on the concept of a pluggable grid service that avoids explicit calls to grid services in scientific code and b) a desktop grid framework that runs on top of a cloud and can be deployed on the fly. The authors were each invited to contribute a chapter to this book, which were carefully revised and selected based on their originality and the value of their contribution to the overall discussion on grid computing and its future prospects.

Abstract
Considering the new paradigm in the industry, where clients request small amounts of a growing range of products, the times of crisis and the fierce competition for businesses survival, it is crucial for Organizations to be able to reduce the waste of raw materials. In the manufacturing industry, the waste of materials could be minimized with the introduction of decision support systems in the process. In this paper we propose an information system that enables the optimization of purchases and consumption of materials, promoting waste reduction and boosting profitability.

Abstract
The adoption of social media networks by organizations has been increasing, mainly by using more social networks but also by constantly increasing on the number of messages and received comments posted on these channels. Interestingly, this process apparently has not been accompanied by a carefully planned and strategically design process to provide the essential alignment with organizational goals. This study is framed in the tertiary sector, the Higher Education Sector (HES), which despite its peculiarities, is no exception to the above limitations, and is facing an increased competitive environment. In this paper we present a sector benchmarking process, and the respective analysis, to provide insights on the sector's tendency, as well as a threefold classification of the sector's social media strategies being pursued. The analysis builds upon a regulatory communication framework and respective editorial model. We describe the results of our automatic text-mining and categorization information system, specifically developed to address and analyze the seven categories of HES' social media messages. Our results show that social media strategies have been focusing essentially on mediatization and building/maintaining the organizational image/reputation as well as on advertising educational services, but completely neglecting the dialogical dimension intrinsically linked to social media environments. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Abstract
There are several approaches to create the Humanoid robot gait planning. This problem presents a large number of unknown parameters that should be found to make the humanoid robot to walk. Optimization in simulation models can be used to find the gait based on several criteria such as energy minimization, acceleration, step length among the others. The energy consumption can also be reduced with elastic elements coupled to each joint. The presented paper addresses an optimization method, the Stretched Simulated Annealing, that runs in an accurate and stable simulation model to find the optimal gait combined with elastic elements. Final results demonstrate that optimization is a valid gait planning technique.

Abstract
Over the past years, volumetric cardiac imaging has matured to a modality that can be used in daily routine clinical practice. However, despite the evolution of volumetric ultrasound systems with remarkable improvement in image quality, spatio-temporal resolution of the 3D data set remains limited and inferior to what can be obtained in 2D. Further development of volumetric ultrasound is thus required. However, the development of new beam forming techniques for 3D ultrasound (US) imaging requires an open, flexible and fully programmable US platform. To date, such systems are scarce and required (custom-made) dedicated electronics. Therefore, the aim of this report is to present a novel High channel Density Programmable ULtrasound System based on consumer Electronics (HD-PULSE). © 2015 IEEE.

Abstract
In multi-agent systems, local interactions among system components following relatively simple rules often result in complex overall systemic behavior. Complex behavioral and morphological patterns have been used to generate and organize audiovisual systems with artistic purposes. In this work, we propose to use the Actor model of social interactions to drive a concatenative synthesis engine called earGram in real time. The Actor model was originally developed to explore the emergence of complex visual patterns. In turn, earGram was originally developed to facilitate the creative exploration of concatenative sound synthesis. The integrated audiovisual system allows a human performer to interact with the system dynamics while receiving visual and auditory feedback. The interaction happens indirectly by disturbing the rules governing the social relationships amongst the actors, which results in a wide range of dynamic spatiotemporal patterns. A user-performer thus improvises within the behavioral scope of the system while evaluating the apparent connections between parameter values and actual complexity of the system output.