Abstract
Operational planning at public transport companies is a complex process that usually comprises several phases. In the planning phase, schedules are constructed considering that buses arrive and depart as scheduled. Obviously, several disruptions frequently occur, but their impact on the operating conditions is not easy to estimate. This difficulty arises mostly due to the impossibility of testing different solutions under the same conditions. Indeed, typically, the available data are a result of the current plan, while new proposed solutions have not produced real data yet. Along this chapter we discuss the assessment of the impact of changes in the operational planning on the real operating conditions, before their occurrence. We present a framework for such assessment, which includes two components: the impact on costs, and the impact on revenues. We believe that this framework will be useful in future works on operational planning of public transport companies. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

Abstract
In the present study the strategies of innovation, risk and proactiveness in micro and small businesses comparing their results between family and non- family firms were studied. Although it is common to find in the literature a trend of better performance of family businesses, this work is counteracted this trend. Not to the particular performance level, but the strategies presented, whose adoption leads to better performance. The study was carried out in the Vale do Sousa region and industrial and construction companies were considered. In terms of results, the sample allows us to conclude by 47 % of family businesses. Comparing the family business groups and unfamiliar, it was found that there were no differences in terms of innovation strategies and risks, however, the non- family businesses have become more proactive. In line with these results also found that it is not possible to distinguish between family and non- family firms in terms of entrepreneurship.

Abstract
Chimeric RNAs originating from two or more different genes are known to exist not only in cancer, but also in normal tissues, where they can play a role in human evolution. However, the exact mechanism of their formation is unknown. Here, we use RNA sequencing data from 462 healthy individuals representing 5 human populations to systematically identify and in depth characterize 81 RNA tandem chimeric transcripts, 13 of which are novel. We observe that 6 out of these 81 chimeras have been regarded as cancer-specific. Moreover, we show that a prevalence of long introns at the fusion breakpoint is associated with the chimeric transcripts formation. We also find that tandem RNA chimeras have lower abundances as compared to their partner genes. Finally, by combining our results with genomic data from the same individuals we uncover intronic genetic variants associated with the chimeric RNA formation. Taken together our findings provide an important insight into the chimeric transcripts formation and open new avenues of research into the role of intronic genetic variants in post-transcriptional processing events. © 2014 Greger et al.

Abstract
In general, managers have different opinions from those advocated by CIOs in relation to Information Systems, especially with regard to their importance and value to the business as well as in terms of investment needs. Here, we discuss and study new approaches to methods and tools for assessing the relative importance of each information system for business, focusing on the insurance companies. We applied the CRUDi Framework that introduces new key indicators for better decision support and to identify investment priorities, presenting results regarding the relative importance of each process to support the business strategy. The main contributions of this work are the CRUDi Framework Case Study of application in an insurance company, as a tool to improve alignment between business and IS strategies and the discussion of the achieved results.

Abstract
In this paper, we investigate a two-stage lot-sizing and scheduling problem in a spinning industry. A new hybrid method called HOPS (Hamming-Oriented Partition Search), which is a branch-and-bound based procedure that incorporates a fix-and-optimize improvement method is proposed to solve the problem. An innovative partition choice for the fix-and-optimize is developed. The computational tests with generated instances based on real data show that HOPS is a good alternative for solving mixed integer problems with recognized partitions such as the lot-sizing and scheduling problem.

Abstract