Abstract
Multi-agent systems (MAS) paradigm is a suitable approach to implement distributed manufacturing systems addressing the emergent requirements of flexibility, robustness and responsiveness. In such systems, the distributed agents have a local view of the system environment being the global data collection a complex and critical issue to provide the functionalities of the ISA-95 standard, such as dynamic scheduling, maintenance management and quality assurance. This paper describes the data collection mechanisms in a multi-agent system that supports the global monitoring over the time and the trend analysis to perform self-adaptation and self-optimization. The proposed approach was developed and tested in an industrial washing machines production line.

Abstract
The introduction of various novel imaging technologies such as narrow-band imaging have posed novel image processing challenges to the design of computer assisted decision systems. In this paper, we propose an image descriptor refered to as integrated scale histogram local binary patterns. We propagate an aggregated histogram of local binary patterns of an image at various resolutions. This results in low dimensional feature vectors for the images while incorporating their multiresolution analysis. The descriptor was used to classify gastroenterology images into four distinct groups. Results produced by the proposed descriptor exhibit around 92% accuracy for classification of gastroenteroloy images outperforming other state-of-the-art methods, endorsing the effectiveness of the proposed descriptor.

Abstract
The development of the microgrid (MG) concept endows distribution networks with increased reliability and resilience and offers an adequate management and control solution for massive deployment of microgeneration and electric vehicles (EVs). Within an MG, local generation can be exploited to launch a local restoration procedure following a blackout. EVs are flexible resources that can also be actively included in the restoration procedure, thus contributing to the improvement of MG operating conditions. The feasibility of MG service restoration, including the active participation of EVs, is demonstrated in this article through extensive numerical simulation and experimentation in a laboratorial setup. © 2007-2011 IEEE.

Abstract
We conducted a user study to analyze how health literacy, topic familiarity and the terminology used in past queries affect query behavior in health searches. We found that users with inadequate health literacy have less success in web searches and show more difficulties in query formulation. These users and the ones not familiar with the topic use medico-scientific terminology less often than users with more health literacy and topic familiarity. We conclude that search engines should help these groups of users in query formulation and, since technical documents stimulate the use of medico-scientific terminology in query reformulation, mechanisms like query suggestion can have long-term benefits. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.

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