Abstract
Background: Within Rosaceae, the RNase based gametophytic self-incompatibility (GSI) system has been studied at the molecular level in Maloideae and Prunus species that have been diverging for, at least, 32 million years. In order to understand RNase based GSI evolution within this family, comparative studies must be performed, using similar methodologies. Result: It is here shown that many features are shared between the two species groups such as levels of recombination at the S-RNase ( the S-pistil component) gene, and the rate at which new specificities arise. Nevertheless, important differences are found regarding the number of ancestral lineages and the degree of specificity sharing between closely related species. In Maloideae, about 17% of the amino acid positions at the S-RNase protein are found to be positively selected, and they occupy about 30% of the exposed protein surface. Positively selected amino acid sites are shown to be located on either side of the active site cleft, an observation that is compatible with current models of specificity determination. At positively selected amino acid sites, non-conservative changes are almost as frequent as conservative changes. There is no evidence that at these sites the most drastic amino acid changes may be more strongly selected. Conclusions: Many similarities are found between the GSI system of Prunus and Maloideae that are compatible with the single origin hypothesis for RNase based GSI. The presence of common features such as the location of positively selected amino acid sites and lysine residues that may be important for ubiquitylation, raise a number of issues that, in principle, can be experimentally addressed in Maloideae. Nevertheless, there are also many important differences between the two Rosaceae GSI systems. How such features changed during evolution remains a puzzling issue.

Abstract
The optical recognition of handwritten musical scores by computers remains far from ideal. Most OMR algorithms rely on an estimation of the staffline thickness and the vertical line distance within the same staff. Subsequent operation can use these values as references, dismissing the need for some predetermined threshold values. In this work we improve on previous conventional estimates for these two reference lengths. We start by proposing a new method for binarized music scores and then extend the approach for gray-level music scores. An experimental study with 50 images is used to assess the interest of the novel method. © 2010 IEEE.

Abstract
A business community where communication can be streamlined, information shared and trust can be built can be considered as a collaborative network promoting SMEs long term sustainability by assuring quick response, fast time to market, differentiated offerings and competitive prices. This collaboration could be orchestrated both in hierarchical and non-hierarchical forms depending on the firms size, capacity and objectives. In this research, we have considered non-hierarchical networking among firms, especially for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), where the basic requirements are related with choosing appropriate business partners, building trust and sharing valuable information among them. In order to articulate the concept of this non-hierarchical collaboration, six pilot SMEs were analyzed and a methodological approach to manage these environments is proposed. A generic overview of different variables or factors necessary to build such business collaboration are presented and discussed critically in this study.

Abstract
The scheduling of preventive maintenance actions of generators is not a new problem but gained in recent years a new interest with the advent of electricity markets. In this paper we report the research on this topic developed during the preparation of the MSc Thesis of the second author. In this paper we formulate the problem as a mixed integer optimization problem and we describe the use of Simulated Annealing to solve it. Simulated Annealing is a very appealing metaheuristic easily implemented and providing good results in numerous optimization problems. The paper includes results obtained for a Case Study based on a realistic generation system. This research work was proposed and developed with the collaboration of the third and fourth authors, from EDP Produção, Portugal.

Abstract
The aim of sound morphing is to obtain a sound that falls perceptually between two (or more) sounds. Ideally, we want to morph perceptually relevant features of sounds and be able to independently manipulate them. In this work we present a method to obtain perceptually intermediate spectral envelopes guided by highlevel spectral shape descriptors and a technique that employs evolutionary computation to independently manipulate the timbral features captured by the descriptors. High-level descriptors are measures of the acoustic correlates of salient timbre dimensions derived from perceptual studies, such that the manipulation of the descriptors corresponds to potentially interesting timbral variations.

Abstract
This paper studies the suitability of brain activity, namely electroencephalogram signals, as raw material for conducting biometric authentication of individuals. Brain responses were extracted with visual stimulation, leading to biological brain responses known as Visual Evoked Potentials. We evaluated a novel method, using only 8 occipital electrodes and the energy of differential EEG signals, to extract information about the subjects for further use as their biometric features. To classify the features obtained from each individual, we used a one-class classifier per subject and we tested four types of classifiers: K-Nearest Neighbor, Support Vector Data Description and two other classifiers resulting from the combination of the two ones previously mentioned. After testing these four classifiers with features of 70 subjects, the results showed that visual evoked potentials are suitable for an accurate biometric authentication.