Abstract
Factors such as uncertainty associated to fuel prices, energy demand and generation availability, are on the basis of the agents major concerns in electricity markets. Facing that reality, price forecasting has an increasing impact in agents' activity. The success on bidding strategies or on price negotiation for bilateral contracts is directly dependent on the accuracy of the price forecast. However, taking decisions based only on a single forecasted value is not a good practice in risk management. The work presented in this paper makes use of artificial neural networks to find the market price for a given period, with a certain confidence level. Historical information was used to train the neural networks and the number of neural networks used is dependent of the number of clusters found on that data. K-Means clustering method is used to find clusters. A study case with real data is presented and discussed in detail.

Abstract
The phenomenon of the enterprise organizational reconfiguration and its dynamics as a business alignment enabler is discussed. Business alignment means the enterprise's actions undertaken to gain synergy between the business; that is, the market opportunity and the provision of the required, or innovative, product, with the required, or designed, specifications at the required, or proper, time, with the lowest cost and best possible return (financial or other). The enterprise's organization "fast reconfiguration," either as a proactive or as a reactive action, or "fast adaptation" or "flexibility" (as a "reactive" action), is seen as the main enabler of business alignment and the main requirement for achieving competitiveness. The need to keep a close alignment with the dynamic market environment in permanent change implies the high dynamics of the organizations' organization, or organizational structure, reconfiguration. The first part of the text presents enterprise's requirements for competitiveness and business alignment, while the second part discusses the phenomenon of the enterprise reconfigurability as the business alignment enabler. In the third part, an analysis of some organizational and management approaches, from the reconfigurability point of view, is presented. The text ends with a conclusion and references. © 2007, Idea Group Inc.

Abstract
The Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of several Portuguese hospitals have been using the intensive.care information system (ICS) for the past three years. This system was developed under specification of Medical Doctors (MDs) from ICUs. As the main focus of the initial project was on adding functionality to the system, little attention was given to non-functional requirements such as usability. This paper describes the current ICS and the results of preliminary interviews with its main stakeholders to determine high-level functional and non-functional evolution requirements. The objective of the overall study is to propose usability requirements for such system, in particular from MDs and nurses, its main users. A prototype of an improved user interface will be evaluated to support the development of the next version of the system. The interviews with a key developer and several MDs resulted so far in the conclusion that ICS is a very helpful tool but requires improvements in several modules, such as Patient Entrance and Patient Evolution. However, more advanced modules, such as Infections Management, will also require some adaptations of work processes in ICUs, in order to benefit from the full support that ICS can provide.

Abstract
This work addresses the signal propagation and the fractional-order dynamics during the evolution of a genetic algorithm (GA). In order to investigate the phenomena involved in the GA population evolution, the mutation is exposed to excitation perturbations during some generations and the corresponding fitness variations are evaluated. Three distinct fitness functions are used to study their influence in the GA dynamics. The input and output signals are studied revealing a fractional-order dynamic evolution, characteristic of a long-term system memory.

Abstract
A fiber-sensing scheme with controlled sensitivity comprising a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and a mechanically induced long-period fiber grating (MLPFG) is presented. The FBG was written by exposing the fiber to 248-nm UV laser radiation such that the Bragg wavelength is localized on the slope of a resonant band of a mechanical grating, which was produced by winding a nylon string around a fiber/grooved tube set. The strength of that resonant band was altered by applying loads to the MLPFG. For different loads, the FBG was submitted to strain values of up to 2200 mu epsilon, in steps of 200 mu epsilon, during which the Bragg wavelength and the respective transmitted peak power through the MLPFG were recorded. It was demonstrated that by applying a weight with a value of 0.78 kg to the MLPFG, the sensitivity of the FBG interrogation technique to strain variations increased from 2.23 (without load) to 3.20 pW/mu epsilon.

Abstract