Abstract
Zinc oxide is widely used in the manufacture of a vast number of consumer goods and industrial applications. The employ of nano and sub-micrometer zinc oxide materials has recently been introduced as a more economic and more effective alternative to bulk zinc oxide. Furthermore zinc oxide is being used as antibacterial material since metal oxides are recognized as possessing antibacterial properties and are regarded as safe materials to human beings and animals. The present work aims to present our study on the antibacterial properties of zinc oxide particles prepared by a polyol thermal method. Spherical submicrometer ZnO particles were prepared and their antibacterial properties were tested in aqueous suspensions of E. coli bacteria. For ZnO concentrations higher than 50 ppm an inhibition of the growth rate of bacteria higher than 95 % is achieved.

Abstract
This paper presents a successful application of operations research techniques in guiding the decision making process to achieve a superior operational efficiency in core activities. We focus on a rich vehicle routing problem faced by a Portuguese food distribution company on a daily basis. This problem can be described as a heterogeneous fleet site dependent vehicle routing problem with multiple time windows. We use the adaptative large neighbourhood search framework, which has proven to be effective to solve a variety of different vehicle routing problems. Our plans are compared against those of the company and the impact that the proposed decision support tool may have in terms of cost savings is shown. The algorithm converges quickly giving the planner considerably more time to focus on value-added tasks, rather than manually correct the routing schedule. Moreover, contrarily to the necessary adaptation time of the planner, the tool is quite flexible in following market changes, such as the introduction of new customers or new products.

Abstract

Abstract
The No-Limit Texas Hold'em variant of Poker is the game that is most frequently used to assess new developments in incomplete information problems, through the development of game playing agents. For this particular game, current state-ofthe-art techniques consist in the pre-computation of a set of strategies that are in a Nash-Equilibrium state. However, due to the game's decision tree size, current algorithms only work in an abstracted version of No-Limit Poker. Moreover, since these strategies are static, they ignore the opponents' playing style thus being unable to maximize profit against certain kinds of opponents. This makes these strategies unusable when playing in an online environment against human players. In this paper we present a rule-based strategy approach for a No-Limit Poker agent that was developed to play online, against human players and in online multiplayer matches. This strategy is based on a popular technique used by human players short stack playing which consists of playing in tables with up to 6 players and low initial resources. Using domain specific opponent modeling techniques and limiting the decisions to the first round of the game, the agent was able to make a good profit margin of 11.5% per game when playing against human players. The significance of our results resides in the fact that, for the first time in the Computer Poker literature, we present a game playing agent that can match human players in multiplayer games.

Abstract

Abstract
Analysis of the usability of an interactive system requires both an understanding of how the system is to be used and a means of assessing the system against that understanding. Such analytic assessments are particularly important in safety-critical systems as latent vulnerabilities may exist which have negative consequences only in certain circumstances. Many existing approaches to assessment use tasks or scenarios to provide explicit representation of their understanding of use. These normative user behaviours have the advantage that they clarify assumptions about how the system will be used but have the disadvantage that they may exclude many plausible deviations from these norms. Assessments of how a design fails to support these user behaviours can be a matter of judgement based on individual experience rather than evidence. We present a systematic formal method for analysing interactive systems that is based on constraints rather than prescribed behaviour. These constraints capture precise assumptions about what information resources are used to perform action. These resources may either reside in the system itself or be external to the system. The approach is applied to two different medical device designs, comparing two infusion pumps currently in common use in hospitals. Comparison of the two devices is based on these resource assumptions to assess consistency of interaction within the design of each device.