Abstract
Biofouling represents a major economic, environmental and health concern for which new eco-friendly solutions are needed. International legislation has restricted the use of biocidal-based antifouling coatings, and increasing efforts have been applied in the search for environmentally friendly antifouling agents. This research work deals with the assessment of the interest of a series of synthetic chalcone derivatives for antifouling applications. Sixteen chalcone derivatives were synthesized with moderate yields (38-85%). Antifouling bioactivity of these compounds was assessed at different levels of biological organization using both anti-macrofouling and anti-microfouling bioassays, namely an anti-settlement assay using mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) larvae, as well as marine bacteria and microalgal biofilms growth inhibition bioassays. Results showed that three compounds (11, 12, and 16) were particularly active against the settlement of mussel larvae (EC50 7.24-34.63 mu M), being compounds 12 and 16 also able to inhibit the growth of microfouling species (EC50 4.09-20.31 mu M). Moreover, the most potent compounds 12 and 16 were found to be non-toxic to the non-target species Artemia salina (<10% mortality at 25 mu M). A quantitative structure-activity relationship model predicted that descriptors describing the ability of molecules to form hydrogen bonds and encoding the shape, branching ratio and constitutional diversity of the molecule were implied in the antifouling activity against the settlement of mussel larvae. This work elucidates for the first time the relevance of synthesizing chalcone derivatives to generate new nontoxic products to prevent marine biofouling.

Abstract
Supply chains are complex interdependent structures in which tasks' accomplishment is the result of a compromise between all the entities involved. This complexity is particularly pronounced when dealing with chipping and transportation tasks within a forest-based biomass energy production supply chain. The logistic costs involved are significant and the number of network nodes are usually in a considerable number. For this reason, efficient optimization tools should be used in order to derive cost effective scheduling. In this work, soft computing optimization tools, namely genetic algorithms (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO), are integrated within a discrete event simulation model to define the vehicles operational schedule in a typical forest biomass supply chain. The presented simulation results show the proposed methodology effectiveness in dealing with the addressed systems.

Abstract
The diversity of research topics and resulting datasets in the field of Ecology (the scientific study of ecological systems and their biodiversity) has grown in parallel with developments in research data management. Based on a meta-analysis performed on 93 scientific references, this paper presents a comprehensive overview of the use of metadata tools in the Ecology domain through time. Overall, 40 metadata tools were found to be either referred or used by the research community from 1997 to 2018. In the same period, 50 different initiatives in ecology and biodiversity research were conceptualized and implemented to promote effective data sharing in the community. A relevant concern that stems from this analysis is the need to establish simple methods to promote data interoperability and reuse, so far limited by the production of metadata according to different standards. With this study, we also highlight challenges and perspectives in research data management in the domain of Ecology towards best practice guidelines.

Abstract
Organizations are nowadays more and more structured in projects in the so-called project-based organizations (PBO). The advantages of PBOs - operational and managerial focus and effectiveness - are counterweight by difficulties in information / knowledge sharing and overall coordination. Project management (PM) applications have been adopted by PBOs with success, mostly at the project level. More innovation-oriented PBOs are keen to experiment and adopt a range of different project supporting applications to optimize several aspects of project management, resulting in “ecosystems” of PM related applications. This paper addresses the problems arising from the implementation of a global project coordination and collaboration application in a research center whose ecosystem of PM applications is extensive. The main challenge has been managing change. An action-research approach was followed to successfully implement the new application while reflecting theoretically on the process and results. The main conclusion is that the requirements elicitation and negotiation are as important as the management of change regarding processes and individual practices. © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd..

Abstract
Data networks are naturally prone to interferences that can corrupt messages, leading to performance degradation or even to critical failure of the corresponding distributed system. To improve resilience of critical systems, time-triggered networks are frequently used, based on communication schedules defined at design-time. These networks offer prompt error detection, but slow error recovery that can only be compensated with bandwidth overprovisioning. On the contrary, the Flexible Time-Triggered (FTT) paradigm uses online traffic scheduling, which enables a compromise between error detection and recovery that can achieve timely recovery with a fraction of the needed bandwidth. This article presents a new method to recover transmission errors in a time-triggered Controller Area Network (CAN) network, based on the Flexible Time-Triggered paradigm, namely FTT-CAN. The method is based on using a server (traffic shaper) to regulate the retransmission of corrupted or omitted messages. We show how to design the server to simultaneously: (1) meet a predefined reliability goal, when considering worst case error recovery scenarios bounded probabilistically by a Poisson process that models the fault arrival rate; and, (2) limit the direct and indirect interference in the message set, preserving overall system schedulability. Extensive simulations with multiple scenarios, based on practical and randomly generated systems, show a reduction of two orders of magnitude in the average bandwidth taken by the proposed error recovery mechanism, when compared with traditional approaches available in the literature based on adding extra pre-defined transmission slots.

Abstract
In this paper it is described a hardware experimental setup applied to study the response of structures due to an earthquake excitation. The described hardware experimental setup was applied in the performance and effectiveness evaluation of passive and semi-active vibration control strategies, in order to reduce the structural response due to an earthquake excitation. This study is also meant to validate the accurateness of the developed numerical models that simulate the experimental results. The hardware implementation is described, being the structural response real data and its numerical models compared.