Abstract
This study analyses the contrasting perspectives on sales promotion concept between the prescriptive definitions and the managers’ perceptions. The definitions proposed in marketing textbooks emphasise the tactical, short term and accessory nature of sales promotions tools. The managers’ goals seem to be developed based on a balance between customer and competitor orientation. © 2015, Academy of Marketing Science.

Abstract
As the amount of content and the number of users in social relationships is continually growing in the Internet, resource sharing and access policy management is difficult, time-consuming and error-prone. Cross-domain recommendation of private or protected resources managed and secured by each domain’s specific access rules is impracticable due to private security policies and poor sharing mechanisms. This work focus on exploiting resource’s content, user’s preferences, users’ social networks and semantic information to cross-relate different resources through their meta information using recommendation techniques that combine collaborative-filtering techniques with semantics annotations, by generating associations between resources. The semantic similarities established between resources are used on a hybrid recommendation engine that interprets user and resources’ semantic information. The recommendation engine allows the promotion and discovery of unknownunknown resources to users that could not even know about the existence of those resources thus providing means to solve the cross-domain recommendation of private or protected resources.

Abstract
Simulation is often used to forecast human populations. In this paper we use a novel approach by combining Micro-Macro (MicMac) models into an Agent-Based perspective to simulate and forecast the behavior of the Portuguese population. The models include migrations and three scenarios corresponding to three different expected economic growth rates. We conclude that the increase in the number of emigrants leads to a reduction of the Portuguese women that are in the fertile age. This justifies the decrease of births and therefore the general decrease of the total Portuguese Population.

Abstract
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) can be deployed using available hardware and software. The Contiki is an operative system compatible with a wide range of WSN hardware. A Contiki development environment named InstantContiki is also available and includes the Cooja simulator, useful to test WSN simulation scenarios prior to their deployment. Cooja can provide realistic results since it uses the full Contiki's source code and some motes can be emulated at the hardware level. However this implies extending the simulation runtime, which is heightened since the Cooja is single threaded, i.e, it makes use of a single core per instant of time, not taking advantage of the current multi-core processors. This chapter presents a framework to automate the configuration and execution of Cooja simulations. When a multi-core processor is available, this framework runs multiple simultaneous Cooja instances to reduce simulations runtime in exchange of higher CPU load and RAM usage.

Abstract
Childhood lead poisoning remains a significant public health issue, especially in the United States, where the most common source of exposure is lead-based paint (LBP). X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis is still the most widely used method for detecting LBP in the field. Although portable XRF instrumentation based on excitation from a 57Co radioisotope has been used for more than 30 years, there have been few reports documenting its performance. Here we describe a study that was conducted by the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center laboratory in response to concerns raised by field users of the RMD LPA-1 XRF analyzer (Protec Instrument Corp.) working across the state. The performance issues were investigated for ten field units: five reported as problematic based on user feedback, and 5 that were not. Accuracy was assessed against NIST SRM 2579 lead in paint, which was developed specifically for use with portable XRF analyzers. On average, the absolute bias found was within ±20% at the threshold value for LBP (1.0 mg cm-2) based on the NIST SRM 2579 data. Calibration blocks provided with each analyzer for quality assurance monitoring were evaluated using a different XRF analyzer (Niton XLT 3t 700s GOLDD) operated in painted products mode (µg cm-2). However, when the Niton XRF analyzer was checked against NIST SRM 2579, it was found to have a negative bias. That negative bias was easily corrected using a "calibration" curve with a quadratic fit to the data. NIST-corrected data obtained for the calibration blocks showed assigned values were within the manufacturer's stated tolerance range, albeit with a consistent positive bias. The root cause for 3 of the 5 problematic devices was likely incorrect positioning of the device. A low bias for a fourth device was likely caused by a deteriorated calibration block, and the fifth device, while just within the manufacturer's technical specifications, was the only one confirmed with a low bias. Increased operator training may resolve some of the issues reported in the field; on-going competency assessments may be warranted for this hand-held technology. © 2014 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Abstract
The use of smart phones for teaching and learning purposes is an increasingly important issue. MIT App-Inventor 2 is presented here as a tool to develop applications for Android mobile systems, with the global aim to improve the connectivity between teachers and students. Two recently developed applications using this technology: Teach2Student and Student2Teach are reported. Teach2Student has two main functions: i) to allow teachers to post their students courses main class's issues; ii) To provide students with specific quizzes. Student2Teach the corresponding students application, is used to visualize the posts and quizzes submitted by teachers. Preliminary results concerning the use of both applications within an industrial automation and control course are presented.