Abstract
We consider the problem of scheduling a number of jobs on a number of unrelated parallel machines in order to minimize the makespan. We develop three heuristic approaches, i.e., a genetic algorithm, a tabu search algorithm and a hybridization of these heuristics with a truncated branch-and-bound procedure. This hybridization is made in order to accelerate the search process to near-optimal solutions. The branch-and-bound procedure will check whether the solutions obtained by the meta-heuristics can be scheduled within a tight upper bound. We compare the performances of these heuristics on a standard dataset available in the literature. Moreover, the influence of the different heuristic parameters is examined as well. The computational experiments reveal that the hybrid heuristics are able to compete with the best known results from the literature.

Abstract

Abstract
Intelligence involves knowing information about some competitive factors like competitors' profitability and turnover rate. Information technology can help organizations to seize the information available. In this chapter we will present the solution architected and developed for a Portuguese company with a starting scenario that showed characteristics like dispersed information, concentration of knowledge in a single individual, no defined architecture for data or information, simple changes involving huge efforts and lack of agility. We found that business decision makers had problems of relying on the results, as the system was like a black box and often provided not accurate data. We will describe how we solved the problem, designing and implementing a business intelligence solution and the impact of having an information architecture.

Abstract
The atmospheric electric field near the Earth's surface is dominated by atmospheric pollutants and natural radioactivity, with the latter directly linked to radon (Rn-222) gas. For a better comprehension on the temporal variability of both the atmospheric electric field and the radon concentration and its relation with local atmospheric variables, simultaneous measurements of soil-emitted gamma radiation and potential gradient (defined from the vertical component of the atmospheric electric field) were taken every minute, along with local meteorological parameters (e.g., temperature, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity and daily solar radiation). The study region is Amieira, part of the Alqueva lake in Alentejo Portugal, where an interdisciplinary meteorological campaign, ALEX2014, took place from June to August 2014. Soil gamma radiation is more sensitive to small concentrations of radon as compared with alpha particles measurements, for that reason it is more suited for sites with low radon levels, as expected in this case. Preliminary results are presented here: statistical and spectral analysis show that i)the potential gradient has a stronger daily cycle as compared with the gamma radiation, ii) most of the energy of the gamma signal is concentrated in the low frequencies (close to 0), contrary to the potential gradient that has most of the energy in frequency 1 (daily cycle) and iii) a short-term relation between gamma radiation and the potential gradient has not been found. Future work and plans are also discussed.

Abstract
The presence or absence of long-range correlations in the environmental radioactivity fluctuations has recently attracted considerable interest. Among a multiplicity of practically relevant applications, identifying and disentangling the environmental factors controlling the variable concentrations of the radioactive noble gas radon is important for estimating its effect on human health and the efficiency of possible measures for reducing the corresponding exposition. In this work, we present a critical re-assessment of a multiplicity of complementary methods that have been previously applied for evaluating the presence of long-range correlations and fractal scaling in environmental radon variations with a particular focus on the specific properties of the underlying time series. As an illustrative case study, we subsequently re-analyze two high-frequency records of indoor radon concentrations from Coimbra, Portugal, each of which spans several weeks of continuous measurements at a high temporal resolution of five minutes.Our results reveal that at the study site, radon concentrations exhibit complex multi-scale dynamics with qualitatively different properties at different time-scales: (i) essentially white noise in the high-frequency part (up to time-scales of about one hour), (ii) spurious indications of a non-stationary, apparently long-range correlated process (at time scales between some hours and one day) arising from marked periodic components, and (iii) low-frequency variability indicating a true long-range dependent process. In the presence of such multi-scale variability, common estimators of long-range memory in time series are prone to fail if applied to the raw data without previous separation of time-scales with qualitatively different dynamics.

Abstract
Radon monitoring at different levels of the cover of the Urgeirica tailings shows that the sealing is effective and performing as desired in terms of containing the strongly radioactive waste resulting from uranium ore processing. However, the analysis of the time series of radon concentration shows a very complex temporal structure, particularly at depth, including very large and fast variations from a few tens of kBq m(-3) to more than a million kBq m(-3) in less than one day. The diurnal variability is strongly asymmetric, peaking at 18 h/19 h and decreasing very fast around 21 h/22 h. The analysis is performed for summer and for a period with no rain in order to avoid the potential influence of precipitation and related environmental conditions on the radon variability. Analysis of ancillary measurements of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction, as well as atmospheric pressure reanalysis data shows that the daily averaged radon concentration in the taillings material is anti-correlated with the atmospheric pressure and that the diurnal amplitude is associated with the magnitude of atmospheric pressure daily oscillations.