Abstract
This paper explores the changes in value added (VA) of a sample of schools for cohorts of students finishing secondary education between 2005 and 2008. VA estimates are based on distance measures obtained from DEA models. These measures are computed for each pupil in each school, and evaluate the distance between the school frontier in a given year and a pooled frontier comprising all schools analysed. The school VA is then computed by aggregating the VA scores for the cohort of pupils attending that school in a given year. The ratio between VA estimates for two consecutive cohorts, that attended the school in different years, is taken as the index of VA change. However, the evolution of school performance over time should consider not only the movements of the school frontier, but should also take into account other effects, such as the proximity of the students to the best-practices, represented by the school frontier, observed over time. For that purpose we developed an enhanced Malmquist index to evaluate the evolution of school performance over time. One of the components of the Malmquist index proposed measures VA change, and the other measures the ability of all school students to move closer to their own school best practices over time. The approach developed is applied to a sample of Portuguese secondary schools.

Abstract
The promotion of quality of life is becoming ever more important in a scenario of regional, national and even international competition among cities, triggered by globalization. Public sites, and green spaces in particular, which are available in varying extent in all urban areas, can bring important benefits to urban vitality and, as a consequence, to quality of life. However, cities are intricate entities and measuring their success in converting the potential for public green space usage into increased quality of life is a difficult task. In order to contribute to the objective of assessing the potential for public green space use, and its consequences on urban vitality, we applied the Data Envelopment Analysis technique to assess a total of 174 European cities. The results detect the best performing cities, and for the cities considered inefficient, a set of benchmarks is identified, whose best practices can be copied to support efforts of performance improvement.

Abstract
Companies are increasingly including their corporate social responsibility into their business strategy. The environmental issues assume here a priority role. In order to get a balance in economic, social and environmental trade-offs, companies need to consider multiple objectives, namely related to the allocation of resources and investments, which can cause contradictory opinions among diverse stakeholders. Companies should incorporate into the decision-making process tangible and intangible elements, identifying and structuring objectives in a consistent way, in order to choose sustainable options for the company and create compromises between stakeholders. The main motivation of this paper is to present a methodology or framework to support decision-making and appraisal of corporate environmental strategies and subsequent management approaches. In order to gain a closer view over the proposed approach, we will present the preliminary results illustrated with examples from an ongoing case study within a public passenger transport company. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

Abstract
Industrial companies are faced today with strong competition and fast changing markets. To reduce the risk and evaluate alternatives, simulation is often considered to be an adequate tool. Industrial companies' simulation models must have enough internal detail to be useful but, at the same time, must take into account the external environmental behaviour. Distributed simulation has specific characteristics to allow the integration of these models but its complexity limits its use in industry as stated in the literature. To overcome these difficulties, a framework is proposed, using Agent-based Modelling and Simulation (ABMS) technique and offering communication and synchronization mechanisms, which allow the integration of simulation models in the industrial area. To promote semantic interoperability, a business language is also proposed based on the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL). To validate the framework a prototype was developed. The experiments made with the prototype shows that a distributed simulation can be more efficient than a single computer simulation as the number of agents increases in the model.

Abstract
This work discusses on the simulation of a ship crew reaction in controlling damage in a single watertight compartment, taking into account ship's hydrostatics and equipment limitation. Three different simulators were built which exchange data using High Level Architecture concepts, implemented with an open source RTI called CERTI and a MatlabHLA Tollbox.

Abstract
This paper is concerned with the use of simulation as a decision support tool in maintenance systems, specifically in MFS (Maintenance Float Systems). For this purpose and due to its high complexity, in this paper the authors explore and present a way to develop a flexible MFS model, for any number of machines in the workstation, spare machines and maintenance crews, using Arena simulation language. Also in this paper, some of the most common performance measures are identified, calculated and analysed. Nevertheless this paper would concentrate on the two most important performance measures in maintenance systems: system availability and maintenance total cost. As far as these two indicators are concerned, it was then quite clear that they assumed different behaviour patterns, especially when using extreme values for periodic overhauls rates. In this respect, system availability proved to be a more sensitive parameter.