Abstract
This study addresses the product-launch planning problem in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry under technical and market uncertainties, and considering resource limitations associated to the need of processing in the same plant products under development and products in commercialization. A novel approach is developed by combining a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model and a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) procedure, to deal with the integrated process design and production planning decisions during the New Product Development (NPD) phase. The Monte Carlo simulation framework was designed as a two-step sampling procedure based on Bernoulli and Normal distributions. Results show the unquestionable influence of the uncertainty parameters on the decision variables and objective function, thus highlighting the inherent risks associated to the deterministic models. Process designs and scale-ups that maximize expected profit were determined, providing a valuable knowledge frame to support the long-term decision-making process, and enabling earlier and better decisions during NPD.

Abstract
When public authorities face the need to improve a transportation system, they normally have to make a difficult choice among a set of technological and operational alternatives. To help the correct evaluation of each alternative and its impacts, costs and benefits, it would be useful to have a decision support tool based on approaches such as Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and/or Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). Among the many impacts caused by a public transportation system, typically those on the land use are not adequately considered in the decision-making processes, mainly because they are hard to monetize, they are often considered as value transfer instead of value creation, and they are too complex to be assessed by traditional transport modelling tools. To overcome these weaknesses, the objectives of this research are to identify and measure the impacts of transit systems on land use and accessibility, and to consider those impacts in decision-making processes, along with more traditional financial and transport related impacts. For this purpose, a decision support tool, combining a land use and transport model with a MCDA model, was developed and assessed in a small case study. In future work, sensitivity and risk analysis will be incorporated, to more accurately and realistically reflect uncertainties and exogenous conditions that may significantly affect the costs and the benefits of a project. Finally, this decision support tool will be fully assessed in a study of the Green Line extension project in Boston, USA. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Abstract

Abstract
Information is a crucial asset to successful internationalization, as it allows to reduce risks and uncertainty and to facilitate international expansion. Information about foreign markets and activities can be obtained by companies from internal or external sources, and in formal or informal ways. Industrial business associations (IBAs) are one of the external information sources. Due to their resource constraints, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) tend to highly depend on the services and information of IBAs to expand their business overseas. However, to improve their role in supporting SME internationalization, one important development is for IBAs to evolve towards more collaborative networks, by sharing more organized and valued information with their associates, but also by fostering information flows and more collaborations between them. This paper contributes to this view by synthetizing current data and information sources to support SME internationalization, based on a literature review, on interviews with Portuguese IBAs, and on expert opinion. An innovative aspect is to present a first instantiation of a socio-semantic model, opening paths for further developments in this area, and contributing to the community of Collaborative Networks.

Abstract
Due to growing concerns with sustainability issues and the emergence of the Circular Economy (CE) paradigm, combined with recent technological changes and consequent increase in competitiveness, there is a pressing need to redefine the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) approach. PLM needs to incorporate aspects that would enable the shift to this paradigm, such as enhanced collection and evaluation of information coming from production processes, distribution, retail, consumers, and collaboration in an extended enterprise context, by implementing enabling technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data. This paper proposes a vision, based on the state of the art, for a CE enabled PLM, having the Portuguese footwear industry scenario as a reference. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2017.

Abstract
In the use of ontologies as knowledge information systems (KOS) for purposes of representation, organization and information retrieval, one of the biggest challenges is the ontology development process, which is complex and requires specific technical knowledge of the developers. In the recent years, several methodologies have been developed to support the ontologies building, which have steps well established, but not always well detailed for developers, causing problems in the ontologies development. This paper describes a methodology for the ontologies development, called OntoForInfoScience, which has a differential the detail of the activities of the ontology development cycle, explaining more clearly technical terms, logical and philosophical issues involved in the construction of ontologies. As current practical results of OntoForInfoScience, we presented part of the content of two ontologies developed with such methodology: (i) Hemonto: a biomedical ontology on the human blood components used for hematology and hemotherapy; (ii) Ontolegis: a legal domain ontology that represents the knowledge related to Brazilian legislative information on medical law. It is concluded that the OntoForInfoScience was very useful for the construction of formal ontological representations in both domains modeled and their details allowed to help the developers in logical and philosophical questions of the process of development and in the understanding of technical concepts of ontologies.