Abstract
The proliferation of new wireless communication technologies and services led to a boost in the number of different available communication standards and spectrum usage. As the electromagnetic spectrum is a finite resource, concerns about its efficient management became an important aspect. Given this scenario, Cognitive Radio emerged as a solution for future wireless communication devices, by supporting multiple standards and improving spectrum utilization through opportunistic wireless access. The purpose of this research is to study and design a reconfigurable FPGA-based NC-OFDM baseband processor meeting the requirements of next generation Cognitive Radio devices in terms of multi-carrier, multi-standard communications and spectral agility in changing environments. The processor will be the core of a flexible NC-OFDM transceiver for future 5G communications with support for spectrum aggregation and run-time selection of modulation schemes and active sub-carriers. The goal is to achieve higher levels of system adaptability, upgradeability and efficiency, by employing dynamic partial reconfiguration of FPGAs.

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Abstract

Abstract
Decision Making is one of the most important activities of the human being. Nowadays decisions imply to consider many different points of view, so decisions are commonly taken by formal or informal groups of persons. Groups exchange ideas or engage in a process of argumentation and counter-argumentation, negotiate, cooperate, collaborate or even discuss techniques and/or methodologies for problem solving. Smart Meeting Rooms (SMR) are the election spaces where groups can perform these activities in a local or distributed setting. SMR definition has evolved and in this article we present its evolution side by side with several projects that have been developed during the last decade. We also present the features and evaluation methods present in literature and we make a discussion on the open issues. © 2015 SERSC.

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Abstract
The electricity market restructuring, and its worldwide evolution into regional and even continental scales, along with the increasing necessity for an adequate integration of renewable energy sources, is resulting in a rising complexity in power systems operation. Several power system simulators have been developed in recent years with the purpose of helping operators, regulators, and involved players to understand and deal with this complex and constantly changing environment. The main contribution of this paper is given by the integration of several electricity market and power system models, respecting to the reality of different countries. This integration is done through the development of an upper ontology which integrates the essential concepts necessary to interpret all the available information. The continuous development of Multi-Agent System for Competitive Electricity Markets platform provides the means for the exemplification of the usefulness of this ontology. A case study using the proposed multi-agent platform is presented, considering a scenario based on real data that simulates the European Electricity Market environment, and comparing its performance using different market mechanisms. The main goal is to demonstrate the advantages that the integration of various market models and simulation platforms have for the study of the electricity markets' evolution.