Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to characterize the competitive positioning of the construction industry companies and evaluate their financial performance. The methodology proposed involves three major stages., The first stage concerns the identification of the competitive positioning of companies within the construction sector. This is achieved using a hierarchical clustering algorithm suitable for large datasets and mixed type variables. The second stage is the analysis of performance of the different clusters. This is done using the Data Envelopment Analysis technique. To characterize in detail the main performance features of each cluster, a decision tree is used to extract the main rules concerning the performance spread within each cluster and the gap between the cluster best practices and the national benchmarks. The third stage concerns the analysis of the strengths, weaknesses and areas of potential improvement for contractors in each competitive positioning. This required the analysis of benchmark companies of each cluster. The methodology proposed was applied for the analysis of performance of all contractors that operate in the Portuguese construction industry.

Abstract
In this paper we describe an algorithm for heart sound classification (classes Normal, Murmur and Extrasystole) based on the discretization of sound signals using the SAX (Symbolic Aggregate Approximation) representation. The general strategy is to automatically discover relevant top frequent motifs and relate them with the occurrence of systolic (S1) and diastolic (S2) sounds in the audio signals. The algorithm was tuned using motifs generated from a collection of audio signals obtained from a clinical trial in a hospital. Validation was performed on a separate set of unlabeled audio signals. Results indicate ability to improve the precision of the classification of the classes Normal and Murmur.

Abstract
The methods used to produce news rankings by recommender systems are not public and it is unclear if they reflect the real importance assigned by readers. We address the task of trying to forecast the number of times a news item will be tweeted, as a proxy for the importance assigned by its readers. We focus on methods for accurately forecasting which news will have a high number of tweets as these are the key for accurate recommendations. This type of news is rare and this creates difficulties to standard prediction methods. Recent research has shown that most models will fail on tasks where the goal is accuracy on a small sub-set of rare values of the target variable. In order to overcome this, resampling approaches with several methods for handling imbalanced regression tasks were tested in our domain. This paper describes and discusses the results of these experimental comparisons.

Abstract
In this paper, the problem of optimal economic scheduling of multi-reservoir cascaded hydrothermal units is investigated in the presence of an individual pumped-storage generating unit in the network. The proposed problem is modeled in a multi-objective framework comprising two objective functions. The goal of the first objective function is to minimize the operation costs and the second one is set to minimize the emissions caused by the thermal units while all the technical constraints are satisfied. Furthermore, the valve loading effect is included in the first objective function as a sinusoidal function. The problem is modeled and solved as a Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP). The augmented É"-constraint technique and lexicographic optimization are employed to solve the problem. Numerical results obtained from implementing the model on a case study are discussed. Also, the decision making procedure has been done using a fuzzy satisfying method to select the most preferred solution among the Pareto solutions derived through solving the multi-objective problem.

Abstract
The alignment of information systems with the business goals of an organisation, although a topic of great importance, is not always properly valued or taken into consideration. In general, managers have different opinions to chief information officers (CIOs) in relation to IS, especially with regard to their importance and value to the business and also in terms of investment needs. Here, we discuss and study new approaches to methods and tools for assessing the relative importance of each information system to business, focusing on the financial sector including banks and insurance companies. We suggest the introduction of new key indicators for better decision support and to identify investment priorities, and present results regarding the relative importance of each process to support the business strategy. The primary goal for the inherent research project is to analyse the main problems and difficulties encountered by IS and IT managers, featuring different players and how they relate. The main contributions of this work are the CRUDi framework as a tool to improve alignment between business and IS strategies and the CRUDi survey and its results qualifying the financial sector's opinion regarding the relative importance of processes and investments.

Abstract
This paper sets out the challenge of how to provide information auditability to citizens regarding social networks. The aim is to discuss the issues concerning information published on social networks and specifically to describe how to verify the veracity of this information. It is based on the idea that it urgent improvement of interface requirements is necessary for this kind of software to provide users with ways to account for, validate, verify and control information. The paper reports the construction of a catalog of characteristics for information auditability in social networks. An exploratory study suggests mechanisms that can be used to implement these characteristics into this kind of software interface. The conclusion presents remarks on challenges and future studies. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.