Abstract
Collaborative filtering techniques have been used for some years, almost exclusively in Internet environments, helping users find items they are expected to like by using the user's past purchases to provide such recommendations. With this concept in mind, this research uses a collaborative filtering technique to automatically improve the performance of a simulated soccer team. Many studies have attempted to address this problem over the last years but none has shown meaningful improvements in the performance of the soccer team. Using a collaborative filtering technique based on nearest neighbors and the FC Portugal team as the test subject (in the context of the RoboCup 2D Simulation League), several simulations were run for matches against different teams with much better, better and worse performance than FC Portugal. The strategy used by FC Portugal was to combine 8 set-plays and 2 team formations. The simulation results revealed an improvement in performance between 32% and 384%. In the future, there are plans to expand this approach to other contexts, such as the 3D Simulation League.

Abstract
The intention of this paper is to provide an overview of using agent and service-oriented technologies in intelligent energy systems. It focuses mainly on ongoing research and development activities related to smart grids. Key challenges as a result of the massive deployment of distributed energy resources are discussed, such as aggregation, supply-demand balancing, electricity markets, as well as fault handling and diagnostics. Concepts and technologies like multiagent systems or service-oriented architectures are able to deal with future requirements supporting a flexible, intelligent, and active power grid management. This work monitors major achievements in the field and provides a brief overview of large-scale smart grid projects using agent and service-oriented principles. In addition, future trends in the digitalization of power grids are discussed covering the deployment of resource constrained devices and appropriate communication protocols. The employment of ontologies ensuring semantic interoperability as well as the improvement of security issues related to smart grids is also discussed.

Abstract
Background. Regulating mechanisms of branching morphogenesis of fetal lung rat explants have been an essential tool for molecular research. This work presents a new methodology to accurately quantify the epithelial, outer contour, and peripheral airway buds of lung explants during cellular development from microscopic images. Methods. The outer contour was defined using an adaptive and multiscale threshold algorithm whose level was automatically calculated based on an entropy maximization criterion. The inner lung epithelium was defined by a clustering procedure that groups small image regions according to the minimum description length principle and local statistical properties. Finally, the number of peripheral buds was counted as the skeleton branched ends from a skeletonized image of the lung inner epithelia. Results. The time for lung branching morphometric analysis was reduced in 98% in contrast to the manual method. Best results were obtained in the first two days of cellular development, with lesser standard deviations. Nonsignificant differences were found between the automatic and manual results in all culture days. Conclusions. The proposed method introduces a series of advantages related to its intuitive use and accuracy, making the technique suitable to images with different lighting characteristics and allowing a reliable comparison between different researchers.

Abstract
Eventual consistency is a relaxed consistency model used in large-scale distributed systems that seek better availability when consistency can be delayed. CRDTs are distributed data types that make eventual consistency of a distributed object possible and non ad-hoc. Specifically, state-based CRDTs achieve this through shipping the entire replica state that is, eventually, merged to other replicas ensuring conver- gence. This imposes a large communication overhead when the replica size or the number of replicas gets larger. In this work, we introduce a decomposable version of state-based CRDTs, called Delta State-based CRDTs (d-CRDT). A d-CRDT is viewed as a join of multiple fine-grained CRDTs of the same type, called deltas (d). The deltas are produced by applying d-mutators, on a replica state, which are mod- ified versions of the original CRDT mutators. This makes it possible to ship small deltas (or batches) instead of ship- ping the entire state. The challenges are to make the join of deltas equivalent to the join of the entire object in clas- sical state-based CRDTs, and to find a way to derive the d-mutators. We address this challenge in this work, and we explore the minimal requirements that a communication al- gorithm must offer according to the guarantees provided by the underlying messaging middleware. Copyright © 2007 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

Abstract
Higher order attribute grammars provide a convenient means for specifying uni-directional transformations, but they provide no direct support for bidirectional transformations. In this paper we show how rewrite rules (with non-linear right hand sides) that specify a forward/get transformation can be inverted to specify a partial backward/put transformation. These inverted rewrite rules can then be extended with additional rules based on characteristics of the source language grammar and forward transformations to create, under certain circumstances, a total backward transformation. Finally, these rules are used to generate attribute grammar specifications implementing both transformations. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.3.3 [Programming Languages]: Data Types and Structures, Recursion; F.3.2 [Logics and Meanings of Programs]: Semantics of Programming Languages- Algebraic approaches to semantics; I.1.1 [Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation]: Expressions and Their Representation.

Abstract