Abstract
This paper presents a framework to facilitate the selection of the most appropriate company to be contracted among competitive bids. This framework is intended to be integrated in e-marketplaces to comply with the major technological advances in the construction industry. A novel feature of the system is that it allows bilateral evaluations between companies to better understand general contractor-subcontractor relationships and to improve the level of transparency within the construction sector. The performance assessment system incorporates other innovative features, such as the ability to specify a set of performance indicators suitable for inclusion in e-marketplaces covering three different perspectives: company reliability, operation performance, and bid attributes. The system also allows the integration of the preferences of the decision maker concerning the selection of the best company for a given work. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Abstract
We aim to plan the water usage in the irrigation of a given farmland keeping, at same time, the field cultivation in a good state of preservation. This problem is modeled and tackled as an optimal control problem: minimize the water flow (control) so that the extent water amount in the soil (trajectory) fulfills the cultivation water requirements. To estimate rainfall, we consider two models: one based on the average monthly rainfall of the last 10 years in Lisbon area and another which considers the best linear combination of average monthly rainfall from the last 10 years and the amount of rainfall in the previous month. We study the behavior of the solutions under different weather scenarios and we compare the solutions obtained using our model of rainfall with solutions obtained having a prior knowledge of the rainfall.

Abstract
PCMAT (Mathematics Collaborative Learning Platform) is a collaborative adaptive learning tool based on progressive assessment for Mathematics in Basic Schools. The learning platform is based on a constructivist approach, assessing the user knowledge and presenting contents and activities adapted to the characteristics and learning style of the student. The intelligent behavior of such platform depends on the existence of a tentative description of the student - the student model (SM). The contents of this model and the student most prominent learning style are used by a domain and interaction model to select the most appropriate response to student actions. The SM is used to select the more appropriate learning object according to the student learning stage. However, this selection demands for the access to metadata describing the contents of the learning object. This need leaded to the application of a standard to describe the learning objects (LO). The authoring of LO corresponds to one major maintenance costs present in these applications. PCMAT is able to generate several instances of the same learning object through the parameterization of some features of the learning object. The platform is also able to process student responses in natural language. This project shows how techniques from Adaptive Hypermedia System (AHS) field can improve e-learning based systems in a basic school environment. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.

Abstract
Purpose: Precise needle puncture of the renal collecting system is an essential but challenging step for successful percutaneous nephrolithotomy. We evaluated the efficiency of a new real-time electromagnetic tracking system for in vivo kidney puncture. Materials and Methods: Six anesthetized female pigs underwent ureterorenoscopy to place a catheter with an electromagnetic tracking sensor into the desired puncture site and ascertain puncture success. A tracked needle with a similar electromagnetic tracking sensor was subsequently navigated into the sensor in the catheter. Four punctures were performed by each of 2 surgeons in each pig, including 1 each in the kidney, middle ureter, and right and left sides. Outcome measurements were the number of attempts and the time needed to evaluate the virtual trajectory and perform percutaneous puncture. Results: A total of 24 punctures were easily performed without complication. Surgeons required more time to evaluate the trajectory during ureteral than kidney puncture (median 15 seconds, range 14 to 18 vs 13, range 11 to 16, p 0.1). Median renal and ureteral puncture time was 19 (range 14 to 45) and 51 seconds (range 45 to 67), respectively (p 0.003). Two attempts were needed to achieve a successful ureteral puncture. The technique requires the presence of a renal stone for testing. Conclusions: The proposed electromagnetic tracking solution for renal collecting system puncture proved to be highly accurate, simple and quick. This method might represent a paradigm shift in percutaneous kidney access techniques.

Abstract
The exploration of large networks carries inherent challenges in the visualization of a great amount of data. We built an interactive visualization system for the purpose of exploring a large multidimensional network of news clips over time. These are clips gathered by users from web news sources and references to people or places are extracted from. In this paper, we present the system's capabilities and user interface and discuss its advantages in terms of the browsing and extraction of knowledge from the data. These capabilities include a textual search and associated event detection, and temporal navigation allowing the user to seek a certain date and timespan.

Abstract
The administration of systems and networks is a technical specialized complex task. If large organizations can have in their Information Technology (IT) departments systems and network security specialists, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) typically can't; they have only some computers science broadband IT collaborators that respond by the maintenance of the IT resources, and, in some cases, accumulate with some software development. We make of this view the start point of our research, allying the growing need of securing the IT resources and the information sources which are becoming more and more valuable for every single organization. For SMEs the solution for implement security is, many times, an outsourcing task. The problem is that implementing security is an exercise that overflows the common IT domain, but it starts by fully understanding the organization culture, policies and procedures. This knowledge is something that collaborators learn day by day and not something that we can put on paper easily and tell some outsourced specialists to secure. Even if that could be done, the daily maintenance of the security would be a very hard task. This paper makes considerations about security on SMEs reality and presents a framework that permit a high level approach for implement security, more focused on the organization vision of what we want to do than on a technical vision of how to implement it. The framework hard core is one abstraction layer focused on the organizations perspective and a translator layer of them into technical rules capable of been applied on the IT resources, like servers, computers and network equipments.