Abstract
The urge to improve the life of older adults grows as this segment of society expands. Computers have an enormous potential to benefit the lives of older adults, however, the unawareness or disregard of their characteristics, renders technology, many times, impossible to use. Peripherals are a common obstacle when learning to operate computers, because the most common ones do not directly map the input in the user interface. It has been argued that touch- and gesture-based user interfaces, due to their direct mapping of input, can reduce the obstacles that older adults face, when using the computer. To assess this, this paper presents a project that uses a multi-touch tabletop system as a gaming platform for older adults. Specifically, it reports on the low-fidelity prototype that was built to test whether tangible objects can be used. Conclusions regarding the viability of tangible objects for that purpose are also drawn.

Abstract
This paper reports a study on the importance of the training criteria for wind power forecasting and calls into question the generally assumed neutrality of the 'goodness' of particular forecasts. The study, focused on the Spanish Electricity Market as a representative example, combines different training criteria and different users of the forecasts to compare them in terms of the benefits obtained. In addition to more classical criteria, an information theoretic learning training criterion, called parametric correntropy, is introduced as a means to correct problems detected in other criteria and achieve more satisfactory compromises among conflicting criteria, namely forecasting value and quality. We show that the interests of wind farm owners may lead to a preference for biased forecasts, which may be in conflict with the larger needs of secure operating policies. The ideas and conclusions are supported by results from three real wind farms. Copyright (c) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract
Inward pointing velocity conditions are important in the study of whether trajectories remain within sets (the so-called invariance or viability) and also to establish constraint qualifications (CQ) under which necessary conditions of optimality for control problem can be guaranteed to be nondegenerate NCO or normal. In our research on nondegenerate NCO we have studied different types of CQs in the form of inward pointing velocity (IPV) conditions, and, in particular, in which situation one type implies other type of IPV. Such findings are reported in the article.

Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the implementation of a web-based platform integrating benchmarking and data envelopment analysis (DEA) for the Portuguese secondary schools. Design/methodology/approach: The benchmarking platform is designed around a set of key performance indicators that are displayed using benchmarking graphs. These indicators are also aggregated through the methodology of DEA to provide a summary measure of performance. Findings: The benchmarking platform developed enables schools to perform internal and external evaluation through a standard model that is based on indicators of school activities. It encourages schools' efforts of continuous improvement and increases society awareness regarding schools' context and results obtained. Practical implications: The benchmarking platform can be useful for schools and general public. For the general public, there is a tool that allows the construction of user-defined rankings online and benchmarking tools that allow the comparison of performance of a specific school with others. In addition to these features, schools have in the BESP platform a repository of historical data, and the possibility to see a set of graphs that show for some indicators their evolution over time. Originality/value: This paper describes a breakthrough in the Portuguese education context. The BESP platform is the first in this context to combine DEA and benchmarking tools in a web-based environment, designed to enable real-time performance assessments. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Abstract
This paper presents an approach to the problem of novelty detection in the context of semantic room categorization. The ability to assign semantic labels to areas in the environment is crucial for autonomous agents aiming to perform complex human-like tasks and human interaction. However, in order to be robust and naturally learn the semantics from the human user, the agent must be able to identify gaps in its own knowledge. To this end, we propose a method based on graphical models to identify novel input which does not match any of the previously learnt semantic descriptions. The method employs a novelty threshold defined in terms of conditional and unconditional probabilities. The novelty threshold is then optimized using an unconditional probability density model trained from unlabelled data.

Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the representation of wind power forecasting (WPF) uncertainty in the unit commitment (UC) problem. While deterministic approaches use a point forecast of wind power output, WPF uncertainty in the stochastic UC alternative is captured by a number of scenarios that include cross-temporal dependency. A comparison among a diversity of UC strategies (based on a set of realistic experiments) is presented. The results indicate that representing WPF uncertainty with wind power scenarios that rely on stochastic UC has advantages over deterministic approaches that mimic the classical models. Moreover, the stochastic model provides a rational and adaptive way to provide adequate spinning reserves at every hour, as opposed to increasing reserves to predefined, fixed margins that cannot account either for the system's costs or its assumed risks.