Abstract
The agent technology provides a new way to design and engineer control solutions based on the decentralization of control over distributed structures, addressing the current requirements for modern control systems in industrial domains. This paper presents the current situation of the development and deployment of agent technology, discussing the initiatives and the current trends faced for a wider dissemination and industrial adoption, based on the work that is being carried out by the IEEE IES Technical Committee on Industrial Agents. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Abstract
The applicability of FPGAs as memory engines capable of sophisticated and customizable memory traversal, selection, and relocation operations common in scientific computations involving large, pointer-based data structures, is explored. The experimental work illustrates that, despite their clock speed handicap, FPGAs can be successfully integrated with traditional architectures. The nonleaf nodes, or internal nodes, can have up to four children nodes, either internal nodes or simple leaf nodes. A hardware design supporting the execution of computations that traverse data structures must also support relocation. It is found that for string-pattern matching, the design aggressively exploits parallelism by concurrently testing the various patterns. For the sparse-mesh data structure, the implementation is completely memory bound despite a pipelining execution strategy.

Abstract
This paper presents and discusses a new bibliometric indicator of research performance, designed with the fundamental concern of enabling cross-disciplinary comparisons. The indicator, called x-index, compares a researcher's output to a reference set of research output from top researchers, identified in the journals where the researcher has published. It reflects publication quantity and quality, uses a moderately sized data set, and works with a more refined definition of scientific fields. x-index was developed to rank researchers in a scientific excellence award in the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. The data set collected for the 2009 edition of the award is used to study the indicator's features and design choices, and provides the basis for a discussion of its advantages and limitations.

Abstract
As new and more powerful mobile devices arrive, such as smartphones, tablets and PDAs, so do new ways of interaction emerge for the users and developers to explore. These devices allow for the creation of never-before-seen applications, using the broad range of inputs and sensors these devices integrate (such as accelerometers, light sensors, electronic compasses, GPS sensor among others), that allow for more ubiquous and personalized experiences. This paper explores issues that arise during the development and design phases of such games, as well as posible solutions for them. Finally we present, a framework for the development of location-based games that is sensible to these issues. This framework was created and tested thanks to a proof-of-concept location-based game (Geo-Wars). © 2011 Joo Tiago Pinheiro Neto Jacob and Antnio Fernando Coelho.

Abstract
Journalists and bloggers need to find useful images to illustrate news stories and blog entries with high quality photos. The dpikt text illustration system uses multimedia information retrieval to assist this content enrichment task. Users query the system with text fragments and get collections of candidate photos. Images in the results can be visually sorted according to a selected photo, or be used as a seed for interactive searches over the entire collection. dpikt incorporates a recent visual descriptor, the Joint Composite Descriptor, and an approximate indexing scheme designed for large-scale image collections, the Permutation-Prefix Index. We have used the SAPO-Labs large-scale news stories photo collection, containing almost two million high quality photos with short descriptions, as the resource for the illustration task. © 2011 IEEE.

Abstract
Presently, multi-touch interactive surfaces have widespread adoption as entertainment devices. Taking advantage of such devices, we present an interactive LEGO application, developed accordingly to an adaptation of building block metaphors and direct multi-touch manipulation. Our solution (LTouchIt) allows users to create 3D models on a tabletop surface. To prove the validity of our approach, we compared LTouchIt with two LEGO applications, conducting a user study with 20 participants. The results suggest that our touch-based application can compete with existing mouse-based applications. It provides users with a hands-on experience, which we believe to be more adequate for entertainment purposes.