Abstract
This paper considers the single machine scheduling problem with linear earliness and quadratic tardiness costs. The research on the version with an inserted idle time focused on an exact approach, while several heuristics were already proposed for the version with no idle time. These heuristics were then the basis for the development of new heuristic procedures for the version with idle time. Some improvement procedures were also considered. The new heuristics outperformed the existing procedures. A genetic algorithm provides the best results in terms Of Solution quality, but is computationally intensive. One of the backward scheduling dispatching rules provides results of similar quality and can quickly solve even large instances. The new heuristics were also applied, with the appropriate modifications, to the version with no idle time. Again, the new procedures provided better results than the existing heuristics. Therefore, the procedures developed in this paper are the new heuristics of choice for both versions of the considered problem. [Received 09 October 2008; Revised 02 February 2009; Accepted 20 February 2009]

Abstract
A low-coherence technique in a Michelson interferometer for measuring polarization mode dispersion (PMD) was tested. The measured PMD mean value for one reel, in a period of several days, was 0.0405 +/-. 0.0008 ps/km(1/2) and for the other reel, it was 0.0463 +/- 0.0004 ps/km(1/2). Stochastic and random PMD behavior was observed. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 52:2310-2312, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.25428

Abstract
In this paper, we present beam search heuristics for the single machine scheduling problem with quadratic earliness and tardiness costs, and no machine idle time. These heuristics include classic beam search procedures, as well as filtered and recovering algorithms. We consider three dispatching heuristics as evaluation functions, in order to analyse the effect of different rules on the performance of the beam search procedures. The computational results show that using better dispatching heuristics improves the effectiveness of the beam search algorithms. The performance of the several heuristics is similar for instances with low variability. For high variability instances, however, the detailed, filtered and recovering beam search (RBS) procedures clearly outperform the best existing heuristic. The detailed beam search algorithm performs quite well, and is recommended for small-to medium-sized instances. For larger instances, however, this procedure requires excessive computation times, and the RBS algorithm then becomes the heuristic of choice. Journal of the Operational Research Society (2010) 61, 620-631. doi: 10.1057/jors.2008.191 Published online 18 March 2009

Abstract
Process management systems play an important role for today's information systems. They coordinate the work items among employees and ensure the correct execution of processes. In this paper we focus on the organizational perspective of process management systems. This perspective is responsible for assigning people together with their roles within business organizations to process execution. A key issue in integrating the organizational perspective into processes is the strategy for selecting people to execute work steps. This assignment is the basis for collaboration among the people of an organization within a process-based application. We implemented our approach in ESProNa, a Logtalk application running in SWI-Prolog extended with the Thea library providing direct and complete support for OWL2 ontologies. The use of these languages allows the definition of comprehensive organizational constraints. We will cover both, the definition of these constraints in the process model, and their interpretation by the process execution engine. Further we will show how the organizational perspective impacts the order of process execution, i. e. the way of collaboration between the assigned people decisively. © 2010 ICST.

Abstract
This paper is on the problem of short-term hydro scheduling, particularly concerning head-dependent reservoirs under competitive environment. We propose a new nonlinear optimization method to consider hydroelectric power generation as a function of water discharge and also of the head. Head-dependency is considered on short-term hydro scheduling in order to obtain more realistic and feasible results. The proposed method has been applied successfully to solve a case study based on one of the main Portuguese cascaded hydro systems, providing a higher profit at a negligible additional computation time in comparison with a linear optimization method that ignores head-dependency. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract
We study the European river Danube and the South American river Negro daily water levels. We present a fit for the Negro daily water level period and standard deviation. Unexpectedly, we discover that the river Negro and Danube are mirror rivers in the sense that the daily water levels fluctuations histograms are close to the universal non-parametric BHP and reversed BHP, respectively. Hence, the probability of a certain positive fluctuation range in the river Negro is, approximately, equal to the probability of the corresponding symmetric negative fluctuation range in the river Danube.