Abstract
Numerous projects are considered complex because of the number of stakeholders, the diversity of skills, and the uncertainty involved, requiring accurate information retrieval and management of the social interactions between different participants leading to efficient knowledge sharing. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study on knowledge sharing barriers and research and development (R&D) activities that occur in the context of complex project management. The study presents issues, difficulties, and practices acknowledged by project managers related to knowledge sharing and R&D (focused on activities that involve cooperation and collaboration). Particularly, we point out the following major knowledge sharing barriers: codification process, inadequate information technology, lack of initiative and strategy by the workers, and lack of time and resources. We also explained the following practices and issues regarding the collaborative R&D activities: information exchange and retrieval, communication barriers, interdependence of knowledge and skills, and different technical terminologies. We intend to contribute to the understanding of the work carried out in the context of complex projects to improve the management practices and the information technology platforms to support them. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd..

Abstract
In this paper we present a method to support the process of multilin-gual ontology specification developed during the conceptualization phase in the context of multilingual collaborative networks. This method was developed to answer the requirements of a collaborative network where the need for localized content appears at an earlier stage, due to the short life-cycle that characterizes both this type of network. We present the main results obtained during the method's implementation in the context of an European project - H-Know: Advanced Infrastructure for Knowledge Based Services for Restoring Buildings, analyse its problems and limitations and discuss the difficulties that arise in a shared conceptualization of an ontology represented in more than one natural language from the point of view of the language influence, taking into account aspects such as the process of interpretation and representation of knowledge of a specific subject field, the needs and difficulties when accessing and processing multilingual information or reusing previously structured semantic re-sources. Finally, we consider and analyse the role and challenges of both termi-nologist and expert when working closely together in the context of collaborative networks.

Abstract
Collaborative conceptualisation processes are pervasive to most technical and professional activities, but are seldom addressed explicitly due to the lack of theoretical and practical methods and tools to support it. However, it seems not to be a popular research topic in knowledge representation or its sub-areas such as ontology engineering. Our view is that collaboration between stakeholders for specifying an ontology should be addressed at the conceptual, semi-formal level, in order to foster a collective learning of the domain and reaching agreements about its representation. We developed a method to support conceptual integration based in the conceptual blending theory - ColBlend - and implemented it in a collaborative modelling environment. This "conceptual modelling environment - conceptME" supports teams of specialist and facilitators in eliciting conceptual structures with the help of collaborative model editing and terminology services. Conceptual integration and agreements are achieved through the ColBlend method. This paper overviews ColBlend and ConceptME and describes in detail a test case.

Abstract
The problem of selecting suppliers/partners is a crucial and important part in the process of decision making for companies that intend to perform competitively in their area of activity. The selection of supplier/partner is a time and resource-consuming task that involves data collection and a careful analysis of the factors that can positively or negatively influence the choice. Nevertheless it is a critical process that affects significantly the operational performance of each company. In this work, there were identified five broad selection criteria: Quality, Financial, Synergies, Cost, and Production System. Within these criteria, it was also included five sub-criteria. After the identification criteria, a survey was elaborated and companies were contacted in order to understand which factors have more weight in their decisions to choose the partners. Interpreted the results and processed the data, it was adopted a model of linear weighting to reflect the importance of each factor. The model has a hierarchical structure and can be applied with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method or Value Analysis. The goal of the paper it's to supply a selection reference model that can represent an orientation/pattern for a decision making on the suppliers/partners selection process (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of CENTERIS/SCIKA - Association for Promotion and Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract
Six sigma may be named as a powerful and comprehensive management tool which is necessary in order to bring changes in organization and to make conformity with customer needs. Despite of other quality approaches, six sigma is not only a method, but it contains a vision, a goal and a symbol. Beside the six sigma, symmetrical valuation method is interpreted as a tool to collect strategy. This system offers a method to converge occupation's activities with strategy, and also it offers a method in order to watch the operation of strategic goals during time. Undoubtedly, the first step in reducing the risk failure of the six sigma projects is to select the optimal choices. In this paper, the effectiveness of criteria in choosing six sigma projects are identified and defined. Moreover, a case study in Poly Acryl Corp is illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of the fuzzy multi-criteria decision making approach to select six sigma projects. In fact, we evaluated how selecting six sigma projects and goals using the fuzzy multi-criteria decision making technique affect the organization. © 2012 CIE & SAIIE.

Abstract
Conventionally, the containers are stacked in storage yards inside the container terminals. However, in recent years a new storage system called split-platform automated storage/retrieval system (SP-AS/RS) has been introduced in the literature. On the other hand, integrated scheduling of handling equipment has been introduced as an essential concept to improve the performance of the automated container terminals. Improving the performance of container terminals would result in reduction of seaborne trade costs. In this paper a mixed integer programming model is formulated for the integrated scheduling of handling equipment (including the SP-AS/RS) in automated container terminals. In the formulation of the problem, tasks of cranes are scheduled considering the availability of the vehicles. Moreover, the vehicles are scheduled in accordance with the SP-AS/RS operations. The integrated scheduling has been proved as an NP-hard problem. Thus, a simulated annealing algorithm is developed to find near optimal solutions for the problem in relatively low computational time. Using a set of numerical test cases it is justified that the proposed simulated annealing algorithm is suitable to solve the problem. Further analyses on the number of available vehicles are the final notes of this paper. © 2012 CIE & SAIIE.