Abstract
The importance of e-commerce continues to grow in retail, providing companies with a critical tool to improve marketing and commercial strategies. In this context, understanding the distribution channels and the new business models becomes a fundamental issue for both researchers and business managers. This paper has two priority objectives. First is the accomplishment of a specific recent literature review survey on the theme of e-commerce platforms adoption that will support the next step. Second is to propose an adoption model that characterizes Discount and Outlet Platforms (DOP) adoption. The last contribution is distributed in the form of practical and theoretical implications, as well as future lines of action for possible investigations. © 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.

Abstract
The financial crisis and the growth of Information Technology have led companies to look for innovative ways to achieve knowledge in order to meet the demands of the market. This article presents a synthesis definition of characteristics and behaviors of the companies phase to risks, to design a tool of simulation of competitiveness that is an advantage for the managers. This research was based on the analysis of business administration books and Artificial Intelligence, by authors such as: P. Drucker or M. Mitchell and S. Forrest. It resulted in the design of a tool to simulate the competitiveness of companies, based on the definition of a genome and an artificial ecosystem. As future work, it will be interesting to develop the designed tool and analyze its operation based on real data shared by business managers.

Abstract
The big amount of data generated nowadays are being used by Big Data tools to generate knowledge and to facilitate the decision-making. However, this situation creates a new challenge: how to visualize all these data without losing mid/long term crucial information. The purpose of this article is to analyze the state of the art on massive data visualization, main problems and challenges of information representation current techniques as well as the evolution of the tools and the future of them, in other words, new functionalities to offer.

Abstract
The data volume in organizations has grown at an ever-increasing rate and part of it is associated with the operation of the network infrastructure used to support systems and applications. Given the importance of this infrastructure for organizations and the large amount of data that their operation originates, it is fundamental to manage and monitor it so that it can perform well. The previous concern is transversal to higher education institutions, where the research team assumed as important the development of a BI/SSBI system for the Informatics and Communications Services of the institution where it operates (UTAD), which allows the managing of all data volume; that enables it to be transformed into information and knowledge, which are fundamental resources to support decision-making processes. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of a BI/SSBI system in the described context, therefore a system of this type is presented, along with the adopted technologies, the performed tests and the obtained results. © 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.

Abstract
This article is a case study, based on Participant Observation, which focuses on a digital platform which manages assets. This platform is for sale in different countries, including Portugal and Mozambique. As national cultures and institutions differ from country to country and as this is all the more the case when different continents are at stake, we herein discuss the adaptation of products and services to the cultures and institutions of each environment, for the optimization of sales and product positioning. The data of the case study comes mainly from the experience of one of the authors, who lived in Mozambique for close to two years, linked to the selling there of the digital platform. A review of the existing literature was also performed. The strategic notion of positioning is central to the success of organizations and should differ from context to context, where necessary. Namely, different economic and education conditions lead to distinct behaviours, which have a repercussion on the posture to be adopted for the selling of products.

Abstract
The smart places are vulnerable with corrupted or compromised data, with the false integration of new devices, and devices with firmware versions inconsistent. These risks worsen with the increasing volume and diversity of data, devices, infrastructures and users connected to the Web. The systematic review of the literature were selected 190 documents, which reveals the growing interest on the theme of blockchain technology with the publication of 14 documents in 2014 to about 100 already in 2017. The articles focused on the areas bitcoin (about 40%), IoT (about 30%), financial (about 15%), cryptocurrencies, electronic government (about 12%), smart contracts, smart cities, business (with about 10% each) and health (about 5%). This perspective confirms the generic model study data supported in blockchain technology for smart places, especially when applied to smart cities and the specific field of the mobility ecosystem, with the use of the new concepts of the application of blockchain in IoT, smart contracts and e-governance. © 2018, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.