Abstract
In this work, we study the behaviour of different resource scheduling strategies when doing job orchestration in grid environments. We empirically demonstrate that scheduling strategies based on Reinforcement Learning are a good choice to improve the overall performance of grid applications and resource utilization.

Abstract
In this paper we present the architecture for the Personal Autonomic Desktop Manager, a self managing application designed to act on behalf of the user in several aspects: protection, healing, optimization and configuration. The overall goal of this research is to improve the correlation of the autonomic self* properties and doing so also enhance the overall self-management capacity of the desktop (autonomicity). We introduce the Circulatory Computing (CC) model, a self-managing system initiative based on the biological metaphor of the cardiovascular system, and use its concepts in the design and implementation of the architecture.

Abstract
Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are becoming more and more sophisticated and include nowadays numerous applications, which are not only accessed by medical professionals, but also by accounting and administrative personnel. This could represent a problem concerning basic rights such as privacy and confidentiality. The principles, guidelines and recommendations compiled by the OECD protection of privacy and trans-border flow of personal data are described and considered within health information system development. Granting access to an Elf R should be dependent upon the owner of the record; the patient: he must be entitled to define who is allowed to access his EHRs, besides the access control scheme each health organization may have implemented. In this way, it's not only up to health professionals to decide who have access to what, but the patient himself Implementing such a policy is walking towards patient empowerment which society should encourage and governments should promote. The paper then introduces a technical solution based on web security standards. This would give patients the ability to monitor and control which entities have access to their personal EHRs, thus empowering them with the knowledge of how much of his medical history is known and by whom. It is necessary to create standard data access protocols, mechanisms and policies to protect the privacy rights and furthermore, to enable patients, to automatically track the movement (flow) of their personal data and information in the context of health information systems. This solution must be functional and, above all, user-friendly and the interface should take in consideration some heuristics of usability in order to provide the user with the best tools. The current official standards on confidentiality and privacy in health care, currently being developed within the EU, are explained, in order to achieve a consensual idea of the guidelines that all member states should follow to transfer such principles into national laws. A perspective is given on the state of the art concerning web security standards, which can be used to easily engineer health information systems complying with the patient empowering goals. In conclusion health systems with the characteristics thus described are technically feasible and should be generally implemented and deployed.

Abstract
Health Information Systems (HIS) are often deployed with inadequate security mechanisms and with users being generally pointed out as the weakest link. The launch of the Portuguese digital national identification smart card, the Citizen Card (CC), with strong authentication and digital signing capabilities, represents a new and viable economic opportunity for securing a HIS and at the same time foster the creation of a much more secure national health information infrastructure. Smart cards are being deployed in healthcare in several places around the world with highly encouraging results. Major programs have already been deployed with great success, although there are some well identified issues that need to be addressed. The CC is a versatile and secure card, with the latest in encryption and tamper resistance technologies, with standard support for a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). We present the advantages and enumerate some of the problems of using a smart card in a HIS, as well as the CC possible contributions in this area, namely as an easy, inexpensive, widely deployed way of using current technology to protect HIS security, and ultimately patient information, while at the same time fostering the expansion and deployment of inter operable HIS. Issues are identified that will need to be resolved and a detailed plan for further work to assess the level of impact the CC can have on the national HIS is indicated.

Abstract
Those who enjoy programming enjoy programming competitions, either as contestants or as coaches. Often coaches are teachers, who, aiming at better results in the future, would like to have more and more students participating, from earlier stages. Learning all the basic algorithms takes some time, of course; on the other hand, competition environments can be introduced right from the beginning as a pedagogical tool. If handled correctly, this can be very effective in helping to reach the goals of the course and, as a side-effect, in bringing larger crowds of students into the programming competition arena. © 2008 Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Vilnius.

Abstract
System L is a linear version of Gödel's System T, where the ?-calculus is replaced with a linear calculus; or alternatively a linear ?-calculus enriched with some constructs including an iterator. There is thus at the same time in this system a lot of freedom in reduction and a lot of information about resources, which makes it an ideal framework to start a fresh attempt at studying reduction strategies in ?-calculi. In particular, we show that call-by-need, the standard strategy of functional languages, can be defined directly and effectively in System L, and can be shown minimal among weak strategies.