This is a rigorous and complete textbook for a first course on information retrieval from the computer science perspective. It provides an up-to-date student oriented treatment of information retrieval including extensive coverage of new topics such as web retrieval, web crawling, open source search engines and user interfaces.

From parsing to indexing, clustering to classification, retrieval to ranking, and user feedback to retrieval evaluation, all of the most important concepts are carefully introduced and exemplified. The contents and structure of the book have been carefully designed by the two main authors, with individual contributions coming from leading international authorities in the field, including Yoelle Maarek, Senior Director of Yahoo Research Israel; Dulce Ponceleon IBM Research; and Malcolm Slaney, Yahoo Research USA.

This completely reorganized, revised and enlarged second edition of "Modern Information Retrieval" contains many new chapters and double the number of pages and bibliographic references of the first edition, and a companion website www.mir2ed.org with teaching material. It will prove invaluable to students, professors, researchers, practitioners, and scholars of this fascinating field of information retrieval.

In The Political Economy and Feasibility of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies Spencer J. Pack brings his authority as a scholar and advisor to this study of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies from the perspective of the history of economic thought. Major theorists analyzed in depth include Aristotle, Smith, Law, Marx, Keynes, Rothbard and Hayek, and the book draws extensively upon the ideas of Schumpeter, Galbraith and Sraffa. The book argues for reconceptualization of the basic microeconomic categories into rental, sale and financial asset prices along with a reconsideration of Keynes' general theory to his special theory and Rothbard's relationship to Rousseau. The author posits that intense theoretical and practical struggles will continue over who should control the quantity of money, the cause of the capitalist economy's instability, and who or what is more dangerous: concentrated centers of private wealth and private enterprises or the contemporary state. He concludes that in terms of the quality of money, the cryptocurrency community is probably correct, with new forms of money potentially being better than sovereign fiat currency. The book's relevance will appeal to members of the history of economic thought community, economic theorists, and political science and political theory scholars as well as to policy makers and members of the cryptocurrency community.

Research on living systems, human level artificial systems, and machines that exhibit intelligent behavioral characteristics is fundamental in order to tackle complex and dynamic issues in nature and create applicable solutions. Investigations into Living Systems, Artificial Life, and Real-World Solutions provides original research on the theoretical and applied aspects of artificial life, as well as addresses scientific, psychological, and social issues of synthetic life-like behavior and abilities. This book is essential for researchers, students, and scientists interested in the emerging discipline of artificial life to further understand and solve real-world problems.

Throughout the past decade, the notion of ontologies has influenced research in many application areas including databases, information retrieval, electronic commerce, natural language processing, knowledge management, enterprise systems, systems analysis and design, the Web, and more.Ontology-Based Applications for Enterprise Systems and Knowledge Management provides an opportunity for readers to clearly understand the notion of ontology engineering and the practical aspects of this approach in the domains of two interest areas: Knowledge Management Systems and Enterprise Systems. A perfect reference for researchers, scholars, postgraduate students, and practitioners, this book aims to gather the recent advances and research findings of various topics in ontology use for these application areas.

Due to applications in recent electronic appliances and pervasive devices, Automated Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) is of particular interest nowadays. HGR developments have come a long way from the traditional Sign Language Recognition (SLR) systems to innovations such as wearable sensor based electronic devices. A large amount of research on HGR is still on the way, both from the industry and academia, that is working towards introducing more practical gesture recognition systems and associated algorithms. This book highlights state-of-the-art practices in the direction of HGR research. It is organized into five coherent heads: HGR introduction, modalities, and challenges, practical hand segmentation schemes capable of working under cluttered backgrounds, gesture recognition schemes targeting different acquisition mechanisms, solutions sticking to different, practiced methodologies, and conclusions from the HGR works witnessed so far and future options. The book is ideal for undergraduates, researchers at all levels, and the developer community as it provides a basis of information about HGR, as well as new and in-depth research in the field.

Edge computing is focused on devices and technologies that are attached to the internet of things (IoT). Identifying IoT use across a range of industries and measuring strategic values helps identify what technologies to pursue and can avoid wasted resources on deployments with limited values. The Handbook of Research on Edge Computing and Computational Intelligence Paradigms for the IoT is a critical research book that provides a complete insight on the recent advancements and integration of intelligence in IoT. This book highlights various topics such as disaster prediction, governance, and healthcare. It is an excellent resource for researchers, working professionals, academicians, policymakers, and defense companies.

Collaborative working has been increasingly viewed as a good practice for organizations to achieve efficiency. Organizations that work well in collaboration may have access to new sources of funding, deliver new, improved, and more integrated services, make savings on shared costs, and exchange knowledge, information and expertise. Collaboration and the Semantic Web: Social Networks, Knowledge Networks and Knowledge Resources showcases cutting-edge research on the intersections of Semantic Web, collaborative work, and social media research, exploring how the resources of so-called social networking applications, which bring people together to interact and encourage sharing of personal information and ideas, can be tapped by Semantic Web techniques, making shared Web contents readable and processable for machine and intelligent applications, as well as humans. Semantic technologies have shown their potential for integrating valuable knowledge, and they are being applied to the composition of digital learning and working platforms. Integrated semantic applications, linked data, social networks, and networked digital solutions can now be used in collaborative environments and present participants with the context-aware information that they need.

As industrial systems become more widespread, they are quickly becoming network-enabled, and their behavior is becoming more complex and intelligent. The Handbook of Research on Industrial Informatics and Manufacturing Intelligence: Innovations and Solutions is the best source for the most current, relevant, cutting-edge research in the field of industrial informatics. The book focuses on different methodologies of information technologies to enhance industrial fabrication, intelligence, and manufacturing processes. Industrial informatics uses the infrastructure of information technology for analysis, effectiveness, reliability, higher efficiency, security enhancement in the industrial environment, and this book collects the latest publications relevant to academics and practitioners alike.

The hidden costs of artificial intelligence—from natural resources and labor to privacy, equality, and freedom.

What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? Drawing on more than a decade of research, award‑winning scholar Kate Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the minerals drawn from the earth to the labor pulled from low-wage information workers to the data taken from every action and expression.

Crawford reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased inequity. Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a material and political perspective on what it takes to make AI and how it centralizes power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.

The digital divide, caused by several factors such as poverty and slow communication technologies, has offset the progression of many developing countries. However, with rapid changes in technology, a better collaboration among communities and governance based on the latest research in ICT and technology has begun to emerge. Employing Recent Technologies for Improved Digital Governance is an essential reference source that provides research on recent advances in the development, application, and impact of technologies for the initiative of digital governance. The book has a dual objective with the first objective being to encourage more research in deploying recent trends in the internet for deploying a collaborative digital governance. The second objective is to explore new possibilities using internet of things (IoT) and cloud/fog-based solutions for creating a collaboration between the governance and IT infrastructure. Featuring research on topics such as intelligent systems, social engineering, and cybersecurity, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, government officials, ICT specialists, researchers, academicians, industry professionals, and students.

This new resource presents the principles and applications in the emerging discipline of Activity-Based Intelligence (ABI). This book will define, clarify, and demystify the tradecraft of ABI by providing concise definitions, clear examples, and thoughtful discussion. Concepts, methods, technologies, and applications of ABI have been developed by and for the intelligence community and in this book you will gain an understanding of ABI principles and be able to apply them to activity based intelligence analysis.

New Edition: Introduction to Computational Earthquake Engineering (3rd Edition)Introduction to Computational Earthquake Engineering covers solid continuum mechanics, finite element method and stochastic modeling comprehensively, with the second and third chapters explaining the numerical simulation of strong ground motion and faulting, respectively. Stochastic modeling is used for uncertain underground structures, and advanced analytical methods for linear and non-linear stochastic models are presented. The verification of these methods by comparing the simulation results with observed data is then presented, and examples of numerical simulations which apply these methods to practical problems are generously provided. Furthermore three advanced topics of computational earthquake engineering are covered, detailing examples of applying computational science technology to earthquake engineering problems.

Technological advancements have led to many beneficial developments in the electronic world, especially in relation to online commerce. Unfortunately, these advancements have also created a prime hunting ground for hackers to obtain financially sensitive information and deterring these breaches in security has been difficult. Cryptographic Solutions for Secure Online Banking and Commerce discusses the challenges of providing security for online applications and transactions. Highlighting research on digital signatures, public key infrastructure, encryption algorithms, and digital certificates, as well as other e-commerce protocols, this book is an essential reference source for financial planners, academicians, researchers, advanced-level students, government officials, managers, and technology developers.

The Handbook of Multimodal-Multisensor Interfaces provides the first authoritative resource on what has become the dominant paradigm for new computer interfaces- user input involving new media (speech, multi-touch, gestures, writing) embedded in multimodal-multisensor interfaces. These interfaces support smart phones, wearables, in-vehicle and robotic applications, and many other areas that are now highly competitive commercially. This edited collection is written by international experts and pioneers in the field. It provides a textbook, reference, and technology roadmap for professionals working in this and related areas. This first volume of the handbook presents relevant theory and neuroscience foundations for guiding the development of high-performance systems. Additional chapters discuss approaches to user modeling and interface designs that support user choice, that synergistically combine modalities with sensors, and that blend multimodal input and output. This volume also highlights an in-depth look at the most common multimodal-multisensor combinations-for example, touch and pen input, haptic and non-speech audio output, and speech-centric systems that co-process either gestures, pen input, gaze, or visible lip movements. A common theme throughout these chapters is supporting mobility and individual differences among users. These handbook chapters provide walk-through examples of system design and processing, information on tools and practical resources for developing and evaluating new systems, and terminology and tutorial support for mastering this emerging field. In the final section of this volume, experts exchange views on a timely and controversial challenge topic, and how they believe multimodal-multisensor interfaces should be designed in the future to most effectively advance human performance.

The natural social behavior of large groups of animals, such as flocks of birds, schools of fish, or colonies of ants has fascinated scientists for hundreds of years, if not longer, due to the intricate nature of their interactions and their ability to move and work together seemingly effortlessly. Innovations and Developments of Swarm Intelligence Applications explores the emerging realm of swarm intelligence, which finds its basis in the natural social behavior of animals. The study and application of this swarm behavior has led scientists to a new world of research as ways are found to apply this behavior to independent intelligent agents, creating complex solutions for real world applications. Worldwide contributions have been seamlessly combined in this comprehensive reference, providing a wealth of new information for researchers, academicians, students, and engineers.

Multimedia and its rich semantics are profligate in today s digital environment. Databases and content management systems serve as essential tools to ensure that the endless supply of multimedia content are indexed and remain accessible to end users. Methods and Innovations for Multimedia Database Content Management highlights original research on new theories, algorithms, technologies, system design, and implementation in multimedia data engineering and management with an emphasis on automatic indexing, tagging, high-order ranking, and rule mining. This book is an ideal resource for university researchers, scientists, industry professionals, software engineers and graduate students.