Used alongside the students' text, Higher National Computing 2nd edition, this pack offers a complete suite of lecturer resource material and photocopiable handouts for the compulsory core units of the new BTEC Higher Nationals in Computing and IT, including the four core units for HNC, the two additional core units required at HND, and the Core Specialist Unit 'Quality Systems', common to both certificate and diploma level.
The authors provide all the resources needed by a busy lecturer, as well as a bank of student-centred practical work and revision material, which will enable students to gain the skills, knowledge and understanding they require.
Also available as a web download for adopters, this pack will save a course team many hours' work preparing handouts and assignments, and is freely photocopiable within the purchasing institution. The pack includes:
* Exercises to support and develop work in the accompanying student text
* Planned projects which will enable students to display a wide range of skills and use their own initiative
* Assessment materials
* Reference material for use as hand-outs
* Background on running the new HNC / HND courses
* Tutor's notes supporting activities in the students' book and resource pack
* All the essential material for running a course in the 2003 Higher National Computing qualification from Edexcel
* Full coverage of the compulsory core units for both the HNC and HND
* Freely photocopiable within the purchasing institution with electronic files available to download from the web, this pack will save a course team many hours' work preparing handouts and assignments

Storage Management in Data Centers helps administrators tackle the complexity of data center mass storage. It shows how to exploit the potential of Veritas Storage Foundation by conveying information about the design concepts of the software as well as its architectural background. Rather than merely showing how to use Storage Foundation, it explains why to use it in a particular way, along with what goes on inside. Chapters are split into three sections: An introductory part for the novice user, a full-featured part for the experienced, and a technical deep dive for the seasoned expert. An extensive troubleshooting section shows how to fix problems with volumes, plexes, disks and disk groups. A snapshot chapter gives detailed instructions on how to use the most advanced point-in-time copies. A tuning chapter will help you speed up and benchmark your volumes. And a special chapter on split data centers discusses latency issues as well as remote mirroring mechanisms and cross-site volume maintenance. All topics are covered with the technical know how gathered from an aggregate thirty years of experience in consulting and training in data centers all over the world.

Scheduling in Parallel Computing Systems: Fuzzy and Annealing Techniques advocates the viability of using fuzzy and annealing methods in solving scheduling problems for parallel computing systems. The book proposes new techniques for both static and dynamic scheduling, using emerging paradigms that are inspired by natural phenomena such as fuzzy logic, mean-field annealing, and simulated annealing. Systems that are designed using such techniques are often referred to in the literature as intelligent' because of their capability to adapt to sudden changes in their environments. Moreover, most of these changes cannot be anticipated in advance or included in the original design of the system. Scheduling in Parallel Computing Systems: Fuzzy and Annealing Techniques provides results that prove such approaches can become viable alternatives to orthodox solutions to the scheduling problem, which are mostly based on heuristics. Although heuristics are robust and reliable when solving certain instances of the scheduling problem, they do not perform well when one needs to obtain solutions to general forms of the scheduling problem. On the other hand, techniques inspired by natural phenomena have been successfully applied for solving a wide range of combinatorial optimization problems (e.g. traveling salesman, graph partitioning). The success of these methods motivated their use in this book to solve scheduling problems that are known to be formidable combinatorial problems. Scheduling in Parallel Computing Systems: Fuzzy and Annealing Techniques is an excellent reference and may be used for advanced courses on the topic.

Suitable for those new to nonlinear editing as well as experienced editors new to Final Cut Express, this book is an introduction to Apple's editing software package and the digital video format in general. You will come away with not only an in-depth knowledge of how to use Final Cut Express, but also a deeper understanding of the craft of editing and the underlying technical processes that will serve you well in future projects.
Workflow, editing techniques, compositing, special effects, audio tools, and output are explained in clear, jargon-free terms. The book's emphasis is always on using Final Cut Express in the real world, and as such it is the only book to go beyond the interface to address crucial issues like proper setup, system configuration, hardware, the Mac operating system, what equipment to purchase, and troubleshooting common problems. Armed with this information, you will sidestep problems and complete projects of exceptional quality.
*Learn how to use Final Cut Express in the real world
*Offers a clear overview of the digital video format
*Suitable for new editors or experienced editors new to Final Cut Express

This book offers readers a clear guide to implementing engineering applications with FPGAs, from the mathematical description to the hardware synthesis, including discussion of VHDL programming and co-simulation issues. Coverage includes FPGA realizations such as: chaos generators that are described from their mathematical models; artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict chaotic time series, for which a discussion of different ANN topologies is included, with different learning techniques and activation functions; random number generators (RNGs) that are realized using different chaos generators, and discussions of their maximum Lyapunov exponent values and entropies. Finally, optimized chaotic oscillators are synchronized and realized to implement a secure communication system that processes black and white and grey-scale images. In each application, readers will find VHDL programming guidelines and computer arithmetic issues, along with co-simulation examples with Active-HDL and Simulink.The whole book provides a practical guide to implementing a variety of engineering applications from VHDL programming and co-simulation issues, to FPGA realizations of chaos generators, ANNs for chaotic time-series prediction, RNGs and chaotic secure communications for image transmission.

Intelligent IT Outsourcing enables practitioners to focus in on the essential issues that need to be addressed so that the fundamental structure of their sourcing strategy and its implementation is sound. The authors provide insight into the challenges likely to be faced and give detailed advice on how to pre-empt and manage these.

IT and outsourcing continue to be problematic, not least because fundamental learning about this subject fails to be applied systematically, and because IT is inherently difficult to manage. The economics are not obvious and emerging technologies have to be addressed, therefore IT goes to the heart of many enterprises and interfaces with multiple business units and processes, and there are continuous skills shortages.
Unfortunately complexities are not removed in outsourced situations where additional problems come into play, for example the supplier's capabilities, whether the IT is right for an outsourcing solution, and whether the contract is robust but flexible enough to allow for outsourcing to take place. Objectives need to be realistic, and factors such as whether the internal management is mature and capable enough in this field, and the impact of prohibitive switching costs on behaviour once an outsourcing deal has been signed all have to be taken into account.
The authors have built up over two decades of research, advisory and practitioner experience that enables them to distil the fundamental challenges in IT and outsourcing and demonstrate how these can be addressed.
* Focuses on the fundamentals of what should be done and what should be avoided, based on actual experience applied in major IT outsourcing deals
* Researchfindings and case examples included throughout to support recommended practices
* Written by highly experienced, internationally acknowledged experts in the field

This book offers a straight-forward guide to the fundamental work of governing bodies and the people who serve on them. The aim is of the book is to help every member serving on a governing body understand and improve their contribution to the entity and governing body they serve. The book is rooted in research, including five years' work by the author as a Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.

Virtual Interaction: Interaction in Virtual Inhabited 3D Worlds answers the basic research questions involved in the development of user-friendly interfaces, such as:
* How does one navigate in and with a virtual inhabited three-dimensional world?
* How can the virtual world and the interface be part of the same world?
* How can the use of these interfaces be supported by implicit narrative structures?
* How can the autonomous agents function as assistants to the end-user?
* How can the current--what you see is what you get--be replaced by What you want is what you get:?
Containing the edited research papers resulting from an ambitious, cross-disciplinary research project, this volume examines the core activity of interfaces: interaction. It takes the reader all the way from general theories and conceptualizations of interaction aspects of virtual inhabited 3D worlds, through theories of and methods for the design of autonomous agents, ending in specific design methodology considerations and suggestions for management in the multimedia industry.

The instant access that hackers have to the latest tools and techniques demands that companies become more aggressive in defending the security of their networks. Conducting a network vulnerability assessment, a self-induced hack attack, identifies the network components and faults in policies, and procedures that expose a company to the damage caused by malicious network intruders.

Managing a Network Vulnerability Assessment provides a formal framework for finding and eliminating network security threats, ensuring that no vulnerabilities are overlooked. This thorough overview focuses on the steps necessary to successfully manage an assessment, including the development of a scope statement, the understanding and proper use of assessment methodology, the creation of an expert assessment team, and the production of a valuable response report. The book also details what commercial, freeware, and shareware tools are available, how they work, and how to use them.

By following the procedures outlined in this guide, a company can pinpoint what individual parts of their network need to be hardened, and avoid expensive and unnecessary purchases.

"This book is a comprehensive text for the design of safety critical, hard real-time embedded systems. It offers a splendid example for the balanced, integrated treatment of systems and software engineering, helping readers tackle the hardest problems of advanced real-time system design, such as determinism, compositionality, timing and fault management. This book is an essential reading for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines impacted by embedded computing and software. Its conceptual clarity, the style of explanations and the examples make the abstract conceptsaccessible for a wide audience."
Janos Sztipanovits, Director
E. Bronson Ingram Distinguished Professor of Engineering
Institute for Software Integrated Systems
Vanderbilt University

"Real-Time Systems" focuses on hard real-time systems, which are computing systems that must meet their temporal specification in all anticipated load and fault scenarios. The book stresses the system aspects of distributed real-time applications, treating the issues of real-time, distribution and fault-tolerance from an integral point of view. A unique cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts between the academic and industrial worlds has led to the inclusion of many insightful examples from industry to explain the fundamental scientific concepts in a real-world setting. Compared to the first edition, new developments incomplexity management, energy and power management, dependability, security, andthe internet of things, are addressed.

The book is written as a standard textbook for a high-level undergraduate or graduate course on real-time embedded systems or cyber-physical systems. Its practical approach to solving real-time problems, along with numerous summary exercises, makes it an excellent choice for researchers and practitioners alike."

Input/Output in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems has attracted increasing attention over the last few years, as it has become apparent that input/output performance, rather than CPU performance, may be the key limiting factor in the performance of future systems. This I/O bottleneck is caused by the increasing speed mismatch between processing units and storage devices, the use of multiple processors operating simultaneously in parallel and distributed systems, and by the increasing I/O demands of new classes of applications, like multimedia. It is also important to note that, to varying degrees, the I/O bottleneck exists at multiple levels of the memory hierarchy. All indications are that the I/O bottleneck will be with us for some time to come, and is likely to increase in importance. Input/Output in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems is based on papers presented at the 1994 and 1995 IOPADS workshops held in conjunction with the International Parallel Processing Symposium. This book is divided into three parts. Part I, the Introduction, contains four invited chapters which provide a tutorial survey of I/O issues in parallel and distributed systems. The chapters in Parts II and III contain selected research papers from the 1994 and 1995 IOPADS workshops; many of these papers have been substantially revised and updated for inclusion in this volume. Part II collects the papers from both years which deal with various aspects of system software, and Part III addresses architectural issues. Input/Output in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems is suitable as a secondary text for graduate level courses in computer architecture, software engineering, and multimedia systems, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

This book brings together a selection of the best papers from the sixteenth edition of the Forum on specification and Design Languages Conference (FDL), which was held in September 2013 in Paris, France. FDL is a well-established international forum devoted to dissemination of research results, practical experiences and new ideas in the application of specification, design and verification languages to the design, modeling and verification of integrated circuits, complex hardware/software embedded systems and mixed-technology systems.

In this book, the subject is developed from basics of components involved. Each concept is clearly depicted through illustrations. Programming has been carried out in C programming with Linux background. A set of quiz and review questions has been presented at the end of each chapter. The book covers various topics from the basic building blocks, design methodologies, modeling of embedded systems to layered approach in embedded systems, microcontrollers. The aim in writing this book is to make the readers aware of what an embedded system is all about, how it is constructed, challenges faced in this field and coding for it. The reader who is totally new to this subject can definitely opt for this book to get a feel for the subject.

This book provides a theoretical and application oriented analysis of deterministic scheduling problems arising in computer and manufacturing environments. In such systems processors (machines) and possibly other resources are to be allocated among tasks in such a way that certain scheduling objectives are met. Various scheduling problems are discussed where different problem parameters such as task processing times, urgency weights, arrival times, deadlines, precedence constraints, and processor speed factor are involved. Polynomial and exponential time optimization algorithms as well as approximation and heuristic approaches (including tabu search, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, and ejection chains) are presented and discussed. Moreover, resource-constrained, imprecise computation, flexible flow shop and dynamic job shop scheduling, as well as flexible manufacturing systems, are considered.

In the last years, knowledge and learning management have made a significant impact on the IT research community. ""Open Source for Knowledge and Learning Management: Strategies Beyond Tools"" presents learning and knowledge management from a point of view where the basic tools and applications are provided by open source technologies. ""Open Source for Knowledge and Learning Management: Strategies Beyond Tools"" explains an intense orientation to the critical issues of the open source paradigm: open source tools, applications, social networks, and knowledge sharing in open source communities. Open source technologies, tools, and applications are analyzed in the context of knowledge and learning, and this convergence formulates a challenging landscape for the deployment of information technology.

Language, Compilers and Run-time Systems for Scalable Computers contains 20 articles based on presentations given at the third workshop of the same title, and 13 extended abstracts from the poster session. Starting with new developments in classical problems of parallel compiler design, such as dependence analysis and an exploration of loop parallelism, the book goes on to address the issues of compiler strategy for specific architectures and programming environments. Several chapters investigate support for multi-threading, object orientation, irregular computation, locality enhancement, and communication optimization. Issues of the interface between language and operating system support are also discussed. Finally, the load balance issues are discussed in different contexts, including sparse matrix computation and iteratively balanced adaptive solvers for partial differential equations. Some additional topics are also discussed in the extended abstracts. Each chapter provides a bibliography of relevant papers and the book can thus be used as a reference to the most up-to-date research in parallel software engineering.

This work provides system architects a methodology for the implementation of x.500 and LDAP based metadirectory provisioning systems. In addition this work assists in the business process analysis that accompanies any deployment. DOC Safe Harbor

Real Application Clusters (RAC) and the Grid architecture are Oracle's strategy for scaling out enterprise systems to cope with bigger workloads and more users. Many books limit themselves by conceptualizing and theorizing about RAC technology, but this book is the first to portray implementing and administering an Oracle 10"g" RAC system in a Linux environment. This book features basic concepts underlying Linux and Oracle RAC, design strategies, hardware procurement and configuration, and many other topics.

The RAC-specific technologies described include configuration of the interconnect, OCFS, ASM, Cluster Ready Services, and Grid Control. The Oracle features RMAN and Data Guard are also discussed, along with available hardware options. The authors include practical examples and configuration information, so that upon reading this book, youll be armed with the information you need to build an Oracle RAC database on Linux, whether it is on a single laptop or a 64-node Itanium cluster.

Written by an exponent of systems engineering, this is a comprehensive examination of systems thinking and methods, demonstrating how to use the ideas to create and manage more effective engineering systems. Using this resource, engineers should be able to apply systems thinking to the design, implementation and management of engineering systems.

We are now in the 'third wave' of Knowledge Management - the first was focused on the potential of new technology, while the second focused on the nature of knowledge and how people 'know' and learn. The focus in the third phase is two-fold: building individual and team productivity, and proper alignment of Knowledge Management efforts in helping deliver on strategic goals of the organization.
Knowledge Management- a Blueprint for Delivery explores and builds on current ideas about the dynamics of knowledge in organizations, answering such questions as: 'What is knowledge management?' and 'What does it mean for today's companies and organizations?'
Written by two leading knowledge management practitioners, this book looks beyond academic theory and software company hype to focus on the roles that knowledge and information play in creating high-performance organizations.
Built on their extensive experience of Knowledge Management programme design and delivery, Knowledge Management- a Blueprint for Delivery:
- contains a comprehensive survey of the whole area of Knowledge Management, from theory and strategy creation through to techniques, tools, and delivery of change
- provides an insight into developing and managing Knowledge Management initiatives
- bridges the gap between theoretical, strategic, and practical hands-on perspectives
Contains a comprehensive survey of the whole area of Knowledge Management, from theory and strategy creation through to techniques, tools and delivery of change
Provides an insight into developing and managing Knowledge Management initiatives
Bridges the gap between theoretical, strategic and practical hands-on perspectives

Hardware Software Co-Design of a Multimedia SOC Platform is one of the first of its kinds to provide a comprehensive overview of the design and implementation of the hardware and software of an SoC platform for multimedia applications. Topics covered in this book range from system level design methodology, multimedia algorithm implementation, a sub-word parallel, single-instruction-multiple data (SIMD) processor design, and its virtual platform implementation, to the development of an SIMD parallel compiler as well as a real-time operating system (RTOS). Hardware Software Co-Design of a Multimedia SOC Platform is written for practitioner engineers and technical managers who want to gain first hand knowledge about the hardware-software design process of an SoC platform. It offers both tutorial-like details to help readers become familiar with a diverse range of subjects, and in-depth analysis for advanced readers to pursue further.

A major, comprehensive professional text/reference for designing and maintaining security and reliability.
From basic concepts to designing principles to deployment, all critical concepts and phases are clearly explained and presented. Includes coverage of wireless security testing techniques and prevention techniques for intrusion (attacks). An essential resource for wireless network administrators and developers.

Coding is one of the most in-demand skills in the job market. Whether you're a recent graduate or a professional, Confident Coding offers the career insights and technical knowledge you need for success. A unique combination of technical insights and fascinating career guidance, this book highlights the importance of coding, whatever your professional profile. For entrepreneurs, being able to create your own website or app can grant you valuable freedom and revolutionize your business. For aspiring developers, this book will give you the building blocks to embark on your career path. This new and improved third edition of the award-winning book gives you a step-by-step learning guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, building iPhone and Android apps and debugging. Confident Coding is the essential guide to mastering the fundamentals of coding. About the Confident series... From coding and data science to cloud and cyber security, the Confident books are perfect for building your technical knowledge and enhancing your professional career.

This book presents various novel architectures for FPGA-optimized accurate and approximate operators, their detailed accuracy and performance analysis, various techniques to model the behavior of approximate operators, and thorough application-level analysis to evaluate the impact of approximations on the final output quality and performance metrics. As multiplication is one of the most commonly used and computationally expensive operations in various error-resilient applications such as digital signal and image processing and machine learning algorithms, this book particularly focuses on this operation. The book starts by elaborating on the various sources of error resilience and opportunities available for approximations on various layers of the computation stack. It then provides a detailed description of the state-of-the-art approximate computing-related works and highlights their limitations.

This book has been written for practitioners, researchers and stu dents in the fields of parallel and distributed computing. Its objective is to provide detailed coverage of the applications of graph theoretic tech niques to the problems of matching resources and requirements in multi ple computer systems. There has been considerable research in this area over the last decade and intense work continues even as this is being written. For the practitioner, this book serves as a rich source of solution techniques for problems that are routinely encountered in the real world. Algorithms are presented in sufficient detail to permit easy implementa tion; background material and fundamental concepts are covered in full. The researcher will find a clear exposition of graph theoretic tech niques applied to parallel and distributed computing. Research results are covered and many hitherto unpublished spanning the last decade results by the author are included. There are many unsolved problems in this field-it is hoped that this book will stimulate further research."