Technology and the Internet have brought about numerous changes in the field of politics. Understanding the effects of social media, blogs, and evolving new sites in politics is becoming a crucial aspect in this field for researchers and practitioners. Political Activism in the Information Age offers a better understanding of methods for political activism in the information age, the effectiveness of these methods, and tools for analysing them. This book presents an array of real-world political issues and how they relate to the ever-expanding realm of information. The publication will benefit researchers, politicians, public policy analysts, political scientists, students, and anyone involved in the field of politics.

Constraint programming is a powerful paradigm for solving combinatorial search problems that draws on a wide range of techniques from artificial intelligence, computer science, databases, programming languages, and operations research. Constraint programming is currently applied with success to many domains, such as scheduling, planning, vehicle routing, configuration, networks, and bioinformatics.
The aim of this handbook is to capture the full breadth and depth of the constraint programming field and to be encyclopedic in its scope and coverage. While there are several excellent books on constraint programming, such books necessarily focus on the main notions and techniques and cannot cover also extensions, applications, and languages. The handbook gives a reasonably complete coverage of all these lines of work, based on constraint programming, so that a reader can have a rather precise idea of the whole field and its potential. Of course each line of work is dealt with in a survey-like style, where some details may be neglected in favor of coverage. However, the extensive bibliography of each chapter will help the interested readers to find suitable sources for the missing details. Each chapter of the handbook is intended to be a self-contained survey of a topic, and is written by one or more authors who are leading researchers in the area.
The intended audience of the handbook is researchers, graduate students, higher-year undergraduates and practitioners who wish to learn about the state-of-the-art in constraint programming. No prior knowledge about the field is necessary to be able to read the chapters and gather useful knowledge. Researchers from other fields should find in this handbook an effective way to learn about constraint programming and to possibly use some of the constraint programming concepts and techniques in their work, thus providing a means for a fruitful cross-fertilization among different research areas.
The handbook is organized in two parts. The first part covers the basic foundations of constraint programming, including the history, the notion of constraint propagation, basic search methods, global constraints, tractability and computational complexity, and important issues in modeling a problem as a constraint problem. The second part covers constraint languages and solver, several useful extensions to the basic framework (such as interval constraints, structured domains, and distributed CSPs), and successful application areas for constraint programming.
- Covers the whole field of constraint programming
- Survey-style chapters
- Five chapters on applications

"Contemporary Issues in Database Design and Information" presents the latest research ideas and topics on databases and software development. The chapters in this innovative publication provide a representation of topnotch research in all areas of the database and information systems development.

The digital age is ripe with emerging advances and applications in technological innovations. Mimicking the structure of complex systems in nature can provide new ideas on how to organize mechanical and personal systems. The Handbook of Research on Modeling, Analysis, and Application of Nature-Inspired Metaheuristic Algorithms is an essential scholarly resource on current algorithms that have been inspired by the natural world. Featuring coverage on diverse topics such as cellular automata, simulated annealing, genetic programming, and differential evolution, this reference publication is ideal for scientists, biological engineers, academics, students, and researchers that are interested in discovering what models from nature influence the current technology-centric world.

In an embedded system, firmware is the software that directly interfaces with the microcontroller, controlling the system s function. The major forces driving the embedded firmware development process today are reduced development times, increased complexity, and the need to handle multiple tasks simultaneously. These forces translate into strenuous design requirements for embedded engineers and programmers. Many low-level embedded microcontroller designs have insufficient memory and/or architectural limitations that make the use of a real-time operating system impractical. The techniques presented in this book allow the design of robust multitasking firmware through the use of interleaved state machines. This book presents a complete overview of multitasking terminology and basic concepts. Practical criteria for task selection and state machine design are also discussed.
Designing multitasking firmware is arduous, complex and fraught with potential for errors, and there is no one, standard way to do it. This book will present a complete and well-organized design approach with examples and sample source code that designers can follow.
* Covers every aspect of design from the system level to the component level, including system timing, communicating with the hardware, integration and testing.
* Accompanying companion website contains the source code for the text examples and other useful design tools."

This book is about software piracy--what it is and how it's done. Stealing software is not to be condoned, and theft of intellectual property and copyright infringement are serious matters, but it's totally unrealistic to pretend that it doesn't happen. Software piracy has reached epidemic proportions. Many computer users know this, the software companies know this, and once you've read the Introduction to this book, you'll understand why. Seeing how widespread software piracy is, learning how it's accomplished, and particularly how incredibly easy it is to do might surprise you. This book describes how software piracy is actually being carried out.
* This book is about software piracy--what it is and how it's done
* This is the first book ever to describe how software is actually stolen and traded over the internet
* Discusses security implications resulting from over 1/2 of the internet's computers running illegal, unpatched, pirated software

An up-to-date guide to Arduino programming-no experience required! This fully updated guide shows, step by step, how to quickly and easily program all Arduino models using its modified C language and the Arduino IDE. You will learn how to configure hardware and software, write your own sketches, work with built-in and custom Arduino libraries, and develop apps for the Internet of Things. This edition features new coverage of using Arduino as a framework for programming other popular boards. Electronics guru Simon Monk gets you up to speed quickly, teaching all concepts and syntax through simple language and clear instruction designed for absolute beginners. Programming Arduino: Getting Started with Sketches, Third Edition features dozens of easy-to-follow examples and high-quality illustrations. All of the sample sketches featured in the book can be used as-is or modified to suit the reader's needs. Screenshots, diagrams, and source code illustrate each technique All sample programs in the book are available for download Written by a well-known hobbyist and experienced author

The service industry is continually improving, forcing service-oriented engineering to improve alongside it. In a digitalized world, technology within the service industry has adapted to support interactions between users and organizations. By identifying key problems and features, service providers can help increase facilitator profitability and user satisfaction. Multidisciplinary Approaches to Service-Oriented Engineering is a well-rounded collection of research that examines methods of providing optimal system design for service systems and applications engineering. While exploring topics such as cloud ecosystems, interface localization, and requirement prioritization, this publication provides information about the approaches and development of software architectures to improve service quality. This book is a vital resource for engineers, theoreticians, educators, developers, IT consultants, researchers, practitioners, and professionals.

XML has become the lingua franca for representing business data, for exchanging information between business partners and applications, and for adding structure
and sometimes meaning to text-based documents. XML offers some special challenges and opportunities in the area of search: querying XML can produce very precise, fine-grained results, if you know how to express and execute those queries.
For software developers and systems architects: this book teaches the most useful approaches to querying XML documents and repositories. This book will also help managers and project leaders grasp how querying XML fits into the larger context of querying and XML. Querying XML provides a comprehensive background from fundamental concepts (What is XML?) to data models (the Infoset, PSVI, XQuery Data Model), to APIs (querying XML from SQL or Java) and more.
* Presents the concepts clearly, and demonstrates them with illustrations and examples; offers a thorough mastery of the subject area in a single book.
* Provides comprehensive coverage of XML query languages, and the concepts needed to understand them completely (such as the XQuery Data Model).
* Shows how to query XML documents and data using: XPath (the XML Path Language); XQuery, soon to be the new W3C Recommendation for querying XML; XQuery's companion XQueryX; and SQL, featuring the SQL/XML
* Includes an extensive set of XQuery, XPath, SQL, Java, and other examples, with links to downloadable code and data samples."

This publication contributes to the serious games field by investigating original contributions and methods that use serious games in various domains. This comprehensive and timely publication works as an essential reference source, building on the available literature in the field of Serious Games for the economic and social development of countries while providing for further research opportunities in this dynamic and growing field. Thus, the book provides the opportunity for a reflection on this important issue, increasing the understanding of the importance of Serious Games in the context of organizations' improvements, providing relevant academic work, empirical research findings, and an overview of this relevant field of study. This text provides the resources necessary for policy makers, technology developers and managers to adopt and implement solutions for a more digital era.

As the healthcare industry continues to expand, it must utilize technology to ensure efficiencies are maintained. Healthcare needs to move in a direction where computational methods and algorithms can relieve the routine work of medical doctors, leaving them more time to carry out more important and skilled tasks such as surgery. Computational Methods and Algorithms for Medicine and Optimized Clinical Practice discusses some of the most interesting aspects of theoretical and applied research covering complementary facets of computational methods and algorithms to achieve greater efficiency and support medical personnel. Featuring research on topics such as healthcare reform, artificial intelligence, and disease detection, this book will particularly appeal to medical professionals and practitioners, hospitals, administrators, students, researchers, and academicians.

Software testing is a critical aspect of the software development process, and this heavily illustrated reference takes professionals on a complete tour of this increasingly important, multi-dimensional area. The book offers a practical understanding of all the most critical software testing topics and their relationships and inter-dependencies. This unique resources utilizes a wealth of graphics that support the discussions to offer a clear overview of software testing, from the definition of testing, handling failures, faults, and errors, and the value and purpose of testing, to the cost of fault corrections, scoping of the test effort, and how standards guide testing. Practitioners find numerous examples and exercises presented in each chapter to help ensure a complete understanding of the material.

Agile is a relatively recent methodology used in the development process of a project. Therefore, it is important to share new emerging knowledge with researchers and professionals interested in adopting an agile mindset. Emerging Innovations in Agile Software Development focuses on the use of agile methodologies to manage, design, develop, test and maintain software projects. Emphasizing research-based solutions for contemporary software development, this publication is designed for use by software developers, researchers, and graduate-level students in software engineering and project management programs.

Since its invention in 1993, Inform has been used to design hundreds of interactive novels and short stories in eight languages. This text includes a critical history of interactive writings and the university games of the 1970s. (Computer Books--Languages/Programming)

SQA (software quality assurance) is a critical factor that all software engineers and developers need to master, and this thoroughly revised fourth edition of the popular book, "Handbook of Software Quality Assurance", serves as a one-stop resource for complete and current SQA knowledge. Emphasizing the importance of CMMI[registered] and key ISO requirements, this unique book discusses a wide spectrum of real-world experiences and key issues presented in papers from leading experts in the field. The fourth edition is a significant update to past editions, providing the very latest details on current best practices and explaining how SQA can be implemented in organizations large and small. Practitioners find an updated discussion on the American Society for Quality (ASQ) SQA certification program, covering the benefits of becoming an ASQ certified software quality engineer. The book also helps readers better understand the requirements of the ASQ's CSQE examination.

This book presents a variety of techniques designed to enhance and empower multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional machine learning research in healthcare informatics. It is intended to provide a unique compendium of current and emerging machine learning paradigms for healthcare informatics, reflecting the diversity, complexity, and depth and breadth of this multi-disciplinary area.

Most Perl programmers were originally trained as C and Unix programmers, so the Perl programs that they write bear a strong resemblance to C programs. However, Perl incorporates many features that have their roots in other languages such as Lisp. These advanced features are not well understood and are rarely used by most Perl programmers, but they are very powerful. They can automate tasks in everyday programming that are difficult to solve in any other way. One of the most powerful of these techniques is writing functions that manufacture or modify other functions. For example, instead of writing ten similar functions, a programmer can write a general pattern or framework that can then create the functions as needed according to the pattern. For several years Mark Jason Dominus has worked to apply functional programming techniques to Perl. Now Mark brings these flexible programming methods that he has successfully taught in numerous tutorials and training sessions to a wider audience.
* Introduces powerful programming methods--new to most Perl programmers--that were previously the domain of computer scientists
* Gradually builds up confidence by describing techniques of progressive sophistication
* Shows how to improve everyday programs and includes numerous engaging code examples to illustrate the methods

The massive volume of data that some medical and biological applications generate require special processing resources that guarantee privacy and security, creating a crucial need for cluster and grid computing. Biomedical Diagnostics and Clinical Technologies: Applying High-Performance Cluster and Grid Computing disseminates knowledge regarding high performance computing for medical applications and bioinformatics. Containing a defining body of research on the subject, this critical reference source includes a valuable collection of cutting-edge research chapters for those working in the broad field of medical informatics and bioinformatics.

This book systematically presents the operating principles and technical characteristics of the main radio navigating systems (RNSs) that make it possible to adequately evaluate the corresponding scratch indexes and levels of air safety for air vehicles, the chief concern of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The book discusses how RNS systems substantially determine navigation accuracy and reliability, and therefore air safety; in addition, it presents practical solutions to problems arising in the operation and development of RNS systems.