The Business Analysts completely dissolves the perception that the IT industry dictates to businesses what IT systems they will use and dispels the myth that business users and IT technicians are from different planets. It suggests how to create an environment in which everybody works together in an exciting and refreshing way – a paradigm shift in the way business analysis projects are done.

The IT industry has to move to a point where it realises that the users of IT systems and the technical personnel are both equally responsible for getting the system to work. The users of the IT system should be an integral part of the team when the system is being put together. This, unfortunately, is not the norm within the industry. It is the business analyst’s responsibility, among others, to make sure that communication flows freely between all the parties involved.

This book gives the business analyst the tools and techniques to find out what the business users of IT systems really need and to guide the project to meet those needs.

The divide between UX and Web development can be stifling. "Bridging UX and Web Development "prepares you to break down those walls by teaching you how to integrate with your team s developers. You examine the process from their perspective, discovering tools and coding principles that will help you bridge the gap between design and implementation. With these tried and true approaches, you ll be able to capitalize on a more productive work environment.

Whether you re a novice UX professional finding your place in the software industry and looking to nail down your technical skills, or a seasoned UI designer looking for practical information on how to integrate your team with development, this is the must-have resource for your UX library.
Establish a collaboration lifecycle, mapping design activities to counterparts in the software development processLearn about software tools that will improve productivity and collaborationWork through step-by-step exercises that teach font-end coding principles to improve your prototyping and implementation activitiesDiscover practical, usable HTML and CSS examplesUncover tips for working with various developer personas"

This monograph aims to provide a well-rounded and detailed account of designs using linear codes. Most chapters of this monograph cover on the designs of linear codes. A few chapters deal with designs obtained from linear codes in other ways. Connections among ovals, hyperovals, maximal arcs, ovoids, linear codes and designs are also investigated. This book consists of both classical results on designs from linear codes and recent results yet published by others.This monograph is intended to be a reference for postgraduates and researchers who work on combinatorics, or coding theory, or digital communications, or finite geometry.

This book introduces the latest visual effects (VFX) techniques that can be applied to game programming. The usefulness of the physicality-based VFX techniques, such as water, fire, smoke, and wind, has been proven through active involvement and utilization in movies and images. However, they have yet to be extensively applied in the game industry, due to the high technical barriers. Readers of this book can learn not only the theories about the latest VFX techniques, but also the methodology of game programming, step by step. The practical VFX processing techniques introduced in this book will provide very helpful information to game programmers. Due to the lack of instructional books about VFX-related game programming, the demand for knowledge regarding these high-tech VFXs might be very high.

This book presents the latest developments regarding a detailed mobile agent-enabled anomaly detection and verification system for resource constrained sensor networks; a number of algorithms on multi-aspect anomaly detection in sensor networks; several algorithms on mobile agent transmission optimization in resource constrained sensor networks; an algorithm on mobile agent-enabled in situ verification of anomalous sensor nodes; a detailed Petri Net-based formal modeling and analysis of the proposed system, and an algorithm on fuzzy logic-based cross-layer anomaly detection and mobile agent transmission optimization. As such, it offers a comprehensive text for interested readers from academia and industry alike.

The volume contains latest research on software reliability assessment, testing, quality management, inventory management, mathematical modeling, analysis using soft computing techniques and management analytics. It links researcher and practitioner perspectives from different branches of engineering and management, and from around the world for a bird's eye view on the topics. The interdisciplinarity of engineering and management research is widely recognized and considered to be the most appropriate and significant in the fast changing dynamics of today's times. With insights from the volume, companies looking to drive decision making are provided actionable insight on each level and for every role using key indicators, to generate mobile-enabled scorecards, time-series based analysis using charts, and dashboards. At the same time, the book provides scholars with a platform to derive maximum utility in the area by subscribing to the idea of managing business through performance and business analytics.

This book describes pragmatic instruments and methods that enable business experts and software engineers to develop a common understanding of the software to be created, to determine their key requirements, and to manage the project in a way that fosters trust, encourages innovation and distributes risk fairly between clients and contractors. After an introduction to the fundamentals of agile software development in Part I, Part II describes the Interaction Room, an actual room where digitalization and mobilization strategies are developed, where technology potentials are evaluated, where software projects are planned and managed, and where business and technical stakeholders can communicate face to face, visualize complex relationships intuitively, and highlight value, effort and risk drivers that are keys to the project's success. After addressing these constructive aspects, the book focuses on the commercial aspects of software development: The adVANTAGE contract model described in Part III ensures that the insight-driven innovation process of software development does not just function, but is allowed to flourish in a trusted client-contractor relationship. Even though software contracting and construction may be grounded in two different academic disciplines, they are inseparable in practice, and how they interact is illustrated in the case study of developing a private health insurance benefit system in Part IV. Ultimately though, the success of every software project depends on the skills of the stakeholders. Part V therefore describes the qualification profile that software engineers and domain experts have to satisfy today. This book is aimed at CIOs, project managers and software engineers in industrial software development practice who want to learn how to effectively deal with the inevitable uncertainty of complex projects, who want to achieve higher levels of understanding and cooperation in their relationships with clients and contractors, and who want to run lower-risk software projects despite their inherent uncertainties.

From the Foreword "Getting CPS dependability right is essential to forming a solid foundation for a world that increasingly depends on such systems. This book represents the cutting edge of what we know about rigorous ways to ensure that our CPS designs are trustworthy. I recommend it to anyone who wants to get a deep look at these concepts that will form a cornerstone for future CPS designs." --Phil Koopman, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Trustworthy Cyber-Physical Systems Engineering provides practitioners and researchers with a comprehensive introduction to the area of trustworthy Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) engineering. Topics in this book cover questions such as What does having a trustworthy CPS actually mean for something as pervasive as a global-scale CPS? How does CPS trustworthiness map onto existing knowledge, and where do we need to know more? How can we mathematically prove timeliness, correctness, and other essential properties for systems that may be adaptive and even self-healing? How can we better represent the physical reality underlying real-world numeric quantities in the computing system? How can we establish, reason about, and ensure trust between CPS components that are designed, installed, maintained, and operated by different organizations, and which may never have really been intended to work together? Featuring contributions from leading international experts, the book contains sixteen self-contained chapters that analyze the challenges in developing trustworthy CPS, and identify important issues in developing engineering methods for CPS. The book addresses various issues contributing to trustworthiness complemented by contributions on TCSP roadmapping, taxonomy, and standardization, as well as experience in deploying advanced system engineering methods in industry. Specific approaches to ensuring trustworthiness, namely, proof and refinement, are covered, as well as engineering methods for dealing with hybrid aspects.

"Economics-driven Software Architecture" presents a guide for engineers and architects who need to understand the economic impact of architecture design decisions: the long term and strategic viability, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability of applications and systems. Economics-driven software development can increase quality, productivity, and profitability, but comprehensive knowledge is needed to understand the architectural challenges involved in dealing with the development of large, architecturally challenging systems in an economic way.

This book covers how to apply economic considerations during the software architecting activities of a project. Architecture-centric approaches to development and systematic evolution, where managing complexity, cost reduction, risk mitigation, evolvability, strategic planning and long-term value creation are among the major drivers for adopting such approaches. It assists the objective assessment of the lifetime costs and benefits of evolving systems, and the identification of legacy situations, where architecture or a component is indispensable but can no longer be evolved to meet changing needs at economic cost. Such consideration will form the scientific foundation for reasoning about the economics of nonfunctional requirements in the context of architectures and architecting.
Familiarizes readers with essential considerations in economic-informed and value-driven software design and analysis Introduces techniques for making value-based software architecting decisionsProvides readers a better understanding of the methods of economics-driven architecting

Modern optimization approaches have attracted an increasing number of scientists, decision makers, and researchers. As new issues in this field emerge, different optimization methodologies must be developed and implemented. Exploring Critical Approaches of Evolutionary Computation is a vital scholarly publication that explores the latest developments, methods, approaches, and applications of evolutionary models in a variety of fields. It also emphasizes evolutionary models of computation such as genetic algorithms, evolutionary strategies, classifier systems, evolutionary programming, genetic programming, and related fields such as swarm intelligence and other evolutionary computation techniques. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as neural networks, data mining, and data analytics, this book is designed for IT developers, IT theorists, computer engineers, researchers, practitioners, and upper-level students seeking current research on enhanced information exchange methods and practical aspects of computational systems.

This book provides formal and informal definitions and taxonomies for self-aware computing systems, and explains how self-aware computing relates to many existing subfields of computer science, especially software engineering. It describes architectures and algorithms for self-aware systems as well as the benefits and pitfalls of self-awareness, and reviews much of the latest relevant research across a wide array of disciplines, including open research challenges. The chapters of this book are organized into five parts: Introduction, System Architectures, Methods and Algorithms, Applications and Case Studies, and Outlook. Part I offers an introduction that defines self-aware computing systems from multiple perspectives, and establishes a formal definition, a taxonomy and a set of reference scenarios that help to unify the remaining chapters. Next, Part II explores architectures for self-aware computing systems, such as generic concepts and notations that allow a wide range of self-aware system architectures to be described and compared with both isolated and interacting systems. It also reviews the current state of reference architectures, architectural frameworks, and languages for self-aware systems. Part III focuses on methods and algorithms for self-aware computing systems by addressing issues pertaining to system design, like modeling, synthesis and verification. It also examines topics such as adaptation, benchmarks and metrics. Part IV then presents applications and case studies in various domains including cloud computing, data centers, cyber-physical systems, and the degree to which self-aware computing approaches have been adopted within those domains. Lastly, Part V surveys open challenges and future research directions for self-aware computing systems. It can be used as a handbook for professionals and researchers working in areas related to self-aware computing, and can also serve as an advanced textbook for lecturers and postgraduate students studying subjects like advanced software engineering, autonomic computing, self-adaptive systems, and data-center resource management. Each chapter is largely self-contained, and offers plenty of references for anyone wishing to pursue the topic more deeply.

This book provides a concise overview of VR systems and their cybersickness effects, giving a description of possible reasons and existing solutions to reduce or avoid them. Moreover, the book explores the impact that understanding how efficiently our brains are producing a coherent and rich representation of the perceived outside world would have on helping VR technics to be more efficient and friendly to use. Getting Rid of Cybersickness will help readers to understand the underlying technics and social stakes involved, from engineering design to autonomous vehicle motion sickness to video games, with the hope of providing an insight of VR sickness induced by the emerging immersive technologies. This book will therefore be of interest to academics, researchers and designers within the field of VR, as well as industrial users of VR and driving simulators.

A new product can be easy or difficult to use, it can be efficient or cumbersome, engaging or dispiriting, it can support the way we work and think - or not. What options are available for systematically addressing such parameters and provide users with an appropriate functionality, usability and experience? In the last decades, several fields have evolved that encompass a user-centred approach to create better products for the people who use them. This book provides a comprehensible introduction to the subject. It is aimed first and foremost at people involved in software and product development - product managers, project managers, consultants and analysts, who face the major challenge of developing highly useful and usable products. Topics include: The most important user-centred techniques and their alignment in the development process Planning examples of user-centred activities for projects User-oriented approaches for organisations Real-life case studies Checklists, tips and a lot of background information provide help for practitioners

This book presents essential studies and applications in the context of sliding mode control, highlighting the latest findings from interdisciplinary theoretical studies, ranging from computational algorithm development to representative applications. Readers will learn how to easily tailor the techniques to accommodate their ad hoc applications. To make the content as accessible as possible, the book employs a clear route in each paper, moving from background to motivation, to quantitative development (equations), and lastly to case studies/illustrations/tutorials (simulations, experiences, curves, tables, etc.). Though primarily intended for graduate students, professors and researchers from related fields, the book will also benefit engineers and scientists from industry.

This book systematically introduces readers to the finite element analysis software DIANA (DIsplacement ANAlyzer) and its applications in civil engineering. Developed by TNO Corporation in the 1970s, DIANA is frequently used in civil engineering and engineering mechanics. Unlike the software user's manual, which provides a comprehensive introduction and theoretical analysis, this book presents a simplified overview of the basic background theory to help beginners master the software quickly. It also discusses GUI operation and the command console in Python language, and includes examples involving classical modeling operations to help readers review each section. Both the book and DIANA itself are valuable resources for students and researchers in all the structural engineering fields, such as civil engineering, bridge engineering, geotechnical engineering, tunnel engineering, underground structural engineering, irrigation, municipal engineering and fire engineering.

The Wolfram language is the programming language of Mathematica, used increasingly by scientists due to its ease of learning and user-friendliness. This book focuses on applications of the Wolfram language to applied mathematics, physics and chemistry. Topics discussed are broad and comprehensive, from differential equations and special functions to fractals and chess, from electromagnetism and optics to relativity and black holes. There is also extensive coverage of quantum theory and quantum chemistry, and the book is peppered with more than 200 color graphics to aid visualization of these concepts. The program codes are provided online as Mathematica notebooks, allowing readers to modify them and manipulate the graphics in real time. This book should be a valuable resource for researchers, educators and students in science and computing who can profit from a more interactive form of instruction.

Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools typically support individual users in the automation of a set of tasks within a software development process. Such tools have helped organizations in their efforts to develop better software within budget and time constraints. However, many organizations are failing to take full advantage of CASE technology as they struggle to make coordinated use of collections of tools, often obtained at different times from different vendors. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the CASE tool integration problem, and describes practical approaches that can be used with current CASE technology to help your organization take greater advantage of integrated CASE.

YOUR PRACTICAL, HANDS-ON GUIDE TO WRITING APPLICATIONS USING GO Google announced the Go programming language to the public in 2009, with the version 1.0 release announced in 2012. Since its announcement to the community, and the compatibility promise of the 1.0 release, the Go language has been used to write scalable and high-impact software programs ranging from command-line applications and critical infrastructure tools to large-scale distributed systems. It's speed, simplicity, and reliability make it a perfect choice for developers working in various domains. In Practical Go - Building Scalable Network + Non-Network Applications, you will learn to use the Go programming language to build robust, production-ready software applications. You will learn just enough to building command line tools and applications communicating over HTTP and gRPC. This practical guide will cover: Writing command line applications Writing a HTTP services and clients Writing RPC services and clients using gRPC Writing middleware for network clients and servers Storing data in cloud object stores and SQL databases Testing your applications using idiomatic techniques Adding observability to your applications Managing configuration data from your applications You will learn to implement best practices using hands-on examples written with modern practices in mind. With its focus on using the standard library packages as far as possible, Practical Go will give you a solid foundation for developing large applications using Go leveraging the best of the language's ecosystem.

This book summarizes the results of Design Thinking Research Program at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, USA and the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Offering readers a closer look at design thinking, its innovation processes and methods, it covers topics ranging from how to design ideas, methods and technologies, to creativity experiments and creative collaboration in the real world, and the interplay between designers and engineers. But the topics go beyond this in their detailed exploration of design thinking and its use in IT systems engineering fields, and even from a management perspective. The authors show how these methods and strategies actually work in companies, and introduce new technologies and their functions. Furthermore, readers learn how special-purpose design thinking can be used to solve thorny problems in complex fields. Thinking and devising innovations are fundamentally and inherently human activities - so is design thinking. Accordingly, design thinking is not merely the result of special courses nor of being gifted or trained: it's a way of dealing with our environment and improving techniques, technologies and life. This edition offers a historic perspective on the theoretical foundations of design thinking. Within the four topic areas, various frameworks, methodologies, mindsets, systems and tools are explored and further developed. The first topic area focuses on team interaction, while the second part addresses tools and techniques for productive collaboration. The third section explores new approaches to teaching and enabling creative skills and lastly the book examines how design thinking is put into practice. All in all, the contributions shed light and provide deeper insights into how to support the collaboration of design teams in order to systematically and successfully develop innovations and design progressive solutions for tomorrow.

This innovative monograph focuses on a contemporary form of computer-based literature called 'literary hypertext', a digital, interactive, communicative form of new media writing. Canonizing Hypertext combines theoretical and hermeneutic investigations with empirical research into the motivational and pedagogic possibilities of this form of literature. It focuses on key questions for literary scholars and teachers: How can literature be taught in such a way as to make it relevant for an increasingly hypermedia-oriented readership? How can the rapidly evolving new media be integrated into curricula that still seek to transmit traditional literary competence? How can the notion of literary competence be broadened to take into account these current trends? This study, which argues for hypertexts integration in the literary canon, offers a critical overview of developments in hypertext theory, an exemplary hypertext canon and an evaluation of possible classroom applications.

Software Evolution with UML and XML provides a forum where expert insights are presented on the subject of linking three current phenomena: software evolution, UML and XML. Software evolution and reengineering are a real problem in the software industry; various attempts have been made in these areas and there is still room for improvement. Tackling evolution with the help of UML and XML can be very beneficial to the software community, especially as the cost of software evolution makes up a considerable proportion, sometimes even 70-80 per cent, of the total budget of a software system. Software Evolution with UML and XML not only investigates the potential powerful applications of two popularly used languages, UML and XML, in the field of software evolution, but also discovers what will happen when these three are linked to work together.

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are innovative physical security primitives that produce unclonable and inherent instance-specific measurements of physical objects; in many ways they are the inanimate equivalent of biometrics for human beings. Since they are able to securely generate and store secrets, they allow us to bootstrap the physical implementation of an information security system. In this book the author discusses PUFs in all their facets: the multitude of their physical constructions, the algorithmic and physical properties which describe them, and the techniques required to deploy them in security applications. The author first presents an extensive overview and classification of PUF constructions, with a focus on so-called intrinsic PUFs. He identifies subclasses, implementation properties, and design techniques used to amplify submicroscopic physical distinctions into observable digital response vectors. He lists the useful qualities attributed to PUFs and captures them in descriptive definitions, identifying the truly PUF-defining properties in the process, and he also presents the details of a formal framework for deploying PUFs and similar physical primitives in cryptographic reductions. The author then describes a silicon test platform carrying different intrinsic PUF structures which was used to objectively compare their reliability, uniqueness, and unpredictability based on experimental data. In the final chapters, the author explains techniques for PUF-based entity identification, entity authentication, and secure key generation. He proposes practical schemes that implement these techniques, and derives and calculates measures for assessing different PUF constructions in these applications based on the quality of their response statistics. Finally, he presents a fully functional prototype implementation of a PUF-based cryptographic key generator, demonstrating the full benefit of using PUFs and the efficiency of the processing techniques described. This is a suitable introduction and reference for security researchers and engineers, and graduate students in information security and cryptography.

Beyond simulation and algorithm development, many developers increasingly use MATLAB even for product deployment in computationally heavy fields. This often demands that MATLAB codes run faster by leveraging the distributed parallelism of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). While MATLAB successfully provides high-level functions as a simulation tool for rapid prototyping, the underlying details and knowledge needed for utilizing GPUs make MATLAB users hesitate to step into it. "Accelerating MATLAB with GPUs" offers a primer on bridging this gap.

Starting with the basics, setting up MATLAB for CUDA (in Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) and profiling, it then guides users through advanced topics such as CUDA libraries. The authors share their experience developing algorithms using MATLAB, C++ and GPUs for huge datasets, modifying MATLAB codes to better utilize the computational power of GPUs, and integrating them into commercial software products. Throughout the book, they demonstrate many example codes that can be used as templates of C-MEX and CUDA codes for readers projects. Download example codes from the publisher's website: http: //booksite.elsevier.com/9780124080805/
Shows how to accelerate MATLAB codes through the GPU for parallel processing, with minimal hardware knowledgeExplains the related background on hardware, architecture and programming for ease of useProvides simple worked examples of MATLAB and CUDA C codes as well as templates that can be reused in real-world projects"